"Broom" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... you are worth." For, said Paddy Flynn, who told me the tale, "the left arm is good for nothing. I might go on making the sign of the cross with it, and all that, come Christmas, and a Banshee, or such like, would no more mind than if it was that broom." Well, the slip of a boy struck the horse with his right hand, and John Kirwan cleared the field out. When the race was over, "What can I do for you now?" said he. "Nothing but this," said the boy: "my mother has a cottage on your land-they stole me from the cradle. ...
— The Celtic Twilight • W. B. Yeats
... and part of the men; the rest being obliged to make the distance on foot in a drenching rain, with night just at hand. Such adventures as this,—and they are common in this region,—console me for my disappointment in not having been able to see the Heather in its mountain home. The Gorse, the Broom, the Whins, not to speak of the Scottish Thistle, have been often visible by the roadside, and the prevalence of evergreens attests the influence of a colder clime than that of England; indeed, the backwardness of all the crops argues a difference of at least a fortnight ...
— Glances at Europe - In a Series of Letters from Great Britain, France, Italy, - Switzerland, &c. During the Summer of 1851. • Horace Greeley
... the field toward the group in the woods came the girl. Off to the side of these woods were extensive fields of broom straw that lay outside the course. But they looked "birdy," those fields, and the girl was ...
— Frank of Freedom Hill • Samuel A. Derieux
... and I drily retailed the official's story, very busy with a deck-broom the while. 'We're all square now, aren't we?' I ended. 'I'll go below and ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers
... Mace, and set it on the coales close covered, and boyle it above an houre and a halfe, but turn it often in the mean time; then with a spoon take of the fat and fill it with Claret wine, and slice six Onyons, and a handfull of Cappers or broom buds, halfe a dozen of hard Lettice sliced, three spoonfuls of wine-Vinegar and as much verjuyce, and then set it a boyling with these things in it till it be tender, and serve it up with brown Bread and Sippets fryed with butter, but be sure there be not too much ...
— The Compleat Cook • Anonymous, given as "W. M."
... enter in at the first door, when Maslova, stooping and pushing a large heap of rubbish and dust towards the stove with a handleless birch broom, came out of the other. She had a white jacket on, her skirt was tucked up, and a kerchief, drawn down to her eyebrows, protected her hair from the dust. When she saw Nekhludoff, she drew herself up, ...
— Resurrection • Count Leo Tolstoy
... woman tossed in a basket, Seventeen times as high as the moon; But where she was going no mortal could tell, For under her arm she carried a broom. ...
— The Real Mother Goose • (Illustrated by Blanche Fisher Wright)
... showing the laths underneath, with here and there, over them, sketches with burnt coal, showing that her predecessor had been an artist in his way,—his name, P. Teagarden, emblazoned on the ceiling with the smoke of a candle; heaps of hanks of yarn in the dusty corners; a half-used broom; other heaps of yarn on the old toppling desk covered with dust; a raisin-box, with P. Teagarden done on the lid in bas-relief, half full of ends of cigars, a pack of cards, and a rotten apple. That ...
— Margret Howth, A Story of To-day • Rebecca Harding Davis
... occasion she had remarked, in presence of the milk-woman and three other persons, "No woman was ever more miserable than I during my married life." And at another she had said, "All new, all fine! A new broom sweeps clean. My defunct husband only ...
— The Widow Lerouge - The Lerouge Case • Emile Gaboriau
... Blister. A past occurrence as far as its relation to time was concerned, he always established by a contemporary event of the turf. Pressed as to when a thing had taken place he would say, "The year Salvation cops all the colt stakes," or "The fall Whisk-broom wins the Brooklyn Handicap." This had interested me and I now tried to get something more definite from him. He answered my ...
— Blister Jones • John Taintor Foote
... our Government, entrusted to the personnel of the Provisional Cabinet, is a pitiful and helpless Government, which only awaits the sweep of the broom of History to give way to a really popular Government. But we are trying to avoid a conflict, even now, to-day. We hope that the All-Russian Congress will take... into its hands that power and authority which rests upon the organised freedom of the people. If, however, ...
— Ten Days That Shook the World • John Reed
... of it of high grade. So far, ambition has in few cases gone beyond utilization of the native woods, some of which are surprisingly beautiful. Many small establishments in different States make such special products as spokes, shuttle blocks, pails, broom handles, containers for fruits and vegetables, and the like, but the total value of these products is small compared with the value of the crude lumber which is ...
— The New South - A Chronicle Of Social And Industrial Evolution • Holland Thompson
... that of a nurse maid. "I had to hol' the baby all de time she slept" she said "and sometimes I got so sleepy myself I had to prop ma' eyes open with pieces of whisks from a broom." ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves: The Ohio Narratives • Works Projects Administration
... experiments and observations of Spallanzani it appears that in the Spartium Junceum, rush-broom, the very minute seeds were discerned in the pod at least twenty days before the flower is in full bloom, that is twenty days before fecundation. At this time also the powder of the anthers was visible, but glued fast to their summits. The seeds however ...
— The Botanic Garden - A Poem in Two Parts. Part 1: The Economy of Vegetation • Erasmus Darwin
... to my nurse's account, 'must be a haggard old woman, living in a little rotten cottage under a hill by a wood-side, and must be frequently spinning by the door; she must have a black cat, two or three broom-sticks, and must be herself of so dry a nature, that if you fling her into a river she will not sink: so hard then is her fate, that, if she is to undergo the trial, if she does not drown she must be burnt, as many have been within the ...
— Continental Monthly, Vol. I. February, 1862, No. II. - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various
... and directly after one of the great glossy black birds alight, right on the edge of the cliff, from whence it hopped into the air, and seemed to let itself fall some forty feet, down behind a stunted patch of broom, which had rooted in a cleft. There it disappeared for a few moments, to reappear, diving down toward the stream, but only to circle upward again, rise higher and higher, and finally disappear over the cliff, half a ...
— The Black Tor - A Tale of the Reign of James the First • George Manville Fenn
... to be able to walk at all," said the girl, interrupting, then. "I think we ought to be very grateful, Mrs. Broom, instead of complaining so much about what's a very ...
— The Boy Scout Fire Fighters - or Jack Danby's Bravest Deed • Robert Maitland
... his mother, seeing him unexpectedly, should die of joy. The sister comes in. Humming, the servant begins to dust, to prevent her going near the curtain; but unconsciously, in his delight, his humming grows louder and louder, until, in a hymn of jubilation, tratara-tratara! he flings the broom up over his head, then stops short suddenly, noticing that the poor child is standing there, mute with astonishment, not knowing what to think. Capital, too, was the acting of a now forgotten actress, Mlle. Dubois, who played the young girl. ...
— Recollections Of My Childhood And Youth • George Brandes
... Laneham gives a splendid list of Romances and Old Ballads possessed by this said CAPTAIN COX; and tells us, moreover, that "he had them all at his fingers ends." Among the ballads we find "Broom broom on Hil; So Wo is me begon twlly lo; Over a Whinny Meg; Hey ding a ding; Bony lass upon Green; My bony on gave me a bek; By a bank as I lay; and two more he had fair wrapt up in parchment, and bound with a whip cord." Edit. 1784, p. 36-7-8. Ritson, in his Historical Essay ...
— Bibliomania; or Book-Madness - A Bibliographical Romance • Thomas Frognall Dibdin
... On the summit are the remains of a walled village and castle, and less than half-way up the ruins of a castle of the Knight-Templars. The road up to the summit is by the first narrow path beyond the castle, ascending through beds of wild thyme and bushes of the prickly broom. The next hill is the Rocher-Noir, having on its eastern side, right above the bed of the Cagnes, a "foux," an immense cave called the Riou, containing a large basin of water, whence flows a copious stream. It is 3m. from Vence. The next cliff ...
— The South of France—East Half • Charles Bertram Black
... hunchback, vehemently suspected of dealings in necromancy, and of riding to nocturnal orgies on a broomstick, according to the custom of witches. Certain persons had seen her putting the harness on her broom in the stable, which, as everyone knows is on the housetops. To tell the truth, she possessed certain medical secrets, and was of such great service to ladies in certain things, and to the nobles, that she lived in perfect tranquillity, ...
— Droll Stories, Volume 3 • Honore de Balzac
... been there was a vast depression, half-filled with distorted steel and debris indescribable, twisted iron and splintered wood, with the water from the river pouring into it. The commissary buildings and the surrounding bunk-shanties were gone, swept away as with the stroke of a mighty broom; and the trees on the hill-sides above were scorched and shriveled as if a forest fire had ...
— Empire Builders • Francis Lynde
... long been fast asleep, and was with difficulty roused up and directed to beat the cur away. She attempted to perform the duty, arming herself with the broom; but the moment she opened the door Snarleyyow dashed in between her legs, upsetting her on the brick pavement. Babette screamed, and her mistress came out in the passage to ascertain the cause; the dog not being able to run into the parlour, bolted up the stairs, and snapping at the widow ...
— Snarley-yow - or The Dog Fiend • Frederick Marryat
... the finch's nest, Feathers, and moss, and a wisp of hay: "The arrow it sped to thy brown mate's breast; Low in the broom is thy ...
— Poems by Jean Ingelow, In Two Volumes, Volume II. • Jean Ingelow
... his books piled in order on the window-sill — his papers held down by one on the table, the clean floor, — yes," — and rising Rufus even went and looked into the closet. There was the little stack of wood and parcel of kindling, likewise in order; there stood Winthrop's broom in a corner; and there hung Winthrop's few clothes that were not folded away in his trunk. Mother Hubbard's department was in the same spare and thoroughly kept style; and Rufus came back thoughtfully to ...
— Hills of the Shatemuc • Susan Warner
... new idea. "I'll tell you what! We'll come in here this afternoon with old clothes on, and have a regular house-cleaning! It can't hurt anything, I'm sure, for we won't disturb things at all. I'll bring a dust-cloth, too, and an old broom. But let's go and finish our studying now, and get that out of the way. ...
— The Boarded-Up House • Augusta Huiell Seaman
... deaf and dumb person, which would preclude the necessity of my speaking. I felt I could do this well and successfully. I determined to try the experiment upon this old lady. I walked quietly up to her, took the shutters out of her hands and laid them in their proper places. I then took a broom and began sweeping away the water which had accumulated in front of her cottage, and seeing a kettle inside the door, I walked gravely into the house, took it, and filled it at a pump close by. The old woman was ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian
... to see places celebrated in Scottish song, and fields where battles for the independence of his country had been stricken; and, with money in his pocket which his poems had produced, and with a letter from a witty but weak man, Lord Buchan, instructing him to pull birks on the Yarrow, broom on the Cowden-knowes, and not to neglect to admire the ruins of Drybrugh Abbey, Burns set out on a border tour, accompanied by Robert Ainslie, of Berrywell. As the poet had talked of returning to the plough, Dr. Blair imagined that he ...
— The Complete Works of Robert Burns: Containing his Poems, Songs, and Correspondence. • Robert Burns and Allan Cunningham
... What does anybody know about him beyond that the Bishop recommended him, as if a Bishop must know what's what better than other people, forsooth! Don't tell me!" said Mrs. Upjohn, in unutterable scorn. "He's a new broom, and he's raising a big dust, and I would liefer have Mr. White back and let ...
— Only an Incident • Grace Denio Litchfield
... their fill again the bride's granny carried out her part of the tradition. She hobbled in with a rived oak broom. This she placed in the center of the floor with the brush toward the door. Everyone knew that was the sign for ending the frolic at the bride's home. Also they knew it was the last chance for a shy young swain to declare himself to his true love ...
— Blue Ridge Country • Jean Thomas
... happy in this good family if it had not been for the ill-natured cook, who was finding fault and scolding him from morning to night, and besides, she was so fond of basting, that when she had no meat to baste, she would baste poor Dick's head and shoulders with a broom, or anything else that happened to fall in her way. At last her ill-usage of him was told to Alice, Mr. Fitzwarren's daughter, who told the cook she should be turned away if she did not treat ...
— Young Folks Treasury, Volume 2 (of 12) • Various
... EMILY. [Putting the broom in a corner.] 'Tis no end to the vexation. But she'll have to wait on herself. I've no time to play the dancing bear. And ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin
... A like desolation pervades the atmosphere on holiday and day of toil. I was so lucky as to meet a shirt-sleeved overseer in the doorway. Preceding him were two ill-clad, pale children of nine and twelve, armed with a long, mop-like broom with which their task was to sweep the cotton from the floors—cotton that resettled eternally as soon as it was brushed away. The superintendent regarded me curiously, I thought penetratingly, and for the first time in my experience I feared detection. My dread was enhanced by the loneliness, ...
— The Woman Who Toils - Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls • Mrs. John Van Vorst and Marie Van Vorst
... a sound of drums. Twice on such a day, once the day before, thrice the next day, till by and by it was the common thing. High-stepping childhood, with laths and broom-handles at shoulder, was not fated, as in the insipid days of peace, to find, on running to the corner, its high hopes mocked by a wagon of empty barrels rumbling over the cobble-stones. No; it was the Washington Artillery, or the Crescent Rifles, or the Orleans Battalion, ...
— Dr. Sevier • George W. Cable
... wind blew it out. They had to go back to relight it. Kate knew they would burn their fingers, and she prayed they would not set the house on fire. When the light showed again, at the top of her lungs she screamed: "Adam, set the broom on fire and carry it to the end of the bridge; the water isn't deep enough to hurt you." She tried twice, then she saw him give Polly the lamp, and run down the hall. He came back in an instant with the broom. Polly held the lamp high, Adam went ...
— A Daughter of the Land • Gene Stratton-Porter
... centre-vein of a cocoanut leaf gives a long tapering stick of the average thickness of a match stick, and a bundle of these goes to make the common Bengal household broom which in the hands of the housewife is popularly supposed to be useful in keeping the whole household in order from husband downwards. Its effect on a bare back is here ...
— My Reminiscences • Rabindranath Tagore
... state of mind that induces gentlemen in private life to take sticks to their aggravating spouses, under similar circumstances. However, it might not be just the thing, perhaps, for kings and queens to take broom-sticks to settle their little differences of opinion, like common Christians; and so the prince peaceably followed her, and entered the salle a manger with the rest, and Sir Norman and his keepers were left in the hall of state, monarchs of all they ...
— The Midnight Queen • May Agnes Fleming
... resolutely in a mill. "Canta!" says the master, and the poor slave gives tongue like a hound on the scent. "Baila!" and, a stick being handed him, he performs the gymnastics of his country, a sort of war-dance without accompaniment. "El can!" and, giving him a broom, they loose the dog upon him. A curious tussle then ensues,—the dog attacking furiously, and the blind man, guided by his barking, defending himself lustily. The Chino laughs, the master laughs, but the visitor feels ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various
... certainly dirty and they looked hot. But he was not obliged to shake hands. Mary Ellen realised that he was a kind of man new to her, one who did not want a drink. She left the room, came back again almost at once for the broom which she had forgotten, and then left decisively, ...
— General John Regan - 1913 • George A. Birmingham
... the civilest man in the company is commonly the dullest, so these authors, while they are afraid to make you laugh or cry, out of pure good manners make you sleep. They are so careful not to exasperate a critic, that they never leave him any work; so busy with the broom, and make so clean a riddance that there is little left either for censure or for praise: For no part of a poem is worth our discommending, where the whole is insipid; as when we have once tasted of palled wine, we stay not to examine it glass by glass. But while they affect to shine in trifles, ...
— All for Love • John Dryden
... Inquisitor put on his priestly robes, and followed by several others, took off from them the ban of excommunication (which they were supposed to have fallen under), by throwing holy water on them with a small broom. ...
— The Phantom Ship • Frederick Marryat
... I had both. I've described you the charms and grace of each, and when I add that both were elegant housekeepers, ye'll admit that my dilemma was greater than ever. They both handled the broom to perfection; they could knock a chap clane across the cabin and out of the window before ye could know what was coming. Me mither used to say it was the housekeeping qualities that should decide, and she told me to call upon 'em ...
— In the Pecos Country • Edward Sylvester Ellis (AKA Lieutenant R.H. Jayne)
... foreground form a tall pyramid. The shape of the churn gives us the line at the right side, and the figure of the cat carries the line of the woman's skirt into a corresponding slant on the left. The lines of the tiled floor add to the pyramidal effect by converging in perspective. Even the broom leaning against the shelf near the door takes the same diagonal direction as the tiles of the ...
— Jean Francois Millet • Estelle M. Hurll
... composed of, but the English called it coal tar. It struck me that I might save myself by means of this offensive composition. I knocked out the head of the remaining cask, and arming myself with a broom dipped in it, I jumped into the cask which contained the remainder, and awaited any fate with anxiety. The serpent came; as usual, forced his head and part of his body down the hatchway, perceived me, and with eyes darting fire reached out ...
— The Pacha of Many Tales • Frederick Marryat
... the languid feeling of pleasure and contentment enjoyed by the bathers. Their keepers, helped by a small boy who clambered up their steep sides, assisted the cleansing process by scrubbing them vigorously with a sort of stable-broom. As soon as one side was thoroughly cleaned the boy jumped off, and at the word of command, with a tremendous upheaval, and amid a great displacement of water, the huge beast flopped down again on its cleansed side, uttering a prodigious grunt of satisfaction, and quite ready ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey
... the scrubbing party was Little, and the skipper quickly forgot the seaman's fright in amusement at his friend's antics. Broom in hand, his trousers rolled above his knees, and his shirt flying open at the neck, his face glowing with the exercise, the late typewriter salesman darted in and out among the other scrubbers, leaving ...
— Gold Out of Celebes • Aylward Edward Dingle
... more snow. No one could by any possibility have left the house during the night. Even Jones himself had not been out, for there was a little eddy of snow before the back door, and I remember calling to him that he would want his broom." ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley
... speaking two boys stole away, unnoticed by their parents, from a house on the edge of the waste place, and were coming across it looking for adventures. One of them carried a broom, and when he saw the rocking-horse he said nothing, but broke off the handle from the broom and thrust it between his braces and his shirt on the left side. Then he mounted the rocking-horse, and drawing forth the broomstick, which ...
— A Dreamer's Tales • Lord Dunsany [Edward J. M. D. Plunkett]
... within my mew, A-painting for the great man, saints and saints And saints again. I could not paint all night— Ouf! I leaned out of window for fresh air. 50 There came a hurry of feet and little feet, A sweep of lute-strings, laughs, and whifts of song— Flower o' the broom, Take away love, and our earth is a tomb! Flower o' the quince, 55 I let Lisa go, and what good in life since? Flower o' the thyme—and so on. Round they went. Scarce had they turned the corner when a titter Like the skipping of rabbits by moonlight—three ...
— Selections from the Poems and Plays of Robert Browning • Robert Browning
... poetry of Scotland, the heroic part, founded almost entirely on the villainous deeds of the Scotch nation; cow- stealing, for example, which is very little better than drabbing baulor; whilst the softer part is mostly about the slips of its females among the broom, so that no upholder of Scotch poetry could censure Ursula's song as indelicate, even if he understood it. ...
— The Romany Rye - A Sequel to 'Lavengro' • George Borrow
... up here? The wind smells of seaweed, and there must be some shrub or flower——" She opened her eyes and looked along the cliffs, "There's something smelling divinely. Wild broom, is it?" ...
— A Tall Ship - On Other Naval Occasions • Sir Lewis Anselm da Costa Ritchie
... to fix in a hurry, and make choice of him that seemed more exactly cut out for my purpose. In the course of a few weeks three or four cast up, among whom was a laddie of Ben Aits the mealmonger, and a son of William Burlings the baker; to say little of the callant of Saunders Broom the sweep, that would fain have put his blackit- looking bit creature with the one eye and the wooden leg under my wing; but I aye looked to respectability in these matters; so glad was I when I got the offer of Mungo Glen.—But more of this in half ...
— The Life of Mansie Wauch - Tailor in Dalkeith, written by himself • David Macbeth Moir
... am content to take leave of him, while he is flattering himself that he has "found the pearl of great price, after sweeping the house:" (p. 414:) and under that melancholy delusion, I fear he must be left,—holding the broom in his hands. ...
— Inspiration and Interpretation - Seven Sermons Preached Before the University of Oxford • John Burgon
... old woman went up in a basket, Seventy times as high as the moon; What she did there I could not but ask it, For in her hand she carried a broom. "Old woman, old woman, old woman," said I, "Whither, oh whither, oh whither so high?" "Only to sweep the cobwebs off the sky, And I shall be ...
— Traditional Nursery Songs of England - With Pictures by Eminent Modern Artists • Various
... adorn them, will go the ceremonial procession, all glorious with banners and censer-bearers, and the meek blue-shaven priests and barefooted, rope-girdled, holy men. And the artful politician of the coming days, until the broom of the New Republic sweep him up, will arrange the miraculous planks of his platform always with an eye upon the priest. Within the ample sheltering arms of the Mother Church many eccentric cults will develop. The curious may study the works of M. Huysmans to ...
— Anticipations - Of the Reaction of Mechanical and Scientific Progress upon - Human life and Thought • Herbert George Wells
... ROOM BY THE NURSE.—The furniture should be wiped off with a damp cloth and the floor swept with a broom covered with a damp cloth wrung out of a 1-20 (five per cent) carbolic acid solution; besides this the floor must be rubbed thoroughly with a damp cloth every second or third day. If the disease is contagious a damp sheet kept moist should be hung in the line of the air currents. ...
— Mother's Remedies - Over One Thousand Tried and Tested Remedies from Mothers - of the United States and Canada • T. J. Ritter
... at the servant, who, with her head bound up in a duster, passed at the double with a broom. Then he walked ...
— Short Cruises • W.W. Jacobs
... entreating their new friend to bear everything in the most submissive and patient manner, as the only means of escaping from menial employment, and being promoted to the clerks' office. Not long was he permitted to rest. A convict came and ordered him to take a broom and sweep away a mass of dirt that some masons had left; a murderer was his companion; and thus he went on until nightfall, when his two friends were permitted to visit him, in the presence of the soldiers and convicts, most of the latter ...
— Overland through Asia; Pictures of Siberian, Chinese, and Tartar - Life • Thomas Wallace Knox
... arrived, as I generally used to get off as soon as it began to fill, and the Country to become amiable. Here at last we have the 'May' coming out: there it is on some Thorns before my Windows, and the Tower of Woodbridge Church beyond: and beyond that some low Hills that stretch with Furze and Broom to the Seaside, ...
— Letters of Edward FitzGerald in Two Volumes - Vol. II • Edward FitzGerald
... by the name of Mr. White, who had a job cleaning the streets. He was a friend of Mr. Blue, and the janitor gave him the hat. This is the way Mr. White looked in it: [Draw the face under the hat, A; this completes Fig. 101.] Mr. White had a little cart and a big shovel and an old broom, and he worked all day sweeping up and carting off the old paper, the stubs of cigars and everything else which, if allowed to accumulate, would soon make the streets look ...
— Crayon and Character: Truth Made Clear Through Eye and Ear - Or, Ten-Minute Talks with Colored Chalks • B.J. Griswold
... present outward woman stands to me in lieu of the housemaid's broom, and the united authority of the Captain and Mrs. Crompton make up the mistress between them. And the worst of it all is, that though I have to endure the tyranny, I have not got the follower. It is as hard upon Mr. Shand as ...
— John Caldigate • Anthony Trollope
... the Red Pertolepe will not be eager for our blood? But yest're'en, when I might have slain yon knavish Gurth, I suffered him to go—and wherefore? For that Gurth, being at heart a traitor and rogue ingrain, might straightway his him to the Duke at Barham Broom with offers to guide his powers hither. But when they be come, his chivalry and heavy armed foot here within the green, then will we fire the woods about them and from every point of vantage beset ...
— Beltane The Smith • Jeffery Farnol
... took the broom and began to sweep, but only succeeded in raising such a dust that they were nearly blinded, and had to run out of the house and sit on the door-step ...
— Harper's Young People, October 26, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... floor was grouped with dancers. It was evident the affair was a "success." There were four or five hundred persons present, nearly half of them ladies. Many were in character costumes, as Tyrolese peasants, Andalusian majas, Bavarian broom-girls, Wallachian boyards, Turkish sultanas, and bead-bedecked Indian belles. A greater number were disguised in the ungraceful domino, while not a few appeared in regular evening dress. Most of the ladies wore masks; some simply hid their faces behind the coquettish reboso topado, ...
— The War Trail - The Hunt of the Wild Horse • Mayne Reid
... has Cunina when lying in the cradle, Statina when he stands, Edula when he eats, Locutius when he begins to speak, Adeona when he makes for his mother, Abeona when he leaves her; forty-three such gods of childhood have been counted. Pilumnus, god of the pestle, and Diverra, goddess of the broom, may close our small ...
— History of Religion - A Sketch of Primitive Religious Beliefs and Practices, and of the Origin and Character of the Great Systems • Allan Menzies
... moors the gorse is gay, And England's lanes and fallows Are decked with broom whose winsome grace The hovering linnet hallows; But the robin sings from his maple bow, "Ah, linnet, lightly won, Your bloom to my blaze of wayside gold Is the wan moon ...
— Memories and Anecdotes • Kate Sanborn
... and watched, for what these men were up to was more than I could make out. When the wood was all burned down they brushed the coals and ashes away with an old broom, and two colored men came up from the shore, carrying a two-bushel basket full of little longish-round creatures, hard as stone, and with a long black sort of a knot hanging out of one end. They were dripping wet, and pieces of sea-weed clung to them, as if they grew ...
— Phemie Frost's Experiences • Ann S. Stephens
... love, to the bank where the violets blow, Beside the calm waters that slumber below, While the brier and beech, the hazel and broom, Fling down from their branches a flood of perfume; Oh! what is the world, with its splendours or care, When you are beside me ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volume VI - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... clerk sprawled behind him in the desk, and the back-handers occasionally intended to reduce them to order were apt to resound against the impassive boards. During the sermon this zealous servant of the sanctuary would take up his broom and sweep out the middle alley, in order to save himself the fatigue of a weekday visit. Soon, however, the clerk and his broom followed Moses and Aaron, the fiddles and the bassoons ...
— The Parish Clerk (1907) • Peter Hampson Ditchfield
... struck on a good place when he crossed where he did, for you see the rock here is as smooth as the top of a table, and the wind has swept it as clean of dust as if it had been done by an eastern woman's broom. If the horses had been shod there would have been scratches on the rock that would have been enough for the dullest Indian to follow, but an unshod horse leaves no mark on ground like this. I expect the red-skins who followed them were just as much puzzled ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty
... are!" shouted Dick, and pointed to a parlor car. He ran forward, and so did his brothers. The porter was out with his box, but it was the boys who assisted the girls to alight, and Dick who tipped the knight of the whisk-broom. ...
— The Rover Boys at College • Edward Stratemeyer
... childish feet, but mellow and sweet, like an old violin, and herself sitting practising, over and over, that part of Paderewski's Minuet where, as every one knows, the fingering is rather difficult, and outside the open window, leaning on his broom, worthless Johnny Fraser, staring in with friendly eyes and an extremely dirty face. To Twenty-two's unbounded amazement she flung down the cushion and made for the ...
— Love Stories • Mary Roberts Rinehart
... pours between its piers. On the road which leads from Nice to the town of Grasse, where are located the famous perfumeries, you will pass orange orchards, flower farms, and charming meadows with patches of wild broom lying iii vast sheets of gold. The dark gray rocks are filled with pits and holes, and when viewed from a distance resemble the homes of the cliff dwellers. The views ...
— See America First • Orville O. Hiestand
... access to its iron gate. "With the night, comes a slouching figure through the tunnel-court, to the outside of the iron gate. It holds the gate with its hands, and looks in within the bars; stands looking in, for a little while. It then, with an old broom it carries, softly sweeps the step, and makes the archway clean. It does so, very busily, and trimly; looks in again, a little while; and so departs." These are among the things in Dickens that cannot be forgotten; and if Bleak House ...
— The Life of Charles Dickens, Vol. I-III, Complete • John Forster
... as with a broom, and already Matanzas is bulging with refugees," the officer told him. "They call themselves pacificos, but they carry information and aid our enemies. We'll have no ...
— Rainbow's End • Rex Beach
... was hunted up, and some hard knots made to become very respectable-looking sticks of wood, which he piled in the wood-box. Kitty, under the influence of his strange behaviour, washed the dishes, and even got out the broom and swept a little. ...
— Tip Lewis and His Lamp • Pansy (aka Isabella Alden)
... Pont de Panis. Dijon. The hills are higher, and more abrupt. The soil a good red loam and sand, mixed with more or less grit, small stone, and sometimes rock. All in corn. Some forest wood here and there, broom, whins, and holly, and a few enclosures of quick-hedge. Now and then ...
— Memoir, Correspondence, And Miscellanies, From The Papers Of Thomas Jefferson - Volume I • Thomas Jefferson
... Across Lincoln's Inn Fields, down by the Law Courts, and so to Waterloo. I felt I must have a confidante, so I told the slate-coloured pigeons in the square where I was off—out among the thrushes, the broom, and the may. But they wouldn't come. They evidently deemed that a legal purlieu was ...
— Prose Fancies • Richard Le Gallienne
... I have the broom-handle out in the entry? Some of the boys knew you wouldn't let me, but I said you would. I knew you would let a feller take ...
— The Knights of the White Shield - Up-the-Ladder Club Series, Round One Play • Edward A. Rand
... between England and Holland for sea supremacy was at this time very keen, and the ships of both nations sometimes carried a broom at the masthead to signify the sweeping of the ocean. We found, however, no English or other vessels to dispute with us our landing at the Moluccas, where the King received us with ...
— Adventures in Southern Seas - A Tale of the Sixteenth Century • George Forbes
... half-past ten; they must all be here by twelve. Take hackney cabs—and go faster than that!" he added, a republican allusion which in past days had been often on his lips. And he put on the scowl that had brought his soldiers to attention when he was beating the broom on the heaths of Brittany in 1799. (See ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac
... will make my kitchen, and you shall keep your room, Where white flows the river, and bright blows the broom, And you shall wash your linen and keep your body white, In rainfall at morning ...
— Robert Louis Stevenson - a Record, an Estimate, and a Memorial • Alexander H. Japp
... going to take heart o' grace and begin again," declared Mother Brace, coming in with her broom over her shoulder in time to hear the last words. "I suppose, then, you're willing to come and scrub my barn floors for me to-morrow morning. They won't be very hard, but I can't get down so long on account of my knee. I can pay ...
— The King's Daughter and Other Stories for Girls • Various
... Express Building. From the first floor sounded a deep and continuous thunder; that afternoon's issue was coming from the press. She lifted her skirts and gingerly mounted the stairway, over which the Express's "devil" was occasionally seen to make incantations with the stub of an undisturbing broom. ...
— Counsel for the Defense • Leroy Scott
... the crossest old made in the U.S., and all armed with broom-sticks and darnin'-needles, the door of my editorial offis was busted open, and the whole caboodle of wimmen, famishin' for my ...
— Punchinello, Vol. 1, No. 19, August 6, 1870 • Various
... for having a little lost her senses under the conditions—it was all too new, and I was too hasty. I was too much inspired by the ungoverned energy of the new broom. I should do better now ...
— The Dictator • Justin McCarthy
... were all still in Paris, and while your great uncle was still Emperor of France—one day, you met in your room a little Savoyard who had just crept out of the chimney in his black dress, his black broom in his hand. You cried out with horror, and were about to run away, but I held you back and told you that these chimney-sweeps were poor boys, and that their parents were so poor that they could not support their children, but were compelled to send them to Paris to earn their bread by creeping ...
— Queen Hortense - A Life Picture of the Napoleonic Era • L. Muhlbach
... utterly forgetful of his own position, Bristol saw the messenger, all unconscious of danger, come up the stairs carrying a pail and broom. As his head reached the level of the railings The Stetson Man neatly sand-bagged him, rushed across to the outer ...
— The Quest of the Sacred Slipper • Sax Rohmer
... room to wash and dress; which process completed, he entered the dining-room to find the table laid with tea-things and a bottle of rum. Clearly no broom had yet touched the place, for there remained traces of the previous night's dinner and supper in the shape of crumbs thrown over the floor and tobacco ash on the tablecloth. The host himself, when he entered, was still ...
— Dead Souls • Nikolai Vasilievich Gogol
... broom. Senor Johnson sat where he was, his heavy, square brows knit. Suddenly he stooped, seized one of the newspapers, drew near the ...
— Arizona Nights • Stewart Edward White
... tell of many colored weddin's. We jes' jumps over de broom an' de bride she has to jump over it backwards and iffen she couldn' jump it backwards she couldn't git married. Dat was sho' funny, seein' dem colored gi'ls a tryin' to jump ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves. - Texas Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration
... got a broom from a corner, and as Bruno stood upright on his hind legs the switchman put the broom over the dog's ...
— Bunny Brown and His Sister Sue in the Sunny South • Laura Lee Hope
... century—and after! The critics were unanimous in their violent condemnation of Delacroix's works: "the compositions of a sick man in delirium," "the fanaticism of ugliness," "barbarous execution," "an intoxicated broom"—such are some of the terms of abuse showered upon him. The gentlest among them commiserate the talent which here and there can be seen "struggling with the systematic bizarrerie and the disordered technique of the artist, just as gleams of reason and sometimes flashes of genius may be ...
— Six Centuries of Painting • Randall Davies
... noble. As a thing of purity, as a thing of calmness, as a thing of beauty, in short, the "Captain's Daughter" stands unsurpassed either in Russia or out of Russia. Only Goldsmith's "Vicar of Wakefield," Gogol's "Taras Bulba," and the Swiss clergyman's "Broom Merchant," can be worthily placed by its side. But this nobility is of the lowly, humble kind, to be indeed thankful for as all nobility must be, whether it be that of the honest farmer who tills the soil in silence, or that of the ...
— Lectures on Russian Literature - Pushkin, Gogol, Turgenef, Tolstoy • Ivan Panin
... lips and marched out, muttering that it was just as she had thought all along—Bud wasn't there. And when the neighbors dropped in that afternoon to plan out a memorial service for her "lost lamb," she chased them off the lot with a broom. Said that they had looked in the river for him and that she had looked beyond the river for him, and that they would just stand pat now and wait for him to make the next move. Allowed that if she could once get her ...
— Letters from a Self-Made Merchant to His Son • George Horace Lorimer
... became a huge steel broom, sweeping the Germans irresistibly before it. The operation extended from the Oise southeast to the Aisne, broadening thence until it included the entire front. The Hindenburg line, the Somme battle-field, the Hunding line, were all quickly overrun. ...
— History of the World War - An Authentic Narrative of the World's Greatest War • Francis A. March and Richard J. Beamish
... bake-shops. I was going quietly along, when the sound of another horse coming made me look round; and there I saw a dreadful sight,—a wild horse, tearing over the ground, with fiery eyes and streaming tail. On his back sat a crazy man, beating him with a broom; a crazy woman was behind him, with her bonnet on wrong side before, holding one crazy child in her lap, while another stood on the horse; a third was hanging on by one foot, and all were howling at the top of their voices as they rushed by. I scrambled over the ...
— Aunt Jo's Scrap-Bag VI - An Old-Fashioned Thanksgiving, Etc. • Louisa M. Alcott
... the boatbuilder, he stepped briskly across the room, pulling open the door of a cupboard. Taking out a broom, he began to sweep very carefully where the Melville group had sat or stood, and continued his sweeping across the threshold of the doorway. Then, returning, he tossed the broom into the cupboard. Stepping springily over, he dropped into his ...
— The Submarine Boys' Trial Trip - "Making Good" as Young Experts • Victor G. Durham
... gentlemen of the court, but all were as silent as statues and as immoveable. Their clothes, strange to say, were fresh and new as ever: and not a particle of dust or spider-web had gathered over the furniture, though it had not known a broom for a hundred years. Finally the astonished prince came to an inner chamber, where was the fairest sight his ...
— The Fairy Book - The Best Popular Stories Selected and Rendered Anew • Dinah Maria Mulock (AKA Miss Mulock)
... or coppice shrubs (as you might call them), and we know tomillares, or undergrowth; but in Corsica nature heaps these together with both hands, and the Corsican, in despair of separating them, calls them all macchia. Cistus, myrtle and cactus; cytisus, lentisk, arbutus; daphne, heath, broom, juniper and ilex—these few I recognised, but there was no end to their varieties and none to their tangle of colours. The slopes flamed with heather bells red as blood, or were snowed white with ...
— Two Sides of the Face - Midwinter Tales • Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch
... the situation at a glance and resolved what to do forthwith. There was a house a quarter of a mile down the road, and thither she bent her sprightly steps. Fifteen minutes later she returned with two buckets, a scrubbing brush, a broom and a mop. She rolled up her sleeves, disclosing an arm that you well might envy, my dear, you who delight in the display of such charms in parlor or ball room—charms which no cosmetics can rival—turned ...
— The Evolution of Dodd • William Hawley Smith
... same state as the one below, though, perhaps, there was more hay, and certainly there was the added ingredient of broken glass, the man who stole the window-frames having apparently made a miscarriage with this one. Without a broom, without hay or bedding, we could but look about us with a beginning of despair. The one bright arrow of day, in that gaunt and shattered barrack, made the rest look dirtier and darker, and the sight drove us ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition - Vol. 2 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson
... Duaraidh, that was the first and last to move in a battle; and Faolan's banner was the Coinneal Catha, the Candle of Battle; and Oisin's banner was the Donn Nimhe, the Dark Deadly One; and Caoilte's was the Lamh Dearg, the Red Hand; and Osgar's was the Sguab Gabhaidh that had a Broom of rowan branches on it, and the only thing asked when the fight was at the hottest was where that Broom was; and merry Diarmuid's banner was the Liath Loinneach, the Shining Grey; and the Craobh Fuileach, the Bloody Branch, was the banner of Lugaidh's Son. And as to Conan, it ...
— Gods and Fighting Men • Lady I. A. Gregory
... around my study. I saw nothing that would answer for a weapon but a whisk broom, which I seized, and endeavored to thrust through ...
— The House of Martha • Frank R. Stockton
... Shutters are closed, and blinds drawn down— Untrodden door-steps go unwhitened! The echoes of some straggler's boots Alone are on the pavement ringing While 'prentice boys, who smoke cheroots, Stand critics to some broom-girl's singing. ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 1, September 12, 1841 • Various
... imitated her obeisance, then they both straightened. The woman pointed to herself and to the man, and around the circle of huts and landing craft. She began scuttling about, picking up imaginary litter and sweeping with an imaginary broom. The man started pounding with an imaginary hammer, then chopping with an ...
— Naudsonce • H. Beam Piper
... return to the Church of the Cocoa-nuts. The blessing pronounced, the congregation disperse; enlivening the Broom Road with their waving mantles. On either hand, they disappear down the shaded pathways, which lead off from the main route, conducting to hamlets in the groves, or to the little marine villas upon the beach. There is considerable hilarity; and you would suppose them just from ...
— Omoo: Adventures in the South Seas • Herman Melville
... to do very queer things, that I know now no housekeeper should do. I have seen her catch up the broom to pound potatoes in the pot. She pounded with the handle, and the broom would fly up and down in the air, dropping dust into the pot where the potatoes were. Her pan of soft-mixed bread she often left ...
— Beautiful Joe - An Autobiography of a Dog • by Marshall Saunders
... when there's threepence to be earned, even if you are tired all over," he murmured, as he trudged to and fro. Presently a cheerful sound of teacups and a delightful smell of toast came from the cottage, and then the old woman brought out a broom to sweep ...
— Dick Lionheart • Mary Rowles Jarvis
... apprentice, who pauses every other minute from his task of sweeping out the shop and watering the pavement in front of it, to tell another apprentice similarly employed, how hot it will be to-day, or to stand with his right hand shading his eyes, and his left resting on the broom, gazing at the 'Wonder,' or the 'Tally-ho,' or the 'Nimrod,' or some other fast coach, till it is out of sight, when he re-enters the shop, envying the passengers on the outside of the fast coach, and thinking of the old red brick house 'down in the country,' where ...
— Sketches by Boz - illustrative of everyday life and every-day people • Charles Dickens
... horror by their enormous atrocity. When the Sacristan had concluded, he rose up, descended to the court of the convent, and ordered the lay brethren, on pain of the worst consequences of spiritual disobedience, to beat Hayraddin out of the sacred precincts with their broom staves ...
— Quentin Durward • Sir Walter Scott
... grew still. Father smoked a pipe and took a stroll in the moonlight through the orchard, where he had always something to look after or to do. Indoors the broom went steadily over the floor; whole kettlefuls of water were poured out and swept away and rubbed dry. Then the stove was lit; and, while mother blacked the shoes, father made the coffee. They mumbled a bit together—about to-morrow's ...
— The Path of Life • Stijn Streuvels
... its own brooms, but one young man in this community earned his way through the local college by making brooms from corn raised on the college farm. The college cornfield disappeared in the course of time, but on one part of it there grew up a broom factory employing a large number of workmen. These city industries were thus literally "children of the soil," and the city's prosperity depended upon the agriculture of the surrounding region. On the other ...
— Community Civics and Rural Life • Arthur W. Dunn
... intended for him being at the last moment sent in other directions, according to the more pressing requirements of the hour. Moreover, a good many of the weapons which Keratry actually received were defective. In the early days of the camp, many of the men were given staves—broom-sticks in some instances—for ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly
... such hard fare began to sink under the accumulated difficulties of their journey. In this situation they were stopped by a wide and rapid though shallow river. Sir Isumbras, taking his eldest son in his arms, carried him over to the opposite bank and placing him under a bush of broom, directed him to dry his tears, and amuse himself by playing with the blossoms till his return with his brothers. But scarcely had he left the place when lion, starting from a neighbouring thicket, seized the child and bore him away into the recesses of the forest. The second ...
— Supplemental Nights, Volume 2 • Richard F. Burton
... Chantemesse realised the turn that things were taking she wrathfully upbraided Cadine and struck out vigorously at her with her broom. But the hussy only laughed and dodged the blows, and then hied off to her lover. And gradually the markets became their home, their manger, their aviary, where they lived and loved amidst the meat, the butter, the vegetables, ...
— The Fat and the Thin • Emile Zola
... to the kitchen and grabbed the broom. She did not dare scrub the porch floor for fear that it would not dry in time, but she swept it carefully and spread down the rug. Then one by one, and making a separate trip each time, she carried out the table and the ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson
... extended wings upon the whitewashed walls. And often the most exciting incident of the day happened just as I was falling asleep; sometimes then an unwelcome bat found his way into the room and circled wildly about the lighted candles; or an enormous moth buzzed in and we would chase him with a cobweb-broom. Or again a storm descended upon us and the great trees lashed their branches against the house, and the old shutters slammed back and forth, and we ...
— The Story of a Child • Pierre Loti
... to-night that the Germans are coming into Ostend to-morrow, so once more we fly like dust before a broom. It is horrible having to ...
— My War Experiences in Two Continents • Sarah Macnaughtan
... on which he had accompanied Gloria and had shielded her from the rain with his gigantic brass-tipped umbrella. He took an interest in her, and would wait a long time in the hope of seeing her, sitting on a rush-bottomed stool outside the wine shop, and generally chewing the end of a wisp of broom. He had the faculty of sitting motionless for an hour at a time, his sturdy white-stockinged legs crossed one over the other, his square peasant's hands crossed upon his knee,—the sharp angles of the thumb-bones marked the labouring race,—his soft black ...
— Casa Braccio, Volumes 1 and 2 (of 2) • F. Marion Crawford
... chief occupation three years before, he answered evasively. By little and little, however, he threw off his reserve and told, at first with studied flippancy and then with frank bitterness, how "the new Republican broom swept clean," and how he had lost his job because of his loyalty to the Democratic party. He dwelt on the civil-service reform of President Cleveland, charging the Republicans with "offensive partisanship," a Cleveland phrase then as new as four-in-hand neckties. And in the next breath he proceeded ...
— The Rise of David Levinsky • Abraham Cahan
... concealed bore some reduced resemblance to features here. The thin grasses, more or less coating the hill, were touched by the wind in breezes of differing powers, and almost of differing natures—one rubbing the blades heavily, another raking them piercingly, another brushing them like a soft broom. The instinctive act of humankind was to stand and listen, and learn how the trees on the right and the trees on the left wailed or chaunted to each other in the regular antiphonies of a cathedral choir; how hedges ...
— Far from the Madding Crowd • Thomas Hardy
... was no help to be got from her old servants, and that the best thing she could do was to mount on her broom and set off in pursuit of the children. And as the children ran they heard the sound of the broom sweeping the ground close behind them, so instantly they threw the handkerchief down over their shoulder, and in a moment a deep, broad river ...
— The Yellow Fairy Book • Various
... and stretched out where he could see the road, for he always ran and welcomed his folks when they came home from their drives. He was very happy and comfortable until the new housekeeper came out with a broom. ...
— Prince Jan, St. Bernard • Forrestine C. Hooker
... only a minute to get down the ladder into Shadow's stall where a broom tail jiggled up and down above absurdly long baby legs and small rounded haunches. Shadow's small daughter breakfasted. Callie squatted on his heels near-by watching the ...
— Rebel Spurs • Andre Norton
... sympathy in her grievous strait. They walked on swiftly, the one staring straight forward, yet seeing nothing; the other, although thoughtful, losing not one feature of the landscape—the light-gray sky, the encircling forest, the yellow broom-straw clothing the hill-sides, the crooked fences, lined with purple brush, golden-rod, black-bearded alder and sumach, flaming with scarlet berry cones and motley leaves. It was her principle and habit to seize upon whatever morsels of delight were dropped in her way, and she had a ...
— At Last • Marion Harland
... we all took coach, and to our office, and there sat till it was late; and so home and to bed by day-light. This day was kept a holy-day through the towne; and it pleased me to see the little boys walk up and down in procession with their broom- staffs in their hands, as I ...
— The Diary of Samuel Pepys • Samuel Pepys
... which a drum major could not lie at full length. This is called the garden. Issuing shiveringly from the earth is a little tree, long, spare and sickly, which seems always to be in winter, for it has not a single leaf. This broom is called a poplar. The remainder of the garden is strewn with old potsherds and bottoms of bottles. Among them one notices two or three list slippers. In a corner on top of a heap of oyster shells is an old tin watering can, painted green, dented, rusty and cracked, inhabited by slugs which silver ...
— The Memoirs of Victor Hugo • Victor Hugo
... of years existence under an autocrat—an autocrat like Cromwell, for example. A man strong and fierce, intelligent and candid,—who would expose shams and destroy abuses,—who would have no mercy on either religious, social, or political fraud, and who would perform the part of the necessary hard broom for sweeping the National house. But, unfortunately, we have no such man. You have,—in ...
— Temporal Power • Marie Corelli
... denyes that confession of a Witch, when she confesseth any improbability, impossibility, as flying in the ayre, riding on a broom, &c. ...
— The Discovery of Witches • Matthew Hopkins
... Gregory's throne a spider swings,[25] And snares the people for the kings; "Luther is dead; old quarrels pass; The stake's black scars are healed with grass;" So dreamers prate; did man e'er live 65 Saw priest or woman yet forgive; But Luther's broom is left, and eyes Peep o'er their creeds to where it lies. Spin, spin, Clotho, spin! Lachesis, twist! and, Atropos, sever! 70 In the shadow, year out, year in, The ...
— The Vision of Sir Launfal - And Other Poems • James Russell Lowell
... more rapidly and the old man resumed his sweeping, muttering crossly into his long, white beard. As she came down the other side of the street half an hour later, she was watching Schulte from the corner of her eye. He was leaning on his broom, watching her. Seeing that she was going to pass without stopping he called to her and went slowly across the street. "You would make good tenants," he said. "I had to sue Bischoff. You can have it for forty—if you'll pay for the ...
— The Fortune Hunter • David Graham Phillips
... finding so proficient a Latin and Greek scholar, and one so familiar with the characters he had hitherto monopolized. Archilus, Acestius, Stephanus and Phisistion were superb. Mithaceus on Hotch-potch, Agis on Pickled Broom-buds, Hegesippus on Black-pudding, Crito on Soused Mackerel, were joyously hit off in turn, after which Malcolm began a description of the luxury of living ...
— Stories by American Authors, Volume 2 • Various
... the streaks of dust that Lena was leaving, and finally she pointed them out to Lena. She was astonished when Lena threw down her broom, and cried out, "You just sweep it ...
— Dew Drops, Vol. 37, No. 8, February 22, 1914 • Various
... Marse George, I ain't breck hit. I uz des' hol'n it in bofe my han's same es I'se hol'n dis yer broom, w'en it come right ter part. I declar 'twarn my fault, Marse George, 'twarn nobody's ...
— The Voice of the People • Ellen Glasgow
... repair damages and collect his ships in readiness again to encounter the enemy. Such was the last action which was fought before we left England," continued the officer; "but I am ashamed to say that Tromp was seen vauntingly sailing up and down the Channel with a broom at his mast-head, as if he had swept ...
— The Boy who sailed with Blake • W.H.G. Kingston
... with seventy-three ships of war. Blake had but half the number, but he at once accepted the challenge, and throughout the twenty-eighth of November the unequal fight went on doggedly till nightfall, when the English fleet withdrew shattered into the Thames. Tromp swept the Channel in triumph, with a broom at his masthead; and the tone of the Commons lowered with the defeat of their favourite force. A compromise seems to have been arranged between the two parties, for the bill providing a new Representative was again pushed on; and the Parliament ...
— History of the English People, Volume VI (of 8) - Puritan England, 1642-1660; The Revolution, 1660-1683 • John Richard Green
... You don't say so!" cried Tilly Toad, as she stood her broom in the corner and started down the path. "I will hop down and ...
— Friendly Fairies • Johnny Gruelle
... I glanced at Madonna Serafina, wondering whether she had an eye for contrasts. She had picked up one of the little couples and was tenderly dusting it with a feather broom. ...
— The Madonna of the Future • Henry James
... "Then I took my broom and swept the ground. I had not been hired as one of the camp sweepers, and so could move about and sweep where I chose. No one ever asked me any questions. The soldiers heeded me no more than if I had ...
— Colonel Thorndyke's Secret • G. A. Henty
... a mistake. When judiciously and tastefully performed, it is a charming style of music, and will always give pleasure to the intelligent hearer. I have heard two young friends, who have attained great skill in scientific and elaborate compositions, execute the simple song of "Low down in the Broom," with an effect I shall not easily forget. Who that has heard the Countess of Essex, when Miss Stephens, sing "Auld Robin Gray," can ever lose the impression of her heart-touching notes? In the case of "Auld Robin Gray," the song composed ...
— Reminiscences of Scottish Life and Character • Edward Bannerman Ramsay
... down the stairs; papa could not hold her nor catch up with her, and we all ran after her to the edge of the cellar. Our pretty Robinson Crusoe house was all ruined. Dirt, sticks, stones, and everything that had lain about the yard were just as if they had been swept with a big broom into the cellar; and the big chimney—all blown to pieces now—helped to ...
— Harper's Young People, November 18, 1879 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various
... that they had arranged for a cargo for him, when a new governor of the place came unexpectedly out from home, and gave notice that he would not allow anything of the sort. Whether he was in earnest about preventing the traffic, or whether he only wished to show that a new broom sweeps clean, I don't know. Certain it was that we had to get out of the place as fast as we could, and made sail to ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... and children, enlivening all by his encouragement and cheerfulness. He was a martinet on one question, and that was cleanliness, and its kindred virtue, orderliness. He was never above working with mop, broom and duster indoors, and shovel and rake in the garden; and this trait added much to the appearance of things as well as to the comfort of all concerned in the use of the convent and ...
— Life of Father Hecker • Walter Elliott
... up my eyes, And play with the flies, But underneath I am wondrous wise: I know where your nest is, And just where you hide When you have been thieving, And fear you'll be spied. I saw your small tracks all over the meal; And I saw your tail, and I heard you squeal When grandmamma's broom Nearly sealed your doom, And you went whisking out of the room. I am only a lazy old cat: I care not much for a rat; But a nice tender mouse About in the house Might prove a temptation too great, Should I be in a hungry state. Little mouse, ...
— The Nursery, March 1877, Vol. XXI. No. 3 - A Monthly Magazine for Youngest Readers • Various
... blue cap, and they all looked forward with anxious delight to the coming of court week. Every preparation was made for the judge and lawyers. Beds were aired and the bugs hunted out. Saturday previous to the coming Monday was a busy day in setting all things to rights, and the scrubbing-broom was heard in consonance with calls to the servants to be busy and careful, as Sally and Nancy sprang to their work with a will. With garments tucked up to their knees, they splashed the water and suds over the floors, strangers to the cleansing ...
— The Memories of Fifty Years • William H. Sparks
... and her voice as she spoke was hardly gentle, nor was it indicative of much patience. Her hysterics also seemed for the time to have given way to her strong passionate feeling. "Aunt," she said, "I would sooner take a broom in my hand, and sweep a crossing in London, than lead such a life as that. What! make myself the slave of some old woman, who would think that she had bought the power of tyrannising over me by allowing me to sit in the same room with her? ...
— Miss Mackenzie • Anthony Trollope
... hotel again; she went to Burlingham's room, gathered his belongings—his suit, his well-worn, twice-tapped shoes, his one extra suit of underclothes, a soiled shirt, two dickeys and cuffs, his whisk broom, toothbrush, a box of blacking, the blacking brush. She made the package as compact as she could—it was still a formidable bundle both for size and weight—and carried it into her room. Then she rolled into a small parcel her own possessions—two ...
— Susan Lenox: Her Fall and Rise • David Graham Phillips
... old Broom in the House last night, and today I lunched with him at Tabley's. They call him an orator and the king of conversationalists. He speaks like a pump, and talks like a bottle running water. No conviction, no sincerity, no appeal. Civil enough to me though, and ...
— The Manxman - A Novel - 1895 • Hall Caine
... Hood and Little John Down a down, a down, a down, Went o'er yon bank of broom, Said Robin Hood to Little John, "We have shot for many a pound: Hey down, a ...
— The Book of Old English Ballads • George Wharton Edwards
... words, and that is endeared and hallowed by centuries of association. As easily might we explain why the words and air of the 'Old Hundredth' or the 'Old 124th' belong to each other, as analyse the wedded harmony of the verse and music in The Broom o' the Cowdenknowes, or Barbara Allan, or The Bonnie House ...
— The Balladists - Famous Scots Series • John Geddie
... gone, Marianne, who had lighted her fire, came from the kitchen with a broom in her hand. She opened the door, shook the mat, and began to sweep the steps. A sharp tinkle, tinkle met her ear from the back gate. It was the milkman ringing for some one to come and take in the milk. Marianne set her broom against ...
— Nine Little Goslings • Susan Coolidge
... Gwydion wants a wife for his pupil: "Well," says Math, "we will seek, I and thou, by charms and illusions, to form a wife for him out of flowers. So they took the blossoms of the oak, and the blossoms of the broom, and the blossoms of the meadow-sweet, and produced from them a maiden, the fairest and most graceful that man ever saw. And they baptized her, and gave her the name of Flower-Aspect."[271] Celtic romance is full of exquisite ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold
... designed by that trite apothegm, "a fine woman." Large-boned but shapely, as she came in with her long dark hair neatly plaited, it seemed to her husband—who had remained her lover—that he saw before him the rosy-cheeked lass whom ten years before he had met and claimed on the chilly shores of Loch Broom. By all her neighbors Mrs. Kerry was looked upon as a proud, reserved person, who had held herself much aloof since her husband had become Chief Inspector; and the reputation enjoyed by Red Kerry was that of an aggressive and uncompanionable man. Now here was a lover's meeting, not lacking ...
— Dope • Sax Rohmer
... so commonly up to the extent of their means. If we build houses, they are generally of wood, and hardly calculated to outlast the builder. If we plant trees, they are generally Lombardy poplars, that spring up of a sudden, give no more shade than a broom stuck on end, and grow old with their planters. Still, however, I believe all this has a salutary and quickening influence on the character of the people, because it offers another spur to activity, stimulating it not only ...
— Choice Specimens of American Literature, And Literary Reader - Being Selections from the Chief American Writers • Benj. N. Martin
... together, brought the step ladder and set it up on the piazza. Then Billy climbed up, and Betty reached up the flag on the broom so Billy could hook it into place. It was done at last. The wind took it, and the Stars and Stripes blew out over the lawn just as ...
— Tell Me Another Story - The Book of Story Programs • Carolyn Sherwin Bailey
... had passed, the head teacher said to me: 'The adjoining recitation room needs sweeping. Take the broom ...
— Analyzing Character • Katherine M. H. Blackford and Arthur Newcomb
... all, to the Eclaireur. But no such thing; let them paddle and shout as hard as they like, the hippo's weight simply anchors them. The Eclaireur by now has dropped down the river past them, and has to sweep round and run back. Recognising promptly what the trouble is, the energetic Captain grabs up a broom, ties a light cord belonging to the leadline to it, and holding the broom by the end of its handle, swings it round his head and hurls it at the canoe. The arm of a merciful Providence being interposed, the broom-tomahawk ...
— Travels in West Africa • Mary H. Kingsley
... Sol, "you'd better get busy with the broom, hadn't you. It's standin' over in that corner and I wouldn't wonder if it needed exercise. Sim, the train ain't due for twenty minutes yet. That gives us at least three quarters of an hour afore it gets here. Come outside a spell. I want ...
— The Depot Master • Joseph C. Lincoln
... "Once when the Dutch fleet entered the Thames with a broom at the masthead to show that they were going to sweep the British from the seas. They beat it again when Nelson broke the sea ...
— Doubloons—and the Girl • John Maxwell Forbes
... original dinginess and discomfort, as the Turk to the Koran. Nothing but fear or force ever changes him. The French invasions were desperate things, but they swept away a prodigious quantity of the cobwebs which grow over the heads of nations who will not use the broom for themselves. Feudalities and follies a thousand years old were trampled down by the foot of the conscript; and the only glimpses of common-sense which have visited three-fourths of Europe in ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, No. 327 - Vol. 53, January, 1843 • Various
... to clean the chicken house, one of the tasks in which her strange nature delighted. To splash about with hose and broom, tip over the littered drinking trough, wash cobwebs from the windows with a well-directed stream of water; in these things Martie found some inexplicable satisfaction. She went upstairs after luncheon to get into old clothes, came down half an hour later with her best hat on, walked ...
— Martie the Unconquered • Kathleen Norris |
