"Cleaning" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... loitering about the courtyard. Some were washing at the trough and bathing their heads beneath the fountain to get rid of the fumes of the wine they had indulged in overnight. Others were cleaning their arms. ...
— The Lion of the North • G.A. Henty
... segments of a copper ring, while in the simplest of other continuous current generators several times that number exist, and frequently 120! segments are to be found. These three segments are made so as to be removable in a moment for cleaning or replacement. They are mounted upon a metal support, and are surrounded on all sides by a free air space, and cannot, therefore, lose their insulated condition. This feature of air insulation is peculiar to this system, and is ...
— Scientific American Supplement, Vol. XV., No. 388, June 9, 1883 • Various
... serpents, for beyond the marsh dwelleth such snakes as creep against the bodies of living things to seek warmth and take from them the life that goeth to make the wisdom of the serpent." And when she had said this, the hag returned to her fish cleaning. ...
— The Coming of the King • Bernie Babcock
... and condition three things are necessary, good food, work, warmth. For appearance a fourth may be added, cleaning. To suppose cleaning necessary for health is nonsense. Do you clean your sheep?—the stags in your park?—or the horses young and old in the breeding stud? But, speaking liberally, a horse which is not worked cannot be clean and a horse which is worked and clothed cannot be dirty. A horse ...
— Hints on Horsemanship, to a Nephew and Niece - or, Common Sense and Common Errors in Common Riding • George Greenwood
... the following days converting our new trenches into a quagmire, the necessity for digging and cleaning up became all the more urgent, although it entailed a heavy strain upon the men under most uncomfortable conditions. As "B," "C" and "D" companies had each "had a stunt" and covered themselves with ...
— The Seventh Manchesters - July 1916 to March 1919 • S. J. Wilson
... at the farther end of the table, cleaning his beloved shot-gun. It had done good work that day, and a fine string of partridges hung in an outer room, ready to go to the store early the next morning. A week had now passed since the rescue on the river, and during the whole of that time he had said nothing about it to ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody
... in an automobile. That threw Elizabeth and myself into a panic. We posted the messenger off on a hunt for Daniel. Elizabeth soon got over her flurry and went at her cross-stitching. I hardly knew what to do, but acting from force of habit, I reckon, I began cleaning. A powerfully good way to reason out things sometimes is to work; and just then I had to work. I began on the storeroom, which was well lighted and which was also used as a pantry. As soon as I began straightening up I began to wonder where the mother would sleep. By arranging things ...
— Letters on an Elk Hunt • Elinore Pruitt Stewart
... to the old-fashioned offices of Enderby and Enderby, in a somewhat inimical frame of mind. Expectant of an invitation to aid the Law Enforcement Society in cleaning up a pest-hole of crime, he was half determined to have as little to do with it as possible. Overnight consideration had developed in him the theory that the function of a newspaper is informative, not reformative; ...
— Success - A Novel • Samuel Hopkins Adams
... the man who had hired the supper-room, I saw Nicodemus in the buildings to the left of the court, where a great many stones which filled up the passages leading to the supper-room had been placed. A week before, I had seen several persons engaged in putting the stones on one side, cleaning the court, and preparing the supper-room for the celebration of the Pasch; it even appears to me that there were among them some disciples of our Lord, perhaps Aram and Themein, the cousins of ...
— The Dolorous Passion of Our Lord Jesus Christ • Anna Catherine Emmerich
... week passed more swiftly than any of its predecessors had done since I came to this idyllic spot. House-cleaning began on Monday, and under Mrs. Grundy's experienced eye the half-dozen negresses employed in the work moved with alacrity and precision. But what with beating carpets, scrubbing floors, and turning things topsy-turvy in general, the task ...
— The Love Story of Abner Stone • Edwin Carlile Litsey
... inhabitants of the remoter regions were about. Some dry joke, or some act of benevolence, according to circumstances, was sure to be the result. As he was one day poking through the passages, he suddenly encountered an enormously big, fat servant-woman, engaged in cleaning a stair. She was steaming with perspiration. Eyeing her curiously for a moment, "Ho, ho!" he cried (his usual introductory exclamation), "do you bake the bread?" The woman, staring in astonishment, and, fortunately for ...
— The Modern Scottish Minstrel, Volumes I-VI. - The Songs of Scotland of the Past Half Century • Various
... it is impossible London should be more cleanly before it is less flourishing. Now would I ask if a good Citizen, in Consideration of what has been said, might not assert, that dirty Streets are a necessary Evil inseparable from the Felicity of London, without being the least Hindrance to the Cleaning of Shoes, or Sweeping of Streets, and consequently without any Prejudice either to the ...
— A Letter to Dion • Bernard Mandeville
... of my occupations: then I do a little housekeeping; then I do, as the French say, a little music; then I waste a deal of time in feeding and cleaning a large cageful of canary-birds, of which, as the pleasure is mine, I do not choose to give the rather disgustful trouble to any one else; strolling round the garden, watching my bee-hives, which are full of honey just now; every chink and cranny of the ...
— Records of Later Life • Frances Anne Kemble
... all shapes that it is generally preferred for garments. But, at any rate, we should consider no material fit for garments which could not be thrown away after being soiled. The idea of washing and cleaning articles of bodily use and using them over and over again would be quite intolerable. For this reason, while we want beautiful garments, we distinctly do not want durable ones. In your day, it seems, even worse than the practice of washing ...
— Equality • Edward Bellamy
... before, there never may be again, so wonderful an opportunity for a cleaning-up and sweeping-out of those two places, and for a profitable ...
— What is Coming? • H. G. Wells
... me of an old expedient my father had once shown me. At the bandolier across my shoulder swung my bullet pouch and powder flask, in the former also some bits of tow along with the cleaning worm. I made a loose wad of the tow kept thus dry in the shelter of the pouch, and pushed this down the rifle barrel, after I had with some difficulty discharged the load already there. Then I rubbed a little more powder into another ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... pulled a patient's hair and then said without fun: "I fixed the leading lady of the dump—she knows a lot, but she does not know enough to keep her soup cool." When questioned about this woman (who at the time while cleaning had moved the furniture), she said: "I don't know where ...
— Benign Stupors - A Study of a New Manic-Depressive Reaction Type • August Hoch
... their hopes and fears. In the cool of the evening, when the sun has sunk behind the mountains of Afghanistan, and the valleys are filled with a delicious twilight, the elders of the village lead the way to the chenar trees by the water's side, and there, while the men are cleaning their rifles, or smoking their hookas, and the women are making rude ornaments from beads, and cloves, and nuts, the Mullah drones the evening prayer. Few white men have seen, and returned to tell the tale. But we may imagine the ...
— The Story of the Malakand Field Force • Sir Winston S. Churchill
... of those who wished to be considered amongst them, brought about a corresponding mobility in her existence which was a perpetual alternation of blue broughams and omnibuses, first floors and fifth stories, silken gowns and cotton frocks. Oh cleaning girl! Living poem of youth with ringing laugh and joyous song! Tender heart beating for one and all beneath your half-open bodice! Ah Mademoiselle Musette, sister of Bernette and Mimi Pinson, it would need the pen of Alfred ...
— Bohemians of the Latin Quarter • Henry Murger
... brought to a more or less successful ending, there came the yeast making and the baking, followed by the brewing of sugar beer, preserves had to be made, bacon cured, all sorts of things to be done, besides the daily duties of scrubbing and cleaning, and cooking at all hours for stray ...
— Station Amusements • Lady Barker
... it is to be said that the organization and control of the village society is especially woman's work. It requires the sort of systematized attention to detail, especially in the constantly-recurring duty of "cleaning up," that grows more naturally out of the habit of good housekeeping than out of any occupation to which men are accustomed. Then, too, it calls for a degree of leisure which women are the most apt to ...
— Village Improvements and Farm Villages • George E. Waring
... over this, but it doesn't look funny after all. The things all seem to suit each other, some way, and they look good, don't they? I mean they look real, clear through. I believe that table and those drawers are solid mahogany. And look at the carving on those bedposts. Cleaning them has made such a difference. I do hope Aunt Josephina won't mind their being ...
— Lucy Maud Montgomery Short Stories, 1905 to 1906 • Lucy Maud Montgomery
... fatter, or thinner, or dirtier, but all lawless and no account. I tell you, Warren," he said earnestly, "when I get to be a man, if our house is still in power then, I shall spend my time cleaning up the streets and people of Warsaw. Those old holes and rookeries down by the river, and the streets leading to the wharves have got to be cleaned out ...
— The Boy Scouts in Front of Warsaw • Colonel George Durston
... rogues! and a great example in the country. And—no more about it; for I can't be wasting more ink upon them that don't deserve it at my hands, when I want it for them that do, as you shall see. So some weeks past, and there was great cleaning at Clonbrony Castle, and in the town of Clonbrony; and the new agent's smart and clever: and he had the glaziers, and the painters, and the slaters, up and down in the town wherever wanted; and you wouldn't know it again. Thinks I, this is no bad sign! Now, cock up your ears, Pat! for the great ...
— Tales and Novels, Vol. 6 • Maria Edgeworth
... was made for each century and we cooks and helpers fell to our duties, with a squad of privates to cut wood, feed the fires, fetch water and do any other rough preparatory work, such as butchering a sheep or a goat, killing, picking and cleaning fowls, and what not. For this welcome, if clumsy, assistance we had to thank one of the British centurions, who admonished our newly-elected Umbrian sergeant that camp-cookery called for any needed number of assistant helpers ...
— Andivius Hedulio • Edward Lucas White
... concluding point against rice was that it was expensive to prepare. The washing of the rice in a succession of waters and the cleaning of the sticky pot in which it was cooked and of the equally sticky tub in which it was served took a great deal of time. Then in order to cook rice properly—and the Japanese have become connoisseurs—the ...
— The Foundations of Japan • J.W. Robertson Scott
... it. But before I was done speaking I knew that I could not—so wonderfully does speaking to another clear one's mind—and that though I could not condemn outright a man who thought fit to do so, any more than I would condemn a scavenger for cleaning the gutter, it was not work for a gentleman to seek out a confidence that he might ...
— Oddsfish! • Robert Hugh Benson
... Mother Nature thanked him for helping her so well on all of the thirty-one days he had spent with her, and told him she would send for him again when her next cleaning day came around. ...
— Buttercup Gold and Other Stories • Ellen Robena Field
... given such plain directions as to stretching, framing, and cleaning the work as are possible in a limited space, and without practical illustration. We venture to hope we have thus supplied a want that has been long felt by those who interest themselves in the art in which Englishwomen ...
— Handbook of Embroidery • L. Higgin
... solid silver have I cleaned this morning. You can say what you want to, nice things are a rill care." Yet—surely this is the proper conjunction—Mis' Sykes is currently reported to rise in the night preceding the days of her house cleaning, and to take her carpets out in the back yard, and there softly to sweep and sweep them so that, at their official cleaning next day, the neighbours may witness how little dirt is whipped out on the line. Ought she not to have old-fashioned silver and egg-shell china and drop-leaf ...
— Friendship Village • Zona Gale
... county is, like Joseph's coat, of many colors. I remember seeing, when a boy, more years ago than I am inclined to specify, some workmen engaged in pulling down what had been a house-painter's shop, a full century before. The painter had been in the somewhat slovenly habit of cleaning his brushes by rubbing them against a hard-cast wall, which was covered, in consequence, by a many-colored layer of paint, a full half-inch in thickness, and as hard as a stone. Taking a little bit home with me, I polished it by rubbing the upper surface smooth; ...
— The Cruise of the Betsey • Hugh Miller
... on shore, we saw them eat some of their flesh-meat raw, particularly the paunch of an ostrich, without any other preparation or cleaning than just turning it inside out, and shaking it. We observed among them several beads, such as I gave them, and two pieces of red baize, which we supposed had been left there, or in the neighbouring country, by ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Vol. 12 • Robert Kerr
... to myself aloud; and, unlike some of the Greek and Latin particles, I do not expect an answer. Certainly, and perhaps fortunately in this case, there was neither voice nor any that regarded: only the woman who, I suppose, was cleaning up the church, dropped some metallic object on the floor, whose clang startled me. Count Magnus, ...
— Ghost Stories of an Antiquary • Montague Rhodes James
... plenty of people who would gladly fall into a barrel of lemonade if they only understood the salutary effects of cleaning a coat. ...
— Walter Pieterse - A Story of Holland • Multatuli
... a book, and then shut it again—what was the use of it? On other days they would be seized with the idea of cleaning up the garden: at the end of a quarter of an hour they would be fatigued; or they would set out to have a look at the farm, and come back disenchanted; or they tried to interest themselves in household affairs, with the result of making Germaine break ...
— Bouvard and Pecuchet - A Tragi-comic Novel of Bourgeois Life • Gustave Flaubert
... slender protection to women and youth, there remains at least the city. It should be our immediate demand that in all matters of the life of a city we shall have a word. The greatest numbers of working people are in the cities. If our boards of health, our school boards, our street-cleaning departments, our water boards—if all these local bodies which have most to do with the health of working people, as with the health of other people, in the great centers of population—can be given the additional stimulus ...
— The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume V • Ida Husted Harper
... we reached a water-hole, where we determined to encamp. Near it stood the huge hollow trunk of a tree. This, with a little addition and cleaning out, would make us, we agreed, a very comfortable hut for the night. We examined it thoroughly, to see that there were no snakes in it, and soon had it fit for our reception. We put a roof to it of leaves, and stuck some stout stakes into the ground ...
— My First Voyage to Southern Seas • W.H.G. Kingston
... After cleaning the gun and trying it at a mark, the next thing was to get a good shot with it. Now there was an elm that stood out from the hedge a little, almost at the top of the meadow, not above five-and-twenty yards from the other hedge that bounded the field. ...
— The Amateur Poacher • Richard Jefferies
... ground surrounded with a high corral or fence. The sign read "Buck's Corral." In the East it would have been called a livery stable. The air navigators engaged the place at five dollars a day for a week or more, and put a half dozen Mexican laborers at work removing the few horses and cleaning out the building and corral. The proprietor, who owned one of the few wagons in the town, they also hired as a drayman at $2.50 a day for ...
— The Air Ship Boys • H.L. Sayler
... me and whispered crossly, 'Take yourself and your dusters off; when company are in the house, servants don't commence scouring and cleaning in ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte
... commanding the division, as officier d'ordonnance. It was in Strasbourg, and in this agreeable and important garrison, they were enjoying greatly a short interval of peace. They were enjoying it, though both intensely warlike, because it was a sword-sharpening, firelock-cleaning peace dear to a military heart and undamaging to military prestige inasmuch that no one believed in its sincerity ...
— The Point Of Honor - A Military Tale • Joseph Conrad
... ahead dull, muffled thumps in the mist brought memories of spring house cleaning and the dusting out of old cushions, but it was really the three-year-old song of the guns. Nature had censored observation by covering the spectacle with the mantle of indefiniteness. Still this was the big thing we had come to see—night work in and behind the front lines ...
— "And they thought we wouldn't fight" • Floyd Gibbons
... for such uses on account of the difficulty of cleaning them out; but the practice, it is said, continues to this day at Rome, where the small shopkeepers keep their oil in similar jars, fixed in a counter of masonry. All the ornaments in the view are copied from Pompeii. In front of the store, which stands opposite the passage leading ...
— Museum of Antiquity - A Description of Ancient Life • L. W. Yaggy
... a certain influence over him. That Chamorra was a bad soul! A thief, but of the sort that go the limit, not recoiling before the necessity of shedding blood and with his knife always handy beside his skeleton-keys. It was a matter of cleaning out a certain house, upon which this fearful fellow had set his eye. Magdalena modestly excused himself. He wasn't made for such things; he couldn't go so far. As for gliding up to a roof and pulling down the clothes that had been ...
— Luna Benamor • Vicente Blasco Ibanez
... door. The lower half of him was blue and silver, the upper half was Oxford shirt and braces, for he had been engaged in cleaning the silver. ...
— Bones in London • Edgar Wallace
... of the island, as well as its total lack of inhabitants. This tour was followed by an informal council about the fire, wherein it was resolved to remain during the day, which was Saturday, upon the island, drying and cleaning their weapons, rigging a temporary mast for the shallop, baling and drying her, and restoring by rest and comfort some measure of strength to the feebler members of the party. Also, and this not the least consideration, the next day being Sunday, they would thus ...
— Standish of Standish - A story of the Pilgrims • Jane G. Austin
... field, and the "Ever Victorious" banged and pounded away night and day, the rattle and clang of the stamps only ceasing at midnight on Saturday, and remaining silent till midnight on Sunday, the Sabbath being devoted "to cleaning-up," retorting the amalgam, and overhauling and repairing the machinery, and for relaxation, organising riding parties of twenty or thirty, and chasing Chinamen, of whom there were over three hundred within a radius ...
— Chinkie's Flat and Other Stories - 1904 • Louis Becke
... they were put in the heaviest irons, with wrist irons if necessary, and were confined in the refractory ward on severe task work, as making coir from the rough husk of the cocoa-nuts, pounding and cleaning rice, and ...
— Prisoners Their Own Warders - A Record of the Convict Prison at Singapore in the Straits - Settlements Established 1825 • J. F. A. McNair
... Mrs. Wagner had picked up the first six keys that presented themselves, and had made Jack Straw the happiest of men. He found no fault with them for being rusty. On the contrary, he looked forward with delight to the enjoyment of cleaning away the rust. "They shall be as bright as diamonds," he had said to his mistress, "before I have ...
— Jezebel • Wilkie Collins
... doing that. Confusing them...." He dropped the tray where it belonged, shoved his hands into the chef's cleaning recess and waved them around, then came back, still looking absent-minded, and stopped before Trigger's chair. He studied her face ...
— Legacy • James H Schmitz
... encouraging. Dear thing, how bewildered she looked when I proposed adopting her. I remember all about it, for Uncle had just come and I was quite crazy over a box of presents and rushed at Phebe as she was cleaning brasses. How little I thought my childish offer would end so well!" And Rose fell a-musing with a happy smile on her face while baby picked the last morsels out of the porringer ...
— Rose in Bloom - A Sequel to "Eight Cousins" • Louisa May Alcott
... the female has only a very small one. At an Indian village which we passed two or three Indians were standing in the water armed with long gaffs with which they hooked the fish out and threw them to the squaws on the bank, who were cleaning, splitting, and hanging them up on long fir poles to dry in the sun. A rancher living near here informed me that he took the trouble to count the number on one pole and thereby estimate their total catch. I forget his figures, but believe ...
— Fishing in British Columbia - With a Chapter on Tuna Fishing at Santa Catalina • Thomas Wilson Lambert
... his back against the door, and swear I should find no passage but through his body (a pretty substantial one too). Happily, however, that was not the only door, and I effected my escape by the side entrance through the butler's pantry, to the infinite amazement of Benson, who was cleaning the plate.' ...
— The Tenant of Wildfell Hall • Anne Bronte
... through which she must live. How might she best avoid the misfortune of poverty for the twenty, thirty, or forty years which might be accorded to her? What did it matter whom or what she hated? The housemaid probably did not like cleaning grates; nor the butcher killing sheep; nor the sempstress stitching silks. She must live. And if she could only get away from her mother that in itself would be something. Most people were distasteful to her, but no one so much as her mother. Here in England she ...
— The American Senator • Anthony Trollope
... to turn over the disagreeable task of cleaning to the little darky, who swiftly completed it. He removed the meat from the shell, skinned the edible portions, and threw the offal far from the fire. Next he washed both meat and shells carefully, salted and peppered the meat, and replaced it in the shell, ...
— The Boy Chums in the Forest - or Hunting for Plume Birds in the Florida Everglades • Wilmer M. Ely
... During the morning I strolled through the house several times to make sure he had not left it to communicate with some of his fellow plotters, but I was, I admit, disappointed to find him in every instance busy at some wholly proper task. Once, indeed, I found him cleaning my storm boots! To find him thus humbly devoted to my service after the raking I had given him dulled the edge of my anger. I went back to the library and planned a cathedral in seven styles of architecture, all unrelated and impossible, and when this began to bore me I designed a crypt in which ...
— The House of a Thousand Candles • Meredith Nicholson
... of cleaning out the glands below the mandible on both sides in men who are advanced in years is not free from risk to life, especially from respiratory complications which may or may not be traceable ...
— Manual of Surgery Volume Second: Extremities—Head—Neck. Sixth Edition. • Alexander Miles
... her clear complexion and laughing face, had the reputation of being a good cook. She prepared the rice, tomatoes, and camias, [10] while some of the young men tried to aid or bother her, perhaps in order to win her good will. The other girls were busy cleaning and making ready the lettuce, cabbage and peas, and cutting up paayap in pieces about the size ...
— Friars and Filipinos - An Abridged Translation of Dr. Jose Rizal's Tagalog Novel, - 'Noli Me Tangere.' • Jose Rizal
... his house and I'll meddle in his matters, says he. I'll make that animal smell hell, says he, with the help of that good pizzle my father left me. But one evening, says Mr Dixon, when the lord Harry was cleaning his royal pelt to go to dinner after winning a boatrace (he had spade oars for himself but the first rule of the course was that the others were to row with pitchforks) he discovered in himself a wonderful likeness to a bull and on picking up a blackthumbed chapbook that ...
— Ulysses • James Joyce
... was arranging that having teaching was what she had not been burying in not burying what she was not burying, cleaning was continuing that she was arranging what she would be arranging in being one satisfying what she was satisfying in being one and satisfying every one that being one she was some ...
— Matisse Picasso and Gertrude Stein - With Two Shorter Stories • Gertrude Stein
... perhaps—but who knows what may be deep down in his heart? Whatever may be in his wife's, she does not show for an instant that she thinks he has grown lazy, and accustomed to see her earn, by sewing and cleaning, most of the scanty income for the family. The charity visitor, however, does see this, and she also sees that the other men who were in the strike have gone back to work. She further knows by inquiry and a little experience that the man is not skilful. She cannot, however, call him lazy and good-for-nothing, ...
— Democracy and Social Ethics • Jane Addams
... a waif of the street, an ex-Prussian soldier, who for a pittance and his daily "rum," slaved in the "Pharmacy" like a dog, polishing and cleaning until it was the smartest show place of ...
— The Midnight Passenger • Richard Henry Savage
... in a fit of divine carelessness. We may jump upon a child's rocking-horse for a joke. But we are glad that the carpenter did not leave the legs of it unglued for a joke. So far from having merely preached that a soldier cleaning his side-arm is to be adored because he is military, Kipling at his best and clearest has preached that the baker baking loaves and the tailor cutting coats is as military ...
— Heretics • Gilbert K. Chesterton
... you, and have a woman in from the village to do the cleaning and go away again. My weekly expenses must and shall be lowered immediately. I don't send for you to make objections, Mrs. Michelson—I send for you to carry out my plans of economy. Dismiss the whole lazy pack of indoor ...
— The Woman in White • Wilkie Collins
... parties in the spring. And now we had another nuisance. Nothing but eternal rings at the bell. The man-servant grumbled, and was behind with his work; and when scolded, replied that there was no time for anything, that when cleaning his knives and plate the bell was rung, and he was obliged to wash himself, throw on his jacket, and go up to answer the front door; that the bell was not rung for us, but to find out where some new-comer lived, and to ascertain this ...
— Olla Podrida • Frederick Marryat
... disappointed that they and their belongings could not be seized as prizes of war, and manifested this by the envious glances that he cast at Senorita as well as upon the weapons that Ridge was drying and cleaning. Especially was the young trooper's rifle an object of longing admiration, and, after a critical examination, the captain even went so far as to offer to buy it; but Ridge refused to part with ...
— "Forward, March" - A Tale of the Spanish-American War • Kirk Munroe
... Sofala without sighting them, Vasco da Gama at last reached the mouth of a broad river, now known as Quilimane River, but called by the weary mariners the River of Mercy or Good Tokens. Here they spent a month cleaning and repairing, and here for the first time in the history of discovery the fell disease of scurvy broke out. The hands and feet of the men swelled, their gums grew over their teeth, which fell out so that they could not eat. This proved ...
— A Book of Discovery - The History of the World's Exploration, From the Earliest - Times to the Finding of the South Pole • Margaret Bertha (M. B.) Synge
... and seemed to study. He drew out a pearl-handled knife, closed his hand over it, blew on his fist, then opened the other hand, and exhibited the knife lying in its palm, with the blade open. He seemed surprised at the change and began cleaning his finger-nails. Jim Pink was the magician ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling
... also of canvas, held in place by two canvas straps over the shoulders; suspended on the bottom of the pack was my mess tin or canteen in a neat little canvas case. My waterproof sheet, looking like a jelly roll, was strapped on top of the pack, with a wooden stick for cleaning the breach of the rifle projecting from each end. On a lanyard around my waist hung a huge jackknife with a can-opener attachment. The pack contained my overcoat, an extra pair of socks, change of underwear, hold-all (containing knife, fork, spoon, comb, toothbrush, lather ...
— Over The Top • Arthur Guy Empey
... was cleaning his rifle when he heard the hoof-beats of a galloping horse and he ran around the corner of the house to meet the newcomer, whom he thought to be a courier from the Double Arrow. Frenchy dismounted and ...
— Hopalong Cassidy's Rustler Round-Up - Bar-20 • Clarence Edward Mulford
... on the gas-stove and the other on Bryce. I had scarcely set to work before he wandered into the kitchen, found the nail-brush or whatever it was that the cook used for cleaning the pots, washed the black loam off the piece of wood which had so excited my curiosity earlier in the day, and then commenced to scrub it. He used up an inordinate amount of soap and quite a lot of elbow-grease, but when he had finished the wood looked ...
— The Lost Valley • J. M. Walsh
... said, "entertains notions of cleaning up a bundle by having the hundred-to-one shot come in by a length. Even Barcelona must have ...
— The Big Fix • George Oliver Smith
... all taken into what I imagined to be the drawing room, but afterwards ascertained it was a place strictly confined to the private use of the family and that but one confidential servant was ever allowed to enter it, for the purpose of cleaning, dusting, and keeping it in order. The walls were hung with pictures of the most exciting character, and in the centre of the room was a huge bed, covered with crimson velvet and stuffed with down, but without any of the ordinary bed-clothing, instead there were ...
— The Power of Mesmerism - A Highly Erotic Narrative of Voluptuous Facts and Fancies • Anonymous
... laborious, is generally performed now by the men, while the women do only the actual cleaning of the rice.—Rizal. ...
— The Philippine Islands, 1493-1898: Volume XVI, 1609 • H.E. Blair
... time Lancelot saw Mary Ann she was cleaning the steps. He avoided treading upon her, being kind to animals. For the moment she was merely a quadruped, whose head was never lifted to the stars. Her faded print dress showed like the quivering hide of some crouching animal. There were strange irregular splashes of pink in the ...
— The Grey Wig: Stories and Novelettes • Israel Zangwill
... Colonel Clibborn's invitation to shoot; he was most anxious to make the affair seem accidental, and that, in cleaning his gun, was easy. He had been wounded before and knew that the pain was not very great. He had, therefore, nothing ...
— The Hero • William Somerset Maugham
... hard to have to sit there all day, he explained to the doctor, but they were getting along. Mrs. Mulhaus had got a job of cleaning that day; that would be fifty cents. Ally—she was twelve—was learning to sew. That was her afternoon to go to the College Settlement. Jimmy, fourteen, had got a place in a store, and ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... Louis Quatorze salon the contrast is sufficiently striking. The splendors of the great drawing-room are still fresh: the white enamel is brilliant, the ormolu untarnished, and the rich upholstery gorgeous as when first received from Paris. A good American 'spring cleaning' would put this, and indeed most of the apartments, in condition for ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 20, August 1877 • Various
... cyanide is not only useful in itself, for the extraction of gold and cleaning of silver, but can be converted into ammonia, and a variety of other compounds such as urea and oxamid, which are good fertilizers; sodium ferrocyanide, that makes Prussian blue; and oxalic acid used in dyeing. Professor Bucher claimed that his furnace could be ...
— Creative Chemistry - Descriptive of Recent Achievements in the Chemical Industries • Edwin E. Slosson
... a shilling from you at last," said he, fondling the note; "but this will not quite pay up the last quarter's rent. There's about half a dollar more my due. You can come and do the spring cleaning, and then I'll ...
— Eventide - A Series of Tales and Poems • Effie Afton
... flies, and other kinds. These the Sapsucker also eats, sweeping them up in the sap with his tongue, which is not barbed like that of other Woodpeckers, but has a little brush on the end of it, shaped something like those we use for cleaning lamp chimneys. In this way he can easily lick up great quantities of both sap and insects. You will not probably see him before autumn, for he nests northward from Massachusetts; but you can write down his table now, and then be on ...
— Citizen Bird • Mabel Osgood Wright and Elliott Coues
... special causes for alarm having lately been detected. At first it was believed that underpinning the central piers would secure the stability of the whole. This was done, as well as the shoring and strutting to the gables of the two outer arches. The clearing away of the dirt and rubbish, and the cleaning of the groining, disclosed greater danger than had been expected, and the architect recommended the rebuilding of parts of the gables. Before acting on this advice the Restoration Committee took the opinion of Sir A.W. Blomfield, ...
— The Cathedral Church of Peterborough - A Description Of Its Fabric And A Brief History Of The Episcopal See • W.D. Sweeting
... The man bowed, smiling in a stupid way, then began to withdraw, explaining that he was cleaning the hall, and hoping that he had not disturbed "monsieur." The detective closed the door, uncertain whether the man had been watching him or not. He remembered Dufrenne's warning, and realized that in going out, alone, this night, he ran some ...
— The Ivory Snuff Box • Arnold Fredericks
... grumbled at his food, he grumbled at the discomforts of living in one room; he made her feel cheap when she kissed him by turning away and saying, "There, that's enough, now!"; he found fault with her clothes and, one morning as she was dressing, said he was tired of seeing her cleaning the room; she seemed to think that that was all he needed—a nurse and a servant, since she never troubled to make herself attractive to him. Several times, coming from doing her cooking in the basement, she found Mr. King slinking along the top landing, but did not associate him with Louis. ...
— Captivity • M. Leonora Eyles
... copse that in early spring I stayed to gather some white sweet violets, for the true wild violet is very nearly white. I stood close to a hedger and ditcher, who, standing on a board, was cleaning out the mud that the water might run freely. He went on with his work, taking not the least notice of an idler, but intent upon his labour, as a good and true man should be. But when I spoke to him he answered me in clear, well-chosen language, well ...
— Nature Near London • Richard Jefferies
... a public man, or even a reforming editor, in Canada has talked so consistently and so cheerfully for so long a period and to so little apparent purpose, on the need for cleaning up civic government. The difference between Mr. Ames and the average public-service expert in Montreal on this question is that Mr. Ames has never been worldly-wise enough to become an avowed cynic on the question. ...
— The Masques of Ottawa • Domino
... another hardship to get over. His bed stood in a garret, where there were so many holes in the floor and the walls that every night he was tormented with rats and mice. A gentleman having given Dick a penny for cleaning his shoes, he thought he would buy a cat with it. The next day he saw a girl with a cat, and asked her, "Will you let me have that cat for a penny?" The girl said: "Yes, that I will, master, though ...
— English Fairy Tales • Joseph Jacobs (coll. & ed.)
... objets d'art, as well as the emptying of H.'s much encumbered studio—I having determined to keep but a small apartment in the east wing for private use. It was really a tremendous undertaking, far worse than any "spring cleaning" I had ever experienced, especially as I was but poorly seconded by my much-depleted domestic staff, already more than busy trying to ...
— My Home In The Field of Honor • Frances Wilson Huard
... however, with Mike Murphy. Gone to the winds now was the caution he would have exercised had the attack been delayed two seconds longer; forgotten was the shrewd advice of his owners to have help standing by when the ship cleaning should commence. Michael J. Murphy thought of nothing but blood, for the fight had started now and he was loath to ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne
... that every object stood in startling relief. A plume of steam far up the leafy railroad vista heralded the Peru express's lightning passage through the town. Scarcely a lounger was left on the platform. Mallston had a job of cleaning the cellar for the storekeeper, and at intervals appeared from its gaping doors with a basket of decayed potatoes on his shoulders. The landscape rung with bird-songs, and the girl, who had skimmed the cream off such a morning, looked up and laughed at her dejected friend. She had purple violets ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, Vol. 26, August, 1880 - of Popular Literature and Science • Various
... rejoined Cosmo, laughing. "If the proof of the pudding be in the eating, the proof of the stable must be in the cleaning. Let me see ...
— Warlock o' Glenwarlock • George MacDonald
... He hasn't spoken yet. It looks as if he were getting ready to do some outside cleaning, for he had on a life-preserver. Funny thing about it, though, that's not his work. He's not even on duty during the starboard watch. The man in the lookout saw him climb out on the bow, shout something up to ...
— Miss Mink's Soldier and Other Stories • Alice Hegan Rice
... blocked by the fire department playing their streams on the smouldering ruins, while gangs of men worked cleaning away the rubbish and ...
— The One Woman • Thomas Dixon
... all, going out without your hat and standing there like a silly fool cleaning that bit of paper. I wonder what the lightermen ...
— Pages from a Journal with Other Papers • Mark Rutherford
... considerate and economical reason. Another declined peremptorily the use of a flat-iron stand, and burnt out triangular pieces from the ironing sheet and blanket; and when Sylvie remonstrated with her about the skirt-board, which she had newly covered, finding her using it as a cleaning cloth after she had heated her "flats" upon the coals, she was met with a torrent of abuse, and the assurance that she "might get somebody else to save her old rags with their apurns, an' iron five white skirts and tin pairs o' undersleeves ...
— The Other Girls • Mrs. A. D. T. Whitney
... down almost entirely, the frightened silence came stealing back again, and the only sounds at last were the hurried run of the delinquents who had been 'run in' to the detention room, the slow footsteps of some of the masters, and the brooms of the old ladies who were cleaning up. ...
— The Giant's Robe • F. Anstey
... lady, which I would not like to repeat. At first I did not take much notice, as I was quite used to hearing my poor dear master having words with Mr. Percival. So I went downstairs carrying my breakfast things; but I had just started cleaning my silver when the study bell goes ringing violently, and I hear Mr. Percival's voice shouting in the hall: "John! quick! Send for Dr. Mulligan at once. Your master is not well! Send one of the men, and you come up and help me to get Mr. ...
— The Old Man in the Corner • Baroness Orczy
... turned topsy-turvey. For mind is really more honorable than muscle, yet when these two met in a gold mine it fared ill with mind. Classical and mathematical scholars joined their forces with navvies to dig gold; and nearly always the scholars were found after a while cooking, shoe cleaning, and doing generally ...
— It Is Never Too Late to Mend • Charles Reade
... continued, George Opdyke, a member of the State committee, had himself, when mayor, appointed well-known Democrats on condition that Republicans should share the minor offices,[1299] and a Republican governor and Senate, in placing a Tammany official at the head of the street-cleaning department, invoked the same principle of division.[1300] Several members of the State committee had themselves, until recently, held profitable places by reason of such an understanding without thought of their party fealty being questioned. It was a recognition of the rights ...
— A Political History of the State of New York, Volumes 1-3 • DeAlva Stanwood Alexander
... conveying eight shells and a corresponding number of cartridges up on deck and loading them into the eight main-deck guns that still remained to us, after carefully sponging out the latter. Next, I gave my attention to the Maxims, preparing them for action with meticulous care, overhauling, cleaning, and oiling the mechanism of them, satisfying myself that they were in perfect working order, placing a belt of cartridges in position in each, and taking care to have an abundant supply of relays in ...
— The First Mate - The Story of a Strange Cruise • Harry Collingwood |
