"Linsey-woolsey" Quotes from Famous Books
 ... her by Ivory and Rodman; the boy in particular being the fleetest-footed, the most willing, and the neatest of helpers; washing dishes, sweeping and dusting, laying the table, as deftly and quietly as a girl. Mrs. Boynton made her own simple dresses of gray calico in summer, or dark linsey-woolsey in winter by the same pattern that she had used when she first came to Edgewood: in fact there were positively no external changes anywhere to be seen, tragic and terrible as had been those that had wrought havoc in ...
— The Story Of Waitstill Baxter • By Kate Douglas Wiggin
... Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the centre of the mansion, and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner stood a huge bag of wool, ready to be spun; in another, a quantity of linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep ...
— The Legend of Sleepy Hollow • Washington Irving
... come to linsey-woolsey, though the weavers of Germantown make fine goods, and there is silk already made in our own town. Instead of so much gossiping and sitting with idle hands we must make our own laces. It is taught largely, I hear, at Boston, and my mother was an expert at it. Then there are fringes and loops—and, ...
— A Little Girl in Old Philadelphia • Amanda Minnie Douglas
... some years before this to remark with pleasure the change in the dress of the people of Illinois: the gradual disappearance of leather and, linsey-woolsey, the hunting-knife and tomahawk, from the garb of men; the deerskin moccasin supplanted by the leather boot and shoe; the leather breeches tied around the ankle replaced by the modern pantaloons; and the still ...
— Abraham Lincoln: A History V1 • John G. Nicolay and John Hay
... feel an interest in her dress, to speculate occasionally on her appearance. At the fourth breaking-up party after her arrival at Cliff House, Marcella, who had usually figured on these occasions in a linsey-woolsey high to the throat, amid the frilled and sashed splendours of her companions, found lying on her bed, when she went up with the others to dress, a plain white muslin dress with blue ribbons. It was the gift of old Mademoiselle Renier, who affectionately ...
— Marcella • Mrs. Humphry Ward
... of jeans. The ugly butcher's knife and tomahawk, which had been essential as was the rapier to the costume of gentlemen two centuries earlier, began now to be more rarely seen at the belt about the waist. The women wore linsey-woolsey gowns, of home manufacture, and dyed according to the taste or skill of the wearer in stripes and bars with the brown juice of the butternut. In the towns it was not long before calico was seen, and ...
— Abraham Lincoln, Vol. I. • John T. Morse
... is always busy in attending. She is a little fat old lady, with blue eyes and a red face, and wears a huge cap like a sugar-loaf, ornamented with purple and yellow ribbons. Her dress is of orange-colored linsey-woolsey, made very full behind and very short in the waist—and indeed very short in other respects, not reaching below the middle of her leg. This is somewhat thick, and so are her ankles, but she has a fine pair of green stockings to cover them. Her shoes—of pink ...
— The Works of Edgar Allan Poe - Volume 4 (of 5) of the Raven Edition • Edgar Allan Poe
... same room with a woman who looked as she did, and who was a prisoner, stole out too, though she had been desired to watch the woman till dinner should be ready. Ailwin was so struck with compassion, that she fetched her warmest woollen stockings and her winter cloak of linsey-woolsey,—it was such a piteous thing to hear a woman's teeth chattering in her head, in that way, at noon in the middle of August. Having wrapped her up, she put her on a stool, close to the great kitchen fire; and ...
— The Settlers at Home • Harriet Martineau
... might well be called primitive, for we went barefooted and wore "tow pants" and checkered "linsey-woolsey" shirts, with a strip of cloth for "galluses," as suspenders were at that time called. Little did we think or care about appearance, bent as we were on having a good ...
— Ox-Team Days on the Oregon Trail • Ezra Meeker
... than thirty-five, but he had a worn look that made him seem older. He left the stile, entered that part of his house which was the store, traded a quart of thick molasses for a coonskin and a cake of beeswax, to an old dame in linsey-woolsey, put his letter away, an went into the kitchen. His wife was there, constructing some dried apple pies; a slovenly urchin of ten was dreaming over a rude weather-vane of his own contriving; his small sister, close upon four years of age, was sopping corn-bread in some gravy left in the ...
— The Gilded Age, Part 1. • Mark Twain (Samuel Clemens) and Charles Dudley Warner
... his trusty squire, Cornelius Van Vorst; consisting of a huge oyster recumbent upon a sea-green field; being the armorial bearings of his favorite metropolis, Communipaw. He brought to the camp a stout force of warriors, heavily armed, being each clad in ten pair of linsey-woolsey breeches, and overshadowed by broad-brimmed beavers, with short pipes twisted in their hatbands. These were the men who vegetated in the mud along the shores of Pavonia, being of the race of genuine copperheads, and were fabled to have ...
— Baddeck and That Sort of Thing • Charles Dudley Warner
... who regarded care and elaboration in the mounting of plays as destructive of the real spirit of the actor's art. Betterton had to meet this reproach when he introduced scenery in lieu of linsey-woolsey curtains; but he replied, sensibly enough, that his scenery was better than the tapestry with hideous figures worked upon it which had so long distracted the senses of play-goers. He might have asked his critics whether they wished to see Ophelia played by a boy ...
— The Drama • Henry Irving
... term of endearment called granny—in red woolen gown, and white linen cap, her gray hair and wrinkled face reflecting the bright firelight, the long stocking growing under her busy needles, while she watched the youngling of the flock in the cradle by her side. The good wife, in linsey-woolsey short-gown and red petticoat steps lightly back and forth in calf pumps beside the great wheel, or poising gracefully on the right foot, the left hand extended with the roll or bat, while with a wheel finger in the other, she gives the wheel a few swift turns ...
— The Old Coast Road - From Boston to Plymouth • Agnes Rothery
... silvery little voice would say "Pooh!" But all the same the slim little figure would shiver in the hot sunshine inside its short blue linsey-woolsey frock, and the dark eyes would grow larger than ever at the prospect, especially at the ripping by the giant pieuvre, in which they both believed devoutly, and eventually she would promise not to throw her ...
— Carette of Sark • John Oxenham
... spinning her future sheets. With all this she was also very kind to a married sister, who had a large family; but she wore no flowers, flounces, nor finery; her six gowns were of a stuff the Scotch call linsey-woolsey; and so in sixteen years' services she had amassed what I have just described. Why can't our girls do as much where wages are ...
— Chambers's Edinburgh Journal, No. 437 - Volume 17, New Series, May 15, 1852 • Various
... red linsey-woolsey dress and her squirrel furs and cap, was the life of every gathering, and when Stephen took her hand and they glided upstream, alone together in the crowd, he used to wish that they might skate on and on ...
— Homespun Tales • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... step and entered the room. She was plainly but neatly dressed, and now that her figure was revealed he saw that she was wearing a linsey-woolsey riding-skirt, and carried a serviceable rawhide whip in her cotton-gauntleted hand. She took the chair he offered her and sat down sideways on it, her whip hand now also holding up her skirt, and permitting a hem of clean white petticoat ...
— Mr. Jack Hamlin's Mediation and Other Stories • Bret Harte
... received, and am surprized you should use me in this manner, as have never seen any of your cash, unless for one linsey-woolsey coat, and your bill now is upwards of L150. Consider, sir, how often you have fobbed me off with your being shortly to be married to this lady and t'other lady; but I can neither live on hopes or promises, nor will my woollen-draper take any such in payment. You tell me you are secure of having ...
— The History of Tom Jones, a foundling • Henry Fielding
... dough dey is all swunk up ter dis size an' der han's is all dat's lef ter tell de tale. Yas, suh, in de ol' days, so fur back dat you kain't kyount hit, de moleses wuz folks, an' mighty proud an' biggitty folks at dat. Dey wan't gwine be ketched wearin' any er dish yer kaliker, er linsey-woolsey, er homespun er sech ez dat, ner even broadclawf, ner bombazine, naw suh! Dey jes' tricked derse'fs out in de fines' an' shinies' er silk, nuttin' mo' ner less, an' den dey went a-traipsin' up an' down an' hether an' yon, fer tu'rr folks ter look ...
— The Wit and Humor of America, Volume I. (of X.) • Various
... passengers were dressed in jeans; others in linsey-woolsey dyed blue. As we stopped along the way I had an opportunity to study the faces of the Illinoisians. Their jaws were thin, their eyes, deeply sunk, had a far-away melancholy in them. They were swarthy. Their voices were keyed to a drawl. They sprawled, were free and easy in ...
— Children of the Market Place • Edgar Lee Masters
... Rebecca's hair and add a word as to its remarkable evenness and lustre, at times when Mrs. Perkins grew too diffuse about Emma Jane's complexion. She threw herself wholeheartedly on her niece's side when it became a question between a crimson or a brown linsey-woolsey dress, and went through a memorable struggle with her sister concerning the purchase of a red bird for Rebecca's black felt hat. No one guessed the quiet pleasure that lay hidden in her heart when she watched the girl's dark head bent over her lessons at night, ...
— Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm • Kate Douglas Wiggin
... is it to describe her? How can I impress upon moderns how enlivening and refreshing was her aspect, as she spun, or scoured pans, in a linsey-woolsey petticoat and white short gown, wearing her pretty curls in a crop? George Tucker knew it all without telling; and so did half a dozen of the Westbury boys, who haunted the picket fence round 'Zekiel's garden every moonlight night in summer, or scraped their feet by the half hour ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. I, No. 1, Nov. 1857 • Various
... of the women of the frontier was suited to the plainness of the habitations where they lived and the furniture they used. Homespun, linsey-woolsey and buckskin were the primitive materials out of which their everyday dresses were made, and only on occasions of social festivity were they seen in braver robes. Rings, broaches, buckles, and ruffles were heir-looms from ...
— Woman on the American Frontier • William Worthington Fowler
... away, found my slippers, and was walking down stairs on tiptoe, holding up my linsey-woolsey frock, when I saw the door of my great-grandfather's room ajar. I pushed it open, went in, and saw a very old man, his head bound with a red-silk handkerchief, bolstered in bed. His wife, grandmother-in-law, sat by the fire ...
— The Morgesons • Elizabeth Stoddard
... stable-keepers (for they have modesty enough to give themselves no higher denomination) in a part of the town called the Pleasance; and, on entering the house, we were conducted by a poor devil of a girl, without shoes or stockings, and with only a single linsey-woolsey petticoat which just reached half-way to her ankles, into a room where about twenty Scotch drovers had been regaling themselves with whisky and potatoes. You may guess our amazement when we were informed that this was the best inn in the metropolis—that we could have no beds unless we had ...
— A Hundred Years by Post - A Jubilee Retrospect • J. Wilson Hyde
... may lie under linsey-woolsey as well as silk. "Man," said she, rising and knocking her pipe against her bony knee, "you talk like a fool. If my first husband was alive, he might maybe ...
— The Way of a Man • Emerson Hough
... I mean the great masses, there was a stern code of morals little understood at the present time. Exceptions there were, to be sure, but I refer to the people as a whole. One instance will serve as an illustration. The beaux and belles, in linsey-woolsey and buckskins, were assembled from the country around and about. My father had sent me along with brothers and sisters to bring back the saddle horses, as there was not stable room for all. Other neighbor boys were there ...
— Reminiscences of a Pioneer • Colonel William Thompson
... Infante of Aragon arrived, with Doa Sol his wife, and they brought with them an hundred armed knights, all having their shields reversed hanging from the saddle bow, and all in grey cloaks, with the hoods rent. And Doa Sol came clad in linsey-woolsey, she and all her women, for they thought that mourning was to be made for the Cid. But when they came within half a league of Osma, they saw the banner of the Cid coming on, and all his company full featly apparelled. And when they drew nigh they perceived that ...
— Chronicle Of The Cid • Various
... of the magnificent buildings erected by King Robert and described by Helgaldus. Nearly everything has disappeared. What has become of the chamber of the chancellery, where Saint Louis consummated his marriage? the garden where he administered justice, "clad in a coat of camelot, a surcoat of linsey-woolsey, without sleeves, and a sur-mantle of black sandal, as he lay upon the carpet with Joinville?" Where is the chamber of the Emperor Sigismond? and that of Charles IV.? that of Jean the Landless? Where is the staircase, from which Charles VI. ...
— Notre-Dame de Paris - The Hunchback of Notre Dame • Victor Hugo
... thing that could be done for itself. The father and sons worked with axe, hoe, and sickle. Almost every house contained a loom, and almost every woman was a weaver. Linsey-woolsey, made from flax grown near the cabin, and of wool from the backs of the few sheep, was the warmest and most substantial cloth; and when the flax crop failed and the flocks were destroyed by wolves, the children had but scanty covering to hide their nakedness. The man tanned the buckskin, the ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume One - From the Alleghanies to the Mississippi, 1769-1776 • Theodore Roosevelt
... observation of her sex, in both hemispheres, I had never witnessed such a form, such eyes, such faultless features, and such wavy, black, luxuriant hair. A glance at her dress,—a soiled, greasy, grayish linsey-woolsey gown, apparently her only garment,—and a second look at her face, which, on closer inspection, had precisely the hue of a tallow candle, recalled me to myself, and allowed me to complete the survey ...
— Continental Monthly , Vol I, Issue I, January 1862 - Devoted to Literature and National Policy • Various
... for the fourth time, the trick is done. And with what ceremony, you shall see. From the steamer the emigrant is led to a dealer in frippery, where he is required to doff his baggy trousers and crimson cap, and put on a suit of linsey-woolsey and a hat of hispid felt: end of First Act; open the purse. From the dealer of frippery, spick and span from top to toe, he is taken to the hostelry, where he is detained a fortnight, sometimes a month, on the pretext of having to wait for ...
— The Book of Khalid • Ameen Rihani
... bedquilts, petticoats, warriors' armor, and similar purposes. It was bought by the pound, East India cotton, in small quantities; the seeds were picked out one by one, by hand; it was carded on wool-cards, and spun into a rather intractable yarn which was used as warp for linsey-woolsey and rag carpets. Even in England no cotton weft, no all-cotton fabrics, were made till after 1760, till Hargreave's time. Sometimes a twisted yarn was made of one thread of cotton and one of wool which was knit into durable stockings. Cotton sewing-thread ...
— Home Life in Colonial Days • Alice Morse Earle
... their respective owners in the open thoroughfare, which is at this part very wide. Auctioneers were here busily engaged in the disposal of their merchandise, which comprised every variety of produce and manufacture, home and foreign, from a yard of linsey-woolsey, "hum spun" as they termed it, to a bale of Manchester long cloth, or their own Sea-Island cotton. The auctioneer in America is a curious specimen of the biped creation. He is usually a swaggering, consequential sort of fellow, and drives away at his calling with wondrous impudence and pertinacity, ...
— An Englishman's Travels in America - His Observations Of Life And Manners In The Free And Slave States • John Benwell |
