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Mattress   /mˈætrəs/   Listen
Mattress

noun
1.
A large thick pad filled with resilient material and often incorporating coiled springs, used as a bed or part of a bed.



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"Mattress" Quotes from Famous Books



... Carver brought wood for the fire. Then he unrolled their blankets, spreading them over pine boughs already cut and placed upon the ground. The ground itself was a good enough mattress for him, he said, as he rolled in his blanket Indian-fashion, and lay down under a great pine. They need have no anxiety as to the fire. He probably should sleep but little, and would replenish it whenever wood was needed. If they wanted a thing ...
— Virginia of Elk Creek Valley • Mary Ellen Chase

... minutes later he found Mr. Reardon very busy calking with oakum the cracks round the door and window of his state-room, through which little wisps of yellow smoke were curling. Mr. Schultz was so completely deceived that he hurried round to his own quarters and pawed over his own mattress and bedding in ...
— Cappy Ricks Retires • Peter B. Kyne

... centre, and of its passing through other atoms, and of the electrons that revolve around its centre as planets around a sun. The electron, one hundred thousand times smaller than an atom, yet has surface, and that surface is a dimpled and corrugated sheet—like the cover of a mattress. What a flight of ...
— The Breath of Life • John Burroughs

... begin to suspect that there was a still in the immediate neighborhood. Soon after supper I pleaded fatigue and was shown up a flight of stairs, or rather a ladder, to a sort of attic. There was a husk mattress there, and a pile of rather dirty-looking blankets. But in those hills you learn to put up with what you can get. I was glad to have ...
— The Girl Aviators' Motor Butterfly • Margaret Burnham

... me? you won't drive me away—a convict? You call me monsieur and don't say, 'Get out, dog!' as everybody else does. I shall have a supper! a bed like other people, with mattress and sheets—a bed! It is nineteen years that I have not slept on a bed. You are good people! Besides, I have money; I will pay well. I beg your pardon, M. Innkeeper, what is your name? I will pay all you ...
— The Ontario High School Reader • A.E. Marty

... lieutenant-general in the army. Upon one occasion, after a battle in which he had taken part, one of the Rhingraves who had been made prisoner, fell to his lot. The Duc de Coislin wished to give up to the other his bed, which consisted indeed of but a mattress. They complimented each other so much, the one pressing, the other refusing, that in the end they both slept upon the ground, leaving the mattress between them. The Rhingrave in due time came to Paris and called on the Duc de Coislin. ...
— The Memoirs of Louis XIV., His Court and The Regency, Complete • Duc de Saint-Simon

... many reassurances as to the strength of this arrangement before Tristan was at comparative peace. Dr. Grosnoff effected an examination by slacking off the ropes until Tristan lay a couple of feet clear of the bed, then himself lay on the mattress face up, ...
— Disowned • Victor Endersby

... consciousness in the flickering light of a fire of bark, that played upon the rafters of a roof thatched with bark and upon a floor of strewn and shredded bark. She even suspected she was lying upon a mattress of bark underneath the heavy bearskin she could feel and touch. She had a delicious sense of warmth, and, mingled with this strange spicing of woodland freedom, even a sense of home protection. And surely enough, looking around, she saw her ...
— Tales of Trail and Town • Bret Harte

... upon her couch, and had their friends photograph them. I could not allow myself to do so. I stood silent, with head uncovered as I gazed with wonder and admiration at the bed, with its magnificently embroidered curtains hanging from the ceiling to the floor, its yellow-satin mattress ten feet in length and its great round, hard pillow, with the delicate silk spreads turned back as though it were prepared for Her Majesty's return. On the opposite side of the room there was a brick kang bed, such as we find in the homes of all the Chinese of the north, ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... I interrupted, dragging the pillow away, and turning the holes towards the mattress, for she was removing its contents by handfuls. 'Lie down and shut your eyes: you're wandering. There's a mess! The down is ...
— Wuthering Heights • Emily Bronte

... even removing his overcoat, he threw himself on his berth to think over the inconceivable story. He sighed, he gnashed his teeth, he wanted to doubt it. Several times he said aloud, "No!" or "Impossible!" and beat his fists against the mattress of the berth above. He could have sworn an oath that this time there had not been a single lie in Mara's whole shameless narrative. "Mara, or the Spider's Victim." Now, of a sudden, he understood her dance! She had danced the thing she had lived ...
— Atlantis • Gerhart Hauptmann

... an impost of 7s per week, an under gaoler undertook to provide food for Ralph and to lend him a mattress. His companions in this wretched plight were a miserable pair who were suspected of a barbarous and unnatural murder. They had been paramours, and their victim had been the woman's husband. Once and again they had been before ...
— The Shadow of a Crime - A Cumbrian Romance • Hall Caine

... of his Romancero,[164]—a collection of poems written in the first years of his illness, with his whole power and charm still in them, and not, like his latest poems of all, painfully touched by the air of his Matrazzen-gruft, his "mattress-grave,"—to see Heine's width of range; the most varied figures succeed one another,—Rhampsinitus,[165] Edith with the Swan Neck,[166] Charles the First, Marie Antoinette, King David, a heroine of Mabille, Melisanda of Tripoli,[167] Richard Coeur ...
— Selections from the Prose Works of Matthew Arnold • Matthew Arnold

... the letter into his pocket, and drawing a mattress before the door of the loose-box, went fast asleep on it till dawn, when he called a sleepy stable-boy from the rooms above and bade him ride over with the letter ...
— The Drummer's Coat • J. W. Fortescue

... lasted during the greater part of the night; for the wounded amounted to little less than a thousand, both French and foreign. But as I was returning to my mattress, I recollected the countenance of a prisoner standing at the door of one of the chambers set apart for officers of the higher rank. The man put his hand to his shako, and addressed me in German;—he was one of the squadron ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine - Volume 55, No. 343, May 1844 • Various

... all of them being in use; but for the rest I get on well, after a good sleep on camp bed with air mattress; roused at eight by a letter from you. I went to bed at eleven. At Koeniggraetz I rode the big sandy thirteen hours in the saddle without feeding him He bore it very well, did not shy at shots nor at corpses, cropped ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. X. • Kuno Francke

... expecting a return to our room, I rushed toward the prison door at the head of the stairs." Finding the inner doors of the jail unlocked, Richards dragged Taylor into a cell and covered him with an old mattress. Both expected a return of the mob, but the lynchers disappeared as soon as they satisfied themselves that the prophet was dead. Richards was not injured at all, although his large size made ...
— The Story of the Mormons: • William Alexander Linn

... sleep alone, on a rather hard mattress. The covering should be light. A coverlet may be put over the feet. The child always should sleep with the arms out upon the cover or blanket, never under the same. If this is done from childhood on, it is very easy to get used to this way of sleeping, and many a case of masturbation will thus ...
— Woman - Her Sex and Love Life • William J. Robinson

... went to work again. He showed Thompson how to arrange a mattress of hemlock boughs on the bed frame. It was a simple enough makeshift, soft and springy when Thompson spread his bedding over it. Then Mike superintended the final disposition of his supplies so that there would ...
— Burned Bridges • Bertrand W. Sinclair

... know on earth. There is no fireplace, and I am perplexed by that until I find a thermometer beside six switches on the wall. Above this switchboard is a brief instruction: one switch warms the floor, which is not carpeted, but covered by a substance like soft oilcloth; one warms the mattress (which is of metal with resistance coils threaded to and fro in it); and the others warm the wall in various degrees, each directing current through a separate system of resistances. The casement ...
— The Cost of Shelter • Ellen H. Richards

... he made a pillow and mattress, which he stuffed with dried leaves, while another piece of cloth served as a coverlid of sufficient thickness for that climate. "I shall want a table and stool, and I must see if I can find any plates and dishes, mugs, or a saucepan." He very ...
— The Rival Crusoes • W.H.G. Kingston

... of which the white blind was drawn. She appreciated Mr. Boldero's consideration in leaving her. She was trembling. But when she saw, in the pale gloom, the face of an aged man peeping out from under a white sheet on a naked mattress, she started back, trembling no more—rather transfixed into an absolute rigidity. That was no conventional, expected shock that she had received. It was a genuine unforeseen shock, the most violent that she had ever had. In her mind she had not pictured Gerald as a very old man. She ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... O'Malley shoved into the room close behind him. They stood looking at Sim's bunk. The straw ticking of the mattress had been slit open and some of the straw was scattered on the floor. Sim was not in the room. Stan walked over to a little table. One small light bulb was flooding the ...
— A Yankee Flier Over Berlin • Al Avery

... SPRING MATTRESSES.—The most durable Bedding is a well-made SPRING MATTRESS; it retains its elasticity, and will wear longer without repair than any other mattress, and with one French Wool and Hair Mattress on it is a most luxurious Bed. HEAL & SON make them in three varieties. For prices of the different ...
— Notes and Queries, Number 234, April 22, 1854 • Various

... and reached out his arms for her just as she fell back fainting. Grasping her firmly, the brave man dragged her out of the window, and began his perilous descent. When about half way down, the ladder fell, but its burden was expected, and mattress and bed-clothing saved them from what might have been worse. As it was, the fireman escaped with a few bruises and slight scorching, and Mrs. Hayden with a broken limb. First they feared she was dead, but after a few moments she revived and moaned feebly for husband and children. ...
— The Right Knock - A Story • Helen Van-Anderson

... the management of the employing clothiers, it was slipping out from under the control of the town gilds by its location in the country. The same thing occurred in other cases, even without the intermediation of a new employing class. We hear of mattress makers, of rope makers, of tile makers, and other artisans establishing themselves in the country villages outside of the towns, where, as a law of 1495 says, "the wardens have no power or authority to make search." In certain ...
— An Introduction to the Industrial and Social History of England • Edward Potts Cheyney

... orders that a mattress and blankets, with a table and chairs, should be brought here before I went out," said Sir Henry, "with a few other things. Good gracious! I had no idea the fire had been so bad. ...
— In the King's Name - The Cruise of the "Kestrel" • George Manville Fenn

... persons of every age, than soft feather beds. They may be made of horse hair or moss; but hair is the best. If the mattress does not appear to be warm enough for the very young infant, a blanket may be spread over it. Dr. Dewees says that in case mattresses cannot be had, "the sacking bottom" may be substituted, or "even the floor;" at least in warm weather: "for almost ...
— The Young Mother - Management of Children in Regard to Health • William A. Alcott

... huts to live in. De beds wuz made of long boards dat wuz nailed to de wall. De mattress wuz stuffed wif straw and pine tags. De only light we had wuz from de fire-place. We didn't use no matches, 'stead we'd strick a rock on a piece of steel. We'd let the sparks fall on ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States, From Interviews with Former Slaves - Virginia Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... acuteness of suffering, greeted with a smile, saying: "Doctor, I can fight no more and so come to you, but it is all right, I am satisfied, for we are whipping the Alabama;" and subsequently: "I will willingly lose my leg or my life if it is necessary." Lying upon his mattress he paid strict attention to the progress of the fight, as far as could be elicited by the sounds on deck—his face beaming with satisfaction whenever the cheers of his shipmates were heard; with difficulty he waved his hand over his head and joined ...
— The Story of the Kearsarge and Alabama • A. K. Browne

... wheelwrighting harnessmaking, painting, machinery, founding, shoemaking, brickmasonry and brickmaking, plastering, sawmilling, tinsmithing, tailoring, mechanical and architectural drawing, electrical and steam engineering, canning, sewing, dressmaking, millinery, cooking, laundering, housekeeping, mattress making, basketry, nursing, agriculture, dairying ...
— The Negro Problem • Booker T. Washington, et al.

... single closed port was dim, convincing me the sun had already set, yet I could perceive the few furnishings of that interior. These consisted merely of a double berth, a blanket spread over the lower mattress, and a four-legged stool. Hooks, empty, decorated the walls, and a small lamp dangled from the overhead beam. As I got to my feet I could feel a faint throb of the engine, and realized we were moving slowly through the water. The glass of the porthole was thick, but clear. I knelt on the ...
— Gordon Craig - Soldier of Fortune • Randall Parrish

... whole width of the boat; and under a pile of rubbish, which had evidently been placed there to conceal it, was a scuttle, leading into the hold of the port twin boat. Raising this, we found a mattress from one of the berths, a blanket, and some dishes. We had not thought of the holds of the twin boats before, for there were two openings near the great gangway into them. We had thrown lightwood down ...
— Down South - or, Yacht Adventure in Florida • Oliver Optic

... our hero, "this is not the time for deliberation. I am overcome with fatigue; take a mattress from the bed for yourself, my friend, and let us ...
— Monsieur Lecoq • Emile Gaboriau

... of his window, he had communicated his desire, entered eagerly into the scheme: the two contrived to unfasten a stone in a wall that divided their apartments; when the prison-doors were bolted for the night, this volunteer amanuensis took his place, Schubart trailed his mattress to the friendly orifice, and there lay down, and dictated in whispers the record of his fitful story. These memoirs have been preserved; they were published and completed by a son of Schubart's: we have often wished to see ...
— The Life of Friedrich Schiller - Comprehending an Examination of His Works • Thomas Carlyle

... of jetty ringlets,' who lived for nothing at a boardinghouse at Gosport, was then conveyed to Fareham gratis: and being there, and lying on the bed of the good old lady her entertainer, the dear girl took occasion to rip open the mattress, and steal a cash-box, with which she fled to London. How would you account for the prodigious benevolence exercised towards the interesting young French lady? Was it her jetty ringlets or her charming face?—Bah! Do ladies love others for having faces and black hair?—she ...
— The Book of Snobs • William Makepeace Thackeray

... tried to cut everything down to the last ounce, but still the stuff makes a rather formidable array. What have we? Tent, tent-poles, typewriter, two cameras, two small steamer-trunks, bedding (a thin mattress with waterproof bottom and waterproof extension-flaps and within this our two blankets), a flour-bag or "Hudson's Bay suit-case" (containing tent-pegs, hatchet, and tin wash-basin), two raincoats, a tiny bag with brush and comb and soap—and last, but yet ...
— The New North • Agnes Deans Cameron

... scene. He stepped into the little room at the back. It was in that room his father died. Now it was empty; a bare mattress, a chair, ...
— A Son of Hagar - A Romance of Our Time • Sir Hall Caine

... we started with a bedding and a Hookah and a pack of cards and a big lamp. We made the bed (a mattress and a sheet) on a platform on the bank. There were six steps, with risers about 9" each, leading from the platform to the water. Thus we were about 41/2 feet from the water level; and from this coign of vantage we could command a full view of the ...
— Indian Ghost Stories - Second Edition • S. Mukerji

... him put up-stairs, sir," said the warden, humbly. "We didn't know when he came in as it was a case for the infirmary; but seeing he was wanted for a big thing, and poorly in his 'ealth, I giv' him one of the superior cells, with a mattress and piller complete." ...
— The Danvers Jewels, and Sir Charles Danvers • Mary Cholmondeley

... songs, as you please. Yes, in Egypt I suffered from fever something like typhus. They left me for dead, as after a battle, in the most wretched and frightful of native villages. No doctors, who might, perhaps, have cured me, not a bed, not even a mattress. My servants, believing me past hope, abandoned me—or rather, for I prefer your Parisian word—cast me adrift—there is no other expression. There I was, stretched out on a heap of damp ...
— His Excellency the Minister • Jules Claretie

... the Virginia Springs for his health. The place was crowded with people, but he secured "a mattress in the hut of a very honest baker" whom he knew. The baker did a large business, and every day Mr. Johnson noticed that many poor negroes came for loaves, and took them away ...
— From Farm House to the White House • William M. Thayer

... make up the bed in the boarder's room. Turn the mattress, mind! An' stretch the sheets good an' smooth, like I learned you to do. Francie, you get the hot-water bottle, quick, so's I can fill it! Sammy, you go down to the cellar, an' tell Mr. Snyder your mother will be much obliged if ...
— Martha By-the-Day • Julie M. Lippmann

... house. The bed was made by putting a post in the ground and nailing two pieces of wood to the wall from this post, then by putting in a floor, making something like a box to hold the bedding. The children slept in a similarly constructed place, except that the mattress was on the ground and was filled with straw. Our bedding, for the most part, was what wearing apparel we possessed thrown over us at night. Outside the house was a long bench, which was kept ...
— Tuskegee & Its People: Their Ideals and Achievements • Various

... milk, poured off the creamy top into a pitcher, stirred it, and quietly insisted that she drink two glasses. Lorraine observed that Swan himself ate very little, bolting down a biscuit in great mouthfuls while he carried a mattress and blankets out to spread in the wagon. It was like his pretense of weariness on the long carry down the canyon, she thought. It was for her more than for himself that ...
— The Quirt • B.M. Bower

... hustle and find some sort of browse to make beds out of," Jack told them, "and the thicker it is for a mattress the better, because it causes a certain amount of warmth, and keeps the dampness ...
— Boy Scouts on Hudson Bay - The Disappearing Fleet • G. Harvey Ralphson

... long dark night, filled with shapeless images, Esther woke at last. She believed herself in her comfortable bed at the Villa Firenze, and for a brief moment she wondered at the hardness of the mattress beneath her. Next she was aware that her head throbbed dully and that her mouth felt dry and harsh. She swallowed several times. Was she ill? Had anything happened? Then followed the discovery that she was fully dressed, even to her coat and shoes. How could that be? ...
— Juggernaut • Alice Campbell

... George," she said, "to have to make you go to bed, but it's the only thing we can do. You'll find your bed feels a lot better since I took the horse collar and the pair of rubber boots out from under the mattress. That's a poor place to keep things. Good-night now—don't ...
— The Black Creek Stopping-House • Nellie McClung

... perfection the pale blue tint of his round, innocent face under its corona of golden curls; and though the eyes were closed, and the lips pressed tightly together, he still seemed to be smiling in his old quiet, but joyous, way. In general, the tall, thin figure on the mattress of dark felt, with its bare legs, and its slender hands and wrists folded across the breast, reminded me less of an angel than of a certain image of the Holy Child with which a blackened old ikon had rendered me ...
— Through Russia • Maxim Gorky

... me to the poorest quarter of the city and to a garret in one of the wretchedest houses in the street. There he lay, without anyone to nurse him, on a mattress on the floor. What his malady was, you will not ask to know. I will only say that any man but a doctor would have run out of the room, the moment he entered it. To save the poor creature was impossible. For a few days longer, I could keep pain in subjection, and could make death easy ...
— Heart and Science - A Story of the Present Time • Wilkie Collins

... Macklin had gone home with the minister's son. Alec had had many invitations, but he refused them all. With a morbid feeling that because his carelessness caused the fire he ought to do penance and not allow himself to be comfortable, he pulled a pillow and a mattress from the pile of goods into the empty room adjoining, and threw himself ...
— Flip's "Islands of Providence" • Annie Fellows Johnston

... his bunk mattress wasn't as soft as Ma's eiderdown comforts. He liked everything—until the sergeant had cussed at him ...
— Sonny • Rick Raphael

... paid more attention to the first—maybe they know more about it; the law finds greater employment on the whole in respect to the latter. For me, I admit that it was not till I found myself stretched on a mattress in the kitchen, with the idea of getting a few hours' sleep, that it struck me that Constantine's wife deserved a share of my concern and care. Her grievance against him was at least as great as Euphrosyne's; her peril was far greater. ...
— McClure's Magazine, Vol. VI., No. 6, May, 1896 • Various

... three rough wooden planks, void of all covering and mattress, and raised a few inches above the floor. The other appointments were exceedingly meagre, consisting of a small jug and basin as well as a small sanitary pan. High on the wall was a broken shelf. That was all. The wall itself was about two feet in ...
— Sixteen Months in Four German Prisons - Wesel, Sennelager, Klingelputz, Ruhleben • Henry Charles Mahoney

... had left I took a stroll outside, for as yet I felt no inclination to go to bed, notwithstanding that a bishop had slept upon the same mattress that was waiting for me. Keeping within the convent bounds, where no woman is allowed to set her foot—that troublesome foot whose imprint may be found on most of the paths that lead to a Trappist monastery in the ...
— Two Summers in Guyenne • Edward Harrison Barker

... paper from her silken girdle. With one hand she held the armlet, and with the other she took the knife and lightly passed it around the bottom of the ring. Black blood gushed forth and ran over mattress and bed. But young Kung was so enchanted by the presence of the beautiful Giauna that not only did he feel no pain, but his one fear was that the whole affair might end too soon, and that she would disappear from his sight. In ...
— The Chinese Fairy Book • Various

... completely happy, and I may say that the few hours I spent in her family were like a bright gleam of sunshine darting through the gloom that had long surrounded me. After our supper, which was bread and broth made from the mutton that was boiled for dinner, Mrs. Williams spread a small mattress upon the ground, which, with two blankets and a pillow, made me a very good bed. She then, from her daughters' clothes, picked me out two pretty good chemises, a flannel petticoat, and an old stuff-frock, which still was a very ...
— Forgotten Tales of Long Ago • E. V. Lucas

... since the grandest of Grand Old Parties went out of power has Dove looked less as though he felt the world were on the verge of an abyss. For several moments revolution and anarchy receded, profiteers were tamed, capital and labour purred together on a mattress of catnip, and the cosmos became a free verse poem. He did not even utter the customary and ungracious remark of those to whom cider potations are given: "That'll be at its best in about a week." We apologized for the cider being ...
— Pipefuls • Christopher Morley

... November evening. The whole house was new, varnished, and hard. My bedroom was small. A piece of new ingrain carpet covered part of the hard varnished floor. Four hard walls and a ceiling, deadly white, surrounded me. The hard varnished bedstead (the mattress felt as if it were varnished) nearly filled the little room. Two stiff chairs, and a yellow window-shade which looked as if it were made of varnished wood, glittered in the feeble light of a glass lamp, while the ghastly grayish pallor ...
— A Bicycle of Cathay • Frank R. Stockton

... refinements of modern society, luxury has not enervated his mind or his manners. His dress, his equipage, his habits, all partake of the same indifference to effect—all have a cast of the hardy self-denial of the camp. A mattress bed, constant horse exercise, rising with the lark, not unfrequently remaining up twenty hours out of the twenty-four, and the daily use of cold shower baths, winter and summer,—these contradictions to the usual habits of men, when their age approaches to fourscore, ...
— Maxims And Opinions Of Field-Marshal His Grace The Duke Of Wellington, Selected From His Writings And Speeches During A Public Life Of More Than Half A Century • Arthur Wellesley, Duke of Wellington

... roused passions of the riffraff had assuaged themselves by loot and outrage in the remoter streets, in the darkest dungeon of the Nona Tower, on a piece of rotten mattress, huddled in his dripping tinselled cloak, and bleeding from a dozen cuts, Joseph the Dreamer lay prostrate, too exhausted from the fierce struggle with his captors to think on the stake ...
— Dreamers of the Ghetto • I. Zangwill

... account of our late politics; and where they go, I accompany them. I merely remained till now to settle some arrangements about my daughter, and to give time for my furniture, &c. to precede me. I have not here a seat or a bed hardly, except some jury chairs, and tables, and a mattress ...
— Life of Lord Byron, With His Letters And Journals, Vol. 5 (of 6) • (Lord Byron) George Gordon Byron

... tactics changed; it seemed to have shifted its habitation; to be rising and rising, to be entangled with her collar-bone and struggling in her throat. Then it sank suddenly and lay like a lump of lead, dragging her down through the mattress, and through the bedstead, and through the floor, down to the bottom of all things. Miss Quincey did not mind much; she had been so unhappy. And then it gave an alarming double-knock at her ribs, and Miss Quincey came to life again ...
— Superseded • May Sinclair

... clothes upon. The sea, too, had risen, the vessel was rolling heavily, and everything was pitched about in grand confusion. There was a complete "hurrah's nest," as the sailors say, "everything on top and nothing at hand." A large hawser had been coiled away upon my chest; my hats, boots, mattress and blankets had all fetched away and gone over to leeward, and were jammed and broken under the boxes and coils of rigging. To crown all, we were allowed no light to find anything with, and I was just beginning to feel strong ...
— Two Years Before the Mast • Richard Henry Dana

... the motor froze and burst. This was a more serious accident, but it was temporarily repaired while Grenfell bivouaced ashore, sleeping at night under the stars with a bed of juniper boughs for a mattress and an open fire to ...
— The Story of Grenfell of the Labrador - A Boy's Life of Wilfred T. Grenfell • Dillon Wallace

... room stood an iron camp-bed without curtains. There, on a worn mattress, lay King Friedrich, the terror of Europe, without coverlet, in an old blue roquelaure. He had a big cocked-hat, with a white feather [hat aged, worn soft as duffel, equal to most caps; "feather" is not perpendicular, but horizontal, round the inside of the ...
— History of Friedrich II. of Prussia, Vol. XXI. (of XXI.) • Thomas Carlyle

... torpedo. With a sigh of relief he straightened them and folding the sheets into two small but bulky packages, put them into his pockets. Evidently the apartment had been thoroughly ransacked by Takakika. Drawers were opened, bags turned inside out, the bed torn apart, and the mattress ripped. But where was the control? Armitage felt about the Jap's clothing and then feverishly began going over the line of search pursued by the spy. So engrossed had he been in the struggle with Takakika that he had forgotten ...
— Prince or Chauffeur? - A Story of Newport • Lawrence Perry

... days, and she was apprehensive of being turned out, unless she could collect sufficient money to pay him. She knew not where to find the means. The room was stripped bare of furniture to supply the calls of nature; nothing but a mattress in one corner of the apartment, and a few cooking utensils remained. She labored day and night, to procure work, but all her efforts were unavailing. It appeared to her as if the Almighty had forsaken herself and children, and had left ...
— The Trials of the Soldier's Wife - A Tale of the Second American Revolution • Alex St. Clair Abrams

... set there is enough for the ends to lap over and make a roof for the head, and also for the feet. Then I wrap myself in my two blankets, and if an oatsack is obtainable, first get my feet into that. My waterproof sheet serves as counterpane. It is not wanted as a mattress, as no dew falls till the morning, and the ground is dry at bed-time. After rain, of course, it has to go beneath one. The great point is to keep your blankets as dry as you can, for, once wet with dew or rain, they remain wet, since we both start and arrive in the dark, ...
— In the Ranks of the C.I.V. • Erskine Childers

... how scared we both were that somebody might break into the room and steal it and how we used to hide it under the mattress every night and take it out again when ...
— Bought and Paid For - From the Play of George Broadhurst • Arthur Hornblow

... ane may sleep as if they were in a down-bed, till they hear the lavrock singing up in the air as high as the Castle; whereas, and behold, these London kirkyards are causeyed with through-stanes, panged hard and fast thegither; and my cloak being something threadbare, made but a thin mattress, so I was fain to give up my bed before every limb about me was crippled. Dead folks may sleep yonder sound enow, but ...
— The Fortunes of Nigel • Sir Walter Scott

... printed cotton, quilted like a petticoat, trimmed with a cotton ruche, and tied beneath the chin by strings which were always a little rusty. She wore a cotillon, or short skirt of coarse cloth, over a quilted petticoat (a positive mattress, in which were secreted double louis-d'ors), and pockets sewn to a belt which she unfastened every night and put on every morning like a garment. Her body was encased in the casaquin of Brittany, a species of spencer made of the same cloth as the cotillon, ...
— Beatrix • Honore de Balzac

... in the chateaux, and unroll our sleeping-bags upon its dusty parquet. Occasionally we find a bed available. Then two officers take the mattress, upon the floor, and two more take what is left of the bed. French chateaux do not appear to differ much as a class. They are distinguished by great elegance of design, infinite variety in furniture, and entire absence of drains. The same rule applies to convents, except that there ...
— The First Hundred Thousand • Ian Hay

... with berths, mere shallow trays, each containing a straw mattress and pillow and two coloured blankets. They were in three tiers, one above the other, and were arranged in lines three deep, with a narrow passage between. He saw by the number into which bags and packets had been thrown ...
— In The Heart Of The Rockies • G. A. Henty

... appearance of Mother Jael, and a few words from her, sent the whole gang back to their idling and working; while Baltic, quite undisturbed, dropped on all fours and crawled into the black tent, at the tail of the hag. She croaked out a welcome to her visitor, and squatting on a tumbled mattress, leered at him like a foul old toad. Baltic sat down near the opening of the tent, so as to get as much fresh air as possible, and also to watch Mother Jael's face by the glimmer of light which crept in. Spreading his handsome handkerchief on his ...
— The Bishop's Secret • Fergus Hume

... fir were brought from the woods and strewn in the bunks under the blankets. That night the boys turned in early and slept like the dead. Even Percy could find little fault with his pillow and mattress of ...
— Jim Spurling, Fisherman - or Making Good • Albert Walter Tolman

... his shells were flying all around us. The cookhouse was only about 20 yards off and I wondered if Scotty would now loosen up a bit, and I stepped over leaving Lawrence in charge of the gun. The cook had crawled under his bunk, which was merely a slight wire mattress raised a couple of feet off the floor. There was a dixie of hot tea standing near and I started to help myself to a drink. He saw what I was doing and with chattering teeth told me he would report me in the morning. He had scarcely ...
— S.O.S. Stand to! • Reginald Grant

... and steaming cups of milk or broth, alternating with intervals of profound slumber. Through it all, waking or sleeping, ran a thread of wearisome pain—limbs so stiff and flesh so bruised that it seemed to Ann as though the wontedly comfortable mattress on which she lay had been stuffed with lumps ...
— The Vision of Desire • Margaret Pedler

... here is something," and Willy followed her through a long passage into a room, lighted only by the rays that found entrance through a broken shutter. "Only see this," she continued, laying her hand on a crib burdened with a small mattress and pillow; "here too," and she pointed to a little child's hat that hung over it, from which drooped three small ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... light but strong structure, framed of bamboos and covered with vicuna cloth, so arranged that it could be completely closed—was carried right into the tent, the covering thrown back, and Escombe was lifted, on his mattress and still covered with the bedclothes, off the little iron camp bedstead and carefully placed in the litter, the jewel was replaced about his neck, the pillow under his head was comfortably arranged by Arima, the litter was closed, and then a little procession, consisting of the litter and its ...
— Harry Escombe - A Tale of Adventure in Peru • Harry Collingwood

... agonized spasms brought howls of mirth from the black fellows. Negro women were in the crowd, grinning, a little frightened, but curious. Some were in Mother-Hubbards; one had her hair half combed, one side in a kinky mattress, the other lying flat and ...
— Birthright - A Novel • T.S. Stribling

... of curious arms, flanked on either side by files of single-sticks. The centre of the room was left clear for the fencing; while the lower end was occupied by the parallel bars, a regiment of Indian clubs, and a mattress apparatus for the delectation ...
— The Adventures of Mr. Verdant Green • Cuthbert Bede

... it was near the presence chamber of the King. So the Vizier alighted and walked on till he came to a lofty hall, at the upper end whereof stood a couch of alabaster, set with pearls end jewels and having four elephants' tusks for feet. It was covered with a mattress of green satin, embroidered with red gold, and surmounted by a canopy adorned with pearls and jewels, and on it sat King Zehr Shah, whilst his officers of state stood in attendance on him. When the Vizier ...
— The Book Of The Thousand Nights And One Night, Volume II • Anonymous

... the absolute physical inability to hold the needle another minute. Cases have occurred in which these helpless creatures did not undress during nine consecutive days and nights, and could only rest a moment or two here and there upon a mattress, where food was served them ready cut up in order to require the least possible time for swallowing. In short, these unfortunate girls are kept by means of the moral whip of the modern slave-driver, the threat of discharge, to such long and unbroken toil as no strong man, ...
— The Condition of the Working-Class in England in 1844 - with a Preface written in 1892 • Frederick Engels

... a little cut-off place to himself. Many in the ward yet lay on the floor, on a blanket as he had done that first morning. In the afternoon of that day a wide bench had been brought into his corner, a thin flock mattress laid upon it, and he himself lifted from the floor. He had protested that others needed a bed much more, that he was used to lying on the earth—but Christianna had been firm. He wondered why she did ...
— The Long Roll • Mary Johnston

... once to his room Billy withdrew his tools from their hiding place beneath the mattress, and a moment later was busily engaged in boring holes through the floor at the foot of his bed. For an hour he worked, cautiously and quietly, until he had a rough circle of holes enclosing a space about two feet ...
— The Mucker • Edgar Rice Burroughs

... because hunger will not wait, reads every report himself, and passes days and nights at it;"[3238] Jean Bon, in wooden shoes and woolen vest, with a bit of coarse bread and a glass of bad beer,[3239] writes and dictates until his strength fails him, and he has to lie down and sleep on a mattress on the floor.—Naturally, again, when interfered with, and the tools in their hands are broken, they are dissatisfied; they know well the worth of a good instrument, and for the service, as they comprehend it, good tools are essential, competent, faithful ...
— The Origins of Contemporary France, Volume 4 (of 6) - The French Revolution, Volume 3 (of 3) • Hippolyte A. Taine

... bed for the boy camper is made as follows: Take a piece of heavy bed ticking and sew it into a bag about three feet by six feet. When you reach camp you can make a regular mattress by filling it with whatever material is most easily found. Dry leaves? grass, hay, even moss or wet filler can be used if nothing dry can be found, but in this case the rubber blanket will be an absolute necessity. Of course it is much ...
— Outdoor Sports and Games • Claude H. Miller

... and musty, but here the soft night breeze was drifting in. On a table, in odd conjunction, stood the remains of a meal, a roll of bandages, and a half-burned candle; and finally, against the wall lay a bed of a sort, a mattress ...
— The Firefly Of France • Marion Polk Angellotti

... thereby nearly scaring the hired man into a fit. Ness ran out of the room in his night dress and raised such a yell that he aroused everybody in the house. He got his shotgun and blazed away at the supposed snake, thereby ruining a blanket, two sheets, and filling the mattress with shot. When he found out how he had been hoaxed he was the most foolish looking man ...
— The Rover Boys on Treasure Isle - or The Strange Cruise of the Steam Yacht. • Edward Stratemeyer (AKA Arthur M. Winfield)

... return to Batignolles so late, and a mattress was laid on the floor in the shop near the table. She slept there amid the debris of the feast, and a neighbor's cat profited by an open window to establish herself by her side, where she crunched the bones of the goose all night between her fine, ...
— L'Assommoir • Emile Zola

... seat. On this Jan sank, for the vision of Tony pointing majestically down the drive while little Hannah staggered into the distance under a rolled-up mattress, was ...
— Jan and Her Job • L. Allen Harker

... engineer took me below to arrange for my comfort, and as it was obviously impossible for me to sleep in a very dirty and very small hole, tenanted by cockroaches disproportionately large, and with a temperature of eighty-eight degrees, he took a mattress and pillows upon the bridge, told me his history, and that of his colored wife and sixteen children under seventeen, of his pay of 35 pounds a month, lent me a box of matches, and vanished into the lower regions with ...
— The Golden Chersonese and the Way Thither • Isabella L. Bird (Mrs. Bishop)

... noise like a clatter of old iron was heard on the Place; it was the "Hirondelle" coming in, and he remained with his forehead against the windowpane, watching all the passengers get out, one after the other. Felicite put down a mattress for him in the drawing-room. He threw himself upon ...
— Madame Bovary • Gustave Flaubert

... a double bed is its tendency to sag. This tendency can be obviated however by placing an ironing board under the spring from side to side, or by using shelves from a book case. This expedient will support the mattress, thereby rendering the bed firm and free from any sagging tendency. The position of the bed in the room should be such that the patient will not directly face the window light, nor be in a direct draught between the window and the ...
— The Eugenic Marriage, Volume I. (of IV.) - A Personal Guide to the New Science of Better Living and Better Babies • W. Grant Hague, M.D.

... there was a wide couch, piled high with a narrow mattress of wild goose feathers and covered with a crimson blanket. Here the girl sat with her arms on the sill and looked out into the darkness that covered the Valley. She thought of the thirty men who had signed her paper, riding ...
— Tharon of Lost Valley • Vingie E. Roe

... let large sticks go into the bed: only put in the smaller twigs and leaves. Try your bed before you "turn in," and see if it is comfortable. In a permanent camp you ought to take time enough to keep the bed soft; and I like best for this purpose to carry a mattress when I can, or to take a sack and fill it with straw, shavings, boughs, or what not. This makes a much better bed, and can be taken out daily to the air and sun. By this I avoid the clutter there always is inside a tent ...
— How to Camp Out • John M. Gould

... and pack up the cleaner when another idea seemed to occur to him. "Might as well make a thorough job of it, Walter," he said, adjusting the apparatus again. "I've cleaned everything but the mattress and the brass bars behind the mattress on the bed. Now I'll tackle them. I think we ought to go into the suction-cleaning business—more money in it than in being a ...
— The Silent Bullet • Arthur B. Reeve

... contained the marriage chest with its store of linen, and also the bed. This bed recurs eternally in mediaeval tales. It was used as a seat during the day, and as a resting-place of nights. It was a magnificent erection, carved and gilded, and inlaid with ivory. Upon it was placed a mattress of feathers, and a soft pillow. The sheets were of linen or silk, and over all was spread a coverlet of some precious material. An excellent description of such a couch is given in "The Lay of Gugemar." This chamber served also as a bath ...
— French Mediaeval Romances from the Lays of Marie de France • Marie de France

... nurseries, and how comparatively few bedstead-makers are acquainted with them. The result would probably have been very different had a patent been taken out for them, and had they been largely advertised as 'Dr. West's improved children's bedsteads'! The uninclosed spring mattress, and the wedge-shaped horsehair cushion, both of which I introduced in Ormond Street, are also very valuable. The latter slightly raises the head and shoulders, and renders any other than a thin horsehair pillow for the head to ...
— The Mother's Manual of Children's Diseases • Charles West, M.D.

... process. He sought out Scott more often, had him in his room, taught him to fill a pipe and smoke it after the fashion of a gentleman, dropped into his ears specious hints regarding manners, and about the efficiency of one's mattress as frugal substitute for a tailor's pressboard. To be sure, upon that latter count Scott took him with unforeseen literalness; and, in his zeal to carry out his teacher's dictum, subjected his coat to the mattress treatment, ...
— The Brentons • Anna Chapin Ray

... you, you die. You want to live right. Now listen to me; I got the best brass bed ever a king slept on. Double thickness, heavy brass bed, looks like solid gold. Springs that would hold the schooner, double-thick mattress, sheets and pillows all embroidered like it belonged to a duchess. Fellow was going to be married that I brought it for, but now he's lying up there in Calvary in a bed they dug for him. I'll let you have it cheap—three hundred francs. It's worth ...
— White Shadows in the South Seas • Frederick O'Brien

... sleeping sister; then he went out. He put out his candle in the gray dusk, took a last look at the old house, stole softly along the passage, and opened the street door; but in spite of his caution, he awakened Kolb, who slept on a mattress on the workshop floor. ...
— Eve and David • Honore de Balzac

... sense you don't stand back and examine the pictures of a pink Moses in a nest of purple bullrushes, or complain because the bureau does not harmonize with the wall paper. Neither do you criticize the blue and saffron roses that form the rug pattern. 'Deedy not! Instead you warily punch the mattress to see if it is rock-stuffed, and you snoop into the clothes closet; you inquire the distance to the nearest bath room, and whether the payments are weekly or monthly, and if there is a baby in the room next door. Oh, there's nothing like living ...
— Dawn O'Hara, The Girl Who Laughed • Edna Ferber

... much skill required, as no shape was necessary; but they answered the purpose, and were afterwards hung up in his stable to the great delight of the younger visitants to the Jardin, who often went expressly to see the elephant's boots. When he and his guide stopped for the night, a mattress used to be thrown down on the floor for the latter; but, after a few nights, the elephant discovered how comfortable it was, and under pretense of sharing the accommodation, at length nightly pushed Auguste off, and stretched his own ...
— Anecdotes of the Habits and Instinct of Animals • R. Lee

... answered. "Say, Speed, I just bought myself a bedstead. How much would it cost me for a mattress and ...
— Abe Lincoln Gets His Chance • Frances Cavanah

... beds, was not the whole floor before them? and, observes the Journal: 'Now I see the advantage of having brought planks from New Zealand to make a floor. We all had something level to lie on at night, and when you are tired enough, a good smooth plank or a box does just as well as a mattress.' ...
— Life of John Coleridge Patteson • Charlotte M. Yonge

... towards six o'clock in the evening, and came to pay him a visit, accompanied by the Countess of Argyll and the Countess of Huntly. While she was there, Durham, in preparing his bed, set fire to his palliasse, which was burned as well as a part of the mattress; so that, having thrown them out of the window all in flames, for fear lest the fire should reach the rest of the furniture, he found himself without a bed, and asked permission to return to the town to sleep; but Darnley, ...
— CELEBRATED CRIMES, COMPLETE - MARY STUART—1587 • ALEXANDRE DUMAS, PERE

... and are, in a measure, occasioned by the pressure of the womb on the parts below, causing irritation. The best way, therefore, to obviate such pressure is for the patient to lie down a great part of each day either on a bed or a sofa. She ought to retire early to rest: she should sleep on a hair mattress and in a well ventilated apartment, and should not overload her bed with clothes. A thick, heavy quilt at these times, and indeed at all times, is particularly objectionable; the perspiration cannot pass readily through it as through blankets, and thus she is weakened. She ...
— Searchlights on Health - The Science of Eugenics • B. G. Jefferis and J. L. Nichols

... Pencroft, was placed in the lift, and only a slight moan now and then escaped his lips. He was gently drawn up to Granite House. There he was laid on a mattress taken from one of the beds, and his wounds were bathed with the greatest care. It did not appear that any vital part had been reached, but Jup was very weak from loss of blood, and a high fever soon set in after ...
— The Mysterious Island • Jules Verne

... however, not keep himself from hinting that Oileymead was a substantial home, and that Bellfield had not as much as a straw mattress to lie upon. In answer to this Mrs Greenow told him that there was so much more reason why some one should provide the poor man with a mattress. "If you look at it in that light, of course it's true," said Cheesacre. Mrs Greenow told him that ...
— Can You Forgive Her? • Anthony Trollope

... recount a tithe of its other uses? Of course, the nude man under the coconut tree knows nothing of all this. He does without a mattress, and has no use for a door mat. But he cannot do without cordage, and if you took from him his coconut fibre, life would almost stop. Wherewith would he bind the rafters of his hut to the beams, or tether the cow, or let down the bucket into the well? What ...
— Concerning Animals and Other Matters • E.H. Aitken, (AKA Edward Hamilton)

... His furniture consisted almost entirely of beds, chests and benches, with few tables except such as were needed for eating. Beds were supported by boards laid on trestles, raised very high above the floor to be beyond the reach of rats, mice and other creatures. The lower mattress was filled with the dried leaves of the maize, and the upper one contained wool, with which the pillows also were stuffed. The floors of dwelling rooms were generally either paved with bricks or made of a sort of cement, composed of lime, sand and ...
— Ave Roma Immortalis, Vol. 1 - Studies from the Chronicles of Rome • Francis Marion Crawford

... this, Madam Isabel took me away with her into an other chamber, where she gave me a cup of red wine and some cakes, that were not ill to take. And in this chamber were great cushions spread all about the floor, like unto the mattress of a bed; the cushions of velvet and verder [a species of tapestry], and the floor of marble. Upon these she desired me to repose me for a season; and (saith she) 'At seven of the clock, mine excellent cousin Don Jeronymo and my lord Don Diego, and I ...
— Robin Tremain - A Story of the Marian Persecution • Emily Sarah Holt

... acquainted with the particulars of the discipline and economy practised on board. He then demanded of the boatswain a hammock for me, which was slung in a very neat manner by my friend Jack Rattlin; and, as I had no bed-clothes, procured credit for me with the purser, for a mattress and two blankets. At seven o'clock in the evening Morgan visited the sick, and, having ordered what was proper for each, I assisted Thompson in making up his prescriptions: but when I followed him with the medicines into the sick berth, or hospital, and observed ...
— The Adventures of Roderick Random • Tobias Smollett

... boat came alongside with a message from papa, desiring us to go back in her. We jumped in at once, and were quickly on board. Papa had gone below to change his wet clothes, when we found that Jack had been placed on a mattress on deck, wrapped up in a blanket. Uncle Tom was kneeling by his side, exposing his face and chest to the breeze, while one of the men stood by with a lantern. Jack was as pale as death—indeed, as we watched him with intense grief, ...
— A Yacht Voyage Round England • W.H.G. Kingston

... the small, elevated platform on which I found myself when I revived, stretched on a slender mattress by the side of my feeble widow and her moaning child, were rows of barrels, firmly fastened by cleats, so as insure, to some degree, not only the preservation of our food and water, but to form a sort ...
— Miriam Monfort - A Novel • Catherine A. Warfield

... herself in front of the fire and ate—ravenously— some food which had been left on a side-table, and then lay down in a corner of the refectory, falling into the deepest sleep as soon as her head had touched the mattress. She did not wake next morning, though fifty-five people made a clatter at the breakfast-table, and at four in the afternoon she was still sleeping, like a sick child, with her head ...
— The Soul of the War • Philip Gibbs

... have made "no end of talk." And she was not sure but that her parents would have demanded its custody! And it was given to HER by HIM to keep. This settled the question of moral ethics. She took the first opportunity to run up to her bedroom and hide it under the mattress. ...
— Openings in the Old Trail • Bret Harte

... cloth of flax and tow, made in America of cotton, in checks or plaids, and used for furniture covering and mattress making. The town of Osnaburg, in Germany, ...
— Textiles • William H. Dooley

... as before. Six women were sitting in the middle of the floor teasing out an old hair mattress. There was the same odor of cooking, early as it was, and the same medley of noises, but the people were different. The basket-making cripple was gone, and in his place by the window sat a big Irish beggar-woman, ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XXVI., December, 1880. • Various

... in water or sky I took great pains to look at it well. When an angry little squall of wind came ruffling over the sunny waves in sweeping bands of deep, soft blues, I gazed and gazed at its wonder as though I could never have enough. And so gazing I spied floating there a sodden old mattress, a fleet of tin cans. And I said that it seemed an unhealthy thing to dump all our refuse so close ...
— The Harbor • Ernest Poole

... never so much by a greater number. One glass of a fragrant wine, the colour of honey, and unmixed with water, crowned the repast. Ser Francesco then went into his own chamber, and found, on his ample mattress, a cool, refreshing sleep, quite sufficient to remove all the fatigues of the morning; and Ser Giovanni lowered the pillow against which he had seated himself, and fell into his usual repose. Their separation was not of long continuance: and, the religious duties of the Sabbath having been ...
— Imaginary Conversations and Poems - A Selection • Walter Savage Landor

... it out, Jane—clean it all out—anything, anything,—" but she was gone. He took the tract which she had left on his table and carefully tore it in four pieces, and hid them under the mattress. Then he went to sleep. The professor was in distinctly ...
— A Williams Anthology - A Collection of the Verse and Prose of Williams College, 1798-1910 • Compiled by Edwin Partridge Lehman and Julian Park

... then I again took her hand and sat looking at the room, all brown and gray, at the bed with its simple chintz curtains, at the toilet table draped in a fashion now discarded, at the commonplace sofa with its quilted mattress. What poetry I could read in that room! What renunciations of luxury for herself; the only luxury being its spotless cleanliness. Sacred cell of a married nun, filled with holy resignation; its sole adornments were the crucifix of her bed, and above ...
— The Lily of the Valley • Honore de Balzac

... applied. Moreover, as if to complete the interesting picture of a native prince's rule, on the road is encountered a gayly dressed party in charge of some youthful big-wig on a monster elephant. A thick, striped mattress makes a soft platform on the elephant's broad back, and here the young voluptuary squats as naturally as on the floor of his room. Some of the attendants are dancing along before him, noisily knuckling tambourines ...
— Around the World on a Bicycle Volume II. - From Teheran To Yokohama • Thomas Stevens

... calling to him to bring out his gold. 'You ain't poor, you know, Charley, as you pretend. Bring out your gold. Bring out some of the gold you sold yourself to the devil for. Come! It's in the lining of the mattress, Charley. Rip it open and let's have some!' This, and many offers to lend him a knife for the purpose, exasperated him to such a degree, that the whole day was a succession of rushes on his part, and ...
— David Copperfield • Charles Dickens



Words linked to "Mattress" :   palliasse, pallet, futon, air mattress, feather bed, paillasse, spring mattress, mattress pad, bed, featherbed, tick, pad



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