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Mammy   Listen
noun
mammy  n.  (pl. mammies)  A child's name for mamma, mother.






Collaborative International Dictionary of English 0.48








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"Mammy" Quotes from Famous Books



... as the foregoing, that they made little impression upon his mind. The boys, who all slept in one chamber, soon retired for the night; but Oscar took no further notice of the occurrences of the evening, except to apply the nickname of "mammy's little tell-tale" to George—a title of contempt by which he ...
— Oscar - The Boy Who Had His Own Way • Walter Aimwell

... "Let me put you to bed; Mammy taught me the art of soothing frayed nerves. Come with us, Babs," holding out her left hand to Barbara. But the latter, with a dexterous twist, slipped ...
— The Red Seal • Natalie Sumner Lincoln

... particular attention that should be called to the character of the negress, ANNIE, who is the servant of LAURA, is the fact that she must not in any way represent the traditional smiling coloured girl or "mammy" of the South. She is the cunning, crafty, heartless, surly, sullen Northern negress, who, to the number of thousands, are servants of women of easy morals, and who infest a district of New York in which white and black people ...
— The Easiest Way - Representative Plays by American Dramatists: 1856-1911 • Eugene Walter

... Jove!" whispered St. Leger Smith. "What a knowing set out!" squeaked Johnson secundus. "Mammy-sick!" growled Barlow primus. This last exclamation was, however, a scandalous libel, for certainly no being ever stood in a pedagogue's presence with more perfect sang froid, and with a bolder front, than did, at ...
— Vivian Grey • The Earl of Beaconsfield

... dinner, too," his wife declared, "just like old Mammy Diane used to cook. You couldn't tell it from hers if you'd ever ...
— Winning the Wilderness • Margaret Hill McCarter

... at dese days. Old Miss, she been name Matt Ross. I wish somebody could call up how long de slaves been freed cause den dey could call up my age fast as I could bat my eyes. Say, when de emancipation was, I been six years old, so my mammy tell me. Don' know what to say dat is, but I reckon it been ...
— Slave Narratives Vol. XIV. South Carolina, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... mother because she brought fine children. I think she said they had a regular stock man. She and Aunt Polly was sold several times and together till freedom. When they got off the boat they had to walk a right smart ways and grandma's feet cracked open and bled. 'Black Mammy' wrapped her feet up in rags and greased them with hot tallow or mutton suet and told her not to cry no more, be a good girl and ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States from Interviews with Former Slaves, Arkansas Narratives, Part 4 • Works Projects Administration

... called the cooks, an' when I gave a whoop an' bolted for it he giggled like a big fat mammy. I had turned up the side of his nature 'at would be most useful to our business. I took a sip o' the coffee while he kept his eyes glued on me. "Come ...
— Happy Hawkins • Robert Alexander Wason

... "Ole Mammy's Torment" has been fitly called "a classic of Southern life." It relates the haps and mishaps of a small negro lad, and tells how he was led by love and kindness to a knowledge of ...
— Jerry's Reward • Evelyn Snead Barnett

... the nest that the Reverend Orme built by the sweat of his brow to harbor his little family, which, at the beginning of this history, consisted of himself; Ann Leighton, his wife; and Mammy, black as the ace of ...
— Through stained glass • George Agnew Chamberlain

... of seven, with long, loose flaxen hair, carrying a basket on her arm, comes running in, holding out a silver spoon to her mother.] Mammy, mammy! look what I've got! An' you're to buy me a ...
— The Dramatic Works of Gerhart Hauptmann - Volume I • Gerhart Hauptmann

... with you, honey?" she asked. "I'm only a-tellin' Mistah Fostah about some silly old signs my mammy used to believe in. But they don't mean ...
— The Little Colonel • Annie Fellows Johnston

... you got dinner fer yo' step-mammy afore you left, an' I jes' know you was aimin' to take a snack with me an' ole Hon." The little girl hesitated—she had no denial—and the ...
— The Trail of the Lonesome Pine • John Fox, Jr.

... he passed on his way from the vault of the old Custom House, used then as a prison, to the gallows. "Return, return to us!" she called in an agony of grief. As he walked on he replied, "If I can I will." It is said that his old negro mammy, to whom he was always "my chile," ran out to the gate with the playthings she had fondly cherished since the days when they were to him irresistible attractions, crying, "Come back! Come back!" To both calls his heart ...
— Literary Hearthstones of Dixie • La Salle Corbell Pickett

... over all their favourite tunes upon the flageolet till they had got them by heart. 'Come back again, Captain,' said one little sturdy fellow, 'and Jenny will be your wife.' Jenny was about eleven years old; she ran and hid herself behind her mammy. ...
— Guy Mannering, or The Astrologer, Complete, Illustrated • Sir Walter Scott

... suh. I year tell dat niggers ain' got no business fer go talkin' 'bout fambly doin's. Yit dar wuz yo' gran-mammy. My mistiss sot lots by her, en you been bornded right yer 'long wid um. I don't speck it'll be gwine so mighty fur out'n de fambly ef I tell ...
— Free Joe and Other Georgian Sketches • Joel Chandler Harris

... eyes faced him without a sign of embarrassment. "Aunt Basha's my old black mammy. Do you know her? All her name's longer'n that. I can say it." Then with careful, slow enunciation, ...
— The Militants - Stories of Some Parsons, Soldiers, and Other Fighters in the World • Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews

... other. Eh, old man?' Crib growled. He understood things regular like a Christian, that old dog did. 'And now you're a-goin' off and Jim's gone—seems only t'other day as you and he was little toddlin' chaps, runnin' to meet me when I come home from work, clearin' that fust paddock, and telling me mammy had the tea ready. Perhaps I'd better ha' stuck to the grubbin' and clearin' after all. It looked slow work, but it paid better than this here in the long run.' Father turns away from me then, and walks back a step or two. Then he faces me. 'Dash it, boy, what ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... mammy says," offered Ben Letts, "as how yer son Ezy asked Tessibel Skinner to marry him and as how she slicked him in the ...
— Tess of the Storm Country • Grace Miller White

... Annie; yes, so I would," said the Master soothingly. "So I would, if 'twill be any comfort to poor old Marcia,—clever old soul she is. She was my mammy, and I was always fond of her. She has trotted me on her knee, and toted me about on her back, many an hour. I must go down to the quarters this very day, and see if she has things comfortable. She's getting old, and we must ...
— Step by Step - or, Tidy's Way to Freedom • The American Tract Society

... sun-bonnet vigorously, and held up the baby Rose, that she might watch them to the last. Old Daddy Jim and Mammy had been detailed by Mr. Mayfield to keep an unsuspected watch on the little nestlings, and were to sleep at the house. Thus two days went by, when Daddy Jim and Mammy begged to be allowed to go to the quarters where the Negroes ...
— Children's Edition of Touching Incidents and Remarkable Answers to Prayer • S. B. Shaw

... tell," responded Batters. "It's just this way. Bug is big brother to me and Joe, only he's about six years older than us. You see when he was a little chap dad an' mammy lived down near Middlesex, an' Bug he got in bad company. When dad moved up to the Gap, Bug was toler'ble bad, an' since ...
— Canoe Boys and Campfires - Adventures on Winding Waters • William Murray Graydon

... the name of Polly assisted about the housework. She was considered one of the family, and always ate at the same table, according to the kindly custom of those primitive times. She always called her mistress "Mammy," and served her until the day of her death; a period of forty years. The children were much attached to this faithful domestic; but nevertheless, Isaac could not forbear playing tricks upon her whenever he had opportunity.—When ...
— Isaac T. Hopper • L. Maria Child

... Lak an ocean's overflow; When de worl' jes' stahts a-spinnin' Lak a picaninny's top, An' you' cup o' joy is brimmin' 'Twel it seems about to slop. An' you feel jes' lak a racah Dat is trainin' fu' to trot— When you' mammy ses de blessin' ...
— History of Negro Soldiers in the Spanish-American War, and Other Items of Interest • Edward A. Johnson

... fight, are you?" sneered the Dwarf. "I might tell you to hit one of your own weight, but I'm not afraid of six of you. Yah! mammy's brat! Look here, young Blinkers, I don't want to hurt you. Just turn old Dobbin's head, and trot back to your mammy, Queen Rosalind, at Pantouflia. ...
— Prince Ricardo of Pantouflia - being the adventures of Prince Prigio's son • Andrew Lang

... I've found many a padmark within six inches of the edge of things. I even baited with a live kid. It belonged to the Thibet goats and I had a hard time catching it; and after it had bleated all night and done its baby best to be tiger food I turned it loose and it ran off with its mammy. She, poor soul, had gone right into the trap to be with her baby and, owing to the direct intervention of Providence, hadn't sprung ...
— IT and Other Stories • Gouverneur Morris

... year, while the plantation crops of cotton, sugar, and rice were clear profit. Rows of white cabins were the homes of the colored citizens of the community. An infirmary stood apart for the sick. The old grandams cared for the children. Up yonder at the mansion house Black Mammy held sway in the nursery; Aunt Dinah was the cook; Aunt Rachel carried the housekeeper's keys; while Jane and Ann, the mulatto ladies' maids, flitted about on duty, and Jim and Jack "'tended on young marster and de gemman." Such hospitality ...
— Historic Papers on the Causes of the Civil War • Mrs. Eugenia Dunlap Potts

... what will make you two silly lads mind, and not run races again with a pitcher of milk between you,' said the minister, as if musing. 'I might flog you, and so save mammy the trouble; for I dare say she'll do it if I don't.' The fresh burst of whimpering from both showed ...
— Cousin Phillis • Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell

... the reply came in high falsetto, palpably tinged with that fine scorn of a healthy boy, for anything which does not exactly square with his young highness's ideas. "Come back to mammy, eh? Well, it's a pity she ever let him go away from her. Hope she'll keep him with her now. He don't seem to do well out of reach ...
— The Red Acorn • John McElroy

... muster up energy enough to do something more than lounge on sofas. Go on Sunday to Ludlow's. Ask some of your friends often to dine with you. There is a little boy right opposite my window who has something of the way of "mammy's treasure." Don't be jealous; not half so handsome. I have had him over to my room, and have already ...
— Memoirs of Aaron Burr, Complete • Matthew L. Davis

... many other big words and display various kinds of scientific devices for measuring sound waves and calculating vibrations, but when he has finished, all his science will not enable him to compose a touching melody, or feel the beauty and inspiration of it. A little child, or a negro mammy, with a soul for music, will feel and give out something, whose very essence has nothing to do with the intellect and which the most formidable ...
— Heart and Soul • Victor Mapes (AKA Maveric Post)

... shot through Virginia's heart. If she could not love, she could at least pity and help; and reaching forth her hand, she patted her mother on the knee. "Poor old mammy!" she said. "I'm going to ...
— Cavanaugh: Forest Ranger - A Romance of the Mountain West • Hamlin Garland

... Uncle Bud, missy. A little lady give me a watch onct. 'T wa'n't a big watch, but it was a big thing. 'Cause why? 'Cause that little lady was the first lady to give me a present in my life. I was raised up by men-folks. My mammy she wa'n't there long after I come. Reckon that's why I never was much of a hand with wimmin-folks. I wa'n't used to 'em. And I don't care how old and ornery a man is; the first time he gets a present from ...
— Jim Waring of Sonora-Town - Tang of Life • Knibbs, Henry Herbert

... and we danced after supper, and when we were beginning to feel just a wee bit tired, there suddenly appeared in our midst a colored woman—a real old-time black mammy—in a dress of faded, old-fashioned plaids, with kerchief, white apron, and a red-and-yellow turban tied around her head. We were dancing at the time she came in, but everyone stopped at once, completely ...
— Army Letters from an Officer's Wife, 1871-1888 • Frances M.A. Roe

... this was the poetry, and you see for yourself that there was no "shenanigan" in that letter; and if a fellow "went back" on that sort of a letter, he would strike his "mammy." And then the letter wound up with "May God shield and protect you, and prepare you for whatever is in store for you, is the sincere prayer of Jennie." You may be sure that I felt ...
— "Co. Aytch" - Maury Grays, First Tennessee Regiment - or, A Side Show of the Big Show • Sam R. Watkins

... seeing a great deal that was strange and funny. Only once, when a lad came into the waiting-room hopping on one leg, Pashka longed to hop too; he nudged his mother's elbow, giggled in his sleeve, and said: "Look, mammy, a sparrow." ...
— The Cook's Wedding and Other Stories • Anton Chekhov

... allow a stranger to go hungry, not even if they have to give him their last hunk of cornbread. So if ferrying didn't pay, all we'd have to do would be to land, walk up to the nearest house, and knock at the door. When the big mammy cook—they always have 'em in the books—came to the door, we'd just look at her and ...
— A Son of the City - A Story of Boy Life • Herman Gastrell Seely

... o' water in the holler o' the hand from a good spring for three mornin's before sunrise an' strong coffee with lemon juice will break the ager every time," said Mrs. Lukins. "My gran' mammy used to say it were better than all the doctors an' I've tried it an' ...
— A Man for the Ages - A Story of the Builders of Democracy • Irving Bacheller

... on her neck—grea' big swellin'. She heppin' mammy move in now. You look in de front-room winduh wheres she sweepin'; you ...
— Penrod • Booth Tarkington

... the negroes, including those already mentioned, the story of how the Terrapin outran the Deer, and the story of the discontented Rabbit, who asks his Creator to give him more sense. In the negro legend, it will be observed, the Rabbit seeks out Mammy-Bammy Big-Money, the old Witch-Rabbit. It may be mentioned here, that the various branches of the Algonkian family of Indians allude to the Great White Rabbit as their common ancestor.[i20] All inquiries among the negroes, as to the origin and ...
— Nights With Uncle Remus - Myths and Legends of the Old Plantation • Joel Chandler Harris

... "why I had not sense enough to suppress those awful little notes. It would have been so easy to lose them on the way home, but somehow it never occurred to me. Little Rose will be wiser than that; won't you, my angel? She will tear up the horrid notes—mammy ...
— What Katy Did Next • Susan Coolidge

... work, old man," said Watts, who would cheerfully have given his own triumph to his friend. "If you want success in anything, you've got to sacrifice other things and concentrate on the object. The Mention's really not worth the ink it's written with, in my case, but I knew it would please mammy and pappy, so I put on steam, and got it. If I'd hitched on a lot of freight cars loaded with stuff that wouldn't have told in Exams, I never could have ...
— The Honorable Peter Stirling and What People Thought of Him • Paul Leicester Ford

... neighbourhood, but with the same want of success. A most intolerable nuisance, amongst others, entailed upon the inhabitants was the beating of what, in military parlance, is called "the Daddy Mammy." This dreadful infliction upon light sleepers and invalids consisted of half a dozen boys at military daybreak (that is, as soon as you can see a white horse a mile off) learning to beat the drum. The ...
— Recollections of Old Liverpool • A Nonagenarian

... consciousness, she was at home again, in her own cabin and upon her own bed. The moon rays, streaming in through the open door and windows, gave what light was needed to the old black mammy who stood at the table concocting a tisane of fragrant ...
— The Awakening and Selected Short Stories • Kate Chopin

... morning just as usual during those interminable months. I was accustomed to calling Alexander Alexandrovitch's mother "mammy." She always wore a dark dress and carried a large white handkerchief which she continually raised to her lips. It was bright and cheerful in the dining-room. The tea-service stood on the table and the samovar ...
— Tales of the Wilderness • Boris Pilniak

... do, but at last he slipped behind her, laid a hand on her arm, and said: 'Mammy, what's the matter? Are ...
— The Violet Fairy Book • Various

... young bird failed to get the bite it wanted, it sometimes grabbed one of its nestmates by the bill, or the eye even, and tried to swallow it whole. Always the oldest and strongest climbed on top of the youngest and fooled his mammy into feeding him most by having his head highest, his mouth widest, and begging loudest. There could be no mistake. I was so amazed I forgot the blow, as I ...
— Laddie • Gene Stratton Porter

... other, as everybody knows all about, what did he go and do? Why, he went 'way out yonder to the Devil's Icy Peak, summers, and married of a stranger and a furriner, and a heathen and a pagan, for aught he knew! and fetches of her home here to us! That's what her daddy did! And now, what did her mammy do? Why, 'stead o' marrying of one of her own countrymen and kinsfolks, she ups and marries a 'Merican man as was a stranger and furriner to her; and a heathen and a pagan ...
— Her Mother's Secret • Emma D. E. N. Southworth

... outward change is as nothing compared to the change in my nature caused by the love I have felt—and have had rejected. I was gentle once, and if you spoke a tender word, my heart came toward you as natural as a little child goes to its mammy. I never spoke roughly, even to the dumb creatures, for I had a kind feeling for all. Of late (since I loved, old man), I have been cruel in my thoughts to every one. I have turned away from tenderness with bitter indifference. Listen!" she spoke in a hoarse ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 2, No. 8, January, 1851 • Various

... Elsie, "it is so beautiful—Mammy showed it to me only the other day and told me you looked so, so lovely; and she will put the orange blossoms in your hair and on your dress just as they were that night; for she remembers ...
— Elsie's Motherhood • Martha Finley

... Uncle Jack, he brung in a load of truck, and mammy let me come along, an' I didn't have nothing to fetch to the poor soldiers but Bunny. He's mine," she repeated, as she tenderly covered again the trembling little creature. I soon found that she desired to give the squirrel away with ...
— Memories - A Record of Personal Experience and Adventure During Four Years of War • Fannie A. (Mrs.) Beers

... its spirit of leisure, its suggestion of opulence and amplitude, and of a not too zealous or disturbing hold on reality. You still saw occasionally a tiny cottage inhabited by a colored family cuddled up against a new and imposing palace, just as you might pass a colored mammy on the same sidewalk with a millionaire Senator, for the residential section had ...
— Theodore Roosevelt; An Intimate Biography, • William Roscoe Thayer

... continued to sit on his little stool, with his slice of griddle-cake half-crumbled in his lap, and answered her suggestions that he should finish his breakfast, and run out to play, by irrelevant requests for his own ould mammy. He wanted her cruel bad, he said, and there was nothin' ailed him, and he wouldn't like to look for blackberries along the hedge—or to throw stones for Bran—or even to be given a whole ha'penny to go buy himself a grand sugarstick ...
— Strangers at Lisconnel • Barlow Jane

... father has gone away too, and also my little brother; and the other boys of the village will not play with me, but say very naughty things about my father and mother, which vexes me more than all. O mammy, get up, ...
— The Looking-Glass for the Mind - or Intellectual Mirror • M. Berquin

... going to have a picnic up at the Hall. Then those that can will join their people for the fireworks, and the others will be taken home to Old Paloma. The little Scott girl will stay with Ellen and Jo overnight; Mammy Currey will look after them, and they'll watch the fireworks from my porch. I've written to ask Doctor Young—he's the best in San Francisco—to come up from the city next day to see what he thinks can be done for ...
— The Rich Mrs. Burgoyne • Kathleen Norris

... laund'ess for the white folks. In those days ladies wore clo'es, an' plenty of 'em. My daddy was one of the part Indian folks. My mammy was brought here from Washin'ton City, an' when her owner went back home he sold her to my folks. You know, round Washin'ton an' up that way they was Ginny (Guinea) niggers, an' that's what my mammy was. We had a lot of these ...
— Slave Narratives: a Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves, North Carolina Narratives, Part 2 • Works Projects Administration

... come from the dear old Southland; and there seems to come to me now, floating down the valley of dreams, the song old mammy used to sing: ...
— The Greater Love • George T. McCarthy

... come up with a right uppercut to the ugly, freckled face and a left rip to the mulatto's midriff. The fellow grunted, and a spasm of pain crossed his countenance. "You yellow dog!" Donald muttered, and flattened his nose far flatter than his mammy had ever wiped it. The enemy promptly backed away and covered; a hearty thump in the solar plexus made him uncover, and under a rain of blows on the chin and jaw, he sprawled ...
— Kindred of the Dust • Peter B. Kyne

... you troubles!" pushing the children aside. "Didn't none on ye never see nobody afore? This 'ere chile has got to be took keer on, and that mighty soon! Gi' me the comf'table off'm the bed, mammy." ...
— Atlantic Monthly,Volume 14, No. 82, August, 1864 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... it not for de little Phillis dat was left, I tink I clean gib up. I takes her wid me to de cotton field, and she lay and look at me all day long, so strange like, as if she want to know why we dar all alone; and at night I feed her wid de corn-cake, like her poor mammy used to do, and at eb'ry mouthful she look up in my face, den at de door, to see if its mammy not comin'. After a while I gets a little used to de ache, which I hab since Phillis tuck away, and all de time I not at work in de field, ...
— Natalie - A Gem Among the Sea-Weeds • Ferna Vale

... darling, but she lacked several things—conversation for one. You cannot live on giggles. She shall remain unmarried at Nagasaki, while I roast a battered heart before the shrine of a big Kentucky blonde, who had for a nurse when she was little a negro "mammy." ...
— American Notes • Rudyard Kipling

... never take up with no woman what's not me—and that he won't—I never knowed him much as look on one, times past; and 'twill be the same as ever now, I reckon. And little Dorry, 'twill be fine for her to get her mammy back, I ...
— Six Plays • Florence Henrietta Darwin

... had been a mammy coaxing a child Billy's tone could not have been more gentle or loving. He busied himself unstrapping the trunks and valises and then hurried off for the cup of tea, declaring he would be back in a moment although ...
— The Comings of Cousin Ann • Emma Speed Sampson

... decided, like Queen Isabella, to pawn my jewels to enable me to discover America again. I had an old ring and I met a darky who had a quarter. He got my ring. After tramping all day I was exhausted. I came to a negro cabin and went in and offered the "mammy" a pound of bacon for a pound of corn pone. I further bargained to give the first half of my other pound of bacon if she'd cook the second half for me to eat. She cooked my share of the bacon and set it and the corn bread on the table. I ate heartily for a while, but after ...
— The Iron Puddler • James J. Davis

... of tact I might have stood by the old brontosaurus to the bitter end. One evening he and I were listening to a concert given by the "Fluffy Furbelows" in the camp Nissen Coliseum, and a Miss Gwennie Gwillis was expressing an ardent desire to get back to Alabama and dear ole Mammy and Dad, not to speak of the rooster and the lil melon-patch way down by the swamp. The prospect as painted by her was so alluring that by the end of the first verse all the troops were infected with trans-Atlantic yearnings and voiced them in a manner ...
— Punch, or the London Charivari, Vol. 158, January 28th, 1920 • Various

... gal," replied the child; and with the characteristic volubility of her race she continued, "and my name's Dinah, and I'm five years old, and my daddy and mammy are free coloured people, and they lives a big piece off, and daddy works out, and mammy sells gingerbread and molasses-beer, and we have a sign over the door with a bottle and cake ...
— My First Cruise - and Other stories • W.H.G. Kingston

... Fultons had lived in Boston. Grace Waite lived in the house next to the one which Mr. Fulton had hired in the beautiful southern city, and the two little girls had become fast friends. They both attended Miss Patten's school. Usually Grace's black mammy, Esther, escorted them to and from Miss Patten's, but on this morning in early October they were allowed ...
— Yankee Girl at Fort Sumter • Alice Turner Curtis

... Black "Mammy" would have never known A germ. Alas! that she has died Before her nurslings' feast, "corn pone" In juice of greens ...
— American Cookery - November, 1921 • Various

... "O mammy, you make me think of a little poem baby and I learned out of North Wind's book to-day. Don't you remember how I bothered you about some of ...
— At the Back of the North Wind • George MacDonald

... of my mother's wheedling ways. He took his hands from his pockets, flung his arms recklessly round her clean collar, and began stroking (or pooring, as we called it) her head with his grubby paws. And as he poored he coaxed—"Dear nice old mammy! It's only us. What can it matter? Do let us call our bantams ...
— We and the World, Part I - A Book for Boys • Juliana Horatia Ewing

... Lost their mittens, And they began to cry, "Oh, mammy dear, We sadly fear Our mittens we have lost!" "What! lost your mittens, You naughty kittens; Then you shall have no pie!" Miew, miew, miew, miew, Miew, miew, ...
— The 3 Little Kittens • Anonymous

... darlin' baby! are ye kilt, are ye kilt?" wailed Mrs. Stickles, kneeling down by her side. "Speak to me, my lamb, my little baby! Oh, speak to yer mammy!" ...
— The Fourth Watch • H. A. Cody

... likely perching ground for poets; the house was small, shabby, and the spare room had long ago been made into a workshop for the two boys, where they built steam engines and pasted rotogravure pictures from the Sunday editions on the walls. The servant was an enormous coloured mammy, with a heart of ruddy gold, but in appearance she was pure Dahomey. The bathroom plumbing was out of order, the drawing-room rug was fifteen years old, even the little lawn in front of the house needed trimming, and the gardener would not be round for several days. And Verne ...
— Shandygaff • Christopher Morley

... to his simplicity. "Let him stay whar the cunnel expected him ter stay. I ain't wantin' no stranger a-hangin' round about Mill'cent, nohow. Em'ry Keenan ain't a pattern o' perfection, but I be toler'ble well acquainted with the cut o' his foolishness, an' I know his daddy an' mammy, an' both sets o' gran'daddies an' gran'mammies, an' I could tell ye exac'ly which one the critter got his nose an' his mouth from, an' them lean sheep's-eyes o' his'n, an' nigh every tone o' his voice. Em'ry never thunk afore ez I set store on bein' acquainted with him. He 'lowed I knowed ...
— The Phantoms Of The Foot-Bridge - 1895 • Charles Egbert Craddock (AKA Mary Noailles Murfree)

... faithful, fearless servant of the plains; with us, but never of us, in all the years that followed. But she fitted the condition of her day, and in her place she stood, where the beloved black mammy of a ...
— Vanguards of the Plains • Margaret McCarter

... not the sad satisfaction of being partners in bondage. When the sale was over, my mother hugged and kissed us, and mourned over us, begging of us to keep up a good heart, and do our duty to our new masters. It was a sad parting; one went one way, one another, and our poor mammy ...
— The History of Mary Prince - A West Indian Slave • Mary Prince

... daughter, whistle; whistle, daughter dear. I cannot whistle, mammy, I cannot whistle clear. Whistle, daughter, whistle, whistle for a pound. I cannot whistle, mammy, I ...
— The Little Mother Goose • Anonymous

... "'Mammy,' said she, 'you've had a world of trouble with me, and you've had trouble of your own all your life; but I am not going to give you much more—I shall soon be where trouble ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... and written about an American national music. I am reminded of a colored mammy who was left in charge of "Marse John" and the house while "Miss Mary an' de chillun" were away at the springs. When the larder needed replenishing she would break the news to her employer like this: "Marse John?" "Yes, Mammy!" "You know the flour?" "Yes, Mammy!" "Well, there ain't ...
— Edward MacDowell • Elizabeth Fry Page

... laughable. Exchange their garments and it would have puzzled the cleverest person to tell "t'other-from-which." To label them twins would have been superfluous. Nature had attended to that little matter fifteen years earlier in their lives, and even their old mammy used to say: "Now don' none of yo' other chillern go ter projectin' wid dem babies whilst I's got my haid turn'd 'way, cause if yo' does dey's gwine fer to get mixed pintedly, an' den I's gwine ter have ter spend ...
— A Dixie School Girl • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... a scramble, the three appear; "Oh mammy dear, see here, see here, We have found our mittens—see!" they cry. "You have? Then you shall have some pie! Found your mittens? ...
— On the Tree Top • Clara Doty Bates

... high. Charity followed me to the train, protesting to the last that "Marse Jack gwine doubt her velocity when she tell him de truf bout her lady going a-gaddin' off by herse'f and payin' no mind to her ole mammy's prosterations." I asked her to come with me as maid. She refused; said her church was to have an ice-cream sociable and she had "to fry de fish." This letter will find you joyfully busy with the babies and the "only man." Blest woman that ...
— The Lady and Sada San - A Sequel to The Lady of the Decoration • Frances Little

... charcoal-burner, laughing from ear to ear. "Och murder! you're the devil, sure! wasn't it the last ten miles I ever toed of Irish ground? Long life to you, sir! wait till I call the wife. Molly ashtore, come out av id, for here's a witch of a gintleman here. Jem, you robber, go and bid your mammy ...
— Impressions of America - During the years 1833, 1834 and 1835. In Two Volumes, Volume I. • Tyrone Power

... mah honey— Doan ye weep no mo', Mammy's gwine to hold her baby, All de udder black trash sleepin' on ...
— The Street of Seven Stars • Mary Roberts Rinehart

... water, closely hugging the shore all the way, when the high treble call of a young fawn echoed far over the lake. It was so unexpected that the scouts were startled, but the Indian called over his shoulder, "Li'l deer lose mammy—call ...
— Girl Scouts in the Adirondacks • Lillian Elizabeth Roy

... house hard by, 'Tis all my awn, when mammy do die; If thee and I were married now, Ods! I'd feed thee as fat ...
— Ancient Poems, Ballads and Songs of England • Robert Bell

... Mammy Rose (the old woman had been a dependent of the Stone family for years), and had the occasion been much more serious than Jennie thought it, the plump girl would surely have ...
— Ruth Fielding on the St. Lawrence - The Queer Old Man of the Thousand Islands • Alice B. Emerson

... here's a leg for a stocking, And here is a foot for a shoe, And he has a kiss for his daddy, And two for his mammy, I trow. ...
— Boys and Girls Bookshelf; a Practical Plan of Character Building, Volume I (of 17) - Fun and Thought for Little Folk • Various

... his promise, was as bitter a grief as any which he had to undergo for many a long year. His wrath, then, was proportionately violent when he was aware of two boys, who stopped close by him, and one of whom, a fat gaby of a fellow, pointed at him and called him "Young mammy-sick!" Whereupon Tom arose, and giving vent thus to his grief and shame and rage, smote his derider on the nose; and made it bleed; which sent that young worthy howling to the usher, who reported Tom for violent and unprovoked assault and battery. Hitting in the face was a felony ...
— Tom Brown's Schooldays • Thomas Hughes

... Edwin, don't yer know yer ole black mammy? Hush-sh-sh, chile, doan' answer me, 'cept in a whisper! I'se done come fer to save yer! I nussed yer when yer was a little baby, and I promised ole Missus always to look arter yer. De sojers is a huntin' fer yer, Marse Edwin; dey's all eround us! Hush-sh-sh!' said she, as I ...
— The Statesmen Snowbound • Robert Fitzgerald

... "Mammy's name was Darkis an' her Marster was John Bussey, a reg'lar old drunkard, an' my pappy's name was John Robertson an' b'longed to Dr. Robertson, a big farmer on Tombigbee river, five miles east of Columbus. De doctor ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Mississippi Narratives • Works Projects Administration

... the next victim, Sally French, howled and fought, and said, "Mammy would not have it done." But Dora sternly answered, "Then she should keep your head fit to be seen." And Mrs Thorpe held down her hands, with whispers of "Now, my ...
— The Carbonels • Charlotte M. Yonge

... got de hearts ob ebery one in his right hand; and de dogs! dey whimper after him for a week; and de little children! he draw dem to him from dar mammy's breast. Nobody's never seed ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... Adams, tossing his child in the air as he went. "My beauty, you'll beat your mammy in looks yet, eh? an' when you're old enough we'll tell you all ...
— The Lonely Island - The Refuge of the Mutineers • R.M. Ballantyne

... 'Is your head better, mammy dear?' she asked, in the soft little voice that she kept expressly for mother's headaches. 'I've brought your brekkie, and I've put the little cloth with clover-leaves on it, ...
— The Phoenix and the Carpet • E. Nesbit

... whar my great gran' fadder dun come from — so I heard my mammy tell, years ago. I don't want ...
— The Rover Boys in the Jungle • Arthur M. Winfield

... are a new kid, just left your mammy?" observed the other, with the air of a man of forty; ...
— The Fifth Form at Saint Dominic's - A School Story • Talbot Baines Reed

... dimples and smiles; she seemed to be perfectly happy and contented, but she made no sound. It was some time before Miss Whimple noticed this, and when she said to the little one, "Such a little pet, I'll warrant you talk a lot to your mammy though," Dolly smiled at her and then turned to William her wonderful brown eyes full of questioning. William smiled back, "She likes oo, Dolly," he said softly, and then looked at Miss Whimple, his eyes moist, his lips trembling a little. ...
— William Adolphus Turnpike • William Banks

... was no wonder Miss Betty sighed at the thought. None the less she had accepted courageously the reverses which at twenty brought her gay girlhood to an end, and for fifteen years was a cheerful, devoted nurse to her invalid father. Since his death she lived alone with only Sophy, her old mammy, to cook ...
— Mr. Pat's Little Girl - A Story of the Arden Foresters • Mary F. Leonard

... and among them America, a crouchin' down, and a-beggin' for life, like a mean heathen Ingin. Well, jist do the civil now, and tell me when that little braggin' feller ever whipped us, will you? Just tell me the day of the year he was ever able to do it, since his mammy cut the apron string and let him run to seek his fortin'. Heavens and airth, we'd a chawed ...
— The Attache - or, Sam Slick in England, Complete • Thomas Chandler Haliburton

... wife an' me, Bent o'er that suff'rin child, Shoo luk'd at mammy, an' at me, Then shut her een ...
— Yorkshire Ditties, Second Series - To which is added The Cream of Wit and Humour - from his Popular Writings • John Hartley

... Mammy, and she says as how Scraggy's pappy were dead, and as how the gal's teched in here." His words were low, and he raised his forefinger to ...
— From the Valley of the Missing • Grace Miller White

... riser of the family, created a diversion by coming in fully dressed and announcing that Mammy Lou was willing to teach as many girls as cared to come after breakfast how to make ...
— Betty Gordon in Washington • Alice B. Emerson

... slender girl entered a street car and managed to seat herself in a narrow space between two men. Presently a portly colored mammy entered the car, and the pretty miss, thinking to humiliate the men for lack ...
— More Toasts • Marion Dix Mosher

... no more endure her absence from her Mammy O!' The songful satirical line spouted in him, to be flung at his girl, as he ran upstairs to the boudoir off ...
— The Shaving of Shagpat • George Meredith

... old ex-slave, "I can't rightly tell mah age no udder way. My mammy, she tole me, I wuz bawned de same night ez Miss Willie wuz, en mammy allus tole me effen I ever want ter know how ole I is, jes' ask my white folks ...
— Slave Narratives: A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From Interviews with Former Slaves - Georgia Narratives, Part 3 • Works Projects Administration

... one extremity, sometimes at both, besides a wide verandah, up and down which people stroll or lounge at pleasure. Every landlady appears to have half-a-dozen small children, who add their contribution to the day's noises in the shape of cries and shouts for 'mammy,' who, poor soul, is far too busy to attend to them herself or to spare ...
— The Last Voyage - to India and Australia, in the 'Sunbeam' • Lady (Annie Allnutt) Brassey

... Boy," grinned Uncle Squeaky. "There's a whole load of goodies on our cart. Mammy and Aunt Belindy baked lots ...
— Grand-Daddy Whiskers, M.D. • Nellie M. Leonard

... pay for the lemons. When the bill comes in, your mamma will have forgotten all about sending you for them, or she will think the lemon-feller made a mistake. I know lots of real gamey fellers who get out of scrapes that way. It's only milk-sops who run to mammy ...
— Choice Readings for the Home Circle • Anonymous

... person," says Mr. Dysart, hurrying to break into the dangerous confidence, no matter at what cost, even at the expense of the adored mammy. His remark is taken ...
— April's Lady - A Novel • Margaret Wolfe Hungerford

... till a bad rheumatism and old age had put an end to her utilities and entitled her to the receipt of two shillings weekly from parochial munificence. Between this old woman and Beck there was a mysterious tie, so mysterious that he did not well comprehend it himself. Sometimes he called her "mammy," sometimes "the h-old crittur." But certain it is that to her he was indebted for that name which he bore, to the puzzlement of St. Giles's. Becky Carruthers was the name of the old woman; but Becky was one of those good creatures who are always called by their Christian ...
— Lucretia, Complete • Edward Bulwer-Lytton

... two years, I have always remembered. I had a frock or blouse of some light wash material, probably cotton, a blue ground dotted over with white diamond figures. Of this I was very proud, and wanted to wear it on this important occasion. Eliza, my "mammy," objecting, we had a contest and I won. Clothed in this, my very best, and with my hair freshly curled in long golden ringlets, I went down into the larger hall where the whole household was assembled, eagerly greeting my father, who had just arrived on horseback ...
— Recollections and Letters of General Robert E. Lee • Captain Robert E. Lee, His Son

... Indian"—declared that the Saints were afore his time, and occupied a cabin in the brush when he "blazed" his way to the North Fork. It is certain that the two were present when the water was first turned on the Union Ditch and then and there received the designation of Daddy Downey and Mammy Downey, which they kept to the last. As they tottered toward the refreshment tent, they were welcomed with the greatest enthusiasm by the boys; or, to borrow the more refined language of the "Union ...
— Drift from Two Shores • Bret Harte

... exchanged between the friends. Mr. Wyllys learned that Elinor and the Van Hornes had supposed Harry lost, from the paper, and the first hurried note of de Vaux. When they arrived at Wyllys-Roof, there was no one there to give them any later information; Mammy Sarah, the nurse, knew no more than themselves; she had heard the Broadlawn story, after having seen young de Vaux leave the house with Miss Agnes, when they first went to the Hubbards'. Hazlehurst had not accompanied his friend, for he had seen Mr. Wyllys in a neighbouring field, and went ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... gentleman's nephew?" she said, while she drew slightly away from him. "Mary Jo, did you tell Tobias's mammy that he was ...
— The Miller Of Old Church • Ellen Glasgow

... "Why, mammy's horse," added Jem, looking out of the window; "I must make haste home, and feed him afore it gets dark; he'll wonder what's gone ...
— The Parent's Assistant • Maria Edgeworth

... but he's out all day busy, and I've no one to talk to me as mammy used; for Peggy is quite deaf, and besides she's always busy with the pigs ...
— Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Volume 1, No. 2, July, 1850. • Various

... meself that has brought this youngsther for yer inspection. It's a jool ye'll have in him. Shure I rared him meself, and he says his prayers every morning. Kape sthill, honey! Faith, ye're not afraid of yer poor old mammy pullin' yer ...
— My Brilliant Career • Miles Franklin

... thrown her into the river and none knew aught of it, as I went back home I found my eldest son crying and yet he knew naught of what I had done with his mother. I asked him, "What hath made thee weep, my boy?" and he answered, "I took one of the three apples which were by my mammy and went down into the lane to play with my brethren when behold, a big long black slave snatched it from my hand and said. 'Whence hadst thou this?' Quoth I, 'My father travelled far for it, and brought it from Bassorah for my ...
— The Book of the Thousand Nights and a Night, Volume 1 • Richard F. Burton

... torpor came at last; the fingers lost their tension, the arms unbent; then the little head fell away from the bosom, and the blue eyes of the child opened wide on the cold starlight. At first there was a little peevish cry of "Mammy," as the child rolled downward; and then, suddenly, its eyes were caught by a bright gleaming light on the white ground, and with the ready transition of infancy it decided the ...
— The World's Greatest Books, Vol IV. • Editors: Arthur Mee and J.A. Hammerton

... would hardly have been called a beautiful girl gauged by conventional standards. Her features were not regular enough for perfection, the mouth perhaps a trifle too large, but she was "mightily pleasin' fer to study 'bout," old Mammy insisted when the other servants were talking about ...
— Peggy Stewart: Navy Girl at Home • Gabrielle E. Jackson

... his head down on Sarah's broad shoulder with a pathetic little sigh of comfort. In the home which at this moment seemed very far away to Tommy was an old colored mammy. He refused to let Sarah put him down, so she took him with her while she got ready the five bowls of warm bread and milk, which she declared the best possible supper for all the ...
— Patricia • Emilia Elliott

... not sob now, but set up a hideous roar, the big tears coursing down his fat cheeks, marking their course by furrows in the dirt and grime. The wood echoed to Gigi's roars. He roared for mammy, for daddy (Angelo Gigi cannot say, it is too long a word). He kicked away the flowers with his pretty dimpled feet, the false flowers that had betrayed him. The babe cannot reason, but instinct tells him that those painted leaves have wronged him. They are faded now, and lie soiled ...
— The Italians • Frances Elliot

... had no sooner read the note, than, full of sympathy for Mrs. Taylor's difficulties, she held a consultation with her female factotum, Elinor's nurse, or Mammy as she was called. All the men, women, and children in the neighbourhood, who might possibly possess some qualifications for the duties of cook, chamber-maid, or footman, were run over in Miss Agnes' mind; and she succeeded at last, by ...
— Elinor Wyllys - Vol. I • Susan Fenimore Cooper

... are supposed to be sung or chanted. The Southern "Mammy" seldom sang a song through, but interladed it ...
— The Miracle and Other Poems • Virna Sheard

... and choked; and the child looked up into my face with her blue eyes full of nameless terror. "Oh, I want my mammy!" she said. "Won't you find ...
— The Master of Appleby • Francis Lynde

... Irish family, whose little boy reported to his schoolmates: 'There's a great twisting and turning going on at our house. I'm having a new shirt made out of daddy's old one, and daddy's having a new shirt made out of the old sheet, and mammy's making a new sheet out of the old table-cloth.' But 'twistings and turnings' of a marvellous kind there must have been, which the male understanding could not fathom; for while the house was always in order, and the two ladies looked as neat as if ...
— Holidays at the Grange or A Week's Delight - Games and Stories for Parlor and Fireside • Emily Mayer Higgins

... "I am Mammy," she answered, "the old nurse of the senorita, and Senor Ricardo's housekeeper. And you are now in Senor Ricardo's own house— ay, and in his own room, too! What is the young English senor to Senor Ricardo, I wonder, that he should ...
— A Middy in Command - A Tale of the Slave Squadron • Harry Collingwood

... servants, she was inquisitive, and never neglected an opportunity to spy and gossip, considering it a part of her duties to learn everything possible of the private affairs of the lodgers. Quite unlike the traditional, smiling, good-natured "mammy" of the South, she was one of those cunning, crafty, heartless, surly Northern negresses, who, to the number of thousands, seek employment as maids with women of easy morals, and, infesting a certain district ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... them that Mammy's strength might fail sometime, and let the great rock drop just as they got under it; nor would any one have thought so that might have chanced to see that huge arm and that shoulder sliding about under the great yellow robe she wore. No, no; that arm could never fail. The little ones were ...
— The Biography of a Grizzly • Ernest Thompson Seton

... 'Mammy, mammy get us out, there's a stone on Tommy,'—at least so the poor woman understood the lispings, almost stifled; and she shrieked ...
— Beechcroft at Rockstone • Charlotte M. Yonge

... the elder brother heard a displeasing din, a derisive laughter. Oliver had shrunk from the danger of the thick clubbed sticks that plied around him, and received some strokes across the legs, for his voice rose whining, and was drowned by shouts of, "Go to your mammy. That's ...
— The International Monthly Magazine, Volume 5, No. 1, January, 1852 • Various

... conversation about her; and he is so angry!" Thus the troubled mother would talk and cry. The sisters and brothers listen to her, and, without comprehending "the prospect so awful in Betsey's future life," would keep dumb, like "daddy," and cry, like "mammy." ...
— Elizabeth: The Disinherited Daugheter • E. Ben Ez-er



Words linked to "Mammy" :   mum, mamma, momma, derogation, female parent, mommy, mama, mother



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