putterings 432 < 433 > 434 index
and as she puttered / remembered, overlong among
...groaned at the size of the old house and hastily departed, that in this room they do only certain basic things, bed making, vacuuming; the rest, the most time-consuming part of the work, Maud did herself, the duster in her small, jeweled hand, puttering for hours among the faces of her loved ones... And as she puttered, she chuckled, remembered. She would not have said so to anyone, least of all to the maids, but she was glad, actually, of the need to do this chore herself. It filled up some of the long hour, and there... ₁₁
...that they were both fellow sufferers, were both victims of youthful independence. “Adrian and I scarcely see anything of her when she’s home for vacation. But that’s the way it is. Children have to make their own lives.”
Seth, puttering carefully and noisily among the glass... ₁₁₇
“Yes, I spent yesterday in Boston,” Cathy said tranquilly.
“Oh,” said Eva. She put the coffeepot on the stove, turned on the gas, puttering overlong with the regulation of the flame. She was baffled and hurt. Just this “I spent yesterday in Boston,” just like that, she thought, like slamming a door. ₁₆₇
three instances (a fourth not preview/snippeted at google books)
ex Margaret Howe Freydberg, The Lovely April (1955) : link
Margaret Howe Freydberg (1908-2015), in her (many) later decades lived on Martha’s Vineyard, where she wrote fiction, a memoir, and poetry.
- author bio at Amazon page for
Peggy Freydberg, Poems from the Pond (Laurie David, ed.; 2015) : link - Nancy Slonim Aronie, “In Memoriam : Remembering Peggy Freydberg, a 107-Year-Old Poet Whose Career Was Just Getting Started”
Vanity Fair (April 8, 2015) : link
2 June 2024