flywhisk

A device used for swatting away flies and other insects, often made out bunches of grass, twigs, bristles, or horsehair.

//It was [. . .] a Sunday morning in June with the bells ringing peaceful and peremptory and a little cacophonous—the denominations in concord though not in tune—and the ladies and children, and house negroes to carry the parasols and **flywhisks**, and even a few men )the ladies moving in hoops among the miniature broadcloth of little boys and the pantalettes of little girls, in the skirts of the time when ladies did not walk but floated) when the other men sitting with their feet on the railing of the Holston House gallery looked up, and there the stranger was.//

--AA (23)