Saturdays Child

Kathleen Norris
Saturday's Child

The Project Gutenberg Etext of Saturday's Child, by Kathleen Norris #6 in our series by Kathleen Norris
Copyright laws are changing all over the world. Be sure to check the copyright laws for your country before downloading or redistributing this or any other Project Gutenberg file.
We encourage you to keep this file, exactly as it is, on your own disk, thereby keeping an electronic path open for future readers.
Please do not remove this.
This header should be the first thing seen when anyone starts to view the etext. Do not change or edit it without written permission. The words are carefully chosen to provide users with the information they need to understand what they may and may not do with the etext. To encourage this, we have moved most of the information to the end, rather than having it all here at the beginning.
**Welcome To The World of Free Plain Vanilla Electronic Texts**
**Etexts Readable By Both Humans and By Computers, Since 1971**
*****These Etexts Were Prepared By Thousands of Volunteers!*****
Information on contacting Project Gutenberg to get etexts, and further information, is included below. We need your donations.
The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a 501(c)(3) organization with EIN [Employee Identification Number] 64-6221541 Find out about how to make a donation at the bottom of this file.

Title: Saturday's Child
Author: Kathleen Norris
Release Date: November, 2003 [Etext #4687] [Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule] [This file was first posted on March 2, 2002]
Edition: 10
Language: English
Character set encoding: ASCII
The Project Gutenberg Etext of Saturday's Child, by Kathleen Norris *******This file should be named stchl10.txt or stchl10.zip*******
Corrected EDITIONS of our etexts get a new NUMBER, stchl11.txt VERSIONS based on separate sources get new LETTER, stchl10a.txt
Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
Project Gutenberg Etexts are often created from several printed editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the US unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we usually do not keep etexts in compliance with any particular paper edition.
The "legal small print" and other information about this book may now be found at the end of this file. Please read this important information, as it gives you specific rights and tells you about restrictions in how the file may be used.

THE WORKS OF KATHLEEN NORRIS
SATURDAY'S CHILD
VOLUME IV

"Friday's child is loving and giving; But Saturday's child must work for her living."

To C. G. N.
How shall I give you this, who long have known Your gift of all the best of life to me? No living word of mine could ever be Without the stirring echo of your own. Under your hand, as mine, this book has grown, And you, whose faith sets all my musing free, You, whose true vision helps my eyes to see, Know that these pages are not mine alone.
Not mine to give, not yours, the happy days, The happy talks, the hoping and the fears That made this story of a happy life. But, in dear memory of your words of praise, And grateful memory of four busy years, Accept her portion of it, from your wife.

PART ONE
Poverty

SATURDAY'S CHILD
CHAPTER I
Not the place in which to look for the Great Adventure, the dingy, narrow office on the mezzanine floor of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's great wholesale drug establishment, in San Francisco city, at the beginning of the present century. Nothing could have seemed more monotonous, more grimy, less interesting, to the outsider's eye at least, than life as it presented itself to the twelve women who were employed in bookkeeping there. Yet, being young, as they all were, each of these girls was an adventuress, in a quiet way, and each one dreamed bright dreams in the dreary place, and waited, as youth must wait, for fortune, or fame, or position, love or power, to evolve itself somehow from the dulness of her days, and give her the key that should open--and shut--the doors of Hunter, Baxter & Hunter's offices to her forever.
And, while they waited, working over the unvaried, stupid columns of the company's books, they talked, confided, became friends, and exchanged shy hints of ambition. The ill-ventilated, neglected room was a little world, and rarely, in a larger world, do women come to know each other as intimately as these women did.
Therefore, on a certain sober September morning, the fact that Miss Thornton, familiarly known as "Thorny," was out of temper, speedily became known to all the little force. Miss Thornton was not only the oldest clerk there, but she was the highest paid, and the longest in the company's employ; also she was by nature a leader, and generally managed to impress her associates with her own mood, whatever it might be. Various uneasy looks were sent to-day in her direction, and by eleven o'clock even the giggling Kirk sisters, who were newcomers,
Continue reading on your phone by scaning this QR Code

 / 205
Tip: The current page has been bookmarked automatically. If you wish to continue reading later, just open the Dertz Homepage, and click on the 'continue reading' link at the bottom of the page.