



Produced by Charles Franks and the Online Distributed
Proofreading Team. HTML version by Al Haines.












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, were
imbued with a sense of something wrong.

Nobody quite liked to allude to the subject, or ask a direct question.
Not that any one of them was particularly considerate or reserved by
nature, but because Miss Thornton was known to be extremely unpleasant
when she had any grievance against one of the younger clerks. She could
maintain an ugly silence until goaded into speech, but, once launched,
few of her juniors escaped humiliation. Ordinarily, however, Miss
Thornton was an extremely agreeable woman, shrewd, kindly, sympathetic,
and very droll in her passing comments on men and events. She was in
her early thirties, handsome, and a not quite natural blonde, her mouth
sophisticated, her eyes set in circles of a leaden pallor. An
assertive, masterful little woman, born and reared in decent poverty,
still Thorny claimed descent from one of the first families of
Maryland, and talked a good deal of her birth. Her leading
characteristic was a determination never, even in the slightest
particular, to allow herself to be imposed upon, and she gloried in
stories of her own success in imposing upon other people.

Miss Thornton's desk stood at the inner end of the long room, nearest
the door that led out to the "deck," as the girls called the mezzanine
floor beyond, and so nearest the little private office of Mr. George
Brauer, the arrogant young German who was the superintendent of the
Front Office, and heartily detested by every girl therein.

When Miss Thornton wanted to be particularly annoying to her associates
she would remark casually that "she and Mr. Brauer" thought this or
that, or that "she suggested, and Mr. Brauer quite agreed" as to
something else