Reading.
Get started

Library / Literature & Fiction

Saturday's Child

by Kathleen Thompson Norris

Pages
about 598
Category
Literature & Fiction
Language
English
Reading time
11 h at 250 wpm
Start readingThe whole book, as cards or one word at a time. 6.1 h at 450 wpm in Read mode.

From the opening

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

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.

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.

A short sample. Read the whole book

More to read

Public-domain text from Project Gutenberg, Standard Ebooks or a similar open source. Copyright differs between countries. Rights holder? See our takedown process.