The Story of Patsy (Illustrated)

The Story of Patsy is a short-story that is at once incredibly heartwarming and incredibly sad. It seems almost pre-ordained from the beginning that there is no way Patsy will be able to survive the abject poverty in which he finds himself, despite the best efforts of the woman who cares for him, an older "brother" who steals food for him, and the kindergarten teacher who opens her school and heart to him. And, indeed, he does not survive, but his personal, intellectual and emotional growth turn out to be enough for him, and he sees death as an improvement over the state of his life rather than an ending of it. Only the hardest-hearted reader will be able to finish the book without shedding more than a few tears. Still, it should not be missed.

Kate Douglas Wiggin (September 28, 1856 August 24, 1923) was an American educator and author of children's stories, most notably the classic children's novel Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the Silver Street Free Kindergarten). With her sister during the 1880s, she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers. Kate Wiggin devoted her adult life to the welfare of children in an era when children were commonly thought of as cheap labor.

Wiggin went to California to study kindergarten methods. She began to teach in San Francisco with her sister Nora Smith assisting her, and the two were instrumental in the establishment of over 60 kindergartens for the poor in San Francisco and Oakland. She moved from California to New York, and having no kindergarten work on hand, devoted herself to literature. She sent The Story of Patsy and The Bird's Christmas Carol to Houghton, Mifflin & Co. who accepted them at once. Besides the talent for story-telling, she was a musician, sang well, and composed settings for her poems. She was also an excellent elocutionist. Her first literary work was Half a Dozen Housekeepers, a serial story which she sent to St. Nicholas. After the death of her husband in 1889, she returned to California to resume her kindergarten work, serving as the head of a Kindergarten Normal School. Some of her other works included Cathedral Courtship, A Summer in a Canon, Timothy's Quest, The Story Hour, Kindergarten Chimes, Polly Oliver's Problem, and Children's Rights.

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