The Story of Patsy

by Kate Douglas Wiggin

It was a hard-working and bustling place, but a loving and joyous one -- that kindergarten by Silver Street where I was working. I grew to knew all my eighty charges, for their fusses, their foibles, their tantrums and their trilling laughter. Then one day I was surprised to have someone knocking -- for admittance. A boy! -Kin yer take me in, Miss Kate?- said he. -My name's Patsy. I bin waitin' this yer long whiles fur to git in.- -Why, my dear little boy, - I said, gazing dubiously at him, -you're too -- big, aren't you? We have only tiny people here, you know, children not six years old.- -Well, I'm nine by the book, but I ain't more 'n scerce six along o' my losing them three year.- -What do you mean, child? How could you lose three years?- -I lost 'em on the back stairs, don't yer know. My father he got fightin' mad when he was drunk, and pitched me down two flights of 'em, and my back was most clean broke in two, so I couldn't git out o' bed forever -- till just now! Kin yer take me in, Miss Kate?-

Genres: Classics, Memoir

100 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 1883

About the author

Kate Douglas Smith Wiggin

Kate Douglas Wiggin, nee Smith (1856-1923) was an American children's author and educator. She was born in Philadelphia, and was of Welsh descent. She started the first free kindergarten in San Francisco in 1878 (the "Silver Street Free Kindergarten"). With her sister in the 1880s she also established a training school for kindergarten teachers. Her best known books are The Story of Pasty (1883), The Birds' Christmas Carol (1886), Polly Oliver's Problem (1893), A Cathedral Courtship (1893), The Village Watchtoer (1896), Marm Lisa (1897) and Rebecca of Sunnybrook Farm (1903).

Reviews

[Majenta · Rating 5 out of 5]

Short and bittersweet. Meet a teacher who meets a boy who believes he has lost three years of his life:

"...guided all the venturesome small boys through the maze of trucks and horse-cars--a difficult and thankless task, as they absolutely courted decapitation--it being an unwritten law of conduct that each boy should weave his way through the horses' legs if practicable, and if not, should see how near he could come to grazing the wheels." (10%)

"quietly ensconced in a small red chair by my table, and sitting still as a mouse, was the weirdest apparition ever seen in human form." Whew! But wait, it had "two big, pathetic, soft dark eyes, so appealing that one could hardly meet their glance without feeling instinctively in one's pocket for a biscuit or a ten-cent piece." (19%)

"Yer bet yer life I don't want no more father in mine." (27%)

"I went to Sunday school wunst, and it warn't so much for as the cirkis!" (33%)

"'we must do our best and leave it there.'" (36%)

"...'work half done is worse than wasted.' ...'a printed appeal is such a dead thing, after all. If I could only fix on a printed page Danny Kern's smile when he conquered his temper yesterday, put into type that hand clasp of Mrs. Finnigan's that sent such a thrill of promise to our hearts, show a subscriber Mrs. Guinee's quivering lips when she thanked us for the change in Joe--why, we shouldn't need money very long.'" ... "'What a week we have had, Kate--like a little piece of the millennium!'" (38%)

"'I think a taste for martyrdom is just as difficult to eradicate from the system as a taste for blood.'" (50%)

"...a tone of such royal superiority and disdain that I saw in an instant that I had mistaken blue blood for red." (56%)

"with a superb sniff like that of a battle-horse, she disappeared from the front window of her ancestral mansion and sought one at the back which might command a view of my meeting with her rival." (58%)

"'Are you the teacher of the Kids Guards, 'm?'...It did not strike me at the time...what a sympathetic rendering of the German word this was; but we afterwards found that "Kindergarten" was thus translated in Anna Street." (61%)

"Patsy scratched his head with the "ten-toothed comb of Nature" (78%)

Thanks for reading!

[J. Boo · Rating 4 out of 5]

This thin volume is Kate Douglas Wiggin's first book, written to fundraise for the free kindergarten in the slums of San Francisco where she had taught. As the book is written from the viewpoint of a free kindergarten teacher named Kate working in the San Francisco slums, I expect that she wrote most of it from life. There were quite a few interesting (at least to me) details of the school and an assortment of finely drawn and not oversentimentalized characters.

I'm not sure if it's a spoiler to note that death rates for children were quite high in that era.

3.8/5.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

Me: "The Story of Patsy... never heard of it. But I love Kate Douglas Wiggin! ... Such a sweet little story. I love her use of language. Oh. Ohhhh. Did not see that coming. There's a whole lot more feels than I expected from such a small book. 'Scuse me while I go find a handkerchief. Someone's cutting onions."

[Sarah · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a teacher, this book hit close to home. I think every teacher should read this book, and people who want to understand why teachers do what they do should read this book. Amazing, really reminds you of why every little helpful act is important. The end made me bawl! "If you make children happy now, you will make them happy twenty years hence by the memory of it." My new favorite ️teacher quote!

[Cynthia O'Connor · Rating 4 out of 5]

A little story from 1889. The slang written throughout took a wee bit of thought to comprehend and understand but once you master that the stories understanding is made more clear. I think the initial tribute sums up this little book of old, ‘in remembrance of gladness given to sorrowful little lives.’ If you are a compassionate person given to the natural affection for little children you will more completely extend yourself, your thoughts, and your feelings for those whose innocence seeks only love and comfort where they can find it to make their lives, their days more bearable and worth living. A story of how one loving and generous heart can absorb the daily pain of others.

[Jenny · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a different era, and I was happy to spend an hour in it with this little book. Gave me some things to think about, and a laugh or two.

[Soybean Soybean · Rating 3 out of 5]

sometimes it's good to leave modernity behind for just a little while and indulge in a vision of the past

[Orinoco Womble (tidy bag and all) · Rating 1 out of 5]

A more revolting mixture of blatant racism and glutinous sentimentality I have yet to come across. Wiggin couldn't even leave out the "pickaninny" whose brightly coloured clothing offended her "saintly" teacher's sensibilities even though she pretends to praise her dancing. The main character finds the children ridiculous even as she slobbers over them.
No thanks to Gutenberg for this piece of dreck.

[Eric · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some words gave me pause

but the theme- the calling of a kindergarten teacher when the profession was new - apparently the author’s own concern, I’ve read; the protagonist is also named Kate- is appealing…

[Ellen Hamilton · Rating 5 out of 5]

A very touching little story about a boy named Patsy. You might want to keep a handkerchief nearby...

[Cynthia · Rating 5 out of 5]

Absolutely precious! The Language is dated but beautiful