i ;>() PATSY'S POND 



stopping an instant, Patsy cautiously relaxed 

 her tight grasp on the coin, and laughed aloud 

 as she realized afresh that it was her very own 

 and that Dandy Bob was soon to hold it in his 

 thin little hand. 



Patsy and Bob were everything to each other. 

 They were waifs in a large city, and that morn- 

 ing Patsy had started before daylight for the 

 pond which Bob had told her about, where won- 

 derful water lilies grew. 



"When the sun looks down on them, Patsy 

 girl," he had said, "they'll spread out just fine, 

 find you'll see the yellow in them exactly like 

 Bob's hair." 



Patsy had nicknamed her brother "Dandy" 

 from the time she first saw a dandelion, and 

 could the lo} 7 al little sister have caught a glimpse 

 of Bob's heart she would have seen that it, too, 

 was golden. 



Bob was eight years old, and for three years 

 he had been the manly protector of his mother 

 and his little sister Patsy : selling papers, black- 

 ing boots, catching up a job here and there as 

 best he could. Six months had passed since 

 that dreadful morning when mother wouldn't 

 waken, though Patsy clung to her with tender- 



