From the text:
"The original Story of Patsy was written and sold some seven years ago
for the benefit of the Silver Street Free Kindergartens in San
Francisco. Now that it is for the first time placed in the hands of
publishers, I have at their request added new material, so that the
present story is more than double the length of the original brief
sketch.

K.D.W.
New York, March, 1889."

This is a sentimental story of a terribly poor boy joining a kindergarten class. It's a short story, rather than a novel, and it is thin on plot, and think on details of social injustice. It appears to have been sold as a charity fund raiser.
While I empathise with need to raise awareness of social ills, I found the story itself maudlin and tedious.

I read the electronic version, available here:
http://www.gutenberg.org/etext/13506 ( )