He made his first appearance one afternoon a week or so before the Fall Handicap Meeting. Mosher, Fosgill, Alien, Ronimus, and several more of us were down at the end of the field putting the shot. Fosgill, who was scratch man that year, had just done an even forty feet and the shot had trickled away toward the cinder path. Whereupon a small bit of humanity appeared from somewhere, picked up the sixteen pounds of lead with much difficulty, and staggered back to the circle with it.
"Hello, kid," said Fosgill; "that's pretty heavy for you, isn't it?"
"Naw," was the superb reply; "that ain't nothin'!"
We laughed, and the youngster grinned around at us in a companionable way that won us on the spot.
"What's your name?" asked Ronimus.
"Patsy."
"Patsy what?"
"Burns."
"How old are you?"
"'Leven."