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Mari Tomasi
Montpelier, Vt.
UMBRELIA PAT
Snow was piled high in the park square. It was February.
A bright sun warmed the benches. It melted the snow from the
elm branches, so that the park sounded with a cheery drip -drip.
An old man sat on a corner bench where he could watch
the life of Barre on the main street, from the granite bank
facing the park to the dingy wooden and brick business .blocks.
The policeman stopped beside the old man. "This is Pat
McFinn," he said. "He's been in and out of Barre these forty
years-"
"Forty-five," Pat corrected with a friendly smile, as
the policeman swung down the walk. "I remember that fellow's
grandfather," Pat continued. "He was my age. 1;ith all my
bumming around and poor living I've outlasted him by fifteen
years. Them days they didn't have kids for cops- or maybe
I'm wrong. Maybe the young men seem like kids to me just
because I'm old-"
Pat was an old man. Strands of hair fell white and
silky beneath the corduroy cap. He needed a shave. His
cheeks were pink as a baby's under the white bristles. In
that old face the eyes were strangely young. China -blue, and
fragile looking. His slight frame appeared weighted by a
heavy black ulster that hung to his ankles. His mittened
hands played with the knobbed head of a cane that stood be-
tween his knees.
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Two graded school children in snowsuits were walking
the path on skiis. Pat's china -blue eyes followed their
progress. When I was a kid I was choice of winter sports.
I'd rather ski or snowshoe one day than swim in the brook
all summer. Nowadays kids have store things for their sports.
The only skiis I ever owned were made from a couple of barrel
staves off my old gent's cider barrel. 'vie made straps for
them from an old halter. lie'd grease the staves with bacon
rind and they'd take us where we wanted to go. Couldn't use
them much except on moonlit nights. The old gent put us out
to work when we was thirteen. Me, and three brothers. He
was one of them hardworking, hard -praying, hard -drinking men.
Didn't lay no stock in kids enjoying themselves. Not during
the working -day hours. Then come night, he'd fetch us in
for prayers and bed at nine o'clock. Didn't leave us much
time for enjoying ourselves."
Pat's voice was tremulous and low. An old man's voice.
Yet a youthful note crept into the eagerness.
"I came over here from Ireland with the family when I
was seven. The old gent used to tell how he happened to
make the trip. We lived in one of those small Irish villages
you read about. A village that's owned and run by one rich
guy. Well, this rich guy had a daughter -an old -maid daughter
hothely as the, ace of spades, or so the old gent used to say
and she took a fancy to my father. My father had no special
trade. He used to hire out to farmers. Odd jobs. Mostly
clearing their fields and pastures of stones. lie hauled so
much stone he got stooped from it. Did a little blacksmithing,
too. Well, the old gent didn't have eyes for the old maid
or so he used to say. Why should he, when he had a wife and
four kids? But this old maid, she'd follow him to the fields,
every day, and when the father heard of it what did she do
but lie and say it was my father that was pestering her all
the time. Well, the rich guy was mad, I tell you. He had
influence in the village. Got so the old gent found it hard
to find anyone to hire out to.
"Then one morning what does the rich guy find in hls
rose garden but a load of stones. Dumped right onto his
bushes. He laid it to the old gent, said he'd run him from
the village. That same night he took awful sick from a mess
of fish he'd eaten. When he discovered that the old gent had
caught them and sold them to his cook he peddled it around
that my father was trying to poison him. Everyone in the
village was dependent on him one way or another. He gave
them all orders not to give even an hour's work to my father.
"Father Gilligan came to the rescue. He'd heard my
father talking about coming to the States someday. What does
he do but borrow from some of his wealthy friends and stake
the old gent and family to the trip over here. He told my
father as how he'd gone through Barre, Vermont the year before
and that it looked as though it was going to be a mighty pros-
perous town with all the granite they was digging from the
hills.
"Don't remember much about the trip over here except
that we lived for a couple of weeks in a room with about
twenty-five other people. We could hear machines close to
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the room, and chains rattling. At night we'd wake up to
people snoring, or moaning, or making sick puking sounds.
It was too much for my mother. She lost the baby she was
carrying two weeks after we got here. The old gent used to
say: 'God bless Father Filligan, he's a good man. I'll say
a hail Mary for him every day of my life. I'd gladly say
two for him if he had dug deeper into his pocket and given
us the extra for better passage....' The old gent paid him
back every cent.
"We came straight to Barre. My father found work in the
quarries. We lived on a farm in East Barre. The hard work
and hard drinking got him in the chest. I was thirteen then.
He put me out to work for the day for farmers. He didn't
want any of us near the sheds or quarries.
"I guess the trip over here gave me a taste for travel.
I run away from home when I was fifteen. Me and the grand-
father of that cop you was talking to. We went broke in Bristol,
Connecticut. We got jobs in a buckle factory. Wasn't hard
work, and it silre felt good not to have to turn over my salary
to the old gent.
"I'd been there about a year when I got brass poisoning
in my hand. It swelled and got green and rotten looking.
The doctors talked about cutting it off." Pat laughed.
"Rotten looking or not, I wouldn't let them. No sir, not
Pat McFinn. Pat McFinn was going through life with two hands,
or he wasn't going through life at all. Well, it's a good
thing I didn't let them butchers do their cutting. Look."
Pat pulled off a mitten, and held up a wrinkled, heavily
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veined hand. "Lookit, it's just as good as the other.
"Later I wandered down south a bit. Got myself in the
army for a few months. Didn't like that. Didn't like the
food nor the hours. I kind of liked to be my own boss even
in those days. I run away from them. Run right away from
the government, and I never heard no more about it." Pat
chuckled. "Run away from the United States Government, and
heard nothing of it.
"There was a colonel's wife at the army post who asked
me to mend a silk umbrella of hers. She got me to thinking
of my mother and how she'd always wanted a black silk umbrella
with a pearl handle like the rich guy's wife used to own in
Ireland. Vell, I went back to Barre for a couple of years.
I brought my mother the umbrella. But she was dead. She'd
died the day before. I stole in the front room where she
was laid out in her coffin, and I laid the umbrella along-
side of her under her skirts. I didn't wait for no funeral.
I took to wandering the country again. But I couldn't get
my mother off my mind. I tholight of her and the colonel's
wife's umbrella I'd mended, and I got to thinking of what my
mother used to say: everybody's got to have some kind of a
job to keep him from going to the devil...
"Well, right then I got me the idea of mending umbrellas.
Earning a little money as I traveled along. I wasn't married.
Never intended to be. I got no use for women. A woman would
have been a nuisance on the road. I've mended umbrellas ever
since.
'umbrella Pat, they call me.
"Remember that song that come out last year about mend-
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ing umbrellas? The first time I heard it I felt it was written
for me. I heard it in a department store. I was going to buy
the record, then I thought: it won't do no good without a
victrola. So I asked the girl at the handkerchief counter
if she'd just as soon write out the words for me. She did.
They all know Umbrella Pat.
"I did a whale of a lot of traveling in
Last twenty years I've stuck pretty close to
and Waterbury. Always believed in drinking.
the old days.
Barre, Montpelier,
I've heard say
as how it kills folks. Well, it hasn't killed Pat. I've
outlived plenty of my friends. Wasn't never particular about
my liquor, either. I'm near eighty and I've drunk nearly
every liquor under the sun. Sure, I like good stuff. But
once I'm drunk and broke I'm not fussy.
"I got me a room in the Passetti Block. Not much of a
room. It's warm and comfortable. Old Passetti died three
years back. He was from the Old World, too. From Italy.
Came over here and started a grocery store. Raised a family
of eight kids. Educated them all well. There's doctors and
teachers in his family now. Old Passetti lived to build a
business block and buy up six or seven houses. The kids are
well off now. The oldest girl Marietta, is about forty.
She's got three kids. She still looks after the roomers.
She looks after me, and she's good to me. She scolds like
hell when I'm drinking. Couple of months ago she made the
rounds of the dime store and the department stores and told
them not to sell me any bay rum or canned heat.
"Every year she sees that I make my Easter duties. I'm
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a Catholic. Not a good one. But I'm not a bad fellow.
Drink a lot, sure, but I don't do no one no harm.
"Last year I was on a two weeks' drunk. I slipped and
broke my leg. I happened to be in Montpelier at the time.
They took me to the hospital and kept me ti -ere two months.
"After that I went to the poor farm. I had to. My leg
wasn't fit to walk on. I couldn't earn a living. Two of my
brothers are dead. The third one might be dead, too. Haven't
heard from him in fifteen years. I was all alone. I had to
go to the poor farm. I got out as soon as I could. I don't
like charity. I don't want charity. No sir. I'll pay that
poor farm back. No one's going to say Pat took charity.
"T got me a fivel'hundred dollars insurance. ...-hat's two
hundred and fifty dollars more than the funeral of Pat reFinn
is worth. I'll turn the other 250 over to the poor farm.
I don't want charity.
"I get old age pension now. I don't call that charity.
The leg never healed the way it would if I was young. It's
hard for me to get around from house to house. I get along
all right with the pension. When the check comes, I give
Marietta her rent money right away, and the rest, well- I guess
I drink it."
Pat's china -blue eyes smiled. "It's a pretty good life.
I'm not kicking. When I need a little money I go out and
sharpen a few kniVes and scissors. Folks aren't wanting their
umbrellas mended any more. In the old days umbrellas was
expensive. Folks hung on to them, mended them to make them
last. Now you can buy them anywhere for a dollar. It spoiled
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my business.
"I haven't bought a suit of clothes for eight years,"
Pat announced proudly. "Women folk take a liking to me. I
don't know why. I'm certainly not handsome. Just the same
they take a liking to me like they used to, to the old gent.
I'll sharpen a couple of knives and a pair of scissors, and
first thing you know the woman'll go diuing in the attic
for her husband's old clothes. This ulster was given me a
month back. I don't call that charity. It's no money out
of their pockets. It's :lust clothing that'd go to waste if
I didn't use it.
"There was a time years ago I'd stop at the sheds and
they'd always have something to sharpen. That's all past,
too. Each shed's got her own smithy these days. Well, life's
like that, I guess. You got to keep up with the times. And
with yourself. Pretty soon my hands'll be too shaky for
sharpening knives and scissors. I won't go on charity even
then. No sir. Not Pat Mci'inn. I'll get me some pencils
and peddle them. I've seen one-armed men and one-legLed men
selling them- they seem to make a living--"