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Mari Tomasi
Montpelier, Vt.
UMBRELLA PAT
Snow was piled high in the park square. It was February;
Amok
/bright sun warmed the bendiest. VI melted the snow from the
elm branches, so that the par 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
Mainn," he said. "Re'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
grandfather4E-Pat contibued4 6gr—was my age. With all my
bumming around and poor living I've outlasted him by fifteen
years. Them days they didn't have kids for oops!;or maybe
I'm wrong. Maybe the young men seem like kids to me lust
because I'm old*"
Strands of hair fell white and
silky beneath, corduroy cap. He needed a shave. Hie
cheeks
4 babzilkilnderhe,white bristles)
that old fag* theitwyes were strangely young., Idhina-blue, and
fragile looking. Ris slight frame app red weighted by a
heavy black ulster
A
hands played with the knobbed head of a cane that stood be-
tween his knees.
dArbis ankles. His mittened
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Tweiiiiiidsohool children in snowsuits were walking
the path on ski's. rat's(ohina-bl eyes followed their
progress. When I was a o winter spor 1J
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(I'd rather ski or snowshoe one day than swim in the brook
all summer. Nowadayd kids have store things for their sports.
The only sklig's I ever owned were made from a couple of rre
staves off my old gentle cider barrel. We made straps for
than from an old halter. We'd grease the staves with bacon
rind and they'd take us where we 'anted to go. Couldn't use
A
them much except on moonlit nights.
old gent put us out
to work when we was thirteen; )16, and three brothers. He
was one of them hardworking, hard -praying, bard...drinking men.
Didn't lay no stook in kids enjoying themselves) yot dUring
the working -day h:21.4:( Then come night, he'd fetch us in
for prayers and bed at nine o'clock. Didn't leave us much
c444..4 L411'i
time fo
a voioe was tromu ous
ld man's volo4
i0(0.AA444400444r-
youthful notoLorept into I•
"I came over
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:, /village that's ‘owned and run by one rich
guy. Well, this rich guy had a daughter OrAltfiefilfraraMteliq
homely as the ace of spadessier so the old gent used to say -re"
and she tie* a fancy to my father? a he had no special
1,00o4.4,4 4
tradeaelairgout to farmerslAkdd jobs); )1116stly
clearing their fields and pastures of stones.
much stone he get s cope from it. Did little blacksmithing
4.
the room, and chains rattling. At night we'd wake up to
people snoring, or moaning, or making sick2puking 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
says 'God bless Father Filligan, hele 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. hard work
0
and hard drinking got him in the chest. I was thirteen then.
He put me out to work 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; Ye and the grand-
father of that cop you was talking to. We went broke in Bristol,
r.
got jobs in a buckle factoy Ain't hard
Connecticut A
work, and it sure felt good not to have to turn over my
444
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."11tkat laugh110
7 —"Rotten looking or not, I wouldn't let them. No sir, not
Pat Mainn. Pat Mainn 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. Looks"
pulled off a mitten, and held up a wrinkled, heavily
5.
veined hand. "Lookiti 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•0 k I run away from themi ilun right away from
4
the government, and I never heard no more about it." Pat
chuckled. "Run away from the United States Government, and
heard nothing of it.
a colonel's wife at the army post asked
iie
me to mend a silk umbrellaigh herd!. She got me to thinking
-41
of my mother and how she'd always wanted a bleak silk umbrella
with a pearl handle like the rich guy's wife used to own in
Ireland. Well,VOW went back to Barre(for a couple of year4
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 thought of her and the colonel's
wife's umbrella I'd mended, and I got to thinking of what my
mother used to says everybody's got to have some kind of a
job to keep him from going to the devil. -0-1--r
ft
sight then I got (the idea of mending umbrellas, at,
_A laming a little money as I traveled along, I wasn't married;
;Over 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 mond-.
6.
ing umbrellas! The first time I heard it I felt it was written
for me. I heard it in a department etre. I was going to buy
the record, then I thought: itImato o no good without a
victrola. So I asked the girl at the handkerchief counter
if she'd :ust 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 the old days, isvi s 4'
)4st twenty years I've stuck pretty close to Barre, Montpelier,
and Waterbury. k161 ways believed in drinking. 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
roam. It's warm and comfortable. Old Passetti died three
years back. Re was from the Old World, tooi Aom Italy.
Came over here and started a grocery store. Raised a family
of eight kids:, )11aucated 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. .tot good one y4 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 there two months.
"After that want 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 1,1,ad to
go to the poor farm. I got out as soon as I could. I don't
like charity. I don't want charity. NoIsir, I'll pay that
poor farm back. No one's going to say Pat took charity.
III got me a fiveihundred dollars insurance. ThattS two
hundred and fifty dollars more than the funeral of Pat MoFinn
is worth. I'll turn the other 0250 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
41..ArN
I drink
Pat's obina-blue eyes smileA. "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
expen3ive. Folks hung on to them, mended them to make them
last. Now you can buy them anywhere for a dollar. It spoiled
B
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 diaing 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 just 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,
like that, I guess. You got to keep up with the
life's
times,17q1
bill.Lyourne0 Pretty soon my hands111 be too shaky for
sharpening knives and scissors.
then. No sir. Not Pat MoFinn.
I won't go on charity even
I'll get me some pencils
and peddle them. I've seen one-armed men and one-leued men
0,044
selling themx they seem to make a livinj"