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Kari Tomas/
cice, t.t ftts+
Writers' Secth,n
*TF
Qtych-Ar.-ke.
UMBRELLA PAT
February snow was piled high in the park square* A bright
sun 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 watching the life of Barre on the main strest..-from the
granite bank facing the park to the dingy wooden and bridk bus-
iness blocks.
A policeman stopped beside the old man. °This is Pat
Maims" be said. "He's been in and out of Barre these forty
years-"
nForty-fives. Pat corrected with a friendly miles an the
policeman swung down the walk. III remember that fellow's grand-
fathers" Pat continued. "He was my age. With all my bumming
around and poor living I've outlived him by fifteen years*
Them days they didn't have kids for copa.. or maybe I'm wrong.
Maybe the young non seem like kids to me just becomes I'm old"
Pat was an old man* lisps of hair fell wilte and silky
beneath the corduroy cap* He needed a shave. His cheeks were
pink as a baby's under the wLite bristles. In that old face
the eyes were strangely young. China -blues and fragile looking.
His slight frame appeared weighted by an old-fashioned black
ulster that hung to his ankles. His mittened hands played with
the knobbed head of walking cans.
a.
Two graded school children in snowsuits more walking the
path on ski's. Pat's china...blue eyes followed their progress.
"When I was a kid I was *bolos 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
skill I ever owned were made from a couple of barrel staves off
my old gent's cider barrel. Wso made straps for them from an
old halter, We'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. Mo, and three brothers. Be was one of them
hard-working, 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 fetdh us in for prayers and bid
at nine o'clock. Didn't leave us much time for enjoying our-
selves."
Pat's voice was tremulous and low. Amv old man's vole*.
Yet a youthful eagerness crept into it.
"I came over here from Ireland with the family when I
was seven. The old gent used to toll how be 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 an old -maid daughter.. -homely as the ace
of spades, --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 fields and pastures
of stones. He hauled so much stone he got stooped from it.
Did a little blackemithing, too. The old gent didn't give a
3,
damn for the old maid, 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 her father heard of it
she lied and said it was my father that was pestering her all
the time. The rich guy was mad, I tel/ you. He had influence
in the villages Got so the old gent found it hard to find any
to hire out to.
*Then one morning the rich guy finds a load of stones in
his rose garden. Dumped right onto hi. bushes. Es. 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, he
discovered that the old gent had caught them and sold them to
his cook, and he boom peddling it around that my father was
trying to poison him. Everyone in the village was dependent
on him one way or another. he gave then all orders not to give
even an hour's work to my father.
"Father Gilligan came to the rescues Held heard my father
talking about coming to the States someday. What's he do but
borrow from some of his wealthy friends and stake the old gent
and family to the trip over here. Be told my father as how
he'd gone through Barre, Vermont, the year before and that it
locked IP though it was going to be a nighty prosperous 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 twentr.five
other people. We could hear machines close to the roam, and
chains rattling, At night we'd wake up to people inoring, or
moaning, or making sick puking sounds. It was too much for my
4,
mother, She lost the baby she was carrying two weeks after we
got here, The old gent used to say: God bless Father Gilligan,
he's a good man. I'll say a Bail Mary for him every day of my
life. I'd gladly say two for him it he'd dug deeper into his
pocket and given us the extra for better passage.... This old
gent paid him back every cent.
"We come straight to Barre. My father found work in the
quarries, We lived on a farm in East Barre. Hard work and
hard drinking got him in the lungs. 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.
"The trip over here gave me a taste for travel. I run
away from home when I yes fifteen. Mil and the grandfather of
that cop you was talking to. We went broke in Bristol, Conn.
ectiout. We got jobs in a buckle factory. Wasn't hard work,
and it sure 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 Manna.
Pat MoFinn was going through life with two hands, or he wasn't
going through life at all. It's a good thing I didn't let them
do their butchering. Look." Pat pulled off a mitten, and
held up a wrinkled, heavily veined hand. "Lookit„ just as
good an 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 govern-
ment, and X never heard no more about it.* Pat chuckled. *Run
sway from the United States Government, and heard nothing of it.
*There was a oolonells 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. Well, I went back to Barre for couple of years.
I brought my mother the umbrella. But she was dead, She'd
died the day before. I walked in the front room where she was
laid out in her coffin, and I laid the umbrella alongside 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 um-
brella 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. 1 got no use for women. A woman would've
been a nuisance on the road. I've mended umbrellas over sSnooe
Umbrella Pat, they call me.
*Remember that song that come out last year about mending
umbrellas. First time I heard it I felt it was written 'f'4. me.
Feard it in a department store. 1 was going to buy the record,
then I thought: hell, t'won't do no good without a victrola.
So I asked the girl at the handkerchief counter if she'd just
7.
"After that I went to the poor N.rm: Had to. Couldn't
stand on my leg* I couldn't earn a living. Two of my brothers
are dead. Third one might be dead, tow 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 vent charity. No sir. I'll pay that poor farm back*
No one's going to say Pat took charity.
"I got me a fly...hundred dollars insurance. That's two
hundred and fifty dollars more than the funeral of Pat UoPinn
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 younger. It's
hard for me to get around from house to house. I get along
all right with the pension. Vhen the check comes, I give Kar-
Jetta her rent money right away, and the rat, well- I guess
I drink it."
Pat's china -blue eyes smiled. "It's a pretty good life.
I'm not kicking. then I need a little money I go out and sharpen
a few knives and scissors. Polka aren't wonting 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 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 *17. I'm certainly not handsome. They take a liking to
we like tely did to the old gent. I sharpen a couple of knives
and a pair of scissors, and first thing you know the woman'll
a.
go digging in the attic for her husband's old cloLles. This
ulster was ivon me a month back. I don't call that charity.
It's no money out of their pockets. It's just olothing that'd
go to waste if I didn't use it.
*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 this. days. Well, life's like that. You got
to keep up with the times. And with yourself. Pretty soon
my hands111 be too shaky for sharpening knives and scissors.
I won't go on charity oven then. No sir. Not Pat XoFinni..
I'll got me some pencils and peddle thon. I've seen one-armed
men and one -legged men selling them- they make a living'—"