Nation, March 1, 1913.

It was on a cold morning late in November last, just after the national
election, and I was walking briskly toward my office. A stiff wind was
blowing and a drizzling rain was falling. The threads in one of the ribs
of my umbrella snapped asunder and the cover flew upward, as it has a
way of doing, and I was about to lower my disabled shower-stick when I
ran slapdash into an old itinerant umbrella mender with his outfit slung
across his back and shuffling along in the opposite direction. He had
noticed the ill-behavior of my umbrella. It snapped from its bearing
even as he had his eyes upon it. Perhaps it understood. Anyway he had
not a cent in his pocket and he had not yet breakfasted that cold and
wet November morning.

He was about 65. His clothes had evidently weathered many a storm and
besides being worn and shabby were too light for that season. Overcoat
he had none. Nor gloves, nor overshoes. Mine embarrassed me.

His hat had been brushed to a standstill. His shoes were making their
last stand and a protruding toe, red with the cold, seemed to have been
shoved out as a signal of distress.

The outfit of the old fellow, carried on his back, was sorry enough to
fit his general makeup, and if he had offered himself for sale just as
he stood, including his earthly belongings and his immortal soul, he
would have found no bidder nor brought a cent.

The face of the old umbrella mender lighted up with a kindly smile as he
commented on the strange conduct of my umbrella in slipping a cog just
as he happened to come along. I asked him by what evil magic he did the
trick and he laughed in a half-hearted way just to be polite, but it was
plain that he had long since forgotten how to laugh.

As we stepped into the shelter of an adjoining store he sat down on the
steps and drawing a threaded needle from beneath the lapel of his thin
and faded coat, he began to sew the cover back into its proper place.
His fingers were red and numb. A discolored nail partly hid a badly
bruised thumb.

He had difficulty in doing this bit of sewing, and it plainly distressed
him. His eyesight was failing and his fingers were stiff in the joints.
Yet he strove eagerly and intently to master their dumb protest. And he
hoped, as he remarked, that he would be able to make an extra bit of
money to provide himself with a pair of spectacles, now that favorable
weather had set in for his trade.

Poor human soul, I tho