's
head handle, carved. So equipped he had ambled uninterestedly over to
the Park across the way. And there he had found new life.

New life in old life. For the park was full of old men. Old men like
himself, with greyhound's-head canes, and mufflers and somebody's
sweater worn beneath their greatcoats. They wore arctics, though the
weather was fine. The skin of their hands and cheek-bones was glazed and
had a tight look though it lay in fine little folds. There were
splotches of brown on the backs of their hands, and on the temples and
forehead. Their heavy grey or brown socks made comfortable folds above
their ankles. From that April morning until winter drew on the Park saw
old man Minick daily. Not only daily but by the day. Except for his
meals, and a brief hour for his after-luncheon nap, he spent all his
time there.

For in the park old man Minick and all the old men gathered there found
a Forum--a safety valve--a means of expression. It did not take him long
to discover that the Park was divided into two distinct sets of old men.
There were the old men who lived with their married sons and
daughters-in-law or married daughters and sons-in-law. Then there were
the old men who lived in the Grant Home for Aged Gentlemen. You saw its
fine red-brick facade through the trees at the edge of the Park.

And the slogan of these first was:

"My son and my da'ter they wouldn't want me to live in any public Home.
No, sirree! They want me right there with them. In their own home.
That's the kind of son and daughter I've got!"

The slogan of the second was:

"I wouldn't live with any son or daughter. Independent. That's me. My
own boss. Nobody to tell me what I can do and what I can't. Treat you
like a child. I'm my own boss! Pay my own good money and get my keep for
it."

The first group, strangely enough, was likely to be spotted of vest and
a little frayed as to collar. You saw them going on errands for their
daughters-in-law. A loaf of bread. Spool of white No. 100. They took
their small grandchildren to the duck pond and between the two toddlers
hand in hand--the old and infirm and the infantile and infirm--it was
hard to tell which led which.

The second group was shiny as to shoes, spotless as to linen, dapper as
to clothes. They had no small errands. Theirs was a magnificent leisure.
And theirs was magnificent conversation. The questions they discussed
and settled there in the Park--these old men--were not i