My Monks of Vagabondia

“Tell me,” I said, “did they teach you a trade at Elmira?”

“I’m a metal roofer by trade,” he said.

“Did you learn the trade in prison?” I asked him.

“I think you mistake me for some other man,” he replied, quietly. “I know nothing about prison life.”

“What do you mean, not only your friend told me that you had served a term, but you told me yourself?” I said, severely.

He looked calmly into my face, but there were tears in his eyes.

"I could not have told you, for had I told you such a foolish falsehood I would have remembered it. Let us talk of something else."

“Very good,” I said, pleasantly. He was trying to forget the past.

At that moment there came to us the vigorous clamor of an old cow bell.

“It is the bell that calls the boys to their evening meal.”

“Yes?”

“Come, let us hurry, so we may be served at the first table, for you are hungry.”

II

The holy Vedas teach us that as we pass from life to life, Time places gentle fingers over the eyes of memory, lest we become disheartened by past errors and falter enslaved by the fears of what we have been. Like the child who, having worked out a problem on his slate, erases it all, keeping only the answer, so we have within our soul-life the result of our past experiences; all the rest is erased.

Who cares about the detailed account of all the happenings along the path we have traveled? We know intuitively that much of the past must be condemned, but that which concerns us vitally is the life we aim to live to-day.

Night closes on the sorrows of yesterday. Dawn is radiant with the promise of a better day.

Our friend, “Slippery Jim,” tried to believe all this, and to look with hope towards the future, but he kept much to himself. He would take long walks into the woods.

It disturbed me to see him so slow to take the boys into his confidence.

“I never see you reading with the other men in the evening,” I told him. “Men who love solitude are either very good or very bad.”

“I will try to do better,” he answered, “but for so many years I have been used to being by myself.”

“Still one has to live in the world – and our world here is rather small,” I said. “Cheerfulness is a duty one owes to his own soul.”

“And to others,” he added.

“Yes, and to others,” I replied.

"I am inclined to view lightly my duty to others. I owed a debt – a great debt once – to others, and I have paid it. They measured it out of my life, the payment they demanded. I have paid it – paid it in tears and wretchedness – paid it out of my heart and soul. Now I prefer to live apart… The Indians, so the poet says, when on the march, leave their old and sick alone to die. I am a sick savage, and as such, I ask my rights."

“Do you believe in the Great Spirit and the Happy Hunting Grounds?” I asked gently, for I knew he had no Indian blood in his veins.

“Their religion is as good as many another, and quite as poetical.”

“Then go into the forest and pray to your Great Spirit,” I said. “Only don’t discredit him by being inconsiderate of others who would be kind to you.”

“Do I not do my work?” he asked, with rising anger.

“You are expected to do your work, but I am not speaking to you on that subject. I want to know what you are thinking about while you are at work.”

“If you please, that is my own affair.”

“If you please, it is my affair also. You came out here to have me help you. I want to help you.”

“You have helped me; you took me into this Colony when my father had closed the door on me; you have given me food – such as it is – and out of the clothes sent in you have given me this second-hand suit.”

“And you have worked like the other men and paid by your labor for what you received?”

“Yes.”

“And that is all there is to it?”

“Yes.”

“It is very, very little I have done for you,” and I started to leave him.

“Wait a moment” – he stopped me. “I did not intend to be unkind to you. You have treated me much better than I have deserved.”

“It is something to have even simple food when one is hungry,” I said, severely. “You have also more courage than when you came. In your work you know courage is quite important. You will soon be able to go back to your old life.”

“No, not that,” his voice becoming less hardened. "In these days I have lived with you and observed the happiness you get out of your work – in spite of its sacrefice – and compared it with my own way of living, I can not understand how I could have ignored the good there’s in me. But, really, you should not expect us all to be as cheerful as you are. You may see clearly the Truth that we see only through a glass darkly."

“So you plan to live like an honest man?”

“Absolutely.”

“Then I have not really lost after all,” I said, thoughtfully.

“What did you say?” he questioned, not having heard clearly my remark.

“I said that if you have determined to live honestly, that is something.”

That evening I saw him walking up and down the kitchen floor with our Baby in his arms – for that Winter we had a homeless mother and Baby at the Colony. The Baby was kicking and laughing as he carried her with measured stride around the room.

“I simply must put her to sleep,” he said, confidingly.

“Why don’t you sing to her,” I suggested.

“I am hazy on my slumber songs,” he said.

A little later the Baby was nodding with half closed eyes.