My Monks of Vagabondia 1

My Monks of Vagabondia 1

My Monks of Vagabondia

 

Author: Andress Floyd

 

Introductory

 

 

My Monks of Vagabondia comprises Fact-stories selected from the old

files of the Self Master Magazine. I wish to present the defeated man,

as he really is, to the reader who cannot fail to appreciate the humor

and tragedy that makes up his wayward life. The bond of sympathy should

be awakened between us and the so-called prodigal.

 

A wider publicity should be given to the unique but practical uplift

work that I have founded and carried on for the past five years among

these weaker brothers.

 

The stories explain in part the methods and plans of the Family of Self

Masters.

 

It is--we believe--the only book in which a writer has received his

facts for his stories direct from a life-experience with outcast men.

 

Not alone that, but the volume is printed, bound and illustrated by the

unexpected guests--the Itinerant Monks of whom the tales are told, and

who make their home in our so-called Monastery.

 

The day approaches when broken men shall have beautiful, though simple,

homes of their own making, modeled after the group idea of The Self

Master Colony. They will be established outside of the different cities

of the world, and opened hospitably to all men who come in their

hour of need or weakness, seeking Self Mastery and the peace that

accompanies it.

 

The proceeds from the sale of these stories go toward the purchase and

installation of much needed equipment for the Printshop and Bindery.

With this equipment the men can work out their own independence,

industrially and socially.

 

When a man has lived months and years enslaved by some vicious

habit--self-destructive and careless of consequences--his sub-conscious

mind is a sensitive matrix on which the sordid history is deeply

engraved. The certain change can come only as the man learns values and

respects them by a right life.

 

The sub-conscious self takes on a complete reformation slowly. An evil

habit does not gain mastery over the man upon the instant nor once in

control is its grip broken by any feeble affirmation or miraculous

phenomenon.

 

The hope comes when one turns one's thought from the destructive to

the constructive, and lives in the sight of the new born faith until

wisdom lifts the darkened veil and freedom follows as its rightful

legacy.

 

The Self Master Colony offers an open door to the disheartened man

during the period of his awakening to his real strength and helps him

with its constant care and sympathy back to his true self.

 

ANDRESS FLOYD.

 

 

 

 

CONTENTS

Introductory 13

A Journey to our Monastery 17

Mary and the Baby 25

My Problem with Slippery Jim. 37

Our Friend, The Anarchist 55

A Bashful Beggar 69

Fritz and His Sun Dial 75

The Waiter Who Did Not Wait. 87

Compounding a Felony 95

The Passing of Sullivan 105

When Sister Called 115

Edison's Evening Star 125

In the World of Wanderlust 133

The Two Jeans 137

 

 

 

 

A JOURNEY TO OUR MONASTERY

 

 

If any pilgrim monk come from distant parts to dwell with us, and

will be content with the customs which he finds in the place, and do

not perchance by his lavishness disturb the Monastery, he shall be

received.

 

--_Saint Benedict._

 

 

 

 

A Journey to our Monastery

 

 

The man had walked the entire distance from New York to the Self Master

Family. In truth, he had walked more than the entire distance, for

once or twice he had lost his way--as many a man has done in other

walks of Life. Painfully he had retraced his steps to the right road.

The mistakes had told heavily upon his failing strength. They had

made him just that much more weary with it all. No doubt mistakes are

wonderfully educational; they make men wiser, and therefore better, for

in the final analysis wisdom and goodness are synonymous.

 

He complained bitterly at the hardness of his lot and found little

comfort in the thought that he might reach the Colony too late for the

evening meal.

 

His friend who had met him walking aimlessly up and down Broadway

assured him that there was always a coffee pot boiling on the

old-fashioned cook stove in the boys' kitchen--that the Colony House

never locked its doors.

 

To a man who feels that every door in the world is locked against him

there is comfort in the thought that there is really one place where

he may find a welcome. His friend had said that there would be no

questions asked him on his arrival--no investigation.

 

"No investigation," he muttered aloud, "thank God! It is easier

for a camel to pass through the eye of a needle than it is for a

'down-and-out' man to convince Professional Charity that he is really

hungry. I think they would have given me a 'hand-out' when they

investigated me the last time if I could have told them what town my

mother was born in."

 

He smiled with weak cynicism at the folly of his thoughts, and then

became suddenly serious, for on the side hill in front of a large

colonial house, worked out in white stone, were the words "The Self

Masters." He stopped and studied the quiet, home-like scene from the

road. All these weary miles he had come to ask food and shelter, and

now his courage seemed to fail him. He sat down by the road side and

leisurely took his pipe from his pocket. Then he prepared tobacco with

the utmost care, filled the pipe and lighted it.

 

"THE SELF MASTERS"

 

he spelled out the letters on the sign; "What the h--ll is that?--Self

Master--Self Mastery--Self Control. Old Man, if you had ever had any

of that Self Control in your make-up you would not be a Knight of the

Dusty Road!... You had better go back to the East Side where you know

the land; where no man cares whether you live decently or not--if you

can buy."

 

Then the sound of a piano and male voices came to him and awakened

him to a new train of thought. "It is a Monastery--a Monastery of

Vagabondia," he said, "and why not? why shouldn't a man, even a

homeless man, have his Monastery, if you please, where he can forget

his past and live cleanly? If he only lives cleanly for a day and

falls.... It's something to remember--a day he doesn't have to be

ashamed of. Who knows but that in the one day of unselfish living a man

is more truly his real self than he is in all the other days of his

vicious years.

 

"Throughout his long life Moses was the leader of his people, but

it was in that day that he talked with God--face to face--that his

countenance did shine like the sun. It was not when he slew the

Egyptian, and, frightened, buried him in the sand; it was when he stood

in the presence of Divinity--that Moses was Moses. When the drunkard is

in his sober mind, when the liar is speaking the truth, when the thief

is giving honest measure, when the murderer is kind to his fellow,

then, and only then, is the true Self finding __EXPRESSION__."

 

He drew heavily at his pipe and then smilingly said, "My pipe has gone

out!" He knocked out the ashes into his hand and scattered them to the

wind, gravely, as if it were some religious ceremony. Then he dusted

his shoes and clothes, and straightening himself up to his full height,

he marched bravely up to the front door of the house....

 

... A black crow, belated in his home-going, left his corn-thieving,

and, rising, flew across the sky to his eyrie in the pines.