My Monks of Vagabondia 4

My Monks of Vagabondia 4

"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.

 

"Doesn't she look pretty," said the admiring mother.

 

"She looks like Jeffries at the end of the fifth," was Jim's reply.

 

A few moments later I heard him as he walked, singing music of his own

improvising to the words of Wilde's prison poem:

 

"With slouch and swing around the ring,

We trod the Fools' Parade!

We did not care; we knew we were

The Devil's Own Brigade;

And shaven head and feet of lead

Make a merry masquerade."

 

 

III

 

The Winter was nearly over when "Slippery Jim" came to me and expressed

a wish to return to the World again. If his father would only accept

him once more!

 

My observation of a father's attitude towards his prodigal son is that

the moment the son desires to live as he ought, not only do closed

doors open, but the father stands ready with outstretched arms to

receive him. This supposedly harsh father, when he was convinced that

his Jim had worked faithfully at the Colony for several months, was

anxious that his son return home. Even the boy's old employer expressed

sympathy and offered a position to him.

 

When this good news came I did not have to tell the boy anything about

its being one's duty to be cheerful. He wanted to dance a clog on the

table in the men's reading room.

 

Early the next morning he left us, not waiting to thank us, which was

quite unnecessary; nor hardly stopping to say good-bye to us. But a

few days afterward he wrote to me, saying that after four years he was

back with his father and mother, brother and sisters, in his own room,

sleeping in his own bed. The family had arranged it just the same as it

had been before he left them for those sad years in prison. His father

had purchased him a new suit for Easter. The next day he was to start

to work.

 

Nearly a year later he visited me. His work had taken him out of town.

"When I first met you," he said. "I didn't have a home. Now it is a

question which one to visit first, but I thought I would come out to

see you, and then go this evening and see my other father."

 

[Illustration]

 

 

 

 

OUR FRIEND, THE ANARCHIST.

 

 

 

 

As a man thinketh in his heart, so is he.

 

--_Bible._

 

 

 

 

Our Friend, The Anarchist

 

 

He said that he came from Germany, but he didn't look it, for Germany

is a beautiful country, and he was far removed from even a suggestion

of beauty. Had he said he had just arrived from "No Man's Land," it

would have been easily accredited. For a German, even his accent and

grammatical construction were unsatisfactory. He did not begin his

sentences in the middle and talk both ways at once, after the well

established custom of Americanized Teutons. In the stress of his

excitement he expressed himself concisely and clearly.

 

He was seated in the Charity House awaiting the investigation of the

social workers. He held his head in his hands, while his body convulsed

frequently, and tears were in his eyes.

 

To see a man with unkempt whiskers indulging in a crying spell like a

delicate woman, is almost as humorous as it is pathetic, unless one

knows what the man is crying about. Then, too, the Germans, unlike

the Irish, take their trouble seriously, so that their despair often

creates for them the hell they fear.

 

Surely it wasn't a German who in the old Bible days sent hired mourners

to go about the street; it was undoubtedly an Irishman whose genius

conceived the idea of paying other men to do his weeping for him.

 

"Where are you from?" I asked the German.

 

He surveyed me suspiciously from head to foot, then replied politely

enough: "I am of German parentage and have lived the greater part of my

life in Heidelberg, where my father and grandfather were instructors in

the University."

 

"When did you arrive in America?" I asked him.

 

"A few days ago," he answered. "I came from Paris, where I met with

heavy--heavy for me--financial reverses. I attempted to conduct a

business similar to your brokers, who loan money on personal property,

but being unfamiliar with French law, I found I could not legally

enforce payments of the loans I made to the Frenchmen. My entire life

savings--small, it is true--were lost. In disgust I came to America,

and my condition now is worse than ever. I am desperate."

 

He did not raise his voice, speaking quietly, but his hands were

nervous, and his eyes reminded me of Svengali--fascinating, but

dangerous. My impression was that I had seen safer men locked in

darkened cells and allowed only wooden spoons with which to eat.

 

"Has the charity association decided to help you?" I asked.

 

"I fear not," he replied. "They wish me to tell them my father's

address in Germany, as they inform me that they always make thorough

investigations. Several times they asked me my home address, but I

turned them from the point, as I have no intention of adding my burdens

to the burdens my father and mother already have.... Does it seem quite

generous of your social workers to be so insistent?... But, pardon me,

have you not a saying that 'Beggars must not be choosers?'"

 

I did not reply to his question, as I was thinking what my Reception

Committee--made up of the boys of the Colony--would say to me if I

invited this much-bewhiskered individual to join our Family. For the

instant I forgot the German's troubles in the thought of the troubles

which I was about to take upon myself. I smiled at my approaching

embarrassment. "It is all very well," the boys had cautioned me, "to

hold us responsible for the newly-arrived members, to make certain that

no criminal nor fraud obtains admission to the Family, but you might be

a little more discriminating in your selections, could you not?"

 

* * * * *

 

The German was quick to avail himself of my offer to join the Colony;

he would go to Hoboken and get his luggage and join me as soon as

possible. His luggage--he met me an hour later--consisted of a wooden

box too small to be called a trunk, too large to be called a valise.

 

As we approached the Colony House we passed several of the boys who had

evidently seen us at a distance, for they appeared deeply interested

in the setting sun, their faces turned from us. Finally one fellow

who, like a good Pullman porter, can laugh at you without changing his

facial __EXPRESSION__, only if you watch closely you may note that the

muscles at the back of the neck dance in uncontrolled merriment--came

forward and said to us: "A beautiful sunset."

 

He should have been reprimanded for his impudence, but I simply asked,"Where?"