Andress Floyd Copyright 1913 By Andress Floyd TO MY WIFE LILLIAN BLANCHE FLOYD WHOSE DEVOTION AND INSPIRATION MADE POSSIBLE THE SELF MASTER COLONY...

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 s

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 retrac

“And a little child shall lead them.” —Isaiah. Mary and the Baby Resolved , that old fashioned cow’s milk is better for Our Baby, than any prepared food." The debate on the above subject will start at seven o’clock next Thursday evening. The Conservatives of our Colony will speak in favor of cow’s milk as a baby’s food. The Progressives will speak in favor of prepared food. The parliamentary rules governing the debate will be the same as govern a “catch-as-catch-can” wrestling match. No slugging

“When a boy goes to prison, a citizen dies.” —Jacob Riis My Problem with Slippery Jim. “My razor went yesterday for a beef stew,” the young dare-devil told me. “Not that I am one of those collar-and-necktie-rounders,” he continued, "who seek to give out the impression that they are gentlemen in distress, telling you of their Southern family and a squandered fortune when, in fact, they have never been further South than Coney Island.... But when a fellow decides to sell his razor he is about to c

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 c

“Faint heart ne’er won fair lady.” A Bashful Beggar “It is his diffidence,” the good lady told me, “that has caused the young man to fail dismally in this strenuous age of materialism. His is a gentle spirit!” At their first meeting, she told me, when he called at her home and asked for something to eat, he appeared so shy and embarrassed that she was immediately interested in him. He blushed and stammered in a most pitiable way, and after he had eaten heartily of the roast beef and potatoes pla

“The small task—well performed—opens the door to larger opportunity.” Fritz and His Sun Dial Years ago, I saw a near-sighted cook peeling onions—a most pathetic scene if one judges entirely from appearances. The incident impressed me deeply at the time, although it had long since passed from my mind, when good old Fritz came to me, with tears running down the dusty furrows of his be-wrinkled and weather-beaten face. Some strange analogy revived the old memory. There is—say what one will—somethin

“Whoever is not master of himself is master of nobody.” —Stahl. The Waiter Who Did Not Wait. Had the schedule been followed faithfully, it was the time for the auto party to have finished their tea and toast and be awaiting the chauffeur to come up with their machine, but there seemed to be a delay somewhere. Investigation revealed a peculiar condition of affairs. The visitors were moving about rather impatiently while the lunch, instead of being served, was rapidly getting chilled on the side-b

“Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” —Bible. Compounding a Felony There was a knock at the door, but no one thought of answering it until it was repeated—more faintly, a second time—then one of the young men opened it, saying to the newcomer, “It is never locked, my boy.” In stepped a lad some seventeen years of age, and inquired in a voice hardly audible if he could stay all night. The young men sent the new arrival to me for an answer to h

“Friar Philip, you are the tuning fork from whence my conscience takes its proper tone.” —Richelieu. The Passing of Sullivan — George Cohan’s Song, “Sullivan.” If you thought it was imperative to change your name and you had access to all the Literature—Ancient and Modern—to be found in a Carnegie Library, would you select for yourself the name “Sullivan?” Evidently our Irish Lad agreed with Cohan—that “it is a d—n fine name”—for when I recognized in him one of my Family of Homeless Men as he wa

“O Lord, That which I want is first bread—Thy decree, not my choice, that bread must be first.” —Sidney Lanier. When Sister Called He came—did Jim—highly recommended by two fellows who live by their wits—one, Lakewood Joe and the other, Corduroy Tom. They are my friends, for they have told me they were. One of them always comes to me in the Winter anxious to get work on a farm; the other with a few broken umbrellas and a railroad spike for a hammer, starts out with the Springtime on the quest of

“Seek him that maketh the seven stars and Orion: The Lord is his name.” —Bible. Edison’s Evening Star Hamlet : “Ay, marry, why was he sent into England?” First Clown : “Why, because he was mad: he shall recover his wits there; or, if he do not, it’s no great matter there.” Hamlet : “Why?” First Clown : “‘Twill not be seen in him there; there the men are as mad as he.” — Shakespeare. To be dull of wit is sadly unfortunate, but to be dull of wit and be compelled to live in a Colony made up of more

“To stand in true relations with men in a false age, is worth a fit of insanity, is it not?” —Emerson. In the World of Wanderlust The Spirit of the Wanderlust seizes all the World in the early days of Spring—the so-called hobo takes to the open road, the millionaire to his country home, each rejoices that the long imprisonment of winter is passed, for all men are akin in their love of freedom. It is a search for the ideal. With De Soto we would say, “Somewhere, if ye seek untiringly, ye shall di