“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 commit an act that severs the jugular vein of his respectability.

"He may have, only the moment before, shaven and groomed himself with the utmost care, still he is nearly ready to join the ranks of the down-and-outs. A man may sell his other belongings—his clothes included—and yet preserve a suggestion at least of his sang-froid. But when the razor goes—"

“Then he can get a free shave at the Barbers’ School,” I suggested.

“That only helps for a day or two,” he went on. “Better throw up your hands at once and have it over. What man half ill with worry cares to listen to some ambitious pupil say, ‘Teacher, shall I shave the right side of his face up, or shave it down?’—and, ‘Teacher, how do you shave the upper lip without cutting it?’ and, ‘Teacher, if I do cut it, shall I disinfect it with carbolic or peroxide before I put on the new skin?’—No Barbers’ School for me. It is better to turn philosopher on the instant—the old philosophers and prophets grew long beards.... Talk about getting next to Nature in about three days after a man has sold his razor, Nature will get next to him, and if he is not as beardless as an American Indian, he will be convinced when he sees himself in a mirror, of the truth of the Darwinian theory.”

“In Russia,” I said, “the beard is the patriarch’s badge of sanctity.”

“So it is in Jersey and several other States,” he replied. "Many a so-called hobo with two weeks’ growth of beard on his face may be at heart only a conscientious respecter of the law—for it is a misdemeanor in New Jersey to carry a razor. It is legally declared to be a concealed weapon. Many a poor rascal against whom a charge of vagrancy could not be maintained has found it so much the worse for him, and has been forced to go to prison for carrying concealed weapons in the form of a razor. So you see in Jersey, as well as in Russia, a beard may be only proof of honor.... The cleanly shaven man who knocks at your side door and wins the unsuspecting wife’s confidence with that time-worn platitude of Vagabondia, ‘Lady, all I want is work,’ may have a weapon concealed upon his person, while the unshaven wanderer, the sight of whom makes the women folks bolt doors, may be a homeless fellow who really wants work, and would rather be unkempt in appearance than chance a prison-term for carrying a razor."

“So you have sold your razor?” I asked.

“Not because I am trying to compete with your Russian patriarch in sanctity. I sold it because I’m desperate.”

“Then you were not afraid of the misdemeanor charge?”

He replied with a laugh that I did not like, and I felt quickly to see if my watch was still in my possession.

“I don’t want your watch,” he said, “but it isn’t the fear of doing time that holds me back. I know what my friend wrote about me. I have made up my mind to play square. You may not believe it. You have heard too many mission testimonies to believe much in them. But if I live right—it isn’t because my heart is softened, my heart is cold and hard as a paving block.”

“Your friend wrote that you weren’t such a bad fellow.”

"Don’t believe him. In Elmira they have a scheme of percentage, and if a man gets above a certain percent he can win his freedom. In the four years I was there I was safely within the required percentage—all I had to do was to continue my good behavior. I was within a few days of freedom. Did you ever sense hatred—pure hatred? Shylock felt it when he refused to accept money to cancel Antonio’s bond; when he would not listen to threats or entreaties, but only muttered, ‘I’ll have my pound of carrion flesh.’ I know what he felt. In the night, after weeks and weeks of patient study and labor—after months of good conduct, when I played their game and won the chance of freedom. In the night, without reason, I jumped from my bed and battered at the bars and yelled and cursed at them all, until they put me in the dungeon and took from me my high percent. I lost a year that time."

“Do the prison bars still hold you,” I asked him.

“What do you mean?”

“You act like a mad man when you talk of the past. Some men can never throw off the thought of their imprisonment. It rules their life. They think only of prison and the crimes that follow such thinking. There is no hope for them. Can’t you see it is your ideals that enslave or make you free? Can’t you see you are free?”

“It’s mighty hard,” he said, "but I want to forget. My friend sent me to you. He said you knew the path to freedom, and would help me. Days and days I have waited for you to come to me. My father would not have me at home, my friends left me, my money grew less and less—my clothes went, my razor—everything. And still you did not come. Sometimes I’d meet a boy that told me of your work. Sometimes I would doubt all I had heard, and then I would become indifferent—mutter a prayer or plan a crime. At last the letter came. I knew I was being put to the test, and I sought to be firm. Oh, God, such a test! What is it holds a man? I was hungry, yet I knew how to steal; I needed money, and I knew where I could rob with reasonable safety. What is it holds a man like me? At times I have thought it was my belief in you."

“You mean our Colony held out a hope to you.”

“Yes,” he said.

“I am afraid to take you into my Family,” I told him.

“For fear I’ll steal from you?” he said, coldly.

“No, not that; I fear you cannot leave your prison thoughts behind you when you enter the Colony.”

“If you help me,” he said, thoughtfully, “I think I can begin anew.”

“Will you promise never to speak to me or anyone of your past life?”

“I will not speak of it again.”

“Then you may go to the entrance gate with me, and there I will decide if I can take you in.”

We talked on the way to the farm about many things—for he had read and traveled much. We made no mention of the Family or its work, but as we came near the Colony House I stopped.

“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.

“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:

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.”