Now when Francis first became poor for the love of Christ, he walked upon the hillside above Saint Damian, and his heart was so full of joy that he sang aloud as the Troubadour of God. And coming presently to a lonely place infested by robbers, he was stopped by a band of these wicked ones who demanded who he might be.
"What is that to you?" asked Francis. "Know, however, that I am a herald of the Great King."
Then the robbers stripped him of his rough tunic and flung him into a ditch full of snow.
"Lie there, thou fool herald!" said they, and left him alone.
He was soon on his feet again, and laughing at his sorry plight; and after he had asked and obtained a pilgrim's dress from a friend who lived near by, he returned to Assisi.
The priest of Saint Damian was glad to offer him food and shelter, and at once Francis set to work to find materials wherewith to build up the church anew. For in those days he thought the call had come only to build the walls and tower of stone; whereas in later days he understood that he had been bidden to build up The Church which is made up of the souls of men.
So day by day he walked gaily through the streets of the city, chanting a song after the fashion of a troubadour:
"Who will give stones for the building of Saint Damian?
Who so gives one stone shall have one reward;
Who so gives two stones shall have two rewards;
Who so gives three stones shall have three rewards."
And they all ran together to hear him, and some jeered, but others gave what he wanted, so that he returned heavy laden to the church of Saint Damian.
Then, with the aid of friendly peasants he began to build, and when those who passed by stopped to watch his building, he would call out to them and say: "Come and help us in our work, good people. For this church of Saint Damian will one day be a convent for holy ladies whose life and fame will be for the Glory of God."
And so it came to pass. For that place became the site of the convent of Saint Clare and her sisters, who, with their prayers and good works, glorified God and the Order of the Friars Minor.
Now sometimes it happened that when Francis was very weary with his hard day's work, the priest of Saint Damian would tempt him with food, delicate and fine, such as he had been accustomed to all his life. But soon he became affrighted of this liking for delicate food, seeing that he had embraced the Lady Poverty; so he said to himself:
"Not everywhere, O greedy one, will you find men to minister to your wants as does this good priest. This is not the life of one who has chosen Poverty for his bride. Rise up, thou lazy one, and go begging from door to door the leavings of the table."
So next day he rose up and went, carrying a dish into the city; and the citizens, laughing, filled it with their scraps. And this became the custom of the Friars Minor, so that they never forgot the poverty of Christ and the hardships of the poor.
Now when Francis had rebuilt Saint Damian he turned him to another ruined chapel by the wayside, Saint Mary of the Little Portion, which the natives call the "Porziuncula," and that chapel in the wood became his beloved home. He loved the music in the tree tops when the wind blew down the hillside, and the piping of the birds, and the soft pad of lithe beasts among the bushes; and all these things became his brothers and his sisters. And in those days he made for himself a habit of rough brown stuff shaped like a cross and girded himself with a rope; and this is the dress worn by his followers to this very day.
- text taken from A Little Book of Saint Francis and His Brethren, by Ethel Mary Wilmot-Buxton