David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 12

"The room here is not warm enough. Let us carry him back where the stove is."

The cook is on the stairs and beholds the little cortege. "Lord!

Lord!" she wails, and the housekeeper silences the cry. "They carry them like that at the hospital," the frightened woman explains. "But they are always dead!"

In the kitchen sits a woman, visiting the cook. Her face is the very picture of trouble. She rocks her body as she talks.

"I buried seven," she says.

"Seven children?"

"Yes, and every one with membrainyous croup. They may call it what they please. Ah! I know; I know!"

She rocks her body, and laughs almost a silly laugh.

"Every one of them had a terrible attack, and then was well for a week.

Two of 'em dropped dead at play. They seems so full of life just before they go. When my husband broke his leg I lost one. When I caught the small-pox they let one die. Oh, my! Oh, my!"

The woman rocks her body and laughs.

Lockwin wants more boiling water. It gives him something to do to get it. He enters the kitchen.

"Davy has the asthma," he says to the desolate mother as he pa.s.ses.

"Davy has the membrainyous croup," she replies: "I saw that a week ago.

Makes no difference what the doctors say; they can't help no child."

"Where is that doctor, Esther?" the man says.

"He was here while you were gone. He said he would return soon. He said it was a relapse, but he thought there was no danger."

"It is lucky," the man inwardly comments, "that we are all doctors."

"He should have stayed here and attended to his business," the man observes audibly, as he makes a new poultice.

"Mamma!" It is Davy.

"Yes, mamma is here."

"Why don't the doctor come?"

"Are you suffering, precious?"

"I don't know."

"There, let us warm your feet. Don't take them away, pet. See, you breathe easily now."

"Thank G.o.d!" says the man "that we are all doctors."

The afternoon wanes.

"Georgie Day, mamma."

"Yes, lamby."

"I want him to have my sleeve-b.u.t.tons. He can play base-ball, not two-old-cat. He can play real base-ball."

"Yes, Georgie shall come to see you to-morrow."

Lockwin goes to the speaking tube.

"Go and get Dr. Floddin at once. Tell him to come and stay with us.

Tell him we have difficulty in keeping the child warm."

The sun has poured into the window and gone on to other sick chambers.

The flaxseed and stramonium seem like reminders of the past stage of the trouble. Richard Tarbelle, never before in a room where the tide of life was low, looks down on Davy.

"Mr. Lockwin, I'm not rich, but I'd give a thousand dollars--a thousand dollars!"

"My G.o.d, doctor! why have you been so slow getting here?"

"My horses have been taken sick as fast as I got them."

The doctor advances to the child. The child is smiling on Richard Tarbelle.

"What ails you?"

It is Lockwin, looking in scorn on his doctor, who now, pale as a ghost, throws his hands up and down silly as the crone downstairs by the kitchen-range.

"Nothing can be done! Nothing can be done!"

"They say it hasn't been asthma at all," sobs Esther. "I suppose it's diphtheria."

"The man who can't tell when a child is sick, can't tell when he's dying," sneers Lockwin. "Doctor, when were you here yesterday?"

"I haven't been here since to-morrow week. My horses have been sick and the child was well."

Davy is white as marble. His breath comes hard. But why he should be dying, and why this fifty-cent doctor should know that much, puzzles and dumfounds the father. Davy may die next week, perhaps. Not dying now!

"It's a lie. It's not so," the father says.

"Mr. Lockwin, I don't want to say it, but it is so." It is the kind voice of Richard Tarbelle.

"Very well, then. It is diphtheria." It is the one goblin that for years has appalled Lockwin. Well it might, when it steals on a man like this. "To think I never gave him a drop of whisky. Oh! G.o.d! Get us a surgeon."

A medical college is not far away. The surgeon comes quickly, although Lockwin has gone half-way to meet him. The two men arrive. Dr.

Floddin continues to throw his hands up and down. He loved Davy.

Perhaps Dr. Floddin is a brave man to stay now. Perhaps he would be brave to go.