David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 5

It is all wretched and hideous! The slime of politics and the smell of flaxseed unite to demoralize the man. O if Dr. Tarpion were only here!

But Davy will take no medicine; how could Tarpion help Davy?

Yes, that medicine--ipecac! The name has been hateful to Lockwin from childhood.

Let Corkey win the primaries! What odds? Will not that release Lockwin from the touching committees? Does he wish to owe his election to a street car-company in another quarter of the city?

Perhaps Harpwood will win! How would that aid Davy? Ah, Davy! Davy!

all comes back to him! It is a strange influence this little boy has thrown upon David Lockwin, child of fortune and people's idol.

It is a decent and wholesome thing---the only good and n.o.ble deed which David Lockwin can just now credit to himself. He bathes his hot forehead again.

Yes, Davy! Davy! Davy--the very thought of Davy restores the fallen spirit. That water, too, seems to purify. Water and Davy! But it is the well Davy--the little face framed at the window, waiting for papa, waiting to know about Josephus--it is that Davy which stimulates the soul.

Is it not a trial, then, to hear this boy--this rock of Lockwin's better nature--in the grapple with Death himself?

If Davy were the flesh and blood of Lockwin, perhaps Lockwin might determine that the child should follow its own wishes as to the taking of ipecac. But this question of murder--this general feeling of Chicago that its babes are slaughtered willfully--takes hold of the man powerfully as he gathers his own scattered forces of life.

"Esther, will you not go to the rear chamber and sleep?"

The child appeals to her that her presence aids him.

"May I sit down here, Davy?"

There is a nod.

"Will you take some medicine now, Davy?"

"No, ma'am!" comes the gasping voice.

The man sprays with the stramonium. The doctor returns.

"Your boy is very ill with the asthma, Mr. Lockwin. He ought to be relieved. But I think he will pull through. Do not allow your nerves to be over-strained by the asthmatic respiration. It gives you more pain than it gives to Davy."

"Do you suffer, Davy?"

"Yes, sir."

"Ah, well, he does not know what we mean. Get him to take the medicine, Mr. Lockwin. It is your duty."

Duty! Alas! Is not David Lockwin responding to both love and duty already? Is it not a response such as he did not believe he could make?

The doctor goes. The man works the rubber bulb until his fingers grow paralytic. Esther sleeps from exhaustion. The child gets oversprayed.

The man stirs the flaxseed--how soon the stuff dries out! He adds water. He rinses his mouth. He arranges the mash on the cloths. It is cold already, and he puts it on the sheet-iron of the stove.

But Davy is still. How to get the poultices changed? The man feels about the blessed little body. A tide of tenderness sweeps through his frame. Alas! the poultices are cold again, and hard.

They are doing no good.

"Esther, I beg pardon, but will you a.s.sist me with the flaxseed?"

"Certainly, David. Have I slept? Why did you not call me sooner?

Here, lamby! Here, lamby! Let mamma help you."

The poultices are to be heated again. The woman concludes the affair.

The man sits stretched in a chair, hands deep in pockets, one ankle over the other, chin deep on his breast.

"Esther," he says at last, "it must be done! It must be done! Give him to me!"

"Oh, David, don't hurt him!"

The man has turned to brute. He seizes the child as the spoiler of a city might begin his rapine.

"Pour the medicine--quick!"

It is ready.

"Now, Davy, you must take this, or I don't know but papa will--I don't know but papa will kill you."

Up and down the little form is hurled. Stubbornly the little will contends for its own liberty. Rougher and rougher become the motions, darker and darker becomes the man's face--Satanic now--a murderer, bent on having his own will.

"Oh, David, David!"

"Keep still, Esther! I'll tolerate nothing from you!"

Has there been a surrender of the gasping child? The man is too murderous to hear it.

"I'll take it, papa! I'll take it, papa!"

It is a poor, wheezing little cry, barely distinguishable. How long it has been coming to the understanding of those terrible captors cannot be known.

How eagerly does the shapely little hand clutch the spoon. "Another,"

he nods. It is swallowed. The golden head is hidden in the couch.

And David Lockwin sits trembling on the bed, gazing in hatred on the medicine that has entered between him and his foundling.

"Papa had to do it! Papa had to do it! You will forgive him, pet?"

So the woman whispers.

There is no answer.

The man sprays the air. "You won't blame papa, will you, Davy?"

The answer is eager. "No, please! Please, papa!"

It is a reign of terror erected on the government of love. It is chaos and asthma together.

"It is a horrible deed!" David Lockwin comments inwardly.