David Lockwin--The People's Idol Part 11

The voice is soft consoling and sympathetic. The man is as tired as Davy.

"We ought not to have had the folks here," he says.

"No," says Esther.

"I wish the stove were up," he thinks.

"I wish David were not in politics," the woman thinks.

There is in and about that chamber, then, the sleep of a tired man, the whistling of a cold and hostile wind, such as few cities know, the half-sleeping vigil of a troubled woman, and the increasing shrillness of Davy's breathing.

"It sounds like croup to me," she whispers to herself. "It has always sounded like croup to me. I wonder if it could be diphtheria? I wonder what I ought to do? But David needs sleep so badly! I'm sorry I had the company. I told David I was afraid of the child's health.

But David needed the music. Music rested him, he said."

The milk-wagons are rattling along the street once more. Will they never cease? The man awakes with a start.

"What is that?" he demands. He has just dreamed how he treated 150 people to cigars and drinks on the day Dr. Floddin brought Davy through. He has been walking with Davy among the animals in Lincoln Park. "There's Santa Claus' horses," said Davy, of the elks.

There is a loud noise in the room.

"What on earth is it?" he asks. He is only partly awake.

"It is poor little Davy," Esther answers. "Oh, David!" The woman is sobbing. She herself has awakened her husband.

The man is out of bed in an instant. The room is cold. There is no stove. There is no stramonium. There is no flaxseed. There is no hot water.

It is not the lack of these appliances that drives Lockwin into his panic. He may keep his courage by storming about these misadventures.

But in his heart--in his logic--there is NO HOPE.

He hastens to the drug store. He has alarmed the household.

"Davy is dying!" he has said, brutally.

The drug clerk is a sound sleeper. "Let them rattle a little while,"

he soliloquizes with professional tranquillity.

"Child down again?" he inquires later on, in a conciliatory voice.

"Wouldn't give him any more of that emetic if it was my child. I've re-filled that bottle three times now."

The stove must be gotten up. The pipe enters the mantel. There, that will insure a hot poultice. But why does the thing throw out gas? Why didn't it do that before?

"It is astonis.h.i.+ng how much time can be lost in a crisis," the man observes. He must carry his Davy into another room, couch and all, for he will not suffer the little body to be chilled any further. "If this cup may be kept from my lips," he prays, "I will be a better man."

The sun is high before the child is swathed with hot flaxseed. The man sprays the stramonium. The child has periods of extreme difficulty.

He is nauseated in every fiber.

"G.o.d forgive me!" prays Lockwin.

"Mamma, will I have to play with the swear boys?"

"No, my darling."

"And will my curls be cut off before you get a picture?"

The man remembers that Davy has been sick much of late. They have no likeness of him since he grew beautiful.

"And may I go to Sunday-school if I don't play with the swear boys?

For the teacher said--"

The ca.n.a.l tightens in the throat. The old battle begins.

The man sprays furiously. The child lisps: "Please don't, papa."

The man is hurt to think he has mistaken the child's needs.

The air gets dry again. The child signals with its hand.

"More spray, Davy? Ah! that helps you!"

The man is eased.

"Esther, where is that doctor?"

They had forgotten him. The case is chronic. All the household are doctors. So now by his coming there is only to be one more to the lot of vomiters and poulticers.

Yet it dismays all hands to think they have forgotten the famous savior of Davy. They telephoned for him hours ago. "Ah me!" each says.

The child's feet grow cold. "Hot bottles! Hot bottles!" is the cry.

The first lot without corks. And at last Lockwin goes to the closet and gets the rubber bags made for such uses.

At one o'clock the doctor arrives. Lockwin has gone to the drug store to get more flaxseed If he get it himself it will be done. If he order it some fatal hour might pa.s.s. The cold air revives him. He sees a crowd of men down the street. It is a polling-booth.

He strives to gather the fact that it is election day. Corkey is running as an independent democrat, because the democratic convention did not indorse him after he bolted from the Lockwin convention.

But for that strange fillip of politics Lockwin must have been beaten before he began the campaign. Well, what is the election now? Davy dying all the week, and not a soul suspecting it!

"Girls wanted!" The sign is on the bas.e.m.e.nt windows. Yes, that accounts for the strange disorganization of the household. That, in some way, explains the cold furnaces and lack of the most needful things.

Never mind the girls. Plenty of them to be had. That doctor--what can he say for himself?

The man starts as he enters the house. What was it Davy said last night? That "the doctor's both horses were sick!" It is a disagreeable recollection, therefore banish it, David Lockwin. Go up and see the doctor.

The door is reached. Perhaps the child is already easier. The door is opened. The smell of flaxseed reproduces every horror of Davy's first attack. After the man has grown used to the flaxseed he begins to detect the odor of stramonium. The pan is dry. Carry it back to the stove and put some hot water in it. But look at Davy first.

"Esther, how is he?"

"I think he is growing better, David."