David Lockwin -- The Peoples Idol | Page 7

speaking of the
soda fountain, for sewer gas is a thing for Chicagoans to discuss with
much learning.

So Davy and David went on the rear lot to play ball. The neighboring
tribe offered their services for two-old-cat. The little white boy with the
golden curls made a great hit.
"Bully for the codger!" quoth all the red-cheeked.
"We will cut off his curls and make him as healthy as those young
ones," said Lockwin.
"You'll never do it!" said the housekeeper.
"Such as him do be too pretty for this life," said the cook, almost with
tears in her eyes.
And just at this epoch of new hygiene Davy's eyes grew sore. "Take
him to a specialist," said Dr. Tarpion.
The specialist made the eyes a little worse.
"Them's just such eyes as Dr. Floddin cured on my sister," said the
peddling huckster's son at the kitchen door.
The housekeeper could say as much for a relative whom the cheap
druggist had served.
"Can you cure my boy?" was Lockwin's question to Dr. Floddin.
"I think so," said the good man. He was gratified to be called to the
relief of a person of so much consequence. Thereupon began a patient
treatment of Davy's tonsils, his nose, and his eyes. As if Dr. Floddin
knew all things, he foretold the day when the boy would reappear in his
own countenance.
"Bless your little soul," the housekeeper would say, "I can't for the life
of me laugh at you. But you do look so strange!"
"I thought," Lockwin would say, "I loved you for your beauty, Davy,
but I guess it was for yourself."

"I guess you will love me better when I can play ball with the swear
boys, won't you, papa?"
"Yes, you must get strong. We will cut off your curls then."
"And may I sit in your library and write articles if I will be very still
and not get mud on me? They throwed mud on me once, papa."
Poor little swollen-eyed Davy! Yet richer than almost any other living
thing in Chicago. None knew him but to love him. "I didn't think it
would hit him," said even the barbarian who shied the clod at Davy.
When Esther Lockwin took charge of that home she found Davy all
issued from the chrysalis of sores and swellings. If he had once been
beautiful, he was now more lovely. The union of intelligence, affection,
and seemliness was startling to Esther's mind.
It was a dream. It knit her close to her husband. The child talked of his
papa all day. Because his new mother listened so intently, he found less
time to write his articles, and no time at all out-doors.
"Don't let him study if you can help it," said Dr. Floddin.
The child stood at his favorite place in the window, waiting for old
Richard Tarbelle to come home.
"'Bon-Ton Grocery,' mamma; what is 'Bon-Ton?'"
"That is the name of the grocery."
"Yes, I see that. It's on the wagon, of course, but does Mr. Bon-Ton
keep your grocery?"
How, therefore, shall the book of this world be shut from Davy? But, is
it not a bad thing to see the child burst out crying in the midst of an
article?
"Don't write any more to-day, baby," the housekeeper would say.

"Come down and get the elephant I baked for yez, pet," the cook would
beg.
And then Richard Tarbelle would come around the corner with his
basket, his eye fastened on that window where the smiling child was
pictured.
"Here, Davy. There was a banquet at the hotel last night. See that bunch
of grapes, now!"
"You are very kind, Mr. Tarbelle."
"Mrs. Lockwin, I have been a hard man all my life. When I had my
argument with the bishop on baptism--"
"Yes, Mr. Tarbelle, you are very kind."
"Mrs. Lockwin, as I said, I have been a hard man all my life, but your
little boy has enslaved me. Sixty-three years! I don't believe I looked
twice at my own three boys. But they are great men. Big times at the
_ho_-tel, Mrs. Lockwin. Four hundred people on cots. Here, Davy, you
can carry an orange, too. Well, Mary will be waiting for me. Your
servant, madam. Good day. I hear your husband is up for Congress.
Tell him he has my vote. Good day, madam. Yes, Mary, yes, yes.
Good-bye, Davy. Good-bye, madam."

CHAPTER VI
A REIGN OF TERROR
When a man is in politics--when the party is intrusting its sacred
interests to his leadership--it is expected that he will stay at
head-quarters. It is as good as understood that he will be where the
touching committees can touch him. His clarion voice must be heard
denouncing the evil plans of the