DAVID LOCKWIN

The People's Idol

BY

JOHN McGOVERN,

AUTHOR OF

"Daniel Trentworthy," "Burritt Durand," "Geoffrey," "Jason Hortner,"
"King Darwin," etc.

CHICAGO:

DONOHUE, HENNEBERRY & CO.

COPYRIGHT, 1889, BY JOHN M'GOVERN.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

COPYRIGHT, 1891, BY JOHN M'GOVERN.

ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Book I - Davy

Chapter

Book II - Esther Lockwin

Book III - Robert Chalmers

Book IV - George Harpwood

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

DAVID LOCKWIN

THE PEOPLE'S IDOL

BOOK I

DAVY

CHAPTER I

HARPWOOD AND LOCKWIN

Esther Wandrell, of Chicago, will be worth millions of dollars.

It is a thought that inspires the young men of all the city with momentous ambitions. Why does she wait so long? Whom does she favor?

To-night the carriages are trolling and rumbling to the great mansion of the Wandrells on Prairie Avenue. The women are positive in their exclamations of reunion, and this undoubted feminine joy exhilarates, and entertains the men. The lights are brilliant, the music is far away and clever, the flowers and decorations are novel.

If you look in the faces of the guests you shall see that the affair cannot fail. Everybody has personally assured the success of the evening.

Many times has this hospitable home opened to its companies of selected men, and women. Often has the beautiful Esther Wandrell smiled upon the young men--upon rich and poor alike. Why is she, at twenty-seven years of age, rich, magnificent and unmarried?

Ask her mother, who married at fifteen. Ask the father, who for ten years worried to think his only child might go away from him at any day.

"I tell you," says Dr. Tarpion, "Harpwood will get her, and get her to-night. That is what this party is for. I've seen them together, and I know what's in the air."

"Is that so?" says David Lockwin.

"Yes, it is so, and you know you don't like Harpwood any too well since he got your primary in the Eleventh."

"I should say I didn't!" says Lockwin, half to himself.

At a distance, Esther Wandrell passes on Harpwood's arm.

"Who is Harpwood?" asks Lockwin.

"I'm blessed if I know," answers Dr. Tarpion.

"How long has he been in town?"

"Not over two years."

"Do you know anybody who knows him?"

"He owes me a bill."

"What was he sick of?"

"Worry."

The man and woman repass. The woman looks toward Lockwin and his dear friend the renowned Dr. Irenaeus Tarpion. Guests speak of Harpwood. His suit is bold. The lady is apparently interested.

"I should not think you would like that?" says the doctor.

"Why should I care, after all?" asks Lockwin.

"Well, if ever I have seen two men whose destinies are hostile, it seems to me that you and Harpwood fill the condition. If he gets into Wandrell's family you might as well give up politics."

"Perhaps I might do that anyhow."

"Well, you are an odd man. I'll not dispute that. What you will do at any given time I'll not try to prophesy."

The twain separate. However, of any two men in Chicago, perhaps David Lockwin and Dr. Tarpion are most agreeable to each other. From boyhood they have been familiar. If one has said to the other, "Do that!" it has been done.

"I fear you cannot be spared from your other guests, Esther," says Lockwin.

"I fear you are trying to escape to that dear doctor of yours. Now, are you not?"

"No. I have been with him for half an hour already. Esther, you are a fine-looking woman. Upon my honor, now--"

She will not tolerate it, yet she never looked so pleased before.

"Tell me," she says, "of your little boy."

"Of my foundling?"

"Yes, I love to hear you speak of him."

"Well, Esther, the truest thing I have heard of my boy was said by old Richard Tarbelle. He stopped me the other day. You know our houses adjoin. 'Mr. Lockwin,' said he, as he came home with his basket--he goes to his son's hotel each day for family stores--'I often say to Mary that the happiest moment in my day is when I give an apple or an orange to your boy, for the look on that child's face is the nearest we ever get to heaven on this earth."

"O, beautiful! beautiful! Mr. Lockwin."

"Yes, indeed, Esther. I took that little fellow three years ago. I had no idea he would grow so pretty. Folks said it was the oddest of pranks, but if I had bought fifteen more horses than I could use, or dogs enough to craze the neighborhood, or even a parrot, like my good neigbor Tarbelle, everybody would have been satisfied. Of course, I had to take a house and keep a number of people for whom a bachelor has no great need. But, Esther, when I go home there is framed in my window the most welcome picture human eye has ever seen--that little face, Esther!"

The man is enwrapped. The woman joins in the man's exaltation.

"He is the most beautiful child I have ever seen anywhere. It is the talk of everybody. You are so proud of him when you ride together!"

"Esther, I have seen him in the morning when he came to rouse me--his face as white as his gown; his golden hair long, and so fleecy that it would stand all about his head; his mouth arched like the Indian's bow; his great blue eyes bordered with dark brows and lashed with jet-black hairs a half-inch long. That picture, Esther, I fear no painter can get. I marvel why I do not make the attempt."

"He is as bright as he is beautiful," she says.

"Yes, Esther, I have looked over this world. Childhood is always beautiful--always sweet to me--but my boy is without equal, and nearly everybody admits it."

"He is not yours, David."

The man looks inquiringly.

"I have as good a right to love him as you have. I do love him."

The man has been eloquent and self-forgetful. The woman has lost her command. Tears are coming in her eyes. Shame is mantling her cheeks. David Lockwin is startled.

George Harpwood passes in the distance with Esther's mother on his arm.

"Esther, you know me, with all my faults. I think we could be happy together--we three--you and I and the boy. Will you marry me? Will you be a mother to my little boy? He is lonesome while I am gone!"

The matter is settled. It has come by surprise. If David Lockwin had foreseen it, he would have left the field open to Harpwood.

If Esther Wandrell had foreseen it, she would have shunned David Lockwin. It is her dearest hope, and yet--

CHAPTER II

THE PEOPLE'S IDOL

If David Lockwin had planned to increase all his prospects, and if all his plans had worked with precision, he could in nowise have pushed his interests more powerfully than by marrying Esther Wandrell.

It might have been said of Lockwin that he was impractical; that he was a dreamer. He had done singular things. He had not studied the ways of public opinion.

But now, to solidify all his future--to take a secure place in society, especially as his leanings toward politics are pronounced--to do these things--this palliates and excuses the adoption of the golden-haired boy.

Lockwin hears this from his friend, the doctor. Lockwin hears it from the world. The more he hears it the less he likes it.

But people, particularly the doctor, are happy in Lockwin. His popularity in the district is amazing. He will soon be deep in politics. He has put Harpwood out of the combat--so the doctor says.

And David Lockwin, when he comes home at night, still sees his boy at the window. What a noble affection is that love for this waif! Why should such a thought seize the man as he sits in his library with wife and son? Why should not David be tender and good to the woman who loves him so well, and is so proud of her husband?

Tender and good he is--as if he pitied her. Tender and good is she. So that if an orphan in the great city should be in the especial care of the Lord, why should not that orphan drop into this house, exactly as has happened, and no matter at all what society may have said?

"You must run for Congress!" the doctor commands.

It spurs Lockwin. He thinks of the great white dome at Washington. He thinks of his marked ability as an orator, everywhere conceded. He says he does not care to enter upon a life so active, but he is not truly in earnest.

"You must run for Congress!" the committee says the next week.

Feelings of friendliness for the incumbent of the office to give Lockwin a sufficient excuse for inaction.

The incumbent dies suddenly a week later.

"You must run to save the party," the committeemen announce.

A day later the matter is settled. The great editors are seen; the boss of the machine is satisfied; the ward-workers and the saloon-keepers are infused with party allegiance.

David Lockwin begins at one end of State street and drinks, or pretends to drink, at every bar between Lake and Fortieth streets. This libation poured on the altar of liberty, he is popularly declared to be in the race. The newspapers announce that he is the people's idol, and the boss of the machine sends word to the newspapers that it is all well enough, but it must be kept up.

David Lockwin rents head-quarters in the district, and shakes hands with all the touching committees. Twelve members of the Sons of Labor can carry their union over to him. It will require $100, as the union is mostly democratic.

They are told they must see Mr. Lockwin's central committee. But Mr. Lockwin must be prepared to deliver an address on the need of reform in the government, looking to the civil service, to retrenchment and to the complete allegiance of the officeholder to his employers, the voters.

Mr. Lockwin must listen with attention to a plan by which the central committee of the Sodalified Assembly can be packed with republicans at the annual election, to take place the next Sunday. This will enable Lockwin to carry the district in case he should get the nomination. To show a deep interest in the party and none in himself must arouse popular idolatry.

This popular idolatry must be kept awake, because Harpwood has opened head-quarters and is visited by the same touching committees. He has been up and down State street, and has drunk more red liquor than was seen to go down Lockwin's throat. In more ways than one, Harpwood shows the timber out of which popular idols are made.

The doctor is alarmed. He makes a personal canvass of all his patients. They do not know when the primaries will be held. They do not know who ought to go to Washington. All they know is that the congressman is dead and there must be a special election, which is going to cost them some extra money. If the boss of the machine will see to it, that will do!

But Lockwin is the man. This the boss has been at pains to determine. The marriage has made things clear.

One should study the boss. Why is he king? If we have a democracy how is it that everybody in office or in hope of office obeys the pontiff? It is the genius of the people for government. The boss is at a summer resort near the city.

To him comes Harpwood, and finds the great contractor, the promoter of the outer docks, the park commissioners, and a half-dozen other great men already on the ground.

"Harpwood," says the boss, "I am out of politics, particularly in your district. Yet, if you can carry the primaries, I could help you considerably. Carry the primaries, me boy, and I'll talk with you further. See you again. Good-bye."

The next day comes Lockwin.

There are no "me-boys" now. Here is the candidate. He must be put in irons.

"Lockwin, what makes you want to go to Congress?"

"I don't believe I do want to go, but I was told you wished to see me up here, privately."

"Well, you ought to know whether or not you want to go. Nobody wants you there if it isn't yourself. Harpwood will go if you don't."

"Yes, I suppose so."

"Well, if you want our support, we must have a pledge from you. I guess you want to go, and we are willing to put you there for the unexpired term and the next one. Then are you ready to climb down? Say the word. The mayor and the senator are out there waiting for me."

"All right. It is a bargain."

"And you won't feel bad when we knock you out, in three years?"

"No. I will probably be glad to come home."

"Very well; we will carry the primaries. But that district needs watching. Spend lots of money."

CHAPTER III

OF SNEEZES

There is no chapter on sneezes in "Tristam Shandy." The faithful Boswell has recorded no sneeze of Dr. Johnson. Spinoza does not reckon it among the things the citizen may do without offense to a free state. Montesquieu does not give the Spirit of Sneezing, nor tell how the ancients sneezed. Pascal, in all his vanities of man, has no thought on sneezing. Bacon has missed it. Of all the glorious company of Shakespeare's brain, a few snored, but not one sneezed or spoke of sneezing. Darwin avoids it. Hegel and Schlegel haven't a word of it. The encyclopedias leave it for the dictionaries.

We might suppose the gentle latitudes and halcyon seas of Asia and the Mediterranean had failed to develop the sneeze, save that the immortal Montaigue, a friend in need to every reader, will point you that Aristotle told why the people bless a man who sneezes. "The gods bless you!" said the Athenian. "God bless you!" says the Irishman or Scotchman of to-day.

A sneeze is to enter the politics of the First District. Could any political boss, however prudent or scholarly, foresee it? A sneeze is to influence the life of David Lockwin. Does not providence move in a mysterious way?

A great newspaper has employed as its marine reporter a singular character. He once was rich--that is, he had $10,000 in currency. How had he made it? Running a faro bank. How did he lose it? By taking a partner, who "played it in"--that is, the partner conspired with an outside player, or "patron" of the house. Why did not our man begin over again? He was disheartened--tired of the business. Besides, it gives a gambler a bad name to be robbed--it is like a dishonored husband.

The marine reporter's ancestors were knights. The ancestral name was Coeur de Cheval. The attrition of centuries, and the hurry of the industrial period, have diminished this name in sound and dignity to Carkey, and finally to Corkey.

Naturally of a knightly fiber, this queer man has no sooner established himself in command of the port of Chicago than he has found his dearest dreams realized. To become the ornament of the sailor's fraternity is but to go up and down the docks, drinking the whisky which comes in free from Canada and sneezing.

"We steer toward Corkey's sneeze," the sailors declare.

To produce the greatest sneeze that was ever heard in the valley of the Mississippi, give us, then, a man who is called a "sawed-off" by those who love him--a very thick, very short, very tobaccofied, strong man in cavalry pants, with a jacket of the heaviest chinchilla--a restless, oathful, laconic, thirsty, never-drunk "editor." It is a man after the sailor's own heart. It is a man, too, well known to the gamblers, and they all vote in Lockwin's district.

Parlor entertainers make a famous sneeze by delegating to each of a group some vowel in the word "h--sh!" It shall be "hash" for this one, "hish" for that one, "hush" for still another, and so on. Then the professor counts three, at which all yell together, and the consolidated sound is a sneeze.

In a chorus the leader may tell you one singer is worth all the rest. So, if Corkey were in this parlor, and should render one unforeseen, unpremeditated sneeze, you would not know the parlorful had sneezed along with him. Corkey's sneeze is unapproachable, unrivaled, hated, feared, admired, reverenced. The devout say "God bless you!" with deep unction. The adventurous declare that such a sneeze would buckle the cabin-floor of a steamer like a wave in the trough of the sea.

When Corkey sneezes, sailors are moved to treat to the drinks. They mark it as an event. A sailor will treat you because it is Christmas, or because Corkey has sneezed.

Greatness consists in doing one thing better or worse than any one else can do it. Thus it is rare a man is so really great as Corkey.

CHAPTER IV

BAD NEWS ALL AROUND

With thousands of gamblers in good luck, and thousands of sailors in port, why should not the saloons of the dock regions resound also with politics--a politics of ultra-marine color--Corkey recooking and warming the cold statesmanship of his newspaper, breaking the counter with his fist, paying gorgeously for both drinks and glasses, smiling when the sailors expel outside politicians and at last rocking the building with his sneeze.

It is thus settled that Corkey shall go to Congress from Lockwin's district. Because this is a sailor's matter it is difficult to handle it from the adversary's side. The political boss first hears of it through the information of a rival marine reporter on a democratic sheet.

This is on Wednesday. The primaries are to be held on Friday. The boss has never dealt with a similar mishap. He learns that ten wagons have been engaged by the president of the sailors' society. He observes that the season is favorable to Corkey's plans.

What, then, does Corkey want?

"Nothing!"

What is he after? He surely doesn't expect to go to Washington!

"That's what I expect. You just screw your nut straight that time, sure."

What does he want to go to Congress for?

"Well, my father got there. I guess my grandfather was in, too. My great-grandfather wasn't no bad player. But I don't care nothing for dead men. I'm going to Congress to start the labor party. I'm going to have Eight Hours and more fog-horns on the Manitous and the Foxes. I'm going to have a Syrena on the break-water."

The siren-horn is just now the wonder of the lake region.

"I tell you she'll be a bird."

The eyes grow brighter, the face grows dark, the mouth squares, the head vibrates, the little tongue plays about a mass of jet-black tobacco--the sneeze comes.

"That's a bird, too," says the political boss.

If Corkey is to start a labor party, why should he set out to carry a republican primary election?

"Oh, well, you're asking too many questions. Will you take a drink? Come down and see the boys. See how solid I've got 'em."

Lockwin's brow clouds as the boss tells of this new development.

"Those sailors will fight," he says.

"But Corkey reckons on the gamblers," explains the boss, "and we can fix the gamblers."

"What will you do?"

"Do? I'll do as I did in 1868, when I was running the Third. The eight-hour men had the ward."

"What did you do?"

"I carted over the West Side car company's laborers--a thousand on 'em."

David Lockwin starts for home. His heart is heavy. To-day has been hard. The delegations of nominating committees have been eager and greedy. The disbursements have been large. An anonymous circular has appeared, which calls attention to the fact that David Lockwin is a mere reader of books, an heir of some money who has married for more money. Good citizens are invited to cast aside social reasons and oust the machine candidate, for the nomination of Lockwin will be a surrender of the district into the clutches of the ring at the city hall.

There is more than political rancor in this handbill.

There is more than a well defined, easily perceived personal malice in this argument.

There is the poisoning sting of the truth--the truth said in a general way, but striking in a special and a tender place.

The house is reached. Lockwin has not enlarged his establishment. Politics, at least, has spared him the humiliation of moving on Prairie Avenue. Politics has kept him "among the people."

It is the house which holds his boy. Lockwin did not adopt the boy for money! The boy was not a step on the way to Congress! Lockwin did not become a popular idol because he became a father to the foundling!

It is a cooling and a comforting thought. Yesterday, while Lockwin sat in his study hurriedly preparing his statement to the party, on the needs of the nation and a reformed civil service, the golden head was as deep at a little desk beside. Pencil in hand, the child had addressed the voters of the First District, explaining to them the reasons why his papa should be elected. "Josephus," wrote curly-head; "Groceries," he added; "Ice," he concluded; A, B, C, D and so on, with a tail the wrong way on J.

It is a memory that robs politics of its bitterness. Lockwin opens the door and kisses his wife affectionately. After all, he is a most fortunate man. If there were a decent way he would let Harpwood go to Congress and be rid of him.

"Davy is very sick," she says, with a white face.

"What! My boy!! When was he taken? Is it diphtheria? What has the doctor said? Why wasn't I called? Where is he? Here, Davy, here's papa. Here's papa! Old boy! Old fel'! Oh, God, I'm so scared!"

All this as Lockwin goes up the stairs.

It is a wheezing little voice that replies; "S-u-h-p-e-s-o-J! What's that, papa?"

"Does that hurt, Davy? There? or there?"

"That's 'Josephus,' papa, on your big book, that I'll have some day--it I live. If I live I'll have all your books!"

CHAPTER V

DR. FLODDIN'S PATIENT

If there be one thing of which great Chicago stands in fear, it is that King Herod of the latter day, diphtheria.

This terror of the people is absolute, ignorant, and therefore supine. The cattle have a scourge, but the loss of money makes men active. When the rinderpest appears, governors issue proclamations. When horses show the glanders, quarantine is established. But when a father's flock is cut off, it is done before he can move, and other fathers will not or cannot interpose for their own protection.

All the other fathers do is to discount the worst--to dread the unseen sword which is suspended over all heads.

When David Lockwin heard that one of his tenants had a child dead with the contagion, the popular idol strove to recall his movements. Had he been in the sick-room? Had Davy been in that region? The thought which had finally alarmed Lockwin was the recollection that he had stopped with Davy in the grocery beneath the apartments of the dying child.

That was nine days before. Why is Dr. Tarpion absent? What a good fortune, however, that Dr. Floddin can be given charge. And if the disease be diphtheria, whisky will alleviate and possibly cure the patient. It is a hobby with Lockwin.

Dr. Floddin has come rather oddly by this practice. Who he is, no other regular doctor knows. But Dr. Floddin has an honest face, and keeps a little drug store on State street below Eighteenth. He usually charges fifty cents a visit, which is all he believes his services to be worth. This piece of quackery would ruin his name with Lockwin, were it known to him, or had Dr. Tarpion been consulted.

The regular fee is two dollars.

The poor come daily to Dr. Floddin's, and his fame is often in their mouths.

Why is Davy white and beautiful? Why is he gentle and so marvelously intelligent?

A year back, when his tonsils swelled, Dr. Tarpion said they must be cut out. The house-keeper said it was the worst possible thing to do. The cook said it should never be done. The peddling huckster's son said Dr. Floddin didn't believe in it.

Then Davy would wake in the night. "I tan't breathe," he would complain.

"Yes, you can, Davy. Papa's here. Lie down, Davy. Here's a drink."

And in the morning all would be well. Davy would be in the library preparing for a great article.

The tribe on the other street, back, played ball from morning until night. The toddler of the lot was no bigger than Davy. Every face was as round and red as a Spitzbergen apple.

Last summer Lockwin and Davy went for a ball and bat, the people along the cross-street as usual admiring the boy. A blacksmith shop was on the way. A white bulldog was at the forge. He leaped away from his master, and was on the walk in an instant. With a dash he was on Davy, his heavy paw in the neat little pocket, bursting it and strewing the marbles and the written articles. Snap! went the mouth on the child's face, but it was merely a caprice.

"Bulldog never bite a child," observed the blacksmith.

But Lockwin had time only to take his baby between his legs. "Please call in your dog," he said to the blacksmith. "Please call him in. Please call him in."

The dog was recalled. The child smiled, and yet he felt he had been ill served. The little hanging pocket testified that Lockwin must tarry in that hateful locality and pick up the treasure and documents.

Trembling in every joint, he called at the house of an acquaintance. "I dislike to keep you here," said the friend, "if you are afraid of the whooping-cough. We have it here in the house."

It seemed to David Lockwin that the city was an inhospitable place for childhood. The man and child traveled on and on. They reached the toy store. They stood before the soda fountain. They bought bat and ball.

It was too far. They rode by street car three miles in order to return the half mile. The child was asleep when they reached home.

"I drank sewer water," he observed to the housekeeper, 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."