CHAPTER X
ELECTED
Yes, this is distinctly happy--this night at home, in the chamber after the music, with Davy to sleep over here, too.
"There, Davy," urges Esther, "you have romped and romped. You have not slept a wink to-day. It is far too late for children to be up, David. I only took down the stove to-day, for fear we might need it."
But it is difficult to moderate the spirits of the boy. He is playing all sorts of pranks with his father. The little lungs come near the man's ear. There is a whistling sound.
The north wind has blown for two weeks. It is howling now outside the windows.
"Pshaw!" the man laughs, "it is that cut-throat wind!"
For orators dislike the north wind.
"Pshaw! Esther!" he repeats, "I mistook the moaning of the wind in the chimney." But he is pale at the thought.
"I hardly think you did, David. I can hear him wheeze over here."
"You can! Come here, Davy." But the child must be caught. His eyes flash. He is all spirit. His laugh grows hoarse.
"How stupid I am," thinks the man. He seizes the arch boy and clasps him in his arms.
Then Lockwin takes that white and tiny wrist. He pulls his watch. In five seconds he has fifteen beats. Impossible! Wait a few minutes.
"Sit still for papa. Please, Davy."
The indefinable message is transmitted from the man's heart to the child's. The child is still. The animation is gone.
Now, again. The watch goes so slowly. Is it going at all? Let us see about that.
The watch is put to ear. Yes, it is going fast enough now. Of course it is going. Is it not a Jurgensen of the costliest brand? Well, then, we will count a full minute.
"Hold still, Davy, pet."
What is Congress and President now, as the wheeze settles on this child, and the north wind batters at the windows?
The man looks for help to Esther. "Esther," he says, "I have counted 140 pulsations."
"Is that bad for a child, David? I guess not."
"I am probably mistaken. I will try again."
The child lays the curly head against Lockwin's breast. The full vibration of the struggling lungs resounds through the man's frame.
"The pulse is even above 140. Oh! Esther, will he have to go through that again?"
"No, David, no. See, he's asleep. Put him here. You look like a ghost. Go right to bed. To-morrow will be a trying day. Davy is tired out. To be sure, he must be worse when he is tired."
"Does the doctor come at all in the night?"
"Why, no, of course not. It is a chronic case now, he says. It requires the same treatment."
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 astonishing 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.
"God 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 canal 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 pass. 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 basement 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."
"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 passes.
"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 God!" says the man "that we are all doctors."
The afternoon wanes.
"Georgie Day, mamma."
"Yes, lamby."
"I want him to have my sleeve-buttons. 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 God, 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! God! 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.
"Well, Mr. Surgeon, look at that child."
"Your boy is dying," says the surgeon, as the men retire to a back room.
"What is to be done?" asks the father, resolutely.
"We can insert a tube in his throat."
"Will that save his life?"
"It will prolong his life if the shock do not result fatally."
"If it were your own child would you do this operation?"
"Yes, I think so."
"Would you do it, certainly?"
"Yes, sir."
"Let us go in."
"Esther, we shall have to give him air through his throat."
"No, no!" shrieks the woman. "No, no!"
The child's eyes, almost filmy before, are lifted in beautiful appeal to the mother. "No, Davy. It shall not be!"
"It must be," says Lockwin.
"I have not brought my instruments," says the surgeon. "It is now very late in the case, anyway."
"Thank God!" is the thought of the father.
The child smiles upon his mother. He smiles upon Richard Tarbelle.
"How can he smile on papa, when papa was to cut that white and narrow throat?" It is David Lockwin putting his unhappy cheek beside the little face.
Now, if all these flaxseed rags and this stramonium sprayer and pan could be cleared out! If it were only daylight, so we could see Davy plainer!
Then comes a low cry from the kitchen. It is the forlorn mother, detailing the treacherous siege of membraneous croup.
David Lockwin can only think of the hours last night, while Davy was in Gethsemane. The cradle song was the death song. The doctors sit in the back room. Esther holds the little hands and talks to the ears that have gone past hearing. "There is a sublime patience in women," thinks Lockwin, for he cannot wait.
"Inconceivable! Inconceivable! Davy never at the window again! Take away my miserable life, oh, just nature! Just God!"
The white lips are moving:
"Books, papa! J-o-s-e-p--"
"Yes, Davy. Josephus. Papa knows. Thank you, Davy. I can't say good-bye, Davy, for I hope I can go with you!"
The man's head is in the pillow. "Oh, to take a little child like this, and send him out ahead of us--ahead of the strong man. Is it not hard, Richard Tarbelle?"
"Mr. Lockwin, as I said, I am not a rich man, but I would give a thousand dollars--a thousand dollars--I guess you had better look at him, Mr. Lockwin."
Davy is dead.
Never yet has that father showered on the child such a wealth of love as lies in that father's heart. It would spoil the boy, and Lockwin, himself almost a spoiled son, has had an especial horror of parental over-indulgence.
So, therefore, he is now free to take that little form in his arms. The women will rid it of the nightgown and put on a cleaner garment. And while they do this act, the man will kiss that form, beginning at the soles of the feet.
--Those holy fields
Over whose acres walked those blessed feet
Which fourteen hundred years ago were nailed
For our advantage on the bitter cross.--
Why do these lines course through the man's brain? Curses on that flaxseed and that vile drug which made these fields so hard for these little feet. Any way, the man may gather this clay in his arms. No one else shall touch it! It is a long way down these stairs! Never at the window again, Davy. "I would give a thousand dollars." Well, God bless Richard Tarbelle. If it were a longer distance to carry this load, it would be far better! Light up the back parlor! Let us have that ironing-board! Fix the chairs thus! He must have a good book. It shall be Josephus. Oh, God! "Josephus, papa." Yes, yes, Davy. Put curly-head on Josephus.
The man is crooning. He is happy with his dead.
He talks to the nearest person and to Davy.
There is a great noise at the head of the street. There is an inflow of the people. The shrill flageolet, the brass horns, the bass drums, the crash of the general brass and the triangle--these sounds fill the air.
Where is the people's idol, elected to Congress by to-night's count, already conceded at Opposition head-quarters?
The orator stands over his dead. What is that? Elected to Congress? A speech?
"It will be better," says Richard Tarbelle. "Come up on the balcony, Mr. Lockwin. It will be better."
This noise relieves the father's brain. How fortunate it has come. The orator goes up by a rear stairway. He appears on the balcony. There is a cheer that may be heard all over the South Side.
"He looks haggard," says the first citizen.
"You'd look tired if you opened your barrel the way he did," vouchsafes the second citizen.
The orator lifts his voice. It is the proudest moment of his life, he assures them. In this eventful day's work the nation has been offered a guarantee of its welfare. The sanctity of our institutions has been vindicated.
Here the tin-horns, the cat-calls, the drunken congratulations--the whole Babel--rises above the charm of oratory. But the people's idol does not stop. The words roll from his mouth. The form sways, the finger points.
"He's the boy!" "Notice his giblets!" "He will be President--if his barrel lasts." Thus the first, second and third saloon-keepers determine.
There is a revulsion in the crowd. What is the matter at the basement gate?
It is the cook and the housekeeper in contention.
"I tell ye's I'm goin' to fasten it on the door! Such doings as this I never heard of. Oh, Davy, my darlint! Oh! Davy, my darlint!"
The crowd is withdrawing to the opposite curb, But the crush is tremendous. There are ten thousand people in the street. Only those near by know what is happening.
The cook escapes from the housekeeper. She climbs the steps of the portico. She flaunts the white crape. "Begone, ye blasphemous wretches!" she cries.
"What the devil is that?" asks the first citizen.
The cook is fastening the white gauze and the white satin ribbon on the bell knob.
"Do ye see that, ye graveyard robbers? Will ye blow yer brass bands and yer tin pipes now, ye murtherin' wretches?"
The host has seen the signal of death, as it flaunts under the flickering light of the gas lamp. There is an insensible yet rapid departure. There were ten thousand hearers. There are, perhaps, ten hundred whose eyes are as yet fixed upward on the orator.
"Our republic will forever remain splendid among nations," comes the rich voice from the balcony. One may see a form swaying, an arm reaching forth in the dim light.
The ten hundred are diminishing. It is like the banners of the auroral light. The ten hundred were there a moment ago. Now it is but a memory. No one is there. The street is so empty that a belated delivery wagon may rattle along, stopping at wrong houses to fix the number.
The orator speaks on. He weeps and he thunders.
Hasten out on that balcony, Richard Tarbelle, and stop this scandal! Lead that demented orator in! Pluck him by the sleeve! Pluck harder!
"The voice of the people, my fellow-citizens," cries the people's idol, "is the voice--is the voice of God."
"God, and Holy Mary, and the sweet angels!" comes a low, keening cry from the kitchen.
CHAPTER XI
LYNCH-LAW FOR CORKEY
It is a month after the election. Lockwin has been out of bed for a week.
"You astound me!" cries Dr. Tarpion.
The doctor is just back from his mine in Mexico. The doctor has climbed the volcano of Popocatapetl. His six-story hotel in Chicago is leased on a bond for five years. He has a nugget of gold from his mine. His health is capital. He is at the mental and physical antipodes of his friend. Talk of Mexican summer resorts and Chicago real estate is to the doctor's taste. He is not prepared for Lockwin's recital.
"Your Davy, my poor fellow, had no constitution. Mind you, I do not say he would have died had I remained at my office. I do not say that. Of course, it was highly important that his stomach should be preserved. You fell in the hands of a Dr. Flod--let me see our list. Why, by heavens! his name is not down at all!"
Dr. Floddin's name is not in the medical peerage. Dr. Floddin, therefore, does not exist.
"Well, David, let us speak of it no more. You were entrapped. How about this Congress? I tell you that you must go. You must do exactly as our leader directs."
Lockwin is elected, and he is not. He received the most votes, but great frauds were openly perpetrated. Without the false votes Corkey would have been elected. There is to be a contest in the lower House. The majority of the party in the House is only three, with two republicans on sick beds in close districts.
Interest in the Chicago affair is overshadowing. The President's private secretary has commissioned the Chicago political boss to fix it up.
Corkey is an unknown factor. The boss assures the administration that the district would be lost if Corkey should win.
What does Corkey want?
"I was elected," says Corkey.
"You don't carry the papers," answers the boss.
"I just made you fellers screw your nut for 2,000 crooked votes," says Corkey.
"None of your sailors had the right to vote," says the boss. "Now, here, Corkey, you are going to lose that certificate. It doesn't belong to you, and we've got the House. Here's a telegram from a high source: 'Lockwin must get the election at all hazards. See Corkey.' I'll tell you what you do. You and Lockwin go on and see the President."
"That will never do," says Corkey. "But I'll tell you what I will do."
"Go on."
"Do you know I've a notion that Lockwin ain't goin' to serve. If he resigns, I want it. If he catches on, all right. I want him or you to get me collector of the port. You hear me? Collector of the port. His nobs, this collector we have now--he must get out, I don't care how. But he must sherry. I can't fool with these sailors. If they see me trading with Lockwin they will swear I sell out. See? Well, I want to see Lockwin, just the same. Now, I'll tell you what I'll do: You Send Lockwin to Washington to explain the situation. Get in writing what is to be done. Don't let there be any foolin' on that point. Tell Lockwin to return by the way of Canada, and get to Owen Sound. I know a way home that will leave us alone for two days or more. In that time I can tell what I'll do."
"All right; Lockwin shall go."
"I'll give it out that I've gone to Duluth for the newspaper. But I've no use for newspapers no more. It's collector or Congress, sure. Don't attempt no smart plays. Tell that to the jam-jorum at Washington. If they want me to take down my contest and cover up the hole you ballot-box-stuffers is in here at home, let 'em fix me."
"All right."
"It's all right if Lockwin meets me at Owen Sound. I've got the papes to send a lot of you duffers to the pen if you don't come to time."
Corkey therefore sails for Duluth. It increases his standing with the sailors to make these trips late in the year.
Lockwin is to go to Washington. It is evident, say his friends, that he is greatly exhausted with the efforts of the campaign. Dr. Tarpion has hinted that Lockwin is not the ambitious man that he has seemed to be. Dr. Tarpion has hinted that it was only through strong personal influence that Lockwin has been held faithful to the heavy party duty that now lies upon him.
Dr. Tarpion has hinted that Lockwin did not want the office if it did not belong to him.
But Lockwin has had brain fever for nearly a month. What could you expect of a man who made so many speeches at so many wigwams?
"Besides," says the political boss, "he had sickness in his family."
"Some one died, didn't they?" asks a rounder where these reports are bandied.
"Yes, a little boy. Good-looking little fellow, too. I saw him with Lockwin."
"When I was a young man," said the boss, "old Sol Wynkoop got in the heat of the canvass, just like Lockwin. Old Sol was just about as good a speaker. He would talk right on, making 'em howl every so often. Well, his wife and his daughter they both died and was buried, and Old Sol he didn't miss his three dates a day. He didn't come home at all. I had a notion to tell Lockwin that. Oh, he ain't no timber for President, or even for senator. I did tell Lockwin how my wife died. I got to the funeral, of course, for this is a city, and Old Sol was forty miles away, with muddy roads. But, boys, when I get tired I just have to go up to the lake and catch bass. I tell you, politics is hard. I must find Lockwin right away. Good-bye, boys. Charge those drinks to me."
It is Sunday. David Lockwin is walking toward the little church where Davy went to Sunday-school. He passes a group at a gate near the church. "Every week, just at this time, there goes by the most beautiful child. Stay and see him. See how he smiles up at our window."
"He is dead and buried," says Lockwin in their ear. They are young women. They are startled, and run in the cottage.
Lockwin walks as in a dream. To-morrow he goes to Washington. "Politics is hard," he says, but he does not feel it. He feels nothing. He feels at rest. Nothing is hard. He is weak from an illness, of which he knows little. He has never been in this infant-room. Many a time he has left Davy at the door.
The pastor's wife is the shepherdess. She has a long, white crook. Before her sit seven rows of wee faces and bodies. It is sweeter than a garden of flowers. They are too small to read books, but they learn at the fastest pace. The shepherdess gets Lockwin a chair. There are tears in her eyes. The audience is quick to feel. Tears come in the eyes of little faces nearly as beautiful as Davy's. Roses are sweetest when the dew sparkles on them.
"Oh, my dear sir, no. None of them are as pretty as he was." Such is the opinion of the shepherdess. "We see only one like him in a lifetime," she testifies. A wee, blue chair is vacant in the first row at the end--clearly the place of honor. A withered wreath lies on the chair. The man's eyes are fastened on that spot. Here is a world of which he knew nothing. Here he follows in the very footsteps.
"Listen, listen," says the motherly teacher. "This is Davy's father."
Three of the most bashful arise and come to be kissed. Strange power of human pity!
[Illustration: Three of the most bashful arise and come to be kissed.]
"Little Davy is with Jesus," says the shepherdess. "Now all you who want to be with Jesus, raise your hands."
Every right hand is up. Their faith is implicit, but many a left hand is pulling a neighboring curl. Busy is that long shepherd crook, to defeat those wicked left hands.
A head obtrudes in the door. "Excuse me," says the political boss. "Mr. Lockwin, can you spare a moment? Hello, Jessie! no, papa will not be home to-night. Tell mamma, will you?"
A curly head is saddened. Lockwin thanks the shepherdess, and follows his boss.
"The train goes East at 4:45. Don't lose a moment. Lucky I found you."
The newspaper press is in possession of a sensation. On Monday morning we quote: "A plot has been revealed which might have resulted in the loss of the First district, and possibly of Congress, just at the moment the re-apportionment bill was to be passed. Notice of contest has been served on Congressman Lockwin as a blind for subsequent operations, and yesterday the newly elected member left hurriedly for Washington to consult with the attorney general. It is evident that the federal authorities will inquire into the high-handed outrages which swelled the votes of Corkey and the other unsuccessful candidates on election day.
"The time is coming," concludes the article, "when lynch law will be dealt out to the repeaters who haunt the tough precincts at each election day."
The prominent citizens say among themselves: "We ought to do something pretty soon, or these ward politicians will be governing the nation!"
CHAPTER XII
IN GEORGIAN BAY
Corkey is at Owen Sound. The political bee is buzzing in his bonnet. Collector of the port--this office seems small to a man who really polled more votes than Lockwin. The notion has taken hold of Corkey that, by some hook or crook, Lockwin will get out and Corkey will get in.
When he thinks of this, Corkey rises and walks about his chair, sitting down again.
This is a gambler's habit.
There follows this incantation an incident which flatters his ambition. Having changed his tobacco from the right to the left side of his mouth, he strangles badly. It takes him just five minutes to get a free breath. This is always a good sign. Thereupon the darkest of negro lads, with six fingers, a lick, left-handed and cross-eyed, enters the barroom of the hotel.
"Here!" cries Corkey. "What's your name?" The boy stammers in his speech.
"N-n-n-noah!" he replies.
"Why not?" inquires Corkey. "You bet your sweet life you tell me what your name is!"
"N-n-n-noah!"
"Why not? Tell me that!"
"M-m-my name is N-n-noah!" exclaims the boy.
"Ho! ho!" laughs Corkey. "Let's see them fingers! Got any more in your pockets?"
"N-n-n-noah," answers the boy.
"Got six toes, too?"
"Y-y-yes, sah!"
"A dead mascot!" says Corkey. It is an auspice of the most eminent fortune. Corkey from this moment rejects the collectorship, and stakes all on going to Congress. Thoughts of murdering Lockwin out here in this wilderness come into the man's mind.
"I wouldn't do that, nohow. Oh, I'll never be worked off--none of that for me!"
In Corkey's tongue, to be worked off is to be hanged.
"Nixy. I'll never be worked off. But it would be easy to throw him from the deck to-night. Some of the boys would do it, too, if they knew him."
The man grows murderous.
"Easy enough. Somebody slap his jaw and get him in a fight. Oh, he'll fight quick enough. Then three or four of 'em tip him into the lake. Why, it ain't even the lake out here. It's Georgian Bay. It's out of the world, too. My father was in Congress. My grandfather was in. Wonder how they got there? Wonder if they did any dirt?"
Corkey's face is hard and black. He rises. He feels ill. He swears at the mascot. "I thought he had too many points when I see him."
The train is late. The propeller, Africa, lies at the dock ready to start.
"Well, if I come to such a place as this I must expect a jackleg railroad. They say they've got an old tub there at the dock. Good stiff fall breeze, too."
The thought of danger resuscitates Corkey. He finds some sailors, tells them how he was elected to Congress, slaps them on the back, tries to split the bar with his fist, a feat which has often won votes, and tightens his heart with raw Canadian whisky.
"Going to be rough, Corkey."
"'Spose so," nods Corkey. "Is she pretty good?"
"The Africa?"
"Um-huh!"
"Oh, well, she's toted me often enough. She's like the little nig they carry."
"Does that mascot sail with her?"
"To be sure."
"That settles it. Landlord, give us that sour mash."
"Train's coming!"
The drinks are hurriedly swallowed and paid for, and the men are off for the depot near by.
"How are ye, Lockwin?" "How-dy-do, Corkey. Where have you got me? Going to murder me and get to Congress in my place?"
"No, but I expect you're going to resign and let me in."
"Where's your boat? I hear they're waiting. I suppose we can get supper on board. Why did you choose such a place as this?"
"Well, cap, I had a long slate to fix up when I came here. If I was to be collector, of course I want to make my pile out of it, and I must take care of the boys. But I didn't start out to be collector, and I've about failed to make any slate at all. Yet, if I'm to sell out to you folks, I reckon I couldn't do it on any boat in the open lakes. I'm not sure but Georgian Bay is purty prominent. Captain Grant, this is Mr. Lockwin, of Chicago. This is the captain of the Africa. Mr. Bodine, Mr. Lockwin, of Chicago. Mr. Bodine is station-keeper here. Mr. Troy, Mr. Lockwin. Mr. Troy keeps the hotel. Mr. Flood, Mr. Lockwin. Mr. Flood runs the bank and keeps the postoffice and general store."
The group nears the hotel.
Corkey is seized with a paroxysm of tobacco strangling, ending with a sneeze that is a public event. He is again black in the face, but he has been polite.
The uninitiated express their astonishment at a sneeze so mighty, and enter the inn. The women of the dining-room come peeping into the bar-room, But the captain explains:
"That sneeze carried Corkey to Congress. I've heern tell how he'd be in the middle of a speech and some smart Aleck would do something to raise the laugh on the gentleman. Corkey would get to strangling and then would end with a sneeze that would carry the house. It's great!"
"That's what it is!" says Mr. Bodine.
"Gentlemen, my father had it. It's no laughing matter. God sakes, how that does shake a man!"
But Corkey has not only done the polite act. He has relieved his mind. He is no longer in danger of being worked off.
"I wouldn't be likely to do up my man if I introduced him to everybody."
Yet the opportunity to murder Lockwin, as a theoretical proposition, dwells with Corkey, now that he is clearly innocent.
"I might have given him a false name. He'd a had to stand it, because he don't like this business nohow. Everything was favorable. Have we time for a drink, cap'n?" The last sentence aloud.
The captain looks at the hotel-keeper. The captain also sells the stuff aboard. But will the captain throw a stone into Mr. Troy's bar?
"I guess we have time," nods the captain.
The party drinks. The gale rises. One hundred wood-choppers, bound for Thunder Bay, go aboard. The craft rubs her fenders and strains the wavering pier. It is a dark night and cold.
"No sailor likes a north wind," says Corkey.
"I have no reason to like it," says Lockwin.
"I'll bet he couldn't be done up so very easy after all," thinks Corkey with a quick, loud guttural bark, due to his tobacco. "I wonder why he looks so blue? It can't be they won't trade at Washington."
The thought of no office at all frightens the marine reporter. He asks himself why he did not put the main question at the depot before the other folks met Lockwin. The paroxysm has made a coward of Corkey. He gets mental satisfaction by thoughts of the weather. The mate of the Africa is muttering that they ought to tie up for the night.
"What ye going to do?" asks Corkey of Captain Grant.
"The captain is well sprung with sour mash," says Corkey to himself.
"We're going to take these choppers to Thunder Bay to-night," says the captain with an oath.
Supper is set in the after-cabin. It is nine o'clock before the engine moves. There are few at table. After supper Corkey and Lockwin enter the forward cabin and take a sofa that sits across the little room. The sea is rough, but the motion of the boat is least felt at this place.
Lockwin has the appearance of a man who is utterly unwilling to be happy. Corkey has regarded this demeanor as a political wile.
"I'll fetch this feller!" Corkey has observed to himself.
But on broaching the question of politics, the commodore has found that Lockwin is scarcely able to speak. He sinks in profound meditation, and is slowly recalled to the most obvious matters.
The genial Corkey is puzzled. "He's going to resign, sure. He beats me--this feller does."
The boat lunges and groans. It lurches sidewise three or four times, and there are sudden moans of the sick on all sides beyond thin wooden partitions.
"I bet he gits sick," says Corkey. "Pard, are ye sick now? Excuse me, Mr. Lockwin, but are ye sick any?"
"No," says Lockwin, and he is not sick. He wishes he were.
"Well, let's git to business, then. You must excuse me, but--"
Corkey is seized with a paroxysm. He gives a screeching sneeze, and the cries of the sick grow furious.
"Who is that?" asks the mate, peering out of his room and then going on deck.
David Lockwin is at the end of his forces. This is life. This is politics. This is expediency. This is the way men become illustrious. He straightens his legs, sinks his chin and pushes his hands far in his pockets.
"Before I begin," says Corkey, "let me tell ye, that if you're sick I'd keep off the decks. You have a gold watch. Some one might nail ye."
"Is that so?" asks Lockwin, his thoughts far away.
"He beats me!" comments the contestant. "Well, pard, if you're not sick, I'd like to say a good many things. I suppose them ducks at Washington weakened. If they give me collector, here's my slate."
Corkey produces a long list of names, written on copy-paper.
"I bet she don't budge an inch," he remarks, as he hears the north wind and waves pounding at one end, and the engine pounding at the other.
"Needn't be afraid, pard. Sometimes they go out in Georgian Bay and burn some coal. Then if they can't git anywhere, they come back."
Corkey is pleased with his own remark. "Sometimes," he adds, "they don't come back. They are bluffed back by the wind."
Lockwin sits in the same uncommunicative attitude.
"Pardner, you didn't come out into Georgian Bay for nothing. I know that. So I will tell you what I am going to do with the collectorship. By the great jumping Jewhillikins, that's a wave in the stateroom windows! I never see anything like that."
The captain passes.
"High sea, cap'n!" It is not in good form for Corkey to rise. He is a passenger, with a navigator's reputation to sustain.
"High hell!" says the captain.
"What a hullabaloo them choppers is a-making," says Corkey to Lockwin. "I reckon they're about scared to death. Well, as I was a-saying, I want to know what the jam-jorum said."
Corkey is terrified. He does not fear that he will go down in Georgian Bay. He dreads to hear the bursting of the bladders that are supporting him in his sea of glory.
Lockwin starts as from a waking dream:
"I beg your pardon, Mr. Corkey, but I could have told you at the start that the administration, when it was confronted by the question whether or not it would give you anything, said; 'No!' It will give you nothing. The administration said it would not appoint you lightkeeper at Ozaukee."
"There hain't no light at Ozaukee," says Corkey.
"That's what the administration said, too," replies Lockwin.
"Did you tell 'em I got you fine?" asks Corkey.
"I told them I thought you had as good a case as I had."
"Did you tell 'em I'd knock seventeen kinds of stuffin' out of their whole party? That I'd--"
Corkey is at his wits ends. His challenge has been accepted. At the outset he had saved fifty twenty-dollar gold pieces out of his wages. He has spent fifteen already. The thought of a contest against the machine candidate carries with it the loss of the rest of the little hoard. He has boasted that he will retain Emery Storrs, the eminent advocate. Corkey grows black in the face. He hiccoughs. He strangles.
He unburdens himself with a supreme sneeze. The mate enters the cabin.
"I knew that sneeze would wreck us!" he cries savagely.
"Is your old tub sinking?" asks Corkey, in retort.
"That's what she is!" replies the mate.
Corkey looks like a man relieved. Politics is off his mind. He will not be laughed at on the docks now.
"Pardner, I'm sorry we're in this hole," he says, as the twain rush through the door to the deck. It was dim under that swinging lamp. It is dark out here. The wind is bitter. The second mate stands hard by.
"How much water is in?" asks Corkey.
"Plenty," says the second mate.
"What have ye done?" asks Corkey.
"Captain's blind, stavin' drunk, and won't do nothin'."
"Nice picnic!" says Corkey.
"Nice picnic!" says the second mate, warming up.
It is midnight in the middle of Georgian Bay. There is a fall gale such as comes only once in four or five years. In the morning there will be three hundred wrecks on the great lakes--the most inhospitable bodies of water in the world.
And of all stormy places let the sailor keep out of Georgian Bay.