It is the first trouble Lockwin has ever seen. He is as unready and unwilling as poor little Davy. It is murder--that furnace going out. This thought comes to Lockwin over and over; perhaps the feeling of murder is because Davy is not an own son.
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 noble 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?"