David Lockwin -- The Peoples Idol | Page 2

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