David Lockwin -- The Peoples Idol | Page 6

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,