David Lockwin The People's Idol by John McGovern

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[Frontispiece: He appears on the balcony. There is a cheer that may
be heard all over the South Side.]

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

I. Harpwood and Lockwin
II. The People's Idol
III. Of Sneezes
IV. Bad News All Around
V. Dr. Floddin's Patient
VI. A Reign of Terror
VII. The Primaries
VIII. Fifty Kegs of Beer
IX. The Night Before Election
X. Elected
XI. Lynch-Law for Corkey
XII. In Georgian Bay
XIII. Off Cape Croker
XIV. In the Conventional Days

Book II - Esther Lockwin

I. Extra! Extra!
II. Corkey's Fear of a Widow's Grief
III. The Cenotaph
IV. A Knolling Bell

Book III - Robert Chalmers

I. A Difficult Problem
II. A Complete Disguise
III. Before the Telegraph Office
IV. "A Sound of Revelry by Night"
V. Letters of Consolation
VI. The Yawl
VII. A Rash Act
VIII. A Good Scheme
IX. A Heroic Act
X. Esther as a Liberal Patron

Book IV - George Harpwood

I. Corkey's Good Scheme
II. Happiness and Peace
III. At 3 in the Morning
IV. The Bridegroom
V. At Six O'clock

LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS

Frontispiece: He appears on the balcony. There is a cheer that may be
heard all over the South Side.

Three of the most bashful arise and come to be kissed.

The boat drags him. He catches the boy's hand.

Her eye returns in satisfaction to the glittering black granite letters
over the portal.

"It's a good scheme, Corkey."

But the bride still stands under the lamp on the portico, statuesque as
Zenobia or Medea.

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.

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