John McGovern

“ Here is a handsome Josephus--as fine as the one in Chicago. But did Davy's head ever lie on it?
Well, bear up then, Robert Chalmers. You are free at least. You need not lie and cheat at elections. You need not live with a woman whose heart is as cold as ice and whose pride is like the pride of an Egyptian Pharaoh. You sunk that yawl well in the sands of Georgian Bay! You filled it with stones!
You thought you were the sole survivor, yet how admirably the rescue of Corkey and the boy abetted your escape, Robert Chalmers. They saw David Lockwin die. They took his dying wishes. ”

“ Between Chicago and New York one may fall into a wide abyss of despair. The late Honorable David Lockwin has tarried in Chicago, has assisted at the public dedication of his own cenotaph, has visited the David Lockwin Annex, has looked his own widow in the face. His pride is torn out by the roots. A man once exalted is now humbled. And, added to the horrors of his situation, every fiber of his body, every aspiration of his spirit, proclaims his love of the woman who once wearied him. ”

“ Love this house as he may, therefore, David Lockwin must avoid it until he can control himself. It is true his books are in there, his manuscripts, his chronicles, "Josephus," and a thousand things without which he cannot lay hold on the true dignity of life. It is true he is slipping down the declivity that invites the easy descent of the obscure and powerless citizen. If he have true hope--and what lover has it not--he must hurry away. ”

“ 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! ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Why does the orator pause?
His head quakes and vibrates, his face grows black, the mouth opens into a parallelogram, the sharp little tongue plays about the mass of black tobacco.
The convention leaps to its feet. The Sneeze has come.
"That settles it!" cry the delegates. "Bounce any man that'll do such a thing as that! Fire him out!"
The irresistible movement has reached Corkey's eyrie. Four faithful Corkeyites are holding Corkey's platform. The assault on these supports, these Atlases, brings the collapse of Corkey. He goes down fighting, and he fights like a hero. ”

“ He makes the long ride to Davy's tomb and finds it covered with fresh flowers. The tenderest of care is visible. The lawn is perfect--not a leaf of plantain, not a spear of dandelion. Money will not produce such stewardship of the sepulcher. It is Esther's own devotion.
He goes to the site of the cenotaph. Is it not a difficulty for a lover? Yet love sustains him. His invention suggests method after method by which he may undo the past.
He visits the foundations of the David Lockwin Annex. ”

“ Corkey must do the greater part of the talking. He sits beside the bed carrying an atmosphere of sympathy that the feverish lover needs. Gradually the thoughts of the sympathizer fix on the glass graduate. It tickles his membranes. His head quakes, his tongue whirs, he jars the great bottles outside with his sneeze.
The tears start from his eyes, his throat rebels at its misusage, his big red handkerchief comes out. It makes a sharp contrast with his jet black hair and mustache.
"Old man," he said, "do you suppose your bone-sawers could cut that out of me? ”

“ 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? ”

“ Now about this going to New York to-night. He would like to be prevented from that journey. What shall do that for David Lockwin?
"Davy's sarcophagus!"
The thought seizes him with violence. Of course he cannot go. He seeks his room. He throws himself on his bed and gives way to all his grief. It takes the form of love for Davy. David Lockwin weeps for golden-head. He weeps for the past. He is living. He ought to be dead. He is poor. He is misshapen in feature. He is hungry for human sympathy. The world is giving him a stone. Oh, Davy! Davy! ”

“ The wood-chopper has seized a man. It is another wood-chopper. There are now four souls in the boat.
It leaps less like an athlete.
It has been half an hour since the Africa went down. There still are cries. To all these, Corkey replies: "Come on! all you fellers that has life-preservers!" But it is incredible that any more should get in the yawl.
Nevertheless, one, two, three, four, five, six wood-choppers arrive in the next half-hour, and all are saved. Tugging for dear life, Corkey holds his boat against the wind. ”

“ CORKEY'S GOOD SCHEME
The courtly and affable George Harpwood has fought the good fight and is finishing the course. It is he who has labored with the prominent citizens. It is he who has moved the great editors to place David Lockwin in the western pantheon--to pay him the honors due to Lincoln and Douglas. It is Harpwood who has carried the banquet to success. It is he who, in the midnight of Esther Lockwin's grief, prepared for her confidential reading those long and scholarly essays of consolation which she studied so gratefully. ”

“ I, Robert Chalmers, of New York City, am the sole survivor, and nobody shall know even that. Corkey--let me see--Corkey and a boy--they must be at the bottom of Georgian Bay!"
He muses again. His face hurts him once more. He sees a cabin at a distance. He finds he has money in plenty. To heal his wounds will be easy. He must be greatly changed if his feelings may be credited. Two of his teeth are broken, and harass his curious tongue.
What plotter, cunning in exploits, could so well plan an honorable discharge from the bitterness of life in Chicago? ”

“ It heats their blood. They shake hands with Lockwin and deploy on the threatened precincts.
When the sailors unload at the next precinct of the Fourth ward the emissaries who have arrived with notice of Corkey's surrender--these great hearts lead the fight. A saloon-keeper rushes out with a bung-starter and hits a sailor on the head. An alderman bites off a sailor's ear. An athletic sailor fells the first six foes who advance upon him. A shot is fired. The long line at the polls dissolves as if by magic. The judges of election disappear out the back door. ”

“ It makes New York seem inhospitable. It makes Chicago seem like home. Still, as David Lockwin seeks his hotel, noting always the complete solitude in which he dwells among the vast crowds that once knew him familiarly or by sight, it chills him to the marrow. ”

“ The amount is half of Lockwin's estate. Esther shall have the rest.
Serious matters are these, for a man to consider, who sits stretched out on a seat, one ankle over the other, his hands deep in pocket, his chin far down on his chest; and Corkey appealing in his dumb, yet eloquent way, for a share of the spoils of office.
This life of David Lockwin, the people's idol, is an unendurable fiasco.
David Lockwin is disconsolate. Davy is no more.
David Lockwin is sick and weak. Whether he be sane or daft, he scarcely knows, and he cares not at all.
He recoils from politics. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ He will work as book-keeper. He will wait and collect all. Patience shall be his motto. He will communicate with Esther through a spiritual medium. He will--better yet--write to her anonymously. Every day a type-written missive shall be sent to her. He will have her! It is all possible!
"It is all easy!" David Lockwin says, and goes resolutely at work to save the remnants of his fortune.
For a year he turns the inertia of his love into his daily business. Esther is building at Chicago, David will build at New York--a fabric of love, airy, it may be, but graceful and beautiful. ”

“ But Davy's death is not now the calamity it was yesterday. It seems more like a pleasant memory--a small memory. The gigantic thought is Esther, Esther--Esther the beautiful, the noble, the generous, the faithful. She shall be the wife of Ulysses, waiting for his return, and he shall return!
The husband again starts for Esther's door. There are two men within him--one is David Lockwin dead, the other is David Lockwin living. Once more the eminent man who is dead seizes the maddened lover who is living and prevents a disaster. ”

“ Four saloon-keepers stand upon chairs and shout.
Four bouncers of four rival saloons pull the orators down to the floor. The saloon-keepers are unarmed--their bung-starters are at home. The Lockwin man is in the chair. He has not been elected. Election in such a hubbub is impossible, and is not expected.
But the assumption of the chair by anybody is a good thing. The convention is thus enabled to learn that Corkey is making a speech. A chair is held on top of another chair. On this conspicuous perch the hero of the docks holds forth.
Corkey is an oddity. He is a new factor in politics. ”

“ Ah, yes, she must turn her head. The bridegroom is gone!
A man enters, in hot haste and intense excitement. Is it the bridegroom returning?
It is Dr. Tarpion. He seizes her by the hand.
"My dear friend!" he cries. "My dear friend!" he repeats, "I have just now learned that your husband is still living."
But she does not hear it. She can only look gratefully toward the administrator, clinging to his hand.
She gazes in a dazed way on the white prescription-booth beyond the square stove; on the bottles of blue copper-water on each corner. Higher, the partition rises into view. ”

“ Corkey peers down on deck. The wood-choppers are fastening life-preservers about their bodies. Whether they be crying or shouting, cannot be told.
He sees human forms hurrying past the cabin window, and there is reflected the yellow, wooden, ribby thing which he knows to be a life-preserver.
It is a cheering thing in such a moment. "I wish I had one," he says, but he holds to the rope of his boat.
There is no crew, in the proper sense of the word. Not an officer or man on board feels a responsibility for the lives of the passengers. ”

“ Lockwin went to Owen Sound?"
"I can't do that, nohow; and the less said about it the better. It would let a big political cat out of the bag."
"Politics! Was that the reason?"
"That's what it was, your honor, madam."
"Can you tell me something about my poor husband?"
It is a figure that by its mere presence over-awes Corkey. Of all women, he admires the heroic mold. The garb is black beyond the man's conception of mourning. The face is chastened with days of mental torture. There is an intoxication of grief in the aspect of the woman that hangs the house in woe. ”

“ 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. ”