He hastens to the drug store. He has alarmed the household.

"Davy is dying!" he has said, brutally.

The drug clerk is a sound sleeper. "Let them rattle a little while,"
he soliloquizes with professional tranquillity.

"Child down again?" he inquires later on, in a conciliatory voice.
"Wouldn't give him any more of that emetic if it was my child. I've
re-filled that bottle three times now."

The stove must be gotten up. The pipe enters the mantel. There, that
will insure a hot poultice. But why does the thing throw out gas? Why
didn't it do that before?

"It is astonishing how much time can be lost in a crisis," the man
observes. He must carry his Davy into another room, couch and all, for
he will not suffer the little body to be chilled any further. "If this
cup may be kept from my lips," he prays, "I will be a better man."

The sun is high before the child is swathed with hot flaxseed. The man
sprays the stramonium. The child has periods of extreme difficulty.
He is nauseated in every fiber.

"God forgive me!" prays Lockwin.

"Mamma, will I have to play with the swear boys?"

"No, my darling."