Frank Norris, one of the most brilliant of contemporary
American novelists, was born at Chicago in 1870. He was
educated at the University of California and at Harvard, and
also spent three years as an art student in Paris. Afterwards
he adopted journalism, and served in the capacity of war
correspondent for various newspapers. His first novel,
"McTeague," a virile, realistic romance, brought him instant
recognition. This was followed in 1900 by "Moran of the Lady
Betty," a romantic narrative of adventures on the Californian
Coast. In 1901 Norris conceived the idea of trilogy of novels
dealing with wheat, the object being an arraignment of wheat
operations at Chicago, and the consequent gambling with the
world's food-supply. The first of the series, "The Octopus,"
deals with wheat raising and transportation; the second, "The
Pit," a vigorous, human story covers wheat-exchange gambling,
and appeared in 1903; the third, which was to have been
entitled "The Wolf," was cut short by the author's death,
which occurred on October 25, 1902.
_I.--Curtis Jadwin and His Wife_
Laura Dearborn's native town was Barrington, in Massachusetts. Both she
and her younger sister Page had lived there until the death of their
father. The mother had died long before, and of all their relations,
Aunt Wess, who lived at Chicago, alone remained. It was at the
entreaties of Aunt Wess and of their dearest friends, the Cresslers,
that the two girls decided to live with their aunt in Chicago. Both
Laura and Page had inherited money, and when they faced the world they
had the assurance that, at least, they were independent.
Chicago, the great grey city, interested Laura at every instant and
under every condition. The life was tremendous. All around, on every
side, in every direction, the vast machinery of commonwealth clashed and
thundered from dawn to dark, and from dark to dawn. For thousands of
miles beyond its confines the influence of the city was felt. At times
Laura felt a little frightened at the city's life, and of the men for
whom all the crash of conflict and commerce had no terrors. Those who
could subdue this life to their purposes, must they not be themselves
terrible, pitiless, brutal? What could women ever know of the life of
men, after all?
Her friend, Mr. Cressler, who had been almost a second father to her,
was in business, and had once lost a fortune by a gamble in wheat; and
there was Mr. Curtis Jadwin, whom she had met at the opera with the
Cresslers.
Mrs. Cressler had told Laura, very soon after her arrival in Chicago,
that Mr. Jadwin wanted to marry her.
"I've known Curtis Jadwin now for fifteen years--nobody better," said
Mrs. Cressler. "He's as old a family friend as Charlie and I have. And I
tell you the man is in love with you. He told me you had more sense and
intelligence than any girl he had ever known, and that he never
remembered to have seen a more beautiful woman. What do you think of
him, Laura--of Mr. Jadwin?"
"I don't know," Laura answered. "I thought he was a _strong_
man--mentally, and that he would be kindly and generous. But I saw very
little of him."
"Jadwin struck you as being a kindly man, a generous man? He's just
that, and charitable. You know, he has a Sunday-school over on the West
side--a Sunday-school for mission children--and I do believe he's more
interested in that than in his business. He wants to make it the biggest
Sunday-school in Chicago. It's an ambition of his. Laura," she
exclaimed, "he's a _fine man_. No one knows Curtis Jadwin better than
Charlie and I, and we just _love_ him. The kindliest, biggest-hearted
fellow. Oh, well, you'll know him for yourself, and then you'll see!"
"I don't know anything about him," Laura had remarked in answer to this.
"I never heard of him before the theatre party."
But Mrs. Cressler promptly supplied information. Curtis Jadwin was a man
about thirty-five, who had begun life without a _sou_ in his pockets.
His people were farmers in Michigan, hardy, honest fellows, who ploughed
and sowed for a living. Curtis had only a rudimentary schooling, and had
gone into business with a livery-stable keeper. Someone in Chicago owed
him money, and, in default of payment, had offered him a couple of lots
of ground on Wabash Avenue. That was how he happened to come to Chicago.
Naturally enough, as the city grew the Wabash Avenue property increased
in value. He sold the lots, and bought other real estate; sold that, and
bought somewhere else, and so on till he owned some of the best business
sites in the city, and was now one of the largest real-estate owners in
Chicago. But he no longer bought and sold. His property had grown so
large, that just the management of it alone took up most of his time. As
a rule, he deplored speculation. He had no fixed principles about it,
and occasionally he hazarded small operations.
It was after this that Laura's first aversion to the great grey city
fast disappeared, and she saw it in a kindlier aspect.
Soon it was impossible to deny that Curtis Jadwin--"J" as he was called
in business--was in love with her. The business man, accustomed to deal
with situations with unswerving directness, was not in the least afraid
of Laura. He was aggressive, assertive, and his addresses had all the
persistence and vehemence of veritable attack. He contrived to meet her
everywhere, and even had the Cresslers and Laura over to his mission
Sunday-school for the Easter festival, an occasion of which Laura
carried away a confused recollection of enormous canvas mottoes, sheaves
of lilies, imitation bells of tinfoil, revival hymns vociferated from
seven hundred distended mouths, and through it all the smell of poverty,
the odour of uncleanliness, that mingled strangely with the perfume of
the lilies.
Somehow Laura found that with Jadwin all the serious, all the sincere,
earnest side of her character was apt to come to the front.
Yet for a long time Laura could not make up her mind that she loved him,
but "J" refused to be dismissed.
"I told him I did not love him. Only last week I told him so," Laura
explained to Mrs. Cressler.
"Well, then, why did you promise to marry him?"
"My goodness! You don't realise what it's been. Do you suppose you can
say 'no' to that man?"
"Of course not--of course not!" declared Mrs. Cressler joyfully. "That's
'J' all over. I might have known he'd have you if he set out to do it."
They were married on the last day of June of that summer in the
Episcopalian church. Immediately after the wedding the couple took the
train for Geneva Lake, where Jadwin had built a house for his bride.
_II.--A Corner in Wheat_
The months passed. Soon three years had gone by since the ceremony in
St. James's Church, and all that time the price of wheat had been
steadily going down. Heavy crops the world over had helped the decline.
Jadwin had been drawn into the troubled waters of the Pit, and was by
now "blooded to the game." It was in April that he decided that better
times and higher prices were coming for wheat, and announced his
intentions to Sam Gretry, his broker.
"Sam," he said, "the time is come for a great big chance. We've been
hammering wheat down and down and down till we've got it below the cost
of production, and now she won't go any further with all the hammering
in the world. The other fellows, the rest of the bear crowd, don't seem
to see it; but I see it. Before fall we're going to have higher prices.
Wheat is going up, and when it does I mean to be right there. I'm going
to _buy_. I'm going to buy September wheat, and I'm going to buy it
to-morrow--500,000 bushels of it; and if the market goes as I think it
will later on, I'm going to buy more. I'm going to boost this market
right through till the last bell rings, and from now on Curtis Jadwin
spells b-u-double l--bull."
"They'll slaughter you," said Gretry; "slaughter you in cold blood.
You're just one man against a gang--a gang of cut-throats. Those bears
have got millions and millions back of them. 'J,' you are either
Napoleonic, or--or a colossal idiot!"
All through the three years that had passed Jadwin had grown continually
richer. His real estate appreciated in value; rents went up. Every time
he speculated in wheat it was upon a larger scale, and every time he
won. Hitherto he had been a bear; now, after the talk with Gretry, he
had secretly "turned bull" with the suddenness of a strategist.
A marvellous golden luck followed Jadwin all that summer. The crops were
poor, the yield moderate.
Jadwin sold out in September, having made a fortune, and then, in a
single vast clutch, bought 3,000,000 bushels of the December option.
Never before had he ventured so deeply into the Pit.
One morning in November, at breakfast, Laura said to her husband,
"Curtis, dear, when is it all going to end--your speculating? You never
used to be this way. It seems as though, nowadays, I never had you to
myself. Even when you are not going over papers and reports, or talking
by the hour to Mr. Gretry in the library, your mind seems to be away
from me. I--I am lonesome, dearest, sometimes. And, Curtis, what is the
use? We're so rich now we can't spend our money."
"Oh, it's not the money!" he answered. "It's the fun of the thing--the
excitement."
That very week Jadwin made 500,000 dollars.
"I don't own a grain of wheat now," he assured his wife. "I've got to be
out of it."
But try as he would, the echoes of the rumbling of the Pit reached
Jadwin at every hour of the day and night. He stayed at home over
Christmas. Inactive, he sat there idle, while the clamour of the Pit
swelled daily louder, and the price of wheat went up.
Jadwin chafed and fretted at his inaction and his impatience harried him
like a gadfly. Would no one step into the place of high command.
Very soon the papers began to speak of an unknown "bull" clique who were
rapidly coming into control of the market, and it was no longer a secret
to Laura that her husband had gone back to the market, and that, too,
with such an impetuosity that his rush had carried him to the very heart
of the turmoil.
He was now deeply involved; his influence began to be felt. Not an
important move on the part of the "unknown bull," the nameless,
mysterious stranger, that was not noted and discussed.
It was very late in the afternoon of a lugubrious March day when Jadwin
and Gretry, in the broker's private room, sat studying the latest
Government reports as to the supply of wheat, and Jadwin observed, "Why,
Sam, there's less than 100,000,000 bushels in the farmers' hands. That's
awfully small."
"It ain't, as you might say, colossal," admitted Gretry.
"Sam," said Jadwin again, "the shipments have been about 5,000,000 a
week; 20,000,000 a month, and it's four months before a new crop. Europe
will take 80,000,000 out of the country. I own 10,000,000 now. Why,
there ain't going to be any wheat left in Chicago by May! If I get in
now, and buy a long line of cash wheat, where are all these fellows
going to get it to deliver to me? Say, where are they going to get it?
Come on, now, tell me, where are they going to get it?"
Gretry laid down his pencil, and stared at Jadwin.
"'J,'" he faltered, "'J,' I'm blest if I know."
And then, all in the same moment, the two men were on their feet.
Jadwin sprang forward, gripping the broker by the shoulder.
"Sam," he shouted, "do you know----Great God! Do you know what this
means? Sam, we can corner the market!"
_III.--The Corner Breaks_
The high prices meant a great increase of wheat acreage. In June the
preliminary returns showed 4,000,000 more acres under wheat in the two
states of Dakota alone, and in spite of all Gretry's remonstrances,
Jadwin still held on, determined to keep up prices to July.
But now it had become vitally necessary for Jadwin to sell out his
holdings. His "long line" was a fearful expense; insurance and storage
charges were eating rapidly into the profits. He _must_ get rid of the
load he was carrying little by little.
A month ago, and the foreign demand was a thing almost insensate. There
was no question as to the price. It was, "Give us the wheat, at whatever
figure, at whatever expense."
At home in Chicago Jadwin was completely master of the market. His
wealth increased with such rapidity that at no time was he able even to
approximate the gains that accrued to him because of his corner. It was
more than twenty million, and less than fifty million. That was all he
knew.
It was then that he told Gretry he was going to buy in the July crops.
"' J,' listen to me," said Gretry. "Wheat is worth a dollar and a half
to-day, and not one cent more. If you run it up to two dollars--"
"It will go there of itself, I tell you."
"If you run it up to two dollars it will be that top-heavy that the
littlest kick in the world will knock it over. Be satisfied now with
what you've, got. Suppose the price does break a little, you'd still
make your pile. But swing this deal over into July, and it's ruin. The
farmers all over the country are planting wheat as they've never planted
it before. Great Scott, 'J,' you're fighting against the earth itself."
"Well, we'll fight it then."
"Here's another point," went on Gretry. "You ought to be in bed this
very minute. You haven't got any nerves left at all. You acknowledge you
don't sleep. You ought to see a doctor."
"Fiddlesticks!" exclaimed Jadwin. "I'm all right. Haven't time to see a
doctor."
So the month of May drew to its close, and as Jadwin beheld more and
more the broken speculators, with their abject humility, a vast contempt
for human nature grew within him. The business hardened his heart, and
he took his profits as if by right of birth.
His wife he saw but seldom. Occasionally they breakfasted together; more
often they met at dinner. But that was all.
And now by June 11 the position was critical.
"The price broke to a dollar and twenty yesterday," said Gretry. "Just
think, we were at a dollar and a half a little while ago."
"And we'll be at two dollars in another ten days, I tell you."
"Do you know how we stand, 'J'?" said the broker gravely. "Do you know
how we stand financially? It's taken pretty nearly every cent of our
ready money to support this July market. Oh, we can figure out our paper
profits into the millions. We've got thirty, forty, fifty million
bushels of wheat that's worth over a dollar a bushel; but if we can't
sell it we're none the better off--and that wheat is costing us six
thousand dollars a day. Where's the money going to come from, old man?
You don't seem to realise that we are in a precarious condition. The
moment we can't give our boys buying orders, the moment we admit that we
can't buy all the wheat that's offered, there's the moment we bust."
"Well, we'll buy it," cried Jadwin. "I'll show those brutes. I'll
mortgage all my real estate, and I'll run up wheat so high before the
next two days that the Bank of England can't pull it down; then I'll
sell our long line, and with the profits of that I'll run it up again.
Two dollars! Why, it will be two-fifty before you know how it happened."
That day Jadwin placed as heavy a mortgage as the place would stand upon
every piece of real estate that he owned. He floated a number of
promissory notes, and taxed his credit to its farthest stretch. But sure
as he was of winning, Jadwin could, not bring himself to involve his
wife's money in the hazard, though his entire personal fortune swung in
the balance.
Jadwin knew the danger. The new harvest was coming in--the new harvest
of wheat--huge beyond all possibility of control; so vast that no money
could buy it. And from Liverpool and Paris cables had come in to Gretry
declining to buy wheat, though he had offered it cheaper than he had
ever done before.
* * * * *
On the morning of June 13, Gretry gave his orders to young Landry Court
and his other agents in the Pit, to do their best to keep the market up.
"You can buy each of you up to half a million bushels apiece. If that
don't keep the price up--well, I'll let you know what to do. Look here,
keep your heads cool. I guess to-day will decide things."
In the Pit roar succeeded roar. It seemed that a support long thought to
be secure was giving way. Not a man knew what he or his neighbour was
doing. The bids leaped to and fro, and the price of July wheat could not
so much as be approximated.
Landry caught one of the Gretry traders by the arm.
"What shall we do?" he shouted. "I've bought up to my limit. No more
orders have come in. What's to be done?"
"I don't know," the other shouted back--"I don't know! Looks like a
smash; something's gone wrong."
In Gretry's office Jadwin stood hatless and pale. Around him were one of
the heads of a great banking house and a couple of other men,
confidential agents, who had helped to manipulate the great corner.
"It's the end of the game," Gretry exclaimed, "you've got no more money!
Not another order goes up to that floor."
"It's a lie!" Jadwin cried, "keep on buying, I tell you! Take all
they'll offer. I tell you we'll touch the two dollar mark before noon."
"It's useless, Mr. Jadwin," said the banker quietly, "You were
practically beaten two days ago."
But Jadwin was beyond all appeal. He threw off Gretry's hand.
"Get out of my way!" he shouted. "Do you hear? I'll play my hand alone
from now on."
"'J,' old man--why, see here!" Gretry implored, still holding him by the
arm. "Here, where are you going?"
Jadwin's voice rang like a trumpet-call:
"_Into the Pit!_ If you won't execute my orders I'll act myself. I'm
going into the Pit, I tell you!"
"'J,' you're mad, old fellow! You're ruined--don't you
understand?--you're ruined!"
"Then God curse you, Sam Gretry, for the man who failed me in a crisis!"
And, as he spoke, Curtis Jadwin struck the broker full in the face.
Gretry staggered back from the blow. His pale face flashed to crimson
for an instant, his fists clenched; then his hands fell to his sides.
"No," he said; "let him go--let him go. The man is merely mad!"
Jadwin thrust the men who tried to hold him to one side, and rushed from
the room.
"It's the end," Gretry said simply. He wrote a couple of lines, and
handed the note to the senior clerk. "Take that to the secretary of the
board at once."
Straight into the turmoil and confusion of the Pit, into the scene of so
many of his victories, came the "Great Bull." The news went flashing and
flying from lip to lip. The wheat Pit, torn and tossed and rent asunder,
stood dismayed, so great had been his power. What was about to happen?
Jadwin himself, the great man, in the Pit! Had his enemies been too
premature in their hope of his defeat? For a second they hesitated, then
moved by a common impulse, feeling the push of the wonderful new harvest
behind them, gathered themselves together for the final assault, and
again offered the wheat for sale--offered it by thousands upon thousands
of bushels.
Blind and insensate, Jadwin strove against the torrent of the wheat.
Under the stress and violence of the hour, something snapped in his
brain; but he stood erect there in the middle of the Pit, iron to the
end, proclaiming over the din of his enemies, like a bugle sounding to
the charge of a forlorn hope.
"Give a dollar for July--give a dollar for July!"
Then little by little the tumult of the Pit subsided. There were sudden
lapses in the shouting, and again the clamour would break out.
All at once the Pit, the entire floor of the Board of Trade, was struck
dumb. In the midst of the profound silence the secretary announced. "All
trades with Gretry & Co. must be closed at once!"
The words were greeted with a wild yell of exultation. Beaten--beaten at
last, the Great Bull! Smashed! The great corner smashed! Jadwin busted!
Cheer followed cheer, hats went into the air. Men danced and leaped in a
frenzy of delight.
Young Landry Court, who had stood by Jadwin in the Pit, led his defeated
captain out. Jadwin was in a daze--he saw nothing, heard nothing, but
submitted to Landry's guidance.
From the Pit came the sound of dying cheers.
"They can cheer now all they want. _They didn't do it,"_ said a man at
the door. "It was the wheat itself that beat him; no combination of men
could have done it."
_IV.--A Fresh Start_
The evening had closed in wet and misty, and when Laura Jadwin came down
to the dismantled library a heavy rain was falling.
"There, dear," Laura said, "now sit down on the packing-box there. You
had better put your hat on. It is full of draughts now that the
furniture and curtains are out. You've had a pretty bad siege of it, you
know, and this is only the first week you've been up."
"I've had too good a nurse," he answered, stroking her hand, "not to be
as fit as a fiddle by now. You must be tired yourself, Laura. Why, for
whole days there--and nights, too, they tell me--you never left the
room."
Laura shook her head, and said:
"I wonder what the West will be like. Do you know I think I am going to
like it, Curtis?"
"It will be starting in all over again, old girl. Pretty hard at first,
I'm afraid."
"Hard--now?" She took his hand and laid it to her cheek.
"By all the rules you ought to hate me," he began. "What have I done for
you but hurt you, and at last bring you to----"
But she shut her gloved-hand over his mouth.
"The world is all before us where to choose, now, isn't it?" she
answered. "And this big house and all the life we have led in it was
just an incident in our lives--an incident that is closed."
"We're starting all over again, honey.... Well, there's the carriage, I
guess."
They rose, gathering up their valises.
"Ho!" said Jadwin. "No servants now, Laura, to carry our things down for
us and open the door; and it's a hack, old girl, instead of the
victoria."
"What if it is?" she cried. "What do servants, money, and all amount to
now?"
As Jadwin laid his hand upon the knob of the front door, he all at once
put down his valise and put his arm about his wife. She caught him about
the neck, and looked deep into his eyes a long moment, and then, without
speaking, they kissed each other.
* * * * *