“I just wanted a bit; I promised the boy—”
“Go on, go on—Why, Mr. Taylor!” And the little boy burst into tears while he was hurried out.
“Tightening up on the tenants?” asked Taylor.
“Yes; these niggers are mighty extravagant. Besides, cotton fell a little today—eleven to ten and three-fourths; just a flurry, I reckon. Had you heard?”
Mr. Taylor said he had heard, and he hurried on. Next morning the long shining wires of that great Broadway web trembled and flashed again and cotton went to ten cents.
“No house this year, I fear,” quoth Mr. Maxwell, bitterly.
The next day nine and a half was the quotation, and men began to look at each other and asked questions.
“Paper says the crop is larger than the government estimate,” said Tolliver, and added, “There’ll be no painting this year.” He looked toward the Smith School and thought of the five thousand dollars waiting; but he hesitated. John Taylor had carefully mentioned seven thousand dollars as a price he was willing to pay and “perhaps more.” Was Cresswell back of Taylor? Tolliver was suspicious and moved to delay matters.
“It’s manipulation and speculation in New York,” said Colonel Cresswell, “and the Farmers’ League must begin operations.”
The local paper soon had an editorial on “our distinguished fellow citizen, Colonel Cresswell,” and his efforts to revive the Farmers’ League. It was understood that Colonel Cresswell was risking his whole private fortune to hold the price of cotton, and some effort seemed to be needed, for cotton dropped to nine cents within a week. Swift negotiations ensued, and a meeting of the executive committee of the Farmers’ League was held in Montgomery. A system of warehouses and warehouse certificates was proposed.
“But that will cost money,” responded each of the dozen big landlords who composed the committee; whereupon Harry Cresswell introduced John Taylor, who represented thirty millions of Southern bank stock.
“I promise you credit to any reasonable amount,” said Mr. Taylor, “I believe in cotton—the present price is abnormal.” And Mr. Taylor knew whereof he spoke, for when he sent a cipher despatch North, cotton dropped to eight and a half. The Farmers’ League leased three warehouses at Savannah, Montgomery, and New Orleans.
Then silently the South gripped itself and prepared for battle. Men stopped spending, business grew dull, and millions of eyes were glued to the blackboards of the cotton-exchange. Tighter and tighter the reins grew on the backs of the black tenants.
“Miss Smith, is yo’ got just a drap of coffee to lend me? Mr. Cresswell won’t give me none at the store and I’se just starving for some,” said Aunt Rachel from over the hill. “We won’t git free this year, Miss Smith, not this year,” she concluded plaintively.
Cotton fell to seven and a half cents and the muttered protest became angry denunciation. Why was it? Who was doing it?
Harry Cresswell went to Montgomery. He was getting nervous. The thing was too vast. He could not grasp it. It set his head in a whirl. Harry Cresswell was not a bad man—are there any bad men? He was a man who from the day he first wheedled his black mammy into submission, down to his thirty-sixth year, had seldom known what it was voluntarily to deny himself or curb a desire. To rise when he would, eat what he craved, and do what the passing fancy suggested had long been his day’s programme. Such emptiness of life and aim had to be filled, and it was filled; he helped his father sometimes with the plantations, but he helped spasmodically and played at work.
The unregulated fire of energy and delicacy of nervous poise within him continually hounded him to the verge of excess and sometimes beyond. Cool, quiet, and gentlemanly as he was by rule of his clan, the ice was thin and underneath raged unappeased fires. He craved the madness of alcohol in his veins till his delicate hands trembled of mornings. The women whom he bent above in languid, veiled-eyed homage, feared lest they love him, and what work was to others gambling was to him.
The Cotton Combine, then, appealed to him overpoweringly—to his passion for wealth, to his passion for gambling. But once entered upon the game it drove him to fear and frenzy: first, it was a long game and Harry Cresswell was not trained to waiting, and, secondly, it was a game whose intricacies he did not know. In vain did he try to study the matter through. He ordered books from the North, he subscribed for financial journals, he received special telegraphic reports only to toss them away, curse his valet, and call for another brandy. After all, he kept saying to himself, what guarantee, what knowledge had he that this was not a “damned Yankee trick”?
Now that the web was weaving its last mesh in early January he haunted Montgomery, and on this day when it seemed that things must culminate or he would go mad, he hastened again down to the Planters’ Hotel and was quickly ushered to John Taylor’s room. The place was filled with tobacco smoke. An electric ticker was drumming away in one corner, a telephone ringing on the desk, and messenger boys hovered outside the door and raced to and fro.
“Well,” asked Cresswell, maintaining his composure by an effort, “how are things?”
“Great!” returned Taylor. “League holds three million bales and controls five. It’s the biggest corner in years.”
“But how’s cotton?”
“Ticker says six and three-fourths.”
Cresswell sat down abruptly opposite Taylor, looking at him fixedly.
“That last drop means liabilities of a hundred thousand to us,” he said slowly.
“Exactly,” Taylor blandly admitted.
Beads of sweat gathered on Cresswell’s forehead. He looked at the scrawny iron man opposite, who had already forgotten his presence. He ordered whiskey, and taking paper and pencil began to figure, drinking as he figured. Slowly the blood crept out of his white face leaving it whiter, and
