The Octopus, by Frank Norris

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CONCLUSION

The "Swanhilda" cast off from the docks at Port Costa two days
after Presley had left Bonneville and the ranches and made her
way up to San Francisco, anchoring in the stream off the City
front. A few hours after her arrival, Presley, waiting at his
club, received a despatch from Cedarquist to the effect that she
would clear early the next morning and that he must be aboard of
her before midnight.

He sent his trunks aboard and at once hurried to Cedarquist's
office to say good-bye. He found the manufacturer in excellent
spirits.

"What do you think of Lyman Derrick now, Presley?" he said, when
Presley had sat down. "He's in the new politics with a
vengeance, isn't he? And our own dear Railroad openly
acknowledges him as their candidate. You've heard of his
canvass."

"Yes, yes," answered Presley. "Well, he knows his business
best."

But Cedarquist was full of another idea: his new venture--the
organizing of a line of clipper wheat ships for Pacific and
Oriental trade--was prospering.

"The 'Swanhilda' is the mother of the fleet, Pres. I had to buy
HER, but the keel of her sister ship will be laid by the time she
discharges at Calcutta. We'll carry our wheat into Asia yet.
The Anglo-Saxon started from there at the beginning of everything
and it's manifest destiny that he must circle the globe and fetch
up where he began his march. You are up with procession, Pres,
going to India this way in a wheat ship that flies American
colours. By the way, do you know where the money is to come from
to build the sister ship of the 'Swanhilda'? From the sale of
the plant and scrap iron of the Atlas Works. Yes, I've given it
up definitely, that business. The people here would not back me
up. But I'm working off on this new line now. It may break me,
but we'll try it on. You know the 'Million Dollar Fair' was
formally opened yesterday. There is," he added with a wink, "a
Midway Pleasance in connection with the thing. Mrs. Cedarquist
and our friend Hartrath 'got up a subscription' to construct a
figure of California--heroic size--out of dried apricots. I
assure you," he remarked With prodigious gravity, "it is a real
work of art and quite a 'feature' of the Fair. Well, good luck
to you, Pres. Write to me from Honolulu, and bon voyage. My
respects to the hungry Hindoo. Tell him 'we're coming, Father
Abraham, a hundred thousand more.' Tell the men of the East to
look out for the men of the West. The irrepressible Yank is
knocking at the doors of their temples and he will want to sell
'em carpet-sweepers for their harems and electric light plants
for their temple shrines. Good-bye to you."

"Good-bye, sir."

"Get fat yourself while you're about it, Presley," he observed,
as the two stood up and shook hands.

"There shouldn't be any lack of food on a wheat ship. Bread
enough, surely."

"Little monotonous, though. 'Man cannot live by bread alone.'
Well, you're really off. Good-bye."

"Good-bye, sir."

And as Presley issued from the building and stepped out into the
street, he was abruptly aware of a great wagon shrouded in white
cloth, inside of which a bass drum was being furiously beaten.
On the cloth, in great letters, were the words:

"Vote for Lyman Derrick, Regular Republican Nominee for Governor
of California."

* * * * * * * * * * * * * *

The "Swanhilda" lifted and rolled slowly, majestically on the
ground swell of the Pacific, the water hissing and boiling under
her forefoot, her cordage vibrating and droning in the steady
rush of the trade winds. It was drawing towards evening and her
lights had just been set. The master passed Presley, who was
leaning over the rail smoking a cigarette, and paused long enough
to remark:

"The land yonder, if you can make it out, is Point Gordo, and if
you were to draw a line from our position now through that point
and carry it on about a hundred miles further, it would just
about cross Tulare County not very far from where you used to
live."

"I see," answered Presley, "I see. Thanks. I am glad to know
that."

The master passed on, and Presley, going up to the quarter deck,
looked long and earnestly at the faint line of mountains that
showed vague and bluish above the waste of tumbling water.

Those were the mountains of the Coast range and beyond them was
what once had been his home. Bonneville was there, and
Guadalajara and Los Muertos and Quien Sabe, the Mission of San
Juan, the Seed ranch, Annixter's desolated home and Dyke's ruined
hop-fields.

Well, it was all over now, that terrible drama through which he
had lived. Already it was far distant from him; but once again
it rose in his memory, portentous, sombre, ineffaceable. He
passed it all in review from the day of his first meeting with
Vanamee to the day of his parting with Hilma. He saw it all--the
great sweep of country opening to view from the summit of the
hills at the head waters of Broderson's Creek; the barn dance at
Annixter's, the harness room with its jam of furious men; the
quiet garden of the Mission; Dyke's house, his flight upon the
engine, his brave fight in the chaparral; Lyman Derrick at bay in
the dining-room of the ranch house; the rabbit drive; the fight
at the irrigating ditch, the shouting mob in the Bonneville Opera
House.
The drama was over. The fight of Ranch and Railroad had been
wrought out to its dreadful close. It was true, as Shelgrim had
said, that forces rather than men had locked horns in that
struggle, but for all that the men of the Ranch and not the men
of the Railroad had suffered. Into the prosperous valley, into
the quiet community of farmers, that galloping monster, that
terror of steel and steam had burst, shooting athwart the
horizons, flinging the echo of its thunder over all the ranches
of the valley, leaving blood and destruction in its path.

Yes, the Railroad had prevailed. The ranches had been seized in
the tentacles of the octopus; the iniquitous burden of
extortionate freight rates had been imposed like a yoke of iron.
The monster had killed Harran, had killed Osterman, had killed
Broderson, had killed Hooven. It had beggared Magnus and had
driven him to a state of semi-insanity after he had wrecked his
honour in the vain attempt to do evil that good might come. It
had enticed Lyman into its toils to pluck from him his manhood
and his honesty, corrupting him and poisoning him beyond
redemption; it had hounded Dyke from his legitimate employment
and had made of him a highwayman and criminal. It had cast forth
Mrs. Hooven to starve to death upon the City streets. It had
driven Minna to prostitution. It had slain Annixter at the very
moment when painfully and manfully he had at last achieved his
own salvation and stood forth resolved to do right, to act
unselfishly and to live for others. It had widowed Hilma in the
very dawn of her happiness. It had killed the very babe within
the mother's womb, strangling life ere yet it had been born,
stamping out the spark ordained by God to burn through all
eternity.

What then was left? Was there no hope, no outlook for the
future, no rift in the black curtain, no glimmer through the
night? Was good to be thus overthrown? Was evil thus to be
strong and to prevail? Was nothing left?

Then suddenly Vanamee's words came back to his mind. What was
the larger view, what contributed the greatest good to the
greatest numbers? What was the full round of the circle whose
segment only he beheld? In the end, the ultimate, final end of
all, what was left? Yes, good issued from this crisis,
untouched, unassailable, undefiled.

Men--motes in the sunshine--perished, were shot down in the very
noon of life, hearts were broken, little children started in life
lamentably handicapped; young girls were brought to a life of
shame; old women died in the heart of life for lack of food. In
that little, isolated group of human insects, misery, death, and
anguish spun like a wheel of fire.

BUT THE WHEAT REMAINED. Untouched, unassailable, undefiled, that
mighty world-force, that nourisher of nations, wrapped in
Nirvanic calm, indifferent to the human swarm, gigantic,
resistless, moved onward in its appointed grooves. Through the
welter of blood at the irrigation ditch, through the sham charity
and shallow philanthropy of famine relief committees, the great
harvest of Los Muertos rolled like a flood from the Sierras to
the Himalayas to feed thousands of starving scarecrows on the
barren plains of India.

Falseness dies; injustice and oppression in the end of everything
fade and vanish away. Greed, cruelty, selfishness, and
inhumanity are short-lived; the individual suffers, but the race
goes on. Annixter dies, but in a far distant corner of the world
a thousand lives are saved. The larger view always and through
all shams, all wickednesses, discovers the Truth that will, in
the end, prevail, and all things, surely, inevitably,
resistlessly work together for good.