country as a wild extravagance, for the ordinary sleeping-car of
the time cost only four thousand dollars.

The "Pioneer" lay in the train-shed most of the time during the first year
of its existence, but whenever it was used the demand for berths in it was
promising.

This led James F. Joy, president of the Michigan Central, to give a
half-hearted consent to experiments on his road. Pullman took every cent
of money he possessed and as much money as he could borrow, and built four
cars. They cost twenty-four thousand dollars each, and when Joy learned
how much money had been expended on them it amazed him so much that he was
on the point of ordering a discontinuance of all experiments.

Joy held up the trial for a month, and then allowed the cars to go out
only on condition that each one be accompanied by an old-style car. The
old cars were deserted. People preferred to pay two dollars for a berth in
a Pullman car, rather than fifty or seventy-five cents for a bunk in the
jolting, springless cars.

Still, the railroad men could not see the advisability of investing
twenty-five thousand dollars or more--for Pullman's plans grew in
expensiveness all the time--in cars, and they steadfastly turned down his
requests that they give him orders to build cars and buy the cars when
they were finished. This led him to determine to build the cars and rent
them.

Investors did not flock to him, but he got together enough to start
operations, and the five cars he already had on the rail were earning
money. During the first year he did not add any new cars, but the next
year he put several out, and they were a huge success--the company that
year earning two hundred and eighty thousand dollars.

The big roads centering in Chicago were pushing out in all directions. The
transcontinental roads were open for business. The ending of the Civil War
had paved the way to railroad extension in the South. All these facts gave
new opportunities for Pullman's business.

In the second year the company earned still larger profits, reaching the
four-hundred-thousand-dollar mark. Its income went on steadily up to a
million dollars, and still on until it passed beyond twenty millions.

Before this stage was attained, however, Pullman found that his factory
had outgrown its Chicago quarters, and all the surrounding land was held
at prohibitive prices. He determined to break away from the city, so he
went out several miles, and for eight hundred