gone with the wind飘(英)_2

gone with the wind (飘/乱世佳人) 2

She took as long a time as possible in getting the water, running
to the front door every two minutes to see if Prissy were coming.
There was no sign of Prissy so she went back upstairs, sponged
Melanie's perspiring body and combed out her long dark hair.

When an hour had passed she heard scuffing negro feet coming down
the street, and looking out of the window, saw Prissy returning
slowly, switching herself as before and tossing her head with as
many airy affectations as if she had a large and interested
audience.

"Some day, I'm going to take a strap to that little wench," thought
Scarlett savagely, hurrying down the stairs to meet her.

"Miss Elsing ober at de horsepittle. Dey Cookie 'lows a whole lot
of wounded sojers come in on de early train. Cookie fixin' soup
ter tek over dar. She say--"

"Never mind what she said," interrupted Scarlett, her heart
sinking. "Put on a clean apron because I want you to go over to
the hospital. I'm going to give you a note to Dr. Meade, and if he
isn't there, give it to Dr. Jones or any of the other doctors. And
if you don't hurry back this time, I'll skin you alive."

"Yas'm."

"And ask any of the gentlemen for news of the fighting. If they
don't know, go by the depot and ask the engineers who brought the
wounded in. Ask if they are fighting at Jonesboro or near there."

"Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett!" and sudden fright was in Prissy's
black face. "De Yankees ain' at Tara, is dey?"

"I don't know. I'm telling you to ask for news."

"Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! Whut'll dey do ter Maw?"

Prissy began to bawl suddenly, loudly, the sound adding to
Scarlett's own uneasiness.

"Stop bawling! Miss Melanie will hear you. Now go change your
apron, quick."

Spurred to speed, Prissy hurried toward the back of the house while
Scarlett scratched a hasty note on the margin of Gerald's last
letter to her--the only bit of paper in the house. As she folded
it, so that her note was uppermost, she caught Gerald's words,
"Your mother--typhoid--under no condition--to come home--" She
almost sobbed. If it wasn't for Melanie, she'd start home, right
this minute, if she had to walk every step of the way.

Prissy went off at a trot, the letter gripped in her hand, and
Scarlett went back upstairs, trying to think of some plausible lie
to explain Mrs. Elsing's failure to appear. But Melanie asked no
questions. She lay upon her back, her face tranquil and sweet, and
the sight of her quieted Scarlett for a while.

She sat down and tried to talk of inconsequential things, but the
thoughts of Tara and a possible defeat by the Yankees prodded
cruelly. She thought of Ellen dying and of the Yankees coming into
Atlanta, burning everything, killing everybody. Through it all,
the dull far-off thundering persisted, rolling into her ears in
waves of fear. Finally, she could not talk at all and only stared
out of the window at the hot still street and the dusty leaves
hanging motionless on the trees. Melanie was silent too, but at
intervals her quiet face was wrenched with pain.

She said, after each pain: "It wasn't very bad, really," and
Scarlett knew she was lying. She would have preferred a loud
scream to silent endurance. She knew she should feel sorry for
Melanie, but somehow she could not muster a spark of sympathy. Her
mind was too torn with her own anguish. Once she looked sharply at
the pain-twisted face and wondered why it should be that she, of
all people in the world, should be here with Melanie at this
particular time--she who had nothing in common with her, who hated
her, who would gladly have seen her dead. Well, maybe she'd have
her wish, and before the day was over too. A cold superstitious
fear swept her at this thought. It was bad luck to wish that
someone were dead, almost as bad luck as to curse someone. Curses
came home to roost, Mammy said. She hastily prayed that Melanie
wouldn't die and broke into feverish small talk, hardly aware of
what she said. At last, Melanie put a hot hand on her wrist.

"Don't bother about talking, dear. I know how worried you are.
I'm so sorry I'm so much trouble."

Scarlett relapsed into silence but she could not sit still. What
would she do if neither the doctor nor Prissy got there in time?
She walked to the window and looked down the street and came back
and sat down again. Then she rose and looked out of the window on
the other side of the room.

An hour went by and then another. Noon came and the sun was high
and hot and not a breath of air stirred the dusty leaves.
Melanie's pains were harder now. Her long hair was drenched in
sweat and her gown stuck in wet spots to her body. Scarlett
sponged her face in silence but fear was gnawing at her. God in
Heaven, suppose the baby came before the doctor arrived! What
would she do? She knew less than nothing of midwifery. This was
exactly the emergency she had been dreading for weeks. She had
been counting on Prissy to handle the situation if no doctor should
be available. Prissy knew all about midwifery. She'd said so time
and again. But where was Prissy? Why didn't she come? Why didn't
the doctor come? She went to the window and looked again. She
listened hard and suddenly she wondered if it were only her
imagination or if the sound of cannon in the distance had died
away. If it were farther away it would mean that the fighting was
nearer Jonesboro and that would mean--

At last she saw Prissy coming down the street at a quick trot and
she leaned out of the window. Prissy, looking up, saw her and her
mouth opened to yell. Seeing the panic written on the little black
face and fearing she might alarm Melanie by crying out evil
tidings, Scarlett hastily put her finger to her lips and left the
window.

"I'll get some cooler water," she said, looking down into Melanie's
dark, deep-circled eyes and trying to smile. Then she hastily left
the room, closing the door carefully behind her.

Prissy was sitting on the bottom step in the hall, panting.

"Dey's fightin' at Jonesboro, Miss Scarlett! Dey say our gempmums
is gittin' beat. Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut'll happen ter Maw
an' Poke? Oh, Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Whut'll happen ter us effen de
Yankees gits hyah? Oh, Gawd--"

Scarlett clapped a hand over the blubbery mouth.

"For God's sake, hush!"

Yes, what would happen to them if the Yankees came--what would
happen to Tara? She pushed the thought firmly back into her mind
and grappled with the more pressing emergency. If she thought of
these things, she'd begin to scream and bawl like Prissy.

"Where's Dr. Meade? When's he coming?"

"Ah ain' nebber seed him, Miss Scarlett."

"What!"

"No'm, he ain' at de horsepittle. Miss Merriwether an' Miss Elsing
ain' dar needer. A man he tole me de doctah down by de car shed
wid the wounded sojers jes' come in frum Jonesboro, but Miss
Scarlett, Ah wuz sceered ter go down dar ter de shed--dey's folkses
dyin' down dar. Ah's sceered of daid folkses--"

"What about the other doctors?"

"Miss Scarlett, fo' Gawd, Ah couldn' sceercely git one of dem ter
read yo' note. Dey wukin' in de horsepittle lak dey all done gone
crazy. One doctah he say ter me, 'Damn yo' hide! Doan you come
roun' hyah bodderin' me 'bout babies w'en we got a mess of men
dyin' hyah. Git some woman ter he'p you.' An' den Ah went aroun'
an' about an' ask fer news lak you done tole me an' dey all say
'fightin' at Jonesboro' an' Ah--"

"You say Dr. Meade's at the depot?"

"Yas'm. He--"

"Now, listen sharp to me. I'm going to get Dr. Meade and I want
you to sit by Miss Melanie and do anything she says. And if you so
much as breathe to her where the fighting is, I'll sell you South
as sure as gun's iron. And don't you tell her that the other
doctors wouldn't come either. Do you hear?"

"Yas'm."

"Wipe your eyes and get a fresh pitcher of water and go on up.
Sponge her off. Tell her I've gone for Dr. Meade."

"Is her time nigh, Miss Scarlett?"

"I don't know. I'm afraid it is but I don't know. You should
know. Go on up."

Scarlett caught up her wide straw bonnet from the console table and
jammed it on her head. She looked in the mirror and automatically
pushed up loose strands of hair but she did not see her own
reflection. Cold little ripples of fear that started in the pit of
her stomach were radiating outward until the fingers that touched
her cheeks were cold, though the rest of her body streamed
perspiration. She hurried out of the house and into the heat of
the sun. It was blindingly, glaring hot and as she hurried down
Peachtree Street her temples began to throb from the heat. From
far down the street she could hear the rise and fall and roar of
many voices. By the time she caught sight of the Leyden house, she
was beginning to pant, for her stays were tightly laced, but she
did not slow her gait. The roar of noise grew louder.

From the Leyden house down to Five Points, the street seethed with
activity, the activity of an anthill just destroyed. Negroes were
running up and down the street, panic in their faces; and on
porches, white children sat crying untended. The street was
crowded with army wagons and ambulances filled with wounded and
carriages piled high with valises and pieces of furniture. Men on
horseback dashed out of side streets pell-mell down Peachtree
toward Hood's headquarters. In front of the Bonnell house, old
Amos stood holding the head of the carriage horse and he greeted
Scarlett with rolling eyes.

"Ain't you gone yit, Miss Scarlett? We is goin' now. Ole Miss
packin' her bag."

"Going? Where?"

"Gawd knows, Miss. Somewheres. De Yankees is comin'!"

She hurried on, not even saying good-by. The Yankees were coming!
At Wesley Chapel, she paused to catch her breath and wait for her
hammering heart to subside. If she did not quiet herself she would
certainly faint. As she stood clutching a lamp post for support,
she saw an officer on horseback come charging up the street from
Five Points and, on an impulse, she ran out into the street and
waved at him.

"Oh, stop! Please, stop!"

He reined in so suddenly the horse went back on its haunches,
pawing the air. There were harsh lines of fatigue and urgency in
his face but his tattered gray hat was off with a sweep.

"Madam?"

"Tell me, is it true? Are the Yankees coming?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Do you know so?"

"Yes, Ma'm. I know so. A dispatch came in to headquarters half an
hour ago from the fighting at Jonesboro."

"At Jonesboro? Are you sure?"

"I'm sure. There's no use telling pretty lies, Madam. The message
was from General Hardee and it said: 'I have lost the battle and
am in full retreat.'"

"Oh, my God!"

The dark face of the tired man looked down without emotion. He
gathered the reins again and put on his hat.

"Oh, sir, please, just a minute. What shall we do?"

"Madam, I can't say. The army is evacuating Atlanta soon."

"Going off and leaving us to the Yankees?"

"I'm afraid so."

The spurred horse went off as though on springs and Scarlett was
left standing in the middle of the street with the red dust thick
upon her ankles.

The Yankees were coming. The army was leaving. The Yankees were
coming. What should she do? Where should she run? No, she
couldn't run. There was Melanie back there in the bed expecting
that baby. Oh, why did women have babies? If it wasn't for
Melanie she could take Wade and Prissy and hide in the woods where
the Yankees could never find them. But she couldn't take Melanie
to the woods. No, not now. Oh, if she'd only had the baby sooner,
yesterday even, perhaps they could get an ambulance and take her
away and hide her somewhere. But now--she must find Dr. Meade and
make him come home with her. Perhaps he could hurry the baby.

She gathered up her skirts and ran down the street, and the rhythm
of her feet was "The Yankees are coming! The Yankees are coming!"
Five Points was crowded with people who rushed here and there with
unseeing eyes, jammed with wagons, ambulances, ox carts, carriages
loaded with wounded. A roaring sound like the breaking of surf
rose from the crowd.

Then a strangely incongruous sight struck her eyes. Throngs of
women were coming up from the direction of the railroad tracks
carrying hams across their shoulders. Little children hurried by
their sides, staggering under buckets of steaming molasses. Young
boys dragged sacks of corn and potatoes. One old man struggled
along with a small barrel of flour on a wheelbarrow. Men, women
and children, black and white, hurried, hurried with straining
faces, lugging packages and sacks and boxes of food--more food than
she had seen in a year. The crowd suddenly gave a lane for a
careening carriage and through the lane came the frail and elegant
Mrs. Elsing, standing up in the front of her victoria, reins in one
hand, whip in the other. She was hatless and white faced and her
long gray hair streamed down her back as she lashed the horse like
a Fury. Jouncing on the back seat of the carriage was her black
mammy, Melissy, clutching a greasy side of bacon to her with one
hand, while with the other and both feet she attempted to hold the
boxes and bags piled all about her. One bag of dried peas had
burst and the peas strewed themselves into the street. Scarlett
screamed to her, but the tumult of the crowd drowned her voice and
the carriage rocked madly by.

For a moment she could not understand what it all meant and then,
remembering that the commissary warehouses were down by the
railroad tracks, she realized that the army had thrown them open to
the people to salvage what they could before the Yankees came.

She pushed her way swiftly through the crowds, past the packed,
hysterical mob surging in the open space of Five Points, and
hurried as fast as she could down the short block toward the depot.
Through the tangle of ambulances and the clouds of dust, she could
see doctors and stretcher bearers bending, lifting, hurrying.
Thank God, she'd find Dr. Meade soon. As she rounded the corner of
the Atlanta Hotel and came in full view of the depot and the
tracks, she halted appalled.

Lying in the pitiless sun, shoulder to shoulder, head to feet, were
hundreds of wounded men, lining the tracks, the sidewalks,
stretched out in endless rows under the car shed. Some lay stiff
and still but many writhed under the hot sun, moaning. Everywhere,
swarms of flies hovered over the men, crawling and buzzing in their
faces, everywhere was blood, dirty bandages, groans, screamed
curses of pain as stretcher bearers lifted men. The smell of
sweat, of blood, of unwashed bodies, of excrement rose up in waves
of blistering heat until the fetid stench almost nauseated her.
The ambulance men hurrying here and there among the prostrate forms
frequently stepped on wounded men, so thickly packed were the rows,
and those trodden upon stared stolidly up, waiting their turn.

She shrank back, clapping her hand to her mouth feeling that she
was going to vomit. She couldn't go on. She had seen wounded men
in the hospitals, wounded men on Aunt Pitty's lawn after the
fighting at the creek, but never anything like this. Never
anything like these stinking, bleeding bodies broiling under the
glaring sun. This was an inferno of pain and smell and noise and
hurry--hurry--hurry! The Yankees are coming! The Yankees are
coming!

She braced her shoulders and went down among them, straining her
eyes among the upright figures to distinguish Dr. Meade. But she
discovered she could not look for him, for if she did not step
carefully she would tread on some poor soldier. She raised her
skirts and tried to pick her way among them toward a knot of men
who were directing the stretcher bearers.

As she walked, feverish hands plucked at her skirt and voices
croaked: "Lady--water! Please, lady, water! For Christ's sake,
water!"

Perspiration came down her face in streams as she pulled her skirts
from clutching hands. If she stepped on one of these men, she'd
scream and faint. She stepped over dead men, over men who lay dull
eyed with hands clutched to bellies where dried blood had glued
torn uniforms to wounds, over men whose beards were stiff with
blood and from whose broken jaws came sounds which must mean:

"Water! Water!"

If she did not find Dr. Meade soon, she would begin screaming with
hysteria. She looked toward the group of men under the car shed
and cried as loudly as she could:

"Dr. Meade! Is Dr. Meade there?"

From the group one man detached himself and looked toward her. It
was the doctor. He was coatless and his sleeves were rolled up to
his shoulders. His shirt and trousers were as red as a butcher's
and even the end of his iron-gray beard was matted with blood. His
face was the face of a man drunk with fatigue and impotent rage and
burning pity. It was gray and dusty, and sweat had streaked long
rivulets across his cheeks. But his voice was calm and decisive as
he called to her.

"Thank God, you are here. I can use every pair of hands."

For a moment she stared at him bewildered, dropping her skirts in
dismay. They fell over the dirty face of a wounded man who feebly
tried to turn his head to escape from their smothering folds. What
did the doctor mean? The dust from the ambulances came into her
face with choking dryness, and the rotten smells were like a foul
liquid in her nostrils.

"Hurry, child! Come here."

She picked up her skirts and went to him as fast as she could go
across the rows of bodies. She put her hand on his arm and felt
that it was trembling with weariness but there was no weakness in
his face.

"Oh, Doctor!" she cried. "You must come. Melanie is having her
baby."

He looked at her as if her words did not register on his mind. A
man who lay upon the ground at her feet, his head pillowed on his
canteen, grinned up companionably at her words.

"They will do it," he said cheerfully.

She did not even look down but shook the doctor's arm.

"It's Melanie. The baby. Doctor, you must come. She--the--"
This was no time for delicacy but it was hard to bring out the
words with the ears of hundreds of strange men listening.

"The pains are getting hard. Please, Doctor!"

"A baby? Great God!" thundered the doctor and his face was
suddenly contorted with hate and rage, a rage not directed at her
or at anyone except a world wherein such things could happen. "Are
you crazy? I can't leave these men. They are dying, hundreds of
them. I can't leave them for a damned baby. Get some woman to
help you. Get my wife."

She opened her mouth to tell him why Mrs. Meade could not come and
then shut it abruptly. He did not know his own son was wounded!
She wondered if he would still be here if he did know, and
something told her that even if Phil were dying he would still be
standing on this spot, giving aid to the many instead of the one.

"No, you must come, Doctor. You know you said she'd have a hard
time--" Was it really she, Scarlett, standing here saying these
dreadful indelicate things at the top of her voice in this hell of
heat and groans? "She'll die if you don't come!"

He shook off her hand roughly and spoke as though he hardly heard
her, hardly knew what she said.

"Die? Yes, they'll all die--all these men. No bandages, no
salves, no quinine, no chloroform. Oh, God, for some morphia!
Just a little morphia for the worst ones. Just a little
chloroform. God damn the Yankees! God damn the Yankees!"

"Give um hell, Doctor!" said the man on the ground, his teeth
showing in his beard.

Scarlett began to shake and her eyes burned with tears of fright.
The doctor wasn't coming with her. Melanie would die and she had
wished that she would die. The doctor wasn't coming.

"Name of God, Doctor! Please!"

Dr. Meade bit his lip and his jaw hardened as his face went cool
again.

"Child, I'll try. I can't promise you. But I'll try. When we get
these men tended to. The Yankees are coming and the troops are
moving out of town. I don't know what they'll do with the wounded.
There aren't any trains. The Macon line has been captured. . . .
But I'll try. Run along now. Don't bother me. There's nothing
much to bringing a baby. Just tie up the cord. . . ."

He turned as an orderly touched his arm and began firing directions
and pointing to this and that wounded man. The man at her feet
looked up at Scarlett compassionately. She turned away, for the
doctor had forgotten her.

She picked her way rapidly through the wounded and back to
Peachtree Street. The doctor wasn't coming. She would have to see
it through herself. Thank God, Prissy knew all about midwifery.
Her head ached from the heat and she could feel her basque, soaking
wet from perspiration, sticking to her. Her mind felt numb and so
did her legs, numb as in a nightmare when she tried to run and
could not move them. She thought of the long walk back to the
house and it seemed interminable.

Then, "The Yankees are coming!" began to beat its refrain in her
mind again. Her heart began to pound and new life came into her
limbs. She hurried into the crowd at Five Points, now so thick
there was no room on the narrow sidewalks and she was forced to
walk in the street. Long lines of soldiers were passing, dust
covered, sodden with weariness. There seemed thousands of them,
bearded, dirty, their guns slung over their shoulders, swiftly
passing at route step. Cannon rolled past, the drivers flaying the
thin mules with lengths of rawhide. Commissary wagons with torn
canvas covers rocked through the ruts. Cavalry raising clouds of
choking dust went past endlessly. She had never seen so many
soldiers together before. Retreat! Retreat! The army was moving
out.

The hurrying lines pushed her back onto the packed sidewalk and she
smelled the reek of cheap corn whisky. There were women in the mob
near Decatur Street, garishly dressed women whose bright finery and
painted faces gave a discordant note of holiday. Most of them were
drunk and the soldiers on whose arms they hung were drunker. She
caught a fleeting glimpse of a head of red curls and saw that
creature, Belle Watling, heard her shrill drunken laughter as she
clung for support to a one-armed soldier who reeled and staggered.

When she had shoved and pushed her way through the mob for a block
beyond Five Points the crowd thinned a little and, gathering up her
skirts, she began to run again. When she reached Wesley Chapel,
she was breathless and dizzy and sick at her stomach. Her stays
were cutting her ribs in two. She sank down on the steps of the
church and buried her head in her hands until she could breathe
more easily. If she could only get one deep breath, way down in
her abdomen. If her heart would only stop bumping and drumming and
cavorting. If there were only someone in this mad place to whom
she could turn.

Why, she had never had to do a thing for herself in all her life.
There had always been someone to do things for her, to look after
her, shelter and protect her and spoil her. It was incredible that
she could be in such a fix. Not a friend, not a neighbor to help
her. There had always been friends, neighbors, the competent hands
of willing slaves. And now in this hour of greatest need, there
was no one. It was incredible that she could be so completely
alone, and frightened, and far from home.

Home! If she were only home, Yankees or no Yankees. Home, even if
Ellen was sick. She longed for the sight of Ellen's sweet face,
for Mammy's strong arms around her.

She rose dizzily to her feet and started walking again. When she
came in sight of the house, she saw Wade swinging on the front
gate. When he saw her, his face puckered and he began to cry,
holding up a grubby bruised finger.

"Hurt!" he sobbed. "Hurt!"

"Hush! Hush! Hush! Or I'll spank you. Go out in the back yard
and make mud pies and don't move from there."

"Wade hungwy," he sobbed and put the hurt finger in his mouth.

"I don't care. Go in the back yard and--"

She looked up and saw Prissy leaning out of the upstairs window,
fright and worry written on her face; but in an instant they were
wiped away in relief as she saw her mistress. Scarlett beckoned to
her to come down and went into the house. How cool it was in the
hall. She untied her bonnet and flung it on the table, drawing her
forearms across her wet forehead. She heard the upstairs door open
and a low wailing moan, wrenched from the depths of agony, came to
her ears. Prissy came down the stairs three at a time.

"Is de doctah come?"

"No. He can't come."

"Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Miss Melly bad off!"

"The doctor can't come. Nobody can come. You've got to bring the
baby and I'll help you."

Prissy's mouth fell open and her tongue wagged wordlessly. She
looked at Scarlett sideways and scuffed her feet and twisted her
thin body.

"Don't look so simple minded!" cried Scarlett, infuriated at her
silly expression. "What's the matter?"

Prissy edged back up the stairs.

"Fo' Gawd, Miss Scarlett--" Fright and shame were in her rolling
eyes.

"Well?"

"Fo' Gawd, Miss Scarlett! We's got ter have a doctah. Ah--Ah--
Miss Scarlett, Ah doan know nuthin' 'bout bringin' babies. Maw
wouldn' nebber lemme be 'round folkses whut wuz havin' dem."

All the breath went out of Scarlett's lungs in one gasp of horror
before rage swept her. Prissy made a lunge past her, bent on
flight, but Scarlett grabbed her.

"You black liar--what do you mean? You've been saying you knew
everything about birthing babies. What is the truth? Tell me!"
She shook her until the kinky head rocked drunkenly.

"Ah's lyin', Miss Scarlett! Ah doan know huccome Ah tell sech a
lie. Ah jes' see one baby birthed, an' Maw she lak ter wo' me out
fer watchin'."

Scarlett glared at her and Prissy shrank back, trying to pull
loose. For a moment her mind refused to accept the truth, but when
realization finally came to her that Prissy knew no more about
midwifery than she did, anger went over her like a flame. She had
never struck a slave in all her life, but now she slapped the black
cheek with all the force in her tired arm. Prissy screamed at the
top of her voice, more from fright than pain, and began to dance up
and down, writhing to break Scarlett's grip.

As she screamed, the moaning from the second floor ceased and a
moment later Melanie's voice, weak and trembling, called:
"Scarlett? Is it you? Please come! Please!"

Scarlett dropped Prissy's arm and the wench sank whimpering to the
steps. For a moment Scarlett stood still, looking up, listening to
the low moaning which had begun again. As she stood there, it
seemed as though a yoke descended heavily upon her neck, felt as
though a heavy load were harnessed to it, a load she would feel as
soon as she took a step.

She tried to think of all the things Mammy and Ellen had done for
her when Wade was born but the merciful blurring of the childbirth
pains obscured almost everything in mist. She did recall a few
things and she spoke to Prissy rapidly, authority in her voice.

"Build a fire in the stove and keep hot water boiling in the
kettle. And bring up all the towels you can find and that ball of
twine. And get me the scissors. Don't come telling me you can't
find them. Get them and get them quick. Now hurry."

She jerked Prissy to her feet and sent her kitchenwards with a
shove. Then she squared her shoulders and started up the stairs.
It was going to be difficult, telling Melanie that she and Prissy
were to deliver her baby.



CHAPTER XXII


There would never again be an afternoon as long as this one. Or as
hot. Or as full of lazy insolent flies. They swarmed on Melanie
despite the fan Scarlett kept in constant motion. Her arms ached
from swinging the wide palmetto leaf. All her efforts seemed
futile, for while she brushed them from Melanie's moist face, they
crawled on her clammy feet and legs and made her jerk them weakly
and cry: "Please! On my feet!"

The room was in semigloom, for Scarlett had pulled down the shades
to shut out the heat and brightness. Pin points of sunlight came
in through minute holes in the shades and about the edges. The
room was an oven and Scarlett's sweat-drenched clothes never dried
but became wetter and stickier as the hours went by. Prissy was
crouched in a corner, sweating too, and smelled so abominably
Scarlett would have sent her from the room had she not feared the
girl would take to her heels if once out of sight. Melanie lay on
the bed on a sheet dark with perspiration and splotched with
dampness where Scarlett had spilled water. She twisted endlessly,
to one side, to the other, to left, to right and back again.

Sometimes she tried to sit up and fell back and began twisting
again. At first, she had tried to keep from crying out, biting her
lips until they were raw, and Scarlett, whose nerves were as raw as
the lips, said huskily: "Melly, for God's sake, don't try to be
brave. Yell if you want to. There's nobody to hear you but us."

As the afternoon wore on, Melanie moaned whether she wanted to be
brave or not, and sometimes she screamed. When she did, Scarlett
dropped her head into her hands and covered her ears and twisted
her body and wished that she herself were dead. Anything was
preferable to being a helpless witness to such pain. Anything was
better than being tied here waiting for a baby that took such a
long time coming. Waiting, when for all she knew the Yankees were
actually at Five Points.

She fervently wished she had paid more attention to the whispered
conversations of matrons on the subject of childbirth. If only she
had! If only she had been more interested in such matters she'd
know whether Melanie was taking a long time or not. She had a
vague memory of one of Aunt Pitty's stories of a friend who was in
labor for two days and died without ever having the baby. Suppose
Melanie should go on like this for two days! But Melanie was so
delicate. She couldn't stand two days of this pain. She'd die
soon if the baby didn't hurry. And how could she ever face Ashley,
if he were still alive, and tell him that Melanie had died--after
she had promised to take care of her?

At first, Melanie wanted to hold Scarlett's hand when the pain was
bad but she clamped down on it so hard she nearly broke the bones.
After an hour of this, Scarlett's hands were so swollen and bruised
she could hardly flex them. She knotted two long towels together
and tied them to the foot of the bed and put the knotted end in
Melanie's hands. Melanie hung onto it as though it were a life
line, straining, pulling it taut, slackening it, tearing it.
Throughout the afternoon, her voice went on like an animal dying in
a trap. Occasionally she dropped the towel and rubbed her hands
feebly and looked up at Scarlett with eyes enormous with pain.

"Talk to me. Please talk to me," she whispered and Scarlett would
gabble something until Melanie again gripped the knot and again
began writhing.

The dim room swam with heat and pain and droning flies, and time
went by on such dragging feet Scarlett could scarcely remember the
morning. She felt as if she had been in this steaming, dark,
sweating place all her life. She wanted very much to scream every
time Melanie did, and only by biting her lips so hard it infuriated
her could she restrain herself and drive off hysteria.

Once Wade came tiptoeing up the stairs and stood outside the door,
wailing.

"Wade hungwy!" Scarlett started to go to him, but Melanie
whispered: "Don't leave me. Please. I can stand it when you're
here."

So Scarlett sent Prissy down to warm up the breakfast hominy and
feed him. For herself, she felt that she could never eat again
after this afternoon.

The clock on the mantel had stopped and she had no way of telling
the time but as the heat in the room lessened and the bright pin
points of light grew duller, she pulled the shade aside. She saw
to her surprise that it was late afternoon and the sun, a ball of
crimson, was far down the sky. Somehow, she had imagined it would
remain broiling hot noon forever.

She wondered passionately what was going on downtown. Had all the
troops moved out yet? Had the Yankees come? Would the Confederates
march away without even a fight? Then she remembered with a sick
dropping in her stomach how few Confederates there were and how many
men Sherman had and how well fed they were. Sherman! The name of
Satan himself did not frighten her half so much. But there was no
time for thinking now, as Melanie called for water, for a cold towel
on her head, to be fanned, to have the flies brushed away from her
face.

When twilight came on and Prissy, scurrying like a black wraith,
lit a lamp, Melanie became weaker. She began calling for Ashley,
over and over, as if in a delirium until the hideous monotony gave
Scarlett a fierce desire to smother her voice with a pillow.
Perhaps the doctor would come after all. If he would only come
quickly! Hope raising its head, she turned to Prissy, and ordered
her to run quickly to the Meades' house and see if he were there or
Mrs. Meade.

"And if he's not there, ask Mrs. Meade or Cookie what to do. Beg
them to come!"

Prissy was off with a clatter and Scarlett watched her hurrying
down the street, going faster than she had ever dreamed the
worthless child could move. After a prolonged time she was back,
alone.

"De doctah ain' been home all day. Sont wud he mout go off wid de
sojers. Miss Scarlett, Mist' Phil's 'ceased."

"Dead?"

"Yas'm," said Prissy, expanding with importance. "Talbot, dey
coachman, tole me. He wuz shot--"

"Never mind that."

"Ah din' see Miss Meade. Cookie say Miss Meade she washin' him an'
fixin ter buhy him fo' de Yankees gits hyah. Cookie say effen de
pain get too bad, jes' you put a knife unner Miss Melly's bed an'
it cut de pain in two."

Scarlett wanted to slap her again for this helpful information but
Melanie opened wide, dilated eyes and whispered: "Dear--are the
Yankees coming?"

"No," said Scarlett stoutly. "Prissy's a liar."

"Yas'm, Ah sho is," Prissy agreed fervently.

"They're coming," whispered Melanie undeceived and buried her face
in the pillow. Her voice came out muffled.

"My poor baby. My poor baby." And, after a long interval: "Oh,
Scarlett, you mustn't stay here. You must go and take Wade."

What Melanie said was no more than Scarlett had been thinking but
hearing it put into words infuriated her, shamed her as if her
secret cowardice was written plainly in her face.

"Don't be a goose. I'm not afraid. You know I won't leave you."

"You might as well. I'm going to die." And she began moaning
again.



Scarlett came down the dark stairs slowly, like an old woman,
feeling her way, clinging to the banisters lest she fall. Her legs
were leaden, trembling with fatigue and strain, and she shivered
with cold from the clammy sweat that soaked her body. Feebly she
made her way onto the front porch and sank down on the top step.
She sprawled back against a pillar of the porch and with a shaking
hand unbuttoned her basque halfway down her bosom. The night was
drenched in warm soft darkness and she lay staring into it, dull as
an ox.

It was all over. Melanie was not dead and the small baby boy who
made noises like a young kitten was receiving his first bath at
Prissy's hands. Melanie was asleep. How could she sleep after
that nightmare of screaming pain and ignorant midwifery that hurt
more than it helped? Why wasn't she dead? Scarlett knew that she
herself would have died under such handling. But when it was over,
Melanie had even whispered, so weakly she had to bend over her to
hear: "Thank you." And then she had gone to sleep. How could she
go to sleep? Scarlett forgot that she too had gone to sleep after
Wade was born. She forgot everything. Her mind was a vacuum; the
world was a vacuum; there had been no life before this endless day
and there would be none hereafter--only a heavily hot night, only
the sound of her hoarse tired breathing, only the sweat trickling
coldly from armpit to waist, from hip to knee, clammy, sticky,
chilling.

She heard her own breath pass from loud evenness to spasmodic
sobbing but her eyes were dry and burning as though there would
never be tears in them again. Slowly, laboriously, she heaved
herself over and pulled her heavy skirts up to her thighs. She was
warm and cold and sticky all at the same time and the feel of the
night air on her limbs was refreshing. She thought dully what Aunt
Pitty would say, if she could see her sprawled here on the front
porch with her skirts up and her drawers showing, but she did not
care. She did not care about anything. Time had stood still. It
might be just after twilight and it might be midnight. She didn't
know or care.

She heard sounds of moving feet upstairs and thought "May the Lord
damn Prissy," before her eyes closed and something like sleep
descended upon her. Then after an indeterminate dark interval,
Prissy was beside her, chattering on in a pleased way.

"We done right good, Miss Scarlett. Ah specs Maw couldn' a did no
better."

From the shadows, Scarlett glared at her, too tired to rail, too
tired to upbraid, too tired to enumerate Prissy's offenses--her
boastful assumption of experience she didn't possess, her fright,
her blundering awkwardness, her utter inefficiency when the
emergency was hot, the misplacing of the scissors, the spilling of
the basin of water on the bed, the dropping of the new born baby.
And now she bragged about how good she had been.

And the Yankees wanted to free the negroes! Well, the Yankees were
welcome to them.

She lay back against the pillar in silence and Prissy, aware of her
mood, tiptoed away into the darkness of the porch. After a long
interval in which her breathing finally quieted and her mind
steadied, Scarlett heard the sound of faint voices from up the
road, the tramping of many feet coming from the north. Soldiers!
She sat up slowly, pulling down her skirts, although she knew no
one could see her in the darkness. As they came abreast the house,
an indeterminate number, passing like shadows, she called to them.

"Oh, please!"

A shadow disengaged itself from the mass and came to the gate.

"Are you going? Are you leaving us?"

The shadow seemed to take off a hat and a quiet voice came from the
darkness.

"Yes, Ma'm. That's what we're doing. We're the last of the men
from the breastworks, 'bout a mile north from here."

"Are you--is the army really retreating?"

"Yes, Ma'm. You see, the Yankees are coming."

The Yankees are coming! She had forgotten that. Her throat
suddenly contracted and she could say nothing more. The shadow
moved away, merged itself with the other shadows and the feet
tramped off into the darkness. "The Yankees are coming! The
Yankees are coming!" That was what the rhythm of their feet said,
that was what her suddenly bumping heart thudded out with each
beat. The Yankees are coming!

"De Yankees is comin'!" bawled Prissy, shrinking close to her.
"Oh, Miss Scarlett, dey'll kill us all! Dey'll run dey baynits in
our stummicks! Dey'll--"

"Oh, hush!" It was terrifying enough to think these things without
hearing them put into trembling words. Renewed fear swept her.
What could she do? How could she escape? Where could she turn for
help? Every friend had failed her.

Suddenly she thought of Rhett Butler and calm dispelled her fears.
Why hadn't she thought of him this morning when she had been
tearing about like a chicken with its head off? She hated him, but
he was strong and smart and he wasn't afraid of the Yankees. And
he was still in town. Of course, she was mad at him. But she
could overlook such things at a time like this. And he had a horse
and carriage, too. Oh, why hadn't she thought of him before! He
could take them all away from this doomed place, away from the
Yankees, somewhere, anywhere.

She turned to Prissy and spoke with feverish urgency.

"You know where Captain Butler lives--at the Atlanta Hotel?"

"Yas'm, but--"

"Well, go there, now, as quick as you can run and tell him I want
him. I want him to come quickly and bring his horse and carriage
or an ambulance if he can get one. Tell him about the baby. Tell
him I want him to take us out of here. Go, now. Hurry!"

She sat upright and gave Prissy a push to speed her feet.

"Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! Ah's sceered ter go runnin' roun' in
de dahk by mahseff! Spose de Yankees gits me?"

"If you run fast you can catch up with those soldiers and they
won't let the Yankees get you. Hurry!"

"Ah's sceered! Sposin' Cap'n Butler ain' at de hotel?"

"Then ask where he is. Haven't you any gumption? If he isn't at
the hotel, go to the barrooms on Decatur Street and ask for him.
Go to Belle Watling's house. Hunt for him. You fool, don't you
see that if you don't hurry and find him the Yankees will surely
get us all?"

"Miss Scarlett, Maw would weah me out wid a cotton stalk, did Ah go
in a bahroom or a ho' house."

Scarlett pulled herself to her feet.

"Well, I'll wear you out if you don't. You can stand outside in
the street and yell for him, can't you? Or ask somebody if he's
inside. Get going."

When Prissy still lingered, shuffling her feet and mouthing,
Scarlett gave her another push which nearly sent her headlong down
the front steps.

"You'll go or I'll sell you down the river. You'll never see your
mother again or anybody you know and I'll sell you for a field hand
too. Hurry!"

"Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett--"

But under the determined pressure of her mistress' hand she started
down the steps. The front gate clicked and Scarlett cried: "Run,
you goose!"

She heard the patter of Prissy's feet as she broke into a trot, and
then the sound died away on the soft earth.



CHAPTER XXIII


After Prissy had gone, Scarlett went wearily into the downstairs
hall and lit a lamp. The house felt steamingly hot, as though it
held in its walls all the heat of the noontide. Some of her
dullness was passing now and her stomach was clamoring for food.
She remembered she had had nothing to eat since the night before
except a spoonful of hominy, and picking up the lamp she went into
the kitchen. The fire in the oven had died but the room was
stifling hot. She found half a pone of hard corn bread in the
skillet and gnawed hungrily on it while she looked about for other
food. There was some hominy left in the pot and she ate it with a
big cooking spoon, not waiting to put it on a plate. It needed
salt badly but she was too hungry to hunt for it. After four
spoonfuls of it, the heat of the room was too much and, taking the
lamp in one hand and a fragment of pone in the other, she went out
into the hall.

She knew she should go upstairs and sit beside Melanie. If
anything went wrong, Melanie would be too weak to call. But the
idea of returning to that room where she had spent so many
nightmare hours was repulsive to her. Even if Melanie were dying,
she couldn't go back up there. She never wanted to see that room
again. She set the lamp on the candle stand by the window and
returned to the front porch. It was so much cooler here, and even
the night was drowned in soft warmth. She sat down on the steps in
the circle of faint light thrown by the lamp and continued gnawing
on the corn bread.

When she had finished it, a measure of strength came back to her
and with the strength came again the pricking of fear. She could
hear a humming of noise far down the street, but what it portended
she did not know. She could distinguish nothing but a volume of
sound that rose and fell. She strained forward trying to hear and
soon she found her muscles aching from the tension. More than
anything in the world she yearned to hear the sound of hooves and
to see Rhett's careless, self-confident eyes laughing at her fears.
Rhett would take them away, somewhere. She didn't know where. She
didn't care.

As she sat straining her ears toward town, a faint glow appeared
above the trees. It puzzled her. She watched it and saw it grow
brighter. The dark sky became pink and then dull red, and suddenly
above the trees, she saw a huge tongue of flame leap high to the
heavens. She jumped to her feet, her heart beginning again its
sickening thudding and bumping.

The Yankees had come! She knew they had come and they were burning
the town. The flames seemed to be off to the east of the center of
town. They shot higher and higher and widened rapidly into a broad
expanse of red before her terrified eyes. A whole block must be
burning. A faint hot breeze that had sprung up bore the smell of
smoke to her.

She fled up the stairs to her own room and hung out the window for
a better view. The sky was a hideous lurid color and great swirls
of black smoke went twisting up to hand in billowy clouds above the
flames. The smell of smoke was stronger now. Her mind rushed
incoherently here and there, thinking how soon the flames would
spread up Peachtree Street and burn this house, how soon the
Yankees would be rushing in upon her, where she would run, what she
would do. All the fiends of hell seemed screaming in her ears and
her brain swirled with confusion and panic so overpowering she
clung to the window sill for support.

"I must think," she told herself over and over. "I must think."

But thoughts eluded her, darting in and out of her mind like
frightened humming birds. As she stood hanging to the sill, a
deafening explosion burst on her ears, louder than any cannon she
had ever heard. The sky was rent with gigantic flame. Then other
explosions. The earth shook and the glass in the panes above her
head shivered and came down around her.

The world became an inferno of noise and flame and trembling earth
as one explosion followed another in earsplitting succession.
Torrents of sparks shot to the sky and descended slowly, lazily,
through blood-colored clouds of smoke. She thought she heard a
feeble call from the next room but she paid it no heed. She had no
time for Melanie now. No time for anything except a fear that
licked through her veins as swiftly as the flames she saw. She was
a child and mad with fright and she wanted to bury her head in her
mother's lap and shut out this sight. If she were only home! Home
with Mother.

Through the nerve-shivering sounds, she heard another sound, that
of fear-sped feet coming up the stairs three at a time, heard a
voice yelping like a lost hound. Prissy broke into the room and,
flying to Scarlett, clutched her arm in a grip that seemed to pinch
out pieces of flesh.

"The Yankees--" cried Scarlett.

"No'm, its our gempmums!" yelled Prissy between breaths, digging
her nails deeper into Scarlett's arm. "Dey's buhnin' de foun'ry
an' de ahmy supply depots an' de wa'houses an', fo' Gawd, Miss
Scarlett, dey done set off dem sebenty freight cahs of cannon balls
an' gunpowder an', Jesus, we's all gwine ter buhn up!"

She began yelping again shrilly and pinched Scarlett so hard she
cried out in pain and fury and shook off her hand.

The Yankees hadn't come yet! There was still time to get away!
She rallied her frightened forces together.

"If I don't get a hold on myself," she thought, "I'll be squalling
like a scalded cat!" and the sight of Prissy's abject terror helped
steady her. She took her by the shoulders and shook her.

"Shut up that racket and talk sense. The Yankees haven't come, you
fool! Did you see Captain Butler? What did he say? Is he
coming?"

Prissy ceased her yelling but her teeth chattered.

"Yas'm, ah finely foun' him. In a bahroom, lak you told me. He--"

"Never mind where you found him. Is he coming? Did you tell him
to bring his horse?"

"Lawd, Miss Scarlett, he say our gempmums done tuck his hawse an'
cah'ige fer a amberlance."

"Dear God in Heaven!"

"But he comin'--"

"What did he say?"

Prissy had recovered her breath and a small measure of control but
her eyes still rolled.

"Well'm, lak you tole me, Ah foun' him in a bahroom. Ah stood
outside an' yell fer him an' he come out. An' terreckly he see me
an' Ah starts tell him, de sojers tech off a sto' house down
Decatur Street an' it flame up an' he say Come on an' he grab me
an' we runs ter Fibe Points an' he say den: What now? Talk fas'.
An' Ah say you say, Cap'n Butler, come quick an' bring yo' hawse
an' cah'ige. Miss Melly done had a chile an' you is bustin' ter
get outer town. An' he say: Where all she studyin' 'bout goin'?
An' Ah say: Ah doan know, suh, but you is boun' ter go fo' de
Yankees gits hyah an' wants him ter go wid you. An' he laugh an'
say dey done tuck his hawse."

Scarlett's heart went leaden as the last hope left her. Fool that
she was, why hadn't she thought that the retreating army would
naturally take every vehicle and animal left in the city? For a
moment she was too stunned to hear what Prissy was saying but she
pulled herself together to hear the rest of the story.

"An' den he say, Tell Miss Scarlett ter res' easy. Ah'll steal her
a hawse outer de ahmy crall effen dey's ary one lef. An' he say,
Ah done stole hawses befo' dis night. Tell her Ah git her a hawse
effen Ah gits shot fer it. Den he laugh agin an' say, Cut an' run
home. An' befo' Ah gits started Ker-bboom! Off goes a noise an'
Ah lak ter drap in mah tracks an' he tell me twain't nuthin' but de
ammernition our gempmums blown' up so's de Yankees don't git it
an'--"

"He is coming? He's going to bring a horse?"

"So he say."

She drew a long breath of relief. If there was any way of getting
a horse, Rhett Butler would get one. A smart man, Rhett. She
would forgive him anything if he got them out of this mess.
Escape! And with Rhett she would have no fear. Rhett would
protect them. Thank God for Rhett! With safety in view she turned
practical.

"Wake Wade up and dress him and pack some clothes for all of us.
Put them in the small trunk. And don't tell Miss Mellie we're
going. Not yet. But wrap the baby in a couple of thick towels and
be sure and pack his clothes."

Prissy still clung to her skirts and hardly anything showed in her
eyes except the whites. Scarlett gave her a shove and loosened her
grip.

"Hurry," she cried, and Prissy went off like a rabbit.

Scarlett knew she should go in and quiet Melanie's fear, knew
Melanie must be frightened out of her senses by the thunderous
noises that continued unabated and the glare that lighted the sky.
It looked and sounded like the end of the world.

But she could not bring herself to go back into that room just yet.
She ran down the stairs with some idea of packing up Miss
Pittypat's china and the little silver she had left when she
refugeed to Macon. But when she reached the dining room, her hands
were shaking so badly she dropped three plates and shattered them.
She ran out onto the porch to listen and back again to the dining
room and dropped the silver clattering to the floor. Everything
she touched she dropped. In her hurry she slipped on the rag rug
and fell to the floor with a jolt but leaped up so quickly she was
not even aware of the pain. Upstairs she could hear Prissy
galloping about like a wild animal and the sound maddened her, for
she was galloping just as aimlessly.

For the dozenth time, she ran out onto the porch but this time she
did not go back to her futile packing. She sat down. It was just
impossible to pack anything. Impossible to do anything but sit
with hammering heart and wait for Rhett. It seemed hours before he
came. At last, far up the road, she heard the protesting screech
of unoiled axles and the slow uncertain plodding of hooves. Why
didn't he hurry? Why didn't he make the horse trot?

The sounds came nearer and she leaped to her feet and called
Rhett's name. Then, she saw him dimly as he climbed down from the
seat of a small wagon, heard the clicking of the gate as he came
toward her. He came into view and the light of the lamp showed him
plainly. His dress was as debonaire as if he were going to a ball,
well-tailored white linen coat and trousers, embroidered gray
watered-silk waistcoat and a hint of ruffle on his shirt bosom.
His wide Panama hat was set dashingly on one side of his head and
in the belt of his trousers were thrust two ivory-handled, long-
barreled dueling pistols. The pockets of his coat sagged heavily
with ammunition.

He came up the walk with the springy stride of a savage and his
fine head was carried like a pagan prince. The dangers of the
night which had driven Scarlett into panic had affected him like an
intoxicant. There was a carefully restrained ferocity in his dark
face, a ruthlessness which would have frightened her had she the
wits to see it.

His black eyes danced as though amused by the whole affair, as
though the earth-splitting sounds and the horrid glare were merely
things to frighten children. She swayed toward him as he came up
the steps, her face white, her green eyes burning.

"Good evening," he said, in his drawling voice, as he removed his
hat with a sweeping gesture. "Fine weather we're having. I hear
you're going to take a trip."

"If you make any jokes, I shall never speak to you again," she said
with quivering voice.

"Don't tell me you are frightened!" He pretended to be surprised
and smiled in a way that made her long to push him backwards down
the steep steps.

"Yes, I am! I'm frightened to death and if you had the sense God
gave a goat, you'd be frightened too. But we haven't got time to
talk. We must get out of here."

"At your service, Madam. But just where were you figuring on
going? I made the trip out here for curiosity, just to see where
you were intending to go. You can't go north or east or south or
west. The Yankees are all around. There's just one road out of
town which the Yankees haven't got yet and the army is retreating
by that road. And that road won't be open long. General Steve
Lee's cavalry is fighting a rear-guard action at Rough and Ready to
hold it open long enough for the army to get away. If you follow
the army down the McDonough road, they'll take the horse away from
you and, while it's not much of a horse, I did go to a lot of
trouble stealing it. Just where are you going?"

She stood shaking, listening to his words, hardly hearing them.
But, at his question she suddenly knew where she was going, knew
that all this miserable day she had known where she was going. The
only place.

"I'm going home," she said.

"Home? You mean to Tara?"

"Yes, yes! To Tara! Oh, Rhett, we must hurry!"

He looked at her as if she had lost her mind.

"Tara? God Almighty, Scarlett! Don't you know they fought all day
at Jonesboro? Fought for ten miles up and down the road from Rough
and Ready even into the streets of Jonesboro? The Yankees may be
all over Tara by now, all over the County. Nobody knows where they
are but they're in that neighborhood. You can't go home! You
can't go right through the Yankee army!"

"I will go home!" she cried. "I will! I will!"

"You little fool," and his voice was swift and rough. "You can't
go that way. Even if you didn't run into the Yankees, the woods
are full of stragglers and deserters from both armies. And lots of
our troops are still retreating from Jonesboro. They'd take the
horse away from you as quickly as the Yankees would. Your only
chance is to follow the troops down the McDonough road and pray
that they won't see you in the dark. You can't go to Tara. Even
if you got there, you'd probably find it burned down. I won't let
you go home. It's insanity."

"I will go home!" she cried and her voice broke and rose to a
scream. "I will go home! You can't stop me! I will go home! I
want my mother! I'll kill you if you try to stop me! I will go
home!"

Tears of fright and hysteria streamed down her face as she finally
gave way under the long strain. She beat on his chest with her
fists and screamed again: "I will! I will! If I have to walk
every step of the way!"

Suddenly she was in his arms, her wet cheek against the starched
ruffle of his shirt, her beating hands stilled against him. His
hands caressed her tumbled hair gently, soothingly, and his voice
was gentle too. So gentle, so quiet, so devoid of mockery, it did
not seem Rhett Butler's voice at all but the voice of some kind
strong stranger who smelled of brandy and tobacco and horses,
comforting smells because they reminded her of Gerald.

"There, there, darling," he said softly. "Don't cry. You shall go
home, my brave little girl. You shall go home. Don't cry."

She felt something brush her hair and wondered vaguely through her
tumult if it were his lips. He was so tender, so infinitely
soothing, she longed to stay in his arms forever. With such strong
arms about her, surely nothing could harm her.

He fumbled in his pocket and produced a handkerchief and wiped her
eyes.

"Now, blow your nose like a good child," he ordered, a glint of a
smile in his eyes, "and tell me what to do. We must work fast."

She blew her nose obediently, still trembling, but she could not
think what to tell him to do. Seeing how her lip quivered and her
eyes looked up at him helplessly, he took command.

"Mrs. Wilkes has had her child? It will be dangerous to move her--
dangerous to drive her twenty-five miles in that rickety wagon.
We'd better leave her with Mrs. Meade."

"The Meades aren't home. I can't leave her."

"Very well. Into the wagon she goes. Where is that simple-minded
little wench?"

"Upstairs packing the trunk."

"Trunk? You can't take any trunk in that wagon. It's almost too
small to hold all of you and the wheels are ready to come off with
no encouragement. Call her and tell her to get the smallest
feather bed in the house and put it in the wagon."

Still Scarlett could not move. He took her arm in a strong grasp
and some of the vitality which animated him seemed to flow into her
body. If only she could be as cool and casual as he was! He
propelled her into the hall but she still stood helplessly looking
at him. His lip went down mockingly: "Can this be the heroic
young woman who assured me she feared neither God nor man?"

He suddenly burst into laughter and dropped her arm. Stung, she
glared at him, hating him.

"I'm not afraid," she said.

"Yes, you are. In another moment you'll be in a swoon and I have
no smelling salts about me."

She stamped her foot impotently because she could not think of
anything else to do--and without a word picked up the lamp and
started up the stairs. He was close behind her and she could hear
him laughing softly to himself. That sound stiffened her spine.
She went into Wade's nursery and found him sitting clutched in
Prissy's arms, half dressed, hiccoughing quietly. Prissy was
whimpering. The feather tick on Wade's bed was small and she
ordered Prissy to drag it down the stairs and into the wagon.
Prissy put down the child and obeyed. Wade followed her down the
stairs, his hiccoughs stilled by his interest in the proceedings.

"Come," said Scarlett, turning to Melanie's door and Rhett followed
her, hat in hand.

Melanie lay quietly with the sheet up to her chin. Her face was
deathly white but her eyes, sunken and black circled, were serene.
She showed no surprise at the sight of Rhett in her bedroom but
seemed to take it as a matter of course. She tried to smile weakly
but the smile died before it reached the corners of her mouth.

"We are going home, to Tara," Scarlett explained rapidly. "The
Yankees are coming. Rhett is going to take us. It's the only way,
Melly."

Melanie tried to nod her head feebly and gestured toward the baby.
Scarlett picked up the small baby and wrapped him hastily in a
thick towel. Rhett stepped to the bed.

"I'll try not to hurt you," he said quietly, tucking the sheet
about her. "See if you can put your arms around my neck."

Melanie tried but they fell back weakly. He bent, slipped an arm
under her shoulders and another across her knees and lifted her
gently. She did not cry out but Scarlett saw her bite her lip and
go even whiter. Scarlett held the lamp high for Rhett to see and
started toward the door when Melanie made a feeble gesture toward
the wall.

"What is it?" Rhett asked softly.

"Please," Melanie whispered, trying to point. "Charles."

Rhett looked down at her as if he thought her delirious but
Scarlett understood and was irritated. She knew Melanie wanted the
daguerreotype of Charles which hung on the wall below his sword and
pistol.

"Please," Melanie whispered again, "the sword."

"Oh, all right," said Scarlett and, after she had lighted Rhett's
careful way down the steps, she went back and unhooked the sword
and pistol belts. It would be awkward, carrying them as well as
the baby and the lamp. That was just like Melanie, not to be at
all bothered over nearly dying and having the Yankees at her heels
but to worry about Charles' things.

As she took down the daguerreotype, she caught a glimpse of
Charles' face. His large brown eyes met hers and she stopped for a
moment to look at the picture curiously. This man had been her
husband, had lain beside her for a few nights, had given her a
child with eyes as soft and brown as his. And she could hardly
remember him.

The child in her arms waved small fists and mewed softly and she
looked down at him. For the first time, she realized that this was
Ashley's baby and suddenly wished with all the strength left in her
that he were her baby, hers and Ashley's.

Prissy came bounding up the stairs and Scarlett handed the child to
her. They went hastily down, the lamp throwing uncertain shadows
on the wall. In the hall, Scarlett saw a bonnet and put it on
hurriedly, tying the ribbons under her chin. It was Melanie's
black mourning bonnet and it did not fit Scarlett's head but she
could not recall where she had put her own bonnet.

She went out of the house and down the front steps, carrying the
lamp and trying to keep the saber from banging against her legs.
Melanie lay full length in the back of the wagon, and, beside her,
were Wade and the towel-swathed baby. Prissy climbed in and took
the baby in her arms.

The wagon was very small and the boards about the sides very low.
The wheels leaned inward as if their first revolution would make
them come off. She took one look at the horse and her heart sank.
He was a small emaciated animal and he stood with his head
dispiritedly low, almost between his forelegs. His back was raw
with sores and harness galls and he breathed as no sound horse
should.

"Not much of an animal, is it?" grinned Rhett. "Looks like he'll
die in the shafts. But he's the best I could do. Some day I'll
tell you with embellishments just where and how I stole him and how
narrowly I missed getting shot. Nothing but my devotion to you
would make me, at this stage of my career, turn horse thief--and
thief of such a horse. Let me help you in."

He took the lamp from her and set it on the ground. The front seat
was only a narrow plank across the sides of the wagon. Rhett
picked Scarlett up bodily and swung her to it. How wonderful to be
a man and as strong as Rhett, she thought, tucking her wide skirts
about her. With Rhett beside her, she did not fear anything,
neither the fire nor the noise nor the Yankees.

He climbed onto the seat beside her and picked up the reins.

"Oh, wait!" she cried. "I forgot to lock the front door."

He burst into a roar of laughter and slapped the reins upon the
horse's back.

"What are you laughing at?"

"At you--locking the Yankees out," he said and the horse started
off, slowly, reluctantly. The lamp on the sidewalk burned on,
making a tiny yellow circle of light which grew smaller and smaller
as they moved away.



Rhett turned the horse's slow feet westward from Peachtree and the
wobbling wagon jounced into the rutty lane with a violence that
wrenched an abruptly stifled moan from Melanie. Dark trees
interlaced above their heads, dark silent houses loomed up on
either side and the white palings of fences gleamed faintly like a
row of tombstones. The narrow street was a dim tunnel, but faintly
through the thick leafy ceiling the hideous red glow of the sky
penetrated and shadows chased one another down the dark way like
mad ghosts. The smell of smoke came stronger and stronger, and on
the wings of the hot breeze came a pandemonium of sound from the
center of town, yells, the dull rumbling of heavy army wagons and
the steady tramp of marching feet. As Rhett jerked the horse's
head and turned him into another street, another deafening
explosion tore the air and a monstrous skyrocket of flame and smoke
shot up in the west.

"That must be the last of the ammunition trains," Rhett said
calmly. "Why didn't they get them out this morning, the fools!
There was plenty of time. Well, too bad for us. I thought by
circling around the center of town, we might avoid the fire and
that drunken mob on Decatur Street and get through to the southwest
part of town without any danger. But we've got to cross Marietta
Street somewhere and that explosion was near Marietta Street or I
miss my guess."

"Must--must we go through the fire?" Scarlett quavered.

"Not if we hurry," said Rhett and, springing from the wagon, he
disappeared into the darkness of a yard. When he returned he had a
small limb of a tree in his hand and he laid it mercilessly across
the horse's galled back. The animal broke into a shambling trot,
his breath panting and labored, and the wagon swayed forward with a
jolt that threw them about like popcorn in a popper. The baby
wailed, and Prissy and Wade cried out as they bruised themselves
against the sides of the wagon. But from Melanie there was no
sound.

As they neared Marietta Street, the trees thinned out and the tall
flames roaring up above the buildings threw street and houses into
a glare of light brighter than day, casting monstrous shadows that
twisted as wildly as torn sails flapping in a gale on a sinking
ship.

Scarlett's teeth chattered but so great was her terror she was not
even aware of it. She was cold and she shivered, even though the
heat of the flames was already hot against their faces. This was
hell and she was in it and, if she could only have conquered her
shaking knees, she would have leaped from the wagon and run
screaming back the dark road they had come, back to the refuge of
Miss Pittypat's house. She shrank closer to Rhett, took his arm in
fingers that trembled and looked up at him for words, for comfort,
for something reassuring. In the unholy crimson glow that bathed
them, his dark profile stood out as clearly as the head on an
ancient coin, beautiful, cruel and decadent. At her touch he
turned to her, his eyes gleaming with a light as frightening as the
fire. To Scarlett, he seemed as exhilarated and contemptuous as if
he got strong pleasure from the situation, as if he welcomed the
inferno they were approaching.

"Here," he said, laying a hand on one of the long-barreled pistols
in his belt. "If anyone, black or white, comes up on your side of
the wagon and tries to lay hand on the horse, shoot him and we'll
ask questions later. But for God's sake, don't shoot the nag in
your excitement."

"I--I have a pistol," she whispered, clutching the weapon in her
lap, perfectly certain that if death stared her in the face, she
would be too frightened to pull the trigger.

"You have? Where did you get it?"

"It's Charles'."

"Charles?"

"Yes, Charles--my husband."

"Did you ever really have a husband, my dear?" he whispered and
laughed softly.

If he would only be serious! If he would only hurry!

"How do you suppose I got my boy?" she cried fiercely.

"Oh, there are other ways than husbands--"

"Will you hush and hurry?"

But he drew rein abruptly, almost at Marietta Street, in the shadow
of a warehouse not yet touched by the flames.

"Hurry!" It was the only word in her mind. Hurry! Hurry!

"Soldiers," he said.

The detachment came down Marietta Street, between the burning
buildings, walking at route step, tiredly, rifles held any way,
heads down, too weary to hurry, too weary to care if timbers were
crashing to right and left and smoke billowing about them. They
were all ragged, so ragged that between officers and men there were
no distinguishing insignia except here and there a torn hat brim
pinned up with a wreathed "C.S.A." Many were barefooted and here
and there a dirty bandage wrapped a head or arm. They went past,
looking neither to left nor right, so silent that had it not been
for the steady tramp of feet they might all have been ghosts.

"Take a good look at them," came Rhett's gibing voice, "so you can
tell your grandchildren you saw the rear guard of the Glorious
Cause in retreat."

Suddenly she hated him, hated him with a strength that momentarily
overpowered her fear, made it seem petty and small. She knew her
safety and that of the others in the back of the wagon depended on
him and him alone, but she hated him for his sneering at those
ragged ranks. She thought of Charles who was dead and Ashley who
might be dead and all the gay and gallant young men who were
rotting in shallow graves and she forgot that she, too, had once
thought them fools. She could not speak, but hatred and disgust
burned in her eyes as she stared at him fiercely.

As the last of the soldiers were passing, a small figure in the
rear rank, his rifle butt dragging the ground, wavered, stopped and
stared after the others with a dirty face so dulled by fatigue he
looked like a sleepwalker. He was as small as Scarlett, so small
his rifle was almost as tall as he was, and his grime-smeared face
was unbearded. Sixteen at the most, thought Scarlett irrelevantly,
must be one of the Home Guard or a runaway schoolboy.

As she watched, the boy's knees buckled slowly and he went down in
the dust. Without a word, two men fell out of the last rank and
walked back to him. One, a tall spare man with a black beard that
hung to his belt, silently handed his own rifle and that of the boy
to the other. Then, stooping, he jerked the boy to his shoulders
with an ease that looked like sleight of hand. He started off
slowly after the retreating column, his shoulders bowed under the
weight, while the boy, weak, infuriated like a child teased by its
elders, screamed out: "Put me down, damn you! Put me down! I can
walk!"

The bearded man said nothing and plodded on out of sight around the
bend of the road.

Rhett sat still, the reins lax in his hands, looking after them, a
curious moody look on his swarthy face. Then, there was a crash of
falling timbers near by and Scarlett saw a thin tongue of flame
lick up over the roof of the warehouse in whose sheltering shadow
they sat. Then pennons and battle flags of flame flared
triumphantly to the sky above them. Smoke burnt her nostrils and
Wade and Prissy began coughing. The baby made soft sneezing
sounds.

"Oh, name of God, Rhett! Are you crazy? Hurry! Hurry!"

Rhett made no reply but brought the tree limb down on the horse's
back with a cruel force that made the animal leap forward. With
all the speed the horse could summon, they jolted and bounced
across Marietta Street. Ahead of them was a tunnel of fire where
buildings were blazing on either side of the short, narrow street
that led down to the railroad tracks. They plunged into it. A
glare brighter than a dozen suns dazzled their eyes, scorching heat
seared their skins and the roaring, cracking and crashing beat upon
their ears in painful waves. For an eternity, it seemed, they were
in the midst of flaming torment and then abruptly they were in
semidarkness again.

As they dashed down the street and bumped over the railroad tracks,
Rhett applied the whip automatically. His face looked set and
absent, as though he had forgotten where he was. His broad
shoulders were hunched forward and his chin jutted out as though
the thoughts in his mind were not pleasant. The heat of the fire
made sweat stream down his forehead and cheeks but he did not wipe
it off.

They pulled into a side street, then another, then turned and
twisted from one narrow street to another until Scarlett completely
lost her bearings and the roaring of the flames died behind them.
Still Rhett did not speak. He only laid on the whip with
regularity. The red glow in the sky was fading now and the road
became so dark, so frightening, Scarlett would have welcomed words,
any words from him, even jeering, insulting words, words that cut.
But he did not speak.

Silent or not, she thanked Heaven for the comfort of his presence.
It was so good to have a man beside her, to lean close to him and
feel the hard swell of his arm and know that he stood between her
and unnamable terrors, even though he merely sat there and stared.

"Oh, Rhett," she whispered clasping his arm, "What would we ever
have done without you? I'm so glad you aren't in the army!"

He turned his head and gave her one look, a look that made her drop
his arm and shrink back. There was no mockery in his eyes now.
They were naked and there was anger and something like bewilderment
in them. His lip curled down and he turned his head away. For a
long time they jounced along in a silence unbroken except for the
faint wails of the baby and sniffles from Prissy. When she was
able to bear the sniffling noise no longer, Scarlett turned and
pinched her viciously, causing Prissy to scream in good earnest
before she relapsed into frightened silence.

Finally Rhett turned the horse at right angles and after a while
they were on a wider, smoother road. The dim shapes of houses grew
farther and farther apart and unbroken woods loomed wall-like on
either side.

"We're out of town now," said Rhett briefly, drawing rein, "and on
the main road to Rough and Ready."

"Hurry. Don't stop!"

"Let the animal breathe a bit." Then turning to her, he asked
slowly: "Scarlett, are you still determined to do this crazy
thing?"

"Do what?"

"Do you still want to try to get through to Tara? It's suicidal.
Steve Lee's cavalry and the Yankee Army are between you and Tara."

Oh, Dear God! Was he going to refuse to take her home, after all
she'd gone through this terrible day?

"Oh, yes! Yes! Please, Rhett, let's hurry. The horse isn't
tired."

"Just a minute. You can't go down to Jonesboro on this road. You
can't follow the train tracks. They've been fighting up and down
there all day from Rough and Ready on south. Do you know any other
roads, small wagon roads or lanes that don't go through Rough and
Ready or Jonesboro?"

"Oh, yes," cried Scarlett in relief. "If we can just get near to
Rough and Ready, I know a wagon trace that winds off from the main
Jonesboro road and wanders around for miles. Pa and I used to ride
it. It comes out right near the MacIntosh place and that's only a
mile from Tara."

"Good. Maybe you can get past Rough and Ready all right. General
Steve Lee was there during the afternoon covering the retreat.
Maybe the Yankees aren't there yet. Maybe you can get through
there, if Steve Lee's men don't pick up your horse."

"_I_ can get through?"

"Yes, YOU." His voice was rough.

"But Rhett-- You-- Aren't going to take us?"

"No. I'm leaving you here."

She looked around wildly, at the livid sky behind them, at the dark
trees on either hand hemming them in like a prison wall, at the
frightened figures in the back of the wagon--and finally at him.
Had she gone crazy? Was she not hearing right?

He was grinning now. She could just see his white teeth in the
faint light and the old mockery was back in his eyes.

"Leaving us? Where--where are you going?"

"I am going, dear girl, with the army."

She sighed with relief and irritation. Why did he joke at this
time of all times? Rhett in the army! After all he'd said about
stupid fools who were enticed into losing their lives by a roll of
drums and brave words from orators--fools who killed themselves
that wise men might make money!

"Oh, I could choke you for scaring me so! Let's get on."

"I'm not joking, my dear. And I am hurt, Scarlett, that you do not
take my gallant sacrifice with better spirit. Where is your
patriotism, your love for Our Glorious Cause? Now is your chance
to tell me to return with my shield or on it. But, talk fast, for
I want time to make a brave speech before departing for the wars."

His drawling voice gibed in her ears. He was jeering at her and,
somehow, she knew he was jeering at himself too. What was he
talking about? Patriotism, shields, brave speeches? It wasn't
possible that he meant what he was saying. It just wasn't
believable that he could talk so blithely of leaving her here on
this dark road with a woman who might be dying, a new-born infant,
a foolish black wench and a frightened child, leaving her to pilot
them through miles of battle fields and stragglers and Yankees and
fire and God knows what.

Once, when she was six years old, she had fallen from a tree, flat
on her stomach. She could still recall that sickening interval
before breath came back into her body. Now, as she looked at
Rhett, she felt the same way she had felt then, breathless,
stunned, nauseated.

"Rhett, you are joking!"

She grabbed his arm and felt her tears of fright splash down her
wrist. He raised her hand and kissed it arily.

"Selfish to the end, aren't you, my dear? Thinking only of your
own precious hide and not of the gallant Confederacy. Think how
our troops will be heartened by my eleventh-hour appearance."
There was a malicious tenderness in his voice.

"Oh, Rhett," she wailed, "how can you do this to me? Why are you
leaving me?"

"Why?" he laughed jauntily. "Because, perhaps, of the betraying
sentimentality that lurks in all of us Southerners. Perhaps--
perhaps because I am ashamed. Who knows?"

"Ashamed? You should die of shame. To desert us here, alone,
helpless--"

"Dear Scarlett! You aren't helpless. Anyone as selfish and
determined as you are is never helpless. God help the Yankees if
they should get you."

He stepped abruptly down from the wagon and, as she watched him,
stunned with bewilderment, he came around to her side of the wagon.

"Get out," he ordered.

She stared at him. He reached up roughly, caught her under the
arms and swung her to the ground beside him. With a tight grip on
her he dragged her several paces away from the wagon. She felt the
dust and gravel in her slippers hurting her feet. The still hot
darkness wrapped her like a dream.

"I'm not asking you to understand or forgive. I don't give a damn
whether you do either, for I shall never understand or forgive
myself for this idiocy. I am annoyed at myself to find that so
much quixoticism still lingers in me. But our fair Southland needs
every man. Didn't our brave Governor Brown say just that? Not
matter. I'm off to the wars." He laughed suddenly, a ringing,
free laugh that startled the echoes in the dark woods.

"'I could not love thee, Dear, so much, loved I not Honour more.'
That's a pat speech, isn't it? Certainly better than anything I
can think up myself, at the present moment. For I do love you,
Scarlett, in spite of what I said that night on the porch last
month."

His drawl was caressing and his hands slid up her bare arms, warm
strong hands. "I love you, Scarlett, because we are so much alike,
renegades, both of us, dear, and selfish rascals. Neither of us
cares a rap if the whole world goes to pot, so long as we are safe
and comfortable."

His voice went on in the darkness and she heard words, but they
made no sense to her. Her mind was tiredly trying to take in the
harsh truth that he was leaving her here to face the Yankees alone.
Her mind said: "He's leaving me. He's leaving me." But no
emotion stirred.

Then his arms went around her waist and shoulders and she felt the
hard muscles of his thighs against her body and the buttons of his
coat pressing into her breast. A warm tide of feeling, bewildering,
frightening, swept over her, carrying out of her mind the time and
place and circumstances. She felt as limp as a rag doll, warm, weak
and helpless, and his supporting arms were so pleasant.

"You don't want to change your mind about what I said last month?
There's nothing like danger and death to give an added fillip. Be
patriotic, Scarlett. Think how you would be sending a soldier to
his death with beautiful memories."

He was kissing her now and his mustache tickled her mouth, kissing
her with slow, hot lips that were so leisurely as though he had the
whole night before him. Charles had never kissed her like this.
Never had the kisses of the Tarleton and Calvert boys made her go
hot and cold and shaky like this. He bent her body backward and
his lips traveled down her throat to where the cameo fastened her
basque.

"Sweet," he whispered. "Sweet."

She saw the wagon dimly in the dark and heard the treble piping of
Wade's voice.

"Muvver! Wade fwightened!"

Into her swaying, darkened mind, cold sanity came back with a rush
and she remembered what she had forgotten for the moment--that she
was frightened too, and Rhett was leaving her, leaving her, the
damned cad. And on top of it all, he had the consummate gall to
stand here in the road and insult her with his infamous proposals.
Rage and hate flowed into her and stiffened her spine and with one
wrench she tore herself loose from his arms.

"Oh, you cad!" she cried and her mind leaped about, trying to think
of worse things to call him, things she had heard Gerald call Mr.
Lincoln, the MacIntoshes and balky mules, but the words would not
come. "You low-down, cowardly, nasty, stinking thing!" And
because she could not think of anything crushing enough, she drew
back her arm and slapped him across the mouth with all the force
she had left. He took a step backward, his hand going to his face.

"Ah," he said quietly and for a moment they stood facing each other
in the darkness. Scarlett could hear his heavy breathing, and her
own breath came in gasps as if she had been running hard.

"They were right! Everybody was right! You aren't a gentleman!"

"My dear girl," he said, "how inadequate."

She knew he was laughing and the thought goaded her.

"Go on! Go on now! I want you to hurry. I don't want to ever see
you again. I hope a cannon ball lands right on you. I hope it
blows you to a million pieces. I--"

"Never mind the rest. I follow your general idea. When I'm dead
on the altar of my country, I hope your conscience hurts you."

She heard him laugh as he turned away and walked back toward the
wagon. She saw him stand beside it, heard him speak and his voice
was changed, courteous and respectful as it always was when he
spoke to Melanie.

"Mrs. Wilkes?"

Prissy's frightened voice made answer from the wagon.

"Gawdlmighty, Cap'n Butler! Miss Melly done fainted away back
yonder."

"She's not dead? Is she breathing?"

"Yassuh, she breathin'."

"Then she's probably better off as she is. If she were conscious,
I doubt if she could live through all the pain. Take good care of
her, Prissy. Here's a shinplaster for you. Try not to be a bigger
fool than you are."

"Yassuh. Thankee suh."

"Good-by, Scarlett."

She knew he had turned and was facing her but she did not speak.
Hate choked all utterance. His feet ground on the pebbles of the
road and for a moment she saw his big shoulders looming up in the
dark. Then he was gone. She could hear the sound of his feet for
a while and then they died away. She came slowly back to the
wagon, her knees shaking.

Why had he gone, stepping off into the dark, into the war, into a
Cause that was lost, into a world that was mad? Why had he gone,
Rhett who loved the pleasures of women and liquor, the comfort of
good food and soft beds, the feel of fine linen and good leather,
who hated the South and jeered at the fools who fought for it? Now
he had set his varnished boots upon a bitter road where hunger
tramped with tireless stride and wounds and weariness and heartbreak
ran like yelping wolves. And the end of the road was death. He
need not have gone. He was safe, rich, comfortable. But he had
gone, leaving her alone in a night as black as blindness, with the
Yankee Army between her and home.

Now she remembered all the bad names she had wanted to call him but
it was too late. She leaned her head against the bowed neck of the
horse and cried.



CHAPTER XXIV


The bright glare of morning sunlight streaming through the trees
overhead awakened Scarlett. For a moment, stiffened by the cramped
position in which she had slept, she could not remember where she
was. The sun blinded her, the hard boards of the wagon under her
were harsh against her body, and a heavy weight lay across her
legs. She tried to sit up and discovered that the weight was Wade
who lay sleeping with his head pillowed on her knees. Melanie's
bare feet were almost in her face and, under the wagon seat, Prissy
was curled up like a black cat with the small baby wedged in
between her and Wade.

Then she remembered everything. She popped up to a sitting
position and looked hastily all around. Thank God, no Yankees in
sight! Their hiding place had not been discovered in the night.
It all came back to her now, the nightmare journey after Rhett's
footsteps died away, the endless night, the black road full of ruts
and boulders along which they jolted, the deep gullies on either
side into which the wagon slipped, the fear-crazed strength with
which she and Prissy had pushed the wheels out of the gullies. She
recalled with a shudder how often she had driven the unwilling
horse into fields and woods when she heard soldiers approaching,
not knowing if they were friends or foes--recalled, too, her
anguish lest a cough, a sneeze or Wade's hiccoughing might betray
them to the marching men.

Oh, that dark road where men went by like ghosts, voices stilled,
only the muffled tramping of feet on soft dirt, the faint clicking
of bridles and the straining creak of leather! And, oh, that
dreadful moment when the sick horse balked and cavalry and light
cannon rumbled past in the darkness, past where they sat
breathless, so close she could almost reach out and touch them, so
close she could smell the stale sweat on the soldiers' bodies!

When, at last, they had neared Rough and Ready, a few camp fires
were gleaming where the last of Steve Lee's rear guard was awaiting
orders to fall back. She had circled through a plowed field for a
mile until the light of the fires died out behind her. And then
she had lost her way in the darkness and sobbed when she could not
find the little wagon path she knew so well. Then finally having
found it, the horse sank in the traces and refused to move, refused
to rise even when she and Prissy tugged at the bridle.

So she had unharnessed him and crawled, sodden with fatigue, into
the back of the wagon and stretched her aching legs. She had a
faint memory of Melanie's voice before sleep clamped down her
eyelids, a weak voice that apologized even as it begged: "Scarlett,
can I have some water, please?"

She had said: "There isn't any," and gone to sleep before the
words were out of her mouth.

Now it was morning and the world was still and serene and green and
gold with dappled sunshine. And no soldiers in sight anywhere.
She was hungry and dry with thirst, aching and cramped and filled
with wonder that she, Scarlett O'Hara, who could never rest well
except between linen sheets and on the softest of feather beds, had
slept like a field hand on hard planks.

Blinking in the sunlight, her eyes fell on Melanie and she gasped,
horrified. Melanie lay so still and white Scarlett thought she
must be dead. She looked dead. She looked like a dead, old woman
with her ravaged face and her dark hair snarled and tangled across
it. Then Scarlett saw with relief the faint rise and fall of her
shallow breathing and knew that Melanie had survived the night.

Scarlett shaded her eyes with her hand and looked about her. They
had evidently spent the night under the trees in someone's front
yard, for a sand and gravel driveway stretched out before her,
winding away under an avenue of cedars.

"Why, it's the Mallory place!" she thought, her heart leaping with
gladness at the thought of friends and help.

But a stillness as of death hung over the plantation. The shrubs
and grass of the lawn were cut to pieces where hooves and wheels
and feet had torn frantically back and forth until the soil was
churned up. She looked toward the house and instead of the old
white clapboard place she knew so well, she saw there only a long
rectangle of blackened granite foundation stones and two tall
chimneys rearing smoke-stained bricks into the charred leaves of
still trees.

She drew a deep shuddering breath. Would she find Tara like this,
level with the ground, silent as the dead?

"I mustn't think about that now," she told herself hurriedly. "I
mustn't let myself think about it. I'll get scared again if I
think about it." But, in spite of herself, her heart quickened and
each beat seemed to thunder: "Home! Hurry! Home! Hurry!"

They must be starting on toward home again. But first they must
find some food and water, especially water. She prodded Prissy
awake. Prissy rolled her eyes as she looked about her.

"Fo' Gawd, Miss Scarlett, Ah din' spec ter wake up agin 'cept in de
Promise Lan'."

"You're a long way from there," said Scarlett, trying to smooth
back her untidy hair. Her face was damp and her body was already
wet with sweat. She felt dirty and messy and sticky, almost as if
she smelled bad. Her clothes were crushed and wrinkled from
sleeping in them and she had never felt more acutely tired and sore
in all her life. Muscles she did not know she possessed ached from
her unaccustomed exertions of the night before and every movement
brought sharp pain.

She looked down at Melanie and saw that her dark eyes were opened.
They were sick eyes, fever bright, and dark baggy circles were
beneath them. She opened cracking lips and whispered appealingly:
"Water."

"Get up, Prissy," ordered Scarlett. "We'll go to the well and get
some water."

"But, Miss Scarlett! Dey mout be hants up dar. Sposin' somebody
daid up dar?"

"I'll make a hant out of you if you don't get out of this wagon,"
said Scarlett, who was in no mood for argument, as she climbed
lamely down to the ground.

And then she thought of the horse. Name of God! Suppose the horse
had died in the night! He had seemed ready to die when she
unharnessed him. She ran around the wagon and saw him lying on his
side. If he were dead, she would curse God and die too. Somebody
in the Bible had done just that thing. Cursed God and died. She
knew just how that person felt. But the horse was alive--breathing
heavily, sick eyes half closed, but alive. Well, some water would
help him too.

Prissy climbed reluctantly from the wagon with many groans and
timorously followed Scarlett up the avenue. Behind the ruins the
row of whitewashed slave quarters stood silent and deserted under
the overhanging trees. Between the quarters and the smoked stone
foundations, they found the well, and the roof of it still stood
with the bucket far down the well. Between them, they wound up the
rope, and when the bucket of cool sparkling water appeared out of
the dark depths, Scarlett tilted it to her lips and drank with loud
sucking noises, spilling the water all over herself.

She drank until Prissy's petulant: "Well, Ah's thusty, too, Miss
Scarlett," made her recall the needs of the others.

"Untie the knot and take the bucket to the wagon and give them
some. And give the rest to the horse. Don't you think Miss
Melanie ought to nurse the baby? He'll starve."

"Law, Miss Scarlett, Miss Melly ain' got no milk--ain' gwine have
none."

"How do you know?"

"Ah's seed too many lak her."

"Don't go putting on any airs with me. A precious little you knew
about babies yesterday. Hurry now. I'm going to try to find
something to eat."

Scarlett's search was futile until in the orchard she found a few
apples. Soldiers had been there before her and there was none on
the trees. Those she found on the ground were mostly rotten. She
filled her skirt with the best of them and came back across the
soft earth, collecting small pebbles in her slippers. Why hadn't
she thought of putting on stouter shoes last night? Why hadn't she
brought her sun hat? Why hadn't she brought something to eat?
She'd acted like a fool. But, of course, she'd thought Rhett would
take care of them.

Rhett! She spat on the ground, for the very name tasted bad. How
she hated him! How contemptible he had been! And she had stood
there in the road and let him kiss her--and almost liked it. She
had been crazy last night. How despicable he was!

When she came back, she divided up the apples and threw the rest
into the back of the wagon. The horse was on his feet now but the
water did not seem to have refreshed him much. He looked far worse
in the daylight than he had the night before. His hip bones stood
out like an old cow's, his ribs showed like a washboard and his
back was a mass of sores. She shrank from touching him as she
harnessed him. When she slipped the bit into his mouth, she saw
that he was practically toothless. As old as the hills! While
Rhett was stealing a horse, why couldn't he have stolen a good one?

She mounted the seat and brought down the hickory limb on his back.
He wheezed and started, but he walked so slowly as she turned him
into the road she knew she could walk faster herself with no effort
whatever. Oh, if only she didn't have Melanie and Wade and the
baby and Prissy to bother with! How swiftly she could walk home!
Why, she would run home, run every step of the way that would bring
her closer to Tara and to Mother.

They couldn't be more than fifteen miles from home, but at the rate
this old nag traveled it would take all day, for she would have to
stop frequently to rest him. All day! She looked down the glaring
red road, cut in deep ruts where cannon wheels and ambulances had
gone over it. It would be hours before she knew if Tara still
stood and if Ellen were there. It would be hours before she
finished her journey under the broiling September sun.

She looked back at Melanie who lay with sick eyes closed against
the sun and jerked loose the strings of her bonnet and tossed it to
Prissy.

"Put that over her face. It'll keep the sun out of her eyes."
Then as the heat beat down upon her unprotected head, she thought:
"I'll be as freckled as a guinea egg before this day is over."

She had never in her life been out in the sunshine without a hat or
veils, never handled reins without gloves to protect the white skin
of her dimpled hands. Yet here she was exposed to the sun in a
broken-down wagon with a broken-down horse, dirty, sweaty, hungry,
helpless to do anything but plod along at a snail's pace through a
deserted land. What a few short weeks it had been since she was
safe and secure! What a little while since she and everyone else
had thought that Atlanta could never fall, that Georgia could never
be invaded. But the small cloud which appeared in the northwest
four months ago had blown up into a mighty storm and then into a
screaming tornado, sweeping away her world, whirling her out of her
sheltered life, and dropping her down in the midst of this still,
haunted desolation.

Was Tara still standing? Or was Tara also gone with the wind which
had swept through Georgia?

She laid the whip on the tired horse's back and tried to urge him
on while the waggling wheels rocked them drunkenly from side to
side.



There was death in the air. In the rays of the late afternoon sun,
every well-remembered field and forest grove was green and still,
with an unearthly quiet that struck terror to Scarlett's heart.
Every empty, shell-pitted house they had passed that day, every
gaunt chimney standing sentinel over smoke-blackened ruins, had
frightened her more. They had not seen a living human being or
animal since the night before. Dead men and dead horses, yes, and
dead mules, lying by the road, swollen, covered with flies, but
nothing alive. No far-off cattle lowed, no birds sang, no wind
waved the trees. Only the tired plop-plop of the horse's feet and
the weak wailing of Melanie's baby broke the stillness.

The countryside lay as under some dread enchantment. Or worse
still, thought Scarlett with a chill, like the familiar and dear
face of a mother, beautiful and quiet at last, after death agonies.
She felt that the once-familiar woods were full of ghosts.
Thousands had died in the fighting near Jonesboro. They were here
in these haunted woods where the slanting afternoon sun gleamed
eerily through unmoving leaves, friends and foes, peering at her in
her rickety wagon, through eyes blinded with blood and red dust--
glazed, horrible eyes.

"Mother! Mother!" she whispered. If she could only win to Ellen!
If only, by a miracle of God, Tara were still standing and she
could drive up the long avenue of trees and go into the house and
see her mother's kind, tender face, could feel once more the soft
capable hands that drove out fear, could clutch Ellen's skirts and
bury her face in them. Mother would know what to do. She wouldn't
let Melanie and her baby die. She would drive away all ghosts and
fears with her quiet "Hush, hush." But Mother was ill, perhaps
dying.

Scarlett laid the whip across the weary rump of the horse. They
must go faster! They had crept along this never-ending road all
the long hot day. Soon it would be night and they would be alone
in this desolation that was death. She gripped the reins tighter
with hands that were blistered and slapped them fiercely on the
horse's back, her aching arms burning at the movement.

If she could only reach the kind arms of Tara and Ellen and lay
down her burdens, far too heavy for her young shoulders--the dying
woman, the fading baby, her own hungry little boy, the frightened
negro, all looking to her for strength, for guidance, all reading
in her straight back courage she did not possess and strength which
had long since failed.

The exhausted horse did not respond to the whip or reins but
shambled on, dragging his feet, stumbling on small rocks and
swaying as if ready to fall to his knees. But, as twilight came,
they at last entered the final lap of the long journey. They
rounded the bend of the wagon path and turned into the main road.
Tara was only a mile away!

Here loomed up the dark bulk of the mock-orange hedge that marked
the beginning of the MacIntosh property. A little farther on,
Scarlett drew rein in front of the avenue of oaks that led from the
road to old Angus MacIntosh's house. She peered through the
gathering dusk down the two lines of ancient trees. All was dark.
Not a single light showed in the house or in the quarters.
Straining her eyes in the darkness she dimly discerned a sight
which had grown familiar through that terrible day--two tall
chimneys, like gigantic tombstones towering above the ruined second
floor, and broken unlit windows blotching the walls like still,
blind eyes.

"Hello!" she shouted, summoning all her strength. "Hello!"

Prissy clawed at her in a frenzy of fright and Scarlett, turning,
saw that her eyes were rolling in her head.

"Doan holler, Miss Scarlett! Please, doan holler agin!" she
whispered, her voice shaking. "Dey ain' no tellin' WHUT mout
answer!"

"Dear God!" thought Scarlett, a shiver running through her. "Dear
God! She's right. Anything might come out of there!"

She flapped the reins and urged the horse forward. The sight of
the MacIntosh house had pricked the last bubble of hope remaining
to her. It was burned, in ruins, deserted, as were all the
plantations she had passed that day. Tara lay only half a mile
away, on the same road, right in the path of the army. Tara was
leveled, too! She would find only the blackened bricks, starlight
shining through the roofless walls, Ellen and Gerald gone, the
girls gone, Mammy gone, the negroes gone, God knows where, and this
hideous stillness over everything.

Why had she come on this fool's errand, against all common sense,
dragging Melanie and her child? Better that they had died in
Atlanta than, tortured by this day of burning sun and jolting
wagon, to die in the silent ruins of Tara.

But Ashley had left Melanie in her care. "Take care of her." Oh,
that beautiful, heartbreaking day when he had kissed her good-by
before he went away forever! "You'll take care of her, won't you?
Promise!" And she had promised. Why had she ever bound herself
with such a promise, doubly binding now that Ashley was gone? Even
in her exhaustion she hated Melanie, hated the tiny mewing voice of
her child which, fainter and fainter, pierced the stillness. But
she had promised and now they belonged to her, even as Wade and
Prissy belonged to her, and she must struggle and fight for them as
long as she had strength or breath. She could have left them in
Atlanta, dumped Melanie into the hospital and deserted her. But
had she done that, she could never face Ashley, either on this
earth or in the hereafter and tell him she had left his wife and
child to die among strangers.

Oh, Ashley! Where was he tonight while she toiled down this
haunted road with his wife and baby? Was he alive and did he think
of her as he lay behind the bars at Rock Island? Or was he dead of
smallpox months ago, rotting in some long ditch with hundreds of
other Confederates?

Scarlett's taut nerves almost cracked as a sudden noise sounded in
the underbrush near them. Prissy screamed loudly, throwing herself
to the floor of the wagon, the baby beneath her. Melanie stirred
feebly, her hands seeking the baby, and Wade covered his eyes and
cowered, too frightened to cry. Then the bushes beside them
crashed apart under heavy hooves and a low moaning bawl assaulted
their ears.

"It's only a cow," said Scarlett, her voice rough with fright.
"Don't be a fool, Prissy. You've mashed the baby and frightened
Miss Melly and Wade."

"It's a ghos'," moaned Prissy, writhing face down on the wagon
boards.

Turning deliberately, Scarlett raised the tree limb she had been
using as a whip and brought it down across Prissy's back. She was
too exhausted and weak from fright to tolerate weakness in anyone
else.

"Sit up, you fool," she said, "before I wear this out on you."

Yelping, Prissy raised her head and peering over the side of the
wagon saw it was, indeed, a cow, a red and white animal which stood
looking at them appealingly with large frightened eyes. Opening
its mouth, it lowed again as if in pain.

"Is it hurt? That doesn't sound like an ordinary moo."

"Soun' ter me lak her bag full an' she need milkin' bad," said
Prissy, regaining some measure of control. "Spec it one of Mist'
MacIntosh's dat de niggers driv in de woods an' de Yankees din'
git."

"We'll take it with us," Scarlett decided swiftly. "Then we can
have some milk for the baby."

"How all we gwine tek a cow wid us, Miss Scarlett? We kain tek no
cow wid us. Cow ain' no good nohow effen she ain' been milked
lately. Dey bags swells up and busts. Dat's why she hollerin'."

"Since you know so much about it, take off your petticoat and tear
it up and tie her to the back of the wagon."

"Miss Scarlett, you knows Ah ain' had no petticoat fer a month an'
did Ah have one, Ah wouldn' put it on her fer nuthin'. Ah nebber
had no truck wid cows. Ah's sceered of cows."

Scarlett laid down the reins and pulled up her skirt. The lace-
trimmed petticoat beneath was the last garment she possessed that
was pretty--and whole. She untied the waist tape and slipped it
down over her feet, crushing the soft linen folds between her
hands. Rhett had brought her that linen and lace from Nassau on
the last boat he slipped through the blockade and she had worked a
week to make the garment. Resolutely she took it by the hem and
jerked, put it in her mouth and gnawed, until finally the material
gave with a rip and tore the length. She gnawed furiously, tore
with both hands and the petticoat lay in strips in her hands. She
knotted the ends with fingers that bled from blisters and shook
from fatigue.

"Slip this over her horns," she directed. But Prissy balked.

"Ah's sceered of cows, Miss Scarlett. Ah ain' nebber had nuthin'
ter do wid cows. Ah ain' no yard nigger. Ah's a house nigger."

"You're a fool nigger, and the worst day's work Pa ever did was to
buy you," said Scarlett slowly, too tired for anger. "And if I
ever get the use of my arm again, I'll wear this whip out on you."

There, she thought, I've said "nigger" and Mother wouldn't like
that at all.

Prissy rolled her eyes wildly, peeping first at the set face of her
mistress and then at the cow which bawled plaintively. Scarlett
seemed the less dangerous of the two, so Prissy clutched at the
sides of the wagon and remained where she was.

Stiffly, Scarlett climbed down from the seat, each movement of
agony of aching muscles. Prissy was not the only one who was
"sceered" of cows. Scarlett had always feared them, even the
mildest cow seemed sinister to her, but this was no time to truckle
to small fears when great ones crowded so thick upon her.
Fortunately the cow was gentle. In its pain it had sought human
companionship and help and it made no threatening gesture as she
looped one end of the torn petticoat about its horns. She tied the
other end to the back of the wagon, as securely as her awkward
fingers would permit. Then, as she started back toward the
driver's seat, a vast weariness assailed her and she swayed
dizzily. She clutched the side of the wagon to keep from falling.

Melanie opened her eyes and, seeing Scarlett standing beside her,
whispered: "Dear--are we home?"

Home! Hot tears came to Scarlett's eyes at the word. Home.
Melanie did not know there was no home and that they were alone in
a mad and desolate world.

"Not yet," she said, as gently as the constriction of her throat
would permit, "but we will be, soon. I've just found a cow and
soon we'll have some milk for you and the baby."

"Poor baby," whispered Melanie, her hand creeping feebly toward the
child and falling short.

Climbing back into the wagon required all the strength Scarlett
could muster, but at last it was done and she picked up the lines.
The horse stood with head drooping dejectedly and refused to start.
Scarlett laid on the whip mercilessly. She hoped God would forgive
her for hurting a tired animal. If He didn't she was sorry. After
all, Tara lay just ahead, and after the next quarter of a mile, the
horse could drop in the shafts if he liked.

Finally he started slowly, the wagon creaking and the cow lowing
mournfully at every step. The pained animal's voice rasped on
Scarlett's nerves until she was tempted to stop and untie the
beast. What good would the cow do them anyway if there should be
no one at Tara? She couldn't milk her and, even if she could, the
animal would probably kick anyone who touched her sore udder. But
she had the cow and she might as well keep her. There was little
else she had in this world now.

Scarlett's eyes grew misty when, at last, they reached the bottom
of a gentle incline, for just over the rise lay Tara! Then her
heart sank. The decrepit animal would never pull the hill. The
slope had always seemed so slight, so gradual, in days when she
galloped up it on her fleet-footed mare. It did not seem possible
it could have grown so steep since she saw it last. The horse
would never make it with the heavy load.

Wearily she dismounted and took the animal by the bridle.

"Get out, Prissy," she commanded, "and take Wade. Either carry him
or make him walk. Lay the baby by Miss Melanie."

Wade broke into sobs and whimperings from which Scarlett could only
distinguish: "Dark--dark--Wade fwightened!"

"Miss Scarlett, Ah kain walk. Mah feets done blistered an' dey's
thoo mah shoes, an' Wade an' me doan weigh so much an'--"

"Get out! Get out before I pull you out! And if I do, I'm going
to leave you right here, in the dark by yourself. Quick, now!"

Prissy moaned, peering at the dark trees that closed about them on
both sides of the road--trees which might reach out and clutch her
if she left the shelter of the wagon. But she laid the baby beside
Melanie, scrambled to the ground and, reaching up, lifted Wade out.
The little boy sobbed, shrinking close to his nurse.

"Make him hush. I can't stand it," said Scarlett, taking the horse
by the bridle and pulling him to a reluctant start. "Be a little
man, Wade, and stop crying or I will come over there and slap you."

Why had God invented children, she thought savagely as she turned
her ankle cruelly on the dark road--useless, crying nuisances they
were, always demanding care, always in the way. In her exhaustion,
there was no room for compassion for the frightened child, trotting
by Prissy's side, dragging at her hand and sniffling--only a
weariness that she had borne him, only a tired wonder that she had
ever married Charles Hamilton.

"Miss Scarlett," whispered Prissy, clutching her mistress' arm,
"doan le's go ter Tara. Dey's not dar. Dey's all done gone.
Maybe dey daid--Maw an' all'm."

The echo of her own thoughts infuriated her and Scarlett shook off
the pinching fingers.

"Then give me Wade's hand. You can sit right down here and stay."

"No'm! No'm!"

"Then HUSH!"

How slowly the horse moved! The moisture from his slobbering mouth
dripped down upon her hand. Through her mind ran a few words of
the song she had once sung with Rhett--she could not recall the
rest:


"Just a few more days for to tote the weary load--"


"Just a few more steps," hummed her brain, over and over, "just a
few more steps for to tote the weary load."

Then they topped the rise and before them lay the oaks of Tara, a
towering dark mass against the darkening sky. Scarlett looked
hastily to see if there was a light anywhere. There was none.

"They are gone!" said her heart, like cold lead in her breast.
"Gone!"

She turned the horse's head into the driveway, and the cedars,
meeting over their heads cast them into midnight blackness.
Peering up the long tunnel of darkness, straining her eyes she saw
ahead--or did she see? Were her tired eyes playing her tricks?--
the white bricks of Tara blurred and indistinct. Home! Home! The
dear white walls, the windows with the fluttering curtains, the
wide verandas--were they all there ahead of her, in the gloom? Or
did the darkness mercifully conceal such a horror as the MacIntosh
house?

The avenue seemed miles long and the horse, pulling stubbornly at
her hand, plopped slower and slower. Eagerly her eyes searched the
darkness. The roof seemed to be intact. Could it be--could it
be--? No, it wasn't possible. War stopped for nothing, not even
Tara, built to last five hundred years. It could not have passed
over Tara.

Then the shadowy outline did take form. She pulled the horse
forward faster. The white walls did show there through the
darkness. And untarnished by smoke. Tara had escaped! Home! She
dropped the bridle and ran the last few steps, leaped forward with
an urge to clutch the walls themselves in her arms. Then she saw a
form, shadowy in the dimness, emerging from the blackness of the
front veranda and standing at the top of the steps. Tara was not
deserted. Someone was home!

A cry of joy rose to her throat and died there. The house was so
dark and still and the figure did not move or call to her. What
was wrong? What was wrong? Tara stood intact, yet shrouded with
the same eerie quiet that hung over the whole stricken countryside.
Then the figure moved. Stiffly and slowly, it came down the steps.

"Pa?" she whispered huskily, doubting almost that it was he. "It's
me--Katie Scarlett. I've come home."

Gerald moved toward her, silent as a sleepwalker, his stiff leg
dragging. He came close to her, looking at her in a dazed way as
if he believed she was part of a dream. Putting out his hand, he
laid it on her shoulder. Scarlett felt it tremble, tremble as if
he had been awakened from a nightmare into a half-sense of reality.

"Daughter," he said with an effort. "Daughter."

Then he was silent.

Why--he's an old man! thought Scarlett.

Gerald's shoulders sagged. In the face which she could only see
dimly, there was none of the virility, the restless vitality of
Gerald, and the eyes that looked into hers had almost the same
fear-stunned look that lay in little Wade's eyes. He was only a
little old man and broken.

And now, fear of unknown things seized her, leaped swiftly out of
the darkness at her and she could only stand and stare at him, all
the flood of questioning dammed up at her lips.

From the wagon the faint wailing sounded again and Gerald seemed to
rouse himself with an effort.

"It's Melanie and her baby," whispered Scarlett rapidly. "She's
very ill--I brought her home."

Gerald dropped his hand from her arm and straightened his
shoulders. As he moved slowly to the side of the wagon, there was
a ghostly semblance of the old host of Tara welcoming guests, as if
Gerald spoke words from out of shadowy memory.

"Cousin Melanie!"

Melanie's voice murmured indistinctly.

"Cousin Melanie, this is your home. Twelve Oaks is burned. You
must stay with us."

Thoughts of Melanie's prolonged suffering spurred Scarlett to
action. The present was with her again, the necessity of laying
Melanie and her child on a soft bed and doing those small things
for her that could be done.

"She must be carried. She can't walk."

There was a scuffle of feet and a dark figure emerged from the cave
of the front hall. Pork ran down the steps.

"Miss Scarlett! Miss Scarlett!" he cried.

Scarlett caught him by the arms. Pork, part and parcel of Tara, as
dear as the bricks and the cool corridors! She felt his tears
stream down on her hands as he patted her clumsily, crying: "Sho
is glad you back! Sho is--"

Prissy burst into tears and incoherent mumblings: "Poke! Poke,
honey!" And little Wade, encouraged by the weakness of his elders,
began sniffling: "Wade thirsty!"

Scarlett caught them all in hand.

"Miss Melanie is in the wagon and her baby too. Pork, you must
carry her upstairs very carefully and put her in the back company
room. Prissy, take the baby and Wade inside and give Wade a drink
of water. Is Mammy here, Pork? Tell her I want her."

Galvanized by the authority in her voice, Pork approached the wagon
and fumbled at the backboard. A moan was wrenched from Melanie as
he half-lifted, half-dragged her from the feather tick on which she
had lain so many hours. And then she was in Pork's strong arms,
her head drooping like a child's across his shoulder. Prissy,
holding the baby and dragging Wade by the hand, followed them up
the wide steps and disappeared into the blackness of the hall.

Scarlett's bleeding fingers sought her father's hand urgently.

"Did they get well, Pa?"

"The girls are recovering."

Silence fell and in the silence an idea too monstrous for words
took form. She could not, could not force it to her lips. She
swallowed and swallowed but a sudden dryness seemed to have stuck
the sides of her throat together. Was this the answer to the
frightening riddle of Tara's silence? As if answering the question
in her mind Gerald spoke.

"Your mother--" he said and stopped.

"And--Mother?"

"Your mother died yesterday."



Her father's arm held tightly in her own, Scarlett felt her way
down the wide dark hall which, even in its blackness, was as
familiar as her own mind. She avoided the high-backed chairs, the
empty gun rack, the old sideboard with its protruding claw feet,
and she felt herself drawn by instinct to the tiny office at the
back of the house where Ellen always sat, keeping her endless
accounts. Surely, when she entered that room, Mother would again
be sitting there before the secretary and would look up, quill
poised, and rise with sweet fragrance and rustling hoops to meet
her tired daughter. Ellen could not be dead, not even though Pa
had said it, said it over and over like a parrot that knows only
one phrase: "She died yesterday--she died yesterday--she died
yesterday."

Queer that she should feel nothing now, nothing except a weariness
that shackled her limbs with heavy iron chains and a hunger that
made her knees tremble. She would think of Mother later. She must
put her mother out of her mind now, else she would stumble stupidly
like Gerald or sob monotonously like Wade.

Pork came down the wide dark steps toward them, hurrying to press
close to Scarlett like a cold animal toward a fire.

"Lights?" she questioned. "Why is the house so dark, Pork? Bring
candles."

"Dey tuck all de candles, Miss Scarlett, all 'cept one we been
usin' ter fine things in de dahk wid, an' it's 'bout gone. Mammy
been usin' a rag in a dish of hawg fat fer a light fer nussin' Miss
Careen an' Miss Suellen."

"Bring what's left of the candle," she ordered. "Bring it into
Mother's--into the office."

Pork pattered into the dining room and Scarlett groped her way into
the inky small room and sank down on the sofa. Her father's arm
still lay in the crook of hers, helpless, appealing, trusting, as
only the hands of the very young and the very old can be.

"He's an old man, an old tired man," she thought again and vaguely
wondered why she could not care.

Light wavered into the room as Pork entered carrying high a half-
burned candle stuck in a saucer. The dark cave came to life, the
sagging old sofa on which they sat, the tall secretary reaching
toward the ceiling with Mother's fragile carved chair before it,
the racks of pigeonholes, still stuffed with papers written in her
fine hand, the worn carpet--all, all were the same, except that
Ellen was not there, Ellen with the faint scent of lemon verbena
sachet and the sweet look in her up-tilted eyes. Scarlett felt a
small pain in her heart as of nerves numbed by a deep wound,
struggling to make themselves felt again. She must not let them
come to life now; there was all the rest of her life ahead of her
in which they could ache. But, not now! Please, God, not now!

She looked into Gerald's putty-colored face and, for the first time
in her life, she saw him unshaven, his once florid face covered
with silvery bristles. Pork placed the candle on the candle stand
and came to her side. Scarlett felt that if he had been a dog he
would have laid his muzzle in her lap and whined for a kind hand
upon his head.

"Pork, how many darkies are here?"

"Miss Scarlett, dem trashy niggers done runned away an' some of dem
went off wid de Yankees an'--"

"How many are left?"

"Dey's me, Miss Scarlett, an' Mammy. She been nussin' de young
Misses all day. An' Dilcey, she settin' up wid de young Misses
now. Us three, Miss Scarlett."

"Us three" where there had been a hundred. Scarlett with an effort
lifted her head on her aching neck. She knew she must keep her
voice steady. To her surprise, words came out as coolly and
naturally as if there had never been a war and she could, by waving
her hand, call ten house servants to her.

"Pork, I'm starving. Is there anything to eat?"

"No'm. Dey tuck it all."

"But the garden?"

"Dey tuhned dey hawses loose in it."

"Even the sweet potato hills?"

Something almost like a pleased smile broke his thick lips.

"Miss Scarlett, Ah done fergit de yams. Ah specs dey's right dar.
Dem Yankee folks ain' never seed no yams an' dey thinks dey's jes'
roots an'--"

"The moon will be up soon. You go out and dig us some and roast
them. There's no corn meal? No dried peas? No chickens?"

"No'm. No'm. Whut chickens dey din' eat right hyah dey cah'ied
off 'cross dey saddles."

They-- They-- They-- Was there no end to what 'They" had done?
Was it not enough to burn and kill? Must they also leave women and
children and helpless negroes to starve in a country which they had
desolated?

"Miss Scarlett, Ah got some apples Mammy buhied unner de house. We
been eatin' on dem today."

"Bring them before you dig the potatoes. And, Pork--I--I feel so
faint. Is there any wine in the cellar, even blackberry?"

"Oh, Miss Scarlett, de cellar wuz de fust place dey went."

A swimming nausea compounded of hunger, sleeplessness, exhaustion
and stunning blows came on suddenly and she gripped the carved
roses under her hand.

"No wine," she said dully, remembering the endless rows of bottles
in the cellar. A memory stirred.

"Pork, what of the corn whisky Pa buried in the oak barrel under
the scuppernong arbor?"

Another ghost of a smile lit the black face, a smile of pleasure
and respect.

"Miss Scarlett, you sho is de beatenes' chile! Ah done plum fergit
dat bah'l. But, Miss Scarlett, dat whisky ain' no good. Ain' been
dar but 'bout a year an' whisky ain' no good fer ladies nohow."

How stupid negroes were! They never thought of anything unless
they were told. And the Yankees wanted to free them.

"It'll be good enough for this lady and for Pa. Hurry, Pork, and
dig it up and bring us two glasses and some mint and sugar and I'll
mix a julep."

"Miss Scarlett, you knows dey ain' been no sugar at Tara fer de
longes'. An' dey hawses done et up all de mint an' dey done broke
all de glasses."

If he says "They" once more, I'll scream. I can't help it, she
thought, and then, aloud: "Well, hurry and get the whisky,
quickly. We'll take it neat." And, as he turned: "Wait, Pork.
There's so many things to do that I can't seem to think. . . . Oh,
yes. I brought home a horse and a cow and the cow needs milking,
badly, and unharness the horse and water him. Go tell Mammy to
look after the cow. Tell her she's got to fix the cow up somehow.
Miss Melanie's baby will die if he doesn't get something to eat
and--"

"Miss Melly ain'--kain--?" Pork paused delicately.

"Miss Melanie has no milk." Dear God, but Mother would faint at
that!

"Well, Miss Scarlett, mah Dilcey ten' ter Miss Melly's chile. Mah
Dilcey got a new chile herseff an' she got mo'n nuff fer both."

"You've got a new baby, Pork?"

Babies, babies, babies. Why did God make so many babies? But no,
God didn't make them. Stupid people made them.

"Yas'm, big fat black boy. He--"

"Go tell Dilcey to leave the girls. I'll look after them. Tell
her to nurse Miss Melanie's baby and do what she can for Miss
Melanie. Tell Mammy to look after the cow and put that poor horse
in the stable."

"Dey ain' no stable, Miss Scarlett. Dey use it fer fiah wood."

"Don't tell me any more what 'They' did. Tell Dilcey to look after
them. And you, Pork, go dig up that whisky and then some
potatoes."

"But, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain' got no light ter dig by."

"You can use a stick of firewood, can't you?"

"Dey ain' no fiah wood--Dey--"

"Do something. . . . I don't care what. But dig those things and
dig them fast. Now, hurry."

Pork scurried from the room as her voice roughened and Scarlett was
left alone with Gerald. She patted his leg gently. She noted how
shrunken were the thighs that once bulged with saddle muscles. She
must do something to drag him from his apathy--but she could not
ask about Mother. That must come later, when she could stand it.

"Why didn't they burn Tara?"

Gerald stared at her for a moment as if not hearing her and she
repeated her question.

"Why--" he fumbled, "they used the house as a headquarters."

"Yankees--in this house?"

A feeling that the beloved walls had been defiled rose in her.
This house, sacred because Ellen had lived in it, and those--those--
in it.

"So they were, Daughter. We saw the smoke from Twelve Oaks, across
the river, before they came. But Miss Honey and Miss India and
some of their darkies had refugeed to Macon, so we did not worry
about them. But we couldn't be going to Macon. The girls were so
sick--your mother--we couldn't be going. Our darkies ran--I'm not
knowing where. They stole the wagons and the mules. Mammy and
Dilcey and Pork--they didn't run. The girls--your mother--we
couldn't be moving them."

"Yes, yes." He mustn't talk about Mother. Anything else. Even
that General Sherman himself had used this room, Mother's office,
for his headquarters. Anything else.

"The Yankees were moving on Jonesboro, to cut the railroad. And
they came up the road from the river--thousands and thousands--and
cannon and horses--thousands. I met them on the front porch."

"Oh, gallant little Gerald!" thought Scarlett, her heart swelling,
Gerald meeting the enemy on the stairs of Tara as if an army stood
behind him instead of in front of him.

"They said for me to leave, that they would be burning the place.
And I said that they would be burning it over my head. We could
not leave--the girls--your mother were--"

"And then?" Must he revert to Ellen always?

"I told them there was sickness in the house, the typhoid, and it
was death to move them. They could burn the roof over us. I did
not want to leave anyway--leave Tara--"

His voice trailed off into silence as he looked absently about the
walls and Scarlett understood. There were too many Irish ancestors
crowding behind Gerald's shoulders, men who had died on scant
acres, fighting to the end rather than leave the homes where they
had lived, plowed, loved, begotten sons.

"I said that they would be burning the house over the heads of
three dying women. But we would not leave. The young officer was--
was a gentleman."

"A Yankee a gentleman? Why, Pa!"

"A gentleman. He galloped away and soon he was back with a
captain, a surgeon, and he looked at the girls--and your mother."

"You let a damned Yankee into their room?"

"He had opium. We had none. He saved your sisters. Suellen was
hemorrhaging. He was as kind as he knew how. And when he reported
that they were--ill--they did not burn the house. They moved in,
some general, his staff, crowding in. They filled all the rooms
except the sick room. And the soldiers--"

He paused again, as if too tired to go on. His stubbly chin sank
heavily in loose folds of flesh on his chest. With an effort he
spoke again.

"They camped all round the house, everywhere, in the cotton, in the
corn. The pasture was blue with them. That night there were a
thousand campfires. They tore down the fences and burned them to
cook with and the barns and the stables and the smokehouse. They
killed the cows and the hogs and the chickens--even my turkeys."
Gerald's precious turkeys. So they were gone. "They took things,
even the pictures--some of the furniture, the china--"

"The silver?"

"Pork and Mammy did something with the silver--put it in the well--
but I'm not remembering now," Gerald's voice was fretful. "Then
they fought the battle from here--from Tara--there was so much
noise, people galloping up and stamping about. And later the
cannon at Jonesboro--it sounded like thunder--even the girls could
hear it, sick as they were, and they kept saying over and over:
'Papa, make it stop thundering.'"

"And--and Mother? Did she know Yankees were in the house?"

"She--never knew anything."

"Thank God," said Scarlett. Mother was spared that. Mother never
knew, never heard the enemy in the rooms below, never heard the
guns at Jonesboro, never learned that the land which was part of
her heart was under Yankee feet.

"I saw few of them for I stayed upstairs with the girls and your
mother. I saw the young surgeon mostly. He was kind, so kind,
Scarlett. After he'd worked all day with the wounded, he came and
sat with them. He even left some medicine. He told me when they
moved on that the girls would recover but your mother-- She was so
frail, he said--too frail to stand it all. He said she had
undermined her strength. . . ."

In the silence that fell, Scarlett saw her mother as she must have
been in those last days, a thin power of strength in Tara, nursing,
working, doing without sleep and food that the others might rest
and eat.

"And then, they moved on. Then, they moved on."

He was silent for a long time and then fumbled at her hand.

"It's glad I am you are home," he said simply.

There was a scraping noise on the back porch. Poor Pork, trained
for forty years to clean his shoes before entering the house, did
not forget, even in a time like this. He came in, carefully
carrying two gourds, and the strong smell of dripping spirits
entered before him.

"Ah spilt a plen'y, Miss Scarlett. It's pow'ful hard ter po' outer
a bung hole inter a go'de."

"That's quite all right, Pork, and thank you." She took the wet
gourd dipper from him, her nostrils wrinkling in distaste at the
reek.

"Drink this, Father," she said, pushing the whisky in its strange
receptacle into his hand and taking the second gourd of water from
Pork. Gerald raised it, obedient as a child, and gulped noisily.
She handed the water to him but he shook his head.

As she took the whisky from him and held it to her mouth, she saw
his eyes follow her, a vague stirring of disapproval in them.

"I know no lady drinks spirits," she said briefly. "But today I'm
no lady, Pa, and there is work to do tonight."

She tilted the dipper, drew a deep breath and drank swiftly. The
hot liquid burned down her throat to her stomach, choking her and
bringing tears to her eyes. She drew another breath and raised it
again.

"Katie Scarlett," said Gerald, the first note of authority she had
heard in his voice since her return, "that is enough. You're not
knowing spirits and they will be making you tipsy."

"Tipsy?" She laughed an ugly laugh. "Tipsy? I hope it makes me
drunk. I would like to be drunk and forget all of this."

She drank again, a slow train of warmth lighting in her veins and
stealing through her body until even her finger tips tingled. What
a blessed feeling, this kindly fire. It seemed to penetrate even
her ice-locked heart and strength came coursing back into her body.
Seeing Gerald's puzzled hurt face, she patted his knee again and
managed an imitation of the pert smile he used to love.

"How could it make me tipsy, Pa? I'm your daughter. Haven't I
inherited the steadiest head in Clayton County?"

He almost smiled into her tired face. The whisky was bracing him
too. She handed it back to him.

"Now you're going to take another drink and then I am going to take
you upstairs and put you to bed."

She caught herself. Why, this was the way she talked to Wade--she
should not address her father like this. It was disrespectful.
But he hung on her words.

"Yes, put you to bed," she added lightly, "and give you another
drink--maybe all the dipper and make you go to sleep. You need
sleep and Katie Scarlett is here, so you need not worry about
anything. Drink."

He drank again obediently and, slipping her arm through his, she
pulled him to his feet.

"Pork. . . ."

Pork took the gourd in one hand and Gerald's arm in the other.
Scarlett picked up the flaring candle and the three walked slowly
into the dark hall and up the winding steps toward Gerald's room.

The room where Suellen and Carreen lay mumbling and tossing on the
same bed stank vilely with the smell of the twisted rag burning in
a saucer of bacon fat, which provided the only light. When
Scarlett first opened the door the thick atmosphere of the room,
with all windows closed and the air reeking with sick-room odors,
medicine smells and stinking grease, almost made her faint.
Doctors might say that fresh air was fatal in a sick room but if
she were to sit here, she must have air or die. She opened the
three windows, bringing in the smell of oak leaves and earth, but
the fresh air could do little toward dispelling the sickening odors
which had accumulated for weeks in this close room.

Carreen and Suellen, emaciated and white, slept brokenly and awoke
to mumble with wide, staring eyes in the tall four-poster bed where
they had whispered together in better, happier days. In the corner
of the room was an empty bed, a narrow French Empire bed with
curling head and foot, a bed which Ellen had brought from Savannah.
This was where Ellen had lain.

Scarlett sat beside the two girls, staring at them stupidly. The
whisky taken on a stomach long empty was playing tricks on her.
Sometimes her sisters seemed far away and tiny and their incoherent
voices came to her like the buzz of insects. And again, they
loomed large, rushing at her with lightning speed. She was tired,
tired to the bone. She could lie down and sleep for days.

If she could only lie down and sleep and wake to feel Ellen gently
shaking her arm and saying: "It is late, Scarlett. You must not
be so lazy." But she could not ever do that again. If there were
only Ellen, someone older than she, wiser and unweary, to whom she
could go! Someone in whose lap she could lay her head, someone on
whose shoulders she could rest her burdens!

The door opened softly and Dilcey entered, Melanie's baby held to
her breast, the gourd of whisky in her hand. In the smoky,
uncertain light, she seemed thinner than when Scarlett last saw her
and the Indian blood was more evident in her face. The high cheek
bones were more prominent, the hawk-bridged nose was sharper and
her copper skin gleamed with a brighter hue. Her faded calico
dress was open to the waist and her large bronze breast exposed.
Held close against her, Melanie's baby pressed his pale rosebud
mouth greedily to the dark nipple, sucking, gripping tiny fists
against the soft flesh like a kitten in the warm fur of its
mother's belly.

Scarlett rose unsteadily and put a hand on Dilcey's arm.

"It was good of you to stay, Dilcey."

"How could I go off wid them trashy niggers, Miss Scarlett, after
yo' pa been so good to buy me and my little Prissy and yo' ma been
so kine?"

"Sit down, Dilcey. The baby can eat all right, then? And how is
Miss Melanie?"

"Nuthin' wrong wid this chile 'cept he hongry, and whut it take to
feed a hongry chile I got. No'm, Miss Melanie is all right. She
ain' gwine die, Miss Scarlett. Doan you fret yo'seff. I seen too
many, white and black, lak her. She mighty tired and nervous like
and scared fo' this baby. But I hesh her and give her some of whut
was lef' in that go'de and she sleepin'."

So the corn whisky had been used by the whole family! Scarlett
thought hysterically that perhaps she had better give a drink to
little Wade and see if it would stop his hiccoughs-- And Melanie
would not die. And when Ashley came home--if he did come home . . .
No, she would think of that later too. So much to think of--
later! So many things to unravel--to decide. If only she could
put off the hour of reckoning forever! She started suddenly as a
creaking noise and a rhythmic "Ker-bunk--ker-bunk--" broke the
stillness of the air outside.

"That's Mammy gettin' the water to sponge off the young Misses.
They takes a heap of bathin'," explained Dilcey, propping the gourd
on the table between medicine bottles and a glass.

Scarlett laughed suddenly. Her nerves must be shredded if the
noise of the well windlass, bound up in her earliest memories,
could frighten her. Dilcey looked at her steadily as she laughed,
her face immobile in its dignity, but Scarlett felt that Dilcey
understood. She sank back in her chair. If she could only be rid
of her tight stays, the collar that choked her and the slippers
still full of sand and gravel that blistered her feet.

The windlass creaked slowly as the rope wound up, each creak
bringing the bucket nearer the top. Soon Mammy would be with her--
Ellen's Mammy, her Mammy. She sat silent, intent on nothing, while
the baby, already glutted with milk, whimpered because he had lost
the friendly nipple. Dilcey, silent too, guided the child's mouth
back, quieting him in her arms as Scarlett listened to the slow
scuffing of Mammy's feet across the back yard. How still the night
air was! The slightest sounds roared in her ears.

The upstairs hall seemed to shake as Mammy's ponderous weight came
toward the door. Then Mammy was in the room, Mammy with shoulders
dragged down by two heavy wooden buckets, her kind black face sad
with the uncomprehending sadness of a monkey's face.

Her eyes lighted up at the sight of Scarlett, her white teeth
gleamed as she set down the buckets, and Scarlett ran to her,
laying her head on the broad, sagging breasts which had held so
many heads, black and white. Here was something of stability,
thought Scarlett, something of the old life that was unchanging.
But Mammy's first words dispelled this illusion.

"Mammy's chile is home! Oh, Miss Scarlett, now dat Miss Ellen's in
de grabe, whut is we gwine ter do? Oh, Miss Scarlett, effen Ah wuz
jes' daid longside Miss Ellen! Ah kain make out widout Miss Ellen.
Ain' nuthin' lef' now but mizry an' trouble. Jes' weery loads,
honey, jes' weery loads."

As Scarlett lay with her head hugged close to Mammy's breast, two
words caught her attention, "weery loads." Those were the words
which had hummed in her brain that afternoon so monotonously they
had sickened her. Now, she remembered the rest of the song,
remembered with a sinking heart:


"Just a few more days for to tote the weary load!
No matter, 'twill never be light!
Just a few more days till we totter in the road--"


"No matter, 'twill never be light"--she took the words to her tired
mind. Would her load never be light? Was coming home to Tara to
mean, not blessed surcease, but only more loads to carry? She
slipped from Mammy's arms and, reaching up, patted the wrinkled
black face.

"Honey, yo' han's!" Mammy took the small hands with their blisters
and blood clots in hers and looked at them with horrified
disapproval. "Miss Scarlett, Ah done tole you an' tole you dat you
kin allus tell a lady by her han's an'--yo' face sunbuhnt too!"

Poor Mammy, still the martinet about such unimportant things even
though war and death had just passed over her head! In another
moment she would be saying that young Misses with blistered hands
and freckles most generally didn't never catch husbands and
Scarlett forestalled the remark.

"Mammy, I want you to tell me about Mother. I couldn't bear to
hear Pa talk about her."

Tears started from Mammy's eyes as she leaned down to pick up the
buckets. In silence she carried them to the bedside and, turning
down the sheet, began pulling up the night clothes of Suellen and
Carreen. Scarlett, peering at her sisters in the dim flaring
light, saw that Carreen wore a nightgown, clean but in tatters, and
Suellen lay wrapped in an old negligee, a brown linen garment heavy
with tagging ends of Irish lace. Mammy cried silently as she
sponged the gaunt bodies, using the remnant of an old apron as a
cloth.

"Miss Scarlett, it wuz dem Slatterys, dem trashy, no-good, low-down
po'-w'ite Slatterys dat kilt Miss Ellen. Ah done tole her an' tole
her it doan do no good doin' things fer trashy folks, but Miss
Ellen wuz so sot in her ways an' her heart so sof' she couldn'
never say no ter nobody whut needed her."

"Slatterys?" questioned Scarlett, bewildered. "How do they come
in?"

"Dey wuz sick wid disyere thing," Mammy gestured with her rag to
the two naked girls, dripping with water on their damp sheet. "Ole
Miss Slattery's gal, Emmie, come down wid it an' Miss Slattery come
hotfootin' it up hyah affer Miss Ellen, lak she allus done w'en
anything wrong. Why din' she nuss her own? Miss Ellen had mo'n
she could tote anyways. But Miss Ellen she went down dar an' she
nuss Emmie. An' Miss Ellen wuzn' well a-tall herseff, Miss
Scarlett. Yo' ma hadn' been well fer de longes'. Dey ain' been
too much ter eat roun' hyah, wid de commissary stealin' eve'y thing
us growed. An' Miss Ellen eat lak a bird anyways. An' Ah tole her
an' tole her ter let dem w'ite trash alone, but she din' pay me no
mine. Well'm, 'bout de time Emmie look lak she gittin' better,
Miss Carreen come down wid it. Yas'm, de typhoy fly right up de
road an' ketch Miss Carreen, an' den down come Miss Suellen. So
Miss Ellen, she tuck an' nuss dem too.

"Wid all de fightin' up de road an' de Yankees 'cross de river an'
us not knowin' whut wuz gwine ter happen ter us an' de fe'el han's
runnin' off eve'y night, Ah's 'bout crazy. But Miss Ellen jes' as
cool as a cucumber. 'Cept she wuz worried ter a ghos' 'bout de
young Misses kase we couldn' git no medicines nor nuthin'. An' one
night she say ter me affer we done sponge off de young Misses 'bout
ten times, she say, 'Mammy, effen Ah could sell mah soul, Ah'd sell
it fer some ice ter put on mah gals' haids.'

"She wouldn't let Mist' Gerald come in hyah, nor Rosa nor Teena,
nobody but me, kase Ah done had de typhoy. An' den it tuck her,
Miss Scarlett, an' Ah seed right off dat 'twarnt no use."

Mammy straightened up and, raising her apron, dried her streaming
eyes.

"She went fas', Miss Scarlett, an' even dat nice Yankee doctah
couldn' do nuthin' fer her. She din' know nuthin' a-tall. Ah call
ter her an' talk ter her but she din' even know her own Mammy."

"Did she--did she ever mention me--call for me?"

"No, honey. She think she is lil gal back in Savannah. She din'
call nobody by name."

Dilcey stirred and laid the sleeping baby across her knees.

"Yes'm, she did. She did call somebody."

"You hesh yo' mouf, you Injun-nigger!" Mammy turned with
threatening violence on Dilcey.

"Hush, Mammy! Who did she call, Dilcey? Pa?"

"No'm. Not yo' pa. It wuz the night the cotton buhnt--"

"Has the cotton gone--tell me quickly!"

"Yes'm, it buhnt up. The sojers rolls it out of the shed into the
back yard and hollers, 'Here the bigges' bonfiah in Georgia,' and
tech it off."

Three years of stored cotton--one hundred and fifty thousand
dollars, all in one blaze!

"And the fiah light up the place lak it wuz day--we wuz scared the
house would buhn, too, and it wuz so bright in this hyah room that
you could mos' pick a needle offen the flo'. And w'en the light
shine in the winder, it look lak it wake Miss Ellen up and she set
right up in bed and cry out loud, time and again: 'Feeleep!
Feeleep!' I ain' never heerd no sech name but it wuz a name and
she wuz callin' him."

Mammy stood as though turned to stone glaring at Dilcey but
Scarlett dropped her head into her hands. Philippe--who was he and
what had he been to Mother that she died calling him?



The long road from Atlanta to Tara had ended, ended in a blank
wall, the road that was to end in Ellen's arms. Never again could
Scarlett lie down, as a child, secure beneath her father's roof
with the protection of her mother's love wrapped about her like an
eiderdown quilt. There was no security or haven to which she could
turn now. No turning or twisting would avoid this dead end to
which she had come. There was no one on whose shoulders she could
rest her burdens. Her father was old and stunned, her sisters ill,
Melanie frail and weak, the children helpless, and the negroes
looking up to her with childlike faith, clinging to her skirts,
knowing that Ellen's daughter would be the refuge Ellen had always
been.

Through the window, in the faint light of the rising moon, Tara
stretched before her, negroes gone, acres desolate, barns ruined,
like a body bleeding under her eyes, like her own body, slowly
bleeding. This was the end of the road, quivering old age,
sickness, hungry mouths, helpless hands plucking at her skirts.
And at the end of this road, there was nothing--nothing but
Scarlett O'Hara Hamilton, nineteen years old, a widow with a little
child.

What would she do with all of this? Aunt Pitty and the Burrs in
Macon could take Melanie and her baby. If the girls recovered,
Ellen's family would have to take them, whether they liked it or
not. And she and Gerald could turn to Uncle James and Andrew.

She looked at the thin forms, tossing before her, the sheets about
them moist and dark from dripping water. She did not like Suellen.
She saw it now with a sudden clarity. She had never liked her.
She did not especially love Carreen--she could not love anyone who
was weak. But they were of her blood, part of Tara. No, she could
not let them live out their lives in their aunts' homes as poor
relations. An O'Hara a poor relation, living on charity bread and
sufferance! Oh, never that!

Was there no escape from this dead end? Her tired brain moved so
slowly. She raised her hands to her head as wearily as if the air
were water against which her arms struggled. She took the gourd
from between the glass and bottle and looked in it. There was some
whisky left in the bottom, how much she could not tell in the
uncertain light. Strange that the sharp smell did not offend her
nostrils now. She drank slowly but this time the liquid did not
burn, only a dull warmth followed.

She set down the empty gourd and looked about her. This was all a
dream, this smoke-filled dim room, the scrawny girls, Mammy
shapeless and huge crouching beside the bed, Dilcey a still bronze
image with the sleeping pink morsel against her dark breast--all a
dream from which she would awake, to smell bacon frying in the
kitchen, hear the throaty laughter of the negroes and the creaking
of wagons fieldward bound, and Ellen's gentle insistent hand upon
her.

Then she discovered she was in her own room, on her own bed, faint
moonlight pricking the darkness, and Mammy and Dilcey were
undressing her. The torturing stays no longer pinched her waist
and she could breathe deeply and quietly to the bottom of her lungs
and her abdomen. She felt her stockings being stripped gently from
her and heard Mammy murmuring indistinguishable comforting sounds
as she bathed her blistered feet. How cool the water was, how good
to lie here in softness, like a child. She sighed and relaxed and
after a time which might have been a year or a second, she was
alone and the room was brighter as the rays of the moon streamed in
across the bed.

She did not know she was drunk, drunk with fatigue and whisky. She
only knew she had left her tired body and floated somewhere above
it where there was no pain and weariness and her brain saw things
with an inhuman clarity.

She was seeing things with new eyes for, somewhere along the long
road to Tara, she had left her girlhood behind her. She was no
longer plastic clay, yielding imprint to each new experience. The
clay had hardened, some time in this indeterminate day which had
lasted a thousand years. Tonight was the last time she would ever
be ministered to as a child. She was a woman now and youth was
gone.

No, she could not, would not, turn to Gerald's or Ellen's families.
The O'Haras did not take charity. The O'Haras looked after their
own. Her burdens were her own and burdens were for shoulders
strong enough to bear them. She thought without surprise, looking
down from her height, that her shoulders were strong enough to bear
anything now, having borne the worst that could ever happen to her.
She could not desert Tara; she belonged to the red acres far more
than they could ever belong to her. Her roots went deep into the
blood-colored soil and sucked up life, as did the cotton. She
would stay at Tara and keep it, somehow, keep her father and her
sisters, Melanie and Ashley's child, the negroes. Tomorrow--oh,
tomorrow! Tomorrow she would fit the yoke about her neck.
Tomorrow there would be so many things to do. Go to Twelve Oaks
and the MacIntosh place and see if anything was left in the
deserted gardens, go to the river swamps and beat them for straying
hogs and chickens, go to Jonesboro and Lovejoy with Ellen's
jewelry--there must be someone left there who would sell something
to eat. Tomorrow--tomorrow--her brain ticked slowly and more
slowly, like a clock running down, but the clarity of vision
persisted.

Of a sudden, the oft-told family tales to which she had listened
since babyhood, listened half-bored, impatient and but partly
comprehending, were crystal clear. Gerald, penniless, had raised
Tara; Ellen had risen above some mysterious sorrow; Grandfather
Robillard, surviving the wreck of Napoleon's throne, had founded
his fortunes anew on the fertile Georgia coast; Great-grandfather
Prudhomme had carved a small kingdom out of the dark jungles of
Haiti, lost it, and lived to see his name honored in Savannah.
There were the Scarletts who had fought with the Irish Volunteers
for a free Ireland and been hanged for their pains and the O'Haras
who died at the Boyne, battling to the end for what was theirs.

All had suffered crushing misfortunes and had not been crushed.
They had not been broken by the crash of empires, the machetes of
revolting slaves, war, rebellion, proscription, confiscation.
Malign fate had broken their necks, perhaps, but never their
hearts. They had not whined, they had fought. And when they died,
they died spent but unquenched. All of those shadowy folks whose
blood flowed in her veins seemed to move quietly in the moonlit
room. And Scarlett was not surprised to see them, these kinsmen
who had taken the worst that fate could send and hammered it into
the best. Tara was her fate, her fight, and she must conquer it.

She turned drowsily on her side, a slow creeping blackness
enveloping her mind. Were they really there, whispering wordless
encouragement to her, or was this part of her dream?

"Whether you are there or not," she murmured sleepily, "good night--
and thank you."



CHAPTER XXV


The next morning Scarlett's body was so stiff and sore from the
long miles of walking and jolting in the wagon that every movement
was agony. Her face was crimson with sunburn and her blistered
palms raw. Her tongue was furred and her throat parched as if
flames had scorched it and no amount of water could assuage her
thirst. Her head felt swollen and she winced even when she turned
her eyes. A queasiness of the stomach reminiscent of the early
days of her pregnancy made the smoking yams on the breakfast table
unendurable, even to the smell. Gerald could have told her she was
suffering the normal aftermath of her first experience with hard
drinking but Gerald noticed nothing. He sat at the head of the
table, a gray old man with absent, faded eyes fastened on the door
and head cocked slightly to hear the rustle of Ellen's petticoats,
to smell the lemon verbena sachet.

As Scarlett sat down, he mumbled: "We will wait for Mrs. O'Hara.
She is late." She raised an aching head, looked at him with
startled incredulity and met the pleading eyes of Mammy, who stood
behind Gerald's chair. She rose unsteadily, her hand at her throat
and looked down at her father in the morning sunlight. He peered
up at her vaguely and she saw that his hands were shaking, that his
head trembled a little.

Until this moment she had not realized how much she had counted on
Gerald to take command, to tell her what she must do, and now--
Why, last night he had seemed almost himself. There had been none
of his usual bluster and vitality, but at least he had told a
connected story and now--now, he did not even remember Ellen was
dead. The combined shock of the coming of the Yankees and her
death had stunned him. She started to speak, but Mammy shook her
head vehemently and raising her apron dabbed at her red eyes.

"Oh, can Pa have lost his mind?" thought Scarlett and her throbbing
head felt as if it would crack with this added strain. "No, no.
He's just dazed by it all. It's like he was sick. He'll get over
it. He must get over it. What will I do if he doesn't?--I won't
think about it now. I won't think of him or Mother or any of these
awful things now. No, not till I can stand it. There are too many
other things to think about--things that can be helped without my
thinking of those I can't help."

She left the dining room without eating, and went out onto the back
porch where she found Pork, barefooted and in the ragged remains of
his best livery, sitting on the steps cracking peanuts. Her head
was hammering and throbbing and the bright, sunlight stabbed into
her eyes. Merely holding herself erect required an effort of will
power and she talked as briefly as possible, dispensing with the
usual forms of courtesy her mother had always taught her to use
with negroes.

She began asking questions so brusquely and giving orders so
decisively Pork's eyebrows went up in mystification. Miss Ellen
didn't never talk so short to nobody, not even when she caught them
stealing pullets and watermelons. She asked again about the
fields, the gardens, the stock, and her green eyes had a hard
bright glaze which Pork had never seen in them before.

"Yas'm, dat hawse daid, lyin' dar whar Ah tie him wid his nose in
de water bucket he tuhned over. No'm, de cow ain' daid. Din' you
know? She done have a calf las' night. Dat why she beller so."

"A fine midwife your Prissy will make," Scarlett remarked
caustically. "She said she was bellowing because she needed
milking."

"Well'm, Prissy ain' fixin' ter be no cow midwife, Miss Scarlett,"
Pork said tactfully. "An' ain' no use quarrelin' wid blessin's,
'cause dat calf gwine ter mean a full cow an' plen'y buttermilk fer
de young Misses, lak dat Yankee doctah say dey' need."

"All right, go on. Any stock left?"

"No'm. Nuthin' 'cept one ole sow an' her litter. Ah driv dem
inter de swamp de day de Yankees come, but de Lawd knows how we
gwine git dem. She mean, dat sow."

"We'll get them all right. You and Prissy can start right now
hunting for her."

Pork was amazed and indignant.

"Miss Scarlett, dat a fe'el han's bizness. Ah's allus been a house
nigger."

A small fiend with a pair of hot tweezers plucked behind Scarlett's
eyeballs.

"You two will catch the sow--or get out of here, like the field
hands did."

Tears trembled in Pork's hurt eyes. Oh, if only Miss Ellen was
here! She understood such niceties and realized the wide gap
between the duties of a field hand and those of a house nigger.

"Git out, Miss Scarlett? Whar'd Ah git out to, Miss Scarlett?"

"I don't know and I don't care. But anyone at Tara who won't work
can go hunt up the Yankees. You can tell the others that too."

"Now, what about the corn and the cotton, Pork?"

"De cawn? Lawd, Miss Scarlett, dey pasture dey hawses in de cawn
an' cah'ied off whut de hawses din' eat or spile. An' dey driv dey
cannons an' waggins 'cross de cotton till it plum ruint, 'cept a
few acres over on de creek bottom dat dey din' notice. But dat
cotton ain' wuth foolin' wid, 'cause ain' but 'bout three bales
over dar."

Three bales. Scarlett thought of the scores of bales Tara usually
yielded and her head hurt worse. Three bales. That was little
more than the shiftless Slatterys raised. To make matters worse,
there was the question of taxes. The Confederate government took
cotton for taxes in lieu of money, but three bales wouldn't even
cover the taxes. Little did it matter though, to her or the
Confederacy, now that all the field hands had run away and there
was no one to pick the cotton.

"Well, I won't think of that either," she told herself. "Taxes
aren't a woman's job anyway. Pa ought to look after such things,
but Pa-- I won't think of Pa now. The Confederacy can whistle for
its taxes. What we need now is something to eat."

"Pork, have any of you been to Twelve Oaks or the MacIntosh place
to see if there's anything left in the gardens there?"

"No, Ma'm! Us ain' lef' Tara. De Yankees mout git us."

"I'll send Dilcey over to MacIntosh. Perhaps she'll find something
there. And I'll go to Twelve Oaks."

"Who wid, chile?"

"By myself. Mammy must stay with the girls and Mr. Gerald can't--"

Pork set up an outcry which she found infuriating. There might be
Yankees or mean niggers at Twelve Oaks. She mustn't go alone.

"That will be enough, Pork. Tell Dilcey to start immediately. And
you and Prissy go bring in the sow and her litter," she said
briefly, turning on her heel.

Mammy's old sunbonnet, faded but clean, hung on its peg on the back
porch and Scarlett put it on her head, remembering, as from another
world, the bonnet with the curling green plume which Rhett had
brought her from Paris. She picked up a large split-oak basket and
started down the back stairs, each step jouncing her head until her
spine seemed to be trying to crash through the top of her skull.

The road down to the river lay red and scorching between the ruined
cotton fields. There were no trees to cast a shade and the sun
beat down through Mammy's sunbonnet as if it were made of tarlatan
instead of heavy quilted calico, while the dust floating upward
sifted into her nose and throat until she felt the membranes would
crack dryly if she spoke. Deep ruts and furrows were cut into the
road where horses had dragged heavy guns along it and the red
gullies on either side were deeply gashed by the wheels. The
cotton was mangled and trampled where cavalry and infantry, forced
off the narrow road by the artillery, had marched through the green
bushes, grinding them into the earth. Here and there in the road
and fields lay buckles and bits of harness leather, canteens
flattened by hooves and caisson wheels, buttons, blue caps, worn
socks, bits of bloody rags, all the litter left by the marching
army.

She passed the clump of cedars and the low brick wall which marked
the family burying ground, trying not to think of the new grave
lying by the three short mounds of her little brothers. Oh, Ellen--
She trudged on down the dusty hill, passing the heap of ashes
and the stumpy chimney where the Slattery house had stood, and she
wished savagely that the whole tribe of them had been part of the
ashes. If it hadn't been for the Slatterys--if it hadn't been for
that nasty Emmie who'd had a bastard brat by their overseer--Ellen
wouldn't have died.

She moaned as a sharp pebble cut into her blistered foot. What was
she doing here? Why was Scarlett O'Hara, the belle of the County,
the sheltered pride of Tara, tramping down this rough road almost
barefoot? Her little feet were made to dance, not to limp, her
tiny slippers to peep daringly from under bright silks, not to
collect sharp pebbles and dust. She was born to be pampered and
waited upon, and here she was, sick and ragged, driven by hunger to
hunt for food in the gardens of her neighbors.

At the bottom of the long hill was the river and how cool and still
were the tangled trees overhanging the water! She sank down on the
low bank, and stripping off the remnants of her slippers and
stockings, dabbled her burning feet in the cool water. It would be
so good to sit here all day, away from the helpless eyes of Tara,
here where only the rustle of leaves and the gurgle of slow water
broke the stillness. But reluctantly she replaced her shoes and
stockings and trudged down the bank, spongy with moss, under the
shady trees. The Yankees had burned the bridge but she knew of a
footlog bridge across a narrow point of the stream a hundred yards
below. She crossed it cautiously and trudged uphill the hot half-
mile to Twelve Oaks.

There towered the twelve oaks, as they had stood since Indian days,
but with their leaves brown from fire and the branches burned and
scorched. Within their circle lay the ruins of John Wilkes' house,
the charred remains of that once stately home which had crowned the
hill in white-columned dignity. The deep pit which had been the
cellar, the blackened field-stone foundations and two mighty
chimneys marked the site. One long column, half-burned, had fallen
across the lawn, crushing the cape jessamine bushes.

Scarlett sat down on the column, too sick at the sight to go on.
This desolation went to her heart as nothing she had ever
experienced. Here was the Wilkes pride in the dust at her feet.
Here was the end of the kindly, courteous house which had always
welcomed her, the house where in futile dreams she had aspired to
be mistress. Here she had danced and dined and flirted and here
she had watched with a jealous, hurting heart how Melanie smiled up
at Ashley. Here, too, in the cool shadows of the trees, Charles
Hamilton had rapturously pressed her hand when she said she would
marry him.

"Oh, Ashley," she thought, "I hope you are dead! I could never
bear for you to see this."

Ashley had married his bride here but his son and his son's son
would never bring brides to this house. There would be no more
matings and births beneath this roof which she had so loved and
longed to rule. The house was dead and to Scarlett, it was as if
all the Wilkeses, too, were dead in its ashes.

"I won't think of it now. I can't stand it now. I'll think of it
later," she said aloud, turning her eyes away.

Seeking the garden, she limped around the ruins, by the trampled
rose beds the Wilkes girls had tended so zealously, across the back
yard and through the ashes to the smokehouse, barns and chicken
houses. The split-rail fence around the kitchen garden had been
demolished and the once orderly rows of green plants had suffered
the same treatment as those at Tara. The soft earth was scarred
with hoof prints and heavy wheels and the vegetables were mashed
into the soil. There was nothing for her here.

She walked back across the yard and took the path down toward the
silent row of whitewashed cabins in the quarters, calling "Hello!"
as she went. But no voice answered her. Not even a dog barked.
Evidently the Wilkes negroes had taken flight or followed the
Yankees. She knew every slave had his own garden patch and as she
reached the quarters, she hoped these little patches had been
spared.

Her search was rewarded but she was too tired even to feel pleasure
at the sight of turnips and cabbages, wilted for want of water but
still standing, and straggling butter beans and snap beans, yellow
but edible. She sat down in the furrows and dug into the earth
with hands that shook, filling her basket slowly. There would be a
good meal at Tara tonight, in spite of the lack of side meat to
boil with the vegetables. Perhaps some of the bacon grease Dilcey
was using for illumination could be used for seasoning. She must
remember to tell Dilcey to use pine knots and save the grease for
cooking.

Close to the back step of one cabin, she found a short row of
radishes and hunger assaulted her suddenly. A spicy, sharp-tasting
radish was exactly what her stomach craved. Hardly waiting to rub
the dirt off on her skirt, she bit off half and swallowed it
hastily. It was old and coarse and so peppery that tears started
in her eyes. No sooner had the lump gone down than her empty
outraged stomach revolted and she lay in the soft dirt and vomited
tiredly.

The faint niggery smell which crept from the cabin increased her
nausea and, without strength to combat it, she kept on retching
miserably while the cabins and trees revolved swiftly around her.

After a long time, she lay weakly on her face, the earth as soft
and comfortable as a feather pillow, and her mind wandered feebly
here and there. She, Scarlett O'Hara was lying behind a negro
cabin, in the midst of ruins, too sick and too weak to move, and no
one in the world knew or cared. No one would care if they did
know, for everyone had too many troubles of his own to worry about
her. And all this was happening to her, Scarlett O'Hara, who had
never raised her hand even to pick up her discarded stockings from
the floor or to tie the laces of her slippers--Scarlett, whose
little headaches and tempers had been coddled and catered to all
her life.

As she lay prostrate, too weak to fight off memories and worries,
they rushed at her like buzzards waiting for death. No longer had
she the strength to say: "I'll think of Mother and Pa and Ashley
and all this ruin later-- Yes, later when I can stand it." She
could not stand it now, but she was thinking of them whether she
willed it or not. The thoughts circled and swooped above her,
dived down and drove tearing claws and sharp beaks into her mind.
For a timeless time, she lay still, her face in the dirt, the sun
beating hotly upon her, remembering things and people who were
dead, remembering a way of living that was gone forever--and
looking upon the harsh vista of the dark future.

When she arose at last and saw again the black ruins of Twelve
Oaks, her head was raised high and something that was youth and
beauty and potential tenderness had gone out of her face forever.
What was past was past. Those who were dead were dead. The lazy
luxury of the old days was gone, never to return. And, as Scarlett
settled the heavy basket across her arm, she had settled her own
mind and her own life.

There was no going back and she was going forward.

Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed
women who looked backward, to dead times, to dead men, evoking
memories that hurt and were futile, bearing poverty with bitter
pride because they had those memories. But Scarlett was never to
look back.

She gazed at the blackened stones and, for the last time, she saw
Twelve Oaks rise before her eyes as it had once stood, rich and
proud, symbol of a race and a way of living. Then she started down
the road toward Tara, the heavy basket cutting into her flesh.

Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud: "As
God is my witness, as God is my witness, the Yankees aren't going
to lick me. I'm going to live through this, and when it's over,
I'm never going to be hungry again. No, nor any of my folks. If I
have to steal or kill--as God is my witness, I'm never going to be
hungry again."



In the days that followed, Tara might have been Crusoe's desert
island, so still it was, so isolated from the rest of the world.
The world lay only a few miles away, but a thousand miles of
tumbling waves might have stretched between Tara and Jonesboro and
Fayetteville and Lovejoy, even between Tara and the neighbors'
plantations. With the old horse dead, their one mode of conveyance
was gone, and there was neither time nor strength for walking the
weary red miles.

Sometimes, in the days of backbreaking work, in the desperate
struggle for food and the never-ceasing care of the three sick
girls, Scarlett found herself straining her ears for familiar
sounds--the shrill laughter of the pickaninnies in the quarters,
the creaking of wagons home from the fields, the thunder of
Gerald's stallion tearing across the pasture, the crunching of
carriage wheels on the drive and the gay voices of neighbors
dropping in for an afternoon of gossip. But she listened in vain.
The road lay still and deserted and never a cloud of red dust
proclaimed the approach of visitors. Tara was an island in a sea
of rolling green hills and red fields.

Somewhere was the world and families who ate and slept safely under
their own roofs. Somewhere girls in thrice-turned dresses were
flirting gaily and singing "When This Cruel War Is Over," as she
had done only a few weeks before. Somewhere there was a war and
cannon booming and burning towns and men who rotted in hospitals
amid sickening-sweet stinks. Somewhere a barefoot army in dirty
homespun was marching, fighting, sleeping, hungry and weary with
the weariness that comes when hope is gone. And somewhere the
hills of Georgia were blue with Yankees, well-fed Yankees on sleek
corn-stuffed horses.

Beyond Tara was the war and the world. But on the plantation the
war and the world did not exist except as memories which must be
fought back when they rushed to mind in moments of exhaustion. The
world outside receded before the demands of empty and half-empty
stomachs and life resolved itself into two related thoughts, food
and how to get it.

Food! Food! Why did the stomach have a longer memory than the
mind? Scarlett could banish heartbreak but not hunger and each
morning as she lay half asleep, before memory brought back to her
mind war and hunger, she curled drowsily expecting the sweet smells
of bacon frying and rolls baking. And each morning she sniffed so
hard to really smell the food she woke herself up.

There were apples, yams, peanuts and milk on the table at Tara but
never enough of even this primitive fare. At the sight of them,
three times a day, her memory would rush back to the old days, the
meals of the old days, the candle-lit table and the food perfuming
the air.

How careless they had been of food then, what prodigal waste!
Rolls, corn muffins, biscuits and waffles, dripping butter, all at
one meal. Ham at one end of the table and fried chicken at the
other, collards swimming richly in pot liquor iridescent with
grease, snap beans in mountains on brightly flowered porcelain,
fried squash, stewed okra, carrots in cream sauce thick enough to
cut. And three desserts, so everyone might have his choice,
chocolate layer cake, vanilla blanc mange and pound cake topped
with sweet whipped cream. The memory of those savory meals had the
power to bring tears to her eyes as death and war had failed to do,
and the power to turn her ever-gnawing stomach from rumbling
emptiness to nausea. For the appetite Mammy had always deplored,
the healthy appetite of a nineteen-year-old girl, now was increased
fourfold by the hard and unremitting labor she had never known
before.

Hers was not the only troublesome appetite at Tara, for wherever
she turned hungry faces, black and white, met her eyes. Soon
Carreen and Suellen would have the insatiable hunger of typhoid
convalescents. Already little Wade whined monotonously: "Wade
doan like yams. Wade hungwy."

The others grumbled, too:

"Miss Scarlett, 'ness I gits mo' to eat, I kain nuss neither of
these chillun."

"Miss Scarlett, ef Ah doan have mo' in mah stummick, Ah kain split
no wood."

"Lamb, Ah's perishin' fer real vittles."

"Daughter, must we always have yams?"

Only Melanie did not complain, Melanie whose face grew thinner and
whiter and twitched with pain even in her sleep.

"I'm not hungry, Scarlett. Give my share of the milk to Dilcey.
She needs it to nurse the babies. Sick people are never hungry."

It was her gentle hardihood which irritated Scarlett more than the
nagging whining voices of the others. She could--and did--shout
them down with bitter sarcasm but before Melanie's unselfishness
she was helpless, helpless and resentful. Gerald, the negroes and
Wade clung to Melanie now, because even in her weakness she was
kind and sympathetic, and these days Scarlett was neither.

Wade especially haunted Melanie's room. There was something wrong
with Wade, but just what it was Scarlett had no time to discover.
She took Mammy's word that the little boy had worms and dosed him
with the mixture of dried herbs and bark which Ellen always used to
worm the pickaninnies. But the vermifuge only made the child look
paler. These days Scarlett hardly thought of Wade as a person. He
was only another worry, another mouth to feed. Some day when the
present emergency was over, she would play with him, tell him
stories and teach him his A B C's but now she did not have the time
or the soul or the inclination. And, because he always seemed
underfoot when she was most weary and worried, she often spoke
sharply to him.

It annoyed her that her quick reprimands brought such acute fright
to his round eyes, for he looked so simple minded when he was
frightened. She did not realize that the little boy lived shoulder
to shoulder with terror too great for an adult to comprehend. Fear
lived with Wade, fear that shook his soul and made him wake
screaming in the night. Any unexpected noise or sharp word set him
to trembling, for in his mind noises and harsh words were
inextricably mixed with Yankees and he was more afraid of Yankees
than of Prissy's hants.

Until the thunders of the siege began, he had never known anything
but a happy, placid, quiet life. Even though his mother paid him
little attention, he had known nothing but petting and kind words
until the night when he was jerked from slumber to find the sky
aflame and the air deafening with explosions. In that night and
the day which followed, he had been slapped by his mother for the
first time and had heard her voice raised at him in harsh words.
Life in the pleasant brick house on Peachtree Street, the only life
he knew, had vanished that night and he would never recover from
its loss. In the flight from Atlanta, he had understood nothing
except that the Yankees were after him and now he still lived in
fear that the Yankees would catch him and cut him to pieces.
Whenever Scarlett raised her voice in reproof, he went weak with
fright as his vague childish memory brought up the horrors of the
first time she had ever done it. Now, Yankees and a cross voice
were linked forever in his mind and he was afraid of his mother.

Scarlett could not help noticing that the child was beginning to
avoid her and, in the rare moments when her unending duties gave
her time to think about it, it bothered her a great deal. It was
even worse than having him at her skirts all the time and she was
offended that his refuge was Melanie's bed where he played quietly
at games Melanie suggested or listened to stories she told. Wade
adored "Auntee" who had a gentle voice, who always smiled and who
never said: "Hush, Wade! You give me a headache" or "Stop
fidgeting, Wade, for Heaven's sake!"

Scarlett had neither the time nor the impulse to pet him but it
made her jealous to see Melanie do it. When she found him one day
standing on his head in Melanie's bed and saw him collapse on her,
she slapped him.

"Don't you know better than to jiggle Auntee like that when she's
sick? Now, trot right out in the yard and play, and don't come in
here again."

But Melanie reached out a weak arm and drew the wailing child to
her.

"There, there, Wade. You didn't mean to jiggle me, did you? He
doesn't bother me, Scarlett. Do let him stay with me. Let me take
care of him. It's the only thing I can do till I get well, and
you've got your hands full enough without having to watch him."

"Don't be a goose, Melly," said Scarlett shortly. "You aren't
getting well like you should and having Wade fall on your stomach
won't help you. Now, Wade, if I ever catch you on Auntee's bed
again, I'll wear you out. And stop sniffling. You are always
sniffling. Try to be a little man."

Wade flew sobbing to hide himself under the house. Melanie bit her
lip and tears came to her eyes, and Mammy standing in the hall, a
witness to the scene, scowled and breathed hard. But no one talked
back to Scarlett these days. They were all afraid of her sharp
tongue, all afraid of the new person who walked in her body.

Scarlett reigned supreme at Tara now and, like others suddenly
elevated to authority, all the bullying instincts in her nature
rose to the surface. It was not that she was basically unkind. It
was because she was so frightened and unsure of herself she was
harsh lest others learn her inadequacies and refuse her authority.
Besides, there was some pleasure in shouting at people and knowing
they were afraid. Scarlett found that it relieved her overwrought
nerves. She was not blind to the fact that her personality was
changing. Sometimes when her curt orders made Pork stick out his
under lip and Mammy mutter: "Some folks rides mighty high dese
days," she wondered where her good manners had gone. All the
courtesy, all the gentleness Ellen had striven to instill in her
had fallen away from her as quickly as leaves fall from trees in
the first chill wind of autumn.

Time and again, Ellen had said: "Be firm but be gentle with
inferiors, especially darkies." But if she was gentle the darkies
would sit in the kitchen all day, talking endlessly about the good
old days when a house nigger wasn't supposed to do a field hand's
work.

"Love and cherish your sisters. Be kind to the afflicted," said
Ellen. "Show tenderness to those in sorrow and in trouble."

She couldn't love her sisters now. They were simply a dead weight
on her shoulders. And as for cherishing them, wasn't she bathing
them, combing their hair and feeding them, even at the expense of
walking miles every day to find vegetables? Wasn't she learning to
milk the cow, even though her heart was always in her throat when
that fearsome animal shook its horns at her? And as for being
kind, that was a waste of time. If she was overly kind to them,
they'd probably prolong their stay in bed, and she wanted them on
their feet again as soon as possible, so there would be four more
hands to help her.

They were convalescing slowly and lay scrawny and weak in their
bed. While they had been unconscious, the world had changed. The
Yankees had come, the darkies had gone and Mother had died. Here
were three unbelievable happenings and their minds could not take
them in. Sometimes they believed they must still be delirious and
these things had not happened at all. Certainly Scarlett was so
changed she couldn't be real. When she hung over the foot of their
bed and outlined the work she expected them to do when they
recovered, they looked at her as if she were a hobgoblin. It was
beyond their comprehension that they no longer had a hundred slaves
to do the work. It was beyond their comprehension that an O'Hara
lady should do manual labor.

"But, Sister," said Carreen, her sweet childish face blank with
consternation. "I couldn't split kindling! It would ruin my
hands!"

"Look at mine," answered Scarlett with a frightening smile as she
pushed blistered and calloused palms toward her.

"I think you are hateful to talk to Baby and me like this!" cried
Suellen. "I think you are lying and trying to frighten us. If
Mother were only here, she wouldn't let you talk to us like this!
Split kindling, indeed!"

Suellen looked with weak loathing at her older sister, feeling sure
Scarlett said these things just to be mean. Suellen had nearly
died and she had lost her mother and she was lonely and scared and
she wanted to be petted and made much of. Instead, Scarlett looked
over the foot of the bed each day, appraising their improvement
with a hateful new gleam in her slanting green eyes and talked
about making beds, preparing food, carrying water buckets and
splitting kindling. And she looked as if she took a pleasure in
saying such awful things.

Scarlett did take pleasure in it. She bullied the negroes and
harrowed the feelings of her sisters not only because she was too
worried and strained and tired to do otherwise but because it
helped her to forget her own bitterness that everything her mother
had told her about life was wrong.

Nothing her mother had taught her was of any value whatsoever now
and Scarlett's heart was sore and puzzled. It did not occur to her
that Ellen could not have foreseen the collapse of the civilization
in which she raised her daughters, could not have anticipated the
disappearings of the places in society for which she trained them
so well. It did not occur to her that Ellen had looked down a
vista of placid future years, all like the uneventful years of her
own life, when she had taught her to be gentle and gracious,
honorable and kind, modest and truthful. Life treated women well
when they had learned those lessons, said Ellen.

Scarlett thought in despair: "Nothing, no, nothing, she taught me
is of any help to me! What good will kindness do me now? What
value is gentleness? Better that I'd learned to plow or chop
cotton like a darky. Oh, Mother, you were wrong!"

She did not stop to think that Ellen's ordered world was gone and a
brutal world had taken its place, a world wherein every standard,
every value had changed. She only saw, or thought she saw, that
her mother had been wrong, and she changed swiftly to meet this new
world for which she was not prepared.

Only her feeling for Tara had not changed. She never came wearily
home across the fields and saw the sprawling white house that her
heart did not swell with love and the joy of homecoming. She never
looked out of her window at green pastures and red fields and tall
tangled swamp forest that a sense of beauty did not fill her. Her
love for this land with its softly rolling hills of bright-red
soil, this beautiful red earth that was blood colored, garnet,
brick dust, vermilion, which so miraculously grew green bushes
starred with white puffs, was one part of Scarlett which did not
change when all else was changing. Nowhere else in the world was
there land like this.

When she looked at Tara she could understand, in part, why wars
were fought. Rhett was wrong when he said men fought wars for
money. No, they fought for swelling acres, softly furrowed by the
plow, for pastures green with stubby cropped grass, for lazy yellow
rivers and white houses that were cool amid magnolias. These were
the only things worth fighting for, the red earth which was theirs
and would be their sons', the red earth which would bear cotton for
their sons and their sons' sons.

The trampled acres of Tara were all that was left to her, now that
Mother and Ashley were gone, now that Gerald was senile from shock,
and money and darkies and security and position had vanished
overnight. As from another world she remembered a conversation
with her father about the land and wondered how she could have been
so young, so ignorant, as not to understand what he meant when he
said that the land was the one thing in the world worth fighting
for.

"For 'tis the only thing in the world that lasts . . . and to
anyone with a drop of Irish blood in them the land they live on is
like their mother. . . . 'Tis the only thing worth working for,
fighting for, dying for."

Yes, Tara was worth fighting for, and she accepted simply and
without question the fight. No one was going to get Tara away from
her. No one was going to set her and her people adrift on the
charity of relatives. She would hold Tara, if she had to break the
back of every person on it.



CHAPTER XXVI


Scarlett had been at Tara two weeks since her return from Atlanta
when the largest blister on her foot began to fester, swelling
until it was impossible for her to put on her shoe or do more than
hobble about on her heel. Desperation plucked at her when she
looked at the angry sore on her toe. Suppose it should gangrene
like the soldiers' wounds and she should die, far away from a
doctor? Bitter as life was now, she had no desire to leave it.
And who would look after Tara if she should die?

She had hoped when she first came home that Gerald's old spirit
would revive and he would take command, but in these two weeks that
hope had vanished. She knew now that, whether she liked it or not,
she had the plantation and all its people on her two inexperienced
hands, for Gerald still sat quietly, like a man in a dream, so
frighteningly absent from Tara, so gentle. To her pleas for advice
he gave as his only answer: "Do what you think best, Daughter."
Or worse still, "Consult with your mother, Puss."

He never would be any different and now Scarlett realized the truth
and accepted it without emotion--that until he died Gerald would
always be waiting for Ellen, always listening for her. He was in
some dim borderline country where time was standing still and Ellen
was always in the next room. The mainspring of his existence was
taken away when she died and with it had gone his bounding
assurance, his impudence and his restless vitality. Ellen was the
audience before which the blustering drama of Gerald O'Hara had
been played. Now the curtain had been rung down forever, the
footlights dimmed and the audience suddenly vanished, while the
stunned old actor remained on his empty stage, waiting for his
cues.

That morning the house was still, for everyone except Scarlett,
Wade and the three sick girls was in the swamp hunting the sow.
Even Gerald had aroused a little and stumped off across the
furrowed fields, one hand on Pork's arm and a coil of rope in the
other. Suellen and Careen had cried themselves to sleep, as they
did at least twice a day when they thought of Ellen, tears of grief
and weakness oozing down their sunken cheeks. Melanie, who had
been propped up on pillows for the first time that day, lay covered
with a mended sheet between two babies, the downy flaxen head of
one cuddled in her arm, the kinky black head of Dilcey's child held
as gently in the other. Wade sat at the bottom of the bed,
listening to a fairy story.

To Scarlett, the stillness at Tara was unbearable, for it reminded
her too sharply of the deathlike stillness of the desolate country
through which she had passed that long day on her way home from
Atlanta. The cow and the calf had made no sound for hours. There
were no birds twittering outside her window and even the noisy
family of mockers who had lived among the harshly rustling leaves
of the magnolia for generations had no song that day. She had
drawn a low chair close to the open window of her bedroom, looking
out on the front drive, the lawn and the empty green pasture across
the road, and she sat with her skirts well above her knees and her
chin resting on her arms on the window sill. There was a bucket of
well water on the floor beside her and every now and then she
lowered her blistered foot into it, screwing up her face at the
stinging sensation.

Fretting, she dug her chin into her arm. Just when she needed her
strength most, this toe had to fester. Those fools would never
catch the sow. It had taken them a week to capture the pigs, one
by one, and now after two weeks the sow was still at liberty.
Scarlett knew that if she were just there in the swamp with them,
she could tuck up her dress to her knees and take the rope and
lasso the sow before you could say Jack Robinson.

But even after the sow was caught--if she were caught? What then,
after she and her litter were eaten? Life would go on and so would
appetites. Winter was coming and there would be no food, not even
the poor remnants of the vegetables from the neighbors' gardens.
They must have dried peas and sorghum and meal and rice and--and--
oh, so many things. Corn and cotton seed for next spring's
planting, and new clothes too. Where was it all to come from and
how would she pay for it?

She had privately gone through Gerald's pockets and his cash box
and all she could find was stacks of Confederate bonds and three
thousand dollars in Confederate bills. That was about enough to
buy one square meal for them all, she thought ironically, now that
Confederate money was worth almost less than nothing at all. But
if she did have money and could find food, how would she haul it
home to Tara? Why had God let the old horse die? Even that sorry
animal Rhett had stolen would make all the difference in the world
to them. Oh, those fine sleek mules which used to kick up their
heels in the pasture across the road, and the handsome carriage
horses, her little mare, the girls' ponies and Gerald's big
stallion racing about and tearing up the turf-- Oh, for one of
them, even the balkiest mule!

But, no matter--when her foot healed she would walk to Jonesboro.
It would be the longest walk she had ever taken in her life, but
walk it she would. Even if the Yankees had burned the town
completely, she would certainly find someone in the neighborhood
who could tell her where to get food. Wade's pinched face rose up
before her eyes. He didn't like yams, he repeated; wanted a
drumstick and some rice and gravy.

The bright sunlight in the front yard suddenly clouded and the
trees blurred through tears. Scarlett dropped her head on her arms
and struggled not to cry. Crying was so useless now. The only
time crying ever did any good was when there was a man around from
whom you wished favors. As she crouched there, squeezing her eyes
tightly to keep back the tears, she was startled by the sound of
trotting hooves. But she did not raise her head. She had imagined
that sound too often in the nights and days of these last two
weeks, just as she had imagined she heard the rustle of Ellen's
skirts. Her heart hammered, as it always did at such moments,
before she told herself sternly: "Don't be a fool."

But the hooves slowed down in a startlingly natural way to the
rhythm of a walk and there was the measured scrunch-scrunch on the
gravel. It was a horse--the Tarletons, the Fontaines! She looked
up quickly. It was a Yankee cavalryman.

Automatically, she dodged behind the curtain and peered fascinated
at him through the dim folds of the cloth, so startled that the
breath went out of her lungs with a gasp.

He sat slouched in the saddle, a thick, rough-looking man with an
unkempt black beard straggling over his unbuttoned blue jacket.
Little close-set eyes, squinting in the sun glare, calmly surveyed
the house from beneath the visor of his tight blue cap. As he
slowly dismounted and tossed the bridle reins over the hitching
post, Scarlett's breath came back to her as suddenly and painfully
as after a blow in the stomach. A Yankee, a Yankee with a long
pistol on his hip! And she was alone in the house with three sick
girls and the babies!

As he lounged up the walk, hand on holster, beady little eyes
glancing to right and left, a kaleidoscope of jumbled pictures spun
in her mind, stories Aunt Pittypat had whispered of attacks on
unprotected women, throat cuttings, houses burned over the heads of
dying women, children bayoneted because they cried, all of the
unspeakable horrors that lay bound up in the name of "Yankee."

Her first terrified impulse was to hide in the closet, crawl under
the bed, fly down the back stairs and run screaming to the swamp,
anything to escape him. Then she heard his cautious feet on the
front steps and his stealthy tread as he entered the hall and she
knew that escape was cut off. Too cold with fear to move, she
heard his progress from room to room downstairs, his steps growing
louder and bolder as he discovered no one. Now he was in the
dining room and in a moment he would walk out into the kitchen.

At the thought of the kitchen, rage suddenly leaped up in
Scarlett's breast, so sharply that it jabbed at her heart like a
knife thrust, and fear fell away before her overpowering fury. The
kitchen! There, over the open kitchen fire were two pots, one
filled with apples stewing and the other with a hodgepodge of
vegetables brought painfully from Twelve Oaks and the MacIntosh
garden--dinner that must serve for nine hungry people and hardly
enough for two. Scarlett had been restraining her appetite for
hours, waiting for the return of the others and the thought of the
Yankee eating their meager meal made her shake with anger.

God damn them all! They descended like locusts and left Tara to
starve slowly and now they were back again to steal the poor
leavings. Her empty stomach writhed within her. By God, this was
one Yankee who would do no more stealing!

She slipped off her worn shoe and, barefooted, she pattered swiftly
to the bureau, not even feeling her festered toe. She opened the
top drawer soundlessly and caught up the heavy pistol she had
brought from Atlanta, the weapon Charles had worn but never fired.
She fumbled in the leather box that hung on the wall below his
saber and brought out a cap. She slipped it into place with a hand
that did not shake. Quickly and noiselessly, she ran into the
upper hall and down the stairs, steadying herself on the banisters
with one hand and holding the pistol close to her thigh in the
folds of her skirt.

"Who's there?" cried a nasal voice and she stopped on the middle of
the stairs, the blood thudding in her ears so loudly she could
hardly hear him. "Halt or I'll shoot!" came the voice.

He stood in the door of the dining room, crouched tensely, his
pistol in one hand and, in the other, the small rosewood sewing box
fitted with gold thimble, gold-handled scissors and tiny gold-
topped acorn of emery. Scarlett's legs felt cold to the knees but
rage scorched her face. Ellen's sewing box in his hands. She
wanted to cry: "Put it down! Put it down, you dirty--" but words
would not come. She could only stare over the banisters at him and
watch his face change from harsh tenseness to a half-contemptuous,
half-ingratiating smile.

"So there is somebody ter home," he said, slipping his pistol back
into its holster and moving into the hall until he stood directly
below her. "All alone, little lady?"

Like lightning, she shoved her weapon over the banisters and into
the startled bearded face. Before he could even fumble at his
belt, she pulled the trigger. The back kick of the pistol made her
reel, as the roar of the explosion filled her ears and the acrid
smoke stung her nostrils. The man crashed backwards to the floor,
sprawling into the dining room with a violence that shook the
furniture. The box clattered from his hand, the contents spilling
about him. Hardly aware that she was moving, Scarlett ran down the
stairs and stood over him, gazing down into what was left of the
face above the beard, a bloody pit where the nose had been, glazing
eyes burned with powder. As she looked, two streams of blood crept
across the shining floor, one from his face and one from the back
of his head.

Yes, he was dead. Undoubtedly. She had killed a man.

The smoke curled slowly to the ceiling and the red streams widened
about her feet. For a timeless moment she stood there and in the
still hot hush of the summer morning every irrelevant sound and
scent seemed magnified, the quick thudding of her heart, like a
drumbeat, the slight rough rustling of the magnolia leaves, the
far-off plaintive sound of a swamp bird and the sweet smell of the
flowers outside the window.

She had killed a man, she who took care never to be in at the kill
on a hunt, she who could not bear the squealing of a hog at
slaughter or the squeak of a rabbit in a snare. Murder! she
thought dully. I've done murder. Oh, this can't be happening to
me! Her eyes went to the stubby hairy hand on the floor so close
to the sewing box and suddenly she was vitally alive again, vitally
glad with a cool tigerish joy. She could have ground her heel into
the gaping wound which had been his nose and taken sweet pleasure
in the feel of his warm blood on her bare feet. She had struck a
blow of revenge for Tara--and for Ellen.

There were hurried stumbling steps in the upper hall, a pause and
then more steps, weak dragging steps now, punctuated by metallic
clankings. A sense of time and reality coming back to her,
Scarlett looked up and saw Melanie at the top of the stairs, clad
only in the ragged chemise which served her as a nightgown, her
weak arm weighed down with Charles' saber. Melanie's eyes took in
the scene below in its entirety, the sprawling blue-clad body in
the red pool, the sewing box beside him, Scarlett, barefooted and
gray-faced, clutching the long pistol.

In silence her eyes met Scarlett's. There was a glow of grim pride
in her usually gentle face, approbation and a fierce joy in her
smile that equaled the fiery tumult in Scarlett's own bosom.

"Why--why--she's like me! She understands how I feel!" thought
Scarlett in that long moment. "She'd have done the same thing!"

With a thrill she looked up at the frail swaying girl for whom she
had never had any feelings but of dislike and contempt. Now,
struggling against hatred for Ashley's wife, there surged a feeling
of admiration and comradeship. She saw in a flash of clarity
untouched by any petty emotion that beneath the gentle voice and
the dovelike eyes of Melanie there was a thin flashing blade of
unbreakable steel, felt too that there were banners and bugles of
courage in Melanie's quiet blood.

"Scarlett! Scarlett!" shrilled the weak frightened voices of
Suellen and Carreen, muffled by their closed door, and Wade's voice
screamed "Auntee! Auntee!" Swiftly Melanie put her finger to her
lips and, laying the sword on the top step, she painfully made her
way down the upstairs hall and opened the door of the sick room.

"Don't be scared, chickens!" came her voice with teasing gaiety.
"Your big sister was trying to clean the rust off Charles' pistol
and it went off and nearly scared her to death!" . . . "Now, Wade
Hampton, Mama just shot off your dear Papa's pistol! When you are
bigger, she will let you shoot it."

"What a cool liar!" thought Scarlett with admiration. "I couldn't
have thought that quickly. But why lie? They've got to know I've
done it."

She looked down at the body again and now revulsion came over her
as her rage and fright melted away, and her knees began to quiver
with the reaction. Melanie dragged herself to the top step again
and started down, holding onto the banisters, her pale lower lip
caught between her teeth.

"Go back to bed, silly, you'll kill yourself!" Scarlett cried, but
the half-naked Melanie made her painful way down into the lower
hall.

"Scarlett," she whispered, "we must get him out of here and bury
him. He may not be alone and if they find him here--" She
steadied herself on Scarlett's arm.

"He must be alone," said Scarlett. "I didn't see anyone else from
the upstairs window. He must be a deserter."

"Even if he is alone, no one must know about it. The negroes might
talk and then they'd come and get you. Scarlett, we must get him
hidden before the folks come back from the swamp."

Her mind prodded to action by the feverish urgency of Melanie's
voice, Scarlett thought hard.

"I could bury him in the corner of the garden under the arbor--the
ground is soft there where Pork dug up the whisky barrel. But how
will I get him there?"

"We'll both take a leg and drag him," said Melanie firmly.

Reluctantly, Scarlett's admiration went still higher.

"You couldn't drag a cat. I'll drag him," she said roughly. "You
go back to bed. You'll kill yourself. Don't dare try to help me
either or I'll carry you upstairs myself."

Melanie's white face broke into a sweet understanding smile. "You
are very dear, Scarlett," she said and softly brushed her lips
against Scarlett's cheek. Before Scarlett could recover from her
surprise, Melanie went on: "If you can drag him out, I'll mop up
the--the mess before the folks get home, and Scarlett--"

"Yes?"

"Do you suppose it would be dishonest to go through his knapsack?
He might have something to eat."

"I do not," said Scarlett, annoyed that she had not thought of this
herself. "You take the knapsack and I'll go through his pockets."

Stooping over the dead man with distaste, she unbuttoned the
remaining buttons of his jacket and systematically began rifling
his pockets.

"Dear God," she whispered, pulling out a bulging wallet, wrapped
about with a rag. "Melanie--Melly, I think it's full of money!"

Melanie said nothing but abruptly sat down on the floor and leaned
back against the wall.

"You look," she said shakily. "I'm feeling a little weak."

Scarlett tore off the rag and with trembling hands opened the
leather folds.

"Look, Melly--just look!"

Melanie looked and her eyes dilated. Jumbled together was a mass
of bills, United States greenbacks mingling with Confederate money
and, glinting from between them, were one ten-dollar gold piece and
two five-dollar gold pieces.

"Don't stop to count it now," said Melanie as Scarlett began
fingering the bills. "We haven't time--"

"Do you realize, Melanie, that this money means that we'll eat?"

"Yes, yes, dear. I know but we haven't time now. You look in his
other pockets and I'll take the knapsack."

Scarlett was loath to put down the wallet. Bright vistas opened
before her--real money, the Yankee's horse, food! There was a God
after all, and He did provide, even if He did take very odd ways of
providing. She sat on her haunches and stared at the wallet
smiling. Food! Melanie plucked it from her hands--

"Hurry!" she said.

The trouser pockets yielded nothing except a candle end, a
jackknife, a plug of tobacco and a bit of twine. Melanie removed
from the knapsack a small package of coffee which she sniffed as if
it were the sweetest of perfumes, hardtack and, her face changing,
a miniature of a little girl in a gold frame set with seed pearls,
a garnet brooch, two broad gold bracelets with tiny dangling gold
chains, a gold thimble, a small silver baby's cup, gold embroidery
scissors, a diamond solitaire ring and a pair of earrings with
pendant pear-shaped diamonds, which even their unpracticed eyes
could tell were well over a carat each.

"A thief!" whispered Melanie, recoiling from the still body.
"Scarlett, he must have stolen all of this!"

"Of course," said Scarlett. "And he came here hoping to steal more
from us."

"I'm glad you killed him," said Melanie her gentle eyes hard. "Now
hurry, darling, and get him out of here."

Scarlett bent over, caught the dead man by his boots and tugged.
How heavy he was and how weak she suddenly felt. Suppose she
shouldn't be able to move him? Turning so that she backed the
corpse, she caught a heavy boot under each arm and threw her weight
forward. He moved and she jerked again. Her sore foot, forgotten
in the excitement, now gave a tremendous throb that made her grit
her teeth and shift her weight to the heel. Tugging and straining,
perspiration dripping from her forehead, she dragged him down the
hall, a red stain following her path.

"If he bleeds across the yard, we can't hide it," she gasped.
"Give me your shimmy, Melanie, and I'll wad it around his head."

Melanie's white face went crimson.

"Don't be silly, I won't look at you," said Scarlett. "If I had on
a petticoat or pantalets I'd use them."

Crouching back against the wall, Melanie pulled the ragged linen
garment over her head and silently tossed it to Scarlett, shielding
herself as best she could with her arms.

"Thank God, I'm not that modest," thought Scarlett, feeling rather
than seeing Melanie's agony of embarrassment, as she wrapped the
ragged cloth about the shattered face.

By a series of limping jerks, she pulled the body down the hall
toward the back porch and, pausing to wipe her forehead with the
back of her hand, glanced back toward Melanie, sitting against the
wall hugging her thin knees to her bare breasts. How silly of
Melanie to be bothering about modesty at a time like this, Scarlett
thought irritably. It was just part of her nicey-nice way of
acting which had always made Scarlett despise her. Then shame rose
in her. After all--after all, Melanie had dragged herself from bed
so soon after having a baby and had come to her aid with a weapon
too heavy even for her to lift. That had taken courage, the kind
of courage Scarlett honestly knew she herself did not possess, the
thin-steel, spun-silk courage which had characterized Melanie on
the terrible night Atlanta fell and on the long trip home. It was
the same intangible, unspectacular courage that all the Wilkeses
possessed, a quality which Scarlett did not understand but to which
she gave grudging tribute.

"Go back to bed," she threw over her shoulder. "You'll be dead if
you don't. I'll clean up the mess after I've buried him."

"I'll do it with one of the rag rugs," whispered Melanie, looking
at the pool of blood with a sick face.

"Well, kill yourself then and see if I care! And if any of the
folks come back before I'm finished, keep them in the house and
tell them the horse just walked in from nowhere."

Melanie sat shivering in the morning sunlight and covered her ears
against the sickening series of thuds as the dead man's head bumped
down the porch steps.

No one questioned whence the horse had come. It was so obvious he
was a stray from the recent battle and they were well pleased to
have him. The Yankee lay in the shallow pit Scarlett had scraped
out under the scuppernong arbor. The uprights which held the thick
vines were rotten and that night Scarlett hacked at them with the
kitchen knife until they fell and the tangled mass ran wild over
the grave. The replacing of these posts was one bit of repair work
Scarlett did not suggest and, if the negroes knew why, they kept
their silence.

No ghost rose from that shallow grave to haunt her in the long
nights when she lay awake, too tired to sleep. No feeling of
horror or remorse assailed her at the memory. She wondered why,
knowing that even a month before she could never have done the
deed. Pretty young Mrs. Hamilton, with her dimple and her jingling
earbobs and her helpless little ways, blowing a man's face to a
pulp and then burying him in a hastily scratched-out hole!
Scarlett grinned a little grimly thinking of the consternation such
an idea would bring to those who knew her.

"I won't think about it any more," she decided. "It's over and
done with and I'd have been a ninny not to kill him. I reckon--I
reckon I must have changed a little since coming home or else I
couldn't have done it."

She did not think of it consciously but in the back of her mind,
whenever she was confronted by an unpleasant and difficult task,
the idea lurked giving her strength: "I've done murder and so I
can surely do this."

She had changed more than she knew and the shell of hardness which
had begun to form about her heart when she lay in the slave garden
at Twelve Oaks was slowly thickening.



Now that she had a horse, Scarlett could find out for herself what
had happened to their neighbors. Since she came home she had
wondered despairingly a thousand times: "Are we the only folks
left in the County? Has everybody else been burned out? Have they
all refugeed to Macon?" With the memory of the ruins of Twelve
Oaks, the MacIntosh place and the Slattery shack fresh in her mind,
she almost dreaded to discover the truth. But it was better to
know the worst than to wonder. She decided to ride to the
Fontaines' first, not because they were the nearest neighbors but
because old Dr. Fontaine might be there. Melanie needed a doctor.
She was not recovering as she should and Scarlett was frightened by
her white weakness.

So on the first day when her foot had healed enough to stand a
slipper, she mounted the Yankee's horse. One foot in the shortened
stirrup and the other leg crooked about the pommel in an
approximation of a side saddle, she set out across the fields
toward Mimosa, steeling herself to find it burned.

To her surprise and pleasure, she saw the faded yellow-stucco house
standing amid the mimosa trees, looking as it had always looked.
Warm happiness, happiness that almost brought tears, flooded her
when the three Fontaine women came out of the house to welcome her
with kisses and cries of joy.

But when the first exclamations of affectionate greeting were over
and they all had trooped into the dining room to sit down, Scarlett
felt a chill. The Yankees had not reached Mimosa because it was
far off the main road. And so the Fontaines still had their stock
and their provisions, but Mimosa was held by the same strange
silence that hung over Tara, over the whole countryside. All the
slaves except four women house servants had run away, frightened by
the approach of the Yankees. There was not a man on the place
unless Sally's little boy, Joe, hardly out of diapers, could be
counted as a man. Alone in the big house were Grandma Fontaine, in
her seventies, her daughter-in-law who would always be known as
Young Miss, though she was in her fifties, and Sally, who had
barely turned twenty. They were far away from neighbors and
unprotected, but if they were afraid it did not show on their
faces. Probably, thought Scarlett, because Sally and Young Miss
were too afraid of the porcelain-frail but indomitable old Grandma
to dare voice any qualms. Scarlett herself was afraid of the old
lady, for she had sharp eyes and a sharper tongue and Scarlett had
felt them both in the past.

Though unrelated by blood and far apart in age, there was a kinship
of spirit and experience binding these women together. All three
wore home-dyed mourning, all were worn, sad, worried, all bitter
with a bitterness that did not sulk or complain but, nevertheless,
peered out from behind their smiles and their words of welcome.
For their slaves were gone, their money was worthless, Sally's
husband, Joe, had died at Gettysburg and Young Miss was also a
widow, for young Dr. Fontaine had died of dysentery at Vicksburg.
The other two boys, Alex and Tony, were somewhere in Virginia and
nobody knew whether they were alive or dead; and old Dr. Fontaine
was off somewhere with Wheeler's cavalry.

"And the old fool is seventy-three years old though he tries to act
younger and he's as full of rheumatism as a hog is of fleas," said
Grandma, proud of her husband, the light in her eyes belying her
sharp words.

"Have you all had any news of what's been happening in Atlanta?"
asked Scarlett when they were comfortably settled. "We're
completely buried at Tara."

"Law, child," said Old Miss, taking charge of the conversation, as
was her habit, "we're in the same fix as you are. We don't know a
thing except that Sherman finally got the town."

"So he did get it. What's he doing now? Where's the fighting
now?"

"And how would three lone women out here in the country know about
the war when we haven't seen a letter or a newspaper m weeks?" said
the old lady tartly. "One of our darkies talked to a darky who'd
seen a darky who'd been to Jonesboro, and except for that we
haven't heard anything. What they said was that the Yankees were
just squatting in Atlanta resting up their men and their horses,
but whether it's true or not you're as good a judge as I am. Not
that they wouldn't need a rest, after the fight we gave them."

"To think you've been at Tara all this time and we didn't know!"
Young Miss broke in. "Oh, how I blame myself for not riding over
to see! But there's been so much to do here with most all the
darkies gone that I just couldn't get away. But I should have made
time to go. It wasn't neighborly of me. But, of course, we
thought the Yankees had burned Tara like they did Twelve Oaks and
the MacIntosh house and that your folks had gone to Macon. And we
never dreamed you were home, Scarlett."

"Well, how were we to know different when Mr. O'Hara's darkies came
through here so scared they were popeyed and told us the Yankees
were going to burn Tara?" Grandma interrupted.

"And we could see--" Sally began.

"I'm telling this, please," said Old Miss shortly. "And they said
the Yankees were camped all over Tara and your folks were fixing to
go to Macon. And then that night we saw the glare of fire over
toward Tara and it lasted for hours and it scared our fool darkies
so bad they all ran off. What burned?"

"All our cotton--a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth," said
Scarlett bitterly.

"Be thankful it wasn't your house," said Grandma, leaning her chin
on her cane. "You can always grow more cotton and you can't grow a
house. By the bye, had you all started picking your cotton?"

"No," said Scarlett, "and now most of it is ruined. I don't
imagine there's more than three bales left standing, in the far
field in the creek bottom, and what earthly good will it do? All
our field hands are gone and there's nobody to pick it."

"Mercy me, all our field hands are gone and there's nobody to pick
it!" mimicked Grandma and bent a satiric glance on Scarlett.
"What's wrong with your own pretty paws, Miss, and those of your
sisters?"

"Me? Pick cotton?" cried Scarlett aghast, as if Grandma had been
suggesting some repulsive crime. "Like a field hand? Like white
trash? Like the Slattery women?"

"White trash, indeed! Well, isn't this generation soft and
ladylike! Let me tell you, Miss, when I was a girl my father lost
all his money and I wasn't above doing honest work with my hands
and in the fields too, till Pa got enough money to buy some more
darkies. I've hoed my row and I've picked my cotton and I can do
it again if I have to. And it looks like I'll have to. White
trash, indeed!"

"Oh, but Mama Fontaine," cried her daughter-in-law, casting
imploring glances at the two girls, urging them to help her smooth
the old lady's feathers. "That was so long ago, a different day
entirely, and times have changed."

"Times never change when there's a need for honest work to be
done," stated the sharp-eyed old lady, refusing to be soothed.
"And I'm ashamed for your mother, Scarlett, to hear you stand there
and talk as though honest work made white trash out of nice people.
'When Adam delved and Eve span'--"

To change the subject, Scarlett hastily questioned: "What about
the Tarletons and the Calverts? Were they burned out? Have they
refugeed to Macon?"

"The Yankees never got to the Tarletons. They're off the main
road, like we are, but they did get to the Calverts and they stole
all their stock and poultry and got all the darkies to run off with
them--" Sally began.

Grandma interrupted.

"Hah! They promised all the black wenches silk dresses and gold
earbobs--that's what they did. And Cathleen Calvert said some of
the troopers went off with the black fools behind them on their
saddles. Well, all they'll get will be yellow babies and I can't
say that Yankee blood will improve the stock."

"Oh, Mama Fontaine!"

"Don't pull such a shocked face, Jane. We're all married, aren't
we? And, God knows, we've seen mulatto babies before this."

"Why didn't they burn the Calverts' house?"

"The house was saved by the combined accents of the second Mrs.
Calvert and that Yankee overseer of hers, Hilton," said Old Miss,
who always referred to the ex-governess as the "second Mrs.
Calvert," although the first Mrs. Calvert had been dead twenty
years.

"'We are staunch Union sympathizers,'" mimicked the old lady,
twanging the words through her long thin nose. "Cathleen said the
two of them swore up hill and down dale that the whole passel of
Calverts were Yankees. And Mr. Calvert dead in the Wilderness!
And Raiford at Gettysburg and Cade in Virginia with the army!
Cathleen was so mortified she said she'd rather the house had been
burned. She said Cade would bust when he came home and heard about
it. But then, that's what a man gets for marrying a Yankee woman--
no pride, no decency, always thinking about their own skins. . . .
How come they didn't burn Tara, Scarlett?"

For a moment Scarlett paused before answering. She knew the very
next question would be: "And how are all your folks? And how is
your dear mother?" She knew she could not tell them Ellen was
dead. She knew that if she spoke those words or even let herself
think of them in the presence of these sympathetic women, she would
burst into a storm of tears and cry until she was sick. And she
could not let herself cry. She had not really cried since she came
home and she knew that if she once let down the floodgates, her
closely husbanded courage would all be gone. But she knew, too,
looking with confusion at the friendly faces about her, that if she
withheld the news of Ellen's death, the Fontaines would never
forgive her. Grandma in particular was devoted to Ellen and there
were very few people in the County for whom the old lady gave a
snap of her skinny fingers.

"Well, speak up," said Grandma, looking sharply at her. "Don't you
know, Miss?"

"Well, you see, I didn't get home till the day after the battle,"
she answered hastily. "The Yankees were all gone then. Pa--Pa
told me that--that he got them not to burn the house because
Suellen and Carreen were so ill with typhoid they couldn't be
moved."

"That's the first time I ever heard of a Yankee doing a decent
thing," said Grandma, as if she regretted hearing anything good
about the invaders. "And how are the girls now?"

"Oh, they are better, much better, almost well but quite weak,"
answered Scarlett. Then, seeing the question she feared hovering
on the old lady's lips, she cast hastily about for some other topic
of conversation.

"I--I wonder if you could lend us something to eat? The Yankees
cleaned us out like a swarm of locusts. But, if you are on short
rations, just tell me so plainly and--"

"Send over Pork with a wagon and you shall have half of what we've
got, rice, meal, ham, some chickens," said Old Miss, giving
Scarlett a sudden keen look.

"Oh, that's too much! Really, I--"

"Not a word! I won't hear it. What are neighbors for?"

"You are so kind that I can't-- But I have to be going now. The
folks at home will be worrying about me."

Grandma rose abruptly and took Scarlett by the arm.

"You two stay here," she commanded, pushing Scarlett toward the
back porch. "I have a private word for this child. Help me down
the steps, Scarlett."

Young Miss and Sally said good-by and promised to come calling
soon. They were devoured by curiosity as to what Grandma had to
say to Scarlett but unless she chose to tell them, they would never
know. Old ladies were so difficult, Young Miss whispered to Sally
as they went back to their sewing.

Scarlett stood with her hand on the horse's bridle, a dull feeling
at her heart.

"Now," said Grandma, peering into her face, "what's wrong at Tara?
What are you keeping back?"

Scarlett looked up into the keen old eyes and knew she could tell
the truth, without tears. No one could cry in the presence of
Grandma Fontaine without her express permission.

"Mother is dead," she said flatly.

The hand on her arm tightened until it pinched and the wrinkled
lids over the yellow eyes blinked.

"Did the Yankees kill her?"

"She died of typhoid. Died--the day before I came home."

"Don't think about it," said Grandma sternly and Scarlett saw her
swallow. "And your Pa?"

"Pa is--Pa is not himself."

"What do you mean? Speak up. Is he ill?"

"The shock--he is so strange--he is not--"

"Don't tell me he's not himself. Do you mean his mind is
unhinged?"

It was a relief to hear the truth put so baldly. How good the old
lady was to offer no sympathy that would make her cry.

"Yes," she said dully, "he's lost his mind. He acts dazed and
sometimes he can't seem to remember that Mother is dead. Oh, Old
Miss, it's more than I can stand to see him sit by the hour,
waiting for her and so patiently too, and he used to have no more
patience than a child. But it's worse when he does remember that
she's gone. Every now and then, after he's sat still with his ear
cocked listening for her, he jumps up suddenly and stumps out of
the house and down to the burying ground. And then he comes
dragging back with the tears all over his face and he says over and
over till I could scream: 'Katie Scarlett, Mrs. O'Hara is dead.
Your mother is dead,' and it's just like I was hearing it again for
the first time. And sometimes, late at night, I hear him calling
her and I get out of bed and go to him and tell him she's down at
the quarters with a sick darky. And he fusses because she's always
tiring herself out nursing people. And it's so hard to get him
back to bed. He's like a child. Oh, I wish Dr. Fontaine was here!
I know he could do something for Pa! And Melanie needs a doctor
too. She isn't getting over her baby like she should--"

"Melly--a baby? And she's with you?"

"Yes."

"What's Melly doing with you? Why isn't she in Macon with her aunt
and her kinfolks? I never thought you liked her any too well,
Miss, for all she was Charles' sister. Now, tell me all about it."

"It's a long story, Old Miss. Don't you want to go back in the
house and sit down?"

"I can stand," said Grandma shortly. "And if you told your story
in front of the others, they'd be bawling and making you feel sorry
for yourself. Now, let's have it."

Scarlett began haltingly with the siege and Melanie's condition,
but as her story progressed beneath the sharp old eyes which never
faltered in their gaze, she found words, words of power and horror.
It all came back to her, the sickeningly hot day of the baby's
birth, the agony of fear, the flight and Rhett's desertion. She
spoke of the wild darkness of the night, the blazing camp fires
which might be friends or foes, the gaunt chimneys which met her
gaze in the morning sun, the dead men and horses along the road,
the hunger, the desolation, the fear that Tara had been burned.

"I thought if I could just get home to Mother, she could manage
everything and I could lay down the weary load. On the way home I
thought the worst had already happened to me, but when I knew she
was dead I knew what the worst really was."

She dropped her eyes to the ground and waited for Grandma to speak.
The silence was so prolonged she wondered if Grandma could have
failed to comprehend her desperate plight. Finally the old voice
spoke and her tones were kind, kinder than Scarlett had ever heard
her use in addressing anyone.

"Child, it's a very bad thing for a woman to face the worst that
can happen to her, because after she's faced the worst she can't
ever really fear anything again. And it's very bad for a woman not
to be afraid of something. You think I don't understand what
you've told me--what you've been through? Well, I understand very
well. When I was about your age I was in the Creek uprising, right
after the Fort Mims massacre--yes," she said in a far-away voice,
"just about your age for that was fifty-odd years ago. And I
managed to get into the bushes and hide and I lay there and saw our
house burn and I saw the Indians scalp my brothers and sisters.
And I could only lie there and pray that the light of the flames
wouldn't show up my hiding place. And they dragged Mother out and
killed her about twenty feet from where I was lying. And scalped
her too. And ever so often one Indian would go back to her and
sink his tommyhawk into her skull again. I--I was my mother's pet
and I lay there and saw it all. And in the morning I set out for
the nearest settlement and it was thirty miles away. It took me
three days to get there, through the swamps and the Indians, and
afterward they thought I'd lose my mind. . . . That's where I met
Dr. Fontaine. He looked after me. . . . Ah, well, that's been
fifty years ago, as I said, and since that time I've never been
afraid of anything or anybody because I'd known the worst that
could happen to me. And that lack of fear has gotten me into a lot
of trouble and cost me a lot of happiness. God intended women to
be timid frightened creatures and there's something unnatural about
a woman who isn't afraid. . . . Scarlett, always save something to
fear--even as you save something to love. . . ."

Her voice trailed off and she stood silent with eyes looking back
over half a century to the day when she had been afraid. Scarlett
moved impatiently. She had thought Grandma was going to understand
and perhaps show her some way to solve her problems. But like all
old people she'd gotten to talking about things that happened
before anyone was born, things no one was interested in. Scarlett
wished she had not confided in her.

"Well, go home, child, or they'll be worrying about you," she said
suddenly. "Send Pork with the wagon this afternoon. . . . And
don't think you can lay down the load, ever. Because you can't.
I know."



Indian summer lingered into November that year and the warm days
were bright days for those at Tara. The worst was over. They had
a horse now and they could ride instead of walk. They had fried
eggs for breakfast and fried ham for supper to vary the monotony of
the yams, peanuts and dried apples, and on one festal occasion they
even had roast chicken. The old sow had finally been captured and
she and her brood rooted and grunted happily under the house where
they were penned. Sometimes they squealed so loudly no one in the
house could talk but it was a pleasant sound. It meant fresh pork
for the white folks and chitterlings for the negroes when cold
weather and hog-killing time should arrive, and it meant food for
the winter for all.

Scarlett's visit to the Fontaines had heartened her more than she
realized. Just the knowledge that she had neighbors, that some of
the family friends and old homes had survived, drove out the
terrible loss and alone feeling which had oppressed her in her
first weeks at Tara. And the Fontaines and Tarletons, whose
plantations had not been in the path of the army, were most
generous in sharing what little they had. It was the tradition of
the County that neighbor helped neighbor and they refused to accept
a penny from Scarlett, telling her that she would do the same for
them and she could pay them back, in kind, next year when Tara was
again producing.

Scarlett now had food for her household, she had a horse, she had
the money and jewelry taken from the Yankee straggler, and the
greatest need was new clothing. She knew it would be risky
business sending Pork south to buy clothes, when the horse might be
captured by either Yankees or Confederates. But, at least, she had
the money with which to buy the clothes, a horse and wagon for the
trip, and perhaps Pork could make the trip without getting caught.
Yes, the worst was over.

Every morning when Scarlett arose she thanked God for the pale-blue
sky and the warm sun, for each day of good weather put off the
inevitable time when warm clothing would be needed. And each warm
day saw more and more cotton piling up in the empty slave quarters,
the only storage place left on the plantation. There was more
cotton in the fields than she or Pork had estimated, probably four
bales, and soon the cabins would be full.

Scarlett had not intended to do any cotton picking herself, even
after Grandma Fontaine's tart remark. It was unthinkable that she,
an O'Hara lady, now the mistress of Tara, should work in the
fields. It put her on the same level with the snarly haired Mrs.
Slattery and Emmie. She had intended that the negroes should do
the field work, while she and the convalescent girls attended to
the house, but here she was confronted with a caste feeling even
stronger than her own. Pork, Mammy and Prissy set up outcries at
the idea of working in the fields. They reiterated that they were
house niggers, not field hands. Mammy, in particular, declared
vehemently that she had never even been a yard nigger. She had
been born in the Robillard great house, not in the quarters, and
had been raised in Ole Miss' bedroom, sleeping on a pallet at the
foot of the bed. Dilcey alone said nothing and she fixed her
Prissy with an unwinking eye that made her squirm.

Scarlett refused to listen to the protests and drove them all into
the cotton rows. But Mammy and Pork worked so slowly and with so
many lamentations that Scarlett sent Mammy back to the kitchen to
cook and Pork to the woods and the river with snares for rabbits
and possums and lines for fish. Cotton picking was beneath Pork's
dignity but hunting and fishing were not.

Scarlett next had tried her sisters and Melanie in the fields, but
that had worked no better. Melanie had picked neatly, quickly and
willingly for an hour in the hot sun and then fainted quietly and
had to stay in bed for a week. Suellen, sullen and tearful,
pretended to faint too, but came back to consciousness spitting
like an angry cat when Scarlett poured a gourdful of water in her
face. Finally she refused point-blank.

"I won't work in the fields like a darky! You can't make me. What
if any of our friends ever heard of it? What if--if Mr. Kennedy
ever knew? Oh, if Mother knew about this--"

"You just mention Mother's name once more, Suellen O'Hara, and I'll
slap you flat," cried Scarlett. "Mother worked harder than any
darky on this place and you know it, Miss Fine Airs!"

"She did not! At least, not in the fields. And you can't make me.
I'll tell Papa on you and he won't make me work!"

"Don't you dare go bothering Pa with any of our troubles!" cried
Scarlett, distracted between indignation at her sister and fear for
Gerald.

"I'll help you, Sissy," interposed Carreen docilely. "I'll work
for Sue and me too. She isn't well yet and she shouldn't be out in
the sun."

Scarlett said gratefully: "Thank you, Sugarbaby," but looked
worriedly at her younger sister. Carreen, who had always been as
delicately pink and white as the orchard blossoms that are
scattered by the spring wind, was no longer pink but still conveyed
in her sweet thoughtful face a blossomlike quality. She had been
silent, a little dazed since she came back to consciousness and
found Ellen gone, Scarlett a termagant, the world changed and
unceasing labor the order of the new day. It was not in Carreen's
delicate nature to adjust herself to change. She simply could not
comprehend what had happened and she went about Tara like a
sleepwalker, doing exactly what she was told. She looked, and was,
frail but she was willing, obedient and obliging. When she was not
doing Scarlett's bidding, her rosary beads were always in her hands
and her lips moving in prayers for her mother and for Brent
Tarleton. It did not occur to Scarlett that Carreen had taken
Brent's death so seriously and that her grief was unhealed. To
Scarlet, Carreen was still "baby sister," far too young to have had
a really serious love affair.

Scarlett, standing in the sun in the cotton rows, her back breaking
from the eternal bending and her hands roughened by the dry bolls,
wished she had a sister who combined Suellen's energy and strength
with Carreen's sweet disposition. For Carreen picked diligently
and earnestly. But, after she had labored for an hour it was
obvious that she, and not Suellen, was the one not yet well enough
for such work. So Scarlett sent Carreen back to the house too.

There remained with her now in the long rows only Dilcey and
Prissy. Prissy picked lazily, spasmodically, complaining of her
feet, her back, her internal miseries, her complete weariness,
until her mother took a cotton stalk to her and whipped her until
she screamed. After that she worked a little better, taking care
to stay far from her mother's reach.

Dilcey worked tirelessly, silently, like a machine, and Scarlett,
with her back aching and her shoulder raw from the tugging weight
of the cotton bag she carried, thought that Dilcey was worth her
weight in gold.

"Dilcey," she said, "when good times come back, I'm not going to
forget how you've acted. You've been mighty good."

The bronze giantess did not grin pleasedly or squirm under praise
like the other negroes. She turned an immobile face to Scarlett
and said with dignity: "Thankee, Ma'm. But Mist' Gerald and Miss
Ellen been good to me. Mist' Gerald buy my Prissy so I wouldn'
grieve and I doan forgit it. I is part Indian and Indians doan
forgit them as is good to them. I sorry 'bout my Prissy. She
mighty wuthless. Look lak she all nigger lak her pa. Her pa was
mighty flighty."

In spite of Scarlett's problem of getting help from the others in
the picking and in spite of the weariness of doing the labor
herself, her spirits lifted as the cotton slowly made its way from
the fields to the cabins. There was something about cotton that
was reassuring, steadying. Tara had risen to riches on cotton,
even as the whole South had risen, and Scarlett was Southerner
enough to believe that both Tara and the South would rise again out
of the red fields.

Of course, this little cotton she had gathered was not much but it
was something. It would bring a little in Confederate money and
that little would help her to save the hoarded greenbacks and gold
in the Yankee's wallet until they had to be spent. Next spring
she would try to make the Confederate government send back Big
Sam and the other field hands they had commandeered, and if the
government wouldn't release them, she'd use the Yankee's money to
hire field hands from the neighbors. Next spring, she would plant
and plant. . . . She straightened her tired back and, looking over
the browning autumn fields, she saw next year's crop standing sturdy
and green, acre upon acre.

Next spring! Perhaps by next spring the war would be over and good
times would be back. And whether the Confederacy won or lost,
times would be better. Anything was better than the constant
danger of raids from both armies. When the war was over, a
plantation could earn an honest living. Oh, if the war were only
over! Then people could plant crops with some certainty of reaping
them!

There was hope now. The war couldn't last forever. She had her
little cotton, she had food, she had a horse, she had her small but
treasured hoard of money. Yes, the worst was over!



CHAPTER XXVII


On a noonday in mid-November, they all sat grouped about the dinner
table, eating the last of the dessert concocted by Mammy from corn
meal and dried huckleberries, sweetened with sorghum. There was a
chill in the air, the first chill of the year, and Pork, standing
behind Scarlett's chair, rubbed his hands together in glee and
questioned: "Ain' it 'bout time fer de hawg killin', Miss
Scarlett?"

"You can taste those chitlins already, can't you?" said Scarlett
with a grin. "Well, I can taste fresh pork myself and if the
weather holds for a few days more, we'll--"

Melanie interrupted, her spoon at her lips,

"Listen, dear! Somebody's coming!"

"Somebody hollerin'," said Pork uneasily.

On the crisp autumn air came clear the sound of horse's hooves,
thudding as swiftly as a frightened heart, and a woman's voice,
high pitched, screaming: "Scarlett! Scarlett!"

Eye met eye for a dreadful second around the table before chairs
were pushed back and everyone leaped up. Despite the fear that
made it shrill, they recognized the voice of Sally Fontaine who,
only an hour before, had stopped at Tara for a brief chat on her
way to Jonesboro. Now, as they all rushed pell-mell to crowd the
front door, they saw her coming up the drive like the wind on a
lathered horse, her hair streaming behind her, her bonnet dangling
by its ribbons. She did not draw rein but as she galloped madly
toward them, she waved her arm back in the direction from which she
had come.

"The Yankees are coming! I saw them! Down the road! The Yankees--"

She sawed savagely at the horse's mouth just in time to swerve him
from leaping up the front steps. He swung around sharply, covered
the side lawn in three leaps and she put him across the four-foot
hedge as if she were on the hunting field. They heard the heavy
pounding of his hooves as he went through the back yard and down
the narrow lane between the cabins of the quarters and knew she was
cutting across the fields to Mimosa.

For a moment they stood paralyzed and then Suellen and Carreen
began to sob and clutch each other's fingers. Little Wade stood
rooted, trembling, unable to cry. What he had feared since the
night he left Atlanta had happened. The Yankees were coming to get
him.

"Yankees?" said Gerald vaguely. "But the Yankees have already been
here."

"Mother of God!" cried Scarlett, her eyes meeting Melanie's
frightened eyes. For a swift instant there went through her memory
again the horrors of her last night in Atlanta, the ruined homes
that dotted the countryside, all the stories of rape and torture
and murder. She saw again the Yankee soldier standing in the hall
with Ellen's sewing box in his hand. She thought: "I shall die.
I shall die right here. I thought we were through with all that.
I shall die. I can't stand any more."

Then her eyes fell on the horse saddled and hitched and waiting for
Pork to ride him to the Tarleton place on an errand. Her horse!
Her only horse! The Yankees would take him and the cow and the
calf. And the sow and her litter-- Oh, how many tiring hours it
had taken to catch that sow and her agile young! And they'd take
the rooster and the setting hens and the ducks the Fontaines had
given her. And the apples and the yams in the pantry bins. And
the flour and rice and dried peas. And the money in the Yankee
soldier's wallet. They'd take everything and leave them to starve.

"They shan't have them!" she cried aloud and they all turned
startled faces to her, fearful her mind had cracked under the
tidings. "I won't go hungry! They shan't have them!"

"What is it, Scarlett? What is it?"

"The horse! The cow! The pigs! They shan't have them! I won't
let them have them!"

She turned swiftly to the four negroes who huddled in the doorway,
their black faces a peculiarly ashen shade.

"The swamp," she said rapidly.

"Whut swamp?"

"The river swamp, you fools! Take the pigs to the swamp. All of
you. Quickly. Pork, you and Prissy crawl under the house and get
the pigs out. Suellen, you and Carreen fill the baskets with as
much food as you can carry and get to the woods. Mammy, put the
silver in the well again. And Pork! Pork, listen to me, don't
stand there like that! Take Pa with you. Don't ask me where!
Anywhere! Go with Pork, Pa. That's a sweet pa."

Even in her frenzy she thought what the sight of bluecoats might do
to Gerald's wavering mind. She stopped and wrung her hands and the
frightened sobbing of little Wade who was clutching Melanie's skirt
added to her panic.

"What shall I do, Scarlett?" Melanie's voice was calm amid the
wailing and tears and scurrying feet. Though her face was paper
white and her whole body trembled, the very quietness of her voice
steadied Scarlett, revealing to her that they all looked to her for
commands, for guidance.

"The cow and the calf," she said quickly. "They're in the old
pasture. Take the horse and drive them into the swamp and--"

Before she could finish her sentence, Melanie shook off Wade's
clutches and was down the front steps and running toward the horse,
pulling up her wide skirts as she ran. Scarlett caught a flashing
glimpse of thin legs, a flurry of skirts and underclothing and
Melanie was in the saddle, her feet dangling far above the
stirrups. She gathered up the reins and clapped her heels against
the animal's sides and then abruptly pulled him in, her face
twisting with horror.

"My baby!" she cried. "Oh, my baby! The Yankees will kill him!
Give him to me!"

Her hand was on the pommel and she was preparing to slide off but
Scarlett screamed at her.

"Go on! Go on! Get the cow! I'll look after the baby! Go on, I
tell you! Do you think I'd let them get Ashley's baby? Go on!"

Melly looked despairingly backward but hammered her heels into the
horse and, with a scattering of gravel, was off down the drive
toward the pasture.

Scarlett thought: "I never expected to see Melly Hamilton
straddling a horse!" and then she ran into the house. Wade was at
her heels, sobbing, trying to catch her flying skirts. As she went
up the steps, three at a bound, she saw Suellen and Carreen with
split-oak baskets on their arms, running toward the pantry, and
Pork tugging none too gently at Gerald's arm, dragging him toward
the back porch. Gerald was mumbling querulously and pulling away
like a child.

From the back yard she heard Mammy's strident voice: "You, Priss!
You git unner dat house an' han' me dem shoats! You knows mighty
well Ah's too big ter crawl thoo dem lattices. Dilcey, comyere an'
mek dis wuthless chile--"

"And I thought it was such a good idea to keep the pigs under the
house, so nobody could steal them," thought Scarlett, running into
her room. "Why, oh, why didn't I build a pen for them down in the
swamp?"

She tore open her top bureau drawer and scratched about in the
clothing until the Yankee's wallet was in her hand. Hastily she
picked up the solitaire ring and the diamond earbobs from where she
had hidden them in her sewing basket and shoved them into the
wallet. But where to hide it? In the mattress? Up the chimney?
Throw it in the well? Put it in her bosom? No, never there! The
outlines of the wallet might show through her basque and if the
Yankees saw it they would strip her naked and search her.

"I shall die if they do!" she thought wildly.

Downstairs there was a pandemonium of racing feet and sobbing
voices. Even in her frenzy, Scarlett wished she had Melanie with
her, Melly with her quiet voice, Melly who was so brave the day she
shot the Yankee. Melly was worth three of the others. Melly--what
had Melly said? Oh, yes, the baby!

Clutching the wallet to her, Scarlett ran across the hall to the
room where little Beau was sleeping in the low cradle. She
snatched him up into her arms and he awoke, waving small fists and
slobbering sleepily.

She heard Suellen crying: "Come on, Carreen! Come on! We've got
enough. Oh, Sister, hurry!" There were wild squealings, indignant
gruntings in the back yard and, running to the widow, Scarlett saw
Mammy waddling hurriedly across the cotton field with a struggling
young pig under each arm. Behind her was Pork also carrying two
pigs and pushing Gerald before him. Gerald was stumping across the
furrows, waving his cane.

Leaning out of the window Scarlett yelled: "Get the sow, Dilcey!
Make Prissy drive her out. You can chase her across the fields!"

Dilcey looked up, her bronzed face harassed. In her apron was a
pile of silver tableware. She pointed under the house.

"The sow done bit Prissy and got her penned up unner the house."

"Good for the sow," thought Scarlett. She hurried back into her
room and hastily gathered from their hiding place the bracelets,
brooch, miniature and cup she had found on the dead Yankee. But
where to hide them? It was awkward, carrying little Beau in one
arm and the wallet and the trinkets in the other. She started to
lay him on the bed.

He set up a wail at leaving her arms and a welcome thought came to
her. What better hiding place could there be than a baby's diaper?
She quickly turned him over, pulled up his dress and thrust the
wallet down the diaper next to his backside. He yelled louder at
this treatment and she hastily tightened the triangular garment
about his threshing legs.

"Now," she thought, drawing a deep breath, "now for the swamp!"

Tucking him screaming under one arm and clutching the jewelry to
her with the other, she raced into the upstairs hall. Suddenly her
rapid steps paused, fright weakening her knees. How silent the
house was! How dreadfully still! Had they all gone off and left
her? Hadn't anyone waited for her? She hadn't meant for them to
leave her here alone. These days anything could happen to a lone
woman and with the Yankees coming--

She jumped as a slight noise sounded and, turning quickly, saw
crouched by the banisters her forgotten son, his eyes enormous with
terror. He tried to speak but his throat only worked silently.

"Get up, Wade Hampton," she commanded swiftly. "Get up and walk.
Mother can't carry you now."

He ran to her, like a small frightened animal, and clutching her
wide skirt, buried his face in it. She could feel his small hands
groping through the folds for her legs. She started down the
stairs, each step hampered by Wade's dragging hands and she said
fiercely: "Turn me loose, Wade! Turn me loose and walk!" But the
child only clung the closer.

As she reached the landing, the whole lower floor leaped up at her.
All the homely, well-loved articles of furniture seemed to whisper:
"Good-by! Good-by!" A sob rose in her throat. There was the open
door of the office where Ellen had labored so diligently and she
could glimpse a corner of the old secretary. There was the dining
room, with chairs pushed awry and food still on the plates. There
on the floor were the rag rugs Ellen had dyed and woven herself.
And there was the old portrait of Grandma Robillard, with bosoms
half bared, hair piled high and nostrils cut so deeply as to give
her face a perpetual well-bred sneer. Everything which had been
part of her earliest memories, everything bound up with the deepest
roots in her: "Good-by! Good-by, Scarlett O'Hara!"

The Yankees would burn it all--all!

This was her last view of home, her last view except what she might
see from the cover of the woods or the swamp, the tall chimneys
wrapped in smoke, the roof crashing in flame.

"I can't leave you," she thought and her teeth chattered with fear.
"I can't leave you. Pa wouldn't leave you. He told them they'd
have to burn you over his head. Then, they'll burn you over my
head for I can't leave you either. You're all I've got left."

With the decision, some of her fear fell away and there remained
only a congealed feeling in her breast, as if all hope and fear had
frozen. As she stood there, she heard from the avenue the sound of
many horses' feet, the jingle of bridle bits and sabers rattling in
scabbards and a harsh voice crying a command: "Dismount!" Swiftly
she bent to the child beside her and her voice was urgent but oddly
gentle.

"Turn me loose, Wade, honey! You run down the stairs quick and
through the back yard toward the swamp. Mammy will be there and
Aunt Melly. Run quickly, darling, and don't be afraid."

At the change in her tone, the boy looked up and Scarlett was
appalled at the look in his eyes, like a baby rabbit in a trap.

"Oh, Mother of God!" she prayed. "Don't let him have a convulsion!
Not--not before the Yankees. They mustn't know we are afraid."
And, as the child only gripped her skirt the tighter, she said
clearly: "Be a little man, Wade. They're only a passel of damn
Yankees!"

And she went down the steps to meet them.



Sherman was marching through Georgia, from Atlanta to the sea.
Behind him lay the smoking ruins of Atlanta to which the torch had
been set as the blue army tramped out. Before him lay three
hundred miles of territory virtually undefended save by a few state
militia and the old men and young boys of the Home Guard.

Here lay the fertile state, dotted with plantations, sheltering the
women and children, the very old and the negroes. In a swath
eighty miles wide the Yankees were looting and burning. There were
hundreds of homes in flames, hundreds of homes resounding with
their footsteps. But, to Scarlett, watching the bluecoats pour
into the front hall, it was not a countrywide affair. It was
entirely personal, a malicious action aimed directly at her and
hers.

She stood at the foot of the stairs, the baby in her arms, Wade
pressed tightly against her, his head hidden in her skirts as the
Yankees swarmed through the house, pushing roughly past her up the
stairs, dragging furniture onto the front porch, running bayonets
and knives into upholstery and digging inside for concealed
valuables. Upstairs they were ripping open mattresses and feather
beds until the air in the hall was thick with feathers that floated
softly down on her head. Impotent rage quelled what little fear
was left in her heart as she stood helpless while they plundered
and stole and ruined.

The sergeant in charge was a bow-legged, grizzled little man with a
large wad of tobacco in his cheek. He reached Scarlett before any
of his men and, spitting freely on the floor and her skirts, said
briefly:

"Lemme have what you got in yore hand, lady."

She had forgotten the trinkets she had intended to hide and, with a
sneer which she hoped was as eloquent as that pictured on Grandma
Robillard's face, she flung the articles to the floor and almost
enjoyed the rapacious scramble that ensued.

"I'll trouble you for thet ring and them earbobs."

Scarlett tucked the baby more securely under her arm so that he
hung face downward, crimson and screaming, and removed the garnet
earrings which had been Gerald's wedding present to Ellen. Then
she stripped off the large sapphire solitaire which Charles had
given her as an engagement ring.

"Don't throw um. Hand um to me," said the sergeant, putting out
his hands. "Them bastards got enough already. What else have you
got?" His eyes went over her basque sharply.

For a moment Scarlett went faint, already feeling rough hands
thrusting themselves into her bosom, fumbling at her garters.

"That is all, but I suppose it is customary to strip your victims?"

"Oh, I'll take your word," said the sergeant good-naturedly,
spitting again as he turned away. Scarlett righted the baby and
tried to soothe him, holding her hand over the place on the diaper
where the wallet was hidden, thanking God that Melanie had a baby
and that baby had a diaper.

Upstairs she could hear heavy boots trampling, the protesting
screech of furniture pulled across the floor, the crashing of china
and mirrors, the curses when nothing of value appeared. From the
yard came loud cries: "Head um off! Don't let um get away!" and
the despairing squawks of the hens and quacking and honking of the
ducks and geese. A pang went through her as she heard an agonized
squealing which was suddenly stilled by a pistol shot and she knew
that the sow was dead. Damn Prissy! She had run off and left her.
If only the shoats were safe! If only the family had gotten safely
to the swamp! But there was no way of knowing.

She stood quietly in the hall while the soldiers boiled about her,
shouting and cursing. Wade's fingers were in her skirt in a
terrified grip. She could feel his body shaking as he pressed
against her but she could not bring herself to speak reassuringly
to him. She could not bring herself to utter any word to the
Yankees, either of pleading, protest or anger. She could only
thank God that her knees still had the strength to support her,
that her neck was still strong enough to hold her head high. But
when a squad of bearded men came lumbering down the steps, laden
with an assortment of stolen articles and she saw Charles' sword in
the hands of one, she did cry out.

That sword was Wade's. It had been his father's and his
grandfather's sword and Scarlett had given it to the little boy on
his last birthday. They had made quite a ceremony of it and
Melanie had cried, cried with tears of pride and sorrowful memory,
and kissed him and said he must grow up to be a brave soldier like
his father and his grandfather. Wade was very proud of it and
often climbed upon the table beneath where it hung to pat it.
Scarlett could endure seeing her own possessions going out of the
house in hateful alien hands but not this--not her little boy's
pride. Wade, peering from the protection of her skirts at the
sound of her cry, found speech and courage in a mighty sob.
Stretching out one hand he cried:

"Mine!"

"You can't take that!" said Scarlett swiftly, holding out her hand
too.

"I can't, hey?" said the little soldier who held it, grinning
impudently at her. "Well, I can! It's a Rebel sword!"

"It's--it's not. It's a Mexican War sword. You can't take it.
It's my little boy's. It was his grandfather's! Oh, Captain," she
cried, turning to the sergeant, "please make him give it to me!"

The sergeant, pleased at his promotion, stepped forward.

"Lemme see thet sword, Bub," he said.

Reluctantly, the little trooper handed it to him. "It's got a
solid-gold hilt," he said.

The sergeant turned it in his hand, held the hilt up to the
sunlight to read the engraved inscription.

"'To Colonel William R. Hamilton,'" he deciphered. "'From His
Staff. For Gallantry. Buena Vista. 1847.'"

"Ho, lady," he said, "I was at Buena Vista myself."

"Indeed," said Scarlett icily.

"Was I? Thet was hot fightin', lemme tell you. I ain't seen such
hot fightin' in this war as we seen in thet one. So this sword was
this little tyke's grandaddy's?"

"Yes."

"Well, he can have it," said the sergeant, who was satisfied enough
with the jewelry and trinkets tied up in his handkerchief.

"But it's got a solid-gold hilt," insisted the little trooper.

"We'll leave her thet to remember us by," grinned the sergeant.

Scarlett took the sword, not even saying "Thank you." Why should
she thank these thieves for returning her own property to her? She
held the sword against her while the little cavalryman argued and
wrangled with the sergeant.

"By God, I'll give these damn Rebels something to remember me by,"
shouted the private finally when the sergeant, losing his good
nature, told him to go to hell and not talk back. The little man
went charging toward the back of the house and Scarlett breathed
more easily. They had said nothing about burning the house. They
hadn't told her to leave so they could fire it. Perhaps--perhaps--
The men came rambling into the hall from the upstairs and the out
of doors.

"Anything?" questioned the sergeant.

"One hog and a few chickens and ducks."

"Some corn and a few yams and beans. That wildcat we saw on the
horse must have given the alarm, all right."

"Regular Paul Revere, eh?"

"Well, there ain't much here, Sarge. You got the pickin's. Let's
move on before the whole country gets the news we're comin'."

"Didja dig under the smokehouse? They generally buries things
there."

"Ain't no smokehouse."

"Didja dig in the nigger cabins?"

"Nothin' but cotton in the cabins. We set fire to it."

For a brief instant Scarlett saw the long hot days in the cotton
field, felt again the terrible ache in her back, the raw bruised
flesh of her shoulders. All for nothing. The cotton was gone.

"You ain't got much, for a fac', have you, lady?"

"Your army has been here before," she said coolly.

"That's a fac'. We were in this neighborhood in September," said
one of the men, turning something in his hand. "I'd forgot."

Scarlett saw it was Ellen's gold thimble that he held. How often
she had seen it gleaming in and out of Ellen's fancy work. The
sight of it brought back too many hurting memories of the slender
hand which had worn it. There it lay in this stranger's calloused
dirty palm and soon it would find its way North and onto the finger
of some Yankee woman who would be proud to wear stolen things.
Ellen's thimble!

Scarlett dropped her head so the enemy could not see her cry and
the tears fell slowly down on the baby's head. Through the blur,
she saw the men moving toward the doorway, heard the sergeant
calling commands in a loud rough voice. They were going and Tara
was safe, but with the pain of Ellen's memory on her, she was
hardly glad. The sound of the banging sabers and horses' hooves
brought little relief and she stood, suddenly weak and nerveless,
as they moved off down the avenue, every man laden with stolen
goods, clothing, blankets, pictures, hens and ducks, the sow.

Then to her nostrils was borne the smell of smoke and she turned,
too weak with lessening strain, to care about the cotton. Through
the open windows of the dining room, she saw smoke drifting lazily
out of the negro cabins. There went the cotton. There went the
tax money and part of the money which was to see them through this
bitter winter. There was nothing she could do about it either,
except watch. She had seen fires in cotton before and she knew how
difficult they were to put out, even with many men laboring at it.
Thank God, the quarters were so far from the house! Thank God,
there was no wind today to carry sparks to the roof of Tara!

Suddenly she swung about, rigid as a pointer, and stared with
horror-struck eyes down the hall, down the covered passageway
toward the kitchen. There was smoke coming from the kitchen!

Somewhere between the hall and the kitchen, she laid the baby down.
Somewhere she flung off Wade's grip, slinging him against the wall.
She burst into the smoke-filled kitchen and reeled back, coughing,
her eyes streaming tears from the smoke. Again she plunged in, her
skirt held over her nose.

The room was dark, lit as it was by one small window, and so thick
with smoke that she was blinded, but she could hear the hiss and
crackle of flames. Dashing a hand across her eyes, she peered
squinting and saw thin lines of flame creeping across the kitchen
floor, toward the walls. Someone had scattered the blazing logs in
the open fireplace across the whole room and the tinder-dry pine
floor was sucking in the flames and spewing them up like water.

Back she rushed to the dining room and snatched a rag rug from the
floor, spilling two chairs with a crash.

"I'll never beat it out--never, never! Oh, God, if only there was
someone to help! Tara is gone--gone! Oh, God! This was what that
little wretch meant when he said he'd give me something to remember
him by! Oh, if I'd only let him have the sword!"

In the hallway she passed her son lying in the corner with his
sword. His eyes were closed and his face had a look of slack,
unearthly peace.

"My God! He's dead! They've frightened him to death!" she thought
in agony but she raced by him to the bucket of drinking water which
always stood in the passageway by the kitchen door.

She soused the end of the rug into the bucket and drawing a deep
breath plunged again into the smoke-filled room slamming the door
behind her. For an eternity she reeled and coughed, beating the
rug against the lines of fire that shot swiftly beyond her. Twice
her long skirt took fire and she slapped it out with her hands.
She could smell the sickening smell of her hair scorching, as it
came loose from its pins and swept about her shoulders. The flames
raced ever beyond her, toward the walls of the covered runway,
fiery snakes that writhed and leaped and, exhaustion sweeping her,
she knew that it was hopeless.

Then the door swung open and the sucking draft flung the flames
higher. It closed with a bang and, in the swirling smoke,
Scarlett, half blind, saw Melanie, stamping her feet on the flames,
beating at them with something dark and heavy. She saw her
staggering, heard her coughing, caught a lightning-flash glimpse of
her set white face and eyes narrow to slits against the smoke, saw
her small body curving back and forth as she swung her rug up and
down. For another eternity they fought and swayed, side by side,
and Scarlett could see that the lines of fire were shortening.
Then suddenly Melanie turned toward her and, with a cry, hit her
across the shoulders with all her might. Scarlett went down in a
whirlwind of smoke and darkness.

When she opened her eyes she was lying on the back porch, her head
pillowed comfortably on Melanie's lap, and the afternoon sunlight
was shining on her face. Her hands, face and shoulders smarted
intolerably from burns. Smoke was still rolling from the quarters,
enveloping the cabins in thick clouds, and the smell of burning
cotton was strong. Scarlett saw wisps of smoke drifting from the
kitchen and she stirred frantically to rise.

But she was pushed back as Melanie's calm voice said: "Lie still,
dear. The fire's out."

She lay quiet for a moment, eyes closed, sighing with relief, and
heard the slobbery gurgle of the baby near by and the reassuring
sound of Wade's hiccoughing. So he wasn't dead, thank God! She
opened her eyes and looked up into Melanie's face. Her curls were
singed, her face black with smut but her eyes were sparkling with
excitement and she was smiling.

"You look like a nigger," murmured Scarlett, burrowing her head
wearily into its soft pillow.

"And you look like the end man in a minstrel show," replied Melanie
equably.

"Why did you have to hit me?"

"Because, my darling, your back was on fire. I didn't dream you'd
faint, though the Lord knows you've had enough today to kill
you. . . . I came back as soon as I got the stock safe in the
woods. I nearly died, thinking about you and the baby alone.
Did--the Yankees harm you?"

"If you mean did they rape me, no," said Scarlett, groaning as she
tried to sit up. Though Melanie's lap was soft, the porch on which
she was lying was far from comfortable. "But they've stolen
everything, everything. We've lost everything-- Well, what is
there to look so happy about?"

"We haven't lost each other and our babies are all right and we
have a roof over our heads," said Melanie and there was a lilt in
her voice. "And that's all anyone can hope for now. . . .
Goodness but Beau is wet! I suppose the Yankees even stole his
extra diapers. He-- Scarlett, what on earth is in his diaper?"

She thrust a suddenly frightened hand down the baby's back and
brought up the wallet. For a moment she looked at it as if she had
never seen it before and then she began to laugh, peal on peal of
mirth that had in it no hint of hysteria.

"Nobody but you would ever have thought of it," she cried and
flinging her arms around Scarlett's neck she kissed her. "You are
the beatenest sister I ever had!"

Scarlett permitted the embrace because she was too tired to
struggle, because the words of praise brought balm to her spirit
and because, in the dark smoke-filled kitchen, there had been born
a greater respect for her sister-in-law, a closer feeling of
comradeship.

"I'll say this for her," she thought grudgingly, "she's always
there when you need her."



CHAPTER XXVIII


Cold weather set in abruptly with a killing frost. Chilling winds
swept beneath the doorsills and rattled the loose windowpanes with
a monotonous tinkling sound. The last of the leaves fell from the
bare trees and only the pines stood clothed, black and cold against
pale skies. The rutted red roads were frozen to flintiness and
hunger rode the winds through Georgia.

Scarlett recalled bitterly her conversation with Grandma Fontaine.
On that afternoon two months ago, which now seemed years in the
past, she had told the old lady she had already known the worst
which could possibly happen to her, and she had spoken from the
bottom of her heart. Now that remark sounded like schoolgirl
hyperbole. Before Sherman's men came through Tara the second time,
she had her small riches of food and money, she had neighbors more
fortunate than she and she had the cotton which would tide her over
until spring. Now the cotton was gone, the food was gone, the
money was of no use to her, for there was no food to buy with it,
and the neighbors were in worse plight than she. At least, she had
the cow and the calf, a few shoats and the horse, and the neighbors
had nothing but the little they had been able to hide in the woods
and bury in the ground.

Fairhill, the Tarleton home, was burned to the foundations, and
Mrs. Tarleton and the four girls were existing in the overseer's
house. The Munroe house near Lovejoy was leveled too. The wooden
wing of Mimosa had burned and only the thick resistant stucco of
the main house and the frenzied work of the Fontaine women and
their slaves with wet blankets and quilts had saved it. The
Calverts' house had again been spared, due to the intercession of
Hilton, the Yankee overseer, but there was not a head of livestock,
not a fowl, not an ear of corn left on the place.

At Tara and throughout the County, the problem was food. Most of
the families had nothing at all but the remains of their yam crops
and their peanuts and such game as they could catch in the woods.
What they had, each shared with less fortunate friends, as they had
done in more prosperous days. But the time soon came when there
was nothing to share.

At Tara, they ate rabbit and possum and catfish, if Pork was lucky.
On other days a small amount of milk, hickory nuts, roasted acorns
and yams. They were always hungry. To Scarlett it seemed that at
every turn she met outstretched hands, pleading eyes. The sight of
them drove her almost to madness, for she was as hungry as they.

She ordered the calf killed, because he drank so much of the
precious milk, and that night everyone ate so much fresh veal all
of them were ill. She knew that she should kill one of the shoats
but she put it off from day to day, hoping to raise them to
maturity. They were so small. There would be so little of them to
eat if they were killed now and so much more if they could be saved
a little longer. Nightly she debated with Melanie the advisability
of sending Pork abroad on the horse with some greenbacks to try to
buy food. But the fear that the horse might be captured and the
money taken from Pork deterred them. They did not know where the
Yankees were. They might be a thousand miles away or only across
the river. Once, Scarlett, in desperation, started to ride out
herself to search for food, but the hysterical outbursts of the
whole family fearful of the Yankees made her abandon the plan.

Pork foraged far, at times not coming home all night, and Scarlett
did not ask him where he went. Sometimes he returned with game,
sometimes with a few ears of corn, a bag of dried peas. Once he
brought home a rooster which he said he found in the woods. The
family ate it with relish but a sense of guilt, knowing very well
Pork had stolen it, as he had stolen the peas and corn. One night
soon after this, he tapped on Scarlett's door long after the house
was asleep and sheepishly exhibited a leg peppered with small shot.
As she bandaged it for him, he explained awkwardly that when
attempting to get into a hen coop at Fayetteville, he had been
discovered. Scarlett did not ask whose hen coop but patted Pork's
shoulder gently, tears in her eyes. Negroes were provoking
sometimes and stupid and lazy, but there was loyalty in them that
money couldn't buy, a feeling of oneness with their white folks
which made them risk their lives to keep food on the table.

In other days Pork's pilferings would have been a serious matter,
probably calling for a whipping. In other days she would have been
forced at least to reprimand him severely. "Always remember,
dear," Ellen had said, "you are responsible for the moral as well
as the physical welfare of the darkies God has intrusted to your
care. You must realize that they are like children and must be
guarded from themselves like children, and you must always set them
a good example."

But now, Scarlett pushed that admonition into the back of her mind.
That she was encouraging theft, and perhaps theft from people worse
off than she, was no longer a matter for conscience. In fact the
morals of the affair weighed lightly upon her. Instead of
punishment or reproof, she only regretted he had been shot.

"You must be more careful, Pork. We don't want to lose you. What
would we do without you? You've been mighty good and faithful and
when we get some money again, I'm going to buy you a big gold watch
and engrave on it something out of the Bible. 'Well done, good and
faithful servant.'"

Pork beamed under the praise and gingerly rubbed his bandaged leg.

"Dat soun' mighty fine, Miss Scarlett. W'en you speckin' ter git
dat money?"

"I don't know, Pork, but I'm going to get it some time, somehow."
She bent on him an unseeing glance that was so passionately bitter
he stirred uneasily, "Some day, when this war is over, I'm going to
have lots of money, and when I do I'll never be hungry or cold
again. None of us will ever be hungry or cold. We'll all wear
fine clothes and have fried chicken every day and--"

Then she stopped. The strictest rule at Tara, one which she
herself had made and which she rigidly enforced, was that no one
should ever talk of the fine meals they had eaten in the past or
what they would eat now, if they had the opportunity.

Pork slipped from the room as she remained staring moodily into the
distance. In the old days, now dead and gone, life had been so
complex, so full of intricate and complicated problems. There had
been the problem of trying to win Ashley's love and trying to keep
a dozen other beaux dangling and unhappy. There had been small
breaches of conduct to be concealed from her elders, jealous girls
to be flouted or placated, styles of dresses and materials to be
chosen, different coiffures to be tried and, oh, so many, many
other matters to be decided! Now life was so amazingly simple.
Now all that mattered was food enough to keep off starvation,
clothing enough to prevent freezing and a roof overhead which did
not leak too much.

It was during these days that Scarlett dreamed and dreamed again
the nightmare which was to haunt her for years. It was always the
same dream, the details never varied, but the terror of it mounted
each time it came to her and the fear of experiencing it again
troubled even her waking hours. She remembered so well the
incidents of the day when she had first dreamed it.

Cold rain had fallen for days and the house was chill with drafts
and dampness. The logs in the fireplace were wet and smoky and
gave little heat. There had been nothing to eat except milk since
breakfast, for the yams were exhausted and Pork's snares and
fishlines had yielded nothing. One of the shoats would have to be
killed the next day if they were to eat at all. Strained and
hungry faces, black and white, were staring at her, mutely asking
her to provide food. She would have to risk losing the horse and
send Pork out to buy something. And to make matters worse, Wade
was ill with a sore throat and a raging fever and there was neither
doctor nor medicine for him.

Hungry, weary with watching her child, Scarlett left him to
Melanie's care for a while and lay down on her bed to nap. Her
feet icy, she twisted and turned, unable to sleep, weighed down
with fear and despair. Again and again, she thought: "What shall
I do? Where shall I turn? Isn't there anybody in the world who
can help me?" Where had all the security of the world gone? Why
wasn't there someone, some strong wise person to take the burdens
from her? She wasn't made to carry them. She did not know how to
carry them. And then she fell into an uneasy doze.

She was in a wild strange country so thick with swirling mist she
could not see her hand before her face. The earth beneath her feet
was uneasy. It was a haunted land, still with a terrible
stillness, and she was lost in it, lost and terrified as a child in
the night. She was bitterly cold and hungry and so fearful of what
lurked in the mists about her that she tried to scream and could
not. There were things in the fog reaching out fingers to pluck at
her skirt, to drag her down into the uneasy quaking earth on which
she stood, silent, relentless, spectral hands. Then, she knew that
somewhere in the opaque gloom about her there was shelter, help, a
haven of refuge and warmth. But where was it? Could she reach it
before the hands clutched her and dragged her down into the
quicksands?

Suddenly she was running, running through the mist like a mad
thing, crying and screaming, throwing out her arms to clutch only
empty air and wet mist. Where was the haven? It eluded her but it
was there, hidden, somewhere. If she could only reach it! If she
could only reach it she would be safe! But terror was weakening
her legs, hunger making her faint. She gave one despairing cry and
awoke to find Melanie's worried face above her and Melanie's hand
shaking her to wakefulness.

The dream returned again and again, whenever she went to sleep with
an empty stomach. And that was frequently enough. It so
frightened her that she feared to sleep, although she feverishly
told herself there was nothing in such a dream to be afraid of.
There was nothing in a dream about fog to scare her so. Nothing at
all--yet the thought of dropping off into that mist-filled country
so terrified her she began sleeping with Melanie, who would wake
her up when her moaning and twitching revealed that she was again
in the clutch of the dream.

Under the strain she grew white and thin. The pretty roundness
left her face, throwing her cheek bones into prominence,
emphasizing her slanting green eyes and giving her the look of a
prowling, hungry cat.

"Daytime is enough like a nightmare without my dreaming things,"
she thought desperately and began hoarding her daily ration to eat
it just before she went to sleep.



At Christmas time Frank Kennedy and a small troop from the
commissary department jogged up to Tara on a futile hunt for grain
and animals for the army. They were a ragged and ruffianly
appearing crew, mounted on lame and heaving horses which obviously
were in too bad condition to be used for more active service. Like
their animals the men had been invalided out of the front-line
forces and, except for Frank, all of them had an arm missing or an
eye gone or stiffened joints. Most of them wore blue overcoats of
captured Yankees and, for a brief instant of horror, those at Tara
thought Sherman's men had returned.

They stayed the night on the plantation, sleeping on the floor in
the parlor, luxuriating as they stretched themselves on the velvet
rug, for it had been weeks since they had slept under a roof or on
anything softer than pine needles and hard earth. For all their
dirty beards and tatters they were a well-bred crowd, full of
pleasant small talk, jokes and compliments and very glad to be
spending Christmas Eve in a big house, surrounded by pretty women
as they had been accustomed to do in days long past. They refused
to be serious about the war, told outrageous lies to make the girls
laugh and brought to the bare and looted house the first lightness,
the first hint of festivity it had known in many a day.

"It's almost like the old days when we had house parties, isn't
it?" whispered Suellen happily to Scarlett. Suellen was raised to
the skies by having a beau of her own in the house again and she
could hardly take her eyes off Frank Kennedy. Scarlett was
surprised to see that Suellen could be almost pretty, despite the
thinness which had persisted since her illness. Her cheeks were
flushed and there was a soft luminous look in her eyes.

"She really must care about him," thought Scarlett in contempt.
"And I guess she'd be almost human if she ever had a husband of her
own, even if her husband was old fuss-budget Frank."

Carreen had brightened a little too, and some of the sleep-walking
look left her eyes that night. She had found that one of the men
had known Brent Tarleton and had been with him the day he was
killed, and she promised herself a long private talk with him after
supper.

At supper Melanie surprised them all by forcing herself out of her
timidity and being almost vivacious. She laughed and joked and
almost but not quite coquetted with a one-eyed soldier who gladly
repaid her efforts with extravagant gallantries. Scarlett knew the
effort this involved both mentally and physically, for Melanie
suffered torments of shyness in the presence of anything male.
Moreover she was far from well. She insisted she was strong and
did more work even than Dilcey but Scarlett knew she was sick.
When she lifted things her face went white and she had a way of
sitting down suddenly after exertions, as if her legs would no
longer support her. But tonight she, like Suellen and Carreen,
was doing everything possible to make the soldiers enjoy their
Christmas Eve. Scarlett alone took no pleasure in the guests.

The troop had added their ration of parched corn and side meat to
the supper of dried peas, stewed dried apples and peanuts which
Mammy set before them and they declared it was the best meal they
had had in months. Scarlett watched them eat and she was uneasy.
She not only begrudged them every mouthful they ate but she was on
tenterhooks lest they discover somehow that Pork had slaughtered
one of the shoats the day before. It now hung in the pantry and
she had grimly promised her household that she would scratch out
the eyes of anyone who mentioned the shoat to their guests or the
presence of the dead pig's sisters and brothers, safe in their pen
in the swamp. These hungry men could devour the whole shoat at one
meal and, if they knew of the live hogs, they could commandeer them
for the army. She was alarmed, too, for the cow and the horse and
wished they were hidden in the swamp, instead of tied in the woods
at the bottom of the pasture. If the commissary took her stock,
Tara could not possibly live through the winter. There would be no
way of replacing them. As to what the army would eat, she did not
care. Let the army feed the army--if it could. It was hard enough
for her to feed her own.

The men added as dessert some "ramrod rolls" from their knapsacks,
and this was the first time Scarlett had ever seen this Confederate
article of diet about which there were almost as many jokes as
about lice. They were charred spirals of what appeared to be wood.
The men dared her to take a bite and, when she did, she discovered
that beneath the smoke-blackened surface was unsalted corn bread.
The soldiers mixed their ration of corn meal with water, and salt
too when they could get it, wrapped the thick paste about their
ramrods and roasted the mess over camp fires. It was as hard as
rock candy and as tasteless as sawdust and after one bite Scarlett
hastily handed it back amid roars of laughter. She met Melanie's
eyes and the same thought was plain in both faces. . . . "How can
they go on fighting if they have only this stuff to eat?"

The meal was gay enough and even Gerald, presiding absently at the
head of the table, managed to evoke from the back of his dim mind
some of the manner of a host and an uncertain smile. The men
talked, the women smiled and flattered--but Scarlett turning
suddenly to Frank Kennedy to ask him news of Miss Pittypat, caught
an expression on his face which made her forget what she intended
to say.

His eyes had left Suellen's and were wandering about the room, to
Gerald's childlike puzzled eyes, to the floor, bare of rugs, to the
mantelpiece denuded of its ornaments, the sagging springs and torn
upholstery into which Yankee bayonets had ripped, the cracked
mirror above the sideboard, the unfaded squares on the wall where
pictures had hung before the looters came, the scant table service,
the decently mended but old dresses of the girls, the flour sack
which had been made into a kilt for Wade.

Frank was remembering the Tara he had known before the war and on
his face was a hurt look, a look of tired impotent anger. He loved
Suellen, liked her sisters, respected Gerald and had a genuine
fondness for the plantation. Since Sherman had swept through
Georgia, Frank had seen many appalling sights as he rode about the
state trying to collect supplies, but nothing had gone to his heart
as Tara did now. He wanted to do something for the O'Haras,
especially Suellen, and there was nothing he could do. He was
unconsciously wagging his whiskered head in pity and clicking his
tongue against his teeth when Scarlett caught his eye. He saw the
flame of indignant pride in them and he dropped his gaze quickly to
his plate in embarrassment.

The girls were hungry for news. There had been no mail service
since Atlanta fell, now four months past, and they were in complete
ignorance as to where the Yankees were, how the Confederate Army
was faring, what had happened to Atlanta and to old friends.
Frank, whose work took him all over the section, was as good as a
newspaper, better even, for he was kin to or knew almost everyone
from Macon north to Atlanta, and he could supply bits of
interesting personal gossip which the papers always omitted. To
cover his embarrassment at being caught by Scarlett, he plunged
hastily into a recital of news. The Confederates, he told them,
had retaken Atlanta after Sherman marched out, but it was a
valueless prize as Sherman had burned it completely.

"But I thought Atlanta burned the night I left," cried Scarlett,
bewildered. "I thought our boys burned it!"

"Oh, no, Miss Scarlett!" cried Frank, shocked. "We'd never burn
one of our own towns with our own folks in it! What you saw
burning was the warehouses and the supplies we didn't want the
Yankees to capture and the foundries and the ammunition. But that
was all. When Sherman took the town the houses and stores were
standing there as pretty as you please. And he quartered his men
in them."

"But what happened to the people? Did he--did he kill them?"

"He killed some--but not with bullets," said the one-eyed soldier
grimly. "Soon's he marched into Atlanta he told the mayor that all
the people in town would have to move out, every living soul. And
there were plenty of old folks that couldn't stand the trip and
sick folks that ought not to have been moved and ladies who were--
well, ladies who hadn't ought to be moved either. And he moved
them out in the biggest rainstorm you ever saw, hundreds and
hundreds of them, and dumped them in the woods near Rough and Ready
and sent word to General Hood to come and get them. And a plenty
of the folks died of pneumonia and not being able to stand that
sort of treatment."

"Oh, but why did he do that? They couldn't have done him any
harm," cried Melanie.

"He said he wanted the town to rest his men and horses in," said
Frank. "And he rested them there till the middle of November and
then he lit out. And he set fire to the whole town when he left
and burned everything."

"Oh, surely not everything!" cried the girls in dismay.

It was inconceivable that the bustling town they knew, so full of
people, so crowded with soldiers, was gone. All the lovely homes
beneath shady trees, all the big stores and the fine hotels--surely
they couldn't be gone! Melanie seemed ready to burst into tears,
for she had been born there and knew no other home. Scarlett's
heart sank because she had come to love the place second only to
Tara.

"Well, almost everything," Frank amended hastily, disturbed by the
expressions on their faces. He tried to look cheerful, for he did
not believe in upsetting ladies. Upset ladies always upset him and
made him feel helpless. He could not bring himself to tell them
the worst. Let them find out from some one else.

He could not tell them what the army saw when it marched back into
Atlanta, the acres and acres of chimneys standing blackly above
ashes, piles of half-burned rubbish and tumbled heaps of brick
clogging the streets, old trees dying from fire, their charred
limbs tumbling to the ground in the cold wind. He remembered how
the sight had turned him sick, remembered the bitter curses of the
Confederates when they saw the remains of the town. He hoped the
ladies would never hear of the horrors of the looted cemetery, for
they'd never get over that. Charlie Hamilton and Melanie's mother
and father were buried there. The sight of that cemetery still
gave Frank nightmares. Hoping to find jewelry buried with the
dead, the Yankee soldiers had broken open vaults, dug up graves.
They had robbed the bodies, stripped from the coffins gold and
silver name plates, silver trimmings and silver handles. The
skeletons and corpses, flung helterskelter among their splintered
caskets, lay exposed and so pitiful.

And Frank couldn't tell them about the dogs and the cats. Ladies
set such a store by pets. But the thousands of starving animals,
left homeless when their masters had been so rudely evacuated, had
shocked him almost as much as the cemetery, for Frank loved cats
and dogs. The animals had been frightened, cold, ravenous, wild as
forest creatures, the strong attacking the weak, the weak waiting
for the weaker to die so they could eat them. And, above the
ruined town, the buzzards splotched the wintry sky with graceful,
sinister bodies.

Frank cast about in his mind for some mitigating information that
would make the ladies feel better.

"There's some houses still standing," he said, "houses that set on
big lots away from other houses and didn't catch fire. And the
churches and the Masonic hall are left. And a few stores too. But
the business section and all along the railroad tracks and at Five
Points--well, ladies, that part of town is flat on the ground."

"Then," cried Scarlett bitterly, "that warehouse Charlie left me,
down on the tracks, it's gone too?"

"If it was near the tracks, it's gone, but--" Suddenly he smiled.
Why hadn't he thought of it before? "Cheer up, ladies! Your Aunt
Pitty's house is still standing. It's kind of damaged but there it
is."

"Oh, how did it escape?"

"Well, it's made of brick and it's got about the only slate roof in
Atlanta and that kept the sparks from setting it afire, I guess.
And then it's about the last house on the north end of town and the
fire wasn't so bad over that way. Of course, the Yankees quartered
there tore it up aplenty. They even burned the baseboard and the
mahogany stair rail for firewood, but shucks! It's in good shape.
When I saw Miss Pitty last week in Macon--"

"You saw her? How is she?"

"Just fine. Just fine. When I told her her house was still
standing, she made up her mind to come home right away. That is--
if that old darky, Peter, will let her come. Lots of the Atlanta
people have already come back, because they got nervous about
Macon. Sherman didn't take Macon but everybody is afraid Wilson's
raiders will get there soon and he's worse than Sherman."

"But how silly of them to come back if there aren't any houses!
Where do they live?"

"Miss Scarlett, they're living in tents and shacks and log cabins
and doubling up six and seven families in the few houses still
standing. And they're trying to rebuild. Now, Miss Scarlett,
don't say they are silly. You know Atlanta folks as well as I do.
They are plumb set on that town, most as bad as Charlestonians are
about Charleston, and it'll take more than Yankees and a burning to
keep them away. Atlanta folks are--begging your pardon, Miss
Melly--as stubborn as mules about Atlanta. I don't know why, for I
always thought that town a mighty pushy, impudent sort of place.
But then, I'm a countryman born and I don't like any town. And let
me tell you, the ones who are getting back first are the smart
ones. The ones who come back last won't find a stick or stone or
brick of their houses, because everybody's out salvaging things all
over town to rebuild their houses. Just day before yesterday, I
saw Mrs. Merriwether and Miss Maybelle and their old darky woman
out collecting brick in a wheelbarrow. And Mrs. Meade told me she
was thinking about building a log cabin when the doctor comes back
to help her. She said she lived in a log cabin when she first came
to Atlanta, when it was Marthasville, and it wouldn't bother her
none to do it again. 'Course, she was only joking but that shows
you how they feel about it."

"I think they've got a lot of spirit," said Melanie proudly.
"Don't you, Scarlett?"

Scarlett nodded, a grim pleasure and pride in her adopted town
filling her. As Frank said, it was a pushy, impudent place and
that was why she liked it. It wasn't hide-bound and stick-in-the-
muddish like the older towns and it had a brash exuberance that
matched her own. "I'm like Atlanta," she thought. "It takes more
than Yankees or a burning to keep me down."

"If Aunt Pitty is going back to Atlanta, we'd better go back and
stay with her, Scarlett," said Melanie, interrupting her train of
thought. "She'll die of fright alone."

"Now, how can I leave here, Melly?" Scarlett asked crossly. "If
you are so anxious to go, go. I won't stop you."

"Oh, I didn't mean it that way, darling," cried Melanie, flushing
with distress. "How thoughtless of me! Of course, you can't leave
Tara and--and I guess Uncle Peter and Cookie can take care of
Auntie."

"There's nothing to keep you from going," Scarlett pointed out,
shortly.

"You know I wouldn't leave you," answered Melanie. "And I--I would
be just frightened to death without you."

"Suit yourself. Besides, you wouldn't catch me going back to
Atlanta. Just as soon as they get a few houses up, Sherman will
come back and burn it again."

"He won't be back," said Frank and, despite his efforts, his face
drooped. "He's gone on through the state to the coast. Savannah
was captured this week and they say the Yankees are going on up
into South Carolina."

"Savannah taken!"

"Yes. Why, ladies, Savannah couldn't help but fall. They didn't
have enough men to hold it, though they used every man they could
get--every man who could drag one foot after another. Do you know
that when the Yankees were marching on Milledgeville, they called
out all the cadets from the military academies, no matter how young
they were, and even opened the state penitentiary to get fresh
troops? Yes, sir, they turned loose every convict who was willing
to fight and promised him a pardon if he lived through the war. It
kind of gave me the creeps to see those little cadets in the ranks
with thieves and cutthroats."

"They turned loose the convicts on us!"

"Now, Miss Scarlett, don't you get upset. They're a long way off
from here, and furthermore they're making good soldiers. I guess
being a thief don't keep a man from being a good soldier, does it?"

"I think it's wonderful," said Melanie softly.

"Well, I don't," said Scarlett flatly. "There's thieves enough
running around the country anyway, what with the Yankees and--"
She caught herself in time but the men laughed.

"What with Yankees and our commissary department," they finished
and she flushed.

"But where's General Hood's army?" interposed Melanie hastily.
"Surely he could have held Savannah."

"Why, Miss Melanie," Frank was startled and reproachful, "General
Hood hasn't been down in that section at all. He's been fighting
up in Tennessee, trying to draw the Yankees out of Georgia."

"And didn't his little scheme work well!" cried Scarlett
sarcastically. "He left the damn Yankees to go through us with
nothing but schoolboys and convicts and Home Guards to protect us."

"Daughter," said Gerald rousing himself, "you are profane. Your
mother will be grieved."

"They are damn Yankees!" cried Scarlett passionately. "And I never
expect to call them anything else."

At the mention of Ellen everyone felt queer and conversation
suddenly ceased. Melanie again interposed.

"When you were in Macon did you see India and Honey Wilkes? Did
they--had they heard anything of Ashley?"

"Now, Miss Melly, you know if I'd had news of Ashley, I'd have
ridden up here from Macon right away to tell you," said Frank
reproachfully. "No, they didn't have any news but--now, don't you
fret about Ashley, Miss Melly. I know it's been a long time since
you heard from him, but you can't expect to hear from a fellow when
he's in prison, can you? And things aren't as bad in Yankee
prisons as they are in ours. After all, the Yankees have plenty to
eat and enough medicines and blankets. They aren't like we are--
not having enough to feed ourselves, much less our prisoners."

"Oh, the Yankees have got plenty," cried Melanie, passionately
bitter. "But they don't give things to the prisoners. You know
they don't, Mr. Kennedy. You are just saying that to make me feel
better. You know that our boys freeze to death up there and starve
too and die without doctors and medicine, simply because the
Yankees hate us so much! Oh, if we could just wipe every Yankee
off the face of the earth! Oh, I know that Ashley is--"

"Don't say it!" cried Scarlett, her heart in her throat. As long
as no one said Ashley was dead, there persisted in her heart a
faint hope that he lived, but she felt that if she heard the words
pronounced, in that moment he would die.

"Now, Mrs. Wilkes, don't you bother about your husband," said the
one-eyed man soothingly. "I was captured after first Manassas and
exchanged later and when I was in prison, they fed me off the fat
of the land, fried chicken and hot biscuits--"

"I think you are a liar," said Melanie with a faint smile and the
first sign of spirit Scarlett had ever seen her display with a man.
"What do you think?"

"I think so too," said the one-eyed man and slapped his leg with a
laugh.

"If you'll all come into the parlor, I'll sing you some Christmas
carols," said Melanie, glad to change the subject. "The piano was
one thing the Yankees couldn't carry away. Is it terribly out of
tune, Suellen?"

"Dreadfully," answered Suellen, happily beckoning with a smile to
Frank.

But as they all passed from the room, Frank hung back, tugging at
Scarlett's sleeve.

"May I speak to you alone?"

For an awful moment she feared he was going to ask about her
livestock and she braced herself for a good lie.

When the room was cleared and they stood by the fire, all the false
cheerfulness which had colored Frank's face in front of the others
passed and she saw that he looked like an old man. His face was as
dried and brown as the leaves that were blowing about the lawn of
Tara and his ginger-colored whiskers were thin and scraggly and
streaked with gray. He clawed at them absently and cleared his
throat in an annoying way before he spoke.

"I'm sorry about your ma, Miss Scarlett."

"Please don't talk about it."

"And your pa-- Has he been this way since--?"

"Yes--he's--he's not himself, as you can see."

"He sure set a store by her."

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy, please don't let's talk--"

"I'm sorry, Miss Scarlett," and he shuffled his feet nervously.
"The truth is I wanted to take up something with your pa and now I
see it won't do any good."

"Perhaps I can help you, Mr. Kennedy. You see--I'm the head of the
house now."

"Well, I," began Frank and again clawed nervously at his beard.
"The truth is-- Well, Miss Scarlett, I was aiming to ask him for
Miss Suellen."

"Do you mean to tell me," cried Scarlett in amused amazement, "that
you haven't yet asked Pa for Suellen? And you've been courting her
for years!"

He flushed and grinned embarrassedly and in general looked like a
shy and sheepish boy.

"Well, I--I didn't know if she'd have me. I'm so much older than
she is and--there were so many good-looking young bucks hanging
around Tara--"

"Hump!" thought Scarlett, "they were hanging around me, not her!"

"And I don't know yet if she'll have me. I've never asked her but
she must know how I feel. I--I thought I'd ask Mr. O'Hara's
permission and tell him the truth. Miss Scarlett, I haven't got a
cent now. I used to have a lot of money, if you'll forgive me
mentioning it, but right now all I own is my horse and the clothes
I've got on. You see, when I enlisted I sold most of my land and I
put all my money in Confederate bonds and you know what they're
worth now. Less than the paper they're printed on. And anyway, I
haven't got them now, because they burned up when the Yankees
burned my sister's house. I know I've got gall asking for Miss
Suellen now when I haven't a cent but--well, it's this way. I got
to thinking that we don't know how things are going to turn out
about this war. It sure looks like the end of the world for me.
There's nothing we can be sure of and--and I thought it would be a
heap of comfort to me and maybe to her if we were engaged. That
would be something sure. I wouldn't ask to marry her till I could
take care of her, Miss Scarlett, and I don't know when that will
be. But if true love carries any weight with you, you can be
certain Miss Suellen will be rich in that if nothing else."

He spoke the last words with a simple dignity that touched
Scarlett, even in her amusement. It was beyond her comprehension
that anyone could love Suellen. Her sister seemed to her a monster
of selfishness, of complaints and of what she could only describe
as pure cussedness.

"Why, Mr. Kennedy," she said kindly, "it's quite all right. I'm
sure I can speak for Pa. He always set a store by you and he
always expected Suellen to marry you."

"Did he now?" cried Frank, happiness in his face.

"Indeed yes," answered Scarlett, concealing a grin as she
remembered how frequently Gerald had rudely bellowed across the
supper table to Suellen: "How now, Missy! Hasn't your ardent beau
popped the question yet? Shall I be asking him his intentions?"

"I shall ask her tonight," he said, his face quivering, and he
clutched her hand and shook it. "You're so kind, Miss Scarlett."

"I'll send her to you," smiled Scarlett, starting for the parlor.
Melanie was beginning to play. The piano was sadly out of tune but
some of the chords were musical and Melanie was raising her voice
to lead the others in "Hark, the Herald Angels Sing!"

Scarlett paused. It did not seem possible that war had swept over
them twice, that they were living in a ravaged country, close to
the border of starvation, when this old sweet Christmas hymn was
being sung. Abruptly she turned to Frank.

"What did you mean when you said it looked like the end of the
world to you?"

"I'll talk frankly," he said slowly, "but I wouldn't want you to be
alarming the other ladies with what I say. The war can't go on
much longer. There aren't any fresh men to fill the ranks and the
desertions are running high--higher than the army likes to admit.
You see, the men can't stand to be away from their families when
they know they're starving, so they go home to try to provide for
them. I can't blame them but it weakens the army. And the army
can't fight without food and there isn't any food. I know because,
you see, getting food is my business. I've been all up and down
this section since we retook Atlanta and there isn't enough to feed
a jaybird. It's the same way for three hundred miles south to
Savannah. The folks are starving and the railroads are torn up and
there aren't any new rifles and the ammunition is giving out and
there's no leather at all for shoes. . . . So, you see, the end is
almost here."

But the fading hopes of the Confederacy weighed less heavily on
Scarlett than his remark about the scarcity of food. It had been
her intention to send Pork out with the horse and wagon, the gold
pieces and the United States money to scour the countryside for
provisions and material for clothes. But if what Frank said was
true--

But Macon hadn't fallen. There must be food in Macon. Just as
soon as the commissary department was safely on its way, she'd
start Pork for Macon and take the chance of having the precious
horse picked up by the army. She'd have to risk it.

"Well, let's don't talk about unpleasant things tonight, Mr.
Kennedy," she said. "You go and sit in Mother's little office and
I'll send Suellen to you so you can--well, so you'll have a little
privacy."

Blushing, smiling, Frank slipped out of the room and Scarlett
watched him go.

"What a pity he can't marry her now," she thought. "That would be
one less mouth to feed."



CHAPTER XXIX


The following April General Johnston, who had been given back the
shattered remnants of his old command, surrendered them in North
Carolina and the war was over. But not until two weeks later did
the news reach Tara. There was too much to do at Tara for anyone
to waste time traveling abroad and hearing gossip and, as the
neighbors were just as busy as they, there was little visiting and
news spread slowly.

Spring plowing was at its height and the cotton and garden seed
Pork had brought from Macon was being put into the ground. Pork
had been almost worthless since the trip, so proud was he of
returning safely with his wagon-load of dress goods, seed, fowls,
hams, side meat and meal. Over and over, he told the story of his
many narrow escapes, of the bypaths and country lanes he had taken
on his return to Tara, the unfrequented roads, the old trails, the
bridle paths. He had been five weeks on the road, agonizing weeks
for Scarlett. But she did not upbraid him on his return, for she
was happy that he had made the trip successfully and pleased that
he brought back so much of the money she had given him. She had a
shrewd suspicion that the reason he had so much money left over was
that he had not bought the fowls or most of the food. Pork would
have taken shame to himself had he spent her money when there were
unguarded hen coops along the road and smokehouses handy.

Now that they had a little food, everyone at Tara was busy trying
to restore some semblance of naturalness to life. There was work
for every pair of hands, too much work, never-ending work. The
withered stalks of last year's cotton had to be removed to make way
for this year's seeds and the balky horse, unaccustomed to the
plow, dragged unwillingly through the fields. Weeds had to be
pulled from the garden and the seeds planted, firewood had to be
cut, a beginning had to be made toward replacing the pens and the
miles and miles of fences so casually burned by the Yankees. The
snares Pork set for rabbits had to be visited twice a day and the
fishlines in the river rebaited. There were beds to be made and
floors to be swept, food to be cooked and dishes washed, hogs and
chickens to be fed and eggs gathered. The cow had to be milked and
pastured near the swamp and someone had to watch her all day for
fear the Yankees or Frank Kennedy's men would return and take her.
Even little Wade had his duties. Every morning he went out
importantly with a basket to pick up twigs and chips to start the
fires with.

It was the Fontaine boys, the first of the County men home from the
war, who brought the news of the surrender. Alex, who still had
boots, was walking and Tony, barefooted, was riding on the bare
back of a mule. Tony always managed to get the best of things in
that family. They were swarthier than ever from four years'
exposure to sun and storm, thinner, more wiry, and the wild black
beards they brought back from the war made them seem like
strangers.

On their way to Mimosa and eager for home, they only stopped a
moment at Tara to kiss the girls and give them news of the
surrender. It was all over, they said, all finished, and they did
not seem to care much or want to talk about it. All they wanted to
know was whether Mimosa had been burned. On the way south from
Atlanta, they had passed chimney after chimney where the homes of
friends had stood and it seemed almost too much to hope that their
own house had been spared. They sighed with relief at the welcome
news and laughed, slapping their thighs when Scarlett told them of
Sally's wild ride and how neatly she had cleared their hedge.

"She's a spunky girl," said Tony, "and it's rotten luck for her,
Joe getting killed. You all got any chewing tobacco, Scarlett?"

"Nothing but rabbit tobacco. Pa smokes it in a corn cob."

"I haven't fallen that low yet," said Tony, "but I'll probably come
to it."

"Is Dimity Munroe all right?" asked Alex, eagerly but a little
embarrassed, and Scarlett recalled vaguely that he had been sweet
on Sally's younger sister.

"Oh, yes. She's living with her aunt over in Fayetteville now.
You know their house in Lovejoy was burned. And the rest of her
folks are in Macon."

"What he means is--has Dimity married some brave colonel in the
Home Guard?" jeered Tony, and Alex turned furious eyes upon him.

"Of course, she isn't married," said Scarlett, amused.

"Maybe it would be better if she had," said Alex gloomily. "How
the hell--I beg your pardon, Scarlett. But how can a man ask a
girl to marry him when his darkies are all freed and his stock gone
and he hasn't got a cent in his pockets?"

"You know that wouldn't bother Dimity," said Scarlett. She could
afford to be loyal to Dimity and say nice things about her, for
Alex Fontaine had never been one of her own beaux.

"Hell's afire-- Well, I beg your pardon again. I'll have to quit
swearing or Grandma will sure tan my hide. I'm not asking any girl
to marry a pauper. It mightn't bother her but it would bother me."

While Scarlett talked to the boys on the front porch, Melanie,
Suellen and Carreen slipped silently into the house as soon as they
heard the news of the surrender. After the boys had gone, cutting
across the back fields of Tara toward home, Scarlett went inside
and heard the girls sobbing together on the sofa in Ellen's little
office. It was all over, the bright beautiful dream they had loved
and hoped for, the Cause which had taken their friends, lovers,
husbands and beggared their families. The Cause they had thought
could never fall had fallen forever.

But for Scarlett, there were no tears. In the first moment when
she heard the news she thought: Thank God! Now the cow won't be
stolen. Now the horse is safe. Now we can take the silver out of
the well and everybody can have a knife and fork. Now I won't be
afraid to drive round the country looking for something to eat.

What a relief! Never again would she start in fear at the sound of
hooves. Never again would she wake in the dark nights, holding her
breath to listen, wondering if it were reality or only a dream that
she heard in the yard the rattle of bits, the stamping of hooves
and the harsh crying of orders by the Yankees. And, best of all,
Tara was safe! Now her worst nightmare would never come true. Now
she would never have to stand on the lawn and see smoke billowing
from the beloved house and hear the roar of flames as the roof fell
in.

Yes, the Cause was dead but war had always seemed foolish to her
and peace was better. She had never stood starry eyed when the
Stars and Bars ran up a pole or felt cold chills when "Dixie"
sounded. She had not been sustained through privations, the
sickening duties of nursing, the fears of the siege and the hunger
of the last few months by the fanatic glow which made all these
things endurable to others, if only the Cause prospered. It was
all over and done with and she was not going to cry about it.

All over! The war which had seemed so endless, the war which,
unbidden and unwanted, had cut her life in two, had made so clean a
cleavage that it was difficult to remember those other care-free
days. She could look back, unmoved, at the pretty Scarlett with
her fragile green morocco slippers and her flounces fragrant with
lavender but she wondered if she could be that same girl. Scarlett
O'Hara, with the County at her feet, a hundred slaves to do her
bidding, the wealth of Tara like a wall behind her and doting
parents anxious to grant any desire of her heart. Spoiled,
careless Scarlett who had never known an ungratified wish except
where Ashley was concerned.

Somewhere, on the long road that wound through those four years,
the girl with her sachet and dancing slippers had slipped away and
there was left a woman with sharp green eyes, who counted pennies
and turned her hands to many menial tasks, a woman to whom nothing
was left from the wreckage except the indestructible red earth on
which she stood.

As she stood in the hall, listening to the girls sobbing, her mind
was busy.

"We'll plant more cotton, lots more. I'll send Pork to Macon
tomorrow to buy more seed. Now the Yankees won't burn it and our
troops won't need it. Good Lord! Cotton ought to go sky high this
fall!"

She went into the little office and, disregarding the weeping girls
on the sofa, seated herself at the secretary and picked up a quill
to balance the cost of more cotton seed against her remaining cash.

"The war is over," she thought and suddenly she dropped the quill
as a wild happiness flooded her. The war was over and Ashley--if
Ashley was alive he'd be coming home! She wondered if Melanie, in
the midst of mourning for the lost Cause, had thought of this.

"Soon we'll get a letter--no, not a letter. We can't get letters.
But soon--oh, somehow he'll let us know!"

But the days passed into weeks and there was no news from Ashley.
The mail service in the South was uncertain and in the rural
districts there was none at all. Occasionally a passing traveler
from Atlanta brought a note from Aunt Pitty tearfully begging the
girls to come back. But never news of Ashley.



After the surrender, an ever-present feud over the horse smoldered
between Scarlett and Suellen. Now that there was no danger of
Yankees, Suellen wanted to go calling on the neighbors. Lonely and
missing the happy sociability of the old days, Suellen longed to
visit friends, if for no other reason than to assure herself that
the rest of the County was as bad off as Tara. But Scarlett was
adamant. The horse was for work, to drag logs from the woods, to
plow and for Pork to ride in search of food. On Sundays he had
earned the right to graze in the pasture and rest. If Suellen
wanted to go visiting she could go afoot.

Before the last year Suellen had never walked a hundred yards in
her life and this prospect was anything but pleasing. So she
stayed at home and nagged and cried and said, once too often: "Oh,
if only Mother was here!" At that, Scarlett gave her the long-
promised slap, hitting her so hard it knocked her screaming to the
bed and caused great consternation throughout the house.
Thereafter, Suellen whined the less, at least in Scarlett's
presence.

Scarlett spoke truthfully when she said she wanted the horse to
rest but that was only half of the truth. The other half was that
she had paid one round of calls on the County in the first month
after the surrender and the sight of old friends and old
plantations had shaken her courage more than she liked to admit.

The Fontaines had fared best of any, thanks to Sally's hard ride,
but it was flourishing only by comparison with the desperate
situation of the other neighbors. Grandma Fontaine had never
completely recovered from the heart attack she had the day she led
the others in beating out the flames and saving the house. Old Dr.
Fontaine was convalescing slowly from an amputated arm. Alex and
Tony were turning awkward hands to plows and hoe handles. They
leaned over the fence rail to shake hands with Scarlett when she
called and they laughed at her rickety wagon, their black eyes
bitter, for they were laughing at themselves as well as her. She
asked to buy seed corn from them and they promised it and fell to
discussing farm problems. They had twelve chickens, two cows, five
hogs and the mule they brought home from the war. One of the hogs
had just died and they were worried about losing the others. At
hearing such serious words about hogs from these ex-dandies who had
never given life a more serious thought than which cravat was most
fashionable, Scarlett laughed and this time her laugh was bitter
too.

They had all made her welcome at Mimosa and had insisted on giving,
not selling, her the seed corn. The quick Fontaine tempers flared
when she put a greenback on the table and they flatly refused
payment. Scarlett took the corn and privately slipped a dollar
bill into Sally's hand. Sally looked like a different person from
the girl who had greeted her eight months before when Scarlett
first came home to Tara. Then she had been pale and sad but there
had been a buoyancy about her. Now that buoyancy had gone, as if
the surrender had taken all hope from her.

"Scarlett," she whispered as she clutched the bill, "what was the
good of it all? Why did we ever fight? Oh, my poor Joe! Oh, my
poor baby!"

"I don't know why we fought and I don't care," said Scarlett. "And
I'm not interested. I never was interested. War is a man's
business, not a woman's. All I'm interested in now is a good
cotton crop. Now take this dollar and buy little Joe a dress. God
knows, he needs it. I'm not going to rob you of your corn, for all
Alex and Tony's politeness."

The boys followed her to the wagon and assisted her in, courtly for
all their rags, gay with the volatile Fontaine gaiety, but with the
picture of their destitution in her eyes, she shivered as she drove
away from Mimosa. She was so tired of poverty and pinching. What
a pleasure it would be to know people who were rich and not worried
as to where the next meal was coming from!

Cade Calvert was at home at Pine Bloom and, as Scarlett came up the
steps of the old house in which she had danced so often in happier
days, she saw that death was in his face. He was emaciated and he
coughed as he lay in an easy chair in the sunshine with a shawl
across his knees, but his face lit up when he saw her. Just a
little cold which had settled in his chest, he said, trying to rise
to greet her. Got it from sleeping so much in the rain. But it
would be gone soon and then he'd lend a hand in the work.

Cathleen Calvert, who came out of the house at the sound of voices,
met Scarlett's eyes above her brother's head and in them Scarlett
read knowledge and bitter despair. Cade might not know but
Cathleen knew. Pine Bloom looked straggly and overgrown with
weeds, seedling pines were beginning to show in the fields and the
house was sagging and untidy. Cathleen was thin and taut.

The two of them, with their Yankee stepmother, their four little
half-sisters, and Hilton, the Yankee overseer, remained in the
silent, oddly echoing house. Scarlett had never liked Hilton any
more than she liked their own overseer Jonas Wilkerson, and she
liked him even less now, as he sauntered forward and greeted her
like an equal. Formerly he had the same combination of servility
and impertinence which Wilkerson possessed but now, with Mr.
Calvert and Raiford dead in the war and Cade sick, he had dropped
all servility. The second Mrs. Calvert had never known how to
compel respect from negro servants and it was not to be expected
that she could get it from a white man.

"Mr. Hilton has been so kind about staying with us through these
difficult times," said Mrs. Calvert nervously, casting quick
glances at her silent stepdaughter. "Very kind. I suppose you
heard how he saved our house twice when Sherman was here. I'm sure
I don't know how we would have managed without him, with no money
and Cade--"

A flush went over Cade's white face and Cathleen's long lashes
veiled her eyes as her mouth hardened. Scarlett knew their souls
were writhing in helpless rage at being under obligations to their
Yankee overseer. Mrs. Calvert seemed ready to weep. She had
somehow made a blunder. She was always blundering. She just
couldn't understand Southerners, for all that she had lived in
Georgia twenty years. She never knew what not to say to her
stepchildren and, no matter what she said or did, they were always
so exquisitely polite to her. Silently she vowed she would go
North to her own people, taking her children with her, and leave
these puzzling stiff-necked strangers.

After these visits, Scarlett had no desire to see the Tarletons.
Now that the four boys were gone, the house burned and the family
cramped in the overseer's cottage, she could not bring herself to
go. But Suellen and Carreen begged and Melanie said it would be
unneighborly not to call and welcome Mr. Tarleton back from the
war, so one Sunday they went.

This was the worst of all.

As they drove up by the ruins of the house, they saw Beatrice
Tarleton dressed in a worn riding habit, a crop under her arm,
sitting on the top rail of the fence about the paddock, staring
moodily at nothing. Beside her perched the bow-legged little negro
who had trained her horses and he looked as glum as his mistress.
The paddock, once full of frolicking colts and placid brood mares,
was empty now except for one mule, the mule Mr. Tarleton had ridden
home from the surrender.

"I swear I don't know what to do with myself now that my darlings
are gone," said Mrs. Tarleton, climbing down from the fence. A
stranger might have thought she spoke of her four dead sons, but
the girls from Tara knew her horses were in her mind. "All my
beautiful horses dead. And oh, my poor Nellie! If I just had
Nellie! And nothing but a damned mule on the place. A damned
mule," she repeated, looking indignantly at the scrawny beast.
"It's an insult to the memory of my blooded darlings to have a mule
in their paddock. Mules are misbegotten, unnatural critters and it
ought to be illegal to breed them."

Jim Tarleton, completely disguised by a bushy beard, came out of
the overseer's house to welcome and kiss the girls and his four
red-haired daughters in mended dresses streamed out behind him,
tripping over the dozen black and tan hounds which ran barking to
the door at the sound of strange voices. There was an air of
studied and determined cheerfulness about the whole family which
brought a colder chill to Scarlett's bones than the bitterness of
Mimosa or the deathly brooding of Pine Bloom.

The Tarletons insisted that the girls stay for dinner, saying they
had so few guests these days and wanted to hear all the news.
Scarlett did not want to linger, for the atmosphere oppressed her,
but Melanie and her two sisters were anxious for a longer visit, so
the four stayed for dinner and ate sparingly of the side meat and
dried peas which were served them.

There was laughter about the skimpy fare and the Tarleton girls
giggled as they told of makeshifts for clothes, as if they were
telling the most amusing of jokes. Melanie met them halfway,
surprising Scarlett with her unexpected vivacity as she told of
trials at Tara, making light of hardships. Scarlett could hardly
speak at all. The room seemed so empty without the four great
Tarleton boys, lounging and smoking and teasing. And if it seemed
empty to her, what must it seem to the Tarletons who were offering
a smiling front to their neighbors?

Carreen had said little during the meal but when it was over she
slipped over to Mrs. Tarleton's side and whispered something. Mrs.
Tarleton's face changed and the brittle smile left her lips as she
put her arm around Carreen's slender waist. They left the room,
and Scarlett, who felt she could not endure the house another
minute, followed them. They went down the path through the garden
and Scarlett saw they were going toward the burying ground. Well,
she couldn't go back to the house now. It would seem too rude.
But what on earth did Carreen mean dragging Mrs. Tarleton out to
the boys' graves when Beatrice was trying so hard to be brave?

There were two new marble markers in the brick-inclosed lot under
the funereal cedars--so new that no rain had splashed them with red
dust.

"We got them last week," said Mrs. Tarleton proudly. "Mr. Tarleton
went to Macon and brought them home in the wagon."

Tombstones! And what they must have cost! Suddenly Scarlett did
not feel as sorry for the Tarletons as she had at first. Anybody
who would waste precious money on tombstones when food was so dear,
so almost unattainable, didn't deserve sympathy. And there were
several lines carved on each of the stones. The more carving, the
more money. The whole family must be crazy! And it had cost
money, too, to bring the three boys' bodies home. They had never
found Boyd or any trace of him.

Between the graves of Brent and Stuart was a stone which read:
"They were lovely and pleasant in their lives, and in their death
they were not divided."

On the other stone were the names of Boyd and Tom with something in
Latin which began "Dulce et--" but it meant nothing to Scarlett who
had managed to evade Latin at the Fayetteville Academy.

All that money for tombstones! Why, they were fools! She felt as
indignant as if her own money had been squandered.

Carreen's eyes were shining oddly.

"I think it's lovely," she whispered pointing to the first stone.

Carreen would think it lovely. Anything sentimental stirred her.

"Yes," said Mrs. Tarleton and her voice was soft, "we thought it
very fitting--they died almost at the same time. Stuart first and
then Brent who caught up the flag he dropped."

As the girls drove back to Tara, Scarlett was silent for a while,
thinking of what she had seen in the various homes, remembering
against her will the County in its glory, with visitors at all the
big houses and money plentiful, negroes crowding the quarters and
the well-tended fields glorious with cotton.

"In another year, there'll be little pines all over these fields,"
she thought and looking toward the encircling forest she shuddered.
"Without the darkies, it will be all we can do to keep body and
soul together. Nobody can run a big plantation without the
darkies, and lots of the fields won't be cultivated at all and the
woods will take over the fields again. Nobody can plant much
cotton, and what will we do then? What'll become of country folks?
Town folks can manage somehow. They've always managed. But we
country folks will go back a hundred years like the pioneers who
had little cabins and just scratched a few acres--and barely
existed.

"No--" she thought grimly, "Tara isn't going to be like that. Not
even if I have to plow myself. This whole section, this whole
state can go back to woods if it wants to, but I won't let Tara go.
And I don't intend to waste my money on tombstones or my time
crying about the war. We can make out somehow. I know we could
make out somehow if the men weren't all dead. Losing the darkies
isn't the worst part about this. It's the loss of the men, the
young men." She thought again of the four Tarletons and Joe
Fontaine, of Raiford Calvert and the Munroe brothers and all the
boys from Fayetteville and Jonesboro whose names she had read on
the casualty lists. "If there were just enough men left, we could
manage somehow but--"

Another thought struck her--suppose she wanted to marry again. Of
course, she didn't want to marry again. Once was certainly enough.
Besides, the only man she'd ever wanted was Ashley and he was
married if he was still living. But suppose she would want to
marry. Who would there be to marry her? The thought was
appalling.

"Melly," she said, "what's going to happen to Southern girls?"

"What do you mean?"

"Just what I say. What's going to happen to them? There's no one
to marry them. Why, Melly, with all the boys dead, there'll be
thousands of girls all over the South who'll die old maids."

"And never have any children," added Melanie, to whom this was the
most important thing.

Evidently the thought was not new to Suellen who sat in the back of
the wagon, for she suddenly began to cry. She had not heard from
Frank Kennedy since Christmas. She did not know if the lack of
mail service was the cause, or if he had merely trifled with her
affections and then forgotten her. Or maybe he had been killed in
the last days of the war! The latter would have been infinitely
preferable to his forgetting her, for at least there was some
dignity about a dead love, such as Carreen and India Wilkes had,
but none about a deserted fiancee.

"Oh, in the name of God, hush!" said Scarlett.

"Oh, you can talk," sobbed Suellen, "because you've been married
and had a baby and everybody knows some man wanted you. But look
at me! And you've got to be mean and throw it up to me that I'm an
old maid when I can't help myself. I think you're hateful."

"Oh, hush! You know how I hate people who bawl all the time. You
know perfectly well old Ginger Whiskers isn't dead and that he'll
come back and marry you. He hasn't any better sense. But
personally, I'd rather be an old maid than marry him."

There was silence from the back of the wagon for a while and
Carreen comforted her sister with absent-minded pats, for her mind
was a long way off, riding paths three years old with Brent
Tarleton beside her. There was a glow, an exaltation in her eyes.

"Ah," said Melanie, sadly, "what will the South be like without all
our fine boys? What would the South have been if they had lived?
We could use their courage and their energy and their brains.
Scarlett, all of us with little boys must raise them to take the
places of the men who are gone, to be brave men like them."

"There will never again be men like them," said Carreen softly.
"No one can take their places."

They drove home the rest of the way in silence,



One day not long after this, Cathleen Calvert rode up to Tara at
sunset. Her sidesaddle was strapped on as sorry a mule as Scarlett
had ever seen, a flop-eared lame brute, and Cathleen was almost as
sorry looking as the animal she rode. Her dress was of faded
gingham of the type once worn only by house servants, and her
sunbonnet was secured under her chin by a piece of twine. She rode
up to the front porch but did not dismount, and Scarlett and
Melanie, who had been watching the sunset, went down the steps to
meet her. Cathleen was as white as Cade had been the day Scarlett
called, white and hard and brittle, as if her face would shatter if
she spoke. But her back was erect and her head was high as she
nodded to them.

Scarlett suddenly remembered the day of the Wilkes barbecue when
she and Cathleen had whispered together about Rhett Butler. How
pretty and fresh Cathleen had been that day in a swirl of blue
organdie with fragrant roses at her sash and little black velvet
slippers laced about her small ankles. And now there was not a
trace of that girl in the stiff figure sitting on the mule.

"I won't get down, thank you," she said. "I just came to tell you
that I'm going to be married."

"What!"

"Who to?"

"Cathy, how grand!"

"When?"

"Tomorrow," said Cathleen quietly and there was something in her
voice which took the eager smiles from their faces. "I came to
tell you that I'm going to be married tomorrow, in Jonesboro--and
I'm not inviting you all to come."

They digested this in silence, looking up at her, puzzled. Then
Melanie spoke.

"Is it someone we know, dear?"

"Yes," said Cathleen, shortly. "It's Mr. Hilton."

"Mr. Hilton?"

"Yes, Mr. Hilton, our overseer."

Scarlett could not even find voice to say "Oh!" but Cathleen,
peering down suddenly at Melanie, said in a low savage voice: "If
you cry, Melly, I can't stand it. I shall die!"

Melanie said nothing but patted the foot in its awkward home-made
shoe which hung from the stirrup. Her head was low.

"And don't pat me! I can't stand that either."

Melanie dropped her hand but still did not look up.

"Well, I must go. I only came to tell you." The white brittle
mask was back again and she picked up the reins.

"How is Cade?" asked Scarlett, utterly at a loss but fumbling for
some words to break the awkward silence.

"He is dying," said Cathleen shortly. There seemed to be no
feeling in her voice. "And he is going to die in some comfort and
peace if I can manage it, without worry about who will take care of
me when he's gone. You see, my stepmother and the children are
going North for good, tomorrow. Well, I must be going."

Melanie looked up and met Cathleen's hard eyes. There were bright
tears on Melanie's lashes and understanding in her eyes, and before
them, Cathleen's lips curved into the crooked smile of a brave
child who tries not to cry. It was all very bewildering to
Scarlett who was still trying to grasp the idea that Cathleen
Calvert was going to marry an overseer--Cathleen, daughter of a
rich planter, Cathleen who, next to Scarlett, had had more beaux
than any girl in the County.

Cathleen bent down and Melanie tiptoed. They kissed. Then
Cathleen flapped the bridle reins sharply and the old mule moved
off.

Melanie looked after her, the tears streaming down her face.
Scarlett stared, still dazed.

"Melly, is she crazy? You know she can't be in love with him."

"In love? Oh, Scarlett, don't even suggest such a horrid thing!
Oh, poor Cathleen! Poor Cade!"

"Fiddle-dee-dee!" cried Scarlett, beginning to be irritated. It
was annoying that Melanie always seemed to grasp more of situations
than she herself did. Cathleen's plight seemed to her more
startling than catastrophic. Of course it was no pleasant thought,
marrying Yankee white trash, but after all a girl couldn't live
alone on a plantation; she had to have a husband to help her run
it.

"Melly, it's like I said the other day. There isn't anybody for
girls to marry and they've got to marry someone."

"Oh, they don't have to marry! There's nothing shameful in being a
spinster. Look at Aunt Pitty. Oh, I'd rather see Cathleen dead!
I know Cade would rather see her dead. It's the end of the
Calverts. Just think what her--what their children will be. Oh,
Scarlett, have Pork saddle the horse quickly and you ride after her
and tell her to come live with us!"

"Good Lord!" cried Scarlett, shocked at the matter-of-fact way in
which Melanie was offering Tara. Scarlett certainly had no
intention of feeding another mouth. She started to say this but
something in Melanie's stricken face halted the words.

"She wouldn't come, Melly," she amended. "You know she wouldn't.
She's so proud and she'd think it was charity."

"That's true, that's true!" said Melanie distractedly, watching the
small cloud of red dust disappear down the road.

"You've been with me for months," thought Scarlett grimly, looking
at her sister-in-law, "and it's never occurred to you that it's
charity you're living on. And I guess it never will. You're one
of those people the war didn't change and you go right on thinking
and acting just like nothing had happened--like we were still rich
as Croesus and had more food than we know what to do with and
guests didn't matter. I guess I've got you on my neck for the rest
of my life. But I won't have Cathleen too."



CHAPTER XXX


In that warm summer after peace came, Tara suddenly lost its
isolation. And for months thereafter a stream of scarecrows,
bearded, ragged, footsore and always hungry, toiled up the red hill
to Tara and came to rest on the shady front steps, wanting food and
a night's lodging. They were Confederate soldiers walking home.
The railroad had carried the remains of Johnston's army from North
Carolina to Atlanta and dumped them there, and from Atlanta they
began their pilgrimages afoot. When the wave of Johnston's men had
passed, the weary veterans from the Army of Virginia arrived and
then men from the Western troops, beating their way south toward
homes which might not exist and families which might be scattered
or dead. Most of them were walking, a few fortunate ones rode bony
horses and mules which the terms of the surrender had permitted
them to keep, gaunt animals which even an untrained eye could tell
would never reach far-away Florida and south Georgia.

Going home! Going home! That was the only thought in the
soldiers' minds. Some were sad and silent, others gay and
contemptuous of hardships, but the thought that it was all over and
they were going home was the one thing that sustained them. Few of
them were bitter. They left bitterness to their women and their
old people. They had fought a good fight, had been licked and were
willing to settle down peaceably to plowing beneath the flag they
had fought.

Going home! Going home! They could talk of nothing else, neither
battles nor wounds, nor imprisonment nor the future. Later, they
would refight battles and tell children and grandchildren of pranks
and forays and charges, of hunger, forced marches and wounds, but
not now. Some of them lacked an arm or a leg or an eye, many had
scars which would ache in rainy weather if they lived for seventy
years but these seemed small matters now. Later it would be
different.

Old and young, talkative and taciturn, rich planter and sallow
Cracker, they all had two things in common, lice and dysentery.
The Confederate soldier was so accustomed to his verminous state he
did not give it a thought and scratched unconcernedly even in the
presence of ladies. As for dysentery--the "bloody flux" as the
ladies delicately called it--it seemed to have spared no one from
private to general. Four years of half-starvation, four years of
rations which were coarse or green or half-putrefied, had done its
work with them and every soldier who stopped at Tara was either
just recovering or was actively suffering from it.

"Dey ain' a soun' set of bowels in de whole Confedrut ahmy,"
observed Mammy darkly as she sweated over the fire, brewing a
bitter concoction of blackberry roots which had been Ellen's
sovereign remedy for such afflictions. "It's mah notion dat
'twarn't de Yankees whut beat our gempmum. 'Twuz dey own innards.
Kain no gempmum fight wid his bowels tuhnin' ter water."

One and all, Mammy dosed them, never waiting to ask foolish
questions about the state of their organs and, one and all, they
drank her doses meekly and with wry faces, remembering, perhaps,
other stern black faces in far-off places and other inexorable
black hands holding medicine spoons.

In the matter of "comp'ny" Mammy was equally adamant. No lice-
ridden soldier should come into Tara. She marched them behind a
clump of thick bushes, relieved them of their uniforms, gave them a
basin of water and strong lye soap to wash with and provided them
with quilts and blankets to cover their nakedness, while she boiled
their clothing in her huge wash pot. It was useless for the girls
to argue hotly that such conduct humiliated the soldiers. Mammy
replied that the girls would be a sight more humiliated if they
found lice upon themselves.

When the soldiers began arriving almost daily, Mammy protested
against their being allowed to use the bedrooms. Always she feared
lest some louse had escaped her. Rather than argue the matter,
Scarlett turned the parlor with its deep velvet rug into a
dormitory. Mammy cried out equally loudly at the sacrilege of
soldiers being permitted to sleep on Miss Ellen's rug but Scarlett
was firm. They had to sleep somewhere. And, in the months after
the surrender, the deep soft nap began to show signs of wear and
finally the heavy warp and woof showed through in spots where heels
had worn it and spurs dug carelessly.

Of each soldier, they asked eagerly of Ashley. Suellen, bridling,
always asked news of Mr. Kennedy. But none of the soldiers had
ever heard of them nor were they inclined to talk about the
missing. It was enough that they themselves were alive, and they
did not care to think of the thousands in unmarked graves who would
never come home.

The family tried to bolster Melanie's courage after each of these
disappointments. Of course, Ashley hadn't died in prison. Some
Yankee chaplain would have written if this were true. Of course,
he was coming home but his prison was so far away. Why, goodness,
it took days riding on a train to make the trip and if Ashley was
walking, like these men . . . Why hadn't he written? Well,
darling, you know what the mails are now--so uncertain and slipshod
even where mail routes are re-established. But suppose--suppose he
had died on the way home. Now, Melanie, some Yankee woman would
have surely written us about it! . . . Yankee women! Bah! . . .
Melly, there ARE some nice Yankee women. Oh, yes, there are! God
couldn't make a whole nation without having some nice women in it!
Scarlett, you remember we did meet a nice Yankee woman at Saratoga
that time--Scarlett, tell Melly about her!

"Nice, my foot!" replied Scarlert. "She asked me how many
bloodhounds we kept to chase our darkies with! I agree with Melly.
I never saw a nice Yankee, male or female. But don't cry, Melly!
Ashley'll come home. It's a long walk and maybe--maybe he hasn't
got any boots."

Then at the thought of Ashley barefooted, Scarlett could have
cried. Let other soldiers limp by in rags with their feet tied up
in sacks and strips of carpet, but not Ashley. He should come home
on a prancing horse, dressed in fine clothes and shining boots, a
plume in his hat. It was the final degradation for her to think of
Ashley reduced to the state of these other soldiers.

One afternoon in June when everyone at Tara was assembled on the
back porch eagerly watching Pork cut the first half-ripe watermelon
of the season, they heard hooves on the gravel of the front drive.
Prissy started languidly toward the front door, while those left
behind argued hotly as to whether they should hide the melon or
keep it for supper, should the caller at the door prove to be a
soldier.

Melly and Carreen whispered that the soldier guest should have a
share and Scarlett, backed by Suellen and Mammy, hissed to Pork to
hide it quickly.

"Don't be a goose, girls! There's not enough for us as it is and
if there are two or three famished soldiers out there, none of us
will even get a taste," said Scarlett.

While Pork stood with the little melon clutched to him, uncertain
as to the final decision, they heard Prissy cry out.

"Gawdlmighty! Miss Scarlett! Miss Melly! Come quick!"

"Who is it?" cried Scarlett, leaping up from the steps and racing
through the hall with Melly at her shoulder and the others
streaming after her.

Ashley! she thought. Oh, perhaps--

"It's Uncle Peter! Miss Pittypat's Uncle Peter!"

They all ran out to the front porch and saw the tall grizzled old
despot of Aunt Pitty's house climbing down from a rat-tailed nag on
which a section of quilting had been strapped. On his wide black
face, accustomed dignity strove with delight at seeing old friends,
with the result that his brow was furrowed in a frown but his mouth
was hanging open like a happy toothless old hound's.

Everyone ran down the steps to greet him, black and white shaking
his hand and asking questions, but Melly's voice rose above them
all.

"Auntie isn't sick, is she?"

"No'm. She's po'ly, thank God," answered Peter, fastening a severe
look first on Melly and then on Scarlett, so that they suddenly
felt guilty but could think of no reason why. "She's po'ly but she
is plum outdone wid you young Misses, an' ef it come right down to
it, Ah is too!"

"Why! Uncle Peter! What on earth--"

"Y'all nee'n try ter 'scuse you'seffs. Ain' Miss Pitty writ you
an' writ you ter come home? Ain' Ah seed her write an' seed her
a-cryin' w'en y'all writ her back dat you got too much ter do on
disyere ole farm ter come home?"

"But, Uncle Peter--"

"Huccome you leave Miss Pitty by herseff lak dis w'en she so scary
lak? You know well's Ah do Miss Pitty ain' never live by herseff
an' she been shakin' in her lil shoes ever since she come back frum
Macom. She say fer me ter tell y'all plain as Ah knows how dat she
jes' kain unnerstan' y'all desertin' her in her hour of need."

"Now, hesh!" said Mammy tartly, for it sat ill upon her to hear
Tara referred to as an "ole farm." Trust an ignorant city-bred
darky not to know the difference between a farm and a plantation.
"Ain' us got no hours of need? Ain' us needin' Miss Scarlett an'
Miss Melly right hyah an' needin' dem bad? Huccome Miss Pitty doan
ast her brudder fer 'sistance, does she need any?"

Uncle Peter gave her a withering look.

"Us ain' had nuthin' ter do wid Mist' Henry fer y'ars, an' us is
too ole ter start now." He turned back to the girls, who were
trying to suppress their smiles. "You young Misses ought ter tek
shame, leavin' po' Miss Pitty 'lone, wid half her frens daid an' de
other half in Macom, an' 'Lanta full of Yankee sojers an' trashy
free issue niggers."

The two girls had borne the castigation with straight faces as long
as they could, but the thought of Aunt Pitty sending Peter to scold
them and bring them back bodily to Atlanta was too much for their
control. They burst into laughter and hung on each other's
shoulders for support. Naturally, Pork and Dilcey and Mammy gave
vent to loud guffaws at hearing the detractor of their beloved Tara
set at naught. Suellen and Carreen giggled and even Gerald's face
wore a vague smile. Everyone laughed except Peter, who shifted
from one large splayed foot to the other in mounting indignation.

"Whut's wrong wid you, nigger?" inquired Mammy with a grin. "Is
you gittin' too ole ter perteck yo' own Missus?"

Peter was outraged.

"Too ole! Me too ole? No, Ma'm! Ah kin perteck Miss Pitty lak Ah
allus done. Ain' Ah perteck her down ter Macom when us refugeed?
Ain' Ah perteck her w'en de Yankees come ter Macom an' she so
sceered she faintin' all de time? An' ain' Ah 'quire disyere nag
ter bring her back ter 'Lanta an' perteck her an' her pa's silver
all de way?" Peter drew himself to his full height as he
vindicated himself. "Ah ain' talkin' about perteckin'. Ah's
talkin' 'bout how it LOOK."

"How who look?"

"Ah'm talkin' 'bout how it look ter folks, seein' Miss Pitty livin'
'lone. Folks talks scan'lous 'bout maiden ladies dat lives by
deyseff," continued Peter, and it was obvious to his listeners that
Pittypat, in his mind, was still a plump and charming miss of
sixteen who must be sheltered against evil tongues. "An' Ah ain'
figgerin' on havin' folks criticize her. No, ma'm . . . An' Ah
ain' figgerin' on her takin' in no bo'ders, jes' fer comp'ny
needer. Ah done tole her dat. 'Not w'ile you got yo' flesh an'
blood dat belongs wid you,' Ah says. An' now her flesh an' blood
denyin' her. Miss Pitty ain' nuthin' but a chile an'--"

At this, Scarlett and Melly whooped louder and sank down to the
steps. Finally Melly wiped tears of mirth from her eyes.

"Poor Uncle Peter! I'm sorry I laughed. Really and truly. There!
Do forgive me. Miss Scarlett and I just can't come home now.
Maybe I'll come in September after the cotton is picked. Did
Auntie send you all the way down here just to bring us back on that
bag of bones?"

At this question, Peter's jaw suddenly dropped and guilt and
consternation swept over his wrinkled black face. His protruding
underlip retreated to normal as swiftly as a turtle withdraws its
head beneath its shell.

"Miss Melly. Ah is gittin' ole, Ah spec', 'cause Ah clean fergit
fer de moment whut she sent me fer, an' it's important too. Ah got
a letter fer you. Miss Pitty wouldn' trust de mails or nobody but
me ter bring it an'--"

"A letter? For me? Who from?"

"Well'm, it's--Miss Pitty, she says ter me, 'You, Peter, you brek
it gen'ly ter Miss Melly,' an' Ah say--"

Melly rose from the steps, her hand at her heart.

"Ashley! Ashley! He's dead!"

"No'm! No'm!" cried Peter, his voice rising to a shrill bawl, as
he fumbled in the breast pocket of his ragged coat. "He's 'live!
Disyere a letter frum him. He comin' home. He-- Gawdlmighty!
Ketch her, Mammy! Lemme--"

"Doan you tech her, you ole fool!" thundered Mammy, struggling to
keep Melanie's sagging body from falling to the ground. "You pious
black ape! Brek it gen'ly! You, Poke, tek her feet. Miss
Carreen, steady her haid. Lessus lay her on de sofa in de parlor."

There was a tumult of sound as everyone but Scarlett swarmed about
the fainting Melanie, everyone crying out in alarm, scurrying into
the house for water and pillows, and in a moment Scarlett and Uncle
Peter were left standing alone on the walk. She stood rooted,
unable to move from the position to which she had leaped when she
heard his words, staring at the old man who stood feebly waving a
letter. His old black face was as pitiful as a child's under its
mother's disapproval, his dignity collapsed.

For a moment she could not speak or move, and though her mind
shouted: "He isn't dead! He's coming home!" the knowledge brought
neither joy nor excitement, only a stunned immobility. Uncle
Peter's voice came as from a far distance, plaintive, placating.

"Mist' Willie Burr frum Macom whut is kin ter us, he brung it ter
Miss Pitty. Mist' Willie he in de same jail house wid Mist'
Ashley. Mist' Willie he got a hawse an' he got hyah soon. But
Mist' Ashley he a-walkin' an'--"

Scarlett snatched the letter from his hand. It was addressed to
Melly in Miss Pitty's writing but that did not make her hesitate a
moment. She ripped it open and Miss Pitty's inclosed note fell to
the ground. Within the envelope there was a piece of folded paper,
grimy from the dirty pocket in which it had been carried, creased
and ragged about the edges. It bore the inscription in Ashley's
hand: "Mrs. George Ashley Wilkes, Care Miss Sarah Jane Hamilton,
Atlanta, or Twelve Oaks, Jonesboro, Ga."

With fingers that shook, she opened it and read:

"Beloved, I am coming home to you--"

Tears began to stream down her face so that she could not read and
her heart swelled up until she felt she could not bear the joy of
it. Clutching the letter to her, she raced up the porch steps and
down the hall, past the parlor where all the inhabitants of Tara
were getting in one another's way as they worked over the
unconscious Melanie, and into Ellen's office. She shut the door
and locked it and flung herself down on the sagging old sofa
crying, laughing, kissing the letter.

"Beloved," she whispered, "I am coming home to you."



Common sense told them that unless Ashley developed wings, it would
be weeks or even months before he could travel from Illinois to
Georgia, but hearts nevertheless beat wildly whenever a soldier
turned into the avenue at Tara. Each bearded scarecrow might be
Ashley. And if it were not Ashley, perhaps the soldier would have
news of him or a letter from Aunt Pitty about him. Black and
white, they rushed to the front porch every time they heard
footsteps. The sight of a uniform was enough to bring everyone
flying from the woodpile, the pasture and the cotton patch. For a
month after the letter came, work was almost at a standstill. No
one wanted to be out of the house when he arrived. Scarlett least
of all. And she could not insist on the others attending to their
duties when she so neglected hers.

But when the weeks crawled by and Ashley did not come or any news
of him, Tara settled back into its old routine. Longing hearts
could only stand so much of longing. An uneasy fear crept into
Scarlett's mind that something had happened to him along the way.
Rock Island was so far away and he might have been weak or sick
when released from prison. And he had no money and was tramping
through a country where Confederates were hated. If only she knew
where he was, she would send money to him, send every penny she had
and let the family go hungry, so he could come home swiftly on the
train.

"Beloved, I am coming home to you."

In the first rush of joy when her eyes met those words, they had
meant only that Ashley was coming home to her. Now, in the light
of cooler reason, it was Melanie to whom he was returning, Melanie
who went about the house these days singing with joy. Occasionally,
Scarlett wondered bitterly why Melanie could not have died in
childbirth in Atlanta. That would have made things perfect. Then
she could have married Ashley after a decent interval and made
little Beau a good stepmother too. When such thoughts came she did
not pray hastily to God, telling Him she did not mean it. God did
not frighten her any more.

Soldiers came singly and in pairs and dozens and they were always
hungry. Scarlett thought despairingly that a plague of locusts
would be more welcome. She cursed again the old custom of
hospitality which had flowered in the era of plenty, the custom
which would not permit any traveler, great or humble, to go on his
journey without a night's lodging, food for himself and his horse
and the utmost courtesy the house could give. She knew that era
had passed forever, but the rest of the household did not, nor did
the soldiers, and each soldier was welcomed as if he were a long-
awaited guest.

As the never-ending line went by, her heart hardened. They were
eating the food meant for the mouths of Tara, vegetables over whose
long rows she had wearied her back, food she had driven endless
miles to buy. Food was so hard to get and the money in the
Yankee's wallet would not last forever. Only a few greenbacks and
the two gold pieces were left now. Why should she feed this horde
of hungry men? The war was over. They would never again stand
between her and danger. So, she gave orders to Pork that when
soldiers were in the house, the table should be set sparely. This
order prevailed until she noticed that Melanie, who had never been
strong since Beau was born, was inducing Pork to put only dabs of
food on her plate and giving her share to the soldiers.

"You'll have to stop it, Melanie," she scolded. "You're half sick
yourself and if you don't eat more, you'll be sick in bed and we'll
have to nurse you. Let these men go hungry. They can stand it.
They've stood it for four years and it won't hurt them to stand it
a little while longer."

Melanie turned to her and on her face was the first expression of
naked emotion Scarlett had ever seen in those serene eyes.

"Oh, Scarlett, don't scold me! Let me do it. You don't know how
it helps me. Every time I give some poor man my share I think that
maybe, somewhere on the road up north, some woman is giving my
Ashley a share of her dinner and it's helping him to get home to
me!"

"My Ashley."

"Beloved, I am coming home to you."

Scarlett turned away, wordless. After that, Melanie noticed there
was more food on the table when guests were present, even though
Scarlett might grudge them every mouthful.

When the soldiers were too ill to go on, and there were many such,
Scarlett put them to bed with none too good grace. Each sick man
meant another mouth to feed. Someone had to nurse him and that
meant one less worker at the business of fence building, hoeing,
weeding and plowing. One boy, on whose face a blond fuzz had just
begun to sprout, was dumped on the front porch by a mounted soldier
bound for Fayetteville. He had found him unconscious by the
roadside and had brought him, across his saddle, to Tara, the
nearest house. The girls thought he must be one of the little
cadets who had been called out of military school when Sherman
approached Milledgeville but they never knew, for he died without
regaining consciousness and a search of his pockets yielded no
information.

A nice-looking boy, obviously a gentleman, and somewhere to the
south, some woman was watching the roads, wondering where he was
and when he was coming home, just as she and Melanie, with a wild
hope in their hearts, watched every bearded figure that came up
their walk. They buried the cadet in the family burying ground,
next to the three little O'Hara boys, and Melanie cried sharply as
Pork filled in the grave, wondering in her heart if strangers were
doing this same thing to the tall body of Ashley.

Will Benteen was another soldier, like the nameless boy, who
arrived unconscious across the saddle of a comrade. Will was
acutely ill with pneumonia and when the girls put him to bed, they
feared he would soon join the boy in the burying ground.

He had the sallow malarial face of the south Georgia Cracker, pale
pinkish hair and washed-out blue eyes which even in delirium were
patient and mild. One of his legs was gone at the knee and to the
stump was fitted a roughly whittled wooden peg. He was obviously a
Cracker, just as the boy they had buried so short a while ago was
obviously a planter's son. Just how the girls knew this they could
not say. Certainly Will was no dirtier, no more hairy, no more
lice infested than many fine gentlemen who came to Tara. Certainly
the language he used in his delirium was no less grammatical than
that of the Tarleton twins. But they knew instinctively, as they
knew thoroughbred horses from scrubs, that he was not of their
class. But this knowledge did not keep them from laboring to save
him.

Emaciated from a year in a Yankee prison, exhausted by his long
tramp on his ill-fitting wooden peg, he had little strength to
combat pneumonia and for days he lay in the bed moaning, trying to
get up, fighting battles over again. Never once did he call for
mother, wife, sister or sweetheart and this omission worried
Carreen.

"A man ought to have some folks," she said. "And he sounds like he
didn't have a soul in the world."

For all his lankiness he was tough, and good nursing pulled him
through. The day came when his pale blue eyes, perfectly cognizant
of his surroundings, fell upon Carreen sitting beside him, telling
her rosary beads, the morning sun shining through her fair hair.

"Then you warn't a dream, after all," he said, in his flat toneless
voice. "I hope I ain't troubled you too much, Ma'm."

His convalescence was a long one and he lay quietly looking out of
the window at the magnolias and causing very little trouble to
anyone. Carreen liked him because of his placid and unembarrassed
silences. She would sit beside him through the long hot
afternoons, fanning him and saying nothing.

Carreen had very little to say these days as she moved, delicate
and wraithlike, about the tasks which were within her strength.
She prayed a good deal, for when Scarlett came into her room
without knocking, she always found her on her knees by her bed.
The sight never failed to annoy her, for Scarlett felt that the
time for prayer had passed. If God had seen fit to punish them so,
then God could very well do without prayers. Religion had always
been a bargaining process with Scarlett. She promised God good
behavior in exchange for favors. God had broken the bargain time
and again, to her way of thinking, and she felt that she owed Him
nothing at all now. And whenever she found Carreen on her knees
when she should have been taking an afternoon nap or doing the
mending, she felt that Carreen was shirking her share of the
burdens.

She said as much to Will Benteen one afternoon when he was able to
sit up in a chair and was startled when he said in his flat voice:
"Let her be, Miss Scarlett. It comforts her."

"Comforts her?"

"Yes, she's prayin' for your ma and him."

"Who is 'him'?"

His faded blue eyes looked at her from under sandy lashes without
surprise. Nothing seemed to surprise or excite him. Perhaps he
had seen too much of the unexpected ever to be startled again.
That Scarlett did not know what was in her sister's heart did not
seem odd to him. He took it as naturally as he did the fact that
Carreen had found comfort in talking to him, a stranger.

"Her beau, that boy Brent something-or-other who was killed at
Gettysburg."

"Her beau?" said Scarlett shortly. "Her beau, nothing! He and his
brother were my beaux."

"Yes, so she told me. Looks like most of the County was your
beaux. But, all the same, he was her beau after you turned him
down, because when he come home on his last furlough they got
engaged. She said he was the only boy she'd ever cared about and
so it kind of comforts her to pray for him."

"Well, fiddle-dee-dee!" said Scarlett, a very small dart of
jealousy entering her.

She looked curiously at this lanky man with his bony stooped
shoulders, his pinkish hair and calm unwavering eyes. So he knew
things about her own family which she had not troubled to discover.
So that was why Carreen mooned about, praying all the time. Well,
she'd get over it. Lots of girls got over dead sweethearts, yes,
dead husbands, too. She'd certainly gotten over Charles. And she
knew one girl in Atlanta who had been widowed three times by the
war and was still able to take notice of men. She said as much to
Will but he shook his head.

"Not Miss Carreen," he said with finality.

Will was pleasant to talk to because he had so little to say and
yet was so understanding a listener. She told him about her
problems of weeding and hoeing and planting, of fattening the hogs
and breeding the cow, and he gave good advice for he had owned a
small farm in south Georgia and two negroes. He knew his slaves
were free now and the farm gone to weeds and seedling pines. His
sister, his only relative, had moved to Texas with her husband
years ago and he was alone in the world. Yet, none of these things
seemed to bother him any more than the leg he had left in Virginia.

Yes, Will was a comfort to Scarlett after hard days when the
negroes muttered and Suellen nagged and cried and Gerald asked too
frequently where Ellen was. She could tell Will anything. She
even told him of killing the Yankee and glowed with pride when he
commented briefly: "Good work!"

Eventually all the family found their way to Will's room to air
their troubles--even Mammy, who had at first been distant with him
because he was not quality and had owned only two slaves.

When he was able to totter about the house, he turned his hands to
weaving baskets of split oak and mending the furniture ruined by
the Yankees. He was clever at whittling and Wade was constantly by
his side, for he whittled out toys for him, the only toys the
little boy had. With Will in the house, everyone felt safe in
leaving Wade and the two babies while they went about their tasks,
for he could care for them as deftly as Mammy and only Melly
surpassed him at soothing the screaming black and white babies.

"You've been mighty good to me, Miss Scarlett," he said, "and me a
stranger and nothin' to you all. I've caused you a heap of trouble
and worry and if it's all the same to you, I'm goin' to stay here
and help you all with the work till I've paid you back some for
your trouble. I can't ever pay it all, 'cause there ain't no
payment a man can give for his life."

So he stayed and, gradually, unobtrusively, a large part of the
burden of Tara shifted from Scarlett's shoulders to the bony
shoulders of Will Benteen.



It was September and time to pick the cotton. Will Benteen sat on
the front steps at Scarlett's feet in the pleasant sunshine of the
early autumn afternoon and his flat voice went on and on languidly
about the exorbitant costs of ginning the cotton at the new gin
near Fayetteville. However, he had learned that day in
Fayetteville that he could cut this expense a fourth by lending the
horse and wagon for two weeks to the gin owner. He had delayed
closing the bargain until he discussed it with Scarlett.

She looked at the lank figure leaning against the porch column,
chewing a straw. Undoubtedly, as Mammy frequently declared, Will
was something the Lord had provided and Scarlett often wondered how
Tara could have lived through the last few months without him. He
never had much to say, never displayed any energy, never seemed to
take much interest in anything that went on about him, but he knew
everything about everybody at Tara. And he did things. He did
them silently, patiently and competently. Though he had only one
leg, he could work faster than Pork. And he could get work out of
Pork, which was, to Scarlett, a marvelous thing. When the cow had
the colic and the horse fell ill with a mysterious ailment which
threatened to remove him permanently from them, Will sat up nights
with them and saved them. That he was a shrewd trader brought him
Scarlett's respect, for he could ride out in the mornings with a
bushel or two of apples, sweet potatoes and other vegetables and
return with seeds, lengths of cloth, flour and other necessities
which she knew she could never have acquired, good trader though
she was.

He had gradually slipped into the status of a member of the family
and slept on a cot in the little dressing room off Gerald's room.
He said nothing of leaving Tara, and Scarlett was careful not to
question him, fearful that he might leave them. Sometimes, she
thought that if he were anybody and had any gumption he would go
home, even if he no longer had a home. But even with this thought,
she would pray fervently that he would remain indefinitely. It was
so convenient to have a man about the house.

She thought, too, that if Carreen had the sense of a mouse she
would see that Will cared for her. Scarlett would have been
eternally grateful to Will, had he asked her for Carreen's hand.
Of course, before the war, Will would certainly not have been an
eligible suitor. He was not of the planter class at all, though he
was not poor white. He was just plain Cracker, a small farmer,
half-educated, prone to grammatical errors and ignorant of some of
the finer manners the O'Haras were accustomed to in gentlemen. In
fact, Scarlett wondered if he could be called a gentleman at all
and decided that he couldn't. Melanie hotly defended him, saying
that anyone who had Will's kind heart and thoughtfulness of others
was of gentle birth. Scarlett knew that Ellen would have fainted
at the thought of a daughter of hers marrying such a man, but now
Scarlett had been by necessity forced too far away from Ellen's
teachings to let that worry her. Men were scarce, girls had to
marry someone and Tara had to have a man. But Carreen, deeper and
deeper immersed in her prayer book and every day losing more of her
touch with the world of realities, treated Will as gently as a
brother and took him as much for granted as she did Pork.

"If Carreen had any sense of gratitude to me for what I've done for
her, she'd marry him and not let him get away from here," Scarlett
thought indignantly. "But no, she must spend her time mooning
about a silly boy who probably never gave her a serious thought."

So Will remained at Tara, for what reason she did not know and she
found his businesslike man-to-man attitude with her both pleasant
and helpful. He was gravely deferential to the vague Gerald but it
was to Scarlett that he turned as the real head of the house.

She gave her approval to the plan of hiring out the horse even
though it meant the family would be without any means of
transportation temporarily. Suellen would be especially grieved at
this. Her greatest joy lay in going to Jonesboro or Fayetteville
with Will when he drove over on business. Adorned in the assembled
best of the family, she called on old friends, heard all the gossip
of the County and felt herself again Miss O'Hara of Tara. Suellen
never missed the opportunity to leave the plantation and give
herself airs among people who did not know she weeded the garden
and made beds.

Miss Fine Airs will just have to do without gadding for two weeks,
thought Scarlett, and we'll have to put up with her nagging and her
bawling.

Melanie joined them on the veranda, the baby in her arms, and
spreading an old blanket on the floor, set little Beau down to
crawl. Since Ashley's letter Melanie had divided her time between
glowing, singing happiness and anxious longing. But happy or
depressed, she was too thin, too white. She did her share of the
work uncomplainingly but she was always ailing. Old Dr. Fontaine
diagnosed her trouble as female complaint and concurred with Dr.
Meade in saying she should never have had Beau. And he said
frankly that another baby would kill her.

"When I was over to Fayetteville today," said Will, "I found
somethin' right cute that I thought would interest you ladies and I
brought it home." He fumbled in his back pants pocket and brought
out the wallet of calico, stiffened with bark, which Carreen had
made him. From it, he drew a Confederate bill.

"If you think Confederate money is cute, Will, I certainly don't,"
said Scarlett shortly, for the very sight of Confederate money made
her mad. "We've got three thousand dollars of it in Pa's trunk
this minute, and Mammy's after me to let her paste it over the
holes in the attic walls so the draft won't get her. And I think
I'll do it. Then it'll be good for something."

"'Imperious Caesar, dead and turned to clay,'" said Melanie with a
sad smile. "Don't do that, Scarlett. Keep it for Wade. He'll be
proud of it some day."

"Well, I don't know nothin' about imperious Caesar," said Will,
patiently, "but what I've got is in line with what you've just said
about Wade, Miss Melly. It's a poem, pasted on the back of this
bill. I know Miss Scarlett ain't much on poems but I thought this
might interest her."

He turned the bill over. On its back was pasted a strip of coarse
brown wrapping paper, inscribed in pale homemade ink. Will cleared
his throat and read slowly and with difficulty.

"The name is 'Lines on the Back of a Confederate Note,'" he said.


"Representing nothing on God's earth now
And naught in the waters below it--
As the pledge of nation that's passed away
Keep it, dear friend, and show it.

Show it to those who will lend an ear
To the tale this trifle will tell
Of Liberty, born of patriots' dream,
Of a storm-cradled nation that fell."


"Oh, how beautiful! How touching!" cried Melanie. "Scarlett, you
mustn't give the money to Mammy to paste in the attic. It's more
than paper--just like this poem said: 'The pledge of a nation
that's passed away!'"

"Oh, Melly, don't be sentimental! Paper is paper and we've got
little enough of it and I'm tired of hearing Mammy grumble about
the cracks in the attic. I hope when Wade grows up I'll have
plenty of greenbacks to give him instead of Confederate trash."

Will, who had been enticing little Beau across the blanket with the
bill during this argument, looked up and, shading his eyes, glanced
down the driveway.

"More company," he said, squinting in the sun. "Another soldier."

Scarlett followed his gaze and saw a familiar sight, a bearded man
coming slowly up the avenue under the cedars, a man clad in a
ragged mixture of blue and gray uniforms, head bowed tiredly, feet
dragging slowly.

"I thought we were about through with soldiers," she said. "I hope
this one isn't very hungry."

"He'll be hungry," said Will briefly.

Melanie rose.

"I'd better tell Dilcey to set an extra plate," she said, "and warn
Mammy not to get the poor thing's clothes off his back too abruptly
and--"

She stopped so suddenly that Scarlett turned to look at her.
Melanie's thin hand was at her throat, clutching it as if it was
torn with pain, and Scarlett could see the veins beneath the white
skin throbbing swiftly. Her face went whiter and her brown eyes
dilated enormously.

She's going to faint, thought Scarlett, leaping to her feet and
catching her arm.

But, in an instant, Melanie threw off her hand and was down the
steps. Down the graveled path she flew, skimming lightly as a
bird, her faded skirts streaming behind her, her arms outstretched.
Then, Scarlett knew the truth, with the impact of a blow. She
reeled back against an upright of the porch as the man lifted a
face covered with a dirty blond beard and stopped still, looking
toward the house as if he was too weary to take another step. Her
heart leaped and stopped and then began racing, as Melly with
incoherent cries threw herself into the dirty soldier's arms and
his head bent down toward hers. With rapture, Scarlett took two
running steps forward but was checked when Will's hand closed upon
her skirt.

"Don't spoil it," he said quietly.

"Turn me loose, you fool! Turn me loose! It's Ashley!"

He did not relax his grip.

"After all, he's HER husband, ain't he?" Will asked calmly and,
looking down at him in a confusion of joy and impotent fury,
Scarlett saw in the quiet depths of his eyes understanding and
pity.




Part Four



CHAPTER XXXI


On a cold January afternoon in 1866, Scarlett sat in the office
writing a letter to Aunt Pitty, explaining in detail for the tenth
time why neither she, Melanie nor Ashley could come back to Atlanta
to live with her. She wrote impatiently because she knew Aunt
Pitty would read no farther than the opening lines and then write
her again, wailing: "But I'm afraid to live by myself!"

Her hands were chilled and she paused to rub them together and to
scuff her feet deeper into the strip of old quilting wrapped about
them. The soles of her slippers were practically gone and were
reinforced with pieces of carpet. The carpet kept her feet off the
floor but did little to keep them warm. That morning Will had
taken the horse to Jonesboro to get him shod. Scarlett thought
grimly that things were indeed at a pretty pass when horses had
shoes and people's feet were as bare as yard dogs'.

She picked up her quill to resume her writing but laid it down when
she heard Will coming in at the back door. She heard the thump-
thump of his wooden leg in the hall outside the office and then he
stopped. She waited for a moment for him to enter and when he made
no move she called to him. He came in, his ears red from the cold,
his pinkish hair awry, and stood looking down at her, a faintly
humorous smile on his lips.

"Miss Scarlett," he questioned, "just how much cash money have you
got?"

"Are you going to try to marry me for my money, Will?" she asked
somewhat crossly.

"No, Ma'm. But I just wanted to know."

She stared at him inquiringly. Will didn't look serious, but then
he never looked serious. However, she felt that something was
wrong.

"I've got ten dollars in gold," she said. "The last of that
Yankee's money."

"Well, Ma'm, that won't be enough."

"Enough for what?"

"Enough for the taxes," he answered and, stumping over to the
fireplace, he leaned down and held his red hands to the blaze.

"Taxes?" she repeated. "Name of God, Will! We've already paid the
taxes."

"Yes'm. But they say you didn't pay enough. I heard about it
today over to Jonesboro."

"But, Will, I can't understand. What do you mean?"

"Miss Scarlett, I sure hate to bother you with more trouble when
you've had your share but I've got to tell you. They say you ought
to paid lots more taxes than you did. They're runnin' the
assessment up on Tara sky high--higher than any in the County, I'll
be bound."

"But they can't make us pay more taxes when we've already paid them
once."

"Miss Scarlett, you don't never go to Jonesboro often and I'm glad
you don't. It ain't no place for a lady these days. But if you'd
been there much, you'd know there's a mighty rough bunch of
Scallawags and Republicans and Carpetbaggers been runnin' things
recently. They'd make you mad enough to pop. And then, too,
niggers pushin' white folks off the sidewalks and--"

"But what's that got to do with our taxes?"

"I'm gettin' to it, Miss Scarlett. For some reason the rascals
have histed the taxes on Tara till you'd think it was a thousand-
bale place. After I heard about it, I sorter oozed around the
barrooms pickin' up gossip and I found out that somebody wants to
buy in Tara cheap at the sheriff's sale, if you can't pay the extra
taxes. And everybody knows pretty well that you can't pay them. I
don't know yet who it is wants this place. I couldn't find out.
But I think that pusillanimous feller, Hilton, that married Miss
Cathleen knows, because he laughed kind of nasty when I tried to
sound him out."

Will sat down on the sofa and rubbed the stump of his leg. It
ached in cold weather and the wooden peg was neither well padded
nor comfortable. Scarlett looked at him wildly. His manner was so
casual when he was sounding the death knell of Tara. Sold out at
the sheriff's sale? Where would they all go? And Tara belonging
to some one else! No, that was unthinkable!

She had been so engrossed with the job of making Tara produce she
had paid little heed to what was going on in the world outside.
Now that she had Will and Ashley to attend to whatever business she
might have in Jonesboro and Fayetteville, she seldom left the
plantation. And even as she had listened with deaf ears to her
father's war talk in the days before the war came, so she had paid
little heed to Will and Ashley's discussions around the table after
supper about the beginnings of Reconstruction.

Oh, of course, she knew about the Scallawags--Southerners who had
turned Republican very profitably--and the Carpetbaggers, those
Yankees who came South like buzzards after the surrender with all
their worldly possessions in one carpetbag. And she had had a few
unpleasant experiences with the Freedmen's Bureau. She had
gathered, also, that some of the free negroes were getting quite
insolent. This last she could hardly believe, for she had never
seen an insolent negro in her life.

But there were many things which Will and Ashley had conspired to
keep from her. The scourge of war had been followed by the worse
scourge of Reconstruction, but the two men had agreed not to
mention the more alarming details when they discussed the situation
at home. And when Scarlett took the trouble to listen to them at
all, most of what they said went in one ear and out the other.

She had heard Ashley say that the South was being treated as a
conquered province and that vindictiveness was the dominant policy
of the conquerors. But that was the kind of statement which meant
less than nothing at all to Scarlett. Politics was men's business.
She had heard Will say it looked to him like the North just wasn't
aiming to let the South get on its feet again. Well, thought
Scarlett, men always had to have something foolish to worry about.
As far as she was concerned, the Yankees hadn't whipped her once
and they wouldn't do it this time. The thing to do was to work
like the devil and stop worrying about the Yankee government.
After all, the war was over.

Scarlett did not realize that all the rules of the game had been
changed and that honest labor could no longer earn its just reward.
Georgia was virtually under martial law now. The Yankee soldiers
garrisoned throughout the section and the Freedmen's Bureau were in
complete command of everything and they were fixing the rules to
suit themselves.

This Bureau, organized by the Federal government to take care of
the idle and excited ex-slaves, was drawing them from the
plantations into the villages and cities by the thousands. The
Bureau fed them while they loafed and poisoned their minds against
their former owners. Gerald's old overseer, Jonas Wilkerson, was
in charge of the local Bureau, and his assistant was Hilton,
Cathleen Calvert's husband. These two industriously spread the
rumor that the Southerners and Democrats were just waiting for a
good chance to put the negroes back into slavery and that the
negroes' only hope of escaping this fate was the protection given
them by the Bureau and the Republican party.

Wilkerson and Hilton furthermore told the negroes they were as good
as the whites in every way and soon white and negro marriages would
be permitted, soon the estates of their former owners would be
divided and every negro would be given forty acres and a mule for
his own. They kept the negroes stirred up with tales of cruelty
perpetrated by the whites and, in a section long famed for the
affectionate relations between slaves and slave owners, hate and
suspicion began to grow.

The Bureau was backed up by the soldiers and the military had
issued many and conflicting orders governing the conduct of the
conquered. It was easy to get arrested, even for snubbing the
officials of the Bureau. Military orders had been promulgated
concerning the schools, sanitation, the kind of buttons one wore on
one's suit, the sale of commodities and nearly everything else.
Wilkerson and Hilton had the power to interfere in any trade
Scarlett might make and to fix their own prices on anything she
sold or swapped.

Fortunately Scarlett had come into contact with the two men very
little, for Will had persuaded her to let him handle the trading
while she managed the plantation. In his mild-tempered way, Will
had straightened out several difficulties of this kind and said
nothing to her about them. Will could get along with Carpetbaggers
and Yankees--if he had to. But now a problem had arisen which was
too big for him to handle. The extra tax assessment and the danger
of losing Tara were matters Scarlett had to know about--and right
away.

She looked at him with flashing eyes.

"Oh, damn the Yankees!" she cried. "Isn't it enough that they've
licked us and beggared us without turning loose scoundrels on us?"

The war was over, peace had been declared, but the Yankees could
still rob her, they could still starve her, they could still drive
her from her house. And fool that she was, she had thought through
weary months that if she could just hold out until spring,
everything would be all right. This crushing news brought by Will,
coming on top of a year of back-breaking work and hope deferred,
was the last straw.

"Oh, Will, and I thought our troubles were all over when the war
ended!"

"No'm." Will raised his lantern-jawed, country-looking face and
gave her a long steady look. "Our troubles are just gettin'
started."

"How much extra taxes do they want us to pay?"

"Three hundred dollars."

She was struck dumb for a moment. Three hundred dollars! It might
just as well be three million dollars.

"Why," she floundered, "why--why, then we've got to raise three
hundred, somehow."

"Yes'm--and a rainbow and a moon or two."

"Oh, but Will! They couldn't sell out Tara. Why--"

His mild pale eyes showed more hate and bitterness than she thought
possible.

"Oh, couldn't they? Well, they could and they will and they'll
like doin' it! Miss Scarlett, the country's gone plumb to hell, if
you'll pardon me. Those Carpetbaggers and Scallawags can vote and
most of us Democrats can't. Can't no Democrat in this state vote
if he was on the tax books for more than two thousand dollars in
'sixty-five. That lets out folks like your pa and Mr. Tarleton and
the McRaes and the Fontaine boys. Can't nobody vote who was a
colonel and over in the war and, Miss Scarlett, I bet this state's
got more colonels than any state in the Confederacy. And can't
nobody vote who held office under the Confederate government and
that lets out everybody from the notaries to the judges, and the
woods are full of folks like that. Fact is, the way the Yankees
have framed up that amnesty oath, can't nobody who was somebody
before the war vote at all. Not the smart folks nor the quality
folks nor the rich folks.

"Huh! I could vote if I took their damned oath. I didn't have any
money in 'sixty-five and I certainly warn't a colonel or nothin'
remarkable. But I ain't goin' to take their oath. Not by a dinged
sight! If the Yankees had acted right, I'd have taken their oath
of allegiance but I ain't now. I can be restored to the Union but
I can't be reconstructed into it. I ain't goin' to take their oath
even if I don't never vote again-- But scum like that Hilton
feller, he can vote, and scoundrels like Jonas Wilkerson and pore
whites like the Slatterys and no-counts like the MacIntoshes, they
can vote. And they're runnin' things now. And if they want to
come down on you for extra taxes a dozen times, they can do it.
Just like a nigger can kill a white man and not get hung or--" He
paused, embarrassed, and the memory of what had happened to a lone
white woman on an isolated farm near Lovejoy was in both their
minds. . . . "Those niggers can do anything against us and the
Freedmen's Bureau and the soldiers will back them up with guns and
we can't vote or do nothin' about it."

"Vote!" she cried. "Vote! What on earth has voting got to do with
all this, Will? It's taxes we're talking about. . . . Will,
everybody knows what a good plantation Tara is. We could mortgage
it for enough to pay the taxes, if we had to."

"Miss Scarlett, you ain't any fool but sometimes you talk like one.
Who's got any money to lend you on this property? Who except the
Carpetbaggers who are tryin' to take Tara away from you? Why,
everybody's got land. Everybody's land pore. You can't give away
land."

"I've got those diamond earbobs I got off that Yankee. We could
sell them."

"Miss Scarlett, who 'round here has got money for earbobs? Folks
ain't got money to buy side meat, let alone gewgaws. If you've got
ten dollars in gold, I take oath that's more than most folks have
got."

They were silent again and Scarlett felt as if she were butting her
head against a stone wall. There had been so many stone walls to
butt against this last year.

"What are we goin' to do, Miss Scarlett?"

"I don't know," she said dully and felt that she didn't care. This
was one stone wall too many and she suddenly felt so tired that her
bones ached. Why should she work and struggle and wear herself
out? At the end of every struggle it seemed that defeat was
waiting to mock her.

"I don't know," she said. "But don't let Pa know. It might worry
him."

"I won't."

"Have you told anyone?"

"No, I came right to you."

Yes, she thought, everyone always came right to her with bad news
and she was tired of it.

"Where is Mr. Wilkes? Perhaps he'll have some suggestion."

Will turned his mild gaze on her and she felt, as from the first
day when Ashley came home, that he knew everything.

"He's down in the orchard splittin' rails. I heard his axe when I
was puttin' up the horse. But he ain't got any money any more than
we have."

"If I want to talk to him about it, I can, can't I?" she snapped,
rising to her feet and kicking the fragment of quilting from her
ankles.

Will did not take offense but continued rubbing his hands before
the flame. "Better get your shawl, Miss Scarlett. It's raw
outside."

But she went without the shawl, for it was upstairs and her need to
see Ashley and lay her troubles before him was too urgent to wait.

How lucky for her if she could find him alone! Never once since
his return had she had a private word with him. Always the family
clustered about him, always Melanie was by his side, touching his
sleeve now and again to reassure herself he was really there. The
sight of that happy possessive gesture had aroused in Scarlett all
the jealous animosity which had slumbered during the months when
she had thought Ashley probably dead. Now she was determined to
see him alone. This time no one was going to prevent her from
talking with him alone.



She went through the orchard under the bare boughs and the damp
weeds beneath them wet her feet. She could hear the sound of the
axe ringing as Ashley split into rails the logs hauled from the
swamp. Replacing the fences the Yankees had so blithely burned was
a long hard task. Everything was a long hard task, she thought
wearily, and she was tired of it, tired and mad and sick of it all.
If only Ashley were her husband, instead of Melanie's, how sweet it
would be to go to him and lay her head upon his shoulder and cry
and shove her burdens onto him to work out as best he might.

She rounded a thicket of pomegranate trees which were shaking bare
limbs in the cold wind and saw him leaning on his axe, wiping his
forehead with the back of his hand. He was wearing the remains of
his butternut trousers and one of Gerald's shirts, a shirt which in
better times went only to Court days and barbecues, a ruffled shirt
which was far too short for its present owner. He had hung his
coat on a tree limb, for the work was hot, and he stood resting as
she came up to him.

At the sight of Ashley in rags, with an axe in his hand, her heart
went out in a surge of love and of fury at fate. She could not
bear to see him in tatters, working, her debonaire immaculate
Ashley. His hands were not made for work or his body for anything
but broadcloth and fine linen. God intended him to sit in a great
house, talking with pleasant people, playing the piano and writing
things which sounded beautiful and made no sense whatsoever.

She could endure the sight of her own child in aprons made of
sacking and the girls in dingy old gingham, could bear it that Will
worked harder than any field hand, but not Ashley. He was too fine
for all this, too infinitely dear to her. She would rather split
logs herself than suffer while he did it.

"They say Abe Lincoln got his start splitting rails," he said as
she came up to him. "Just think to what heights I may climb!"

She frowned. He was always saying light things like this about
their hardships. They were deadly serious matters to her and
sometimes she was almost irritated at his remarks.

Abruptly she told him Will's news, tersely and in short words,
feeling a sense of relief as she spoke. Surely, he'd have
something helpful to offer. He said nothing but, seeing her
shiver, he took his coat and placed it about her shoulders.

"Well," she said finally, "doesn't it occur to you that we'll have
to get the money somewhere?"

"Yes," he said, "but where?"

"I'm asking you," she replied, annoyed. The sense of relief at
unburdening herself had disappeared. Even if he couldn't help, why
didn't he say something comforting, even if it was only: "Oh, I'm
so sorry."

He smiled.

"In all these months since I've been home I've only heard of one
person, Rhett Butler, who actually has money," he said.

Aunt Pittypat had written Melanie the week before that Rhett was
back in Atlanta with a carriage and two fine horses and pocketfuls
of greenbacks. She had intimated, however, that he didn't come by
them honestly. Aunt Pitty had a theory, largely shared by Atlanta,
that Rhett had managed to get away with the mythical millions of
the Confederate treasury.

"Don't let's talk about him," said Scarlett shortly. "He's a skunk
if ever there was one. What's to become of us all?"

Ashley put down the axe and looked away and his eyes seemed to be
journeying to some far-off country where she could not follow.

"I wonder," he said. "I wonder not only what will become of us at
Tara but what will become of everybody in the South."

She felt like snapping out abruptly: "To hell with everybody in
the South! What about us?" but she remained silent because the
tired feeling was back on her more strongly than ever. Ashley
wasn't being any help at all.

"In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a
civilization breaks up. The people who have brains and courage
come through and the ones who haven't are winnowed out. At least,
it has been interesting, if not comfortable, to witness a
Gotterdammerung."

"A what?"

"A dusk of the gods. Unfortunately, we Southerners did think we
were gods."

"For Heaven's sake, Ashley Wilkes! Don't stand there and talk
nonsense at me when it's us who are going to be winnowed out!"

Something of her exasperated weariness seemed to penetrate his
mind, calling it back from its wanderings, for he raised her hands
with tenderness and, turning them palm up, looked at the calluses.

"These are the most beautiful hands I know," he said and kissed
each palm lightly. "They are beautiful because they are strong and
every callus is a medal, Scarlett, every blister an award for
bravery and unselfishness. They've been roughened for all of us,
your father, the girls, Melanie, the baby, the negroes and for me.
My dear, I know what you are thinking. You're thinking, 'Here
stands an impractical fool talking tommyrot about dead gods when
living people are in danger.' Isn't that true?"

She nodded, wishing he would keep on holding her hands forever, but
he dropped them.

"And you came to me, hoping I could help you. Well, I can't."

His eyes were bitter as he looked toward the axe and the pile of
logs.

"My home is gone and all the money that I so took for granted I
never realized I had it. And I am fitted for nothing in this
world, for the world I belonged in has gone. I can't help you,
Scarlett, except by learning with as good grace as possible to be a
clumsy farmer. And that won't keep Tara for you. Don't you think
I realize the bitterness of our situation, living here on your
charity-- Oh, yes, Scarlett, your charity. I can never repay you
what you've done for me and for mine out of the kindness of your
heart. I realize it more acutely every day. And every day I see
more clearly how helpless I am to cope with what has come on us
all-- Every day my accursed shrinking from realities makes it
harder for me to face the new realities. Do you know what I mean?"

She nodded. She had no very clear idea what he meant but she clung
breathlessly on his words. This was the first time he had ever
spoken to her of the things he was thinking when he seemed so
remote from her. It excited her as if she were on the brink of a
discovery.

"It's a curse--this not wanting to look on naked realities. Until
the war, life was never more real to me than a shadow show on a
curtain. And I preferred it so. I do not like the outlines of
things to be too sharp. I like them gently blurred, a little
hazy."

He stopped and smiled faintly, shivering a little as the cold wind
went through his thin shirt.

"In other words, Scarlett, I am a coward."

His talk of shadow shows and hazy outlines conveyed no meaning to
her but his last words were in language she could understand. She
knew they were untrue. Cowardice was not in him. Every line of
his slender body spoke of generations of brave and gallant men and
Scarlett knew his war record by heart.

"Why, that's not so! Would a coward have climbed on the cannon at
Gettysburg and rallied the men? Would the General himself have
written Melanie a letter about a coward? And--"

"That's not courage," he said tiredly. "Fighting is like
champagne. It goes to the heads of cowards as quickly as of
heroes. Any fool can be brave on a battle field when it's be brave
or else be killed. I'm talking of something else. And my kind of
cowardice is infinitely worse than if I had run the first time I
heard a cannon fired."

His words came slowly and with difficulty as if it hurt to speak
them and he seemed to stand off and look with a sad heart at what
he had said. Had any other man spoken so, Scarlett would have
dismissed such protestations contemptuously as mock modesty and a
bid for praise. But Ashley seemed to mean them and there was a
look in his eyes which eluded her--not fear, not apology, but the
bracing to a strain which was inevitable and overwhelming. The
wintry wind swept her damp ankles and she shivered again but her
shiver was less from the wind than from the dread his words evoked
in her heart.

"But, Ashley, what are you afraid of?"

"Oh, nameless things. Things which sound very silly when they are
put into words. Mostly of having life suddenly become too real, of
being brought into personal, too personal, contact with some of the
simple facts of life. It isn't that I mind splitting logs here in
the mud, but I do mind what it stands for. I do mind, very much,
the loss of the beauty of the old life I loved. Scarlett, before
the war, life was beautiful. There was a glamor to it, a
perfection and a completeness and a symmetry to it like Grecian
art. Maybe it wasn't so to everyone. I know that now. But to me,
living at Twelve Oaks, there was a real beauty to living. I
belonged in that life. I was a part of it. And now it is gone and
I am out of place in this new life, and I am afraid. Now, I know
that in the old days it was a shadow show I watched. I avoided
everything which was not shadowy, people and situations which were
too real, too vital. I resented their intrusion. I tried to avoid
you too, Scarlett. You were too full of living and too real and I
was cowardly enough to prefer shadows and dreams."

"But--but--Melly?"

"Melanie is the gentlest of dreams and a part of my dreaming. And
if the war had not come I would have lived out my life, happily
buried at Twelve Oaks, contentedly watching life go by and never
being a part of it. But when the war came, life as it really is
thrust itself against me. The first time I went into action--it
was at Bull Run, you remember--I saw my boyhood friends blown to
bits and heard dying horses scream and learned the sickeningly
horrible feeling of seeing men crumple up and spit blood when I
shot them. But those weren't the worst things about the war,
Scarlett. The worst thing about the war was the people I had to
live with.

"I had sheltered myself from people all my life, I had carefully
selected my few friends. But the war taught me I had created a
world of my own with dream people in it. It taught me what people
really are, but it didn't teach me how to live with them. And I'm
afraid I'll never learn. Now, I know that in order to support my
wife and child, I will have to make my way among a world of people
with whom I have nothing in common. You, Scarlett, are taking life
by the horns and twisting it to your will. But where do I fit in
the world any more? I tell you I am afraid."

While his low resonant voice went on, desolate, with a feeling she
could not understand, Scarlett clutched at words here and there,
trying to make sense of them. But the words swooped from her hands
like wild birds. Something was driving him, driving him with a
cruel goad, but she did not understand what it was.

"Scarlett, I don't know just when it was that the bleak realization
came over me that my own private shadow show was over. Perhaps in
the first five minutes at Bull Run when I saw the first man I
killed drop to the ground. But I knew it was over and I could no
longer be a spectator. No, I suddenly found myself on the curtain,
an actor, posturing and making futile gestures. My little inner
world was gone, invaded by people whose thoughts were not my
thoughts, whose actions were as alien as a Hottentot's. They'd
tramped through my world with slimy feet and there was no place
left where I could take refuge when things became too bad to stand.
When I was in prison, I thought: When the war is over, I can go
back to the old life and the old dreams and watch the shadow show
again. But, Scarlett, there's no going back. And this which is
facing all of us now is worse than war and worse than prison--and,
to me, worse than death. . . . So, you see, Scarlett, I'm being
punished for being afraid."

"But, Ashley," she began, floundering in a quagmire of bewilderment,
"if you're afraid we'll starve, why--why-- Oh, Ashley, we'll manage
somehow! I know we will!"

For a moment, his eyes came back to her, wide and crystal gray, and
there was admiration in them. Then, suddenly, they were remote
again and she knew with a sinking heart that he had not been
thinking about starving. They were always like two people talking
to each other in different languages. But she loved him so much
that, when he withdrew as he had now done, it was like the warm sun
going down and leaving her in chilly twilight dews. She wanted to
catch him by the shoulders and hug him to her, make him realize
that she was flesh and blood and not something he had read or
dreamed. If she could only feel that sense of oneness with him for
which she had yearned since that day, so long ago, when he had come
home from Europe and stood on the steps of Tara and smiled up at
her.

"Starving's not pleasant," he said. "I know for I've starved, but
I'm not afraid of that. I am afraid of facing life without the
slow beauty of our old world that is gone."

Scarlett thought despairingly that Melanie would know what he
meant. Melly and he were always talking such foolishness, poetry
and books and dreams and moonrays and star dust. He was not
fearing the things she feared, not the gnawing of an empty stomach,
nor the keenness of the winter wind nor eviction from Tara. He was
shrinking before some fear she had never known and could not
imagine. For, in God's name, what was there to fear in this wreck
of a world but hunger and cold and the loss of home?

And she had thought that if she listened closely she would know the
answer to Ashley.

"Oh!" she said and the disappointment in her voice was that of a
child who opens a beautifully wrapped package to find it empty. At
her tone, he smiled ruefully as though apologizing.

"Forgive me, Scarlett, for talking so. I can't make you understand
because you don't know the meaning of fear. You have the heart of
a lion and an utter lack of imagination and I envy you both of
those qualities. You'll never mind facing realities and you'll
never want to escape from them as I do."

"Escape!"

It was as if that were the only understandable word he had spoken.
Ashley, like her, was tired of the struggle and he wanted to
escape. Her breath came fast.

"Oh, Ashley," she cried, "you're wrong. I do want to escape, too.
I am so very tired of it all!"

His eyebrows went up in disbelief and she laid a hand, feverish and
urgent, on his arm.

"Listen to me," she began swiftly, the words tumbling out one over
the other. "I'm tired of it all, I tell you. Bone tired and I'm
not going to stand it any longer. I've struggled for food and for
money and I've weeded and hoed and picked cotton and I've even
plowed until I can't stand it another minute. I tell you, Ashley,
the South is dead! It's dead! The Yankees and the free niggers
and the Carpetbaggers have got it and there's nothing left for us.
Ashley, let's run away!"

He peered at her sharply, lowering his head to look into her face,
now flaming with color.

"Yes, let's run away--leave them all! I'm tired of working for the
folks. Somebody will take care of them. There's always somebody
who takes care of people who can't take care of themselves. Oh,
Ashley, let's run away, you and I. We could go to Mexico--they
want officers in the Mexican Army and we could be so happy there.
I'd work for you, Ashley. I'd do anything for you. You know you
don't love Melanie--"

He started to speak, a stricken look on his face, but she stemmed
his words with a torrent of her own.

"You told me you loved me better than her that day--oh, you
remember that day! And I know you haven't changed! I can tell you
haven't changed! And you've just said she was nothing but a dream--
Oh, Ashley, let's go away! I could make you so happy. And
anyway," she added venomously, "Melanie can't-- Dr. Fontaine said
she couldn't ever have any more children and I could give you--"

His hands were on her shoulders so tightly that they hurt and she
stopped, breathless.

"We were to forget that day at Twelve Oaks."

"Do you think I could ever forget it? Have you forgotten it? Can
you honestly say you don't love me?"

He drew a deep breath and answered quickly.

"No. I don't love you."

"That's a lie."

"Even if it is a lie," said Ashley and his voice was deadly quiet,
"it is not something which can be discussed."

"You mean--"

"Do you think I could go off and leave Melanie and the baby, even
if I hated them both? Break Melanie's heart? Leave them both to
the charity of friends? Scarlett, are you mad? Isn't there any
sense of loyalty in you? You couldn't leave your father and the
girls. They're your responsibility, just as Melanie and Beau are
mine, and whether you are tired or not, they are here and you've
got to bear them."

"I could leave them--I'm sick of them--tired of them--"

He leaned toward her and, for a moment, she thought with a catch at
her heart that he was going to take her in his arms. But instead,
he patted her arm and spoke as one comforting a child.

"I know you're sick and tired. That's why you are talking this
way. You've carried the load of three men. But I'm going to help
you--I won't always be so awkward--"

"There's only one way you can help me," she said dully, "and that's
to take me away from here and give us a new start somewhere, with a
chance for happiness. There's nothing to keep us here."

"Nothing," he said quietly, "nothing--except honor."

She looked at him with baffled longing and saw, as if for the first
time, how the crescents of his lashes were the thick rich gold of
ripe wheat, how proudly his head sat upon his bared neck and how
the look of race and dignity persisted in his slim erect body, even
through its grotesque rags. Her eyes met his, hers naked with
pleading, his remote as mountain lakes under gray skies.

She saw in them defeat of her wild dream, her mad desires.

Heartbreak and weariness sweeping over her, she dropped her head in
her hands and cried. He had never seen her cry. He had never
thought that women of her strong mettle had tears, and a flood of
tenderness and remorse swept him. He came to her swiftly and in a
moment had her in his arms, cradling her comfortingly, pressing her
black head to his heart, whispering: "Dear! My brave dear--don't!
You mustn't cry!"

At his touch, he felt her change within his grip and there was
madness and magic in the slim body he held and a hot soft glow in
the green eyes which looked up at him. Of a sudden, it was no
longer bleak winter. For Ashley, spring was back again, that half-
forgotten balmy spring of green rustlings and murmurings, a spring
of ease and indolence, careless days when the desires of youth were
warm in his body. The bitter years since then fell away and he saw
that the lips turned up to his were red and trembling and he kissed
her.

There was a curious low roaring sound in her ears as of sea shells
held against them and through the sound she dimly heard the swift
thudding of her heart. Her body seemed to melt into his and, for a
timeless time, they stood fused together as his lips took hers
hungrily as if he could never have enough.

When he suddenly released her she felt that she could not stand
alone and gripped the fence for support. She raised eyes blazing
with love and triumph to him.

"You do love me! You do love me! Say it--say it!"

His hands still rested on her shoulders and she felt them tremble
and loved their trembling. She leaned toward him ardently but he
held her away from him, looking at her with eyes from which all
remoteness had fled, eyes tormented with struggle and despair.

"Don't!" he said. "Don't! If you do, I shall take you now, here."

She smiled a bright hot smile which was forgetful of time or place
or anything but the memory of his mouth on hers.

Suddenly he shook her, shook her until her black hair tumbled down
about her shoulders, shook her as if in a mad rage at her--and at
himself.

"We won't do this!" he said. "I tell you we won't do it!"

It seemed as if her neck would snap if he shook her again. She was
blinded by her hair and stunned by his action. She wrenched
herself away and stared at him. There were small beads of moisture
on his forehead and his fists were curled into claws as if in pain.
He looked at her directly, his gray eyes piercing.

"It's all my fault--none of yours and it will never happen again,
because I am going to take Melanie and the baby and go."

"Go?" she cried in anguish. "Oh, no!"

"Yes, by God! Do you think I'll stay here after this? When this
might happen again--"

"But, Ashley, you can't go. Why should you go? You love me--"

"You want me to say it? All right, I'll say it. I love you."

He leaned over her with a sudden savagery which made her shrink
back against the fence.

"I love you, your courage and your stubbornness and your fire and
your utter ruthlessness. How much do I love you? So much that a
moment ago I would have outraged the hospitality of the house which
has sheltered me and my family, forgotten the best wife any man
ever had--enough to take you here in the mud like a--"

She struggled with a chaos of thoughts and there was a cold pain in
her heart as if an icicle had pierced it. She said haltingly: "If
you felt like that--and didn't take me--then you don't love me."

"I can never make you understand."

They fell silent and looked at each other. Suddenly Scarlett
shivered and saw, as if coming back from a long journey, that it
was winter and the fields were bare and harsh with stubble and she
was very cold. She saw too that the old aloof face of Ashley, the
one she knew so well, had come back and it was wintry too, and
harsh with hurt and remorse.

She would have turned and left him then, seeking the shelter of the
house to hide herself, but she was too tired to move. Even speech
was a labor and a weariness.

"There is nothing left," she said at last. "Nothing left for me.
Nothing to love. Nothing to fight for. You are gone and Tara is
going."

He looked at her for a long space and then, leaning, scooped up a
small wad of red clay from the ground.

"Yes, there is something left," he said, and the ghost of his old
smile came back, the smile which mocked himself as well as her.
"Something you love better than me, though you may not know it.
You've still got Tara."

He took her limp hand and pressed the damp clay into it and closed
her fingers about it. There was no fever in his hands now, nor in
hers. She looked at the red soil for a moment and it meant nothing
to her. She looked at him and realized dimly that there was an
integrity of spirit in him which was not to be torn apart by her
passionate hands, nor by any hands.

If it killed him, he would never leave Melanie. If he burned for
Scarlett until the end of his days, he would never take her and he
would fight to keep her at a distance. She would never again get
through that armor. The words, hospitality and loyalty and honor,
meant more to him than she did.

The clay was cold in her hand and she looked at it again.

"Yes," she said, "I've still got this."

At first, the words meant nothing and the clay was only red clay.
But unbidden came the thought of the sea of red dirt which
surrounded Tara and how very dear it was and how hard she had
fought to keep it--how hard she was going to have to fight if she
wished to keep it hereafter. She looked at him again and wondered
where the hot flood of feeling had gone. She could think but could
not feel, not about him nor Tara either, for she was drained of all
emotion.

"You need not go," she said clearly. "I won't have you all starve,
simply because I've thrown myself at your head. It will never
happen again."

She turned away and started back toward the house across the rough
fields, twisting her hair into a knot upon her neck. Ashley
watched her go and saw her square her small thin shoulders as she
went. And that gesture went to his heart, more than any words she
had spoken.



CHAPTER XXXII


She was still clutching the ball of red clay when she went up the
front steps. She had carefully avoided the back entrance, for
Mammy's sharp eyes would certainly have seen that something was
greatly amiss. Scarlett did not want to see Mammy or anyone else.
She did not feel that she could endure seeing anyone or talking to
anyone again. She had no feeling of shame or disappointment or
bitterness now, only a weakness of the knees and a great emptiness
of heart. She squeezed the clay so tightly it ran out from her
clenched fist and she said over and over, parrot-like: "I've still
got this. Yes, I've still got this."

There was nothing else she did have, nothing but this red land,
this land she had been willing to throw away like a torn
handkerchief only a few minutes before. Now, it was dear to her
again and she wondered dully what madness had possessed her to hold
it so lightly. Had Ashley yielded, she could have gone away with
him and left family and friends without a backward look but, even
in her emptiness, she knew it would have torn her heart to leave
these dear red hills and long washed gullies and gaunt black pines.
Her thoughts would have turned back to them hungrily until the day
she died. Not even Ashley could have filled the empty spaces in
her heart where Tara had been uprooted. How wise Ashley was and
how well he knew her! He had only to press the damp earth into her
hand to bring her to her senses.

She was in the hall preparing to close the door when she heard the
sound of horse's hooves and turned to look down the driveway. To
have visitors at this of all times was too much. She'd hurry to
her room and plead a headache.

But when the carriage came nearer, her flight was checked by her
amazement. It was a new carriage, shiny with varnish, and the
harness was new too, with bits of polished brass here and there.
Strangers, certainly. No one she knew had the money for such a
grand new turn-out as this.

She stood in the doorway watching, the cold draft blowing her
skirts about her damp ankles. Then the carriage stopped in front
of the house and Jonas Wilkerson alighted. Scarlett was so
surprised at the sight of their former overseer driving so fine a
rig and in so splendid a greatcoat she could not for a moment
believe her eyes. Will had told her he looked quite prosperous
since he got his new job with the Freedmen's Bureau. Made a lot of
money, Will said, swindling the niggers or the government, one or
tuther, or confiscating folks' cotton and swearing it was
Confederate government cotton. Certainly he never came by all that
money honestly in these hard times.

And here he was now, stepping out of an elegant carriage and
handing down a woman dressed within an inch of her life. Scarlett
saw in a glance that the dress was bright in color to the point of
vulgarity but nevertheless her eyes went over the outfit hungrily.
It had been so long since she had even seen stylish new clothes.
Well! So hoops aren't so wide this year, she thought, scanning the
red plaid gown. And, as she took in the black velvet paletot, how
short jackets are! And what a cunning hat! Bonnets must be out of
style, for this hat was only an absurd flat red velvet affair,
perched on the top of the woman's head like a stiffened pancake.
The ribbons did not tie under the chin as bonnet ribbons tied but
in the back under the massive bunch of curls which fell from the
rear of the hat, curls which Scarlett could not help noticing did
not match the woman's hair in either color or texture.

As the woman stepped to the ground and looked toward the house,
Scarlett saw there was something familiar about the rabbity face,
caked with white powder.

"Why, it's Emmie Slattery!" she cried, so surprised she spoke the
words aloud.

"Yes'm, it's me," said Emmie, tossing her head with an ingratiating
smile and starting toward the steps.

Emmie Slattery! The dirty tow-headed slut whose illegitimate baby
Ellen had baptized, Emmie who had given typhoid to Ellen and killed
her. This overdressed, common, nasty piece of poor white trash was
coming up the steps of Tara, bridling and grinning as if she
belonged here. Scarlett thought of Ellen and, in a rush, feeling
came back into the emptiness of her mind, a murderous rage so
strong it shook her like the ague.

"Get off those steps, you trashy wench!" she cried. "Get off this
land! Get out!"

Emmie's jaw sagged suddenly and she glanced at Jonas who came up
with lowering brows. He made an effort at dignity, despite his
anger.

"You must not speak that way to my wife," he said.

"Wife?" said Scarlett and burst into a laugh that was cutting with
contempt. "High time you made her your wife. Who baptized your
other brats after you killed my mother?"

Emmie said "Oh!" and retreated hastily down the steps but Jonas
stopped her flight toward the carriage with a rough grip on her
arm.

"We came out here to pay a call--a friendly call," he snarled.
"And talk a little business with old friends--"

"Friends?" Scarlett's voice was like a whiplash. "When were we
ever friends with the like of you? The Slatterys lived on our
charity and paid it back by killing Mother--and you--you-- Pa
discharged you about Emmie's brat and you know it. Friends? Get
off this place before I call Mr. Benteen and Mr. Wilkes."

Under the words, Emmie broke her husband's hold and fled for the
carriage, scrambling in with a flash of patent-leather boots with
bright-red tops and red tassels.

Now Jonas shook with a fury equal to Scarlett's and his sallow face
was as red as an angry turkey gobbler's.

"Still high and mighty, aren't you? Well, I know all about you. I
know you haven't got shoes for your feet. I know your father's
turned idiot--"

"Get off this place!"

"Oh, you won't sing that way very long. I know you're broke. I
know you can't even pay your taxes. I came out here to offer to
buy this place from you--to make you a right good offer. Emmie had
a hankering to live here. But, by God, I won't give you a cent
now! You highflying, bog-trotting Irish will find out who's
running things around here when you get sold out for taxes. And
I'll buy this place, lock, stock and barrel--furniture and all--and
I'll live in it."

So it was Jonas Wilkerson who wanted Tara--Jonas and Emmie, who in
some twisted way thought to even past slights by living in the home
where they had been slighted. All her nerves hummed with hate, as
they had hummed that day when she shoved the pistol barrel into the
Yankee's bearded face and fired. She wished she had that pistol
now.

"I'll tear this house down, stone by stone, and burn it and sow
every acre with salt before I see either of you put foot over this
threshold," she shouted. "Get out, I tell you! Get out!"

Jonas glared at her, started to say more and then walked toward the
carriage. He climbed in beside his whimpering wife and turned the
horse. As they drove off, Scarlett had the impulse to spit at
them. She did spit. She knew it was a common, childish gesture
but it made her feel better. She wished she had done it while they
could see her.

Those damned nigger lovers daring to come here and taunt her about
her poverty! That hound never intended offering her a price for
Tara. He just used that as an excuse to come and flaunt himself
and Emmie in her face. The dirty Scallawags, the lousy trashy poor
whites, boasting they would live at Tara!

Then, sudden terror struck her and her rage melted. God's
nightgown! They will come and live here! There was nothing she
could do to keep them from buying Tara, nothing to keep them from
levying on every mirror and table and bed, on Ellen's shining
mahogany and rosewood, and every bit of it precious to her, scarred
though it was by the Yankee raiders. And the Robillard silver too.
I won't let them do it, thought Scarlett vehemently. No, not if
I've got to burn the place down! Emmie Slattery will never set her
foot on a single bit of flooring Mother ever walked on!

She closed the door and leaned against it and she was very
frightened. More frightened even than she had been that day when
Sherman's army was in the house. That day the worst she could fear
was that Tara would be burned over her head. But this was worse--
these low common creatures living in this house, bragging to their
low common friends how they had turned the proud O'Haras out.
Perhaps they'd even bring negroes here to dine and sleep. Will had
told her Jonas made a great to-do about being equal with the
negroes, ate with them, visited in their houses, rode them around
with him in his carriage, put his arms around their shoulders.

When she thought of the possibility of this final insult to Tara,
her heart pounded so hard she could scarcely breathe. She was
trying to get her mind on her problem, trying to figure some way
out, but each time she collected her thoughts, fresh gusts of rage
and fear shook her. There must be some way out, there must be
someone somewhere who had money she could borrow. Money couldn't
just dry up and blow away. Somebody had to have money. Then the
laughing words of Ashley came back to her:

"Only one person, Rhett Butler . . . who has money."

Rhett Butler. She walked quickly into the parlor and shut the door
behind her. The dim gloom of drawn blinds and winter twilight
closed about her. No one would think of hunting for her here and
she wanted time to think, undisturbed. The idea which had just
occurred to her was so simple she wondered why she had not thought
of it before.

"I'll get the money from Rhett. I'll sell him the diamond earbobs.
Or I'll borrow the money from him and let him keep the earbobs till
I can pay him back."

For a moment, relief was so great she felt weak. She would pay the
taxes and laugh in Jonas Wilkerson's face. But close on this happy
thought came relentless knowledge.

"It's not only for this year that I'll need tax money. There's
next year and all the years of my life. If I pay up this time,
they'll raise the taxes higher next time till they drive me out.
If I make a good cotton crop, they'll tax it till I'll get nothing
for it or maybe confiscate it outright and say it's Confederate
cotton. The Yankees and the scoundrels teamed up with them have
got me where they want me. All my life, as long as I live, I'll be
afraid they'll get me somehow. All my life I'll be scared and
scrambling for money and working myself to death, only to see my
work go for nothing and my cotton stolen. . . . Just borrowing
three hundred dollars for the taxes will be only a stopgap. What I
want is to get out of this fix, for good--so I can go to sleep at
night without worrying over what's going to happen to me tomorrow,
and next month, and next year."

Her mind ticked on steadily. Coldly and logically an idea grew in
her brain. She thought of Rhett, a flash of white teeth against
swarthy skin, sardonic black eyes caressing her. She recalled the
hot night in Atlanta, close to the end of the siege, when he sat on
Aunt Pitty's porch half hidden in the summer darkness, and she felt
again the heat of his hand upon her arm as he said: "I want you
more than I have ever wanted any woman--and I've waited longer for
you than I've ever waited for any woman."

"I'll marry him," she thought coolly. "And then I'll never have to
bother about money again."

Oh, blessed thought, sweeter than hope of Heaven, never to worry
about money again, to know that Tara was safe, that the family was
fed and clothed, that she would never again have to bruise herself
against stone walls!

She felt very old. The afternoon's events had drained her of all
feeling, first the startling news about the taxes, then Ashley and,
last, her murderous rage at Jonas Wilkerson. No, there was no
emotion left in her. If all her capacity to feel had not been
utterly exhausted, something in her would have protested against
the plan taking form in her mind, for she hated Rhett as she hated
no other person in all the world. But she could not feel. She
could only think and her thoughts were very practical.

"I said some terrible things to him that night when he deserted us
on the road, but I can make him forget them," she thought
contemptuously, still sure of her power to charm. "Butter won't
melt in my mouth when I'm around him. I'll make him think I always
loved him and was just upset and frightened that night. Oh, men
are so conceited they'll believe anything that flatters them. . . .
I must never let him dream what straits we're in, not till I've got
him. Oh, he mustn't know! If he even suspected how poor we are,
he'd know it was his money I wanted and not himself. After all,
there's no way he could know, for even Aunt Pitty doesn't know the
worst. And after I've married him, he'll have to help us. He
can't let his wife's people starve."

His wife. Mrs. Rhett Butler. Something of repulsion, buried deep
beneath her cold thinking, stirred faintly and then was stilled.
She remembered the embarrassing and disgusting events of her brief
honeymoon with Charles, his fumbling hands, his awkwardness, his
incomprehensible emotions--and Wade Hampton.

"I won't think about it now. I'll bother about it after I've
married him. . . ."

After she had married him. Memory rang a bell. A chill went down
her spine. She remembered again that night on Aunt Pitty's porch,
remembered how she asked him if he was proposing to her, remembered
how hatefully he had laughed and said: "My dear, I'm not a
marrying man."

Suppose he was still not a marrying man. Suppose despite all her
charms and wiles, he refused to marry her. Suppose--oh, terrible
thought!--suppose he had completely forgotten about her and was
chasing after some other woman.

"I want you more than I have ever wanted any woman. . . ."

Scarlett's nails dug into her palms as she clenched her fists. "If
he's forgotten me, I'll make him remember me. I'll make him want
me again."

And, if he would not marry her but still wanted her, there was a
way to get the money. After all, he had once asked her to be his
mistress.

In the dim grayness of the parlor she fought a quick decisive
battle with the three most binding ties of her soul--the memory of
Ellen, the teachings of her religion and her love for Ashley. She
knew that what she had in her mind must be hideous to her mother
even in that warm far-off Heaven where she surely was. She knew
that fornication was a mortal sin. And she knew that, loving
Ashley as she did, her plan was doubly prostitution.

But all these things went down before the merciless coldness of her
mind and the goad of desperation. Ellen was dead and perhaps death
gave an understanding of all things. Religion forbade fornication
on pain of hell fire but if the Church thought she was going to
leave one stone unturned in saving Tara and saving the family from
starving--well, let the Church bother about that. She wouldn't.
At least, not now. And Ashley--Ashley didn't want her. Yes, he
did want her. The memory of his warm mouth on hers told her that.
But he would never take her away with him. Strange that going away
with Ashley did not seem like a sin, but with Rhett--

In the dull twilight of the winter afternoon she came to the end of
the long road which had begun the night Atlanta fell. She had set
her feet upon that road a spoiled, selfish and untried girl, full
of youth, warm of emotion, easily bewildered by life. Now, at the
end of the road, there was nothing left of that girl. Hunger and
hard labor, fear and constant strain, the terrors of war and the
terrors of Reconstruction had taken away all warmth and youth and
softness. About the core of her being, a shell of hardness had
formed and, little by little, layer by layer, the shell had
thickened during the endless months.

But until this very day, two hopes had been left to sustain her.
She had hoped that the war being over, life would gradually resume
its old face. She had hoped that Ashley's return would bring back
some meaning into life. Now both hopes were gone. The sight of
Jonas Wilkerson in the front walk of Tara had made her realize that
for her, for the whole South, the war would never end. The
bitterest fighting, the most brutal retaliations, were just
beginning. And Ashley was imprisoned forever by words which were
stronger than any jail.

Peace had failed her and Ashley had failed her, both in the same
day, and it was as if the last crevice in the shell had been
sealed, the final layer hardened. She had become what Grandma
Fontaine had counseled against, a woman who had seen the worst and
so had nothing else to fear. Not life nor Mother nor loss of love
nor public opinion. Only hunger and her nightmare dream of hunger
could make her afraid.

A curious sense of lightness, of freedom, pervaded her now that she
had finally hardened her heart against all that bound her to the
old days and the old Scarlett. She had made her decision and,
thank God, she wasn't afraid. She had nothing to lose and her mind
was made up.

If she could only coax Rhett into marrying her, all would be
perfect. But if she couldn't--well she'd get the money just the
same. For a brief moment she wondered with impersonal curiosity
what would be expected of a mistress. Would Rhett insist on
keeping her in Atlanta as people said he kept the Watling woman?
If he made her stay in Atlanta, he'd have to pay well--pay enough
to balance what her absence from Tara would be worth. Scarlett was
very ignorant of the hidden side of men's lives and had no way of
knowing just what the arrangement might involve. And she wondered
if she would have a baby. That would be distinctly terrible.

"I won't think of that now. I'll think of it later," and she
pushed the unwelcome idea into the back of her mind lest it shake
her resolution. She'd tell the family tonight she was going to
Atlanta to borrow money, to try to mortgage the farm if necessary.
That would be all they needed to know until such an evil day when
they might find out differently.

With the thought of action, her head went up and her shoulders went
back. This affair was not going to be easy, she knew. Formerly,
it had been Rhett who asked for her favors and she who held the
power. Now she was the beggar and a beggar in no position to
dictate terms.

"But I won't go to him like a beggar. I'll go like a queen
granting favors. He'll never know."

She walked to the long pier glass and looked at herself, her head
held high. And she saw framed in the cracking gilt molding a
stranger. It was as if she were really seeing herself for the
first time in a year. She had glanced in the mirror every morning
to see that her face was clean and her hair tidy but she had always
been too pressed by other things to really see herself. But this
stranger! Surely this thin hollow-cheeked woman couldn't be
Scarlett O'Hara! Scarlett O'Hara had a pretty, coquettish, high-
spirited face. This face at which she stared was not pretty at all
and had none of the charm she remembered so well. It was white and
strained and the black brows above slanting green eyes swooped up
startlingly against the white skin like frightened bird's wings.
There was a hard and hunted look about this face.

"I'm not pretty enough to get him!" she thought and desperation
came back to her. "I'm thin--oh, I'm terribly thin!"

She patted her cheeks, felt frantically at her collar bones,
feeling them stand out through her basque. And her breasts were so
small, almost as small as Melanie's. She'd have to put ruffles in
her bosom to make them look larger and she had always had contempt
for girls who resorted to such subterfuges. Ruffles! That brought
up another thought. Her clothes. She looked down at her dress,
spreading its mended folds wide between her hands. Rhett liked
women who were well dressed, fashionably dressed. She remembered
with longing the flounced green dress she had worn when she first
came out of mourning, the dress she wore with the green plumed
bonnet he had brought her and she recalled the approving
compliments he had paid her. She remembered, too, with hate
sharpened by envy the red plaid dress, the red-topped boots with
tassels and the pancake hat of Emmie Slattery. They were gaudy but
they were new and fashionable and certainly they caught the eye.
And, oh, how she wanted to catch the eye! Especially the eye of
Rhett Butler! If he should see her in her old clothes, he'd know
everything was wrong at Tara. And he must not know.

What a fool she had been to think she could go to Atlanta and have
him for the asking, she with her scrawny neck and hungry cat eyes
and raggedy dress! If she hadn't been able to pry a proposal from
him at the height of her beauty, when she had her prettiest
clothes, how could she expect to get one now when she was ugly and
dressed tackily? If Miss Pitty's story was true, he must have more
money than anyone in Atlanta and probably had his pick of all the
pretty ladies, good and bad. Well, she thought grimly, I've got
something that most pretty ladies haven't got--and that's a mind
that's made up. And if I had just one nice dress--

There wasn't a nice dress in Tara or a dress which hadn't been
turned twice and mended.

"That's that," she thought, disconsolately looking down at the
floor. She saw Ellen's moss-green velvet carpet, now worn and
scuffed and torn and spotted from the numberless men who had slept
upon it, and the sight depressed her more, for it made her realize
that Tara was just as ragged as she. The whole darkening room
depressed her and, going to the window, she raised the sash,
unlatched the shutters and let the last light of the wintry sunset
into the room. She closed the window and leaned her head against
the velvet curtains and looked out across the bleak pasture toward
the dark cedars of the burying ground.

The moss-green velvet curtains felt prickly and soft beneath her
cheek and she rubbed her face against them gratefully, like a cat.
And then suddenly she looked at them.

A minute later, she was dragging a heavy marble-topped table across
the floor. Its rusty castors screeching in protest. She rolled
the table under the window, gathered up her skirts, climbed on it
and tiptoed to reach the heavy curtain pole. It was almost out of
her reach and she jerked at it so impatiently the nails came out of
the wood, and the curtains, pole and all, fell to the floor with a
clatter.

As if by magic, the door of the parlor opened and the wide black
face of Mammy appeared, ardent curiosity and deepest suspicion
evident in every wrinkle. She looked disapprovingly at Scarlett,
poised on the table top, her skirts above her knees, ready to leap
to the floor. There was a look of excitement and triumph on her
face which brought sudden distrust to Mammy.

"Whut you up to wid Miss Ellen's po'teers?" she demanded.

"What are you up to listening outside doors?" asked Scarlett,
leaping nimbly to the floor and gathering up a length of the heavy
dusty velvet.

"Dat ain' needer hyah no dar," countered Mammy, girding herself for
combat. "You ain' got no bizness wid Miss Ellen's po'teers,
juckin' de poles plum outer de wood, an' drappin' dem on de flo' in
de dust. Miss Ellen set gret sto' by dem po'teers an' Ah ain'
'tendin' ter have you muss dem up dat way."

Scarlett turned green eyes on Mammy, eyes which were feverishly
gay, eyes which looked like the bad little girl of the good old
days Mammy sighed about.

"Scoot up to the attic and get my box of dress patterns, Mammy,"
she cried, giving her a slight shove. "I'm going to have a new
dress."

Mammy was torn between indignation at the very idea of her two
hundred pounds scooting anywhere, much less to the attic, and the
dawning of a horrid suspicion. Quickly she snatched the curtain
lengths from Scarlett, holding them against her monumental, sagging
breasts as if they were holy relics.

"Not outer Miss Ellen's po'teers is you gwine have a new dress, ef
dat's whut you figgerin' on. Not w'ile Ah got breaf in mah body."

For a moment the expression Mammy was wont to describe to herself
as "bullheaded" flitted over her young mistress' face and then it
passed into a smile, so difficult for Mammy to resist. But it did
not fool the old woman. She knew Miss Scarlett was employing that
smile merely to get around her and in this matter she was
determined not to be gotten around.

"Mammy, don't be mean. I'm going to Atlanta to borrow some money
and I've got to have a new dress."

"You doan need no new dress. Ain' no other ladies got new dresses.
Dey weahs dey ole ones an' dey weahs dem proudfully. Ain' no
reason why Miss Ellen's chile kain weah rags ef she wants ter, an'
eve'ybody respec' her lak she wo' silk."

The bullheaded expression began to creep back. Lordy, 'twus right
funny how de older Miss Scarlett git de mo' she look lak Mist'
Gerald and de less lak Miss Ellen!

"Now, Mammy you know Aunt Pitty wrote us that Miss Fanny Elsing is
getting married this Saturday, and of course I'll go to the
wedding. And I'll need a new dress to wear."

"De dress you got on'll be jes' as nice as Miss Fanny's weddin'
dress. Miss Pitty done wrote dat de Elsings mighty po'."

"But I've got to have a new dress! Mammy, you don't know how we
need money. The taxes--"

"Yas'm, Ah knows all 'bout de taxes but--"

"You do?"

"Well'm, Gawd give me ears, din' he, an' ter hear wid? Specially
w'en Mist' Will doan never tek trouble ter close de do'."

Was there nothing Mammy did not overhear? Scarlett wondered how
that ponderous body which shook the floors could move with such
savage stealth when its owner wished to eavesdrop.

"Well, if you heard all that, I suppose you heard Jonas Wilkerson
and that Emmie--"

"Yas'm," said Mammy with smoldering eyes.

"Well, don't be a mule, Mammy. Don't you see I've got to go to
Atlanta and get money for the taxes? I've got to get some money.
I've got to do it!" She hammered one small fist into the other.
"Name of God, Mammy, they'll turn us all out into the road and then
where'll we go? Are you going to argue with me about a little
matter of Mother's curtains when that trash Emmie Slattery who
killed Mother is fixing to move into this house and sleep in the
bed Mother slept in?"

Mammy shifted from one foot to another like a restive elephant.
She had a dim feeling that she was being got around.

"No'm, Ah ain' wantin' ter see trash in Miss Ellen's house or us
all in de road but--" She fixed Scarlett with a suddenly accusing
eye: "Who is you fixin' ter git money frum dat you needs a new
dress?"

"That," said Scarlett, taken aback, "is my own business."

Mammy looked at her piercingly, just as she had done when Scarlett
was small and had tried unsuccessfully to palm off plausible
excuses for misdeeds. She seemed to be reading her mind and
Scarlett dropped her eyes unwillingly, the first feeling of guilt
at her intended conduct creeping over her.

"So you needs a spang new pretty dress ter borry money wid. Dat
doan lissen jes' right ter me. An' you ain' sayin' whar de money
ter come frum."

"I'm not saying anything," said Scarlett indignantly. "It's my own
business. Are you going to give me that curtain and help me make
the dress?"

"Yas'm," said Mammy softly, capitulating with a suddenness which
aroused all the suspicion in Scarlett's mind. "Ah gwine he'p you
mek it an' Ah specs we mout git a petticoat outer de satin linin'
of de po'teers an' trim a pa'r pantalets wid de lace cuttins."

She handed the velvet curtain back to Scarlett and a sly smile
spread over her face.

"Miss Melly gwine ter 'Lanta wid you, Miss Scarlett?"

"No," said Scarlett sharply, beginning to realize what was coming.
"I'm going by myself."

"Dat's whut you thinks," said Mammy firmly, "but Ah is gwine wid
you an' dat new dress. Yas, Ma'm, eve'y step of de way."

For an instant Scarlett envisaged her trip to Atlanta and her
conversation with Rhett with Mammy glowering chaperonage like a
large black Cerberus in the background. She smiled again and put a
hand on Mammy's arm.

"Mammy darling, you're sweet to want to go with me and help me, but
how on earth would the folks here get on without you? You know you
just about run Tara."

"Huh!" said Mammy. "Doan do no good ter sweet talk me, Miss
Scarlett. Ah been knowin' you sence Ah put de fust pa'r of diapers
on you. Ah's said Ah's gwine ter 'Lanta wid you an' gwine Ah is.
Miss Ellen be tuhnin' in her grabe at you gwine up dar by yo'seff
wid dat town full up wid Yankees an' free niggers an' sech like."

"But I'll be at Aunt Pittypat's," Scarlett offered frantically.

"Miss Pittypat a fine woman an' she think she see eve'ything but
she doan," said Mammy, and turning with the majestic air of having
closed the interview, she went into the hall. The boards trembled
as she called:

"Prissy, child! Fly up de stairs an' fotch Miss Scarlett's pattun
box frum de attic an' try an' fine de scissors without takin' all
night 'bout it."

"This is a fine mess," thought Scarlett dejectedly. "I'd as soon
have a bloodhound after me."

After supper had been cleared away, Scarlett and Mammy spread
patterns on the dining-room table while Suellen and Carreen busily
ripped satin linings from curtains and Melanie brushed the velvet
with a clean hairbrush to remove the dust. Gerald, Will and Ashley
sat about the room smoking, smiling at the feminine tumult. A
feeling of pleasurable excitement which seemed to emanate from
Scarlett was on them all, an excitement they could not understand.
There was color in Scarlett's face and a bright hard glitter in her
eyes and she laughed a good deal. Her laughter pleased them all,
for it had been months since they had heard her really laugh.
Especially did it please Gerald. His eyes were less vague than
usual as they followed her swishing figure about the room and he
patted her approvingly whenever she was within reach. The girls
were as excited as if preparing for a ball and they ripped and cut
and basted as if making a ball dress of their own.

Scarlett was going to Atlanta to borrow money or to mortgage Tara
if necessary. But what was a mortgage, after all? Scarlett said
they could easily pay it off out of next year's cotton and have
money left over, and she said it with such finality they did not
think to question. And when they asked who was going to lend the
money she said: "Layovers catch meddlers," so archly they all
laughed and teased her about her millionaire friend.

"It must be Captain Rhett Butler," said Melanie slyly and they
exploded with mirth at this absurdity, knowing how Scarlett hated
him and never failed to refer to him as "that skunk, Rhett Butler."

But Scarlett did not laugh at this and Ashley, who had laughed,
stopped abruptly as he saw Mammy shoot a quick, guarded glance at
Scarlett.

Suellen, moved to generosity by the party spirit of the occasion,
produced her Irish-lace collar, somewhat worn but still pretty, and
Carreen insisted that Scarlett wear her slippers to Atlanta, for
they were in better condition than any others at Tara. Melanie
begged Mammy to leave her enough velvet scraps to recover the frame
of her battered bonnet and brought shouts of laughter when she said
the old rooster was going to part with his gorgeous bronze and
green-black tail feathers unless he took to the swamp immediately.

Scarlett, watching the flying fingers, heard the laughter and
looked at them all with concealed bitterness and contempt.

"They haven't an idea what is really happening to me or to
themselves or to the South. They still think, in spite of
everything, that nothing really dreadful can happen to any of them
because they are who they are, O'Haras, Wilkeses, Hamiltons. Even
the darkies feel that way. Oh, they're all fools! They'll never
realize! They'll go right on thinking and living as they always
have, and nothing will change them. Melly can dress in rags and
pick cotton and even help me murder a man but it doesn't change
her. She's still the shy well-bred Mrs. Wilkes, the perfect lady!
And Ashley can see death and war and be wounded and lie in jail and
come home to less than nothing and still be the same gentleman he
was when he had all Twelve Oaks behind him. Will is different. He
knows how things really are but then Will never had anything much
to lose. And as for Suellen and Carreen--they think all this is
just a temporary matter. They don't change to meet changed
conditions because they think it'll all be over soon. They think
God is going to work a miracle especially for their benefit. But
He won't. The only miracle that's going to be worked around here
is the one I'm going to work on Rhett Butler. . . . They won't
change. Maybe they can't change. I'm the only one who's changed--
and I wouldn't have changed if I could have helped it."

Mammy finally turned the men out of the dining room and closed the
door, so the fitting could begin. Pork helped Gerald upstairs to
bed and Ashley and Will were left alone in the lamplight in the
front hall. They were silent for a while and Will chewed his
tobacco like a placid ruminant animal. But his mild face was far
from placid.

"This goin' to Atlanta," he said at last in a slow voice, "I don't
like it. Not one bit."

Ashley looked at Will quickly and then looked away, saying nothing
but wondering if Will had the same awful suspicion which was
haunting him. But that was impossible. Will didn't know what had
taken place in the orchard that afternoon and how it had driven
Scarlett to desperation. Will couldn't have noticed Mammy's face
when Rhett Butler's name was mentioned and, besides, Will didn't
know about Rhett's money or his foul reputation. At least, Ashley
did not think he could know these things, but since coming back to
Tara he had realized that Will, like Mammy, seemed to know things
without being told, to sense them before they happened. There was
something ominous in the air, exactly what Ashley did not know, but
he was powerless to save Scarlett from it. She had not met his
eyes once that evening and the hard bright gaiety with which she
had treated him was frightening. The suspicions which tore at him
were too terrible to be put into words. He did not have the right
to insult her by asking her if they were true. He clenched his
fists. He had no rights at all where she was concerned; this
afternoon he had forfeited them all, forever. He could not help
her. No one could help her. But when he thought of Mammy and the
look of grim determination she wore as she cut into the velvet
curtains, he was cheered a little. Mammy would take care of
Scarlett whether Scarlett wished it or not.

"I have caused all this," he thought despairingly. "I have driven
her to this."

He remembered the way she had squared her shoulders when she turned
away from him that afternoon, remembered the stubborn lift of her
head. His heart went out to her, torn with his own helplessness,
wrenched with admiration. He knew she had no such word in her
vocabulary as gallantry, knew she would have stared blankly if he
had told her she was the most gallant soul he had ever known. He
knew she would not understand how many truly fine things he
ascribed to her when he thought of her as gallant. He knew that
she took life as it came, opposed her tough-fibered mind to
whatever obstacles there might be, fought on with a determination
that would not recognize defeat, and kept on fighting even when she
saw defeat was inevitable.

But, for four years, he had seen others who had refused to
recognize defeat, men who rode gaily into sure disaster because
they were gallant. And they had been defeated, just the same.

He thought as he stared at Will in the shadowy hall that he had
never known such gallantry as the gallantry of Scarlett O'Hara
going forth to conquer the world in her mother's velvet curtains
and the tail feathers of a rooster.



CHAPTER XXXIII


A cold wind was blowing stiffly and the scudding clouds overhead
were the deep gray of slate when Scarlett and Mammy stepped from
the train in Atlanta the next afternoon. The depot had not been
rebuilt since the burning of the city and they alighted amid
cinders and mud a few yards above the blackened ruins which marked
the site. Habit strong upon her, Scarlett looked about for Uncle
Peter and Pitty's carriage, for she had always been met by them
when returning from Tara to Atlanta during the war years. Then she
caught herself with a sniff at her own absent-mindedness.
Naturally, Peter wasn't there for she had given Aunt Pitty no
warning of her coming and, moreover, she remembered that one of the
old lady's letters had dealt tearfully with the death of the old
nag Peter had "'quired" in Macon to bring her back to Atlanta after
the surrender.

She looked about the rutted and cut-up space around the depot for
the equipage of some old friend or acquaintance who might drive
them to Aunt Pitty's house but she recognized no one, black or
white. Probably none of her old friends owned carriages now, if
what Pitty had written them was true. Times were so hard it was
difficult to feed and lodge humans, much less animals. Most of
Pitty's friends, like herself, were afoot these days.

There were a few wagons loading at the freight cars and several
mud-splashed buggies with rough-looking strangers at the reins but
only two carriages. One was a closed carriage, the other open and
occupied by a well-dressed woman and a Yankee officer. Scarlett
drew in her breath sharply at the sight of the uniform. Although
Pitty had written that Atlanta was garrisoned and the streets full
of soldiers, the first sight of the bluecoat startled and
frightened her. It was hard to remember that the war was over and
that this man would not pursue her, rob her and insult her.

The comparative emptiness around the train took her mind back to
that morning in 1862 when she had come to Atlanta as a young widow,
swathed in crepe and wild with boredom. She recalled how crowded
this space had been with wagons and carriages and ambulances and
how noisy with drivers swearing and yelling and people calling
greetings to friends. She sighed for the light-hearted excitement
of the war days and sighed again at the thought of walking all the
way to Aunt Pitty's house. But she was hopeful that once on
Peachtree Street, she might meet someone she knew who would give
them a ride.

As she stood looking about her a saddle-colored negro of middle age
drove the closed carriage toward her and, leaning from the box,
questioned: "Cah'ige, lady? Two bits fer any whar in 'Lanta."

Mammy threw him an annihilating glance.

"A hired hack!" she rumbled. "Nigger, does you know who we is?"

Mammy was a country negro but she had not always been a country
negro and she knew that no chaste woman ever rode in a hired
conveyance--especially a closed carriage--without the escort of
some male member of her family. Even the presence of a negro maid
would not satisfy the conventions. She gave Scarlett a glare as
she saw her look longingly at the hack.

"Come 'way frum dar, Miss Scarlett! A hired hack an' a free issue
nigger! Well, dat's a good combination."

"Ah ain' no free issue nigger," declared the driver with heat. "Ah
b'longs ter Ole Miss Talbot an' disyere her cah'ige an' Ah drives
it ter mek money fer us."

"Whut Miss Talbot is dat?"

"Miss Suzannah Talbot of Milledgeville. Us done move up hyah affer
Old Marse wuz kilt."

"Does you know her, Miss Scarlett?"

"No," said Scarlett, regretfully. "I know so few Milledgeville
folks."

"Den us'll walk," said Mammy sternly. "Drive on, nigger."

She picked up the carpetbag which held Scarlett's new velvet frock
and bonnet and nightgown and tucked the neat bandanna bundle that
contained her own belongings under her arm and shepherded Scarlett
across the wet expanse of cinders. Scarlett did not argue the
matter, much as she preferred to ride, for she wished no
disagreement with Mammy. Ever since yesterday afternoon when Mammy
had caught her with the velvet curtains, there had been an alert
suspicious look in her eyes which Scarlett did not like. It was
going to be difficult to escape from her chaperonage and she did
not intend to rouse Mammy's fighting blood before it was absolutely
necessary.

As they walked along the narrow sidewalk toward Peachtree, Scarlett
was dismayed and sorrowful, for Atlanta looked so devastated and
different from what she remembered. They passed beside what had
been the Atlanta Hotel where Rhett and Uncle Henry had lived and of
that elegant hostelry there remained only a shell, a part of the
blackened walls. The warehouses which had bordered the train
tracks for a quarter of a mile and held tons of military supplies
had not been rebuilt and their rectangular foundations looked
dreary under the dark sky. Without the wall of buildings on either
side and with the car shed gone, the railroad tracks seemed bare
and exposed. Somewhere amid these ruins, undistinguishable from
the others, lay what remained of her own warehouse on the property
Charles had left her. Uncle Henry had paid last year's taxes on it
for her. She'd have to repay that money some time. That was
something else to worry about.

As they turned the corner into Peachtree Street and she looked
toward Five Points, she cried out with shock. Despite all Frank
had told her about the town burning to the ground, she had never
really visualized complete destruction. In her mind the town she
loved so well still stood full of close-packed buildings and fine
houses. But this Peachtree Street she was looking upon was so
denuded of landmarks it was as unfamiliar as if she had never seen
it before. This muddy street down which she had driven a thousand
times during the war, along which she had fled with ducked head and
fear-quickened legs when shells burst over her during the siege,
this street she had last seen in the heat and hurry and anguish of
the day of the retreat, was so strange looking she felt like
crying.

Though many new buildings had sprung up in the year since Sherman
marched out of the burning town and the Confederates returned,
there were still wide vacant lots around Five Points where heaps of
smudged broken bricks lay amid a jumble of rubbish, dead weeds and
broom-sedge. There were the remains of a few buildings she
remembered, roofless brick walls through which the dull daylight
shone, glassless windows gaping, chimneys towering lonesomely.
Here and there her eyes gladly picked out a familiar store which
had partly survived shell and fire and had been repaired, the fresh
red of new brick glaring bright against the smut of the old walls.
On new store fronts and new office windows she saw the welcome
names of men she knew but more often the names were unfamiliar,
especially the dozens of shingles of strange doctors and lawyers
and cotton merchants. Once she had known practically everyone in
Atlanta and the sight of so many strange names depressed her. But
she was cheered by the sight of new buildings going up all along
the street.

There were dozens of them and several were three stories high!
Everywhere building was going on, for as she looked down the
street, trying to adjust her mind to the new Atlanta, she heard the
blithe sound of hammers and saws, noticed scaffoldings rising and
saw men climbing ladders with hods of bricks on their shoulders.
She looked down the street she loved so well and her eyes misted a
little.

"They burned you," she thought, "and they laid you flat. But they
didn't lick you. They couldn't lick you. You'll grow back just as
big and sassy as you used to be!"

As she walked along Peachtree, followed by the waddling Mammy, she
found the sidewalks just as crowded as they were at the height of
the war and there was the same air of rush and bustle about the
resurrecting town which had made her blood sing when she came here,
so long ago, on her first visit to Aunt Pitty. There seemed to be
just as many vehicles wallowing in the mud holes as there had been
then, except that there were no Confederate ambulances, and just as
many horses and mules tethered to hitching racks in front of the
wooden awnings of the stores. Though the sidewalks were jammed,
the faces she saw were as unfamiliar as the signs overhead, new
people, many rough-looking men and tawdrily dressed women. The
streets were black with loafing negroes who leaned against walls or
sat on the curbing watching vehicles go past with the naive
curiosity of children at a circus parade.

"Free issue country niggers," snorted Mammy. "Ain' never seed a
proper cah'ige in dere lives. An' impident lookin', too."

They were impudent looking, Scarlett agreed, for they stared at her
in an insolent manner, but she forgot them in the renewed shock of
seeing blue uniforms. The town was full of Yankee soldiers, on
horses, afoot, in army wagons, loafing on the street, reeling out
of barrooms.

I'll never get used to them, she thought, clenching her fists.
Never! and over her shoulder: "Hurry, Mammy, let's get out of this
crowd."

"Soon's Ah kick dis black trash outer mah way," answered Mammy
loudly, swinging the carpetbag at a black buck who loitered
tantalizingly in front of her and making him leap aside. "Ah doan
lak disyere town, Miss Scarlett. It's too full of Yankees an'
cheap free issue."

"It's nicer where it isn't so crowded. When we get across Five
Points, it won't be so bad."

They picked their way across the slippery stepping stones that
bridged the mud of Decatur Street and continued up Peachtree,
through a thinning crowd. When they reached Wesley Chapel where
Scarlett had paused to catch her breath that day in 1864 when she
had run for Dr. Meade, she looked at it and laughed aloud, shortly
and grimly. Mammy's quick old eyes sought hers with suspicion and
question but her curiosity went unsatisfied. Scarlett was
recalling with contempt the terror which had ridden her that day.
She had been crawling with fear, rotten with fear, terrified by the
Yankees, terrified by the approaching birth of Beau. Now she
wondered how she could have been so frightened, frightened like a
child at a loud noise. And what a child she had been to think that
Yankees and fire and defeat were the worst things that could happen
to her! What trivialities they were beside Ellen's death and
Gerald's vagueness, beside hunger and cold and back-breaking work
and the living nightmare of insecurity. How easy she would find it
now to be brave before an invading army, but how hard to face the
danger that threatened Tara! No, she would never again be afraid
of anything except poverty.

Up Peachtree came a closed carriage and Scarlett went to the curb
eagerly to see if she knew the occupant, for Aunt Pitty's house was
still several blocks away. She and Mammy leaned forward as the
carriage came abreast and Scarlett, with a smile arranged, almost
called out when a woman's head appeared for a moment at the window--
a too bright red head beneath a fine fur hat. Scarlett took a
step back as mutual recognition leaped into both faces. It was
Belle Watling and Scarlett had a glimpse of nostrils distended with
dislike before she disappeared again. Strange that Belle's should
be the first familiar face she saw.

"Who dat?" questioned Mammy suspiciously. "She knowed you but she
din' bow. Ah ain' never seed ha'r dat color in mah life. Not even
in de Tarleton fambly. It look--well, it look dyed ter me!"

"It is," said Scarlett shortly, walking faster.

"Does you know a dyed-ha'rd woman? Ah ast you who she is."

"She's the town bad woman," said Scarlett briefly, "and I give you
my word I don't know her, so shut up."

"Gawdlmighty!" breathed Mammy, her jaw dropping as she looked after
the carriage with passionate curiosity. She had not seen a
professional bad woman since she left Savannah with Ellen more than
twenty years before and she wished ardently that she had observed
Belle more closely.

"She sho dressed up fine an' got a fine cah'ige an' coachman," she
muttered. "Ah doan know whut de Lawd thinkin' 'bout lettin' de bad
women flurrish lak dat w'en us good folks is hongry an' mos'
barefoot."

"The Lord stopped thinking about us years ago," said Scarlett
savagely. "And don't go telling me Mother is turning in her grave
to hear me say it, either."

She wanted to feel superior and virtuous about Belle but she could
not. If her plans went well, she might be on the same footing with
Belle and supported by the same man. While she did not regret her
decision one whit, the matter in its true light discomfited her.
"I won't think of it now," she told herself and hurried her steps.

They passed the lot where the Meade house had stood and there
remained of it only a forlorn pair of stone steps and a walk,
leading up to nothing. Where the Whitings' home had been was bare
ground. Even the foundation stones and the brick chimneys were
gone and there were wagon tracks where they had been carted away.
The brick house of the Elsings still stood, with a new roof and a
new second floor. The Bonnell home, awkwardly patched and roofed
with rude boards instead of shingles, managed to look livable for
all its battered appearance. But in neither house was there a face
at the window or a figure on the porch, and Scarlett was glad. She
did not want to talk to anyone now.

Then the new slate roof of Aunt Pitty's house came in view with its
red-brick walls, and Scarlett's heart throbbed. How good of the
Lord not to level it beyond repair! Coming out of the front yard
was Uncle Peter, a market basket on his arm, and when he saw
Scarlett and Mammy trudging along, a wide, incredulous smile split
his black face.

I could kiss the old black fool, I'm so glad to see him, thought
Scarlett, joyfully and she called: "Run get Auntie's swoon bottle,
Peter! It's really me!"



That night the inevitable hominy and dried peas were on Aunt
Pitty's supper table and, as Scarlett ate them, she made a vow that
these two dishes would never appear on her table when she had money
again. And, no matter what price she had to pay, she was going to
have money again, more than just enough to pay the taxes on Tara.
Somehow, some day she was going to have plenty of money if she had
to commit murder to get it.

In the yellow lamplight of the dining room, she asked Pitty about
her finances, hoping against hope that Charles' family might be
able to lend her the money she needed. The questions were none too
subtle but Pitty, in her pleasure at having a member of the family
to talk to, did not even notice the bald way the questions were
put. She plunged with tears into the details of her misfortunes.
She just didn't know where her farms and town property and money
had gone but everything had slipped away. At least, that was what
Brother Henry told her. He hadn't been able to pay the taxes on
her estate. Everything except the house she was living in was gone
and Pitty did not stop to think that the house had never been hers
but was the joint property of Melanie and Scarlett. Brother Henry
could just barely pay taxes on this house. He gave her a little
something every month to live on and, though it was very
humiliating to take money from him, she had to do it.

"Brother Henry says he doesn't know how he'll make ends meet with
the load he's carrying and the taxes so high but, of course, he's
probably lying and has loads of money and just won't give me much."

Scarlett knew Uncle Henry wasn't lying. The few letters she had
had from him in connection with Charles' property showed that. The
old lawyer was battling valiantly to save the house and the one
piece of downtown property where the warehouse had been, so Wade
and Scarlett would have something left from the wreckage. Scarlett
knew he was carrying these taxes for her at a great sacrifice.

"Of course, he hasn't any money," thought Scarlett grimly. "Well,
check him and Aunt Pitty off my list. There's nobody left but
Rhett. I'll have to do it. I must do it. But I mustn't think
about it now. . . . I must get her to talking about Rhett so I can
casually suggest to her to invite him to call tomorrow."

She smiled and squeezed the plump palms of Aunt Pitty between her
own.

"Darling Auntie," she said, "don't let's talk about distressing
things like money any more. Let's forget about them and talk of
pleasanter things. You must tell me all the news about our old
friends. How is Mrs. Merriwether and Maybelle? I heard that
Maybelle's little Creole came home safely. How are the Elsings and
Dr. and Mrs. Meade?"

Pittypat brightened at the change of subject and her baby face
stopped quivering with tears. She gave detailed reports about old
neighbors, what they were doing and wearing and eating and
thinking. She told with accents of horror how, before Rene Picard
came home from the war, Mrs. Merriwether and Maybelle had made ends
meet by baking pies and selling them to the Yankee soldiers.
Imagine that! Sometimes there were two dozen Yankees standing in
the back yard of the Merriwether home, waiting for the baking to be
finished. Now that Rene was home, he drove an old wagon to the
Yankee camp every day and sold cakes and pies and beaten biscuits
to the soldiers. Mrs. Merriwether said that when she made a little
more money she was going to open a bake shop downtown. Pitty did
not wish to criticize but after all-- As for herself, said Pitty,
she would rather starve than have such commerce with Yankees. She
made a point of giving a disdainful look to every soldier she met,
and crossed to the other side of the street in as insulting a
manner as possible, though, she said, this was quite inconvenient
in wet weather. Scarlett gathered that no sacrifice, even though
it be muddy shoes, was too great to show loyalty to the Confederacy
in so far as Miss Pittypat was concerned.

Mrs. Meade and the doctor had lost their home when the Yankees
fired the town and they had neither the money nor the heart to
rebuild, now that Phil and Darcy were dead. Mrs. Meade said she
never wanted a home again, for what was a home without children and
grandchildren in it? They were very lonely and had gone to live
with the Elsings who had rebuilt the damaged part of their home.
Mr. and Mrs. Whiting had a room there, too, and Mrs. Bonnell was
talking of moving in, if she was fortunate enough to rent her house
to a Yankee officer and his family.

"But how do they all squeeze in?" cried Scarlett. "There's Mrs.
Elsing and Fanny and Hugh--"

"Mrs. Elsing and Fanny sleep in the parlor and Hugh in the attic,"
explained Pitty, who knew the domestic arrangements of all her
friends. "My dear, I do hate to tell you this but--Mrs. Elsing
calls them 'paying guests' but," Pitty dropped her voice, "they are
really nothing at all except boarders. Mrs. Elsing is running a
boarding house! Isn't that dreadful?"

"I think it's wonderful," said Scarlett shortly. "I only wish we'd
had 'paying guests' at Tara for the last year instead of free
boarders. Maybe we wouldn't be so poor now."

"Scarlett, how can you say such things? Your poor mother must be
turning in her grave at the very thought of charging money for the
hospitality of Tara! Of course, Mrs. Elsing was simply forced to
it because, while she took in fine sewing and Fanny painted china
and Hugh made a little money peddling firewood, they couldn't make
ends meet. Imagine darling Hugh forced to peddle wood! And he all
set to be a fine lawyer! I could just cry at the things our boys
are reduced to!"

Scarlett thought of the rows of cotton beneath the glaring coppery
sky at Tara and how her back had ached as she bent over them. She
remembered the feel of plow handles between her inexperienced,
blistered palms and she felt that Hugh Elsing was deserving of no
special sympathy. What an innocent old fool Pitty was and, despite
the ruin all around her, how sheltered!

"If he doesn't like peddling, why doesn't he practice law? Or
isn't there any law practice left in Atlanta?"

"Oh dear, yes! There's plenty of law practice. Practically
everybody is suing everybody else these days. With everything
burned down and boundary lines wiped out, no one knows just where
their land begins or ends. But you can't get any pay for suing
because nobody has any money. So Hugh sticks to his peddling. . . .
Oh, I almost forgot! Did I write you? Fanny Elsing is getting
married tomorrow night and, of course, you must attend. Mrs.
Elsing will be only too pleased to have you when she knows you're
in town. I do hope you have some other frock besides that one.
Not that it isn't a very sweet frock, darling, but--well, it does
look a bit worn. Oh, you have a pretty frock? I'm so glad because
it's going to be the first real wedding we've had in Atlanta since
before the town fell. Cake and wine and dancing afterward, though
I don't know how the Elsings can afford it, they are so poor."

"Who is Fanny marrying? I thought after Dallas McLure was killed
at Gettysburg--"

"Darling, you mustn't criticize Fanny. Everybody isn't as loyal to
the dead as you are to poor Charlie. Let me see. What is his
name? I can never remember names--Tom somebody. I knew his mother
well, we went to LaGrange Female Institute together. She was a
Tomlinson from LaGrange and her mother was--let me see. . . .
Perkins? Parkins? Parkinson! That's it. From Sparta. A very
good family but just the same--well, I know I shouldn't say it but
I don't see how Fanny can bring herself to marry him!"

"Does he drink or--"

"Dear, no! His character is perfect but, you see, he was wounded
low down, by a bursting shell and it did something to his legs--
makes them--makes them, well, I hate to use the word but it makes
him spraddle. It gives him a very vulgar appearance when he walks--
well, it doesn't look very pretty. I don't see why she's marrying
him."

"Girls have to marry someone."

"Indeed, they do not," said Pitty, ruffling. "I never had to."

"Now, darling, I didn't mean you! Everybody knows how popular you
were and still are! Why, old Judge Canton used to throw sheep's
eyes at you till I--"

"Oh, Scarlett, hush! That old fool!" giggled Pitty, good humor
restored. "But, after all, Fanny was so popular she could have
made a better match and I don't believe she loves this Tom what's-
his-name. I don't believe she's ever gotten over Dallas McLure
getting killed, but she's not like you, darling. You've remained
so faithful to dear Charlie, though you could have married dozens
of times. Melly and I have often said how loyal you were to his
memory when everyone else said you were just a heartless coquette."

Scarlett passed over this tactless confidence and skillfully led
Pitty from one friend to another but all the while she was in a
fever of impatience to bring the conversation around to Rhett. It
would never do for her to ask outright about him, so soon after
arriving. It might start the old lady's mind to working on
channels better left untouched. There would be time enough for
Pitty's suspicions to be aroused if Rhett refused to marry her.

Aunt Pitty prattled on happily, pleased as a child at having an
audience. Things in Atlanta were in a dreadful pass, she said, due
to the vile doings of the Republicans. There was no end to their
goings on and the worst thing was the way they were putting ideas
in the poor darkies' heads.

"My dear, they want to let the darkies vote! Did you ever hear of
anything more silly? Though--I don't know--now that I think about
it, Uncle Peter has much more sense than any Republican I ever saw
and much better manners but, of course, Uncle Peter is far too well
bred to want to vote. But the very notion has upset the darkies
till they're right addled. And some of them are so insolent. Your
life isn't safe on the streets after dark and even in the broad
daylight they push ladies off the sidewalks into the mud. And if
any gentleman dares to protest, they arrest him and-- My dear, did
I tell you that Captain Butler was in jail?"

"Rhett Butler?"

Even with this startling news, Scarlett was grateful that Aunt
Pitty had saved her the necessity of bringing his name into the
conversation herself.

"Yes, indeed!" Excitement colored Pitty's cheeks pink and she sat
upright. "He's in jail this very minute for killing a negro and
they may hang him! Imagine Captain Butler hanging!"

For a moment, the breath went out of Scarlett's lungs in a
sickening gasp and she could only stare at the fat old lady who was
so obviously pleased at the effect of her statement.

"They haven't proved it yet but somebody killed this darky who had
insulted a white woman. And the Yankees are very upset because so
many uppity darkies have been killed recently. They can't prove it
on Captain Butler but they want to make an example of someone, so
Dr. Meade says. The doctor says that if they do hang him it will
be the first good honest job the Yankees ever did, but then, I
don't know. . . . And to think that Captain Butler was here just a
week ago and brought me the loveliest quail you ever saw for a
present and he was asking about you and saying he feared he had
offended you during the siege and you would never forgive him."

"How long will he be in jail?"

"Nobody knows. Perhaps till they hang him, but maybe they won't be
able to prove the killing on him, after all. However, it doesn't
seem to bother the Yankees whether folks are guilty or not, so long
as they can hang somebody. They are so upset"--Pitty dropped her
voice mysteriously--"about the Ku Klux Klan. Do you have the Klan
down in the County? My dear, I'm sure you must and Ashley just
doesn't tell you girls anything about it. Klansmen aren't supposed
to tell. They ride around at night dressed up like ghosts and call
on Carpetbaggers who steal money and negroes who are uppity.
Sometimes they just scare them and warn them to leave Atlanta, but
when they don't behave they whip them and," Pitty whispered,
"sometimes they kill them and leave them where they'll be easily
found with the Ku Klux card on them. . . . And the Yankees are
very angry about it and want to make an example of someone. . . .
But Hugh Elsing told me he didn't think they'd hang Captain Butler
because the Yankees think he does know where the money is and just
won't tell. They are trying to make him tell."

"The money?"

"Didn't you know? Didn't I write you? My dear, you have been
buried at Tara, haven't you? The town simply buzzed when Captain
Butler came back here with a fine horse and carriage and his
pockets full of money, when all the rest of us didn't know where
our next meal was coming from. It simply made everybody furious
that an old speculator who always said nasty things about the
Confederacy should have so much money when we were all so poor.
Everybody was bursting to know how he managed to save his money but
no one had the courage to ask him--except me and he just laughed
and said: 'In no honest way, you may be sure.' You know how hard
it is to get anything sensible out of him."

"But of course, he made his money out of the blockade--"

"Of course, he did, honey, some of it. But that's not a drop in
the bucket to what that man has really got. Everybody, including
the Yankees, believes he's got millions of dollars in gold
belonging to the Confederate government hid out somewhere."

"Millions--in gold?"

"Well, honey, where did all our Confederate gold go to? Somebody
got it and Captain Butler must be one of the somebodies. The
Yankees thought President Davis had it when he left Richmond but
when they captured the poor man he had hardly a cent. There just
wasn't any money m the treasury when the war was over and everybody
thinks some of the blockade runners got it and are keeping quiet
about it."

"Millions--in gold! But how--"

"Didn't Captain Butler take thousands of bales of cotton to England
and Nassau to sell for the Confederate government?" asked Pitty
triumphantly. "Not only his own cotton but government cotton too?
And you know what cotton brought in England during the war! Any
price you wanted to ask! He was a free agent acting for the
government and he was supposed to sell the cotton and buy guns with
the money and run the guns in for us. Well, when the blockade got
too tight, he couldn't bring in the guns and he couldn't have spent
one one-hundredth of the cotton money on them anyway, so there
were simply millions of dollars in English banks put there by
Captain Butler and other blockaders, waiting till the blockade
loosened. And you can't tell me they banked that money in the name
of the Confederacy. They put it in their own names and it's still
there. . . . Everybody has been talking about it ever since the
surrender and criticizing the blockaders severely, and when the
Yankees arrested Captain Butler for killing this darky they must
have heard the rumor, because they've been at him to tell them where
the money is. You see, all of our Confederate funds belong to the
Yankees now--at least, the Yankees think so. But Captain Butler
says he doesn't know anything. . . . Dr. Meade says they ought to
hang him anyhow, only hanging is too good for a thief and a
profiteer-- Dear, you look so oddly! Do you feel faint? Have I
upset you talking like this? I knew he was once a beau of yours but
I thought you'd fallen out long ago. Personally, I never approved
of him, for he's such a scamp--"

"He's no friend of mine," said Scarlett with an effort. "I had a
quarrel with him during the siege, after you went to Macon. Where--
where is he?"

"In the firehouse over near the public square!"

"In the firehouse?"

Aunt Pitty crowed with laughter.

"Yes, he's in the firehouse. The Yankees use it for a military
jail now. The Yankees are camped in huts all round the city hall
in the square and the firehouse is just down the street, so that's
where Captain Butler is. And Scarlett, I heard the funniest thing
yesterday about Captain Butler. I forget who told me. You know
how well groomed he always was--really a dandy--and they've been
keeping him in the firehouse and not letting him bathe and every
day he's been insisting that he wanted a bath and finally they led
him out of his cell onto the square and there was a long horse
trough where the whole regiment had bathed in the same water! And
they told him he could bathe there and he said No, that he
preferred his own brand of Southern dirt to Yankee dirt and--"

Scarlett heard the cheerful babbling voice going on and on but she
did not hear the words. In her mind there were only two ideas,
Rhett had more money than she had even hoped and he was in jail.
The fact that he was in jail and possibly might be hanged changed
the face of matters somewhat, in fact made them look a little
brighter. She had very little feeling about Rhett being hanged.
Her need of money was too pressing, too desperate, for her to
bother about his ultimate fate. Besides, she half shared Dr.
Meade's opinion that hanging was too good for him. Any man who'd
leave a woman stranded between two armies in the middle of the
night, just to go off and fight for a Cause already lost, deserved
hanging. . . . If she could somehow manage to marry him while he
was in jail, all those millions would be hers and hers alone should
he be executed. And if marriage was not possible, perhaps she
could get a loan from him by promising to marry him when he was
released or by promising--oh promising anything! And if they
hanged him, her day of settlement would never come.

For a moment her imagination flamed at the thought of being made a
widow by the kindly intervention of the Yankee government.
Millions in gold! She could repair Tara and hire hands and plant
miles and miles of cotton. And she could have pretty clothes and
all she wanted to eat and so could Suellen and Carreen. And Wade
could have nourishing food to fill out his thin cheeks and warm
clothes and a governess and afterward go to the university . . .
and not grow up barefooted and ignorant like a Cracker. And a good
doctor could look after Pa and as for Ashley--what couldn't she do
for Ashley!

Aunt Pittypat's monologue broke off suddenly as she said
inquiringly: "Yes, Mammy?" and Scarlett, coming back from dreams,
saw Mammy standing in the doorway, her hands under her apron and in
her eyes an alert piercing look. She wondered how long Mammy had
been standing there and how much she had heard and observed.
Probably everything, to judge by the gleam in her old eyes.

"Miss Scarlett look lak she tared. Ah spec she better go ter bed."

"I am tired," said Scarlett, rising and meeting Mammy's eyes with a
childlike, helpless look, "and I'm afraid I'm catching a cold too.
Aunt Pitty, would you mind if I stayed in bed tomorrow and didn't
go calling with you? I can go calling any time and I'm so anxious
to go to Fanny's wedding tomorrow night. And if my cold gets worse
I won't be able to go. And a day in bed would be such a lovely
treat for me."

Mammy's look changed to faint worry as she felt Scarlett's hands
and looked into her face. She certainly didn't look well. The
excitement of her thoughts had abruptly ebbed, leaving her white
and shaking.

"Yo' han's lak ice, honey. You come ter bed an' Ah'll brew you
some sassfrass tea an' git you a hot brick ter mek you sweat."

"How thoughtless I've been," cried the plump old lady, hopping from
her chair and patting Scarlett's arm. "Just chattering on and not
thinking of you. Honey, you shall stay in bed all tomorrow and
rest up and we can gossip together-- Oh, dear, no! I can't be
with you. I've promised to sit with Mrs. Bonnell tomorrow. She is
down with la grippe and so is her cook. Mammy, I'm so glad you are
here. You must go over with me in the morning and help me."

Mammy hurried Scarlett up the dark stairs, muttering fussy remarks
about cold hands and thin shoes and Scarlett looked meek and was
well content. If she could only lull Mammy's suspicions further
and get her out of the house in the morning, all would be well.
Then she could go to the Yankee jail and see Rhett. As she climbed
the stairs, the faint rumbling of thunder began and, standing on
the well-remembered landing, she thought how like the siege cannon
it sounded. She shivered. Forever, thunder would mean cannon and
war to her.



CHAPTER XXXIV


The sun shone intermittently the next morning and the hard wind
that drove dark clouds swiftly across its face rattled the
windowpanes and moaned faintly about the house. Scarlett said a
brief prayer of thanksgiving that the rain of the previous night
had ceased, for she had lain awake listening to it, knowing that it
would mean the ruin of her velvet dress and new bonnet. Now that
she could catch fleeting glimpses of the sun, her spirits soared.
She could hardly remain in bed and look languid and make croaking
noises until Aunt Pitty, Mammy and Uncle Peter were out of the
house and on their way to Mrs. Bonnell's. When, at last, the front
gate banged and she was alone in the house, except for Cookie who
was singing in the kitchen, she leaped from the bed and lifted her
new clothes from the closet hooks.

Sleep had refreshed her and given her strength and from the cold
hard core at the bottom of her heart, she drew courage. There was
something about the prospect of a struggle of wits with a man--with
any man--that put her on her mettle and, after months of battling
against countless discouragements, the knowledge that she was at
last facing a definite adversary, one whom she might unhorse by her
own efforts, gave her a buoyant sensation.

Dressing unaided was difficult but she finally accomplished it and
putting on the bonnet with its rakish feathers she ran to Aunt
Pitty's room to preen herself in front of the long mirror. How
pretty she looked! The cock feathers gave her a dashing air and
the dull-green velvet of the bonnet made her eyes startlingly
bright, almost emerald colored. And the dress was incomparable, so
rich and handsome looking and yet so dignified! It was wonderful
to have a lovely dress again. It was so nice to know that she
looked pretty and provocative, and she impulsively bent forward and
kissed her reflection in the mirror and then laughed at her own
foolishness. She picked up Ellen's Paisley shawl to wrap about her
but the colors of the faded old square clashed with the moss-green
dress and made her appear a little shabby. Opening Aunt Pitty's
closet she removed a black broadcloth cloak, a thin fall garment
which Pitty used only for Sunday wear, and put it on. She slipped
into her pierced ears the diamond earrings she had brought from
Tara, and tossed her head to observe the effect. They made
pleasant clicking noises which were very satisfactory and she
thought that she must remember to toss her head frequently when
with Rhett. Dancing earrings always attracted a man and gave a
girl such a spirited air.

What a shame Aunt Pitty had no other gloves than the ones now on
her fat hands! No woman could really feel like a lady without
gloves, but Scarlett had not had a pair since she left Atlanta.
And the long months of hard work at Tara had roughened her hands
until they were far from pretty. Well, it couldn't be helped.
She'd take Aunt Pitty's little seal muff and hide her bare hands in
it. Scarlett felt that it gave her the final finishing touch of
elegance. No one, looking at her now, would suspect that poverty
and want were standing at her shoulder.

It was so important that Rhett should not suspect. He must not
think that anything but tender feelings were driving her.

She tiptoed down the stairs and out of the house while Cookie
bawled on unconcernedly in the kitchen. She hastened down Baker
Street to avoid the all seeing eyes of the neighbors and sat down
on a carriage block on Ivy Street in front of a burned house, to
wait for some passing carriage or wagon which would give her a
ride. The sun dipped in and out from behind hurrying clouds,
lighting the street with a false brightness which had no warmth in
it, and the wind fluttered the lace of her pantalets. It was
colder than she had expected and she wrapped Aunt Pitty's thin
cloak about her and shivered impatiently. Just as she was
preparing to start walking the long way across town to the Yankee
encampment, a battered wagon appeared. In it was an old woman with
a lip full of snuff and a weather-beaten face under a drab
sunbonnet, driving a dawdling old mule. She was going in the
direction of the city hall and she grudgingly gave Scarlett a ride.
But it was obvious that the dress, bonnet and muff found no favor
with her.

"She thinks I'm a hussy," thought Scarlett. "And perhaps she's
right at that!"

When at last they reached the town square and the tall white cupola
of the city hall loomed up, she made her thanks, climbed down from
the wagon and watched the country woman drive off. Looking around
carefully to see that she was not observed, she pinched her cheeks
to give them color and bit her lips until they stung to make them
red. She adjusted the bonnet and smoothed back her hair and looked
about the square. The two-story red-brick city hall had survived
the burning of the city. But it looked forlorn and unkempt under
the gray sky. Surrounding the building completely and covering the
square of land of which it was the center were row after row of
army huts, dingy and mud splashed. Yankee soldiers loitered
everywhere and Scarlett looked at them uncertainly, some of her
courage deserting her. How would she go about finding Rhett in
this enemy camp?

She looked down the street toward the firehouse and saw that the
wide arched doors were closed and heavily barred and two sentries
passed and repassed on each side of the building. Rhett was in
there. But what should she say to the Yankee soldiers? And what
would they say to her? She squared her shoulders. If she hadn't
been afraid to kill one Yankee, she shouldn't fear merely talking
to another.

She picked her way precariously across the stepping stones of the
muddy street and walked forward until a sentry, his blue overcoat
buttoned high against the wind, stopped her.

"What is it, Ma'm?" His voice had a strange mid-Western twang but
it was polite and respectful.

"I want to see a man in there--he is a prisoner."

"Well, I don't know," said the sentry, scratching his head. "They
are mighty particular about visitors and--" He stopped and peered
into her face sharply. "Lord, lady! Don't you cry! You go over
to post headquarters and ask the officers. They'll let you see
him, I bet."

Scarlett, who had no intention of crying, beamed at him. He turned
to another sentry who was slowly pacing his beat: "Yee-ah, Bill.
Come'eer."

The second sentry, a large man muffled in a blue overcoat from
which villainous black whiskers burst, came through the mud toward
them.

"You take this lady to headquarters."

Scarlett thanked him and followed the sentry.

"Mind you don't turn your ankle on those stepping stones," said the
soldier, taking her arm. "And you'd better hist up your skirts a
little to keep them out of the mud."

The voice issuing from the whiskers had the same nasal twang but
was kind and pleasant and his hand was firm and respectful. Why,
Yankees weren't bad at all!

"It's a mighty cold day for a lady to be out in," said her escort.
"Have you come a fer piece?"

"Oh, yes, from clear across the other side of town," she said,
warming to the kindness in his voice.

"This ain't no weather for a lady to be out in," said the soldier
reprovingly, "with all this la grippe in the air. Here's Post
Command, lady-- What's the matter?"

"This house--this house is your headquarters?" Scarlett looked up
at the lovely old dwelling facing on the square and could have
cried. She had been to so many parties in this house during the
war. It had been a gay beautiful place and now--there was a large
United States flag floating over it.

"What's the matter?"

"Nothing--only--only--I used to know the people who lived here."

"Well, that's too bad. I guess they wouldn't know it themselves if
they saw it, for it shore is torn up on the inside. Now, you go on
in, Ma'm, and ask for the captain."

She went up the steps, caressing the broken white banisters, and
pushed open the front door. The hall was dark and as cold as a
vault and a shivering sentry was leaning against the closed folding
doors of what had been, in better days, the dining room.

"I want to see the captain," she said.

He pulled back the doors and she entered the room, her heart beating
rapidly, her face flushing with embarrassment and excitement. There
was a close stuffy smell in the room, compounded of the smoking
fire, tobacco fumes, leather, damp woolen uniforms and unwashed
bodies. She had a confused impression of bare walls with torn
wallpaper, rows of blue overcoats and slouch hats hung on nails, a
roaring fire, a long table covered with papers and a group of
officers in blue uniforms with brass buttons.

She gulped once and found her voice. She mustn't let these Yankees
know she was afraid. She must look and be her prettiest and most
unconcerned self.

"The captain?"

"I'm one captain," said a fat man whose tunic was unbuttoned.

"I want to see a prisoner, Captain Rhett Butler."

"Butler again? He's popular, that man," laughed the captain,
taking a chewed cigar from his mouth. "You a relative, Ma'm?"

"Yes--his--his sister."

He laughed again.

"He's got a lot of sisters, one of them here yesterday."

Scarlett flushed. One of those creatures Rhett consorted with,
probably that Watling woman. And these Yankees thought she was
another one. It was unendurable. Not even for Tara would she stay
here another minute and be insulted. She turned to the door and
reached angrily for the knob but another officer was by her side
quickly. He was clean shaven and young and had merry, kind eyes.

"Just a minute, Ma'm. Won't you sit down here by the fire where
it's warm? I'll go see what I can do about it. What is your name?
He refused to see the--lady who called yesterday."

She sank into the proffered chair, glaring at the discomfited fat
captain, and gave her name. The nice young officer slipped on his
overcoat and left the room and the others took themselves off to
the far end of the table where they talked in low tones and pawed
at the papers. She stretched her feet gratefully toward the fire,
realizing for the first time how cold they were and wishing she had
thought to put a piece of cardboard over the hole in the sole of
one slipper. After a time, voices murmured outside the door and
she heard Rhett's laugh. The door opened, a cold draft swept the
room and Rhett appeared, hatless, a long cape thrown carelessly
across his shoulders. He was dirty and unshaven and without a
cravat but somehow jaunty despite his dishabille, and his dark eyes
were snapping joyfully at the sight of her.

"Scarlett!"

He had her hands in both of his and, as always, there was something
hot and vital and exciting about his grip. Before she quite knew
what he was about, he had bent and kissed her cheek, his mustache
tickling her. As he felt the startled movement of her body away
from him, he hugged her about the shoulders and said: "My darling
little sister!" and grinned down at her as if he relished her
helplessness in resisting his caress. She couldn't help laughing
back at him for the advantage he had taken. What a rogue he was!
Jail had not changed him one bit.

The fat captain was muttering through his cigar to the merry-eyed
officer.

"Most irregular. He should be in the firehouse. You know the
orders."

"Oh, for God's sake, Henry! The lady would freeze in that barn."

"Oh, all right, all right! It's your responsibility."

"I assure you, gentlemen," said Rhett, turning to them but still
keeping a grip on Scarlett's shoulders, "my--sister hasn't brought
me any saws or files to help me escape."

They all laughed and, as they did, Scarlett looked quickly about
her. Good Heavens, was she going to have to talk to Rhett before
six Yankee officers! Was he so dangerous a prisoner they wouldn't
let him out of their sight? Seeing her anxious glance, the nice
officer pushed open a door and spoke brief low words to two
privates who had leaped to their feet at his entrance. They picked
up their rifles and went out into the hall, closing the door behind
them.

"If you wish, you may sit here in the orderly room," said the young
captain. "And don't try to bolt through that door. The men are
just outside."

"You see what a desperate character I am, Scarlett," said Rhett.
"Thank you, Captain. This is most kind or you."

He bowed carelessly and taking Scarlett's arm pulled her to her
feet and propelled her into the dingy orderly room. She was never
to remember what the room looked like except that it was small and
dim and none too warm and there were handwritten papers tacked on
the mutilated walls and chairs which had cowhide seats with the
hair still on them.

When he had closed the door behind them, Rhett came to her swiftly
and bent over her. Knowing his desire, she turned her head quickly
but smiled provocatively at him out of the corners of her eyes.

"Can't I really kiss you now?"

"On the forehead, like a good brother," she answered demurely.

"Thank you, no. I prefer to wait and hope for better things." His
eyes sought her lips and lingered there a moment. "But how good of
you to come to see me, Scarlett! You are the first respectable
citizen who has called on me since my incarceration, and being in
jail makes one appreciate friends. When did you come to town?"

"Yesterday afternoon."

"And you came out this morning? Why, my dear, you are more than
good." He smiled down at her with the first expression of honest
pleasure she had ever seen on his face. Scarlett smiled inwardly
with excitement and ducked her head as if embarrassed.

"Of course, I came out right away. Aunt Pitty told me about you
last night and I--I just couldn't sleep all night for thinking how
awful it was. Rhett, I'm so distressed!"

"Why, Scarlett!"

His voice was soft but there was a vibrant note in it, and looking
up into his dark face she saw in it none of the skepticism, the
jeering humor she knew so well. Before his direct gaze her eyes
fell again in real confusion. Things were going even better than
she hoped.

"It's worth being in jail to see you again and to hear you say
things like that. I really couldn't believe my ears when they
brought me your name. You see, I never expected you to forgive me
for my patriotic conduct that night on the road near Rough and
Ready. But I take it that this call means you have forgiven me?"

She could feel swift anger stir, even at this late date, as she
thought of that night but she subdued it and tossed her head until
the earrings danced.

"No, I haven't forgiven you," she said and pouted.

"Another hope crushed. And after I offered up myself for my
country and fought barefooted in the snow at Franklin and got the
finest case of dysentery you ever heard of for my pains!"

"I don't want to hear about your--pains," she said, still pouting
but smiling at him from up-tilted eyes. "I still think you were
hateful that night and I never expect to forgive you. Leaving me
alone like that when anything might have happened to me!"

"But nothing did happen to you. So, you see, my confidence in you
was justified. I knew you'd get home safely and God help any
Yankee who got in your way!"

"Rhett, why on earth did you do such a silly thing--enlisting at
the last minute when you knew we were going to get licked? And
after all you'd said about idiots who went out and got shot!"

"Scarlett, spare me! I am always overcome with shame when I think
about it."

"Well, I'm glad to learn you are ashamed of the way you treated
me."

"You misunderstand. I regret to say that my conscience has not
troubled me at all about deserting you. But as for enlisting--when
I think of joining the army in varnished boots and a white linen
suit and armed with only a pair of dueling pistols-- And those
long cold miles in the snow after my boots wore out and I had no
overcoat and nothing to eat . . . I cannot understand why I did not
desert. It was all the purest insanity. But it's in one's blood.
Southerners can never resist a losing cause. But never mind my
reasons. It's enough that I'm forgiven."

"You're not. I think you're a hound." But she caressed the last
word until it might have been "darling."

"Don't fib. You've forgiven me. Young ladies don't dare Yankee
sentries to see a prisoner, just for charity's sweet sake, and
come all dressed up in velvet and feathers and seal muffs too.
Scarlett, how pretty you look! Thank God, you aren't in rags or
mourning! I get so sick of women in dowdy old clothes and
perpetual crepe. You look like the Rue de la Paix. Turn around,
my dear, and let me look at you."

So he had noticed the dress. Of course, he would notice such
things, being Rhett. She laughed in soft excitement and spun about
on her toes, her arms extended, her hoops tilting up to show her
lace trimmed pantalets. His black eyes took her in from bonnet to
heels in a glance that missed nothing, that old impudent unclothing
glance which always gave her goose bumps.

"You look very prosperous and very, very tidy. And almost good
enough to eat. If it wasn't for the Yankees outside--but you are
quite safe, my dear. Sit down. I won't take advantage of you as I
did the last time I saw you." He rubbed his cheek with pseudo
ruefulness. "Honestly, Scarlett, don't you think you were a bit
selfish that night? Think of all I had done for you, risked my
life--stolen a horse--and such a horse! Rushed to the defense of
Our Glorious Cause! And what did I get for my pains? Some hard
words and a very hard slap in the face."

She sat down. The conversation was not going in quite the
direction she hoped. He had seemed so nice when he first saw her,
so genuinely glad she had come. He had almost seemed like a human
being and not the perverse wretch she knew so well.

"Must you always get something for your pains?"

"Why, of course! I am a monster of selfishness, as you ought to
know. I always expect payment for anything I give."

That sent a slight chill through her but she rallied and jingled
her earbobs again.

"Oh, you really aren't so bad, Rhett. You just like to show off."

"My word, but you have changed!" he said and laughed. "What has
made a Christian of you? I have kept up with you through Miss
Pittypat but she gave me no intimation that you had developed
womanly sweetness. Tell me more about yourself, Scarlett. What
have you been doing since I last saw you?"

The old irritation and antagonism which he roused in her was hot in
her heart and she yearned to speak tart words. But she smiled
instead and the dimple crept into her cheek. He had drawn a chair
close beside hers and she leaned over and put a gentle hand on his
arm, in an unconscious manner.

"Oh, I've been doing nicely, thank you, and everything at Tara is
fine now. Of course, we had a dreadful time right after Sherman
went through but, after all, he didn't burn the house and the
darkies saved most of the livestock by driving it into the swamp.
And we cleared a fair crop this last fall, twenty bales. Of
course, that's practically nothing compared with what Tara can do
but we haven't many field hands. Pa says, of course, we'll do
better next year. But, Rhett, it's so dull in the country now!
Imagine, there aren't any balls or barbecues and the only thing
people talk about is hard times! Goodness, I get sick of it!
Finally last week I got too bored to stand it any longer, so Pa
said I must take a trip and have a good time. So I came up here to
get me some frocks made and then I'm going over to Charleston to
visit my aunt. It'll be lovely to go to balls again."

There, she thought with pride, I delivered that with just the right
airy way! Not too rich but certainly not poor.

"You look beautiful in ball dresses, my dear, and you know it too,
worse luck! I suppose the real reason you are going visiting is
that you have run through the County swains and are seeking fresh
ones in fields afar."

Scarlett had a thankful thought that Rhett had spent the last
several months abroad and had only recently come back to Atlanta.
Otherwise, he would never have made so ridiculous a statement. She
thought briefly of the County swains, the ragged embittered little
Fontaines, the poverty-stricken Munroe boys, the Jonesboro and
Fayetteville beaux who were so busy plowing, splitting rails and
nursing sick old animals that they had forgotten such things as
balls and pleasant flirtations ever existed. But she put down this
memory and giggled self-consciously as if admitting the truth of
his assertion.

"Oh, well," she said deprecatingly.

"You are a heartless creature, Scarlett, but perhaps that's part of
your charm." He smiled in his old way, one corner of his mouth
curving down, but she knew he was complimenting her. "For, of
course, you know you have more charm than the law should permit.
Even I have felt it, case-hardened though I am. I've often
wondered what it was about you that made me always remember you,
for I've known many ladies who were prettier than you and certainly
more clever and, I fear, morally more upright and kind. But,
somehow, I always remembered you. Even during the months since the
surrender when I was in France and England and hadn't seen you or
heard of you and was enjoying the society of many beautiful ladies,
I always remembered you and wondered what you were doing."

For a moment she was indignant that he should say other women were
prettier, more clever and kind than she, but that momentary flare
was wiped out in her pleasure that he had remembered her and her
charm. So he hadn't forgotten! That would make things easier.
And he was behaving so nicely, almost like a gentleman would do
under the circumstances. Now, all she had to do was bring the
subject around to himself, so she could intimate that she had not
forgotten him either and then--

She gently squeezed his arm and dimpled again.

"Oh, Rhett, how you do run on, teasing a country girl like me! I
know mighty well you never gave me a thought after you left me that
night. You can't tell me you ever thought of me with all those
pretty French and English girls around you. But I didn't come all
the way out here to hear you talk foolishness about me. I came--I
came--because--"

"Because?"

"Oh, Rhett, I'm so terribly distressed about you! So frightened
for you! When will they let you out of that terrible place?"

He swiftly covered her hand with his and held it hard against his
arm.

"Your distress does you credit. There's no telling when I'll be
out. Probably when they've stretched the rope a bit more."

"The rope?"

"Yes, I expect to make my exit from here at the rope's end."

"They won't really hang you?"

"They will if they can get a little more evidence against me."

"Oh, Rhett!" she cried, her hand at her heart.

"Would you be sorry? If you are sorry enough, I'll mention you in
my will."

His dark eyes laughed at her recklessly and he squeezed her hand.

His will! She hastily cast down her eyes for fear of betrayal but
not swiftly enough, for his eyes gleamed, suddenly curious.

"According to the Yankees, I ought to have a fine will. There
seems to be considerable interest in my finances at present. Every
day, I am hauled up before another board of inquiry and asked
foolish questions. The rumor seems current that I made off with
the mythical gold of the Confederacy."

"Well--did you?"

"What a leading question! You know as well as I do that the
Confederacy ran a printing press instead of a mint."

"Where did you get all your money? Speculating? Aunt Pittypat
said--"

"What probing questions you ask!"

Damn him! Of course, he had the money. She was so excited it
became difficult to talk sweetly to him.

"Rhett, I'm so upset about your being here. Don't you think
there's a chance of your getting out?"

"'Nihil desperandum' is my motto."

"What does that mean?"

"It means 'maybe,' my charming ignoramus."

She fluttered her thick lashes up to look at him and fluttered them
down again.

"Oh, you're too smart to let them hang you! I know you'll think of
some clever way to beat them and get out! And when you do--"

"And when I do?" he asked softly, leaning closer.

"Well, I--" and she managed a pretty confusion and a blush. The
blush was not difficult for she was breathless and her heart was
beating like a drum. "Rhett, I'm so sorry about what I--I said to
you that night--you know--at Rough and Ready. I was--oh, so very
frightened and upset and you were so--so--" She looked down and
saw his brown hand tighten over hers. "And--I thought then that
I'd never, never forgive you! But when Aunt Pitty told me
yesterday that you--that they might hang you--it came over me of a
sudden and I--I--" She looked up into his eyes with one swift
imploring glance and in it she put an agony of heartbreak. "Oh,
Rhett, I'd die if they hanged you! I couldn't bear it! You see,
I--" And, because she could not longer sustain the hot leaping
light that was in his eyes, her lids fluttered down again.

In a moment I'll be crying, she thought in a frenzy of wonder and
excitement. Shall I let myself cry? Would that seem more natural?

He said quickly: "My God, Scarlett, you can't mean that you--" and
his hands closed over hers in so hard a grip that it hurt.

She shut her eyes tightly, trying to squeeze out tears, but
remembered to turn her face up slightly so he could kiss her with
no difficulty. Now, in an instant his lips would be upon hers, the
hard insistent lips which she suddenly remembered with a vividness
that left her weak. But he did not kiss her. Disappointment
queerly stirring her, she opened her eyes a trifle and ventured a
peep at him. His black head was bent over her hands and, as she
watched, he lifted one and kissed it and, taking the other, laid it
against his cheek for a moment. Expecting violence, this gentle
and loverlike gesture startled her. She wondered what expression
was on his face but could not tell for his head was bowed.

She quickly lowered her gaze lest he should look up suddenly and
see the expression on her face. She knew that the feeling of
triumph surging through her was certain to be plain in her eyes.
In a moment he would ask her to marry him--or at least say that he
loved her and then . . . As she watched him through the veil of
her lashes he turned her hand over, palm up, to kiss it too, and
suddenly he drew a quick breath. Looking down she saw her own
palm, saw it as it really was for the first time in a year, and a
cold sinking fear gripped her. This was a stranger's palm, not
Scarlett O'Hara's soft, white, dimpled, helpless one. This hand
was rough from work, brown with sunburn, splotched with freckles.
The nails were broken and irregular, there were heavy calluses on
the cushions of the palm, a half-healed blister on the thumb. The
red scar which boiling fat had left last month was ugly and
glaring. She looked at it in horror and, before she thought, she
swiftly clenched her fist.

Still he did not raise his head. Still she could not see his face.
He pried her fist open inexorably and stared at it, picked up her
other hand and held them both together silently, looking down at
them.

"Look at me," he said finally raising his head, and his voice was
very quiet. "And drop that demure expression."

Unwillingly she met his eyes, defiance and perturbation on her
face. His black brows were up and his eyes gleamed.

"So you have been doing very nicely at Tara, have you? Cleared so
much money on the cotton you can go visiting. What have you been
doing with your hands--plowing?"

She tried to wrench them away but he held them hard, running his
thumbs over the calluses.

"These are not the hands of a lady," he said and tossed them into
her lap.

"Oh, shut up!" she cried, feeling a momentary intense relief at
being able to speak her feelings. "Whose business is it what I do
with my hands?"

What a fool I am, she thought vehemently. I should have borrowed
or stolen Aunt Pitty's gloves. But I didn't realize my hands
looked so bad. Of course, he would notice them. And now I've lost
my temper and probably ruined everything. Oh, to have this happen
when he was right at the point of a declaration!

"Your hands are certainly no business of mine," said Rhett coolly
and lounged back in his chair indolently, his face a smooth blank.

So he was going to be difficult. Well, she'd have to bear it
meekly, much as she disliked it, if she expected to snatch victory
from this debacle. Perhaps if she sweet-talked him--

"I think you're real rude to throw off on my poor hands. Just
because I went riding last week without my gloves and ruined them--"

"Riding, hell!" he said in the same level voice. "You've been
working with those hands, working like a nigger. What's the
answer? Why did you lie to me about everything being nice at
Tara?"

"Now, Rhett--"

"Suppose we get down to the truth. What is the real purpose of
your visit? Almost, I was persuaded by your coquettish airs that
you cared something about me and were sorry for me."

"Oh, I am sorry! Indeed--"

"No, you aren't. They can hang me higher than Haman for all you
care. It's written as plainly on your face as hard work is written
on your hands. You wanted something from me and you wanted it
badly enough to put on quite a show. Why didn't you come out in
the open and tell me what it was? You'd have stood a much better
chance of getting it, for if there's one virtue I value in women
it's frankness. But no, you had to come jingling your earbobs and
pouting and frisking like a prostitute with a prospective client."

He did not raise his voice at the last words or emphasize them in
any way but to Scarlett they cracked like a whiplash, and with
despair she saw the end of her hopes of getting him to propose
marriage. Had he exploded with rage and injured vanity or
upbraided her, as other men would have done, she could have handled
him. But the deadly quietness of his voice frightened her, left
her utterly at a loss as to her next move. Although he was a
prisoner and the Yankees were in the next room, it came to her
suddenly that Rhett Butler was a dangerous man to run afoul of.

"I suppose my memory is getting faulty. I should have recalled
that you are just like me and that you never do anything without an
ulterior motive. Now, let me see. What could you have had up your
sleeve, Mrs. Hamilton? It isn't possible that you were so
misguided as to think I would propose matrimony?"

Her face went crimson and she did not answer.

"But you can't have forgotten my oft-repeated remark that I am not
a marrying man?"

When she did not speak, he said with sudden violence:

"You hadn't forgotten? Answer me."

"I hadn't forgotten," she said wretchedly.

"What a gambler you are, Scarlett," he jeered. "You took a chance
that my incarceration away from female companionship would put me
in such a state I'd snap at you like a trout at a worm."

And that's what you did, thought Scarlett with inward rage, and if
it hadn't been for my hands--

"Now, we have most of the truth, everything except your reason.
See if you can tell me the truth about why you wanted to lead me
into wedlock."

There was a suave, almost teasing note in his voice and she took
heart. Perhaps everything wasn't lost, after all. Of course, she
had ruined any hope of marriage but, even in her despair, she was
glad. There was something about this immobile man which frightened
her, so that now the thought of marrying him was fearful. But
perhaps if she was clever and played on his sympathies and his
memories, she could secure a loan. She pulled her face into a
placating and childlike expression.

"Oh, Rhett, you can help me so much--if you'll just be sweet."

"There's nothing I like better than being--sweet."

"Rhett, for old friendship's sake, I want you to do me a favor."

"So, at last the horny-handed lady comes to her real mission. I
feared that 'visiting the sick and the imprisoned' was not your
proper role. What do you want? Money?"

The bluntness of his question ruined all hopes of leading up to the
matter in any circuitous and sentimental way.

"Don't be mean, Rhett," she coaxed. "I do want some money. I want
you to lend me three hundred dollars."

"The truth at last. Talking love and thinking money. How truly
feminine! Do you need the money badly?"

"Oh, ye-- Well, not so terribly but I could use it."

"Three hundred dollars. That's a vast amount of money. What do
you want it for?"

"To pay taxes on Tara."

"So you want to borrow some money. Well, since you're so
businesslike, I'll be businesslike too. What collateral will you
give me?"

"What what?"

"Collateral. Security on my investment. Of course, I don't want
to lose all that money." His voice was deceptively smooth, almost
silky, but she did not notice. Maybe everything would turn out
nicely after all.

"My earrings."

"I'm not interested in earrings."

"I'll give you a mortgage on Tara."

"Now just what would I do with a farm?"

"Well, you could--you could--it's a good plantation. And you
wouldn't lose. I'd pay you back out of next year's cotton."

"I'm not so sure." He tilted back in his chair and stuck his hands
in his pockets. "Cotton prices are dropping. Times are so hard
and money's so tight."

"Oh, Rhett, you are teasing me! You know you have millions!"

There was a warm dancing malice in his eyes as he surveyed her.

"So everything is going nicely and you don't need the money very
badly. Well, I'm glad to hear that. I like to know that all is
well with old friends."

"Oh, Rhett, for God's sake . . ." she began desperately, her
courage and control breaking.

"Do lower your voice. You don't want the Yankees to hear you, I
hope. Did anyone ever tell you you had eyes like a cat--a cat in
the dark?"

"Rhett, don't! I'll tell you everything. I do need the money so
badly. I--I lied about everything being all right. Everything's
as wrong as it could be. Father is--is--he's not himself. He's
been queer ever since Mother died and he can't help me any. He's
just like a child. And we haven't a single field hand to work the
cotton and there's so many to feed, thirteen of us. And the taxes--
they are so high. Rhett, I'll tell you everything. For over a
year we've been just this side of starvation. Oh, you don't know!
You can't know! We've never had enough to eat and it's terrible to
wake up hungry and go to sleep hungry. And we haven't any warm
clothes and the children are always cold and sick and--"

"Where did you get the pretty dress?"

"It's made out of Mother's curtains," she answered, too desperate
to lie about this shame. "I could stand being hungry and cold but
now--now the Carpetbaggers have raised our taxes. And the money's
got to be paid right away. And I haven't any money except one
five-dollar gold piece. I've got to have money for the taxes!
Don't you see? If I don't pay them, I'll--we'll lose Tara and we
just can't lose it! I can't let it go!"

"Why didn't you tell me all this at first instead of preying on my
susceptible heart--always weak where pretty ladies are concerned?
No, Scarlett, don't cry. You've tried every trick except that one
and I don't think I could stand it. My feelings are already
lacerated with disappointment at discovering it was my money and
not my charming self you wanted."

She remembered that he frequently told bald truths about himself
when he spoke mockingly--mocking himself as well as others, and she
hastily looked up at him. Were his feelings really hurt? Did he
really care about her? Had he been on the verge of a proposal when
he saw her palms? Or had he only been leading up to another such
odious proposal as he had made twice before? If he really cared
about her, perhaps she could smooth him down. But his black eyes
raked her in no lover-like way and he was laughing softly.

"I don't like your collateral. I'm no planter. What else have you
to offer?"

Well, she had come to it at last. Now for it! She drew a deep
breath and met his eyes squarely, all coquetry and airs gone as her
spirit rushed out to grapple that which she feared most.

"I--I have myself."

"Yes?"

Her jaw line tightened to squareness and her eyes went emerald.

"You remember that night on Aunt Pitty's porch, during the siege?
You said--you said then that you wanted me."

He leaned back carelessly in his chair and looked into her tense
face and his own dark face was inscrutable. Something flickered
behind his eyes but he said nothing.

"You said--you said you'd never wanted a woman as much as you
wanted me. If you still want me, you can have me. Rhett, I'll do
anything you say but, for God's sake, write me a draft for the
money! My word's good. I swear it. I won't go back on it. I'll
put it in writing if you like."

He looked at her oddly, still inscrutable and as she hurried on she
could not tell if he were amused or repelled. If he would only say
something, anything! She felt her cheeks getting hot.

"I have got to have the money soon, Rhett. They'll turn us out in
the road and that damned overseer of Father's will own the place
and--"

"Just a minute. What makes you think I still want you? What makes
you think you are worth three hundred dollars? Most women don't
come that high."

She blushed to her hair line and her humiliation was complete.

"Why are you doing this? Why not let the farm go and live at Miss
Pittypat's. You own half that house."

"Name of God!" she cried. "Are you a fool? I can't let Tara go.
It's home. I won't let it go. Not while I've got breath left in
me!"

"The Irish," said he, lowering his chair back to level and removing
his hands from his pockets, "are the damnedest race. They put so
much emphasis on so many wrong things. Land, for instance. And
every bit of earth is just like every other bit. Now, let me get
this straight, Scarlett. You are coming to me with a business
proposition. I'll give you three hundred dollars and you'll become
my mistress."

"Yes."

Now that the repulsive word had been said, she felt somehow easier
and hope awoke in her again. He had said "I'll give you." There
was a diabolic gleam in his eyes as if something amused him
greatly.

"And yet, when I had the effrontery to make you this same
proposition, you turned me out of the house. And also you called
me a number of very hard names and mentioned in passing that you
didn't want a 'passel of brats.' No, my dear, I'm not rubbing it
in. I'm only wondering at the peculiarities of your mind. You
wouldn't do it for your own pleasure but you will to keep the wolf
away from the door. It proves my point that all virtue is merely a
matter of prices."

"Oh, Rhett, how you run on! If you want to insult me, go on and do
it but give me the money."

She was breathing easier now. Being what he was, Rhett would
naturally want to torment and insult her as much as possible to pay
her back for past slights and for her recent attempted trickery.
Well, she could stand it. She could stand anything. Tara was
worth it all. For a brief moment it was mid-summer and the
afternoon skies were blue and she lay drowsily in the thick clover
of Tara's lawn, looking up at the billowing cloud castles, the
fragrance of white blossoms in her nose and the pleasant busy
humming of bees in her ears. Afternoon and hush and the far-off
sound of the wagons coming in from the spiraling red fields. Worth
it all, worth more.

Her head went up.

"Are you going to give me the money?"

He looked as if he were enjoying himself and when he spoke there
was suave brutality in his voice.

"No, I'm not," he said.

For a moment her mind could not adjust itself to his words.

"I couldn't give it to you, even if I wanted to. I haven't a cent
on me. Not a dollar in Atlanta. I have some money, yes, but not
here. And I'm not saying where it is or how much. But if I tried
to draw a draft on it, the Yankees would be on me like a duck on a
June bug and then neither of us would get it. What do you think of
that?"

Her face went an ugly green, freckles suddenly standing out across
her nose and her contorted mouth was like Gerald's in a killing
rage. She sprang to her feet with an incoherent cry which made the
hum of voices in the next room cease suddenly. Swift as a panther,
Rhett was beside her, his heavy hand across her mouth, his arm
tight about her waist. She struggled against him madly, trying to
bite his hand, to kick his legs, to scream her rage, despair, hate,
her agony of broken pride. She bent and twisted every way against
the iron of his arm, her heart near bursting, her tight stays
cutting off her breath. He held her so tightly, so roughly that it
hurt and the hand over her mouth pinched into her jaws cruelly.
His face was white under its tan, his eyes hard and anxious as he
lifted her completely off her feet, swung her up against his chest
and sat down in the chair, holding her writhing in his lap.

"Darling, for God's sake! Stop! Hush! Don't yell. They'll be in
here in a minute if you do. Do calm yourself. Do you want the
Yankees to see you like this?"

She was beyond caring who saw her, beyond anything except a fiery
desire to kill him, but dizziness was sweeping her. She could not
breathe; he was choking her; her stays were like a swiftly
compressing band of iron; his arms about her made her shake with
helpless hate and fury. Then his voice became thin and dim and his
face above her swirled in a sickening mist which became heavier and
heavier until she no longer saw him--or anything else.

When she made feeble swimming motions to come back to consciousness,
she was tired to her bones, weak, bewildered. She was lying back in
the chair, her bonnet off, Rhett was slapping her wrist, his black
eyes searching her face anxiously. The nice young captain was
trying to pour a glass of brandy into her mouth and had spilled it
down her neck. The other officers hovered helplessly about,
whispering and waving their hands.

"I--guess I must have fainted," she said, and her voice sounded so
far away it frightened her.

"Drink this," said Rhett, taking the glass and pushing it against
her lips. Now she remembered and glared feebly at him but she was
too tired for anger.

"Please, for my sake."

She gulped and choked and began coughing but he pushed it to her
mouth again. She swallowed deeply and the hot liquid burned
suddenly in her throat.

"I think she's better now, gentlemen," said Rhett, "and I thank you
very much. The realization that I'm to be executed was too much
for her."

The group in blue shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed and
after several clearings of throats, they tramped out. The young
captain paused in the doorway.

"If there's anything more I can do--"

"No, thank you."

He went out, closing the door behind him.

"Drink some more," said Rhett.

"No."

"Drink it."

She swallowed another mouthful and the warmth began spreading
through her body and strength flowed slowly back into her shaking
legs. She pushed away the glass and tried to rise but he pressed
her back.

"Take your hands off me. I'm going."

"Not yet. Wait a minute. You might faint again."

"I'd rather faint in the road than be here with you."

"Just the same, I won't have you fainting in the road."

"Let me go. I hate you."

A faint smile came back to his face at her words.

"That sounds more like you. You must be feeling better."

She lay relaxed for a moment, trying to summon anger to her aid,
trying to draw on her strength. But she was too tired. She was
too tired to hate or to care very much about anything. Defeat lay
on her spirit like lead. She had gambled everything and lost
everything. Not even pride was left. This was the dead end of her
last hope. This was the end of Tara, the end of them all. For a
long time she lay back with her eyes closed, hearing his heavy
breathing near her, and the glow of the brandy crept gradually over
her, giving a false strength and warmth. When finally she opened
her eyes and looked him in the face, anger had roused again. As
her slanting eyebrows rushed down together in a frown Rhett's old
smile came back.

"Now you are better. I can tell it by your scowl."

"Of course, I'm all right. Rhett Butler, you are hateful, a skunk,
if ever I saw one! You knew very well what I was going to say as
soon as I started talking and you knew you weren't going to give me
the money. And yet you let me go right on. You could have spared
me--"

"Spared you and missed hearing all that? Not much. I have so few
diversions here. I don't know when I've ever heard anything so
gratifying." He laughed his sudden mocking laugh. At the sound
she leaped to her feet, snatching up her bonnet.

He suddenly had her by the shoulders.

"Not quite yet. Do you feel well enough to talk sense?"

"Let me go!"

"You are well enough, I see. Then, tell me this. Was I the only
iron you had in the fire?" His eyes were keen and alert, watching
every change in her face.

"What do you mean?"

"Was I the only man you were going to try this on?"

"Is that any of your business?"

"More than you realize. Are there any other men on your string?
Tell me!"

"No."

"Incredible. I can't imagine you without five or six in reserve.
Surely someone will turn up to accept your interesting proposition.
I feel so sure of it that I want to give you a little advice."

"I don't want your advice."

"Nevertheless I will give it. Advice seems to be the only thing I
can give you at present. Listen to it, for it's good advice. When
you are trying to get something out of a man, don't blurt it out as
you did to me. Do try to be more subtle, more seductive. It gets
better results. You used to know how, to perfection. But just now
when you offered me your--er--collateral for my money you looked as
hard as nails. I've seen eyes like yours above a dueling pistol
twenty paces from me and they aren't a pleasant sight. They evoke
no ardor in the male breast. That's no way to handle men, my dear.
You are forgetting your early training."

"I don't need you to tell me how to behave," she said and wearily
put on her bonnet. She wondered how he could jest so blithely with
a rope about his neck and her pitiful circumstances before him.
She did not even notice that his hands were jammed in his pockets
in hard fists as if he were straining at his own impotence.

"Cheer up," he said, as she tied the bonnet strings. "You can come
to my hanging and it will make you feel lots better. It'll even up
all your old scores with me--even this one. And I'll mention you
in my will."

"Thank you, but they may not hang you till it's too late to pay the
taxes," she said with a sudden malice that matched his own, and she
meant it.



CHAPTER XXXV


It was raining when she came out of the building and the sky was a
dull putty color. The soldiers on the square had taken shelter in
their huts and the streets were deserted. There was no vehicle in
sight and she knew she would have to walk the long way home.

The brandy glow faded as she trudged along. The cold wind made her
shiver and the chilly needle-like drops drove hard into her face.
The rain quickly penetrated Aunt Pitty's thin cloak until it hung
in clammy folds about her. She knew the velvet dress was being
ruined and as for the tail feathers on the bonnet, they were as
drooping and draggled as when their former owner had worn them
about the wet barn yard of Tara. The bricks of the sidewalk were
broken and, for long stretches, completely gone. In these spots
the mud was ankle deep and her slippers stuck in it as if it were
glue, even coming completely off her feet. Every time she bent
over to retrieve them, the hem of the dress fell in the mud. She
did not even try to avoid puddles but stepped dully into them,
dragging her heavy skirts after her. She could feel her wet
petticoat and pantalets cold about her ankles, but she was beyond
caring about the wreck of the costume on which she had gambled so
much. She was chilled and disheartened and desperate.

How could she ever go back to Tara and face them after her brave
words? How could she tell them they must all go--somewhere? How
could she leave it all, the red fields, the tall pines, the dark
swampy bottom lands, the quiet burying ground where Ellen lay in
the cedars' deep shade?

Hatred of Rhett burned in her heart as she plodded along the
slippery way. What a blackguard he was! She hoped they did hang
him, so she would never have to face him again with his knowledge
of her disgrace and her humiliation. Of course, he could have
gotten the money for her if he'd wanted to get it. Oh, hanging was
too good for him! Thank God, he couldn't see her now, with her
clothes soaking wet and her hair straggling and her teeth
chattering. How hideous she must look and how he would laugh!

The negroes she passed turned insolent grins at her and laughed
among themselves as she hurried by, slipping and sliding in the
mud, stopping, panting to replace her slippers. How dared they
laugh, the black apes! How dared they grin at her, Scarlett O'Hara
of Tara! She'd like to have them all whipped until the blood ran
down their backs. What devils the Yankees were to set them free,
free to jeer at white people!

As she walked down Washington Street, the landscape was as dreary
as her own heart. Here there was none of the bustle and
cheerfulness which she had noted on Peachtree Street. Here many
handsome homes had once stood, but few of them had been rebuilt.
Smoked foundations and the lonesone blackened chimneys, now known
as "Sherman's Sentinels," appeared with disheartening frequency.
Overgrown paths led to what had been houses--old lawns thick with
dead weeds, carriage blocks bearing names she knew so well,
hitching posts which would never again know the knot of reins.
Cold wind and rain, mud and bare trees, silence and desolation.
How wet her feet were and how long the journey home!

She heard the splash of hooves behind her and moved farther over on
the narrow sidewalk to avoid more mud splotches on Aunt Pittypat's
cloak. A horse and buggy came slowly up the road and she turned to
watch it, determined to beg a ride if the driver was a white
person. The rain obscured her vision as the buggy came abreast,
but she saw the driver peer over the tarpaulin that stretched from
the dashboard to his chin. There was something familiar about his
face and as she stepped out into the road to get a closer view,
there was an embarrassed little cough from the man and a well-known
voice cried in accents of pleasure and astonishment: "Surely, it
can't be Miss Scarlett!"

"Oh, Mr. Kennedy!" she cried, splashing across the road and leaning
on the muddy wheel, heedless of further damage to the cloak. "I
was never so glad to see anybody in my life!"

He colored with pleasure at the obvious sincerity of her words,
hastily squirted a stream of tobacco juice from the opposite side
of the buggy and leaped spryly to the ground. He shook her hand
enthusiastically and holding up the tarpaulin, assisted her into
the buggy.

"Miss Scarlett, what are you doing over in this section by
yourself? Don't you know it's dangerous these days? And you are
soaking wet. Here, wrap the robe around your feet."

As he fussed over her, clucking like a hen, she gave herself up to
the luxury of being taken care of. It was nice to have a man
fussing and clucking and scolding, even if it was only that old
maid in pants, Frank Kennedy. It was especially soothing after
Rhett's brutal treatment. And oh, how good to see a County face
when she was so far from home! He was well dressed, she noticed,
and the buggy was new too. The horse looked young and well fed,
but Frank looked far older than his years, older than on that
Christmas eve when he had been at Tara with his men. He was thin
and sallow faced and his yellow eyes were watery and sunken in
creases of loose flesh. His ginger-colored beard was scantier than
ever, streaked with tobacco juice and as ragged as if he clawed at
it incessantly. But he looked bright and cheerful, in contrast
with the lines of sorrow and worry and weariness which Scarlett saw
in faces everywhere.

"It's a pleasure to see you," said Frank warmly. "I didn't know
you were in town. I saw Miss Pittypat only last week and she
didn't tell me you were coming. Did--er--ahem--did anyone else
come up from Tara with you?"

He was thinking of Suellen, the silly old fool.

"No," she said, wrapping the warm lap robe about her and trying to
pull it up around her neck. "I came alone. I didn't give Aunt
Pitty any warning."

He chirruped to the horse and it plodded off, picking its way
carefully down the slick road.

"All the folks at Tara well?"

"Oh, yes, so-so."

She must think of something to talk about, yet it was so hard to
talk. Her mind was leaden with defeat and all she wanted was to
lie back in this warm blanket and say to herself: "I won't think
of Tara now. I'll think of it later, when it won't hurt so much."
If she could just get him started talking on some subject which
would hold him all the way home, so she would have nothing to do
but murmur "How nice" and "You certainly are smart" at intervals.

"Mr. Kennedy, I'm so surprised to see you. I know I've been a bad
girl, not keeping up with old friends, but I didn't know you were
here in Atlanta. I thought somebody told me you were in Marietta."

"I do business in Marietta, a lot of business," he said. "Didn't
Miss Suellen tell you I had settled in Atlanta? Didn't she tell
you about my store?"

Vaguely she had a memory of Suellen chattering about Frank and a
store but she never paid much heed to anything Suellen said. It
had been sufficient to know that Frank was alive and would some day
take Suellen off her hands.

"No, not a word," she lied. "Have you a store? How smart you must
be!"

He looked a little hurt at hearing that Suellen had not published
the news but brightened at the flattery.

"Yes, I've got a store, and a pretty good one I think. Folks tell
me I'm a born merchant."

He laughed pleasedly, the tittery cackling laugh which she always
found so annoying.

Conceited old fool, she thought.

"Oh, you could be a success at anything you turned your hand to,
Mr. Kennedy. But how on earth did you ever get started with the
store? When I saw you Christmas before last you said you didn't
have a cent in the world."

He cleared his throat raspingly, clawed at his whiskers and smiled
his nervous timid smile.

"Well, it's a long story, Miss Scarlett."

Thank the Lord! she thought. Perhaps it will hold him till we get
home. And aloud: "Do tell!"

"You recall when we came to Tara last, hunting for supplies? Well,
not long after that I went into active service. I mean real
fighting. No more commissary for me. There wasn't much need for a
commissary, Miss Scarlett, because we couldn't hardly pick up a
thing for the army, and I thought the place for an able-bodied man
was in the fighting line. Well, I fought along with the cavalry
for a spell till I got a minie ball through the shoulder."

He looked very proud and Scarlett said: "How dreadful!"

"Oh, it wasn't so bad, just a flesh wound," he said deprecatingly.
"I was sent down south to a hospital and when I was just about
well, the Yankee raiders came through. My, my, but that was a hot
time! We didn't have much warning and all of us who could walk
helped haul out the army stores and the hospital equipment to the
train tracks to move it. We'd gotten one train about loaded when
the Yankees rode in one end of town and out we went the other end
as fast as we could go. My, my, that was a mighty sad sight,
sitting on top of that train and seeing the Yankees burn those
supplies we had to leave at the depot. Miss Scarlett, they burned
about a half-mile of stuff we had piled up there along the tracks.
We just did get away ourselves."

"How dreadful!"

"Yes, that's the word. Dreadful. Our men had come back into
Atlanta then and so our train was sent here. Well, Miss Scarlett,
it wasn't long before the war was over and--well, there was a lot
of china and cots and mattresses and blankets and nobody claiming
them. I suppose rightfully they belonged to the Yankees. I think
those were the terms of the surrender, weren't they?"

"Um," said Scarlett absently. She was getting warmer now and a
little drowsy.

"I don't know till now if I did right," he said, a little
querulously. "But the way I figured it, all that stuff wouldn't do
the Yankees a bit of good. They'd probably burn it. And our folks
had paid good solid money for it, and I thought it still ought to
belong to the Confederacy or to the Confederates. Do you see what
I mean?"

"Um."

"I'm glad you agree with me, Miss Scarlett. In a way, it's been on
my conscience. Lots of folks have told me: 'Oh, forget about it,
Frank,' but I can't. I couldn't hold up my head if I thought I'd
done what wasn't right. Do you think I did right?"

"Of course," she said, wondering what the old fool had been talking
about. Some struggle with his conscience. When a man got as old
as Frank Kennedy he ought to have learned not to bother about
things that didn't matter. But he always was so nervous and fussy
and old maidish.

"I'm glad to hear you say it. After the surrender I had about ten
dollars in silver and nothing else in the world. You know what
they did to Jonesboro and my house and store there. I just didn't
know what to do. But I used the ten dollars to put a roof on an
old store down by Five Points and I moved the hospital equipment in
and started selling it. Everybody needed beds and china and
mattresses and I sold them cheap, because I figured it was about as
much other folks' stuff as it was mine. But I cleared money on it
and bought some more stuff and the store just went along fine. I
think I'll make a lot of money on it if things pick up."

At the word "money," her mind came back to him, crystal clear.

"You say you've made money?"

He visibly expanded under her interest. Few women except Suellen
had ever given him more than perfunctory courtesy and it was very
flattering to have a former belle like Scarlett hanging on his
words. He slowed the horse so they would not reach home before he
had finished his story.

"I'm not a millionaire, Miss Scarlett, and considering the money I
used to have, what I've got now sounds small. But I made a
thousand dollars this year. Of course, five hundred of it went to
paying for new stock and repairing the store and paying the rent.
But I've made five hundred clear and as things are certainly
picking up, I ought to clear two thousand next year. I can sure
use it, too, for you see, I've got another iron in the fire."

Interest had sprung up sharply in her at the talk of money. She
veiled her eyes with thick bristly lashes and moved a little closer
to him.

"What does that mean, Mr. Kennedy?"

He laughed and slapped the reins against the horse's back.

"I guess I'm boring you, talking about business, Miss Scarlett. A
pretty little woman like you doesn't need to know anything about
business."

The old fool.

"Oh, I know I'm a goose about business but I'm so interested!
Please tell me all about it and you can explain what I don't
understand."

"Well, my other iron is a sawmill."

"A what?"

"A mill to cut up lumber and plane it. I haven't bought it yet but
I'm going to. There's a man named Johnson who has one, way out
Peachtree road, and he's anxious to sell it. He needs some cash
right away, so he wants to sell and stay and run it for me at a
weekly wage. It's one of the few mills in this section, Miss
Scarlett. The Yankees destroyed most of them. And anyone who owns
a sawmill owns a gold mine, for nowadays you can ask your own price
for lumber. The Yankees burned so many houses here and there
aren't enough for people to live in and it looks like folks have
gone crazy about rebuilding. They can t get enough lumber and they
can't get it fast enough. People are just pouring into Atlanta
now, all the folks from the country districts who can't make a go
of farming without darkies and the Yankees and Carpetbaggers who
are swarming in trying to pick our bones a little barer than they
already are. I tell you Atlanta's going to be a big town soon.
They've got to have lumber for their houses, so I'm going to buy
this mill just as soon as--well, as soon as some of the bills owing
me are paid. By this time next year, I ought to be breathing
easier about money. I--I guess you know why I'm so anxious to make
money quickly, don't you?"

He blushed and cackled again. He's thinking of Suellen, Scarlett
thought in disgust.

For a moment she considered asking him to lend her three hundred
dollars, but wearily she rejected the idea. He would be
embarrassed; he would stammer; he would offer excuses, but he
wouldn't lend it to her. He had worked hard for it, so he could
marry Suellen in the spring and if he parted with it, his wedding
would be postponed indefinitely. Even if she worked on his
sympathies and his duty toward his future family and gained his
promise of a loan, she knew Suellen would never permit it. Suellen
was getting more and more worried over the fact that she was
practically an old maid and she would move heaven and earth to
prevent anything from delaying her marriage.

What was there in that whining complaining girl to make this old
fool so anxious to give her a soft nest? Suellen didn't deserve a
loving husband and the profits of a store and a sawmill. The
minute Sue got her hands on a little money she'd give herself
unendurable airs and never contribute one cent toward the upkeep of
Tara. Not Suellen! She'd think herself well out of it and not
care if Tara went for taxes or burned to the ground, so long as she
had pretty clothes and a "Mrs." in front of her name.

As Scarlett thought of Suellen's secure future and the precarious
one of herself and Tara, anger flamed in her at the unfairness of
life. Hastily she looked out of the buggy into the muddy street,
lest Frank should see her expression. She was going to lose
everything she had, while Sue-- Suddenly a determination was born
in her.

Suellen should not have Frank and his store and his mill!

Suellen didn't deserve them. She was going to have them herself.
She thought of Tara and remembered Jonas Wilkerson, venomous as a
rattler, at the foot of the front steps, and she grasped at the
last straw floating above the shipwreck of her life. Rhett had
failed her but the Lord had provided Frank.

But can I get him? Her fingers clenched as she looked unseeingly
into the rain. Can I make him forget Sue and propose to me real
quick? If I could make Rhett almost propose, I know I could get
Frank! Her eyes went over him, her lids flickering. Certainly,
he's no beauty, she thought coolly, and he's got very bad teeth and
his breath smells bad and he's old enough to be my father.
Moreover, he's nervous and timid and well meaning, and I don't know
of any more damning qualities a man can have. But at least, he's a
gentleman and I believe I could stand living with him better than
with Rhett. Certainly I could manage him easier. At any rate,
beggars can't be choosers.

That he was Suellen's fiance caused her no qualm of conscience.
After the complete moral collapse which had sent her to Atlanta and
to Rhett, the appropriation of her sister's betrothed seemed a
minor affair and one not to be bothered with at this time.

With the rousing of fresh hope, her spine stiffened and she forgot
that her feet were wet and cold. She looked at Frank so steadily,
her eyes narrowing, that he became somewhat alarmed and she dropped
her gaze swiftly, remembering Rhett's words: "I've seen eyes like
yours above a dueling pistol. . . . They evoke no ardor in the
male breast."

"What's the matter, Miss Scarlett? You got a chill?"

"Yes," she answered helplessly. "Would you mind--" She hesitated
timidly. "Would you mind if I put my hand in your coat pocket?
It's so cold and my muff is soaked through."

"Why--why--of course not! And you haven't any gloves! My, my,
what a brute I've been idling along like this, talking my head off
when you must be freezing and wanting to get to a fire. Giddap,
Sally! By the way, Miss Scarlett, I've been so busy talking about
myself I haven't even asked you what you were doing in this section
in this weather?"

"I was at the Yankee headquarters," she answered before she
thought. His sandy brows went up in astonishment.

"But Miss Scarlett! The soldiers-- Why--"

"Mary, Mother of God, let me think of a real good lie," she prayed
hastily. It would never do for Frank to suspect she had seen
Rhett. Frank thought Rhett the blackest of blackguards and unsafe
for decent women to speak to.

"I went there--I went there to see if--if any of the officers would
buy fancy work from me to send home to their wives. I embroider
very nicely."

He sank back against the seat aghast, indignation struggling with
bewilderment.

"You went to the Yankees-- But Miss Scarlett! You shouldn't.
Why--why . . . Surely your father doesn't know! Surely, Miss
Pittypat--"

"Oh, I shall die if you tell Aunt Pittypat!" she cried in real
anxiety and burst into tears. It was easy to cry, because she was
so cold and miserable, but the effect was startling. Frank could
not have been more embarrassed or helpless if she had suddenly
begun disrobing. He clicked his tongue against his teeth several
times, muttering "My! My!" and made futile gestures at her. A
daring thought went through his mind that he should draw her head
onto his shoulder and pat her but he had never done this to any
woman and hardly knew how to go about it. Scarlett O'Hara, so high
spirited and pretty, crying here in his buggy. Scarlett O'Hara,
the proudest of the proud, trying to sell needlework to the
Yankees. His heart burned.

She sobbed on, saying a few words now and then, and he gathered
that all was not well at Tara. Mr. O'Hara was still "not himself
at all," and there wasn't enough food to go around for so many. So
she had to come to Atlanta to try to make a little money for
herself and her boy. Frank clicked his tongue again and suddenly
he found that her head was on his shoulder. He did not quite know
how it got there. Surely he had not placed it there, but there her
head was and there was Scarlett helplessly sobbing against his thin
chest, an exciting and novel sensation for him. He patted her
shoulder timidly, gingerly at first, and when she did not rebuff
him he became bolder and patted her firmly. What a helpless,
sweet, womanly little thing she was. And how brave and silly to
try her hand at making money by her needle. But dealing with the
Yankees--that was too much.

"I won't tell Miss Pittypat, but you must promise me, Miss
Scarlett, that you won't do anything like this again. The idea of
your father's daughter--"

Her wet green eyes sought his helplessly.

"But, Mr. Kennedy, I must do something. I must take care of my
poor little boy and there is no one to look after us now."

"You are a brave little woman," he pronounced, "but I won't have
you do this sort of thing. Your family would die of shame."

"Then what will I do?" The swimming eyes looked up to him as if
she knew he knew everything and was hanging on his words.

"Well, I don't know right now. But I'll think of something."

"Oh, I know you will! You are so smart--Frank."

She had never called him by his first name before and the sound
came to him as a pleasant shock and surprise. The poor girl was
probably so upset she didn't even notice her slip. He felt very
kindly toward her and very protecting. If there was anything he
could do for Suellen O'Hara's sister, he would certainly do it. He
pulled out a red bandanna handkerchief and handed it to her and she
wiped her eyes and began to smile tremulously.

"I'm such a silly little goose," she said apologetically. "Please
forgive me."

"You aren't a silly little goose. You're a very brave little woman
and you are trying to carry to heavy a load. I'm afraid Miss
Pittypat isn't going to be much help to you. I hear she lost most
of her property and Mr. Henry Hamilton's in bad shape himself. I
only wish I had a home to offer you shelter in. But, Miss
Scarlett, you just remember this, when Miss Suellen and I are
married, there'll always be a place for you under our roof and for
Wade Hampton too."

Now was the time! Surely the saints and angels watched over her to
give her such a Heaven-sent opportunity. She managed to look very
startled and embarrassed and opened her mouth as if to speak
quickly and then shut it with a pop.

"Don't tell me you didn't know I was to be your brother-in-law this
spring," he said with nervous jocularity.

And then, seeing her eyes fill up with tears, he questioned in
alarm: "What's the matter? Miss Sue's not ill, is she?"

"Oh, no! No!"

"There is something wrong. You must tell me."

"Oh, I can't! I didn't know! I thought surely she must have
written you-- Oh, how mean!"

"Miss Scarlett, what is it?"

"Oh, Frank, I didn't mean to let it out but I thought, of course,
you knew--that she had written you--"

"Written me what?" He was trembling.

"Oh, to do this to a fine man like you!"

"What's she done?"

"She didn't write you? Oh, I guess she was too ashamed to write
you. She should be ashamed! Oh, to have such a mean sister!"

By this time, Frank could not even get questions to his lips. He
sat staring at her, gray faced, the reins slack in his hands.

"She's going to marry Tony Fontaine next month. Oh, I'm so sorry,
Frank. So sorry to be the one to tell you. She just got tired of
waiting and she was afraid she'd be an old maid."



Mammy was standing on the front porch when Frank helped Scarlett
out of the buggy. She had evidently been standing there for some
time, for her head rag was damp and the old shawl clutched tightly
about her showed rain spots. Her wrinkled black face was a study
in anger and apprehension and her lip was pushed out farther than
Scarlett could ever remember. She peered quickly at Frank and,
when she saw who it was, her face changed--pleasure, bewilderment
and something akin to guilt spreading over it. She waddled forward
to Frank with pleased greetings and grinned and curtsied when he
shook her hand.

"It sho is good ter see home folks," she said. "How is you, Mist'
Frank? My, ain' you lookin' fine an' gran'! Effen Ah'd knowed
Miss Scarlett wuz out wid you, Ah wouldn' worrit so. Ah'd knowed
she wuz tekken keer of. Ah come back hyah an' fine she gone an' Ah
been as 'stracted as a chicken wid its haid off, thinkin' she
runnin' roun' dis town by herseff wid all dese trashy free issue
niggers on de street. Huccome you din' tell me you gwine out,
honey? An' you wid a cole!"

Scarlett winked slyly at Frank and, for all his distress at the bad
news he had just heard, he smiled, knowing she was enjoining
silence and making him one in a pleasant conspiracy.

"You run up and fix me some dry clothes, Mammy," she said. "And
some hot tea."

"Lawd, yo' new dress is plum ruint," grumbled Mammy. "Ah gwine
have a time dryin' it an' brushin' it, so it'll be fit ter be wo'
ter de weddin' ternight."

She went into the house and Scarlett leaned close to Frank and
whispered: "Do come to supper tonight. We are so lonesome. And
we're going to the wedding afterward. Do be our escort! And,
please don't say anything to Aunt Pitty about--about Suellen. It
would distress her so much and I can't bear for her to know that my
sister--"

"Oh, I won't! I won't!" Frank said hastily, wincing from the very
thought.

"You've been so sweet to me today and done me so much good. I feel
right brave again." She squeezed his hand in parting and turned
the full battery of her eyes upon him.

Mammy, who was waiting just inside the door, gave her an inscrutable
look and followed her, puffing, up the stairs to the bedroom. She
was silent while she stripped off the wet clothes and hung them over
chairs and tucked Scarlett into bed. When she had brought up a cup
of hot tea and a hot brick, rolled in flannel, she looked down at
Scarlett and said, with the nearest approach to an apology in her
voice Scarlett had ever heard: "Lamb, huccome you din' tell yo' own
Mammy whut you wuz upter? Den Ah wouldn' had ter traipse all dis
way up hyah ter 'Lanta. Ah is too ole an' too fat fer sech runnin'
roun'."

"What do you mean?"

"Honey, you kain fool me. Ah knows you. An' Ah seed Mist' Frank's
face jes' now an' Ah seed yo' face, an' Ah kin read yo' mine lak a
pahson read a Bible. An' Ah heerd dat whisperin' you wuz givin'
him 'bout Miss Suellen. Effen Ah'd had a notion 'twuz Mist' Frank
you wuz affer, Ah'd stayed home whar Ah b'longs."

"Well," said Scarlett shortly, snuggling under the blankets and
realizing it was useless to try to throw Mammy off the scent, "who
did you think it was?"

"Chile, Ah din' know but Ah din' lak de look on yo' face yestiddy.
An' Ah 'membered Miss Pittypat writin' Miss Melly dat dat
rapscallion Butler man had lots of money an' Ah doan fergit whut Ah
hears. But Mist' Frank, he a gempmum even ef he ain' so pretty."

Scarlett gave her a sharp look and Mammy returned the gaze with
calm omniscience.

"Well, what are you going to do about it? Tattle to Suellen?"

"Ah is gwine ter he'p you pleasure Mist' Frank eve'y way Ah knows
how," said Mammy, tucking the covers about Scarlett's neck.

Scarlett lay quietly for a while, as Mammy fussed about the room,
relief flooding her that there was no need for words between them.
No explanations were asked, no reproaches made. Mammy understood
and was silent. In Mammy, Scarlett had found a realist more
uncompromising than herself. The mottled wise old eyes saw deeply,
saw clearly, with the directness of the savage and the child,
undeterred by conscience when danger threatened her pet. Scarlett
was her baby and what her baby wanted, even though it belonged to
another, Mammy was willing to help her obtain. The rights of
Suellen and Frank Kennedy did not even enter her mind, save to
cause a grim inward chuckle. Scarlett was in trouble and doing the
best she could, and Scarlett was Miss Ellen's child. Mammy rallied
to her with never a moment's hesitation.

Scarlett felt the silent reinforcement and, as the hot brick at her
feet warmed her, the hope which had flickered faintly on the cold
ride home grew into a flame. It swept through her, making her
heart pump the blood through her veins in pounding surges.
Strength was coming back and a reckless excitement which made her
want to laugh aloud. Not beaten yet, she thought exultantly.

"Hand me the mirror, Mammy," she said.

"Keep yo' shoulders unner dat kivver," ordered Mammy, passing the
hand mirror to her, a smile on her thick lips.

Scarlett looked at herself.

"I look white as a hant," she said, "and my hair is as wild as a
horse's tail."

"You doan look peart as you mout."

"Hum. . . . Is it raining very hard?"

"You know it's po'in'."

"Well, just the same, you've got to go downtown for me."

"Not in dis rain, Ah ain'."

"Yes, you are or I'll go myself."

"Whut you got ter do dat woan wait? Look ter me lak you done nuff
fer one day."

"I want," said Scarlett, surveying herself carefully in the mirror,
"a bottle of cologne water. You can wash my hair and rinse it with
cologne. And buy me a jar of quince-seed jelly to make it lie down
flat."

"Ah ain' gwine wash yo' ha'r in dis wedder an' you ain' gwine put
no cologne on yo' haid lak a fas' woman needer. Not w'ile Ah got
breaf in mah body."

"Oh, yes, I am. Look in my purse and get that five-dollar gold
piece out and go to town. And--er, Mammy, while you are downtown,
you might get me a--a pot of rouge."

"Whut dat?" asked Mammy suspiciously.

Scarlett met her eyes with a coldness she was far from feeling.
There was never any way of knowing just how far Mammy could be
bullied.

"Never you mind. Just ask for it."

"Ah ain' buyin nuthin' dat Ah doan know whut 'tis."

"Well, it's paint, if you're so curious! Face paint. Don't stand
there and swell up like a toad. Go on."

"Paint!" ejaculated Mammy. "Face paint! Well, you ain' so big dat
Ah kain whup you! Ah ain' never been so scan'lized! You is los'
yo' mine! Miss Ellen be tuhnin' in her grabe dis minute! Paintin'
yo face lak a--"

"You know very well Grandma Robillard painted her face and--"

"Yas'm, an' wo' only one petticoat an' it wrang out wid water ter
mek it stick an' show de shape of her laigs, but dat ain' sayin'
you is gwine do sumpin' lak dat! Times wuz scan'lous w'en Ole Miss
wuz young but times changes, dey do an'--"

"Name of God!" cried Scarlett, losing her temper and throwing back
the covers. "You can go straight back to Tara!"

"You kain sen' me ter Tara ness Ah wants ter go. Ah is free," said
Mammy heatedly. "An' Ah is gwine ter stay right hyah. Git back in
dat baid. Does you want ter ketch pneumony jes' now? Put down dem
stays! Put dem down, honey. Now, Miss Scarlett, you ain' gwine
nowhars in dis wedder. Lawd God! But you sho look lak yo' pa!
Git back in baid--Ah kain go buyin' no paint! Ah die of shame,
eve'ybody knowin 'it wud fer mah chile! Miss Scarlett, you is so
sweet an' pretty lookin' you doan need no paint. Honey, doan
nobody but bad womens use dat stuff."

"Well, they get results, don't they?"

"Jesus, hear her! Lamb, doan say bad things lak dat! Put down dem
wet stockin's, honey. Ah kain have you buy dat stuff yo'seff.
Miss Ellen would hant me. Git back in baid. Ah'll go. Maybe Ah
fine me a sto' whar dey doan know us."



That night at Mrs. Elsing's, when Fanny had been duly married and
old Levi and the other musicians were tuning up for the dance,
Scarlett looked about her with gladness. It was so exciting to be
actually at a party again. She was pleased also with the warm
reception she had received. When she entered the house on Frank's
arm, everyone had rushed to her with cries of pleasure and welcome,
kissed her, shaken her hand, told her they had missed her
dreadfully and that she must never go back to Tara. The men seemed
gallantly to have forgotten she had tried her best to break their
hearts in other days and the girls that she had done everything in
her power to entice their beaux away from them. Even Mrs.
Merriwether, Mrs. Whiting, Mrs. Meade and the other dowagers who
had been so cool to her during the last days of the war, forgot her
flighty conduct and their disapproval of it and recalled only that
she had suffered in their common defeat and that she was Pitty's
niece and Charles' widow. They kissed her and spoke gently with
tears in their eyes of her dear mother's passing and asked at
length about her father and her sisters. Everyone asked about
Melanie and Ashley, demanding the reason why they, too, had not
come back to Atlanta.

In spite of her pleasure at the welcome, Scarlett felt a slight
uneasiness which she tried to conceal, an uneasiness about the
appearance of her velvet dress. It was still damp to the knees and
still spotted about the hem, despite the frantic efforts of Mammy
and Cookie with a steaming kettle, a clean hair brush and frantic
wavings in front of an open fire. Scarlett was afraid someone
would notice her bedraggled state and realize that this was her
only nice dress. She was a little cheered by the fact that many of
the dresses of the other guests looked far worse than hers. They
were so old and had such carefully mended and pressed looks. At
least, her dress was whole and new, damp though it was--in fact,
the only new dress at the gathering with the exception of Fanny's
white-satin wedding gown.

Remembering what Aunt Pitty had told her about the Elsing finances,
she wondered where the money for the satin dress had been obtained
and for the refreshments and decorations and musicians too. It
must have cost a pretty penny. Borrowed money probably or else the
whole Elsing clan had contributed to give Fanny this expensive
wedding. Such a wedding in these hard times seemed to Scarlett an
extravagance on a par with the tombstones of the Tarleton boys and
she felt the same irritation and lack of sympathy she had felt as
she stood in the Tarleton burying ground. The days when money
could be thrown away carelessly had passed. Why did these people
persist in making the gestures of the old days when the old days
were gone?

But she shrugged off her momentary annoyance. It wasn't her money
and she didn't want her evening's pleasure spoiled by irritation at
other people's foolishness.

She discovered she knew the groom quite well, for he was Tommy
Wellburn from Sparta and she had nursed him in 1863 when he had a
wound in his shoulder. He had been a handsome young six-footer
then and had given up his medical studies to go in the cavalry.
Now he looked like a little old man, so bent was he by the wound in
his hip. He walked with some difficulty and, as Aunt Pitty had
remarked, spraddled in a very vulgar way. But he seemed totally
unaware of his appearance, or unconcerned about it, and had the
manner of one who asks no odds from any man. He had given up all
hope of continuing his medical studies and was now a contractor,
working a labor crew of Irishmen who were building the new hotel.
Scarlett wondered how he managed so onerous a job in his condition
but asked no questions, realizing wryly that almost anything was
possible when necessity drove.

Tommy and Hugh Elsing and the little monkey-like Rene Picard stood
talking with her while the chairs and furniture were pushed back to
the wall in preparation for the dancing. Hugh had not changed
since Scarlett last saw him in 1862. He was still the thin
sensitive boy with the same lock of pale brown hair hanging over
his forehead and the same delicate useless-looking hands she
remembered so well. But Rene had changed since that furlough when
he married Maybelle Merriwether. He still had the Gallic twinkle
in his black eyes and the Creole zest for living but, for all his
easy laughter, there was something hard about his face which had
not been there in the early days of the war. And the air of
supercilious elegance which had clung about him in his striking
Zouave uniform was completely gone.

"Cheeks lak ze rose, eyes lak ze emerald!" he said, kissing
Scarlett's hand and paying tribute to the rouge upon her face.
"Pretty lak w'en I first see you at ze bazaar. You remembaire?
Nevaire have I forgot how you toss your wedding ring in my basket.
Ha, but zat was brave! But I should nevaire have zink you wait so
long to get anothaire ring!"

His eyes sparkled wickedly and he dug his elbow into Hugh's ribs.

"And I never thought you'd be driving a pie wagon, Renny Picard,"
she said. Instead of being ashamed at having his degrading
occupation thrown in his face, he seemed pleased and laughed
uproariously, slapping Hugh on the back.

"Touche!" he cried. "Belle Mere, Madame Merriwether, she mek me do
eet, ze first work I do en all my life, Rene Picard, who was to
grow old breeding ze race horse, playing ze feedle! Now, I drive
ze pie wagon and I lak eet! Madame Belle Mere, she can mek a man
do annyzing. She should have been ze general and we win ze war,
eh, Tommy?"

Well! thought Scarlett. The idea of liking to drive a pie wagon
when his people used to own ten miles along the Mississippi River
and a big house in New Orleans, too!

"If we'd had our mothers-in-law in the ranks, we'd have beat the
Yankees in a week," agreed Tommy, his eyes straying to the slender,
indomitable form of his new mother-in-law. "The only reason we
lasted as long as we did was because of the ladies behind us who
wouldn't give up."

"Who'll NEVER give up," amended Hugh, and his smile was proud but a
little wry. "There's not a lady here tonight who has surrendered,
no matter what her men folks did at Appomattox. It's a lot worse
on them than it ever was on us. At least, we took it out in
fighting."

"And they in hating," finished Tommy. "Eh, Scarlett? It bothers
the ladies to see what their men folks have come down to lots more
than it bothers us. Hugh was to be a judge, Rene was to play the
fiddle before the crowned heads of Europe--" He ducked as Rene
aimed a blow at him. "And I was to be a doctor and now--"

"Geeve us ze time!" cried Rene. "Zen I become ze Pie Prince of ze
South! And my good Hugh ze King of ze Kindling and you, my Tommy,
you weel own ze Irish slaves instead of ze darky slaves. What
changes--what fun! And what eet do for you, Mees Scarlett, and
Mees Melly? You meelk ze cow, peek ze cotton?"

"Indeed, no!" said Scarlett coolly, unable to understand Rene's gay
acceptance of hardships. "Our darkies do that."

"Mees Melly, I hear she call her boy 'Beauregard.' You tell her I,
Rene, approve and say that except for 'Jesus' there is no bettaire
name."

And though he smiled, his eyes glowed proudly at the name of
Louisiana's dashing hero.

"Well, there's 'Robert Edward Lee,'" observed Tommy. "And while
I'm not trying to lessen Old Beau's reputation, my first son is
going to be named 'Bob Lee Wellburn.'"

Rend laughed and shrugged.

"I recount to you a joke but eet eez a true story. And you see how
Creoles zink of our brave Beauregard and of your General Lee. On
ze train near New Orleans a man of Virginia, a man of General Lee,
he meet wiz a Creole of ze troops of Beauregard. And ze man of
Virginia, he talk, talk, talk how General Lee do zis, General Lee
say zat. And ze Creole, he look polite and he wreenkle hees
forehead lak he try to remembaire, and zen he smile and say:
'General Lee! Ah, oui! Now I know! General Lee! Ze man General
Beauregard speak well of!'"

Scarlett tried to join politely in the laughter but she did not see
any point to the story except that Creoles were just as stuck up as
Charleston and Savannah people. Moreover, she had always thought
Ashley's son should have been named after him.

The musicians after preliminary tunings and whangings broke into
"Old Dan Tucker" and Tommy turned to her.

"Will you dance, Scarlett? I can't favor you but Hugh or Rene--"

"No, thank you. I'm still mourning my mother," said Scarlett
hastily. "I will sit them out."

Her eyes singled out Frank Kennedy and beckoned him from the side
of Mrs. Elsing.

"I'll sit in that alcove yonder if you'll bring me some
refreshments and then we can have a nice chat," she told Frank as
the other three men moved off.

When he had hurried away to bring her a glass of wine and a paper
thin slice of cake, Scarlett sat down in the alcove at the end of
the drawing room and carefully arranged her skirts so that the
worst spots would not show. The humiliating events of the morning
with Rhett were pushed from her mind by the excitement of seeing so
many people and hearing music again. Tomorrow she would think of
Rhett's conduct and her shame and they would make her writhe again.
Tomorrow she would wonder if she had made any impression on Frank's
hurt and bewildered heart. But not tonight. Tonight she was alive
to her finger tips, every sense alert with hope, her eyes
sparkling.

She looked from the alcove into the huge drawing room and watched
the dancers, remembering how beautiful this room had been when
first she came to Atlanta during the war. Then the hardwood floors
had shone like glass, and overhead the chandelier with its hundreds
of tiny prisms had caught and reflected every ray of the dozens of
candles it bore, flinging them, like gleams from diamonds, flame
and sapphire about the room. The old portraits on the walls had
been dignified and gracious and had looked down upon guests with an
air of mellowed hospitality. The rosewood sofas had been soft and
inviting and one of them, the largest, had stood in the place of
honor in this same alcove where she now sat. It had been
Scarlett's favorite seat at parties. From this point stretched the
pleasant vista of drawing room and dining room beyond, the oval
mahogany table which seated twenty and the twenty slim-legged
chairs demurely against the walls, the massive sideboard and buffet
weighted with heavy silver, with seven-branched candlesticks,
goblets, cruets, decanters and shining little glasses. Scarlett
had sat on that sofa so often in the first years of the war, always
with some handsome officer beside her, and listened to violin and
bull fiddle, accordion and banjo, and heard the exciting swishing
noises which dancing feet made on the waxed and polished floor.

Now the chandelier hung dark. It was twisted askew and most of the
prisms were broken, as if the Yankee occupants had made their
beauty a target for their boots. Now an oil lamp and a few candles
lighted the room and the roaring fire in the wide hearth gave most
of the illumination. Its flickering light showed how irreparably
scarred and splintered the dull old floor was. Squares on the
faded paper on the wall gave evidence that once the portraits had
hung there, and wide cracks in the plaster recalled the day during
the siege when a shell had exploded on the house and torn off parts
of the roof and second floor. The heavy old mahogany table, spread
with cake and decanters, still presided in the empty-looking dining
room but it was scratched and the broken legs showed signs of
clumsy repair. The sideboard, the silver and the spindly chairs
were gone. The dull-gold damask draperies which had covered the
arching French windows at the back of the room were missing, and
only the remnants of the lace curtains remained, clean but
obviously mended.

In place of the curved sofa she had liked so much was a hard bench
that was none too comfortable. She sat upon it with as good grace
as possible, wishing her skirts were in such condition that she
could dance. It would be so good to dance again. But, of course,
she could do more with Frank in this sequestered alcove than in a
breathless reel and she could listen fascinated to his talk and
encourage him to greater flights of foolishness.

But the music certainly was inviting. Her slipper patted longingly
in time with old Levi's large splayed foot as he twanged a strident
banjo and called the figures of the reel. Feet swished and scraped
and patted as the twin lines danced toward each other, retreated,
whirled and made arches of their arms.


"'Ole Dan Tucker he got drunk--'
(Swing yo' padners!)
'Fell in de fiah' an' he kick up a chunk!'
(Skip light, ladies!)"


After the dull and exhausting months at Tara it was good to hear
music again and the sound of dancing feet, good to see familiar
friendly faces laughing in the feeble light, calling old jokes and
catchwords, bantering, rallying, coquetting. It was like coming to
life again after being dead. It almost seemed that the bright days
of five years ago had come back again. If she could close her eyes
and not see the worn made-over dresses and the patched boots and
mended slippers, if her mind did not call up the faces of boys
missing from the reel, she might almost think that nothing had
changed. But as she looked, watching the old men grouped about the
decanter in the dining room, the matrons lining the walls, talking
behind fanless hands, and the swaying, skipping young dancers, it
came to her suddenly, coldly, frighteningly that it was all as
greatly changed as if these familiar figures were ghosts.

They looked the same but they were different. What was it? Was it
only that they were five years older? No, it was something more
than the passing of time. Something had gone out of them, out of
their world. Five years ago, a feeling of security had wrapped
them all around so gently they were not even aware of it. In its
shelter they had flowered. Now it was gone and with it had gone
the old thrill, the old sense of something delightful and exciting
just around the corner, the old glamor of their way of living.

She knew she had changed too, but not as they had changed, and it
puzzled her. She sat and watched them and she felt herself an
alien among them, as alien and lonely as if she had come from
another world, speaking a language they did not understand and she
not understanding theirs. Then she knew that this feeling was the
same one she felt with Ashley. With him and with people of his
kind--and they made up most of her world--she felt outside of
something she could not understand.

Their faces were little changed and their manners not at all but it
seemed to her that these two things were all that remained of her
old friends. An ageless dignity, a timeless gallantry still clung
about them and would cling until they died but they would carry
undying bitterness to their graves, a bitterness too deep for
words. They were a soft-spoken, fierce, tired people who were
defeated and would not know defeat, broken yet standing determinedly
erect. They were crushed and helpless, citizens of conquered
provinces. They were looking on the state they loved, seeing it
trampled by the enemy, rascals making a mock of the law, their
former slaves a menace, their men disfranchised, their women
insulted. And they were remembering graves.

Everything in their old world had changed but the old forms. The
old usages went on, must go on, for the forms were all that were
left to them. They were holding tightly to the things they knew
best and loved best in the old days, the leisured manners, the
courtesy, the pleasant casualness in human contacts and, most of
all, the protecting attitude of the men toward their women. True
to the tradition in which they had been reared, the men were
courteous and tender and they almost succeeded in creating an
atmosphere of sheltering their women from all that was harsh and
unfit for feminine eyes. That, thought Scarlett, was the height of
absurdity, for there was little, now, which even the most
cloistered women had not seen and known in the last five years.
They had nursed the wounded, closed dying eyes, suffered war and
fire and devastation, known terror and flight and starvation.

But, no matter what sights they had seen, what menial tasks they
had done and would have to do, they remained ladies and gentlemen,
royalty in exile--bitter, aloof, incurious, kind to one another,
diamond hard, as bright and brittle as the crystals of the broken
chandelier over their heads. The old days had gone but these
people would go their ways as if the old days still existed,
charming, leisurely, determined not to rush and scramble for
pennies as the Yankees did, determined to part with none of the old
ways.

Scarlett knew that she, too, was greatly changed. Otherwise she
could not have done the things she had done since she was last in
Atlanta; otherwise she would not now be contemplating doing what
she desperately hoped to do. But there was a difference in their
hardness and hers and just what the difference was, she could not,
for the moment, tell. Perhaps it was that there was nothing she
would not do, and there were so many things these people would
rather die than do. Perhaps it was that they were without hope but
still smiling at life, bowing gracefully and passing it by. And
this Scarlett could not do.

She could not ignore life. She had to live it and it was too
brutal, too hostile, for her even to try to gloss over its
harshness with a smile. Of the sweetness and courage and
unyielding pride of her friends, Scarlett saw nothing. She saw
only a silly stiff-neckedness which observed facts but smiled and
refused to look them in the face.

As she stared at the dancers, flushed from the reel, she wondered
if things drove them as she was driven, dead lovers, maimed
husbands, children who were hungry, acres slipping away, beloved
roofs that sheltered strangers. But, of course, they were driven!
She knew their circumstances only a little less thoroughly than she
knew her own. Their losses had been her losses, their privations
her privations, their problems her same problems. Yet they had
reacted differently to them. The faces she was seeing in the room
were not faces; they were masks, excellent masks which would never
drop.

But if they were suffering as acutely from brutal circumstances as
she was--and they were--how could they maintain this air of gaiety
and lightness of heart? Why, indeed, should they even try to do
it? They were beyond her comprehension and vaguely irritating.
She couldn't be like them. She couldn't survey the wreck of the
world with an air of casual unconcern. She was as hunted as a fox,
running with a bursting heart, trying to reach a burrow before the
hounds caught up.

Suddenly she hated them all because they were different from her,
because they carried their losses with an air that she could never
attain, would never wish to attain. She hated them, these smiling,
light-footed strangers, these proud fools who took pride in
something they had lost, seeming to be proud that they had lost it.
The women bore themselves like ladies and she knew they were
ladies, though menial tasks were their daily lot and they didn't
know where their next dress was coming from. Ladies all! But she
could not feel herself a lady, for all her velvet dress and scented
hair, for all the pride of birth that stood behind her and the
pride of wealth that had once been hers. Harsh contact with the
red earth of Tara had stripped gentility from her and she knew she
would never feel like a lady again until her table was weighted
with silver and crystal and smoking with rich food, until her own
horses and carriages stood in her stables, until black hands and
not white took the cotton from Tara.

"Ah!" she thought angrily, sucking in her breath. "That's the
difference! Even though they're poor, they still feel like ladies
and I don't. The silly fools don't seem to realize that you can't
be a lady without money!"

Even in this flash of revelation, she realized vaguely that,
foolish though they seemed, theirs was the right attitude. Ellen
would have thought so. This disturbed her. She knew she should
feel as these people felt, but she could not. She knew she should
believe devoutly, as they did, that a born lady remained a lady,
even if reduced to poverty, but she could not make herself believe
it now.

All her life she had heard sneers hurled at the Yankees because
their pretensions to gentility were based on wealth, not breeding.
But at this moment, heresy though it was, she could not help
thinking the Yankees were right on this one matter, even if wrong
in all others. It took money to be a lady. She knew Ellen would
have fainted had she ever heard such words from her daughter. No
depth of poverty could ever have made Ellen feel ashamed. Ashamed!
Yes, that was how Scarlett felt. Ashamed that she was poor and
reduced to galling shifts and penury and work that negroes should
do.

She shrugged in irritation. Perhaps these people were right and
she was wrong but, just the same, these proud fools weren't looking
forward as she was doing, straining every nerve, risking even honor
and good name to get back what they had lost. It was beneath the
dignity of any of them to indulge in a scramble for money. The
times were rude and hard. They called for rude and hard struggle
if one was to conquer them. Scarlett knew that family tradition
would forcibly restrain many of these people from such a struggle--
with the making of money admittedly its aim. They all thought that
obvious money-making and even talk of money were vulgar in the
extreme. Of course, there were exceptions. Mrs. Merriwether and
her baking and Rene driving the pie wagon. And Hugh Elsing cutting
and peddling firewood and Tommy contracting. And Frank having the
gumption to start a store. But what of the rank and file of them?
The planters would scratch a few acres and live in poverty. The
lawyers and doctors would go back to their professions and wait for
clients who might never come. And the rest, those who had lived in
leisure on their incomes? What would happen to them?

But she wasn't going to be poor all her life. She wasn't going to
sit down and patiently wait for a miracle to help her. She was
going to rush into life and wrest from it what she could. Her
father had started as a poor immigrant boy and had won the broad
acres of Tara. What he had done, his daughter could do. She
wasn't like these people who had gambled everything on a Cause that
was gone and were content to be proud of having lost that Cause,
because it was worth any sacrifice. They drew their courage from
the past. She was drawing hers from the future. Frank Kennedy, at
present, was her future. At least, he had the store and he had
cash money. And if she could only marry him and get her hands on
that money, she could make ends meet at Tara for another year. And
after that--Frank must buy the sawmill. She could see for herself
how quickly the town was rebuilding and anyone who could establish
a lumber business now, when there was so little competition, would
have a gold mine.

There came to her, from the recesses of her mind, words Rhett had
spoken in the early years of the war about the money he made in the
blockade. She had not taken the trouble to understand them then,
but now they seemed perfectly clear and she wondered if it had been
only her youth or plain stupidity which had kept her from
appreciating them.

"There's just as much money to be made in the wreck of a
civilization as in the upbuilding of one."

"This is the wreck he foresaw," she thought, "and he was right.
There's still plenty of money to be made by anyone who isn't afraid
to work--or to grab."

She saw Frank coming across the floor toward her with a glass of
blackberry wine in his hand and a morsel of cake on a saucer and
she pulled her face into a smile. It did not occur to her to
question whether Tara was worth marrying Frank. She knew it was
worth it and she never gave the matter a second thought.

She smiled up at him as she sipped the wine, knowing that her
cheeks were more attractively pink than any of the dancers'. She
moved her skirts for him to sit by her and waved her handkerchief
idly so that the faint sweet smell of the cologne could reach his
nose. She was proud of the cologne, for no other woman in the room
was wearing any and Frank had noticed it. In a fit of daring he
had whispered to her that she was as pink and fragrant as a rose.

If only he were not so shy! He reminded her of a timid old brown
field rabbit. If only he had the gallantry and ardor of the
Tarleton boys or even the coarse impudence of Rhett Butler. But,
if he possessed those qualities, he'd probably have sense enough to
feel the desperation that lurked just beneath her demurely
fluttering eyelids. As it was, he didn't know enough about women
even to suspect what she was up to. That was her good fortune but
it did not increase her respect for him.



CHAPTER XXXVI


She married Frank Kennedy two weeks later after a whirlwind
courtship which she blushingly told him left her too breathless to
oppose his ardor any longer.

He did not know that during those two weeks she had walked the
floor at night, gritting her teeth at the slowness with which he
took hints and encouragements, praying that no untimely letter from
Suellen would reach him and ruin her plans. She thanked God that
her sister was the poorest of correspondents, delighting to receive
letters and disliking to write them. But there was always a
chance, always a chance, she thought in the long night hours as she
padded back and forth across the cold floor of her bedroom, with
Ellen's faded shawl clutched about her nightdress. Frank did not
know she had received a laconic letter from Will, relating that
Jonas Wilkerson had paid another call at Tara and, finding her gone
to Atlanta, had stormed about until Will and Ashley threw him
bodily off the place. Will's letter hammered into her mind the
fact she knew only too well--that time was getting shorter and
shorter before the extra taxes must be paid. A fierce desperation
drove her as she saw the days slipping by and she wished she might
grasp the hourglass in her hands and keep the sands from running.

But so well did she conceal her feelings, so well did she enact her
role, Frank suspected nothing, saw no more than what lay on the
surface--the pretty and helpless young widow of Charles Hamilton
who greeted him every night in Miss Pittypat's parlor and listened,
breathless with admiration, as he told of future plans for his
store and how much money he expected to make when he was able to
buy the sawmill. Her sweet sympathy and her bright-eyed interest
in every word he uttered were balm upon the wound left by Suellen's
supposed defection. His heart was sore and bewildered at Suellen's
conduct and his vanity, the shy, touchy vanity of a middle-aged
bachelor who knows himself to be unattractive to women, was deeply
wounded. He could not write Suellen, upbraiding her for her
faithlessness; he shrank from the very idea. But he could ease his
heart by talking about her to Scarlett. Without saying a disloyal
word about Suellen, she could tell him she understood how badly her
sister had treated him and what good treatment he merited from a
woman who really appreciated him.

Little Mrs. Hamilton was such a pretty pink-cheeked person,
alternating between melancholy sighs when she thought of her sad
plight, and laughter as gay and sweet as the tinkling of tiny
silver bells when he made small jokes to cheer her. Her green
gown, now neatly cleaned by Mammy, showed off her slender figure
with its tiny waist to perfection, and how bewitching was the faint
fragrance which always clung about her handkerchief and her hair!
It was a shame that such a fine little woman should be alone and
helpless in a world so rough that she didn't even understand its
harshness. No husband nor brother nor even a father now to protect
her. Frank thought the world too rude a place for a lone woman
and, in that idea, Scarlett silently and heartily concurred.

He came to call every night, for the atmosphere of Pitty's house
was pleasant and soothing. Mammy's smile at the front door was the
smile reserved for quality folks, Pitty served him coffee laced
with brandy and fluttered about him and Scarlett hung on his every
utterance. Sometimes in the afternoons he took Scarlett riding
with him in his buggy when he went out on business. These rides
were merry affairs because she asked so many foolish questions--
"just like a woman," he told himself approvingly. He couldn't help
laughing at her ignorance about business matters and she laughed
too, saying: "Well, of course, you can't expect a silly little
woman like me to understand men's affairs."

She made him feel, for the first time in his old-maidish life, that
he was a strong upstanding man fashioned by God in a nobler mold
than other men, fashioned to protect silly helpless women.

When, at last, they stood together to be married, her confiding
little hand in his and her downcast lashes throwing thick black
crescents on her pink cheeks, he still did not know how it all came
about. He only knew he had done something romantic and exciting
for the first time in his life. He, Frank Kennedy, had swept this
lovely creature off her feet and into his strong arms. That was a
heady feeling.

No friend or relative stood up with them at their marriage. The
witnesses were strangers called in from the street. Scarlett had
insisted on that and he had given in, though reluctantly, for he
would have liked his sister and his brother-in-law from Jonesboro
to be with him. And a reception with toasts drunk to the bride in
Miss Pitty's parlor amid happy friends would have been a joy to
him. But Scarlett would not hear of even Miss Pitty being present.

"Just us two, Frank," she begged, squeezing his arm. "Like an
elopement. I always did want to run away and be married! Please,
sweetheart, just for me!"

It was that endearing term, still so new to his ears, and the
bright teardrops which edged her pale green eyes as she looked up
pleadingly at him that won him over. After all, a man had to make
some concessions to his bride, especially about the wedding, for
women set such a store by sentimental things.

And before he knew it, he was married.



Frank gave her the three hundred dollars, bewildered by her sweet
urgency, reluctant at first, because it meant the end of his hope
of buying the sawmill immediately. But he could not see her family
evicted, and his disappointment soon faded at the sight of her
radiant happiness, disappeared entirely at the loving way she "took
on" over his generosity. Frank had never before had a woman "take
on" over him and he came to feel that the money had been well
spent, after all.

Scarlett dispatched Mammy to Tara immediately for the triple
purpose of giving Will the money, announcing her marriage and
bringing Wade to Atlanta. In two days she had a brief note from
Will which she carried about with her and read and reread with
mounting joy. Will wrote that the taxes had been paid and Jonas
Wilkerson "acted up pretty bad" at the news but had made no other
threats so far. Will closed by wishing her happiness, a laconic
formal statement which he qualified in no way. She knew Will
understood what she had done and why she had done it and neither
blamed nor praised. But what must Ashley think? she wondered
feverishly. What must he think of me now, after what I said to him
so short a while ago in the orchard at Tara?

She also had a letter from Suellen, poorly spelled, violent,
abusive, tear splotched, a letter so full of venom and truthful
observations upon her character that she was never to forget it nor
forgive the writer. But even Suellen's words could not dim her
happiness that Tara was safe, at least from immediate danger.

It was hard to realize that Atlanta and not Tara was her permanent
home now. In her desperation to obtain the tax money, no thought
save Tara and the fate which threatened it had any place in her
mind. Even at the moment of marriage, she had not given a thought
to the fact that the price she was paying for the safety of home
was permanent exile from it. Now that the deed was done, she
realized this with a wave of homesickness hard to dispel. But
there it was. She had made her bargain and she intended to stand
by it. And she was so grateful to Frank for saving Tara she felt a
warm affection for him and an equally warm determination that he
should never regret marrying her.

The ladies of Atlanta knew their neighbors' business only slightly
less completely than they knew their own and were far more
interested in it. They all knew that for years Frank Kennedy had
had an "understanding" with Suellen O'Hara. In fact, he had said,
sheepishly, that he expected to get married in the spring. So the
tumult of gossip, surmise and deep suspicion which followed the
announcement of his quiet wedding to Scarlett was not surprising.
Mrs. Merriwether, who never let her curiosity go long unsatisfied
if she could help it, asked him point-blank just what he meant by
marrying one sister when he was betrothed to the other. She
reported to Mrs. Elsing that all the answer she got for her pains
was a silly look. Not even Mrs. Merriwether, doughty soul that she
was, dared to approach Scarlett on the subject. Scarlett seemed
demure and sweet enough these days, but there was a pleased
complacency in her eyes which annoyed people and she carried a chip
on her shoulder which no one cared to disturb.

She knew Atlanta was talking but she did not care. Alter all,
there wasn't anything immoral in marrying a man. Tara was safe.
Let people talk. She had too many other matters to occupy her
mind. The most important was how to make Frank realize, in a
tactful manner, that his store should bring in more money. After
the fright Jonas Wilkerson had given her, she would never rest easy
until she and Frank had some money ahead. And even if no emergency
developed, Frank would need to make more money, if she was going to
save enough for next year's taxes. Moreover, what Frank had said
about the sawmill stuck in her mind. Frank could make lots of
money out of a mill. Anybody could, with lumber selling at such
outrageous prices. She fretted silently because Frank's money had
not been enough to pay the taxes on Tara and buy the mill as well.
And she made up her mind that he had to make more money on the
store somehow, and do it quickly, so he could buy that mill before
some one else snapped it up. She could see it was a bargain.

If she were a man she would have that mill, if she had to mortgage
the store to raise the money. But, when she intimated this
delicately to Frank, the day after they married, he smiled and told
her not to bother her sweet pretty little head about business
matters. It had come as a surprise to him that she even knew what
a mortgage was and, at first, he was amused. But this amusement
quickly passed and a sense of shock took its place in the early
days of their marriage. Once, incautiously, he had told her that
"people" (he was careful not to mention names) owed him money but
could not pay just now and he was, of course, unwilling to press
old friends and gentlefolk. Frank regretted ever mentioning it
for, thereafter, she had questioned him about it again and again.
She had the most charmingly childlike air but she was just curious,
she said, to know who owed him and how much they owed. Frank was
very evasive about the matter. He coughed nervously and waved his
hands and repeated his annoying remark about her sweet pretty
little head.

It had begun to dawn on him that this same sweet pretty little head
was a "good head for figures." In fact, a much better one than his
own and the knowledge was disquieting. He was thunderstruck to
discover that she could swiftly add a long column of figures in her
head when he needed a pencil and paper for more than three figures.
And fractions presented no difficulties to her at all. He felt
there was something unbecoming about a woman understanding
fractions and business matters and he believed that, should a woman
be so unfortunate as to have such unladylike comprehension, she
should pretend not to. Now he disliked talking business with her
as much as he had enjoyed it before they were married. Then he had
thought it all beyond her mental grasp and it had been pleasant to
explain things to her. Now he saw that she understood entirely too
well and he felt the usual masculine indignation at the duplicity
of women. Added to it was the usual masculine disillusionment in
discovering that a woman has a brain.

Just how early in his married life Frank learned of the deception
Scarlett had used in marrying him, no one ever knew. Perhaps the
truth dawned on him when Tony Fontaine, obviously fancy free, came
to Atlanta on business. Perhaps it was told him more directly in
letters from his sister in Jonesboro who was astounded at his
marriage. Certainly he never learned from Suellen herself. She
never wrote him and naturally he could not write her and explain.
What good would explanations do anyway, now that he was married?
He writhed inwardly at the thought that Suellen would never know
the truth and would always think he had senselessly jilted her.
Probably everyone else was thinking this too and criticizing him.
It certainly put him in an awkward position. And he had no way of
clearing himself, for a man couldn't go about saying he had lost
his head about a woman--and a gentleman couldn't advertise the fact
that his wife had entrapped him with a lie.

Scarlett was his wife and a wife was entitled to the loyalty of her
husband. Furthermore, he could not bring himself to believe she
had married him coldly and with no affection for him at all. His
masculine vanity would not permit such a thought to stay long in
his mind. It was more pleasant to think she had fallen so suddenly
in love with him she had been willing to lie to get him. But it
was all very puzzling. He knew he was no great catch for a woman
half his age and pretty and smart to boot, but Frank was a
gentleman and he kept his bewilderment to himself. Scarlett was
his wife and he could not insult her by asking awkward questions
which, after all, would not remedy matters.

Not that Frank especially wanted to remedy matters, for it appeared
that his marriage would be a happy one. Scarlett was the most
charming and exciting of women and he thought her perfect in all
things--except that she was so headstrong. Frank learned early in
his marriage that so long as she had her own way, life could be
very pleasant, but when she was opposed-- Given her own way, she
was as gay as a child, laughed a good deal, made foolish little
jokes, sat on his knee and tweaked his beard until he vowed he felt
twenty years younger. She could be unexpectedly sweet and
thoughtful, having his slippers toasting at the fire when he came
home at night, fussing affectionately about his wet feet and
interminable head colds, remembering that he always liked the
gizzard of the chicken and three spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee.
Yes, life was very sweet and cozy with Scarlett--as long as she had
her own way.



When the marriage was two weeks old, Frank contracted the grippe
and Dr. Meade put him to bed. In the first year of the war, Frank
had spent two months in the hospital with pneumonia and he had
lived in dread of another attack since that time, so he was only
too glad to lie sweating under three blankets and drink the hot
concoctions Mammy and Aunt Pitty brought him every hour.

The illness dragged on and Frank worried more and more about the
store as each day passed. The place was in charge of the counter
boy, who came to the house every night to report on the day's
transactions, but Frank was not satisfied. He fretted until
Scarlett who had only been waiting for such an opportunity laid a
cool hand on his forehead and said: "Now, sweetheart, I shall be
vexed if you take on so. I'll go to town and see how things are."

And she went, smiling as she smothered his feeble protests. During
the three weeks of her new marriage, she had been in a fever to see
his account books and find out just how money matters stood. What
luck that he was bedridden!

The store stood near Five Points, its new roof glaring against the
smoked bricks of the old walls. Wooden awnings covered the
sidewalk to the edge of the street, and at the long iron bars
connecting the uprights horses and mules were hitched, their heads
bowed against the cold misty rain, their backs covered with torn
blankets and quilts. The inside of the store was almost like
Bullard's store in Jonesboro, except that there were no loungers
about the roaring red-hot stove, whittling and spitting streams of
tobacco juice at the sand boxes. It was bigger than Bullard's
store and much darker. The wooden awnings cut off most of the
winter daylight and the interior was dim and dingy, only a trickle
of light coming in through the small fly-specked windows high up on
the side walls. The floor was covered with muddy sawdust and
everywhere was dust and dirt. There was a semblance of order in
the front of the store, where tall shelves rose into the gloom
stacked with bright bolts of cloth, china, cooking utensils and
notions. But in the back, behind the partition, chaos reigned.

Here there was no flooring and the assorted jumble of stock was
piled helter-skelter on the hard-packed earth. In the semi-
darkness she saw boxes and bales of goods, plows and harness and
saddles and cheap pine coffins. Secondhand furniture, ranging from
cheap gum to mahogany and rosewood, reared up in the gloom, and the
rich but worn brocade and horsehair upholstery gleamed incongruously
in the dingy surroundings. China chambers and bowl and pitcher sets
littered the floor and all around the four walls were deep bins, so
dark she had to hold the lamp directly over them to discover they
contained seeds, nails, bolts and carpenters' tools.

"I'd think a man as fussy and old maidish as Frank would keep
things tidier," she thought, scrubbing her grimy hands with her
handkerchief. "This place is a pig pen. What a way to run a
store! If he'd only dust up this stuff and put it out in front
where folks could see it, he could sell things much quicker."

And if his stock was in such condition, what mustn't his accounts
be!

I'll look at his account book now, she thought and, picking up the
lamp, she went into the front of the store. Willie, the counter
boy, was reluctant to give her the large dirty-backed ledger. It
was obvious that, young as he was, he shared Frank's opinion that
women had no place in business. But Scarlett silenced him with a
sharp word and sent him out to get his dinner. She felt better
when he was gone, for his disapproval annoyed her, and she settled
herself in a split-bottomed chair by the roaring stove, tucked one
foot under her and spread the book across her lap. It was dinner
time and the streets were deserted. No customers called and she
had the store to herself.

She turned the pages slowly, narrowly scanning the rows of names
and figures written in Frank's cramped copperplate hand. It was
just as she had expected, and she frowned as she saw this newest
evidence of Frank's lack of business sense. At least five hundred
dollars in debts, some of them months old, were set down against
the names of people she knew well, the Merriwethers and the Elsings
among other familiar names. From Frank's deprecatory remarks about
the money "people" owed him, she had imagined the sums to be small.
But this!

"If they can't pay, why do they keep on buying?" she thought
irritably. "And if he knows they can't pay, why does he keep on
selling them stuff? Lots of them could pay if he'd just make them
do it. The Elsings certainly could if they could give Fanny a new
satin dress and an expensive wedding. Frank's just too soft
hearted, and people take advantage of him. Why, if he'd collected
half this money, he could have bought the sawmill and easily spared
me the tax money, too."

Then she thought: "Just imagine Frank trying to operate a sawmill!
God's nightgown! If he runs this store like a charitable
institution, how could he expect to make money on a mill? The
sheriff would have it in a month. Why, I could run this store
better than he does! And I could run a mill better than he could,
even if I don't know anything about the lumber business!"

A startling thought this, that a woman could handle business
matters as well as or better than a man, a revolutionary thought to
Scarlett who had been reared in the tradition that men were
omniscient and women none too bright. Of course, she had
discovered that this was not altogether true but the pleasant
fiction still stuck in her mind. Never before had she put this
remarkable idea into words. She sat quite still, with the heavy
book across her lap, her mouth a little open with surprise,
thinking that during the lean months at Tara she had done a man's
work and done it well. She had been brought up to believe that a
woman alone could accomplish nothing, yet she had managed the
plantation without men to help her until Will came. Why, why, her
mind stuttered, I believe women could manage everything in the
world without men's help--except having babies, and God knows, no
woman in her right mind would have babies if she could help it.

With the idea that she was as capable as a man came a sudden rush
of pride and a violent longing to prove it, to make money for
herself as men made money. Money which would be her own, which she
would neither have to ask for nor account for to any man.

"I wish I had money enough to buy that mill myself," she said aloud
and sighed. "I'd sure make it hum. And I wouldn't let even one
splinter go out on credit."

She sighed again. There was nowhere she could get any money, so
the idea was out of the question. Frank would simply have to
collect this money owing him and buy the mill. It was a sure way
to make money, and when he got the mill, she would certainly find
some way to make him be more businesslike in its operation than he
had been with the store.

She pulled a back page out of the ledger and began copying the list
of debtors who had made no payments in several months. She'd take
the matter up with Frank just as soon as she reached home. She'd
make him realize that these people had to pay their bills even if
they were old friends, even if it did embarrass him to press them
for money. That would probably upset Frank, for he was timid and
fond of the approbation of his friends. He was so thin skinned
he'd rather lose the money than be businesslike about collecting
it.

And he'd probably tell her that no one had any money with which to
pay him. Well, perhaps that was true. Poverty was certainly no
news to her. But nearly everybody had saved some silver or jewelry
or was hanging on to a little real estate. Frank could take them
in lieu of cash.

She could imagine how Frank would moan when she broached such an
idea to him. Take the jewelry and property of his friends! Well,
she shrugged, he can moan all he likes. I'm going to tell him that
he may be willing to stay poor for friendship's sake but I'm not.
Frank will never get anywhere if he doesn't get up some gumption.
And he's got to get somewhere! He's got to make money, even if
I've got to wear the pants in the family to make him do.

She was writing busily, her face screwed up with the effort, her
tongue clamped between her teeth, when the front door opened and a
great draft of cold wind swept the store. A tall man came into the
dingy room walking with a light Indian-like tread, and looking up
she saw Rhett Butler.

He was resplendent in new clothes and a greatcoat with a dashing
cape thrown back from his heavy shoulders. His tall hat was off in
a deep bow when her eyes met his and his hand went to the bosom of
a spotless pleated shirt. His white teeth gleamed startlingly
against his brown face and his bold eyes raked her.

"My dear Mrs. Kennedy," he said, walking toward her. "My very dear
Mrs. Kennedy!" and he broke into a loud merry laugh.

At first she was as startled as if a ghost had invaded the store
and then, hastily removing her foot from beneath her, she stiffened
her spine and gave him a cold stare.

"What are you doing here?"

"I called on Miss Pittypat and learned of your marriage and so I
hastened here to congratulate you."

The memory of her humiliation at his hands made her go crimson with
shame.

"I don't see how you have the gall to face me!" she cried.

"On the contrary! How have you the gall to face me?"

"Oh, you are the most--"

"Shall we let the bugles sing truce?" he smiled down at her, a wide
flashing smile that had impudence in it but no shame for his own
actions or condemnation for hers. In spite of herself, she had to
smile too, but it was a wry, uncomfortable smile.

"What a pity they didn't hang you!"

"Others share your feeling, I fear. Come, Scarlett, relax. You
look like you'd swallowed a ramrod and it isn't becoming. Surely,
you've had time to recover from my--er--my little joke."

"Joke? Ha! I'll never get over it!"

"Oh, yes, you will. You are just putting on this indignant front
because you think it's proper and respectable. May I sit down?"

"No."

He sank into a chair beside her and grinned.

"I hear you couldn't even wait two weeks for me," he said and gave
a mock sigh. "How fickle is woman!"

When she did not reply he continued.

"Tell me, Scarlett, just between friends--between very old and very
intimate friends--wouldn't it have been wiser to wait until I got
out of jail? Or are the charms of wedlock with old Frank Kennedy
more alluring than illicit relations with me?"

As always when his mockery aroused wrath within her, wrath fought
with laughter at his impudence.

"Don't be absurd."

"And would you mind satisfying my curiosity on one point which has
bothered me for some time? Did you have no womanly repugnance, no
delicate shrinking from marrying not just one man but two for whom
you had no love or even affection? Or have I been misinformed
about the delicacy of our Southern womanhood?"

"Rhett!"

"I have my answer. I always felt that women had a hardness and
endurance unknown to men, despite the pretty idea taught me in
childhood that women are frail, tender, sensitive creatures. But
after all, according to the Continental code of etiquette, it's
very bad form for husband and wife to love each other. Very bad
taste, indeed. I always felt that the Europeans had the right idea
in that matter. Marry for convenience and love for pleasure. A
sensible system, don't you think? You are closer to the old
country than I thought."

How pleasant it would be to shout at him: "I did not marry for
convenience!" But unfortunately, Rhett had her there and any
protest of injured innocence would only bring more barbed remarks
from him.

"How you do run on," she said coolly. Anxious to change the
subject, she asked: "How did you ever get out of jail?"

"Oh, that!" he answered, making an airy gesture. "Not much
trouble. They let me out this morning. I employed a delicate
system of blackmail on a friend in Washington who is quite high in
the councils of the Federal government. A splendid fellow--one of
the staunch Union patriots from whom I used to buy muskets and hoop
skirts for the Confederacy. When my distressing predicament was
brought to his attention in the right way, he hastened to use his
influence, and so I was released. Influence is everything, and
guilt or innocence merely an academic question."

"I'll take oath you weren't innocent."

"No, now that I am free of the toils, I'll frankly admit that I'm
as guilty as Cain. I did kill the nigger. He was uppity to a
lady, and what else could a Southern gentleman do? And while I'm
confessing, I must admit that I shot a Yankee cavalryman after some
words in a barroom. I was not charged with that peccadillo, so
perhaps some other poor devil has been hanged for it, long since."

He was so blithe about his murders her blood chilled. Words of
moral indignation rose to her lips but suddenly she remembered the
Yankee who lay under the tangle of scuppernong vines at Tara. He
had not been on her conscience any more than a roach upon which she
might have stepped. She could not sit in judgment on Rhett when
she was as guilty as he.

"And, as I seem to be making a clean breast of it, I must tell you,
in strictest confidence (that means, don't tell Miss Pittypat!)
that I did have the money, safe in a bank in Liverpool."

"The money?"

"Yes, the money the Yankees were so curious about. Scarlett, it
wasn't altogether meanness that kept me from giving you the money
you wanted. If I'd drawn a draft they could have traced it somehow
and I doubt if you'd have gotten a cent. My only hope lay in doing
nothing. I knew the money was pretty safe, for if worst came to
worst, if they had located it and tried to take it away from me, I
would have named every Yankee patriot who sold me bullets and
machinery during the war. Then there would have been a stink, for
some of them are high up in Washington now. In fact, it was my
threat to unbosom my conscience about them that got me out of jail.
I--"

"Do you mean you--you actually have the Confederate gold?"

"Not all of it. Good Heavens, no! There must be fifty or more ex-
blockaders who have plenty salted away in Nassau and England and
Canada. We will be pretty unpopular with the Confederates who
weren't as slick as we were. I have got close to half a million.
Just think, Scarlett, a half-million dollars, if you'd only
restrained your fiery nature and not rushed into wedlock again!"

A half-million dollars. She felt a pang of almost physical
sickness at the thought of so much money. His jeering words passed
over her head and she did not even hear them. It was hard to
believe there was so much money in all this bitter and poverty-
stricken world. So much money, so very much money, and someone
else had it, someone who took it lightly and didn't need it. And
she had only a sick elderly husband and this dirty, piddling,
little store between her and a hostile world. It wasn't fair that
a reprobate like Rhett Butler should have so much and she, who
carried so heavy a load, should have so little. She hated him,
sitting there in his dandified attire, taunting her. Well, she
wouldn't swell his conceit by complimenting him on his cleverness.
She longed viciously for sharp words with which to cut him.

"I suppose you think it's honest to keep the Confederate money.
Well, it isn't. It's plain out and out stealing and you know it.
I wouldn't have that on my conscience."

"My! How sour the grapes are today!" he exclaimed, screwing up his
face. "And just whom am I stealing from?"

She was silent, trying to think just whom indeed. After all, he
had only done what Frank had done on a small scale.

"Half the money is honestly mine," he continued, "honestly made
with the aid of honest Union patriots who were willing to sell out
the Union behind its back--for one-hundred-per-cent profit on their
goods. Part I made out of my little investment in cotton at the
beginning of the war, the cotton I bought cheap and sold for a
dollar a pound when the British mills were crying for it. Part I
got from food speculation. Why should I let the Yankees have the
fruits of my labor? But the rest did belong to the Confederacy.
It came from Confederate cotton which I managed to run through the
blockade and sell in Liverpool at sky-high prices. The cotton was
given me in good faith to buy leather and rifles and machinery
with. And it was taken by me in good faith to buy the same. My
orders were to leave the gold in English banks, under my own name,
in order that my credit would be good. You remember when the
blockade tightened, I couldn't get a boat out of any Confederate
port or into one, so there the money stayed in England. What should
I have done? Drawn out all that gold from English banks, like a
simpleton, and tried to run it into Wilmington? And let the Yankees
capture it? Was it my fault that the blockade got too tight? Was
it my fault that our Cause failed? The money belonged to the
Confederacy. Well, there is no Confederacy now--though you'd never
know it, to hear some people talk. Whom shall I give the money to?
The Yankee government? I should so hate for people to think me a
thief."

He removed a leather case from his pocket, extracted a long cigar
and smelled it approvingly, meanwhile watching her with pseudo
anxiety as if he hung on her words.

Plague take him, she thought, he's always one jump ahead of me.
There is always something wrong with his arguments but I never can
put my finger on just what it is.

"You might," she said with dignity, "distribute it to those who
are in need. The Confederacy is gone but there are plenty of
Confederates and their families who are starving."

He threw back his bead and laughed rudely.

"You are never so charming or so absurd as when you are airing some
hypocrisy like that," he cried in frank enjoyment. "Always tell
the truth, Scarlett. You can't lie. The Irish are the poorest
liars in the world. Come now, be frank. You never gave a damn
about the late lamented Confederacy and you care less about the
starving Confederates. You'd scream in protest if I even suggested
giving away all the money unless I started off by giving you the
lion's share."

"I don't want your money," she began, trying to be coldly dignified.

"Oh, don't you! Your palm is itching to beat the band this minute.
If I showed you a quarter, you'd leap on it."

"If you have come here to insult me and laugh at my poverty, I will
wish you good day," she retorted, trying to rid her lap of the
heavy ledger so she might rise and make her words more impressive.
Instantly, he was on his feet bending over her, laughing as he
pushed her back into her chair.

"When will you ever get over losing your temper when you hear the
truth? You never mind speaking the truth about other people, so
why should you mind hearing it about yourself? I'm not insulting
you. I think acquisitiveness is a very fine quality."

She was not sure what acquisitiveness meant but as he praised it
she felt slightly mollified.

"I didn't come to gloat over your poverty but to wish you long life
and happiness in your marriage. By the way, what did sister Sue
think of your larceny?"

"My what?"

"Your stealing Frank from under her nose."

"I did not--"

"Well, we won't quibble about the word. What did she say?"

"She said nothing," said Scarlett. His eyes danced as they gave
her the lie.

"How unselfish of her. Now, let's hear about your poverty. Surely
I have the right to know, after your little trip out to the jail
not long ago. Hasn't Frank as much money as you hoped?"

There was no evading his impudence. Either she would have to put
up with it or ask him to leave. And now she did not want him to
leave. His words were barbed but they were the barbs of truth. He
knew what she had done and why she had done it and he did not seem
to think the less of her for it. And though his questions were
unpleasantly blunt, they seemed actuated by a friendly interest.
He was one person to whom she could tell the truth. That would be
a relief, for it had been so long since she had told anyone the
truth about herself and her motives. Whenever she spoke her mind
everyone seemed to be shocked. Talking to Rhett was comparable
only to one thing, the feeling of ease and comfort afforded by a
pair of old slippers after dancing in a pair too tight.

"Didn't you get the money for the taxes? Don't tell me the wolf is
still at the door of Tara." There was a different tone in his
voice.

She looked up to meet his dark eyes and caught an expression which
startled and puzzled her at first, and then made her suddenly
smile, a sweet and charming smile which was seldom on her face
these days. What a perverse wretch he was, but how nice he could
be at times! She knew now that the real reason for his call was
not to tease her but to make sure she had gotten the money for
which she had been so desperate. She knew now that he had hurried
to her as soon as he was released, without the slightest appearance
of hurry, to lend her the money if she still needed it. And yet he
would torment and insult her and deny that such was his intent,
should she accuse him. He was quite beyond all comprehension. Did
he really care about her, more than he was willing to admit? Or
did he have some other motive? Probably the latter, she thought.
But who could tell? He did such strange things sometimes.

"No," she said, "the wolf isn't at the door any longer. I--I got
the money."

"But not without a struggle, I'll warrant. Did you manage to
restrain yourself until you got the wedding ring on your finger?"

She tried not to smile at his accurate summing up of her conduct
but she could not help dimpling. He seated himself again,
sprawling his long legs comfortably.

"Well, tell me about your poverty. Did Frank, the brute, mislead
you about his prospects? He should be soundly thrashed for taking
advantage of a helpless female. Come, Scarlett, tell me
everything. You should have no secrets from me. Surely, I know
the worst about you."

"Oh, Rhett, you're the worst--well, I don't know what! No, he
didn't exactly fool me but--" Suddenly it became a pleasure to
unburden herself. "Rhett, if Frank would just collect the money
people owe him, I wouldn't be worried about anything. But, Rhett,
fifty people owe him and he won't press them. He's so thin
skinned. He says a gentleman can't do that to another gentleman.
And it may be months and may be never before we get the money."

"Well, what of it? Haven't you enough to eat on until he does
collect?"

"Yes, but--well, as a matter of fact, I could use a little money
right now." Her eyes brightened as she thought of the mill.
"Perhaps--"

"What for? More taxes?"

"Is that any of your business?"

"Yes, because you are getting ready to touch me for a loan. Oh, I
know all the approaches. And I'll lend it to you--without, my dear
Mrs. Kennedy, that charming collateral you offered me a short while
ago. Unless, of course, you insist."

"You are the coarsest--"

"Not at all. I merely wanted to set your mind at ease. I knew
you'd be worried about that point. Not much worried but a little.
And I'm willing to lend you the money. But I do want to know how
you are going to spend it. I have that right, I believe. If it's
to buy you pretty frocks or a carriage, take it with my blessing.
But if it's to buy a new pair of breeches for Ashley Wilkes, I fear
I must decline to lend it."

She was hot with sudden rage and she stuttered until words came.

"Ashley Wilkes has never taken a cent from me! I couldn't make him
take a cent if he were starving! You don't understand him, how
honorable, how proud he is! Of course, you can't understand him,
being what you are--"

"Don't let's begin calling names. I could call you a few that
would match any you could think of for me. You forget that I have
been keeping up with you through Miss Pittypat, and the dear soul
tells all she knows to any sympathetic listener. I know that
Ashley has been at Tara ever since he came home from Rock Island.
I know that you have even put up with having his wife around, which
must have been a strain on you."

"Ashley is--"

"Oh, yes," he said, waving his hand negligently. "Ashley is too
sublime for my earthy comprehension. But please don't forget I was
an interested witness to your tender scene with him at Twelve Oaks
and something tells me he hasn't changed since then. And neither
have you. He didn't cut so sublime a figure that day, if I
remember rightly. And I don't think the figure he cuts now is much
better. Why doesn't he take his family and get out and find work?
And stop living at Tara? Of course, it's just a whim of mine, but
I don't intend to lend you a cent for Tara to help support him.
Among men, there's a very unpleasant name for men who permit women
to support them."

"How dare you say such things? He's been working like a field
hand!" For all her rage, her heart was wrung by the memory of
Ashley splitting fence rails.

"And worth his weight in gold, I dare say. What a hand he must be
with the manure and--"

"He's--"

"Oh, yes, I know. Let's grant that he does the best he can but I
don't imagine he's much help. You'll never make a farm hand out of
a Wilkes--or anything else that's useful. The breed is purely
ornamental. Now, quiet your ruffled feathers and overlook my
boorish remarks about the proud and honorable Ashley. Strange how
these illusions will persist even in women as hard headed as you
are. How much money do you want and what do you want it for?"

When she did not answer he repeated:

"What do you want it for? And see if you can manage to tell me the
truth. It will do as well as a lie. In fact, better, for if you
lie to me, I'll be sure to find it out, and think how embarrassing
that would be. Always remember this, Scarlett, I can stand
anything from you but a lie--your dislike for me, your tempers, all
your vixenish ways, but not a lie. Now what do you want it for?"

Raging as she was at his attack on Ashley, she would have given
anything to spit on him and throw his offer of money proudly into
his mocking face. For a moment she almost did, but the cold hand
of common sense held her back. She swallowed her anger with poor
grace and tried to assume an expression of pleasant dignity. He
leaned back in his chair, stretching his legs toward the stove.

"If there's one thing in the world that gives me more amusement
than anything else," he remarked, "it's the sight of your mental
struggles when a matter of principle is laid up against something
practical like money. Of course, I know the practical in you will
always win, but I keep hanging around to see if your better nature
won't triumph some day. And when that day comes I shall pack my
bag and leave Atlanta forever. There are too many women whose
better natures are always triumphing. . . . Well, let's get back
to business. How much and what for?"

"I don't know quite how much I'll need," she said sulkily. "But I
want to buy a sawmill--and I think I can get it cheap. And I'll
need two wagons and two mules. I want good mules, too. And a
horse and buggy for my own use."

"A sawmill?"

"Yes, and if you'll lend me the money, I'll give you a half-
interest in it."

"Whatever would I do with a sawmill?"

"Make money! We can make loads of money. Or I'll pay you interest
on the loan--let's see, what is good interest?"

"Fifty per cent is considered very fine."

"Fifty--oh, but you are joking! Stop laughing, you devil. I'm
serious."

"That's why I'm laughing. I wonder if anyone but me realizes what
goes on in that head back of your deceptively sweet face."

"Well, who cares? Listen, Rhett, and see if this doesn't sound
like good business to you. Frank told me about this man who has a
sawmill, a little one out Peachtree road, and he wants to sell it.
He's got to have cash money pretty quick and he'll sell it cheap.
There aren't many sawmills around here now, and the way people are
rebuilding--why, we could sell lumber sky high. The man will stay
and run the mill for a wage. Frank told me about it. Frank would
buy the mill himself if he had the money. I guess he was intending
buying it with the money he gave me for the taxes."

"Poor Frank! What is he going to say when you tell him you've
bought it yourself right out from under him? And how are you going
to explain my lending you the money without compromising your
reputation?"

Scarlett had given no thought to this, so intent was she upon the
money the mill would bring in.

"Well, I just won't tell him."

"He'll know you didn't pick it off a bush."

"I'll tell him--why, yes, I'll tell him I sold you my diamond
earbobs. And I will give them to you, too. That'll be my collat--
my whatchucallit."

"I wouldn't take your earbobs."

"I don't want them. I don't like them. They aren't really mine,
anyway."

"Whose are they?"

Her mind went swiftly back to the still hot noon with the country
hush deep about Tara and the dead man in blue sprawled in the hall.

"They were left with me--by someone who's dead. They're mine all
right. Take them. I don't want them. I'd rather have the money
for them."

"Good Lord!" he cried impatiently. "Don't you ever think of
anything but money?"

"No," she replied frankly, turning hard green eyes upon him. "And
if you'd been through what I have, you wouldn't either. I've found
out that money is the most important thing in the world and, as God
is my witness, I don't ever intend to be without it again."

She remembered the hot sun, the soft red earth under her sick head,
the niggery smell of the cabin behind the ruins of Twelve Oaks,
remembered the refrain her heart had beaten: "I'll never be hungry
again. I'll never be hungry again."

"I'm going to have money some day, lots of it, so I can have
anything I want to eat. And then there'll never be any hominy or
dried peas on my table. And I'm going to have pretty clothes and
all of them are going to be silk--"

"All?"

"All," she said shortly, not even troubling to blush at his
implication. "I'm going to have money enough so the Yankees can
never take Tara away from me. And I'm going to have a new roof for
Tara and a new barn and fine mules for plowing and more cotton than
you ever saw. And Wade isn't ever going to know what it means to
do without the things he needs. Never! He's going to have
everything in the world. And all my family, they aren't ever going
to be hungry again. I mean it. Every word. You don't understand,
you're such a selfish hound. You've never had the Carpetbaggers
trying to drive you out. You've never been cold and ragged and had
to break your back to keep from starving!"

He said quietly: "I was in the Confederate Army for eight months.
I don't know any better place for starving."

"The army! Bah! You've never had to pick cotton and weed corn.
You've-- Don't you laugh at me!"

His hands were on hers again as her voice rose harshly.

"I wasn't laughing at you. I was laughing at the difference in
what you look and what you really are. And I was remembering the
first time I ever saw you, at the barbecue at the Wilkes'. You had
on a green dress and little green slippers, and you were knee deep
in men and quite full of yourself. I'll wager you didn't know then
how many pennies were in a dollar. There was only one idea in your
whole mind then and that was ensnaring Ash--"

She jerked her hands away from him.

"Rhett, if we are to get on at all, you'll have to stop talking
about Ashley Wilkes. We'll always fall out about him, because you
can't understand him."

"I suppose you understand him like a book," said Rhett maliciously.
"No, Scarlett, if I am to lend you the money I reserve the right to
discuss Ashley Wilkes in any terms I care to. I waive the right to
collect interest on my loan but not that right. And there are a
number of things about that young man I'd like to know."

"I do not have to discuss him with you," she answered shortly.

"Oh, but you do! I hold the purse strings, you see. Some day when
you are rich, you can have the power to do the same to others. . . .
It's obvious that you still care about him--"

"I do not."

"Oh, it's so obvious from the way you rush to his defense. You--"

"I won't stand having my friends sneered at."

"Well, we'll let that pass for the moment. Does he still care for
you or did Rock Island make him forget? Or perhaps he's learned to
appreciate what a jewel of a wife he has?"

At the mention of Melanie, Scarlett began to breathe hard and could
scarcely restrain herself from crying out the whole story, that
only honor kept Ashley with Melanie. She opened her mouth to speak
and then closed it.

"Oh. So he still hasn't enough sense to appreciate Mrs. Wilkes?
And the rigors of prison didn't dim his ardor for you?"

"I see no need to discuss the subject."

"I wish to discuss it," said Rhett. There was a low note in his
voice which Scarlett did not understand but did not like to hear.
"And, by God, I will discuss it and I expect you to answer me. So
he's still in love with you?"

"Well, what if he is?" cried Scarlett, goaded. "I don't care to
discuss him with you because you can't understand him or his kind
of love. The only kind of love you know about is just--well, the
kind you carry on with creatures like that Watling woman."

"Oh," said Rhett softly. "So I am only capable of carnal lusts?"

"Well, you know it's true."

"Now I appreciate your hesitance in discussing the matter with me.
My unclean hands and lips besmirch the purity of his love."

"Well, yes--something like that."

"I'm interested in this pure love--"

"Don't be so nasty, Rhett Butler. If you are vile enough to think
there's ever been anything wrong between us--"

"Oh, the thought never entered my head, really. That's why it all
interests me. Just why hasn't there been anything wrong between
you?"

"If you think that Ashley would--"

"Ah, so it's Ashley, and not you, who has fought the fight for
purity. Really, Scarlett, you should not give yourself away so
easily."

Scarlett looked into his smooth unreadable face in confusion and
indignation.

"We won't go any further with this and I don't want your money.
So, get out!"

"Oh, yes, you do want my money and, as we've gone this far, why
stop? Surely there can be no harm in discussing so chaste an idyl--
when there hasn't been anything wrong. So Ashley loves you for
your mind, your soul, your nobility of character?"

Scarlett writhed at his words. Of course, Ashley loved her for
just these things. It was this knowledge that made life endurable,
this knowledge that Ashley, bound by honor, loved her from afar for
beautiful things deep buried in her that he alone could see. But
they did not seem so beautiful when dragged to the light by Rhett,
especially in that deceptively smooth voice that covered sarcasm.

"It gives me back my boyish ideals to know that such a love can
exist in this naughty world," he continued. "So there's no touch
of the flesh in his love for you? It would be the same if you were
ugly and didn't have that white skin? And if you didn't have those
green eyes which make a man wonder just what you would do if he
took you in his arms? And a way of swaying your hips, that's an
allurement to any man under ninety? And those lips which are--
well, I mustn't let my carnal lusts obtrude. Ashley sees none of
these things? Or if he sees them, they move him not at all?"

Unbidden, Scarlett's mind went back to that day in the orchard when
Ashley's arms shook as he held her, when his mouth was hot on hers
as if he would never let her go. She went crimson at the memory
and her blush was not lost on Rhett.

"So," he said and there was a vibrant note almost like anger in his
voice. "I see. He loves you for your mind alone."

How dare he pry with dirty fingers, making the one beautiful sacred
thing in her life seem vile? Coolly, determinedly, he was breaking
down the last of her reserves and the information he wanted was
forthcoming.

"Yes, he does!" she cried, pushing back the memory of Ashley's
lips.

"My dear, he doesn't even know you've got a mind. If it was your
mind that attracted him, he would not need to struggle against you,
as he must have done to keep this love so--shall we say 'holy'? He
could rest easily for, after all, a man can admire a woman's mind
and soul and still be an honorable gentleman and true to his wife.
But it must be difficult for him to reconcile the honor of the
Wilkeses with coveting your body as he does."

"You judge everybody's mind by your own vile one!"

"Oh, I've never denied coveting you, if that's what you mean. But,
thank God, I'm not bothered about matters of honor. What I want I
take if I can get it, and so I wrestle neither with angels nor
devils. What a merry hell you must have made for Ashley! Almost I
can be sorry for him."

"I--I make a hell for him?"

"Yes, you! There you are, a constant temptation to him, but like
most of his breed he prefers what passes in these parts as honor to
any amount of love. And it looks to me as if the poor devil now
had neither love nor honor to warm himself!"

"He has love! . . . I mean, he loves me!"

"Does he? Then answer me this and we are through for the day and
you can take the money and throw it in the gutter for all I care."

Rhett rose to his feet and threw his half-smoked cigar into the
spittoon. There was about his movements the same pagan freedom and
leashed power Scarlett had noted that night Atlanta fell, something
sinister and a little frightening. "If he loved you, then why in
hell did he permit you to come to Atlanta to get the tax money?
Before I'd let a woman I loved do that, I'd--"

"He didn't know! He had no idea that I--"

"Doesn't it occur to you that he should have known?" There was
barely suppressed savagery in his voice. "Loving you as you say he
does, he should have known just what you would do when you were
desperate. He should have killed you rather than let you come up
here--and to me, of all people! God in Heaven!"

"But he didn't know!"

"If he didn't guess it without being told, he'll never know
anything about you and your precious mind."

How unfair he was! As if Ashley was a mind reader! As if Ashley
could have stopped her, even had he known! But, she knew suddenly,
Ashley could have stopped her. The faintest intimation from him,
in the orchard, that some day things might be different and she
would never have thought of going to Rhett. A word of tenderness,
even a parting caress when she was getting on the train, would have
held her back. But he had only talked of honor. Yet--was Rhett
right? Should Ashley have known her mind? Swiftly she put the
disloyal thought from her. Of course, he didn't suspect. Ashley
would never suspect that she would even think of doing anything so
immoral. Ashley was too fine to have such thoughts. Rhett was
just trying to spoil her love. He was trying to tear down what was
most precious to her. Some day, she thought viciously, when the
store was on its feet and the mill doing nicely and she had money,
she would make Rhett Butler pay for the misery and humiliation he
was causing her.

He was standing over her, looking down at her, faintly amused. The
emotion which had stirred him was gone.

"What does it all matter to you anyway?" she asked. "It's my
business and Ashley's and not yours."

He shrugged.

"Only this. I have a deep and impersonal admiration for your
endurance, Scarlett, and I do not like to see your spirit crushed
beneath too many millstones. There's Tara. That's a man-sized job
in itself. There's your sick father added on. He'll never be any
help to you. And the girls and the darkies. And now you've taken
on a husband and probably Miss Pittypat, too. You've enough
burdens without Ashley Wilkes and his family on your hands."

"He's not on my hands. He helps--"

"Oh, for God's sake," he said impatiently. "Don't let's have any
more of that. He's no help. He's on your hands and he'll be on
them, or on somebody's, till he dies. Personally, I'm sick of him
as a topic of conversation. . . . How much money do you want?"

Vituperative words rushed to her lips. After all his insults,
after dragging from her those things which were most precious to
her and trampling on them, he still thought she would take his
money!

But the words were checked unspoken. How wonderful it would be to
scorn his offer and order him out of the store! But only the truly
rich and the truly secure could afford this luxury. So long as she
was poor, just so long would she have to endure such scenes as
this. But when she was rich--oh, what a beautiful warming thought
that was!--when she was rich, she wouldn't stand anything she
didn't like, do without anything she desired or even be polite to
people unless they pleased her.

I shall tell them all to go to Halifax, she thought, and Rhett
Butler will be the first one!

The pleasure in the thought brought a sparkle into her green eyes
and a half-smile to her lips. Rhett smiled too.

"You're a pretty person, Scarlett," he said. "Especially when you
are meditating devilment. And just for the sight of that dimple
I'll buy you a baker's dozen of mules if you want them."

The front door opened and the counter boy entered, picking his
teeth with a quill. Scarlett rose, pulled her shawl about her and
tied her bonnet strings firmly under her chin. Her mind was made
up.

"Are you busy this afternoon? Can you come with me now?" she
asked.

"Where?"

"I want you to drive to the mill with me. I promised Frank I
wouldn't drive out of town by myself."

"To the mill in this rain?"

"Yes, I want to buy that mill now, before you change your mind."

He laughed so loudly the boy behind the counter started and looked
at him curiously.

"Have you forgotten you are married? Mrs. Kennedy can't afford to
be seen driving out into the country with that Butler reprobate,
who isn't received in the best parlors. Have you forgotten your
reputation?"

"Reputation, fiddle-dee-dee! I want that mill before you change
your mind or Frank finds out that I'm buying it. Don't be a slow
poke, Rhett. What's a little rain? Let's hurry."



That sawmill! Frank groaned every time he thought of it, cursing
himself for ever mentioning it to her. It was bad enough for her
to sell her earrings to Captain Butler (of all people!) and buy the
mill without even consulting her own husband about it, but it was
worse still that she did not turn it over to him to operate. That
looked bad. As if she did not trust him or his judgment.

Frank, in common with all men he knew, felt that a wife should be
guided by her husband's superior knowledge, should accept his
opinions in full and have none of her own. He would have given
most women their own way. Women were such funny little creatures
and it never hurt to humor their small whims. Mild and gentle by
nature, it was not in him to deny a wife much. He would have
enjoyed gratifying the foolish notions of some soft little person
and scolding her lovingly for her stupidity and extravagance. But
the things Scarlett set her mind on were unthinkable.

That sawmill, for example. It was the shock of his life when she
told him with a sweet smile, in answer to his questions, that she
intended to run it herself. "Go into the lumber business myself,"
was the way she put it. Frank would never forget the horror of
that moment. Go into business for herself! It was unthinkable.
There were no women in business in Atlanta. In fact, Frank had
never heard of a woman in business anywhere. If women were so
unfortunate as to be compelled to make a little money to assist
their families in these hard times, they made it in quiet womanly
ways--baking as Mrs. Merriwether was doing, or painting china and
sewing and keeping boarders, like Mrs. Elsing and Fanny, or
teaching school like Mrs. Meade or giving music lessons like Mrs.
Bonnell. These ladies made money but they kept themselves at home
while they did it, as a woman should. But for a woman to leave the
protection of her home and venture out into the rough world of men,
competing with them in business, rubbing shoulders with them, being
exposed to insult and gossip. . . . Especially when she wasn't
forced to do it, when she had a husband amply able to provide for
her!

Frank had hoped she was only teasing or playing a joke on him, a
joke of questionable taste, but he soon found she meant what she
said. She did operate the sawmill. She rose earlier than he did
to drive out Peachtree road and frequently did not come home until
long after he had locked up the store and returned to Aunt Pitty's
for supper. She drove the long miles to the mill with only the
disapproving Uncle Peter to protect her and the woods were full of
free niggers and Yankee riffraff. Frank couldn't go with her, the
store took all of his time, but when he protested, she said
shortly: "If I don't keep an eye on that slick scamp, Johnson,
he'll steal my lumber and sell it and put the money in his pocket.
When I can get a good man to run the mill for me, then I won't have
to go out there so often. Then I can spend my time in town selling
lumber."

Selling lumber in town! That was worst of all. She frequently did
take a day off from the mill and peddle lumber and, on those days,
Frank wished he could hide in the dark back room of his store and
see no one. His wife selling lumber!

And people were talking terrible about her. Probably about him
too, for permitting her to behave in so unwomanly a fashion. It
embarrassed him to face his customers over the counter and hear
them say: "I saw Mrs. Kennedy a few minutes ago over at . . ."
Everyone took pains to tell him what she did. Everyone was talking
about what happened over where the new hotel was being built.
Scarlett had driven up just as Tommy Wellburn was buying some
lumber from another man and she climbed down out of the buggy among
the rough Irish masons who were laying the foundations, and told
Tommy briefly that he was being cheated. She said her lumber was
better and cheaper too, and to prove it she ran up a long column of
figures in her head and gave him an estimate then and there. It
was bad enough that she had intruded herself among strange rough
workmen, but it was still worse for a woman to show publicly that
she could do mathematics like that. When Tommy accepted her
estimate and gave her the order, Scarlett had not taken her
departure speedily and meekly but had idled about, talking to
Johnnie Gallegher, the foreman of the Irish workers, a hard-bitten
little gnome of a man who had a very bad reputation. The town
talked about it for weeks.

On top of everything else, she was actually making money out of the
mill, and no man could feel right about a wife who succeeded in so
unwomanly an activity. Nor did she turn over the money or any part
of it to him to use in the store. Most of it went to Tara and she
wrote interminable letters to Will Benteen telling him just how it
should be spent. Furthermore, she told Frank that if the repairs
at Tara could ever be completed, she intended to lend out her money
on mortgages.

"My! My!" moaned Frank whenever he thought of this. A woman had
no business even knowing what a mortgage was.

Scarlett was full of plans these days and each one of them seemed
worse to Frank than the previous one. She even talked of building
a saloon on the property where her warehouse had been until Sherman
burned it. Frank was no teetotaler but he feverishly protested
against the idea. Owning saloon property was a bad business,
an unlucky business, almost as bad as renting to a house of
prostitution. Just why it was bad, he could not explain to her
and to his lame arguments she said "Fiddle-dee-dee!"

"Saloons are always good tenants. Uncle Henry said so," she told
him. "They always pay their rent and, look here, Frank, I could
put up a cheap salon out of poor-grade lumber I can't sell and get
good rent for it, and with the rent money and the money from the
mill and what I could get from mortgages, I could buy some more
sawmills."

"Sugar, you don't need any more sawmills!" cried Frank, appalled.
"What you ought to do is sell the one you've got. It's wearing you
out and you know what trouble you have keeping free darkies at work
there--"

"Free darkies are certainly worthless," Scarlett agreed, completely
ignoring his hint that she should sell. "Mr. Johnson says he never
knows when he comes to work in the morning whether he'll have a
full crew or not. You just can't depend on the darkies any more.
They work a day or two and then lay off till they've spent their
wages, and the whole crew is like as not to quit overnight. The
more I see of emancipation the more criminal I think it is. It's
just ruined the darkies. Thousands of them aren't working at all
and the ones we can get to work at the mill are so lazy and
shiftless they aren't worth having. And if you so much as swear at
them, much less hit them a few licks for the good of their souls,
the Freedmen's Bureau is down on you like a duck on a June bug."

"Sugar, you aren't letting Mr. Johnson beat those--"

"Of course not," she returned impatiently. "Didn't I just say the
Yankees would put me in jail if I did?"

"I'll bet your pa never hit a darky a lick in his life," said
Frank.

"Well, only one. A stable boy who didn't rub down his horse after
a day's hunt. But, Frank; it was different then. Free issue
niggers are something else, and a good whipping would do some of
them a lot of good."

Frank was not only amazed at his wife's views and her plans but at
the change which had come over her in the few months since their
marriage. This wasn't the soft, sweet, feminine person he had
taken to wife. In the brief period of the courtship, he thought he
had never known a woman more attractively feminine in her reactions
to life, ignorant, timid and helpless. Now her reactions were all
masculine. Despite her pink cheeks and dimples and pretty smiles,
she talked and acted like a man. Her voice was brisk and decisive
and she made up her mind instantly and with no girlish shilly-
shallying. She knew what she wanted and she went after it by the
shortest route, like a man, not by the hidden and circuitous routes
peculiar to women.

It was not that Frank had never seen commanding women before this.
Atlanta, like all Southern towns, had its share of dowagers whom no
one cared to cross. No one could be more dominating than stout
Mrs. Merriwether, more imperious than frail Mrs. Elsing, more
artful in securing her own ends than the silver-haired sweet-voiced
Mrs. Whiting. But no matter what devices these ladies employed in
order to get their own way, they were always feminine devices.
They made a point of being deferential to men's opinions, whether
they were guided by them or not. They had the politeness to appear
to be guided by what men said, and that was what mattered. But
Scarlett was guided by no one but herself and was conducting her
affairs in a masculine way which had the whole town talking about
her.

"And," thought Frank miserably, "probably talking about me too, for
letting her act so unwomanly."

Then, there was that Butler man. His frequent calls at Aunt
Pitty's house were the greatest humiliation of all. Frank had
always disliked him, even when he had done business with him before
the war. He often cursed the day he had brought Rhett to Twelve
Oaks and introduced him to his friends. He despised him for the
cold-blooded way he had acted in his speculations during the war
and for the fact that he had not been in the army. Rhett's eight
months' service with the Confederacy was known only to Scarlett,
for Rhett had begged her, with mock fear, not to reveal his "shame"
to anyone. Most of all Frank had contempt for him for holding on
to the Confederate gold, when honest men like Admiral Bulloch and
others confronted with the same situation had turned back thousands
to the Federal treasury. But whether Frank liked it or not, Rhett
was a frequent caller.

Ostensibly it was Miss Pitty he came to see and she had no better
sense than to believe it and give herself airs over his visits.
But Frank had an uncomfortable feeling that Miss Pitty was not the
attraction which brought him. Little Wade was very fond of him,
though the boy was shy of most people, and even called him "Uncle
Rhett," which annoyed Frank. And Frank could not help remembering
that Rhett had squired Scarlett about during the war days and there
had been talk about them then. He imagined there might be even
worse talk about them now. None of his friends had the courage to
mention anything of this sort to Frank, for all their outspoken
words on Scarlett's conduct in the matter of the mill. But he
could not help noticing that he and Scarlett were less frequently
invited to meals and parties and fewer and fewer people came to
call on them. Scarlett disliked most of her neighbors and was too
busy with her mill to care about seeing the ones she did like, so
the lack of calls did not disturb her. But Frank felt it keenly.

All of his life, Frank had been under the domination of the phrase
"What will the neighbors say?" and he was defenseless against the
shocks of his wife's repeated disregard of the proprieties. He
felt that everyone disapproved of Scarlett and was contemptuous of
him for permitting her to "unsex herself." She did so many things
a husband should not permit, according to his views, but if he
ordered her to stop them, argued or even criticized, a storm broke
on his head.

"My! My!" he thought helplessly. "She can get mad quicker and
stay mad longer than any woman I ever saw!"

Even at the times when things were most pleasant, it was amazing
how completely and how quickly the teasing, affectionate wife who
hummed to herself as she went about the house could be transformed
into an entirely different person. He had only to say: "Sugar, if
I were you, I wouldn't--" and the tempest would break.

Her black brows rushed together to meet in a sharp angle over her
nose and Frank cowered, almost visibly. She had the temper of a
Tartar and the rages of a wild cat and, at such times, she did not
seem to care what she said or how much it hurt. Clouds of gloom
hung over the house on such occasions. Frank went early to the
store and stayed late. Pitty scrambled into her bedroom like a
rabbit panting for its burrow. Wade and Uncle Peter retired to the
carriage house and Cookie kept to her kitchen and forebore to raise
her voice to praise the Lord in song. Only Mammy endured
Scarlett's temper with equanimity and Mammy had had many years of
training with Gerald O'Hara and his explosions.

Scarlett did not mean to be short tempered and she really wanted to
make Frank a good wife, for she was fond of him and grateful for
his help in saving Tara. But he did try her patience to the
breaking point so often and in so many different ways.

She could never respect a man who let her run over him and the
timid, hesitant attitude he displayed in any unpleasant situation,
with her or with others, irritated her unbearably. But she could
have overlooked these things and even been happy, now that some of
her money problems were being solved, except for her constantly
renewed exasperation growing out of the many incidents which showed
that Frank was neither a good business man nor did he want her to
be a good business man.

As she expected, he had refused to collect the unpaid bills until
she prodded him into it, and then he had done it apologetically and
half heartedly. That experience was the final evidence she needed
to show her that the Kennedy family would never have more than a
bare living, unless she personally made the money she was
determined to have. She knew now that Frank would be contented to
dawdle along with his dirty little store for the rest of his life.
He didn't seem to realize what a slender fingerhold they had on
security and how important it was to make more money in these
troublous times when money was the only protection against fresh
calamities.

Frank might have been a successful business man in the easy days
before the war but he was so annoyingly old-fashioned, she thought,
and so stubborn about wanting to do things in the old ways, when
the old ways and the old days were gone. He was utterly lacking in
the aggressiveness needed in these new bitter times. Well, she had
the aggressiveness and she intended to use it, whether Frank liked
it or not. They needed money and she was making money and it was
hard work. The very least Frank could do, in her opinion, was not
to interfere with her plans which were getting results.

With her inexperience, operating the new mill was no easy job and
competition was keener now than it had been at first, so she was
usually tired and worried and cross when she came home at nights.
And when Frank would cough apologetically and say: "Sugar, I
wouldn't do this," or "I wouldn't do that, Sugar, if I were you,"
it was all she could do to restrain herself from flying into a
rage, and frequently she did not restrain herself. If he didn't
have the gumption to get out and make some money, why was he always
finding fault with her? And the things he nagged her about were so
silly! What difference did it make in times like these if she was
being unwomanly? Especially when her unwomanly sawmill was
bringing in money they needed so badly, she and the family and
Tara, and Frank too.

Frank wanted rest and quiet. The war in which he had served so
conscientiously had wrecked his health, cost him his fortune and
made him an old man. He regretted none of these things and after
four years of war, all he asked of life was peace and kindliness,
loving faces about him and the approval of friends. He soon found
that domestic peace had its price, and that price was letting
Scarlett have her own way, no matter what she might wish to do.
So, because he was tired, he bought peace at her own terms.
Sometimes, he thought it was worth it to have her smiling when she
opened the front door in the cold twilights, kissing him on the ear
or the nose or some other inappropriate place, to feel her head
snuggling drowsily on his shoulder at night under warm quilts.
Home life could be so pleasant when Scarlett was having her own
way. But the peace he gained was hollow, only an outward
semblance, for he had purchased it at the cost of everything he
held to be right in married life.

"A woman ought to pay more attention to her home and her family and
not be gadding about like a man," he thought. "Now, if she just
had a baby--"

He smiled when he thought of a baby and he thought of a baby very
often. Scarlett had been most outspoken about not wanting a child,
but then babies seldom waited to be invited. Frank knew that many
women said they didn't want babies but that was all foolishness and
fear. If Scarlett had a baby, she would love it and be content to
stay home and tend it like other women. Then she would be forced
to sell the mill and his problems would be ended. All women needed
babies to make them completely happy and Frank knew that Scarlett
was not happy. Ignorant as he was of women, he was not so blind
that he could not see she was unhappy at times.

Sometimes he awoke at night and heard the soft sound of tears
muffled in the pillow. The first time he had waked to feel the bed
shaking with her sobbing, he had questioned, in alarm: "Sugar,
what is it?" and had been rebuked by a passionate cry: "Oh, let me
alone!"

Yes, a baby would make her happy and would take her mind off things
she had no business fooling with. Sometimes Frank sighed, thinking
he had caught a tropic bird, all flame and jewel color, when a wren
would have served him just as well. In fact, much better.



CHAPTER XXXVII


It was on a wild wet night in April that Tony Fontaine rode in from
Jonesboro on a lathered horse that was half dead from exhaustion
and came knocking at their door, rousing her and Frank from sleep
with their hearts in their throats. Then for the second time in
four months, Scarlett was made to feel acutely what Reconstruction
in all its implications meant, made to understand more completely
what was in Will's mind when he said "Our troubles have just
begun," to know that the bleak words of Ashley, spoken in the wind-
swept orchard of Tara, were true: "This that's facing all of us is
worse than war--worse than prison--worse than death."

The first time she had come face to face with Reconstruction was
when she learned that Jonas Wilkerson with the aid of the Yankees
could evict her from Tara. But Tony's advent brought it all home
to her in a far more terrifying manner. Tony came in the dark and
the lashing rain and in a few minutes he was gone back into the
night forever, but in the brief interval between he raised the
curtain on a scene of new horror, a curtain that she felt
hopelessly would never be lowered again.

That stormy night when the knocker hammered on the door with such
hurried urgency, she stood on the landing, clutching her wrapper to
her and, looking down into the hall below, had one glimpse of
Tony's swarthy saturnine face before he leaned forward and blew out
the candle in Frank's hand. She hurried down in the darkness to
grasp his cold wet hand and hear him whisper: "They're after me--
going to Texas--my horse is about dead--and I'm about starved.
Ashley said you'd-- Don't light the candle! Don't wake the
darkies. . . . I don't want to get you folks in trouble if I can
help it."

With the kitchen blinds drawn and all the shades pulled down to the
sills, he permitted a light and he talked to Frank in swift jerky
sentences as Scarlett hurried about, trying to scrape together a
meal for him.

He was without a greatcoat and soaked to the skin. He was hatless
and his black hair was plastered to his little skull. But the
merriment of the Fontaine boys, a chilling merriment that night,
was in his little dancing eyes as he gulped down the whisky she
brought him. Scarlett thanked God that Aunt Pittypat was snoring
undisturbed upstairs. She would certainly swoon if she saw this
apparition.

"One damned bast--Scallawag less," said Tony, holding out his glass
for another drink. "I've ridden hard and it'll cost me my skin if
I don't get out of here quick, but it was worth it. By God, yes!
I'm going to try to get to Texas and lay low there. Ashley was
with me in Jonesboro and he told me to come to you all. Got to
have another horse, Frank, and some money. My horse is nearly
dead--all the way up here at a dead run--and like a fool I went out
of the house today like a bat out of hell without a coat or hat or
a cent of money. Not that there's much money in our house."

He laughed and applied himself hungrily to the cold corn pone and
cold turnip greens on which congealed grease was thick in white
flakes.

"You can have my horse," said Frank calmly. "I've only ten dollars
with me but if you can wait till morning--"

"Hell's afire, I can't wait!" said Tony, emphatically but jovially.
"They're probably right behind me. I didn't get much of a start.
If it hadn't been for Ashley dragging me out of there and making me
get on my horse, I'd have stayed there like a fool and probably had
my neck stretched by now. Good fellow, Ashley."

So Ashley was mixed up in this frightening puzzle. Scarlett went
cold, her hand at her throat. Did the Yankees have Ashley now?
Why, why didn't Frank ask what it was all about? Why did he take
it all so coolly, so much as a matter of course? She struggled to
get the question to her lips.

"What--" she began. "Who--"

"Your father's old overseer--that damned--Jonas Wilkerson."

"Did you--is he dead?"

"My God, Scarlett O'Hara!" said Tony peevishly. "When I start out
to cut somebody up, you don't think I'd be satisfied with
scratching him with the blunt side of my knife, do you? No, by
God, I cut him to ribbons."

"Good," said Frank casually. "I never liked the fellow."

Scarlett looked at him. This was not the meek Frank she knew, the
nervous beard clawer who she had learned could be bullied with such
ease. There was an air about him that was crisp and cool and he
was meeting the emergency with no unnecessary words. He was a man
and Tony was a man and this situation of violence was men's
business in which a woman had no part.

"But Ashley-- Did he--"

"No. He wanted to kill him but I told him it was my right, because
Sally is my sister-in-law, and he saw reason finally. He went into
Jonesboro with me, in case Wilkerson got me first. But I don't
think old Ash will get in any trouble about it. I hope not. Got
any jam for this corn pone? And can you wrap me up something to
take with me?"

"I shall scream if you don't tell me everything."

"Wait till I've gone and then scream if you've got to. I'll tell
you about it while Frank saddles the horse. That damned--Wilkerson
has caused enough trouble already. I know how he did you about
your taxes. That's just one of his meannesses. But the worst
thing was the way he kept the darkies stirred up. If anybody had
told me I'd ever live to see the day when I'd hate darkies! Damn
their black souls, they believe anything those scoundrels tell them
and forget every living thing we've done for them. Now the Yankees
are talking about letting the darkies vote. And they won't let us
vote. Why, there's hardly a handful of Democrats in the whole
County who aren't barred from voting, now that they've ruled out
every man who fought in the Confederate Army. And if they give the
negroes the vote, it's the end of us. Damn it, it's our state! It
doesn't belong to the Yankees! By God, Scarlett, it isn't to be
borne! And it won't be borne! We'll do something about it if it
means another war. Soon we'll be having nigger judges, nigger
legislators--black apes out of the jungle--"

"Please--hurry, tell me! What did you do?"

"Give me another mite of that pone before you wrap it up. Well,
the word got around that Wilkerson had gone a bit too far with his
nigger-equality business. Oh, yes, he talks it to those black
fools by the hour. He had the gall--the--" Tony spluttered
helplessly, "to say niggers had a right to--to--white women."

"Oh, Tony, no!"

"By God, yes! I don't wonder you look sick. But hell's afire,
Scarlett, it can't be news to you. They've been telling it to them
here in Atlanta."

"I--I didn't know."

"Well, Frank would have kept it from you. Anyway, after that, we
all sort of thought we'd call on Mr. Wilkerson privately by night
and tend to him, but before we could-- You remember that black
buck, Eustis, who used to be our foreman?"

"Yes."

"Came to the kitchen door today while Sally was fixing dinner and--
I don't know what he said to her. I guess I'll never know now.
But he said something and I heard her scream and I ran into the
kitchen and there he was, drunk as a fiddler's bitch--I beg your
pardon, Scarlett, it just slipped out."

"Go on."

"I shot him and when Mother ran in to take care of Sally, I got my
horse and started to Jonesboro for Wilkerson. He was the one to
blame. The damned black fool would never have thought of it but
for him. And on the way past Tara, I met Ashley and, of course,
he went with me. He said to let him do it because of the way
Wilkerson acted about Tara and I said No, it was my place because
Sally was my own dead brother's wife, and he went with me arguing
the whole way. And when we got to town, by God, Scarlett, do you
know I hadn't even brought my pistol, I'd left it in the stable.
So mad I forgot--"

He paused and gnawed the tough pone and Scarlett shivered. The
murderous rages of the Fontaines had made County history long
before this chapter had opened.

"So I had to take my knife to him. I found him in the barroom. I
got him in a corner with Ashley holding back the others and I told
him why before I lit into him. Why, it was over before I knew it,"
said Tony reflecting. "First thing I knew, Ashley had me on my
horse and told me to come to you folks. Ashley's a good man in a
pinch. He keeps his head."

Frank came in, his greatcoat over his arm, and handed it to Tony.
It was his only heavy coat but Scarlett made no protest. She
seemed so much on the outside of this affair, this purely masculine
affair.

"But Tony--they need you at home. Surely, if you went back and
explained--"

"Frank, you've married a fool," said Tony with a grin, struggling
into the coat. "She thinks the Yankees will reward a man for
keeping niggers off his women folks. So they will, with a drumhead
court and a rope. Give me a kiss, Scarlett. Frank won't mind and
I may never see you again. Texas is a long way off. I won't dare
write, so let the home folks know I got this far in safety."

She let him kiss her and the two men went out into the driving rain
and stood for a moment, talking on the back porch. Then she heard
a sudden splashing of hooves and Tony was gone. She opened the
door a crack and saw Frank leading a heaving, stumbling horse into
the carriage house. She shut the door again and sat down, her
knees trembling.

Now she knew what Reconstruction meant, knew as well as if the
house were ringed about by naked savages, squatting in breech
clouts. Now there came rushing to her mind many things to which
she had given little thought recently, conversations she had heard
but to which she had not listened, masculine talk which had been
checked half finished when she came into rooms, small incidents in
which she had seen no significance at the time, Frank's futile
warnings to her against driving out to the mill with only the
feeble Uncle Peter to protect her. Now they fitted themselves
together into one horrifying picture.

The negroes were on top and behind them were the Yankee bayonets.
She could be killed, she could be raped and, very probably, nothing
would ever be done about it. And anyone who avenged her would be
hanged by the Yankees, hanged without benefit of trial by judge and
jury. Yankee officers who knew nothing of law and cared less for
the circumstances of the crime could go through the motions of
holding a trial and put a rope around a Southerner's neck.

"What can we do?" she thought, wringing her hands in an agony of
helpless fear. "What can we do with devils who'd hang a nice boy
like Tony just for killing a drunken buck and a scoundrelly
Scallawag to protect his women folks?"

"It isn't to be borne!" Tony had cried and he was right. It
couldn't be borne. But what could they do except bear it, helpless
as they were? She fell to trembling and, for the first time in her
life, she saw people and events as something apart from herself,
saw clearly that Scarlett O'Hara, frightened and helpless, was not
all that mattered. There were thousands of women like her, all
over the South, who were frightened and helpless. And thousands of
men, who had laid down their arms at Appomattox, had taken them up
again and stood ready to risk their necks on a minute's notice to
protect those women.

There had been something in Tony's face which had been mirrored in
Frank's, an expression she had seen recently on the faces of other
men in Atlanta, a look she had noticed but had not troubled to
analyze. It was an expression vastly different from the tired
helplessness she had seen in the faces of men coming home from the
war after the surrender. Those men had not cared about anything
except getting home. Now they were caring about something again,
numbed nerves were coming back to life and the old spirit was
beginning to burn. They were caring again with a cold ruthless
bitterness. And, like Tony, they were thinking: "It isn't to be
borne!"

She had seen Southern men, soft voiced and dangerous in the days
before the war, reckless and hard in the last despairing days of
the fighting. But in the faces of the two men who stared at each
other across the candle flame so short a while ago there had been
something that was different, something that heartened her but
frightened her--fury which could find no words, determination which
would stop at nothing.

For the first time, she felt a kinship with the people about her,
felt one with them in their fears, their bitterness, their
determination. No, it wasn't to be borne! The South was too
beautiful a place to be let go without a struggle, too loved to be
trampled by Yankees who hated Southerners enough to enjoy grinding
them into the dirt, too dear a homeland to be turned over to
ignorant negroes drunk with whisky and freedom.

As she thought of Tony's sudden entrance and swift exit, she felt
herself akin to him, for she remembered the old story how her
father had left Ireland, left hastily and by night, after a murder
which was no murder to him or to his family. Gerald's blood was in
her, violent blood. She remembered her hot joy in shooting the
marauding Yankee. Violent blood was in them all, perilously close
to the surface, lurking just beneath the kindly courteous
exteriors. All of them, all the men she knew, even the drowsy-eyed
Ashley and fidgety old Frank, were like that underneath--murderous,
violent if the need arose. Even Rhett, conscienceless scamp that
he was, had killed a negro for being "uppity to a lady."

"Oh, Frank, how long will it be like this?" she leaped to her feet.

"As long as the Yankees hate us so, Sugar."

"Is there nothing anybody can do?"

Frank passed a tired hand over his wet beard. "We are doing
things."

"What?"

"Why talk of them till we have accomplished something? It may take
years. Perhaps--perhaps the South will always be like this."

"Oh, no!"

"Sugar, come to bed. You must be chilled. You are shaking."

"When will it all end?"

"When we can all vote again, Sugar. When every man who fought for
the South can put a ballot in the box for a Southerner and a
Democrat."

"A ballot?" she cried despairingly. "What good's a ballot when the
darkies have lost their minds--when the Yankees have poisoned them
against us?"

Frank went on to explain in his patient manner, but the idea that
ballots could cure the trouble was too complicated for her to
follow. She was thinking gratefully that Jonas Wilkerson would
never again be a menace of Tara and she was thinking about Tony.

"Oh, the poor Fontaines!" she exclaimed. "Only Alex left and so
much to do at Mimosa. Why didn't Tony have sense enough to--to do
it at night when no one would know who it was? A sight more good
he'd do helping with the spring plowing than in Texas."

Frank put an arm about her. Usually he was gingerly when he did
this, as if he anticipated being impatiently shaken off, but
tonight there was a far-off look in his eyes and his arm was firm
about her waist.

"There are things more important now than plowing, Sugar. And
scaring the darkies and teaching the Scallawags a lesson is one of
them. As long as there are fine boys like Tony left, I guess we
won't need to worry about the South too much. Come to bed."

"But, Frank--"

"If we just stand together and don't give an inch to the Yankees,
we'll win, some day. Don't you bother your pretty head about it,
Sugar. You let your men folks worry about it. Maybe it won't come
in our time, but surely it will come some day. The Yankees will
get tired of pestering us when they see they can't even dent us,
and then we'll have a decent world to live in and raise our
children in."

She thought of Wade and the secret she had carried silently for
some days. No, she didn't want her children raised in this welter
of hate and uncertainty, of bitterness and violence lurking just
below the surface, of poverty and grinding hardships and
insecurity. She never wanted children of hers to know what all
this was like. She wanted a secure and well-ordered world in which
she could look forward and know there was a safe future ahead for
them, a world where her children would know only softness and
warmth and good clothes and fine food.

Frank thought this could he accomplished by voting. Voting? What
did votes matter? Nice people in the South would never have the
vote again. There was only one thing in the world that was a
certain bulwark against any calamity which fate could bring, and
that was money. She thought feverishly that they must have money,
lots of it to keep them safe against disaster.

Abruptly, she told him she was going to have a baby.



For weeks after Tony's escape, Aunt Pitty's house was subjected to
repeated searches by parties of Yankee soldiers. They invaded the
house at all hours and without warning. They swarmed through the
rooms, asking questions, opening closets, prodding clothes hampers,
peering under beds. The military authorities had heard that Tony
had been advised to go to Miss Pitty's house, and they were certain
he was still hiding there or somewhere m the neighborhood.

As a result, Aunt Pitty was chronically in what Uncle Peter called
a "state," never knowing when her bedroom would be entered by an
officer and a squad of men. Neither Frank nor Scarlett had
mentioned Tony's brief visit, so the old lady could have revealed
nothing, even had she been so inclined. She was entirely honest in
her fluttery protestations that she had seen Tony Fontaine only
once in her life and that was at Christmas time in 1862.

"And," she would add breathlessly to the Yankee soldiers, in an
effort to be helpful, "he was quite intoxicated at the time."

Scarlett, sick and miserable in the early stage of pregnancy,
alternated between a passionate hatred of the bluecoats who invaded
her privacy, frequently carrying away any little knick-knack that
appealed to them, and an equally passionate fear that Tony might
prove the undoing of them all. The prisons were full of people who
had been arrested for much less reason. She knew that if one iota
of the truth were proved against them, not only she and Frank but
the innocent Pitty as well would go to jail.

For some time there had been an agitation in Washington to
confiscate all "Rebel property" to pay the United States' war debt
and this agitation had kept Scarlett in a state of anguished
apprehension. Now, in addition to this, Atlanta was full of wild
rumors about the confiscation of property of offenders against
military law, and Scarlett quaked lest she and Frank lose not only
their freedom but the house, the store and the mill. And even if
their property were not appropriated by the military, it would be
as good as lost if she and Frank went to jail, for who would look
after their business in their absence?

She hated Tony for bringing such trouble upon them. How could he
have done such a thing to friends? And how could Ashley have sent
Tony to them? Never again would she give aid to anyone if it meant
having the Yankees come down on her like a swarm of hornets. No,
she would bar the door against anyone needing help. Except, of
course, Ashley. For weeks after Tony's brief visit she woke from
uneasy dreams at any sound in the road outside, fearing it might be
Ashley trying to make his escape, fleeing to Texas because of the
aid he had given Tony. She did not know how matters stood with
him, for they did not dare write to Tara about Tony's midnight
visit. Their letters might be intercepted by the Yankees and bring
trouble upon the plantation as well. But, when weeks went by and
they heard no bad news, they knew that Ashley had somehow come
clear. And finally, the Yankees ceased annoying them.

But even this relief did not free Scarlett from the state of dread
which began when Tony came knocking at their door, a dread which
was worse than the quaking fear of the siege shells, worse even
than the terror of Sherman's men during the last days of the war.
It was as if Tony's appearance that wild rainy night had stripped
merciful blinders from her eyes and forced her to see the true
uncertainty of her life.

Looking about her in that cold spring of 1866, Scarlett realized
what was facing her and the whole South. She might plan and
scheme, she might work harder than her slaves had ever worked, she
might succeed in overcoming all of her hardships, she might through
dint of determination solve problems for which her earlier life had
provided no training at all. But for all her labor and sacrifice
and resourcefulness, her small beginnings purchased at so great a
cost might be snatched away from her at any minute. And should
this happen, she had no legal rights, no legal redress, except
those same drumhead courts of which Tony had spoken so bitterly,
those military courts with their arbitrary powers. Only the
negroes had rights or redress these days. The Yankees had the
South prostrate and they intended to keep it so. The South had
been tilted as by a giant malicious hand, and those who had once
ruled were now more helpless than their former slaves had ever
been.

Georgia was heavily garrisoned with troops and Atlanta had more
than its share. The commandants of the Yankee troops in the
various cities had complete power, even the power of life and
death, over the civilian population, and they used that power.
They could and did imprison citizens for any cause, or no cause,
seize their property, hang them. They could and did harass and
hamstring them with conflicting regulations about the operation of
their business, the wages they must pay their servants, what they
should say in public and private utterances and what they should
write in newspapers. They regulated how, when and where they must
dump their garbage and they decided what songs the daughters and
wives of ex-Confederates could sing, so that the singing of "Dixie"
or "Bonnie Blue Flag" became an offense only a little less serious
than treason. They ruled that no one could get a letter our of the
post office without taking the Iron Clad oath and, in some
instances, they even prohibited the issuance of marriage licenses
unless the couples had taken the hated oath.

The newspapers were so muzzled that no public protest could be
raised against the injustices or depredations of the military, and
individual protests were silenced with jail sentences. The jails
were full of prominent citizens and there they stayed without hope
of early trial. Trial by jury and the law of habeas corpus were
practically suspended. The civil courts still functioned after a
fashion but they functioned at the pleasure of the military, who
could and did interfere with their verdicts, so that citizens so
unfortunate as to get arrested were virtually at the mercy of the
military authorities. And so many did get arrested. The very
suspicion of seditious utterances against the government, suspected
complicity in the Ku Klux Klan, or complaint by a negro that a
white man had been uppity to him were enough to land a citizen in
jail. Proof and evidence were not needed. The accusation was
sufficient. And thanks to the incitement of the Freedmen's Bureau,
negroes could always be found who were willing to bring accusations.

The negroes had not yet been given the right to vote but the North
was determined that they should vote and equally determined that
their vote should be friendly to the North. With this in mind,
nothing was too good for the negroes. The Yankee soldiers backed
them up in anything they chose to do, and the surest way for a
white person to get himself into trouble was to bring a complaint
of any kind against a negro.

The former slaves were now the lords of creation and, with the aid
of the Yankees, the lowest and most ignorant ones were on top. The
better class of them, scorning freedom, were suffering as severely
as their white masters. Thousands of house servants, the highest
caste in the slave population, remained with their white folks,
doing manual labor which had been beneath them in the old days.
Many loyal field hands also refused to avail themselves of the new
freedom, but the hordes of "trashy free issue niggers," who were
causing most of the trouble, were drawn largely from the field-hand
class.

In slave days, these lowly blacks had been despised by the house
negroes and yard negroes as creatures of small worth. Just as
Ellen had done, other plantation mistresses throughout the South
had put the pickaninnies through courses of training and
elimination to select the best of them for the positions of greater
responsibility. Those consigned to the fields were the ones least
willing or able to learn, the least energetic, the least honest and
trustworthy, the most vicious and brutish. And now this class, the
lowest in the black social order, was making life a misery for the
South.

Aided by the unscrupulous adventurers who operated the Freedmen's
Bureau and urged on by a fervor of Northern hatred almost religious
in its fanaticism, the former field hands found themselves suddenly
elevated to the seats of the mighty. There they conducted
themselves as creatures of small intelligence might naturally be
expected to do. Like monkeys or small children turned loose among
treasured objects whose value is beyond their comprehension, they
ran wild--either from perverse pleasure in destruction or simply
because of their ignorance.

To the credit of the negroes, including the least intelligent of
them, few were actuated by malice and those few had usually been
"mean niggers" even in slave days. But they were, as a class,
childlike in mentality, easily led and from long habit accustomed
to taking orders. Formerly their white masters had given the
orders. Now they had a new set of masters, the Bureau and the
Carpetbaggers, and their orders were: "You're just as good as any
white man, so act that way. Just as soon as you can vote the
Republican ticket, you are going to have the white man's property.
It's as good as yours now. Take it, if you can get it!"

Dazzled by these tales, freedom became a never-ending picnic, a
barbecue every day of the week, a carnival of idleness and theft
and insolence. Country negroes flocked into the cities, leaving
the rural districts without labor to make the crops. Atlanta was
crowded with them and still they came by the hundreds, lazy and
dangerous as a result of the new doctrines being taught them.
Packed into squalid cabins, smallpox, typhoid and tuberculosis
broke out among them. Accustomed to the care of their mistresses
when they were ill in slave days, they did not know how to nurse
themselves or their sick. Relying upon their masters in the old
days to care for their aged and their babies, they now had no sense
of responsibility for their helpless. And the Bureau was far too
interested in political matters to provide the care the plantation
owners had once given.

Abandoned negro children ran like frightened animals about the town
until kind-hearted white people took them into their kitchens to
raise. Aged country darkies, deserted by their children,
bewildered and panic stricken in the bustling town, sat on the
curbs and cried to the ladies who passed: "Mistis, please Ma'm,
write mah old Marster down in Fayette County dat Ah's up hyah.
He'll come tek dis ole nigger home agin. 'Fo' Gawd, Ah done got
nuff of dis freedom!"

The Freedmen's Bureau, overwhelmed by the numbers who poured in
upon them, realized too late a part of the mistake and tried to
send them back to their former owners. They told the negroes that
if they would go back, they would go as free workers, protected by
written contracts specifying wages by the day. The old darkies
went back to the plantations gladly, making a heavier burden than
ever on the poverty-stricken planters who had not the heart to turn
them out, but the young ones remained in Atlanta. They did not
want to be workers of any kind, anywhere. Why work when the belly
is full?

For the first time in their lives the negroes were able to get all
the whisky they might want. In slave days, it was something they
never tasted except at Christmas, when each one received a "drap"
along with his gift. Now they had not only the Bureau agitators
and the Carpetbaggers urging them on, but the incitement of whisky
as well, and outrages were inevitable. Neither life nor property
was safe from them and the white people, unprotected by law, were
terrorized. Men were insulted on the streets by drunken blacks,
houses and barns were burned at night, horses and cattle and
chickens stolen in broad daylight, crimes of all varieties were
committed and few of the perpetrators were brought to justice.

But these ignominies and dangers were as nothing compared with the
peril of white women, many bereft by the war of male protection,
who lived alone in the outlying districts and on lonely roads. It
was the large number of outrages on women and the ever-present fear
for the safety of their wives and daughters that drove Southern men
to cold and trembling fury and caused the Ku Klux Klan to spring up
overnight. And it was against this nocturnal organization that the
newspapers of the North cried out most loudly, never realizing the
tragic necessity that brought it into being. The North wanted
every member of the Ku Klux hunted down and hanged, because they
had dared take the punishment of crime into their own hands at a
time when the ordinary processes of law and order had been
overthrown by the invaders.

Here was the astonishing spectacle of half a nation attempting, at
the point of bayonet, to force upon the other half the rule of
negroes, many of them scarcely one generation out of the African
jungles. The vote must be given to them but it must be denied to
most of their former owners. The South must be kept down and
disfranchisement of the whites was one way to keep the South down.
Most of those who had fought for the Confederacy, held office under
it or given aid and comfort to it were not allowed to vote, had no
choice in the selection of their public officials and were wholly
under the power of an alien rule. Many men, thinking soberly of
General Lee's words and example, wished to take the oath, become
citizens again and forget the past. But they were not permitted to
take it. Others who were permitted to take the oath, hotly refused
to do so, scorning to swear allegiance to a government which was
deliberately subjecting them to cruelty and humiliation.

Scarlett heard over and over until she could have screamed at the
repetition: "I'd have taken their damned oath right after the
surrender if they'd acted decent. I can be restored to the Union,
but by God, I can't be reconstructed into it!"

Through these anxious days and nights, Scarlett was torn with fear.
The ever-present menace of lawless negroes and Yankee soldiers
preyed on her mind, the danger of confiscation was constantly with
her, even in her dreams, and she dreaded worse terrors to come.
Depressed by the helplessness of herself and her friends, of the
whole South, it was not strange that she often remembered during
these days the words which Tony Fontaine had spoken so passionately:

"Good God, Scarlett, it isn't to be borne! And it won't be borne!"



In spite of war, fire and Reconstruction, Atlanta had again become
a boom town. In many ways, the place resembled the busy young city
of the Confederacy's early days. The only trouble was that the
soldiers crowding the streets wore the wrong kind of uniforms, the
money was in the hands of the wrong people, and the negroes were
living in leisure while their former masters struggled and starved.

Underneath the surface were misery and fear, but all the outward
appearances were those of a thriving town that was rapidly
rebuilding from its ruins, a bustling, hurrying town. Atlanta, it
seemed, must always be hurrying, no matter what its circumstances
might be. Savannah, Charleston, Augusta, Richmond, New Orleans
would never hurry. It was ill bred and Yankeefied to hurry. But
in this period, Atlanta was more ill bred and Yankeefied than it
had ever been before or would ever be again. With "new people"
thronging in from all directions, the streets were choked and noisy
from morning till night. The shiny carriages of Yankee officers'
wives and newly rich Carpetbaggers splashed mud on the dilapidated
buggies of the townspeople, and gaudy new homes of wealthy
strangers crowded in among the sedate dwellings of older citizens.

The war had definitely established the importance of Atlanta in the
affairs of the South and the hitherto obscure town was now known
far and wide. The railroads for which Sherman had fought an entire
summer and killed thousands of men were again stimulating the life
of the city they had brought into being. Atlanta was again the
center of activities for a wide region, as it had been before its
destruction, and the town was receiving a great influx of new
citizens, both welcome and unwelcome.

Invading Carpetbaggers made Atlanta their headquarters and on the
streets they jostled against representatives of the oldest families
in the South who were likewise newcomers in the town. Families
from the country districts who had been burned out during Sherman's
march and who could no longer make a living without the slaves to
till the cotton had come to Atlanta to live. New settlers were
coming in every day from Tennessee and the Carolinas where the hand
of Reconstruction lay even heavier than in Georgia. Many Irish and
Germans who had been bounty men in the Union Army had settled in
Atlanta after their discharge. The wives and families of the
Yankee garrison, filled with curiosity about the South after four
years of war, came to swell the population. Adventurers of every
kind swarmed in, hoping to make their fortunes, and the negroes
from the country continued to come by the hundreds.

The town was roaring--wide open like a frontier village, making no
effort to cover its vices and sins. Saloons blossomed overnight,
two and sometimes three in a block, and after nightfall the streets
were full of drunken men, black and white, reeling from wall to
curb and back again. Thugs, pickpockets and prostitutes lurked in
the unlit alleys and shadowy streets. Gambling houses ran full
blast and hardly a night passed without its shooting or cutting
affray. Respectable citizens were scandalized to find that Atlanta
had a large and thriving red-light district, larger and more
thriving than during the war. All night long pianos jangled from
behind drawn shades and rowdy songs and laughter floated out,
punctuated by occasional screams and pistol shots. The inmates of
these houses were bolder than the prostitutes of the war days and
brazenly hung out of their windows and called to passers-by. And
on Sunday afternoons, the handsome closed carriages of the madams
of the district rolled down the main streets, filled with girls in
their best finery, taking the air from behind lowered silk shades.

Belle Watling was the most notorious of the madams. She had opened
a new house of her own, a large two-story building that made
neighboring houses in the district look like shabby rabbit warrens.
There was a long barroom downstairs, elegantly hung with oil
paintings, and a negro orchestra played every night. The upstairs,
so rumor said, was fitted out with the finest of plush upholstered
furniture, heavy lace curtains and imported mirrors in gilt frames.
The dozen young ladies with whom the house was furnished were
comely, if brightly painted, and comported themselves more quietly
than those of other houses. At least, the police were seldom
summoned to Belle's.

This house was something that the matrons of Atlanta whispered
about furtively and ministers preached against in guarded terms as
a cesspool of iniquity, a hissing and a reproach. Everyone knew
that a woman of Belle's type couldn't have made enough money by
herself to set up such a luxurious establishment. She had to have
a backer and a rich one at that. And Rhett Butler had never had
the decency to conceal his relations with her, so it was obvious
that he and no other must be that backer. Belle herself presented
a prosperous appearance when glimpsed occasionally in her closed
carriage driven by an impudent yellow negro. When she drove by,
behind a fine pair of bays, all the little boys along the street
who could evade their mothers ran to peer at her and whisper
excitedly: "That's her! That's ole Belle! I seen her red hair!"

Shouldering the shell-pitted houses patched with bits of old lumber
and smoke-blackened bricks, the fine homes of the Carpetbaggers and
war profiteers were rising, with mansard roofs, gables and turrets,
stained-glass windows and wide lawns. Night after night, in these
newly built homes, the windows were ablaze with gas light and the
sound of music and dancing feet drifted out upon the air. Women in
stiff bright-colored silks strolled about long verandas, squired by
men in evening clothes. Champagne corks popped, and on lace
tablecloths seven-course dinners were laid. Hams in wine, pressed
duck, pate de foie gras, rare fruits in and out of season, were
spread in profusion.

Behind the shabby doors of the old houses, poverty and hunger
lived--all the more bitter for the brave gentility with which they
were borne, all the more pinching for the outward show of proud
indifference to material wants. Dr. Meade could tell unlovely
stories of those families who had been driven from mansions to
boarding houses and from boarding houses to dingy rooms on back
streets. He had too many lady patients who were suffering from
"weak hearts" and "declines." He knew, and they knew he knew, that
slow starvation was the trouble. He could tell of consumption
making inroads on entire families and of pellagra, once found only
among poor whites, which was now appearing in Atlanta's best
families. And there were babies with thin rickety legs and mothers
who could not nurse them. Once the old doctor had been wont to
thank God reverently for each child he brought into the world. Now
he did not think life was such a boon. It was a hard world for
little babies and so many died in their first few months of life.

Bright lights and wine, fiddles and dancing, brocade and broadcloth
in the showy big houses and, just around the corners, slow
starvation and cold. Arrogance and callousness for the conquerors,
bitter endurance and hatred for the conquered.



CHAPTER XXXVIII


Scarlett saw it all, lived with it by day, took it to bed with her
at night, dreading always what might happen next. She knew that
she and Frank were already in the Yankees' black books, because of
Tony, and disaster might descend on them at any hour. But, now of
all times, she could not afford to be pushed back to her
beginnings--not now with a baby coming, the mill just commencing to
pay and Tara depending on her for money until the cotton came in in
the fall. Oh, suppose she should lose everything! Suppose she
should have to start all over again with only her puny weapons
against this mad world! To have to pit her red lips and green eyes
and her shrewd shallow brain against the Yankees and everything the
Yankees stood for. Weary with dread, she felt that she would
rather kill herself than try to make a new beginning.

In the ruin and chaos of that spring of 1866, she single mindedly
turned her energies to making the mill pay. There was money in
Atlanta. The wave of rebuilding was giving her the opportunity she
wanted and she knew she could make money if only she could stay out
of jail. But, she told herself time and again, she would have to
walk easily, gingerly, be meek under insults, yielding to
injustices, never giving offense to anyone, black or white, who
might do her harm. She hated the impudent free negroes as much as
anyone and her flesh crawled with fury every time she heard their
insulting remarks and high-pitched laughter as she went by. But
she never even gave them a glance of contempt. She hated the
Carpetbaggers and Scallawags who were getting rich with ease while
she struggled, but she said nothing in condemnation of them. No
one in Atlanta could have loathed the Yankees more than she, for
the very sight of a blue uniform made her sick with rage, but even
in the privacy of her family she kept silent about them.

I won't be a big-mouthed fool, she thought grimly. Let others
break their hearts over the old days and the men who'll never come
back. Let others burn with fury over the Yankee rule and losing
the ballot. Let others go to jail for speaking their minds and get
themselves hanged for being in the Ku Klux Klan. (Oh, what a
dreaded name that was, almost as terrifying to Scarlett as to the
negroes.) Let other women be proud that their husbands belonged.
Thank God, Frank had never been mixed up in it! Let others stew
and fume and plot and plan about things they could not help. What
did the past matter compared with the tense present and the dubious
future? What did the ballot matter when bread, a roof and staying
out of jail were the real problems? And, please God, just let me
stay out of trouble until June!

Only till June! By that month Scarlett knew she would be forced to
retire into Aunt Pitty's house and remain secluded there until
after her child was born. Already people were criticizing her for
appearing in public when she was in such a condition. No lady ever
showed herself when she was pregnant. Already Frank and Pitty were
begging her not to expose herself--and them--to embarrassment and
she had promised them to stop work in June.

Only till June! By June she must have the mill well enough
established for her to leave it. By June she must have money
enough to give her at least some little protection against
misfortune. So much to do and so little time to do it! She wished
for more hours of the day and counted the minutes, as she strained
forward feverishly in her pursuit of money and still more money.

Because she nagged the timid Frank, the store was doing better now
and he was even collecting some of the old bills. But it was the
sawmill on which her hopes were pinned. Atlanta these days was
like a giant plant which had been cut to the ground but now was
springing up again with sturdier shoots, thicker foliage, more
numerous branches. The demand for building materials was far
greater than could be supplied. Prices of lumber, brick and stone
soared and Scarlett kept the mill running from dawn until lantern
light.

A part of every day she spent at the mill, prying into everything,
doing her best to check the thievery she felt sure was going on.
But most of the time she was riding about the town, making the
rounds of builders, contractors and carpenters, even calling on
strangers she had heard might build at future dates, cajoling them
into promises of buying from her and her only.

Soon she was a familiar sight on Atlanta's streets, sitting in her
buggy beside the dignified, disapproving old darky driver, a lap
robe pulled high about her, her little mittened hands clasped in
her lap. Aunt Pitty had made her a pretty green mantelet which hid
her figure and a green pancake hat which matched her eyes, and she
always wore these becoming garments on her business calls. A faint
dab of rouge on her cheeks and a fainter fragrance of cologne made
her a charming picture, as long as she did not alight from the
buggy and show her figure. And there was seldom any need for this,
for she smiled and beckoned and the men came quickly to the buggy
and frequently stood bareheaded in the rain to talk business with
her.

She was not the only one who had seen the opportunities for making
money out of lumber, but she did not fear her competitors. She
knew with conscious pride in her own smartness that she was the
equal of any of them. She was Gerald's own daughter and the shrewd
trading instinct she had inherited was now sharpened by her needs.

At first the other dealers had laughed at her, laughed with good-
natured contempt at the very idea of a woman in business. But now
they did not laugh. They swore silently as they saw her ride by.
The fact that she was a woman frequently worked in her favor, for
she could upon occasion look so helpless and appealing that she
melted hearts. With no difficulty whatever she could mutely convey
the impression of a brave but timid lady, forced by brutal
circumstance into a distasteful position, a helpless little lady
who would probably starve if customers didn't buy her lumber. But
when ladylike airs failed to get results she was coldly businesslike
and willingly undersold her competitors at a loss to herself if it
would bring her a new customer. She was not above selling a poor
grade of lumber for the price of good lumber if she thought she
would not be detected, and she had no scruples about black-guarding
the other lumber dealers. With every appearance of reluctance at
disclosing the unpleasant truth, she would sigh and tell prospective
customers that her competitors' lumber was far too high in price,
rotten, full of knot holes and in general of deplorably poor
quality.

The first time Scarlett lied in this fashion she felt disconcerted
and guilty--disconcerted because the lie sprang so easily and
naturally to her lips, guilty because the thought flashed into her
mind: What would Mother say?

There was no doubt what Ellen would say to a daughter who told lies
and engaged in sharp practices. She would be stunned and
incredulous and would speak gentle words that stung despite their
gentleness, would talk of honor and honesty and truth and duty to
one's neighbor. Momentarily, Scarlett cringed as she pictured the
look on her mother's face. And then the picture faded, blotted out
by an impulse, hard, unscrupulous and greedy, which had been born
in the lean days at Tara and was now strengthened by the present
uncertainty of life. So she passed this milestone as she had
passed others before it--with a sigh that she was not as Ellen
would like her to be, a shrug and the repetition of her unfailing
charm: "I'll think of all this later."

But she never again thought of Ellen in connection with her
business practices, never again regretted any means she used to
take trade away from other lumber dealers. She knew she was
perfectly safe in lying about them. Southern chivalry protected
her. A Southern lady could lie about a gentleman but a Southern
gentleman could not lie about a lady or, worse still, call the lady
a liar. Other lumbermen could only fume inwardly and state
heatedly, in the bosoms of their families, that they wished to God
Mrs. Kennedy was a man for just about five minutes.

One poor white who operated a mill on the Decatur road did try to
fight Scarlett with her own weapons, saying openly that she was a
liar and a swindler. But it hurt him rather than helped, for
everyone was appalled that even a poor white should say such
shocking things about a lady of good family, even when the lady was
conducting herself in such an unwomanly way. Scarlett bore his
remarks with silent dignity and, as time went by, she turned all
her attention to him and his customers. She undersold him so
relentlessly and delivered, with secret groans, such an excellent
quality of lumber to prove her probity that he was soon bankrupt.
Then, to Frank's horror, she triumphantly bought his mill at her
own price.

Once in her possession there arose the perplexing problem of
finding a trustworthy man to put in charge of it. She did not want
another man like Mr. Johnson. She knew that despite all her
watchfulness he was still selling her lumber behind her back, but
she thought it would be easy to find the right sort of man. Wasn't
everybody as poor as Job's turkey, and weren't the streets full of
men, some of them formerly rich, who were without work? The day
never went by that Frank did not give money to some hungry ex-
soldier or that Pitty and Cookie did not wrap up food for gaunt
beggars.

But Scarlett, for some reason she could not understand, did not
want any of these. "I don't want men who haven't found something
to do after a year," she thought. "If they haven't adjusted to
peace yet, they couldn't adjust to me. And they all look so
hangdog and licked. I don't want a man who's licked. I want
somebody who's smart and energetic like Renny or Tommy Wellburn or
Kells Whiting or one of the Simmons boys or--or any of that tribe.
They haven't got that I-don't-care-about-anything look the soldiers
had right after the surrender. They look like they cared a heap
about a heap of things."

But to her surprise the Simmons boys, who had started a brick kiln,
and Kells Whiting, who was selling a preparation made up in his
mother's kitchen, that was guaranteed to straighten the kinkiest
negro hair in six applications, smiled politely, thanked her and
refused. It was the same with the dozen others she approached. In
desperation she raised the wage she was offering but she was still
refused. One of Mrs. Merriwether's nephews observed impertinently
that while he didn't especially enjoy driving a dray, it was his
own dray and he would rather get somewhere under his own steam than
Scarlett's.

One afternoon, Scarlett pulled up her buggy beside Rene Picard's
pie wagon and hailed Rene and the crippled Tommy Wellburn, who was
catching a ride home with his friend.

"Look here, Renny, why don't you come and work for me? Managing a
mill is a sight more respectable than driving a pie wagon. I'd
think you'd be ashamed."

"Me, I am dead to shame," grinned Rene. "Who would be respectable?
All of my days I was respectable until ze war set me free lak ze
darkies. Nevaire again must I be deegneefied and full of ennui.
Free lak ze bird! I lak my pie wagon. I lak my mule. I lak ze
dear Yankees who so kindly buy ze pie of Madame Belle Mere. No, my
Scarlett, I must be ze King of ze Pies. Eet ees my destiny! Lak
Napoleon, I follow my star." He flourished his whip dramatically.

"But you weren't raised to sell pies any more than Tommy was raised
to wrastle with a bunch of wild Irish masons. My kind of work is
more--"

"And I suppose you were raised to run a lumber mill," said Tommy,
the corners of his mouth twitching. "Yes, I can just see little
Scarlett at her mother's knee, lisping her lesson, 'Never sell good
lumber if you can get a better price for bad.'"

Rene roared at this, his small monkey eyes dancing with glee as he
whacked Tommy on his twisted back.

"Don't be impudent," said Scarlett coldly, for she saw little humor
in Tommy's remark. "Of course, I wasn't raised to run a sawmill."

"I didn't mean to be impudent. But you are running a sawmill,
whether you were raised to it or not. And running it very well,
too. Well, none of us, as far as I can see, are doing what we
intended to do right now, but I think we'll make out just the same.
It's a poor person and a poor nation that sits down and cries
because life isn't precisely what they expected it to be. Why
don't you pick up some enterprising Carpetbagger to work for you,
Scarlett? The woods are full of them, God knows."

"I don't want a Carpetbagger. Carpetbaggers will steal anything
that isn't red hot or nailed down. If they amounted to anything
they'd have stayed where they were, instead of coming down here to
pick our bones. I want a nice man, from nice folks, who is smart
and honest and energetic and--"

"You don't want much. And you won't get it for the wage you're
offering. All the men of that description, barring the badly
maimed ones, have already got something to do. They may be round
pegs in square holes but they've all got something to do.
Something of their own that they'd rather do than work for a
woman."

"Men haven't got much sense, have they, when you get down to rock
bottom?"

"Maybe not but they've got a heap of pride," said Tommy soberly.

"Pride! Pride tastes awfully good, especially when the crust is
flaky and you put meringue on it," said Scarlett tartly.

The two men laughed, a bit unwillingly, and it seemed to Scarlett
that they drew together in united masculine disapproval of her.
What Tommy said was true, she thought, running over in her mind the
men she had approached and the ones she intended to approach. They
were all busy, busy at something, working hard, working harder than
they would have dreamed possible in the days before the war. They
weren't doing what they wanted to do perhaps, or what was easiest
to do, or what they had been reared to do, but they were doing
something. Times were too hard for men to be choosy. And if they
were sorrowing for lost hopes, longing for lost ways of living, no
one knew it but they. They were fighting a new war, a harder war
than the one before. And they were caring about life again, caring
with the same urgency and the same violence that animated them
before the war had cut their lives in two.

"Scarlett," said Tommy awkwardly, "I do hate to ask a favor of you,
after being impudent to you, but I'm going to ask it just the same.
Maybe it would help you anyway. My brother-in-law, Hugh Elsing,
isn't doing any too well peddling kindling wood. Everybody except
the Yankees goes out and collects his own kindling wood. And I
know things are mighty hard with the whole Elsing family. I--I do
what I can, but you see I've got Fanny to support, and then, too,
I've got my mother and two widowed sisters down in Sparta to look
after. Hugh is nice, and you wanted a nice man, and he's from nice
folks, as you know, and he's honest."

"But--well, Hugh hasn't got much gumption or else he'd make a
success of his kindling."

Tommy shrugged.

"You've got a hard way of looking at things, Scarlett," he said.
"But you think Hugh over. You could go far and do worse. I think
his honesty and his willingness will outweigh his lack of
gumption."

Scarlett did not answer, for she did not want to be too rude. But
to her mind there were few, if any, qualities that out-weighed
gumption.

After she had unsuccessfully canvassed the town and refused the
importuning of many eager Carpetbaggers, she finally decided to
take Tommy's suggestion and ask Hugh Elsing. He had been a dashing
and resourceful officer during the war, but two severe wounds and
four years of fighting seemed to have drained him of all his
resourcefulness, leaving him to face the rigors of peace as
bewildered as a child. There was a lost-dog look in his eyes these
days as he went about peddling his firewood, and he was not at all
the kind of man she had hoped to get.

"He's stupid," she thought. "He doesn't know a thing about
business and I'll bet he can't add two and two. And I doubt if
he'll ever learn. But, at least, he's honest and won't swindle
me."

Scarlett had little use these days for honesty in herself, but the
less she valued it in herself the more she was beginning to value
it in others.

"It's a pity Johnnie Gallegher is tied up with Tommy Wellburn on
that construction work," she thought. "He's just the kind of man I
want. He's hard as nails and slick as a snake, but he'd be honest
if it paid him to be honest. I understand him and he understands
me and we could do business together very well. Maybe I can get
him when the hotel is finished and till then I'll have to make out
on Hugh and Mr. Johnson. If I put Hugh in charge of the new mill
and leave Mr. Johnson at the old one, I can stay in town and see to
the selling while they handle the milling and hauling. Until I can
get Johnnie I'll have to risk Mr. Johnson robbing me if I stay in
town all the time. If only he wasn't a thief! I believe I'll
build a lumber yard on half that lot Charles left me. If only
Frank didn't holler so loud about me building a saloon on the other
half! Well, I shall build the saloon just as soon as I get enough
money ahead, no matter how he takes on. If only Frank wasn't so
thin skinned. Oh, God, if only I wasn't going to have a baby at
this of all times! In a little while I'll be so big I can't go
out. Oh, God, if only I wasn't going to have a baby! And oh, God,
if the damned Yankees will only let me alone! If--"

If! If! If! There were so many ifs in life, never any certainty
of anything, never any sense of security, always the dread of
losing everything and being cold and hungry again. Of course,
Frank was making a little more money now, but Frank was always
ailing with colds and frequently forced to stay in bed for days.
Suppose he should become an invalid. No, she could not afford to
count on Frank for much. She must not count on anything or anybody
but herself. And what she could earn seemed so pitiably small.
Oh, what would she do if the Yankees came and took it all away from
her? If! If! If!

Half of what she made every month went to Will at Tara, part to
Rhett to repay his loan and the rest she hoarded. No miser ever
counted his gold oftener than she and no miser ever had greater
fear of losing it. She would not put the money in the bank, for it
might fail or the Yankees might confiscate it. So she carried what
she could with her, tucked into her corset, and hid small wads of
bills about the house, under loose bricks on the hearth, in her
scrap bag, between the pages of the Bible. And her temper grew
shorter and shorter as the weeks went by, for every dollar she
saved would be just one more dollar to lose if disaster descended.

Frank, Pitty and the servants bore her outbursts with maddening
kindness, attributing her bad disposition to her pregnancy, never
realizing the true cause. Frank knew that pregnant women must be
humored, so he put his pride in his pocket and said nothing more
about her running the mills and her going about town at such a
time, as no lady should do. Her conduct was a constant
embarrassment to him but he reckoned he could endure it for a while
longer. After the baby came, he knew she would be the same sweet,
feminine girl he had courted. But in spite of everything he did to
appease her, she continued to have her tantrums and often he
thought she acted like one possessed.

No one seemed to realize what really possessed her, what drove her
like a mad woman. It was a passion to get her affairs in order
before she had to retire behind doors, to have as much money as
possible in case the deluge broke upon her again, to have a stout
levee of cash against the rising tide of Yankee hate. Money was
the obsession dominating her mind these days. When she thought of
the baby at all, it was with baffled rage at the untimeliness of it.

"Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time
for any of them!"



Atlanta had been scandalized enough when Scarlett, a woman, began
operating the sawmill but, as time went by, the town decided there
was no limit to what she would do. Her sharp trading was shocking,
especially when her poor mother had been a Robillard, and it was
positively indecent the way she kept on going about the streets
when everyone knew she was pregnant. No respectable white woman
and few negroes ever went outside their homes from the moment they
first suspected they were with child, and Mrs. Merriwether declared
indignantly that from the way Scarlett was acting she was likely to
have the baby on the public streets.

But all the previous criticism of her conduct was as nothing
compared with the buzz of gossip that now went through the town.
Scarlett was not only trafficking with the Yankees but was giving
every appearance of really liking it!

Mrs. Merriwether and many other Southerners were also doing
business with the newcomers from the North, but the difference was
that they did not like it and plainly showed they did not like it.
And Scarlett did, or seemed to, which was just as bad. She had
actually taken tea with the Yankee officers' wives in their homes!
In fact, she had done practically everything short of inviting them
into her own home, and the town guessed she would do even that,
except for Aunt Pitty and Frank.

Scarlett knew the town was talking but she did not care, could not
afford to care. She still hated the Yankees with as fierce a hate
as on the day when they tried to burn Tara, but she could dissemble
that hate. She knew that if she was going to make money, she would
have to make it out of the Yankees, and she had learned that
buttering them up with smiles and kind words was the surest way to
get their business for her mill.

Some day when she was very rich and her money was hidden away where
the Yankees could not find it, then, then she would tell them
exactly what she thought of them, tell them how she hated and
loathed and despised them. And what a joy that would be! But
until that time came, it was just plain common sense to get along
with them. And if that was hypocrisy, let Atlanta make the most of
it.

She discovered that making friends with the Yankee officers was as
easy as shooting birds on the ground. They were lonely exiles in a
hostile land and many of them were starved for polite feminine
associations in a town where respectable women drew their skirts
aside in passing and looked as if they would like to spit on them.
Only the prostitutes and the negro women had kind words for them.
But Scarlett was obviously a lady and a lady of family, for all
that she worked, and they thrilled to her flashing smile and the
pleasant light in her green eyes.

Frequently when Scarlett sat in her buggy talking to them and
making her dimples play, her dislike for them rose so strong that
it was hard not to curse them to their faces. But she restrained
herself and she found that twisting Yankee men around her finger
was no more difficult than that same diversion had been with
Southern men. Only this was no diversion but a grim business. The
role she enacted was that of a refined sweet Southern lady in
distress. With an air of dignified reserve she was able to keep
her victims at their proper distance, but there was nevertheless a
graciousness in her manner which left a certain warmth in the
Yankee officers' memories of Mrs. Kennedy.

This warmth was very profitable--as Scarlett had intended it to be.
Many of the officers of the garrison, not knowing how long they
would be stationed in Atlanta, had sent for their wives and
families. As the hotels and boarding houses were overflowing, they
were building small houses; and they were glad to buy their lumber
from the gracious Mrs. Kennedy, who treated them more politely than
anyone else in town. The Carpetbaggers and Scallawags also, who
were building fine homes and stores and hotels with their new
wealth, found it more pleasant to do business with her than with
the former Confederate soldiers who were courteous but with a
courtesy more formal and cold than outspoken hate.

So, because she was pretty and charming and could appear quite
helpless and forlorn at times, they gladly patronized her lumber
yard and also Frank's store, feeling that they should help a plucky
little woman who apparently had only a shiftless husband to support
her. And Scarlett, watching the business grow, felt that she was
safeguarding not only the present with Yankee money but the future
with Yankee friends.

Keeping her relations with the Yankee officers on the plane she
desired was easier than she expected, for they all seemed to be in
awe of Southern ladies, but Scarlett soon found that their wives
presented a problem she had not anticipated. Contacts with the
Yankee women were not of her seeking. She would have been glad to
avoid them but she could not, for the officers' wives were
determined to meet her. They had an avid curiosity about the South
and Southern women, and Scarlett gave them their first opportunity
to satisfy it. Other Atlanta women would have nothing to do with
them and even refused to bow to them in church, so when business
brought Scarlett to their homes, she was like an answer to prayer.
Often when Scarlett sat in her buggy in front of a Yankee home
talking of uprights and shingles with the man of the house, the
wife came out to join in the conversation or insist that she come
inside for a cup of tea. Scarlett seldom refused, no matter how
distasteful the idea might be, for she always hoped to have an
opportunity to suggest tactfully that they do their trading at
Frank's store. But her self-control was severely tested many
times, because of the personal questions they asked and because of
the smug and condescending attitude they displayed toward all
things Southern.

Accepting Uncle Tom's Cabin as revelation second only to the Bible,
the Yankee women all wanted to know about the bloodhounds which
every Southerner kept to track down runaway slaves. And they never
believed her when she told them she had only seen one bloodhound in
all her life and it was a small mild dog and not a huge ferocious
mastiff. They wanted to know about the dreadful branding irons
which planters used to mark the faces of their slaves and the cat-
o'-nine-tails with which they beat them to death, and they
evidenced what Scarlett felt was a very nasty and ill-bred interest
in slave concubinage. Especially did she resent this in view of
the enormous increase in mulatto babies in Atlanta since the Yankee
soldiers had settled in the town.

Any other Atlanta woman would have expired in rage at having to
listen to such bigoted ignorance but Scarlett managed to control
herself. Assisting her in this was the fact that they aroused her
contempt more than her anger. After all, they were Yankees and no
one expected anything better from Yankees. So their unthinking
insults to her state, her people and their morals, glanced off and
never struck deep enough to cause her more than a well-concealed
sneer until an incident occurred which made her sick with rage and
showed her, if she needed any showing, how wide was the gap between
North and South and how utterly impossible it was to bridge it.

While driving home with Uncle Peter one afternoon, she passed the
house into which were crowded the families of three officers who
were building their own homes with Scarlett's lumber. The three
wives were standing in the walk as she drove by and they waved to
her to stop. Coming out to the carriage block they greeted her in
accents that always made her feel that one could forgive Yankees
almost anything except their voices.

"You are just the person I want to see, Mrs. Kennedy," said a tall
thin woman from Maine. "I want to get some information about this
benighted town."

Scarlett swallowed the insult to Atlanta with the contempt it
deserved and smiled her best.

"And what can I tell you?"

"My nurse, my Bridget, has gone back North. She said she wouldn't
stay another day down here among the 'naygurs' as she calls them.
And the children are just driving me distracted! Do tell me how to
go about getting another nurse. I do not know where to apply."

"That shouldn't be difficult," said Scarlett and laughed. "If you
can find a darky just in from the country who hasn't been spoiled
by the Freedmen's Bureau, you'll have the best kind of servant
possible. Just stand at your gate here and ask every darky woman
who passes and I'm sure--"

The three women broke into indignant outcries.

"Do you think I'd trust my babies to a black nigger?" cried the
Maine woman. "I want a good Irish girl."

"I'm afraid you'll find no Irish servants in Atlanta," answered
Scarlett, coolness in her voice. "Personally, I've never seen a
white servant and I shouldn't care to have one in my house. And,"
she could not keep a slight note of sarcasm from her words, "I
assure you that darkies aren't cannibals and are quite trustworthy."

"Goodness, no! I wouldn't have one in my house. The idea!"

"I wouldn't trust them any farther than I could see them and as for
letting them handle my babies . . ."

Scarlett thought of the kind, gnarled hands of Mammy worn rough in
Ellen's service and hers and Wade's. What did these strangers know
of black hands, how dear and comforting they could be, how
unerringly they knew how to soothe, to pat, to fondle? She laughed
shortly.

"It's strange you should feel that way when it was you all who
freed them."

"Lor'! Not I, dearie," laughed the Maine woman. "I never saw a
nigger till I came South last month and I don't care if I never
see another. They give me the creeps. I wouldn't trust one of
them. . . ."

For some moments Scarlett had been conscious that Uncle Peter was
breathing hard and sitting up very straight as he stared steadily
at the horse's ears. Her attention was called to him more forcibly
when the Maine woman broke off suddenly with a laugh and pointed
him out to her companions.

"Look at that old nigger swell up like a toad," she giggled. "I'll
bet he's an old pet of yours, isn't he? You Southerners don't know
how to treat niggers. You spoil them to death."

Peter sucked in his breath and his wrinkled brow showed deep
furrows but he kept his eyes straight ahead. He had never had the
term "nigger" applied to him by a white person in all his life. By
other negroes, yes. But never by a white person. And to be called
untrustworthy and an "old pet," he, Peter, who had been the
dignified mainstay of the Hamilton family for years!

Scarlett felt, rather than saw, the black chin begin to shake with
hurt pride, and a killing rage swept over her. She had listened
with calm contempt while these women had underrated the Confederate
Army, blackguarded Jeff Davis and accused Southerners of murder and
torture of their slaves. If it were to her advantage she would
have endured insults about her own virtue and honesty. But the
knowledge that they had hurt the faithful old darky with their
stupid remarks fired her like a match in gunpowder. For a moment
she looked at the big horse pistol in Peter's belt and her hands
itched for the feel of it. They deserved killing, these insolent,
ignorant, arrogant conquerors. But she bit down on her teeth until
her jaw muscles stood out, reminding herself that the time had not
yet come when she could tell the Yankees just what she thought of
them. Some day, yes. My God, yes! But not yet.

"Uncle Peter is one of our family," she said, her voice shaking.
"Good afternoon. Drive on, Peter."

Peter laid the whip on the horse so suddenly that the startled
animal jumped forward and as the buggy jounced off, Scarlett heard
the Maine woman say with puzzled accents: "Her family? You don't
suppose she meant a relative? He's exceedingly black."

God damn them! They ought to be wiped off the face of the earth.
If ever I get money enough, I'll spit in all their faces! I'll--

She glanced at Peter and saw that a tear was trickling down his
nose. Instantly a passion of tenderness, of grief for his
humiliation swamped her, made her eyes sting. It was as though
someone had been senselessly brutal to a child. Those women had
hurt Uncle Peter--Peter who had been through the Mexican War with
old Colonel Hamilton, Peter who had held his master in his arms
when he died, who had raised Melly and Charles and looked after the
feckless, foolish Pittypat, "pertecked" her when she refugeed, and
"'quired" a horse to bring her back from Macon through a war-torn
country after the surrender. And they said they wouldn't trust
niggers!

"Peter," she said, her voice breaking as she put her hand on his
thin arm. "I'm ashamed of you for crying. What do you care? They
aren't anything but damned Yankees!"

"Dey talked in front of me lak Ah wuz a mule an' couldn' unnerstan'
dem--lak Ah wuz a Affikun an' din' know whut dey wuz talkin'
'bout," said Peter, giving a tremendous sniff. "An' dey call me a
nigger an' Ah' ain' never been call a nigger by no w'ite folks, an'
dey call me a ole pet an' say dat niggers ain' ter be trus'ed! Me
not ter be trus'ed! Why, w'en de ole Cunnel wuz dyin' he say ter
me, 'You, Peter! You look affer mah chillun. Tek keer of yo'
young Miss Pittypat,' he say, ''cause she ain' got no mo' sense dan
a hoppergrass.' An' Ah done tek keer of her good all dese y'ars--"

"Nobody but the Angel Gabriel could have done better," said
Scarlett soothingly. "We just couldn't have lived without you."

"Yas'm, thankee kinely, Ma'm. Ah knows it an' you knows it, but
dem Yankee folks doan know it an' dey doan want ter know it.
Huccome dey come mixin' in our bizness, Miss Scarlett? Dey doan
unnerstan' us Confedruts."

Scarlett said nothing for she was still burning with the wrath she
had not exploded in the Yankee women's faces. The two drove home
in silence. Peter's sniffles stopped and his underlip began to
protrude gradually until it stuck out alarmingly. His indignation
was mounting, now that the initial hurt was subsiding.

Scarlett thought: What damnably queer people Yankees are! Those
women seemed to think that because Uncle Peter was black, he had no
ears to hear with and no feelings, as tender as their own, to be
hurt. They did not know that negroes had to be handled gently, as
though they were children, directed, praised, petted, scolded.
They didn't understand negroes or the relations between the negroes
and their former masters. Yet they had fought a war to free them.
And having freed them, they didn't want to have anything to do with
them, except to use them to terrorize Southerners. They didn't
like them, didn't trust them, didn't understand them, and yet their
constant cry was that Southerners didn't know how to get along with
them.

Not trust a darky! Scarlett trusted them far more than most white
people, certainly more than she trusted any Yankee. There were
qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no
strain could break, no money could buy. She thought of the
faithful few who remained at Tara in the face of the Yankee
invasion when they could have fled or joined the troops for lives
of leisure. But they had stayed. She thought of Dilcey toiling in
the cotton fields beside her, of Pork risking his life in
neighboring hen houses that the family might eat, of Mammy coming
to Atlanta with her to keep her from doing wrong. She thought of
the servants of her neighbors who had stood loyally beside their
white owners, protecting their mistresses while the men were at the
front, refugeeing with them through the terrors of the war, nursing
the wounded, burying the dead, comforting the bereaved, working,
begging, stealing to keep food on the tables. And even now, with
the Freedmen's Bureau promising all manner of wonders, they still
stuck with their white folks and worked much harder than they ever
worked in slave times. But the Yankees didn't understand these
things and would never understand them.

"Yet they set you free," she said aloud.

"No, Ma'm! Dey din' sot me free. Ah wouldn' let no sech trash sot
me free," said Peter indignantly. "Ah still b'longs ter Miss Pitty
an' w'en Ah dies she gwine lay me in de Hamilton buhyin' groun'
whar Ah b'longs. . . . Mah Miss gwine ter be in a state w'en Ah
tells her 'bout how you let dem Yankee women 'sult me."

"I did no such thing!" cried Scarlett, startled.

"You did so, Miss Scarlett," said Peter, pushing out his lip even
farther. "De pint is, needer you nor me had no bizness bein' wid
Yankees, so dey could 'sult me. Ef you hadn't talked wid dem, dey
wouldn' had no chance ter treat me lak a mule or a Affikun. An'
you din' tek up fer me, needer."

"I did, too!" said Scarlett, stung by the criticism. "Didn't I
tell them you were one of the family?"

"Dat ain' tekkin' up. Dat's jes' a fac'," said Peter. "Miss
Scarlett, you ain' got no bizness havin' no truck wid Yankees.
Ain' no other ladies doin' it. You wouldn' ketch Miss Pitty wipin'
her lil shoes on sech trash. An' she ain' gwine lake it w'en she
hear 'bout whut dey said 'bout me."

Peter's criticism hurt worse than anything Frank or Aunt Pitty or
the neighbors had said and it so annoyed her she longed to shake
the old darky until his toothless gums clapped together. What
Peter said was true but she hated to hear it from a negro and a
family negro, too. Not to stand high in the opinion of one's
servants was as humiliating a thing as could happen to a
Southerner.

"A ole pet!" Peter grumbled. "Ah specs Miss Pitty ain't gwine want
me ter drive you roun' no mo' after dat. No, Ma'm!"

"Aunt Pitty will want you to drive me as usual," she said sternly,
"so let's hear no more about it."

"Ah'll git a mizry in mak back," warned Peter darkly. "Mah back
huttin' me so bad dis minute Ah kain sceercely set up. Mah Miss
ain' gwine want me ter do no drivin' w'en Ah got a mizry. . . .
Miss Scarlett, it ain' gwine do you no good ter stan' high wid de
Yankees an' de w'ite trash, ef yo' own folks doan 'prove of you."

That was as accurate a summing up of the situation as could be made
and Scarlett relapsed into infuriated silence. Yes, the conquerors
did approve of her and her family and her neighbors did not. She
knew all the things the town was saying about her. And now even
Peter disapproved of her to the point of not caring to be seen in
public with her. That was the last straw.

Heretofore she had been careless of public opinion, careless and a
little contemptuous. But Peter's words caused fierce resentment to
burn in her breast, drove her to a defensive position, made her
suddenly dislike her neighbors as much as she disliked the Yankees.

"Why should they care what I do?" she thought. "They must think I
enjoy associating with Yankees and working like a field hand.
They're just making a hard job harder for me. But I don't care
what they think. I won't let myself care. I can't afford to care
now. But some day--some day--"

Oh some day! When there was security in her world again, then she
would sit back and fold her hands and be a great lady as Ellen had
been. She would be helpless and sheltered, as a lady should be,
and then everyone would approve of her. Oh, how grand she would be
when she had money again! Then she could permit herself to be kind
and gentle, as Ellen had been, and thoughtful of other people and
of the proprieties, to. She would not be driven by fears, day and
night, and life would be a placid, unhurried affair. She would
have time to play with her children and listen to their lessons.
There would be long warm afternoons when ladies would call and,
amid the rustlings of taffeta petticoats and the rhythmic harsh
cracklings of palmetto fans, she would serve tea and delicious
sandwiches and cakes and leisurely gossip the hours away. And she
would be so kind to those who were suffering misfortune, take
baskets to the poor and soup and jelly to the sick and "air" those
less fortunate in her fine carriage. She would be a lady in the
true Southern manner, as her mother had been. And then, everyone
would love her as they had loved Ellen and they would say how
unselfish she was and call her "Lady Bountiful."

Her pleasure in these thoughts of the future was undimmed by any
realization that she had no real desire to be unselfish or
charitable or kind. All she wanted was the reputation for
possessing these qualities. But the meshes of her brain were too
wide, too coarse, to filter such small differences. It was enough
that some day, when she had money, everyone would approve of her.

Some day! But not now. Not now, in spite of what anyone might say
of her. Now, there was no time to be a great lady.

Peter was as good as his word. Aunt Pitty did get into a state,
and Peter's misery developed overnight to such proportions that he
never drove the buggy again. Thereafter Scarlett drove alone and
the calluses which had begun to leave her palms came back again.

So the spring months went by, the cool rains of April passing into
the warm balm of green May weather. The weeks were packed with
work and worry and the handicaps of increasing pregnancy, with old
friends growing cooler and her family increasingly more kind, more
maddeningly solicitous and more completely blind to what was
driving her. During those days of anxiety and struggle there was
only one dependable, understanding person in her world, and that
person was Rhett Butler. It was odd that he of all people should
appear in this light, for he was as unstable as quicksilver and as
perverse as a demon fresh from the pit. But he gave her sympathy,
something she had never had from anyone and never expected from
him.

Frequently he was out of town on those mysterious trips to New
Orleans which he never explained but which she felt sure, in a
faintly jealous way, were connected with a woman--or women. But
after Uncle Peter's refusal to drive her, he remained in Atlanta
for longer and longer intervals.

While in town, he spent most of his time gambling in the rooms
above the Girl of the Period Saloon, or in Belle Watling's bar
hobnobbing with the wealthier of the Yankees and Carpetbaggers in
money-making schemes which made the townspeople detest him even
more than his cronies. He did not call at the house now, probably
in deference to the feelings of Frank and Pitty who would have been
outraged at a male caller while Scarlett was in a delicate
condition. But she met him by accident almost every day. Time and
again, he came riding up to her buggy when she was passing through
lonely stretches of Peachtree road and Decatur road where the mills
lay. He always drew rein and talked and sometimes he tied his
horse to the back of the buggy and drove her on her rounds. She
tired more easily these days than she liked to admit and she was
always silently grateful when he took the reins. He always left
her before they reached the town again but all Atlanta knew about
their meetings, and it gave the gossips something new to add to the
long list of Scarlett's affronts to the proprieties.

She wondered occasionally if these meetings were not more than
accidental. They became more and more numerous as the weeks went
by and as the tension in town heightened over negro outrages. But
why did he seek her out, now of all times when she looked her
worst? Certainly he had no designs upon her if he had ever had
any, and she was beginning to doubt even this. It had been months
since he made any joking references to their distressing scene at
the Yankee jail. He never mentioned Ashley and her love for him,
or made any coarse and ill-bred remarks about "coveting her." She
thought it best to let sleeping dogs lie, so she did not ask for an
explanation of their frequent meetings. And finally she decided
that, because he had little to do besides gamble and had few enough
nice friends in Atlanta, he sought her out solely for companionship's
sake.

Whatever his reason might be, she found his company most welcome.
He listened to her moans about lost customers and bad debts, the
swindling ways of Mr. Johnson and the incompetency of Hugh. He
applauded her triumphs, where Frank merely smiled indulgently and
Pitty said "Dear me!" in a dazed manner. She was sure that he
frequently threw business her way, for he knew all the rich Yankees
and Carpetbaggers intimately, but he always denied being helpful.
She knew him for what he was and she never trusted him, but her
spirits always rose with pleasure at the sight of him riding around
the curve of a shady road on his big black horse. When he climbed
into the buggy and took the reins from her and threw her some
impertinent remark, she felt young and gay and attractive again,
for all her worries and her increasing bulk. She could talk to him
about almost everything, with no care for concealing her motives or
her real opinions and she never ran out of things to say as she did
with Frank--or even with Ashley, if she must be honest with
herself. But of course, in all her conversations with Ashley there
were so many things which could not be said, for honor's sake, that
the sheer force of them inhibited other remarks. It was comforting
to have a friend like Rhett, now that for some unaccountable reason
he had decided to be on good behavior with her. Very comforting,
for she had so few friends these days.

"Rhett," she asked stormily, shortly after Uncle Peter's ultimatum,
"why do folks in this town treat me so scurvily and talk about me
so? It's a toss-up who they talk worst about, me or the
Carpetbaggers! I've minded my own business and haven't done
anything wrong and--"

"If you haven't done anything wrong, it's because you haven't had
the opportunity, and perhaps they dimly realize it."

"Oh, do be serious! They make me so mad. All I've done is try to
make a little money and--"

"All you've done is to be different from other women and you've
made a little success at it. As I've told you before, that is the
one unforgivable sin in any society. Be different and be damned!
Scarlett, the mere fact that you've made a success of your mill is
an insult to every man who hasn't succeeded. Remember, a well-bred
female's place is in the home and she should know nothing about
this busy, brutal world."

"But if I had stayed in my home, I wouldn't have had any home left
to stay in."

"The inference is that you should have starved genteelly and with
pride."

"Oh, fiddle-dee-dee! But look at Mrs. Merriwether. She's selling
pies to Yankees and that's worse than running a sawmill, and Mrs.
Elsing takes in sewing and keeps boarders, and Fanny paints awful-
looking china things that nobody wants and everybody buys to help
her and--"

"But you miss the point, my pet. They aren't successful and so
they aren't affronting the hot Southern pride of their men folks.
The men can still say, 'Poor sweet sillies, how hard they try!
Well, I'll let them think they're helping.' And besides, the
ladies you mentioned don't enjoy having to work. They let it be
known that they are only doing it until some man comes along to
relieve them of their unwomanly burdens. And so everybody feels
sorry for them. But obviously you do like to work and obviously
you aren't going to let any man tend to your business for you, and
so no one can feel sorry for you. And Atlanta is never going to
forgive you for that. It's so pleasant to feel sorry for people."

"I wish you'd be serious, sometimes."

"Did you ever hear the Oriental proverb: 'The dogs bark but the
caravan passes on?' Let them bark, Scarlett. I fear nothing will
stop your caravan."

"But why should they mind my making a little money?"

"You can't have everything, Scarlett. You can either make money in
your present unladylike manner and meet cold shoulders everywhere
you go, or you can be poor and genteel and have lots of friends.
You've made your choice."

"I won't be poor," she said swiftly. "But--it is the right choice,
isn't it?"

"If it's money you want most."

"Yes, I want money more than anything else in the world."

"Then you've made the only choice. But there's a penalty attached,
as there is to most things you want. It's loneliness."

That silenced her for a moment. It was true. When she stopped to
think about it, she was a little lonely--lonely for feminine
companionship. During the war years she had had Ellen to visit
when she felt blue. And since Ellen's death, there had always been
Melanie, though she and Melanie had nothing in common except the
hard work at Tara. Now there was no one, for Aunt Pitty had no
conception of life beyond her small round of gossip.

"I think--I think," she began hesitantly, "that I've always been
lonely where women were concerned. It isn't just my working that
makes Atlanta ladies dislike me. They just don't like me anyway.
No woman ever really liked me, except Mother. Even my sisters.
I don't know why, but even before the war, even before I married
Charlie, ladies didn't seem to approve of anything I did--"

"You forget Mrs. Wilkes," said Rhett and his eyes gleamed
maliciously. "She has always approved of you up to the hilt.
I daresay she'd approve of anything you did, short of murder."

Scarlett thought grimly: "She's even approved of murder," and she
laughed contemptuously.

"Oh, Melly!" she said, and then, ruefully: "It's certainly not to
my credit that Melly is the only woman who approves of me, for she
hasn't the sense of a guinea hen. If she had any sense--" She
stopped in some confusion.

"If she had any sense, she'd realize a few things and she couldn't
approve," Rhett finished. "Well, you know more about that than I
do, of course."

"Oh, damn your memory and your bad manners!"

"I'll pass over your unjustified rudeness with the silence it
deserves and return to our former subject. Make up your mind to
this. If you are different, you are isolated, not only from people
of your own age but from those of your parents' generation and from
your children's generation too. They'll never understand you and
they'll be shocked no matter what you do. But your grandparents
would probably be proud of you and say: 'There's a chip off the
old block,' and your grandchildren will sigh enviously and say:
'What an old rip Grandma must have been!' and they'll try to be
like you."

Scarlett laughed with amusement.

"Sometimes you do hit on the truth! Now there was my Grandma
Robillard. Mammy used to hold her over my head whenever I was
naughty. Grandma was as cold as an icicle and strict about her
manners and everybody else's manners, but she married three times
and had any number of duels fought over her and she wore rouge and
the most shockingly low-cut dresses and no--well, er--not much
under her dresses."

"And you admired her tremendously, for all that you tried to be
like your mother! I had a grandfather on the Butler side who was a
pirate."

"Not really! A walk-the-plank kind?"

"I daresay he made people walk the plank if there was any money to
be made that way. At any rate, he made enough money to leave my
father quite wealthy. But the family always referred to him
carefully as a 'sea captain.' He was killed in a saloon brawl long
before I was born. His death was, needless to say, a great relief
to his children, for the old gentleman was drunk most of the time
and when in his cups was apt to forget that he was a retired sea
captain and give reminiscences that curled his children's hair.
However, I admired him and tried to copy him far more than I ever
did my father, for Father is an amiable gentleman full of honorable
habits and pious saws--so you see how it goes. I'm sure your
children won't approve of you, Scarlett, any more than Mrs.
Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and their broods approve of you now.
Your children will probably be soft, prissy creatures, as the
children of hard-bitten characters usually are. And to make them
worse, you, like every other mother, are probably determined that
they shall never know the hardships you've known. And that's all
wrong. Hardships make or break people. So you'll have to wait for
approval from your grandchildren."

"I wonder what our grandchildren will be like!"

"Are you suggesting by that 'our' that you and I will have mutual
grandchildren? Fie, Mrs. Kennedy!"

Scarlett, suddenly conscious of her error of speech, went red. It
was more than his joking words that shamed her, for she was
suddenly aware again of her thickening body. In no way had either
of them ever hinted at her condition and she had always kept the
lap robe high under her armpits when with him, even on warm days,
comforting herself in the usual feminine manner with the belief
that she did not show at all when thus covered, and she was
suddenly sick with quick rage at her own condition and shame that
he should know.

"You get out of this buggy, you dirty-minded varmit," she said, her
voice shaking.

"I'll do nothing of the kind," he returned calmly. "It'll be dark
before you get home and there's a new colony of darkies living in
tents and shanties near the next spring, mean niggers I've been
told, and I see no reason why you should give the impulsive Ku Klux
a cause for putting on their nightshirts and riding abroad this
evening."

"Get out!" she cried, tugging at the reins and suddenly nausea
overwhelmed her. He stopped the horse quickly, passed her two
clean handkerchiefs and held her head over the side of the buggy
with some skill. The afternoon sun, slanting low through the newly
leaved trees, spun sickeningly for a few moments in a swirl of gold
and green. When the spell had passed, she put her head in her
hands and cried from sheer mortification. Not only had she vomited
before a man--in itself as horrible a contretemps as could overtake
a woman--but by doing so, the humiliating fact of her pregnancy
must now be evident. She felt that she could never look him in the
face again. To have this happen with him, of all people, with
Rhett who had no respect for women! She cried, expecting some
coarse and jocular remark from him which she would never be able to
forget.

"Don't be a fool," he said quietly. "And you are a fool, if you
are crying for shame. Come, Scarlett, don't be a child. Surely
you must know that, not being blind, I knew you were pregnant."

She said "Oh" in a stunned voice and tightened her fingers over her
crimson face. The word itself horrified her. Frank always
referred to her pregnancy embarrassedly as "your condition," Gerald
had been wont to say delicately "in the family way," when he had to
mention such matters, and ladies genteelly referred to pregnancy as
being "in a fix."

"You are a child if you thought I didn't know, for all your
smothering yourself under that hot lap robe. Of course, I knew.
Why else do you think I've been--"

He stopped suddenly and a silence fell between them. He picked up
the reins and clucked to the horse. He went on talking quietly and
as his drawl fell pleasantly on her ears, some of the color faded
from her down-tucked face.

"I didn't think you could be so shocked, Scarlett. I thought you
were a sensible person and I'm disappointed. Can it be possible
that modesty still lingers in your breast? I'm afraid I'm not a
gentleman to have mentioned the matter. And I know I'm not a
gentleman, in view of the fact that pregnant women do not embarrass
me as they should. I find it possible to treat them as normal
creatures and not look at the ground or the sky or anywhere else in
the universe except their waist lines--and then cast at them those
furtive glances I've always thought the height of indecency. Why
should I? It's a perfectly normal state. The Europeans are far
more sensible than we are. They compliment expectant mothers upon
their expectations. While I wouldn't advise going that far, still
it's more sensible than our way of trying to ignore it. It's a
normal state and women should be proud of it, instead of hiding
behind closed doors as if they'd committed a crime."

"Proud!" she cried in a strangled voice. "Proud--ugh!"

"Aren't you proud to be having a child?"

"Oh dear God, no! I--I hate babies!"

"You mean--Frank's baby."

"No--anybody's baby."

For a moment she went sick again at this new error of speech, but
his voice went on as easily as though he had not marked it.

"Then we're different. I like babies."

"You like them?" she cried, looking up, so startled at the
statement that she forgot her embarrassment. "What a liar you
are!"

"I like babies and I like little children, till they begin to grow
up and acquire adult habits of thought and adult abilities to lie
and cheat and be dirty. That can't be news to you. You know I
like Wade Hampton a lot, for all that he isn't the boy he ought to
be."

That was true, thought Scarlett, suddenly marveling. He did seem
to enjoy playing with Wade and often brought him presents.

"Now that we've brought this dreadful subject into the light and
you admit that you expect a baby some time in the not too distant
future, I'll say something I've been wanting to say for weeks--two
things. The first is that it's dangerous for you to drive alone.
You know it. You've been told it often enough. If you don't care
personally whether or not you are raped, you might consider the
consequences. Because of your obstinacy, you may get yourself into
a situation where your gallant fellow townsmen will be forced to
avenge you by stringing up a few darkies. And that will bring the
Yankees down on them and someone will probably get hanged. Has it
ever occurred to you that perhaps one of the reasons the ladies do
not like you is that your conduct may cause the neck-stretching of
their sons and husbands? And furthermore, if the Ku Klux handles
many more negroes, the Yankees are going to tighten up on Atlanta
in a way that will make Sherman's conduct look angelic. I know
what I'm talking about, for I'm hand in glove with the Yankees.
Shameful to state, they treat me as one of them and I hear them
talk openly. They mean to stamp out the Ku Klux if it means
burning the whole town again and hanging every male over ten. That
would hurt you, Scarlett. You might lose money. And there's no
telling where a prairie fire will stop, once it gets started.
Confiscation of property, higher taxes, fines for suspected women--
I've heard them all suggested. The Ku Klux--"

"Do you know any Ku Klux? Is Tommy Wellburn or Hugh or--"

He shrugged impatiently.

"How should I know? I'm a renegade, a turncoat, a Scallawag.
Would I be likely to know? But I do know men who are suspected by
the Yankees and one false move from them and they are as good as
hanged. While I know you would have no regrets at getting your
neighbors on the gallows, I do believe you'd regret losing your
mills. I see by the stubborn look on your face that you do not
believe me and my words are falling on stony ground. So all I can
say is, keep that pistol of yours handy--and when I'm in town, I'll
try to be on hand to drive you."

"Rhett, do you really--is it to protect me that you--"

"Yes, my dear, it is my much advertised chivalry that makes me
protect you." The mocking light began to dance in his black eyes
and all signs of earnestness fled from his face. "And why?
Because of my deep love for you, Mrs. Kennedy. Yes, I have
silently hungered and thirsted for you and worshipped you from
afar; but being an honorable man, like Mr. Ashley Wilkes, I have
concealed it from you. You are, alas, Frank's wife and honor has
forbidden my telling this to you. But even as Mr. Wilkes' honor
cracks occasionally, so mine is cracking now and I reveal my secret
passion and my--"

"Oh, for God's sake, hush!" interrupted Scarlett, annoyed as usual
when he made her look like a conceited fool, and not caring to have
Ashley and his honor become the subject of further conversation.
"What was the other thing you wanted to tell me?"

"What! You change the subject when I am baring a loving but
lacerated heart? Well, the other thing is this." The mocking
light died out of his eyes again and his face was dark and quiet.

"I want you to do something about this horse. He's stubborn and
he's got a mouth as tough as iron. Tires you to drive him, doesn't
it? Well, if he chose to bolt, you couldn't possibly stop him.
And if you turned over in a ditch, it might kill your baby and you
too. You ought to get the heaviest curb bit you can, or else let
me swap him for a gentle horse with a more sensitive mouth."

She looked up into his blank, smooth face and suddenly her
irritation fell away, even as her embarrassment had disappeared
after the conversation about her pregnancy. He had been kind, a
few moments before, to put her at her ease when she was wishing
that she were dead. And he was being kinder now and very
thoughtful about the horse. She felt a rush of gratitude to him
and she wondered why he could not always be this way.

"The horse is hard to drive," she agreed meekly. "Sometimes my
arms ache all night from tugging at him. You do what you think
best about him, Rhett."

His eyes sparkled wickedly.

"That sounds very sweet and feminine, Mrs. Kennedy. Not in your
usual masterful vein at all. Well, it only takes proper handling
to make a clinging vine out of you."

She scowled and her temper came back.

"You will get out of this buggy this time, or I will hit you with
the whip. I don't know why I put up with you--why I try to be nice
to you. You have no manners. You have no morals. You are nothing
but a-- Well, get out. I mean it."

But when he had climbed down and untied his horse from the back of
the buggy and stood in the twilight road, grinning tantalizingly at
her, she could not smother her own grin as she drove off.

Yes, he was coarse, he was tricky, he was unsafe to have dealings
with, and you never could tell when the dull weapon you put into
his hands in an unguarded moment might turn into the keenest of
blades. But, after all, he was as stimulating as--well, as a
surreptitious glass of brandy!

During these months Scarlett had learned the use of brandy. When
she came home in the late afternoons, damp from the rain, cramped
and aching from long hours in the buggy, nothing sustained her
except the thought of the bottle hidden in her top bureau drawer,
locked against Mammy's prying eyes. Dr. Meade had not thought to
warn her that a woman in her condition should not drink, for it
never occurred to him that a decent woman would drink anything
stronger than scuppernong wine. Except, of course, a glass of
champagne at a wedding or a hot toddy when confined to bed with a
hard cold. Of course, there were unfortunate women who drank, to
the eternal disgrace of their families, just as there were women
who were insane or divorced or who believed, with Miss Susan B.
Anthony, that women should have the vote. But as much as the
doctor disapproved of Scarlett, he never suspected her of drinking.

Scarlett had found that a drink of neat brandy before supper helped
immeasurably and she would always chew coffee or gargle cologne to
disguise the smell. Why were people so silly about women drinking,
when men could and did get reeling drunk whenever they wanted to?
Sometimes when Frank lay snoring beside her and sleep would not
come, when she lay tossing, torn with fears of poverty, dreading
the Yankees, homesick for Tara and yearning for Ashley, she thought
she would go crazy were it not for the brandy bottle. And when the
pleasant familiar warmth stole through her veins, her troubles
began to fade. After three drinks, she could always say to
herself: "I'll think of these things tomorrow when I can stand
them better."

But there were some nights when even brandy would not still the
ache in her heart, the ache that was even stronger than fear of
losing the mills, the ache to see Tara again. Atlanta, with its
noises, its new buildings, its strange faces, its narrow streets
crowded with horses and wagons and bustling crowds sometimes seemed
to stifle her. She loved Atlanta but--oh, for the sweet peace and
country quiet of Tara, the red fields and the dark pines about it!
Oh, to be back at Tara, no matter how hard the life might be! And
to be near Ashley, just to see him, to hear him speak, to be
sustained by the knowledge of his love! Each letter from Melanie,
saying that they were well, each brief note from Will reporting
about the plowing, the planting, the growing of the cotton made her
long anew to be home again.

I'll go home in June. I can't do anything here after that. I'll
go home for a couple of months, she thought, and her heart would
rise. She did go home in June but not as she longed to go, for
early in that month came a brief message from Will that Gerald was
dead.



CHAPTER XXXIX


The train was very late and the long, deeply blue twilight of June
was settling over the countryside when Scarlett alighted in
Jonesboro. Yellow gleams of lamplight showed in the stores and
houses which remained in the village, but they were few. Here and
there were wide gaps between the buildings on the main street where
dwellings had been shelled or burned. Ruined houses with shell
holes in their roofs and half the walls torn away stared at her,
silent and dark. A few saddle horses and mule teams were hitched
outside the wooden awning of Bullard's store. The dusty red road
was empty and lifeless, and the only sounds in the village were a
few whoops and drunken laughs that floated on the still twilight
air from a saloon far down the street.

The depot had not been rebuilt since it was burned in the battle
and in its place was only a wooden shelter, with no sides to keep
out the weather. Scarlett walked under it and sat down on one of
the empty kegs that were evidently put there for seats. She peered
up and down the street for Will Benteen. Will should have been
here to meet her. He should have known she would take the first
train possible after receiving his laconic message that Gerald was
dead.

She had come so hurriedly that she had in her small carpetbag only
a nightgown and a tooth brush, not even a change of underwear. She
was uncomfortable in the tight black dress she had borrowed from
Mrs. Meade, for she had had no time to get mourning clothes for
herself. Mrs. Meade was thin now, and Scarlett's pregnancy being
advanced, the dress was doubly uncomfortable. Even in her sorrow
at Gerald's death, she did not forget the appearance she was making
and she looked down at her body with distaste. Her figure was
completely gone and her face and ankles were puffy. Heretofore she
had not cared very much how she looked but now that she would see
Ashley within the hour she cared greatly. Even in her heartbreak,
she shrank from the thought of facing him when she was carrying
another man's child. She loved him and he loved her, and this
unwanted child now seemed to her a proof of infidelity to that
love. But much as she disliked having him see her with the
slenderness gone from her waist and the lightness from her step, it
was something she could not escape now.

She patted her foot impatiently. Will should have met her. Of
course, she could go over to Bullard's and inquire after him or ask
someone there to drive her over to Tara, should she find he had
been unable to come. But she did not want to go to Bullard's. It
was Saturday night and probably half the men of the County would be
there. She did not want to display her condition in this poorly
fitting black dress which accentuated rather than hid her figure.
And she did not want to hear the kindly sympathy that would be
poured out about Gerald. She did not want sympathy. She was
afraid she would cry if anyone even mentioned his name to her. And
she wouldn't cry. She knew if she once began it would be like the
time she cried into the horse's mane, that dreadful night when
Atlanta fell and Rhett had left her on the dark road outside the
town, terrible tears that tore her heart and could not be stopped.

No, she wouldn't cry! She felt the lump in her throat rising
again, as it had done so often since the news came, but crying
wouldn't do any good. It would only confuse and weaken her. Why,
oh, why hadn't Will or Melanie or the girls written her that Gerald
was ailing? She would have taken the first train to Tara to care
for him, brought a doctor from Atlanta if necessary. The fools--
all of them! Couldn't they manage anything without her? She
couldn't be in two places at once and the good Lord knew she was
doing her best for them all in Atlanta.

She twisted about on the keg, becoming nervous and fidgety as Will
still did not come. Where was he? Then she heard the scrunching
of cinders on the railroad tracks behind her and, twisting her
body, she saw Alex Fontaine crossing the tracks toward a wagon, a
sack of oats on his shoulder.

"Good Lord! Isn't that you, Scarlett?" he cried, dropping the sack
and running to take her hand, pleasure written all over his bitter,
swarthy little face. "I'm so glad to see you. I saw Will over at
the blacksmith's shop, getting the horse shod. The train was late
and he thought he'd have time. Shall I run fetch him?"

"Yes, please, Alex," she said, smiling in spite of her sorrow. It
was good to see a County face again.

"Oh--er--Scarlett," he began awkwardly, still holding her hand,
"I'm mighty sorry about your father."

"Thank you," she replied, wishing he had not said it. His words
brought up Gerald's florid face and bellowing voice so clearly.

"If it's any comfort to you, Scarlett, we're mighty proud of him
around here," Alex continued, dropping her hand. "He--well, we
figure he died like a soldier and in a soldier's cause."

Now what did he mean by that, she thought confusedly. A soldier?
Had someone shot him? Had he gotten into a fight with the
Scallawags as Tony had? But she mustn't hear more. She would cry
if she talked about him and she mustn't cry, not until she was
safely in the wagon with Will and out in the country where no
stranger could see her. Will wouldn't matter. He was just like a
brother.

"Alex, I don't want to talk about it," she said shortly.

"I don't blame you one bit, Scarlett," said Alex while the dark
blood of anger flooded his face. "If it was my sister, I'd--well,
Scarlett, I've never yet said a harsh word about any woman, but
personally I think somebody ought to take a rawhide whip to
Suellen."

What foolishness was he talking about now, she wondered. What had
Suellen to do with it all?

"Everybody around here feels the same way about her, I'm sorry to
say. Will's the only one who takes up for her--and, of course,
Miss Melanie, but she's a saint and won't see bad in anyone and--"

"I said I didn't want to talk about it," she said coldly but Alex
did not seem rebuffed. He looked as though he understood her
rudeness and that was annoying. She didn't want to hear bad
tidings about her own family from an outsider, didn't want him to
know of her ignorance of what had happened. Why hadn't Will sent
her the full details?

She wished Alex wouldn't look at her so hard. She felt that he
realized her condition and it embarrassed her. But what Alex was
thinking as he peered at her in the twilight was that her face had
changed so completely he wondered how he had ever recognized her.
Perhaps it was because she was going to have a baby. Women did
look like the devil at such times. And, of course, she must be
feeling badly about old man O'Hara. She had been his pet. But,
no, the change was deeper than that. She really looked as if she
had three square meals a day. And the hunted-animal look had
partly gone from her eyes. Now, the eyes which had been fearful
and desperate were hard. There was an air of command, assurance
and determination about her, even when she smiled. Bet she led old
Frank a merry life! Yes, she had changed. She was a handsome
woman, to be sure, but all that pretty, sweet softness had gone
from her face and that flattering way of looking up at a man, like
he knew more than God Almighty, had utterly vanished.

Well, hadn't they all changed? Alex looked down at his rough
clothes and his face fell into its usual bitter lines. Sometimes
at night when he lay awake, wondering how his mother was going to
get that operation and how poor dead Joe's little boy was going to
get an education and how he was going to get money for another
mule, he wished the war was still going on, wished it had gone on
forever. They didn't know their luck then. There was always
something to eat in the army, even if it was just corn bread,
always somebody to give orders and none of this torturing sense of
facing problems that couldn't be solved--nothing to bother about in
the army except getting killed. And then there was Dimity Munroe.
Alex wanted to marry her and he knew he couldn't when so many were
already looking to him for support. He had loved her for so long
and now the roses were fading from her cheeks and the joy from her
eyes. If only Tony hadn't had to run away to Texas. Another man
on the place would make all the difference in the world. His
lovable bad-tempered little brother, penniless somewhere in the
West. Yes, they had all changed. And why not? He sighed heavily.

"I haven't thanked you for what you and Frank did for Tony," he
said. "It was you who helped him get away, wasn't it? It was fine
of you. I heard in a roundabout way that he was safe in Texas. I
was afraid to write and ask you--but did you or Frank lend him any
money? I want to repay--"

"Oh, Alex, please hush! Not now!" cried Scarlett. For once, money
meant nothing to her.

Alex was silent for a moment.

"I'll get Will for you," he said, "and we'll all be over tomorrow
for the funeral."

As he picked up the sack of oats and turned away, a wobbly-wheeled
wagon swayed out of a side street and creaked up to them. Will
called from the seat: "I'm sorry I'm late, Scarlett."

Climbing awkwardly down from the wagon, he stumped toward her and,
bending, kissed her cheek. Will had never kissed her before, had
never failed to precede her name with "Miss" and, while it
surprised her, it warmed her heart and pleased her very much. He
lifted her carefully over the wheel and into the wagon and, looking
down, she saw that it was the same old rickety wagon in which she
had fled from Atlanta. How had it ever held together so long?
Will must have kept it patched up very well. It made her slightly
sick to look at it and to remember that night. If it took the
shoes off her feet or food from Aunt Pitty's table, she'd see that
there was a new wagon at Tara and this one burned.

Will did not speak at first and Scarlett was grateful. He threw
his battered straw hat into the back of the wagon, clucked to the
horse and they moved off. Will was just the same, lank and
gangling, pink of hair, mild of eye, patient as a draft animal.

They left the village behind and turned into the red road to Tara.
A faint pink still lingered about the edges of the sky and fat
feathery clouds were tinged with gold and palest green. The
stillness of the country twilight came down about them as calming
as a prayer. How had she ever borne it, she thought, away for all
these months, away from the fresh smell of country air, the plowed
earth and the sweetness of summer nights? The moist red earth
smelled so good, so familiar, so friendly, she wanted to get out
and scoop up a handful. The honeysuckle which draped the gullied
red sides of the road in tangled greenery was piercingly fragrant
as always after rain, the sweetest perfume in the world. Above
their heads a flock of chimney swallows whirled suddenly on swift
wings and now and then a rabbit scurried startled across the road,
his white tail bobbing like an eiderdown powder puff. She saw with
pleasure that the cotton stood well, as they passed between plowed
fields where the green bushes reared themselves sturdily out of the
red earth. How beautiful all this was! The soft gray mist in the
swampy bottoms, the red earth and growing cotton, the sloping
fields with curving green rows and the black pines rising behind
everything like sable walls. How had she ever stayed in Atlanta so
long?

"Scarlett, before I tell you about Mr. O'Hara--and I want to tell
you everything before you get home--I want to ask your opinion on a
matter. I figger you're the head of the house now."

"What is it, Will?"

He turned his mild sober gaze on her for a moment.

"I just wanted your approval to my marryin' Suellen."

Scarlett clutched the seat, so surprised that she almost fell
backwards. Marry Suellen! She'd never thought of anybody marrying
Suellen since she had taken Frank Kennedy from her. Who would have
Suellen?

"Goodness, Will!"

"Then I take it you don't mind?"

"Mind? No, but-- Why, Will, you've taken my breath away! You
marry Suellen? Will, I always thought you were sweet on Carreen."

Will kept his eyes on the horse and flapped the reins. His profile
did not change but she thought he sighed slightly.

"Maybe I was," he said.

"Well, won't she have you?"

"I never asked her."

"Oh, Will, you're a fool. Ask her. She's worth two of Suellen!"

"Scarlett, you don't know a lot of things that's been going on at
Tara. You ain't favored us with much of your attention these last
months."

"I haven't, haven't I?" she flared. "What do you suppose I've been
doing in Atlanta? Riding around in a coach and four and going to
balls? Haven't I sent you money every month? Haven't I paid the
taxes and fixed the roof and bought the new plow and the mules?
Haven't--"

"Now, don't fly off the handle and get your Irish up," he
interrupted imperturbably. "If anybody knows what you've done, I
do, and it's been two men's work."

Slightly mollified, she questioned, "Well then, what do you mean?"

"Well, you've kept the roof over us and food in the pantry and I
ain't denyin' that, but you ain't given much thought to what's been
goin' on in anybody's head here at Tara. I ain't blamin' you,
Scarlett. That's just your way. You warn't never very much
interested in what was in folks' heads. But what I'm tryin' to
tell you is that I didn't never ask Miss Carreen because I knew it
wouldn't be no use. She's been like a little sister to me and I
guess she talks to me plainer than to anybody in the world. But
she never got over that dead boy and she never will. And I might
as well tell you now she's aimin' to go in a convent over to
Charleston."

"Are you joking?"

"Well, I knew it would take you back and I just want to ask you,
Scarlett, don't you argue with her about it or scold her or laugh
at her. Let her go. It's all she wants now. Her heart's broken."

"But God's nightgown! Lots of people's hearts have been broken and
they didn't run off to convents. Look at me. I lost a husband."

"But your heart warn't broken," Will said calmly and, picking up a
straw from the bottom of the wagon, he put it in his mouth and
chewed slowly. That remark took the wind out of her. As always
when she heard the truth spoken, no matter how unpalatable it was,
basic honesty forced her to acknowledge it as truth. She was
silent a moment, trying to accustom herself to the idea of Carreen
as a nun.

"Promise you won't fuss at her."

"Oh, well, I promise," and then she looked at him with a new
understanding and some amazement. Will had loved Carreen, loved
her now enough to take her part and make her retreat easy. And yet
he wanted to marry Suellen.

"Well, what's all this about Suellen? You don't care for her, do
you?"

"Oh, yes, I do in a way," he said removing the straw and surveying
it as if it were highly interesting. "Suellen ain't as bad as you
think, Scarlett. I think we'll get along right well. The only
trouble with Suellen is that she needs a husband and some children
and that's just what every woman needs."

The wagon jolted over the rutty road and for a few minutes while
the two sat silent Scarlett's mind was busy. There must be
something more to it than appeared on the surface, something
deeper, more important, to make the mild and soft-spoken Will want
to marry a complaining nagger like Suellen.

"You haven't told me the real reason, Will. If I'm head of the
family, I've got a right to know."

"That's right," said Will, "and I guess you'll understand. I can't
leave Tara. It's home to me, Scarlett, the only real home I ever
knew and I love every stone of it. I've worked on it like it was
mine. And when you put out work on somethin', you come to love it.
You know what I mean?"

She knew what he meant and her heart went out in a surge of warm
affection for him, hearing him say he, too, loved the thing she
loved best.

"And I figger it this way. With your pa gone and Carreen a nun,
there'll be just me and Suellen left here and, of course, I
couldn't live on at Tara without marryin' Suellen. You know how
folks talk."

"But--but Will, there's Melanie and Ashley--"

At Ashley's name he turned and looked at her, his pale eyes
unfathomable. She had the old feeling that Will knew all about her
and Ashley, understood all and did not either censure or approve.

"They'll be goin' soon."

"Going? Where? Tara is their home as well as yours."

"No, it ain't their home. That's just what's eatin' on Ashley. It
ain't his home and he don't feel like he's earnin' his keep. He's
a mighty pore farmer and he knows it. God knows he tries his best
but he warn't cut out for farmin' and you know it as well as I do.
If he splits kindlin', like as not he'll slice off his foot. He
can't no more keep a plow straight in a furrow than little Beau
can, and what he don't know about makin' things grow would fill a
book. It ain't his fault. He just warn't bred for it. And it
worries him that he's a man livin' at Tara on a woman's charity and
not givin' much in return."

"Charity? Has he ever said--"

"No, he's never said a word. You know Ashley. But I can tell.
Last night when we were sittin' up with your pa, I tole him I had
asked Suellen and she'd said Yes. And then Ashley said that
relieved him because he'd been feelin' like a dog, stayin' on at
Tara, and he knew he and Miss Melly would have to keep stayin' on,
now that Mr. O'Hara was dead, just to keep folks from talkin' about
me and Suellen. So then he told me he was aimin' to leave Tara and
get work."

"Work? What kind? Where?"

"I don't know exactly what he'll do but he said he was goin' up
North. He's got a Yankee friend in New York who wrote him about
workin' in a bank up there."

"Oh, no!" cried Scarlett from the bottom of her heart and, at the
cry, Will gave her the same look as before.

"Maybe 'twould be better all 'round if he did go North."

"No! No! I don't think so."

Her mind was working feverishly. Ashley couldn't go North! She
might never see him again. Even though she had not seen him in
months, had not spoken to him alone since that fateful scene in the
orchard, there had not been a day when she had not thought of him,
been glad he was sheltered under her roof. She had never sent a
dollar to Will that she had not been pleased that it would make
Ashley's life easier. Of course, he wasn't any good as a farmer.
Ashley was bred for better things, she thought proudly. He was
born to rule, to live in a large house, ride fine horses, read
books of poetry and tell negroes what to do. That there were no
more mansions and horses and negroes and few books did not alter
matters. Ashley wasn't bred to plow and split rails. No wonder he
wanted to leave Tara.

But she could not let him go away from Georgia. If necessary, she
would bully Frank into giving him a job in the store, make Frank
turn off the boy he now had behind the counter. But, no--Ashley's
place was no more behind a counter than it was behind a plow. A
Wilkes a shopkeeper! Oh, never that! There must be something--
why, her mill of course! Her relief at the thought was so great
that she smiled. But would he accept an offer from her? Would he
still think it was charity? She must manage it so he would think
he was doing her a favor. She would discharge Mr. Johnson and put
Ashley in charge of the old mill while Hugh operated the new one.
She would explain to Ashley how Frank's ill health and the pressure
of work at the store kept him from helping her, and she would plead
her condition as another reason why she needed his help.

She would make him realize somehow that she couldn't do without his
aid at this time. And she would give him a half-interest in the
mill, if he would only take it over--anything just to have him near
her, anything to see that bright smile light up his face, anything
for the chance of catching an unguarded look in his eyes that
showed he still cared. But, she promised herself, never, never
would she again try to prod him into words of love, never again
would she try to make him throw away that foolish honor he valued
more than love. Somehow, she must delicately convey to him this
new resolution of hers. Otherwise he might refuse, fearing another
scene such as that last terrible one had been.

"I can get him something to do in Atlanta," she said.

"Well, that's yours and Ashley's business," said Will and put the
straw back in his mouth. "Giddap, Sherman. Now, Scarlett.
there's somethin' else I've got to ask you before I tell you about
your pa. I won't have you lightin' into Suellen. What she's done,
she's done, and you snatchin' her baldheaded won't bring Mr. O'Hara
back. Besides she honestly thought she was actin' for the best!"

"I wanted to ask you about that. What is all this about Suellen?
Alex talked riddles and said she ought to be whipped. What has she
done?"

"Yes, folks are pretty riled up about her. Everybody I run into
this afternoon in Jonesboro was promisin' to cut her dead the next
time they seen her, but maybe they'll get over it. Now, promise me
you won't light into her. I won't be havin' no quarrelin' tonight
with Mr. O'Hara layin' dead in the parlor."

HE won't be having any quarreling! thought Scarlett, indignantly.
He talks like Tara was his already!

And then she thought of Gerald, dead in the parlor, and suddenly
she began to cry, cry in bitter, gulping sobs. Will put his arm
around her, drew her comfortably close and said nothing.