Chapter - 1 | Gone with the Wind

SCARLETT O’HARA WAS NOT BEAUTIFUL, but men seldom realized it when
caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too
sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast aristocrat of
French descent, and the heavy ones of her ﬂorid Irish father. But it was an
arresting face, pointed of chin, square of jaw. Her eyes were pale green
without a touch of hazel, starred with bristly black lashes and slightly tilted
at the ends. Above them, her thick black brows slanted upward, cutting a
startling oblique line in her magnolia-white skin—that skin so prized by
Southern women and so carefully guarded with bonnets, veils and mittens
against hot Georgia suns.
Seated with Stuart and Brent Tarleton in the cool shade of the porch of
Tara, her father’s plantation, that bright April afternoon of 1861, she made
a pretty picture. Her new green ﬂowered-muslin dress spread its twelve
yards of billowing material over her hoops and exactly matched the ﬂat-
heeled green morocco slippers her father had recently brought her from
Atlanta. The dress set off to perfection the seventeen-inch waist, the
smallest in three counties, and the tightly ﬁtting basque showed breasts
well matured for her sixteen years. But for all the modesty of her spreading
skirts, the demureness of hair netted smoothly into a chignon and the
quietness of small white hands folded in her lap, her true self was poorly
concealed. The green eyes in the carefully sweet face were turbulent,
willful, lusty with life, distinctly at variance with her decorous demeanor.
Her manners had been imposed upon her by her mother’s gentle
admonitions and the sterner discipline of her mammy; her eyes were her
own.
On either side of her, the twins lounged easily in their chairs, squinting
at the sunlight through tall mint-garnished glasses as they laughed and
talked, their long legs, booted to the knee and thick with saddle muscles,

crossed negligently. Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall, long of
bone and hard of muscle, with sunburned faces and deep auburn hair, their
eyes merry and arrogant, their bodies clothed in identical blue coats and
mustard-colored breeches, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton.
Outside, the late afternoon sun slanted down in the yard, throwing into
gleaming brightness the dogwood trees that were solid masses of white
blossoms against the background of new green. The twins’ horses were
hitched in the driveway, big animals, red as their masters’ hair; and around
the horses’ legs quarreled the pack of lean, nervous possum hounds that
accompanied Stuart and Brent wherever they went. A little aloof, as
became an aristocrat, lay a black-spotted carriage dog, muzzle on paws,
patiently waiting for the boys to go home to supper.
Between the hounds and the horses and the twins there was a kinship
deeper than that of their constant companionship. They were all healthy,
thoughtless young animals, sleek, graceful, high-spirited, the boys as
mettlesome as the horses they rode, mettlesome and dangerous but, withal,
sweet-tempered to those who knew how to handle them.
Although born to the ease of plantation life, waited on hand and foot
since infancy, the faces of the three on the porch were neither slack nor
soft. They had the vigor and alertness of country people who have spent all
their lives in the open and troubled their heads very little with dull things
in books. Life in the north Georgia county of Clayton was still new and,
according to the standards of Augusta, Savannah and Charleston, a little
crude. The more sedate and older sections of the South looked down their
noses at the up-country Georgians, but here in north Georgia, a lack of the
niceties of classical education carried no shame, provided a man was smart
in the things that mattered. And raising good cotton, riding well, shooting
straight, dancing lightly, squiring the ladies with elegance and carrying
one’s liquor like a gentleman were the things that mattered.
In these accomplishments the twins excelled, and they were equally
outstanding in their notorious inability to learn anything contained
between the covers of books. Their family had more money, more horses,
more slaves than any one else in the County, but the boys had less grammar
than most of their poor Cracker neighbors.
It was for this precise reason that Stuart and Brent were idling on the
porch of Tara this April afternoon. They had just been expelled from the

University of Georgia, the fourth university that had thrown them out in
two years; and their older brothers, Tom and Boyd, had come home with
them, because they refused to remain at an institution where the twins
were not welcome. Stuart and Brent considered their latest expulsion a ﬁne
joke, and Scarlett, who had not willingly opened a book since leaving the
Fayetteville Female Academy the year before, thought it just as amusing as
they did.
“I know you two don’t care about being expelled, or Tom either,” she
said. “But what about Boyd? He’s kind of set on getting an education, and
you two have pulled him out of the University of Virginia and Alabama
and South Carolina and now Georgia. He’ll never get ﬁnished at this rate.”
“Oh, he can read law in Judge Parmalee’s ofﬁce over in Fayetteville,”
answered Brent carelessly. “Besides, it don’t matter much. We’d have had
to come home before the term was out anyway.”
“Why?”
“The war, goose! The war’s going to start any day, and you don’t suppose
any of us would stay in college with a war going on, do you?”
“You know there isn’t going to be any war,” said Scarlett, bored. “It’s all
just talk. Why, Ashley Wilkes and his father told Pa just last week that our
commissioners in Washington would come to—to—an—amicable
agreement with Mr. Lincoln about the Confederacy. And anyway, the
Yankees are too scared of us to ﬁght. There won’t be any war, and I’m tired
of hearing about it.”
“Not going to be any war!” cried the twins indignantly, as though they
had been defrauded.
“Why, honey, of course there’s going to be a war,” said Stuart. “The
Yankees may be scared of us, but after the way General Beauregard shelled
them out of Fort Sumter day before yesterday, they’ll have to ﬁght or stand
branded as cowards before the whole world. Why, the Confederacy—”
Scarlett made a mouth of bored impatience.
“If you say ‘war’ just once more, I’ll go in the house and shut the door.
I’ve never gotten so tired of any one word in my life as ‘war,’ unless it’s
‘secession.’ Pa talks war morning, noon and night, and all the gentlemen
who come to see him shout about Fort Sumter and States’ Rights and Abe
Lincoln till I get so bored I could scream! And that’s all the boys talk
about, too, that and their old Troop. There hasn’t been any fun at any party

this spring because the boys can’t talk about anything else. I’m mighty glad
Georgia waited till after Christmas before it seceded or it would have
ruined the Christmas parties, too. If you say ‘war’ again, I’ll go in the
house.”
She meant what she said, for she could never long endure any
conversation of which she was not the chief subject. But she smiled when
she spoke, consciously deepening her dimple and ﬂuttering her bristly black
lashes as swiftly as butterﬂies’ wings. The boys were enchanted, as she had
intended them to be, and they hastened to apologize for boring her. They
thought none the less of her for her lack of interest. Indeed, they thought
more. War was men’s business, not ladies’, and they took her attitude as
evidence of her femininity.
Having maneuvered them away from the boring subject of war, she went
back with interest to their immediate situation.
“What did your mother say about you two being expelled again?”
The boys looked uncomfortable, recalling their mother’s conduct three
months ago when they had come home, by request, from the University of
Virginia.
“Well,” said Stuart, “she hasn’t had a chance to say anything yet. Tom
and us left home early this morning before she got up, and Tom’s laying out
over at the Fontaines’ while we came over here.”
“Didn’t she say anything when you got home last night?”
“We were in luck last night. Just before we got home that new stallion
Ma got in Kentucky last month was brought in, and the place was in a stew.
The big brute—he’s a grand horse, Scarlett; you must tell your pa to come
over and see him right away—he’d already bitten a hunk out of his groom
on the way down here and he’d trampled two of Ma’s darkies who met the
train at Jonesboro. And just before we got home, he’d about kicked the
stable down and half-killed Strawberry, Ma’s old stallion. When we got
home, Ma was out in the stable with a sackful of sugar smoothing him
down and doing it mighty well, too. The darkies were hanging from the
rafters, popeyed, they were so scared, but Ma was talking to the horse like
he was folks and he was eating out of her hand. There ain’t nobody like Ma
with a horse. And when she saw us she said: ‘In Heaven’s name, what are
you four doing home again? You’re worse than the plagues of Egypt!’ And
then the horse began snorting and rearing and she said: ‘Get out of here!

Can’t you see he’s nervous, the big darling? I’ll tend to you four in the
morning!’ So we went to bed, and this morning we got away before she
could catch us and left Boyd to handle her.”
“Do you suppose she’ll hit Boyd?” Scarlett, like the rest of the County,
could never get used to the way small Mrs. Tarleton bullied her grown sons
and laid her riding crop on their backs if the occasion seemed to warrant it.
Beatrice Tarleton was a busy woman, having on her hands not only a
large cotton plantation, a hundred negroes and eight children, but the
largest horse-breeding farm in the state as well. She was hot-tempered and
easily plagued by the frequent scrapes of her four sons, and while no one
was permitted to whip a horse or a slave, she felt that a lick now and then
didn’t do the boys any harm.
“Of course she won’t hit Boyd. She never did beat Boyd much because
he’s the oldest and besides he’s the runt of the litter,” said Stuart, proud of
his six feet two. “That’s why we left him at home to explain things to her.
God’lmighty, Ma ought to stop licking us! We’re nineteen and Tom’s
twenty-one, and she acts like we’re six years old.”
“Will your mother ride the new horse to the Wilkes barbecue
tomorrow?”
“She wants to, but Pa says he’s too dangerous. And, anyway, the girls
won’t let her. They said they were going to have her go to one party at least
like a lady, riding in the carriage.”
“I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” said Scarlett. “It’s rained nearly every
day for a week. There’s nothing worse than a barbecue turned into an
indoor picnic.”
“Oh, it’ll be clear tomorrow and hot as June,” said Stuart. “Look at that
sunset. I never saw one redder. You can always tell weather by sunsets.”
They looked out across the endless acres of Gerald O’Hara’s newly
plowed cotton ﬁelds toward the red horizon. Now that the sun was setting
in a welter of crimson behind the hills across the Flint River, the warmth of
the April day was ebbing into a faint but balmy chill.
Spring had come early that year, with warm quick rains and sudden
frothing of pink peach blossoms and dogwood dappling with white stars the
dark river swamp and far-off hills. Already the plowing was nearly ﬁnished,
and the bloody glory of the sunset colored the fresh-cut furrows of red
Georgia clay to even redder hues. The moist hungry earth, waiting

upturned for the cotton seeds, showed pinkish on the sandy tops of furrows,
vermilion and scarlet and maroon where shadows lay along the sides of the
trenches. The whitewashed brick plantation house seemed an island set in
a wild red sea, a sea of spiraling, curving, crescent billows petriﬁed suddenly
at the moment when the pink-tipped waves were breaking into surf. For
here were no long, straight furrows, such as could be seen in the yellow clay
ﬁelds of the ﬂat middle Georgia country or in the lush black earth of the
coastal plantations. The rolling foothill country of north Georgia was
plowed in a million curves to keep the rich earth from washing down into
the river bottoms.
It was a savagely red land, blood-colored after rains, brick dust in
droughts, the best cotton land in the world. It was a pleasant land of white
houses, peaceful plowed ﬁelds and sluggish yellow rivers, but a land of
contrasts, of brightest sun glare and densest shade. The plantation clearings
and miles of cotton ﬁelds smiled up to a warm sun, placid, complacent. At
their edges rose the virgin forests, dark and cool even in the hottest noons,
mysterious, a little sinister, the soughing pines seeming to wait with an age-
old patience, to threaten with soft sighs: “Be careful! Be careful! We had
you once. We can take you back again.”
To the ears of the three on the porch came the sounds of hooves, the
jingling of harness chains and the shrill careless laughter of negro voices, as
the ﬁeld hands and mules came in from the ﬁelds. From within the house
ﬂoated the soft voice of Scarlett’s mother, Ellen O’Hara, as she called to the
little black girl who carried her basket of keys. The high-pitched, childish
voice answered “Yas’m,” and there were sounds of footsteps going out the
back way toward the smokehouse where Ellen would ration out the food to
the home-coming hands. There was the click of china and the rattle of
silver as Pork, the valet-butler of Tara, laid the table for supper.
At these last sounds, the twins realized it was time they were starting
home. But they were loath to face their mother and they lingered on the
porch of Tara, momentarily expecting Scarlett to give them an invitation
to supper.
“Look, Scarlett. About tomorrow,” said Brent. “Just because we’ve been
away and didn’t know about the barbecue and the ball, that’s no reason
why we shouldn’t get plenty of dances tomorrow night. You haven’t
promised them all, have you?”

“Well, I have! How did I know you all would be home? I couldn’t risk
being a wallﬂower just waiting on you two.”
“You a wallﬂower!” The boys laughed uproariously.
“Look, honey. You’ve got to give me the ﬁrst waltz and Stu the last one
and you’ve got to eat supper with us. We’ll sit on the stair landing like we
did at the last ball and get Mammy Jincy to come tell our fortunes again.”
“I don’t like Mammy Jincy’s fortunes. You know she said I was going to
marry a gentleman with jet-black hair and a long black mustache, and I
don’t like black-haired gentlemen.”
“You like ’em red-headed, don’t you, honey?” grinned Brent. “Now,
come on, promise us all the waltzes and the supper.”
“If you’ll promise, we’ll tell you a secret,” said Stuart.
“What?” cried Scarlett, alert as a child at the word.
“Is it what we heard yesterday in Atlanta, Stu? If it is, you know we
promised not to tell.”
“Well, Miss Pitty told us.”
“Miss Who?”
“You know, Ashley Wilkes’ cousin who lives in Atlanta, Miss Pittypat
Hamilton—Charles and Melanie Hamilton’s aunt.”
“I do, and a sillier old lady I never met in all my life.”
“Well, when we were in Atlanta yesterday, waiting for the home train,
her carriage went by the depot and she stopped and talked to us, and she
told us there was going to be an engagement announced tomorrow night at
the Wilkes ball.”
“Oh, I know about that,” said Scarlett in disappointment. “That silly
nephew of hers, Charlie Hamilton, and Honey Wilkes. Everybody’s known
for years that they’d get married some time, even if he did seem kind of
lukewarm about it.”
“Do you think he’s silly?” questioned Brent. “Last Christmas you sure let
him buzz round you plenty.”
“I couldn’t help him buzzing,” Scarlett shrugged negligently. “I think
he’s an awful sissy.”
“Besides, it isn’t his engagement that’s going to be announced,” said
Stuart triumphantly. “It’s Ashley’s to Charlie’s sister, Miss Melanie!”
Scarlett’s face did not change but her lips went white—like a person
who has received a stunning blow without warning and who, in the ﬁrst

moments of shock, does not realize what has happened. So still was her face
as she stared at Stuart that he, never analytic, took it for granted that she
was merely surprised and very interested.
“Miss Pitty told us they hadn’t intended announcing it till next year,
because Miss Melly hasn’t been very well; but with all the war talk going
around, everybody in both families thought it would be better to get
married real soon. So it’s to be announced tomorrow night at the supper
intermission. Now, Scarlett, we’ve told you the secret, so you’ve got to
promise to eat supper with us.”
“Of course I will,” Scarlett said automatically.
“And all the waltzes?”
“All.”
“You’re sweet! I’ll bet the other boys will be hopping mad.”
“Let ’em be mad,” said Brent. “We two can handle ’em. Look, Scarlett.
Sit with us at the barbecue in the morning.”
“What?”
Stuart repeated his request.
“Of course.”
The twins looked at each other jubilantly but with some surprise.
Although they considered themselves Scarlett’s favored suitors, they had
never before gained tokens of this favor so easily. Usually she made them
beg and plead, while she put them off, refusing to give a Yes or No answer,
laughing if they sulked, growing cool if they became angry. And here she
had practically promised them the whole of tomorrow—seats by her at the
barbecue, all the waltzes (and they’d see to it that the dances were all
waltzes!) and the supper intermission. This was worth getting expelled from
the university.
Filled with new enthusiasm by their success, they lingered on, talking
about the barbecue and the ball and Ashley Wilkes and Melanie Hamilton,
interrupting each other, making jokes and laughing at them, hinting
broadly for invitations to supper. Some time had passed before they realized
that Scarlett was having very little to say. The atmosphere had somehow
changed. Just how, the twins did not know, but the ﬁne glow had gone out
of the afternoon. Scarlett seemed to be paying little attention to what they
said, although she made the correct answers. Sensing something they could

not understand, bafﬂed and annoyed by it, the twins struggled along for a
while, and then rose reluctantly, looking at their watches.
The sun was low across the new-plowed ﬁelds and the tall woods across
the river were looming blackly in silhouette. Chimney swallows were
darting swiftly across the yard, and chickens, ducks and turkeys were
waddling and strutting and straggling in from the ﬁelds.
Stuart bellowed: “Jeems!” And after an interval a tall black boy of their
own age ran breathlessly around the house and out toward the tethered
horses. Jeems was their body servant and, like the dogs, accompanied them
everywhere. He had been their childhood playmate and had been given to
the twins for their own on their tenth birthday. At the sight of him, the
Tarleton hounds rose up out of the red dust and stood waiting expectantly
for their masters. The boys bowed, shook hands and told Scarlett they’d be
over at the Wilkeses’ early in the morning, waiting for her. Then they were
off down the walk at a rush, mounted their horses and, followed by Jeems,
went down the avenue of cedars at a gallop, waving their hats and yelling
back to her.
When they had rounded the curve of the dusty road that hid them from
Tara, Brent drew his horse to a stop under a clump of dogwood. Stuart
halted, too, and the darky boy pulled up a few paces behind them. The
horses, feeling slack reins, stretched down their necks to crop the tender
spring grass, and the patient hounds lay down again in the soft red dust and
looked up longingly at the chimney swallows circling in the gathering dusk.
Brent’s wide ingenuous face was puzzled and mildly indignant.
“Look,” he said. “Don’t it look to you like she would of asked us to stay
for supper?”
“I thought she would,” said Stuart. “I kept waiting for her to do it, but
she didn’t. What do you make of it?”
“I don’t make anything of it. But it just looks to me like she might of.
After all, it’s our ﬁrst day home and she hasn’t seen us in quite a spell. And
we had lots more things to tell her.”
“It looked to me like she was mighty glad to see us when we came.”
“I thought so, too.”
“And then, about a half-hour ago, she got kind of quiet, like she had a
headache.”

“I noticed that but I didn’t pay it any mind then. What do you suppose
ailed her?”
“I dunno. Do you suppose we said something that made her mad?”
They both thought for a minute.
“I can’t think of anything. Besides, when Scarlett gets mad, everybody
knows it. She don’t hold herself in like some girls do.”
“Yes, that’s what I like about her. She don’t go around being cold and
hateful when she’s mad—she tells you about it. But it was something we
did or said that made her shut up talking and look sort of sick. I could swear
she was glad to see us when we came and was aiming to ask us to supper.”
“You don’t suppose it’s because we got expelled?”
“Hell, no! Don’t be a fool. She laughed like everything when we told
her about it. And besides Scarlett don’t set any more store by book learning
than we do.”
Brent turned in the saddle and called to the negro groom.
“Jeems!”
“Suh?”
“You heard what we were talking to Miss Scarlett about?”
“Nawsuh, Mist’ Brent! Huccome you think Ah be spyin’ on w’ite folks?”
“Spying, my God! You darkies know everything that goes on. Why, you
liar, I saw you with my own eyes sidle round the corner of the porch and
squat in the cape jessamine bush by the wall. Now, did you hear us say
anything that might have made Miss Scarlett mad—or hurt her feelings?”
Thus appealed to, Jeems gave up further pretense of not having
overheard the conversation and furrowed his black brow.
“Nawsuh, Ah din’ notice y’all say anything ter mek her mad. Look ter
me lak she sho glad ter see you an’ sho had missed you, an’ she cheep along
happy as a bird, tell ’bout de time y’all got ter talkin’ ’bout Mist’ Ashley an’
Miss Melly Hamilton gittin’ mah’ied. Den she quiet down lak a bird w’en
de hawk ﬂy ober.”
The twins looked at each other and nodded, but without
comprehension.
“Jeems is right. But I don’t see why,” said Stuart. “My Lord! Ashley don’t
mean anything to her, ’cept a friend. She’s not crazy about him. It’s us she’s
crazy about.”
Brent nodded an agreement.

“But do you suppose,” he said, “that maybe Ashley hadn’t told her he
was going to announce it tomorrow night and she was mad at him for not
telling her, an old friend, before he told everybody else? Girls set a big store
on knowing such things ﬁrst.”
“Well, maybe. But what if he hadn’t told her it was tomorrow? It was
supposed to be a secret and a surprise, and a man’s got a right to keep his
own engagement quiet, hasn’t he? We wouldn’t have known it if Miss
Melly’s aunt hadn’t let it out. But Scarlett must have known he was going
to marry Miss Melly sometime. Why, we’ve known it for years. The Wilkes
and Hamiltons always marry their own cousins. Everybody knew he’d
probably marry her some day, just like Honey Wilkes is going to marry Miss
Melly’s brother, Charles.”
“Well, I give it up. But I’m sorry she didn’t ask us to supper. I swear I
don’t want to go home and listen to Ma take on about us being expelled. It
isn’t as if this was the ﬁrst time.”
“Maybe Boyd will have smoothed her down by now. You know what a
slick talker that little varmint is. You know he always can smooth her
down.”
“Yes, he can do it, but it takes Boyd time. He has to talk around in
circles till Ma gets so confused that she gives up and tells him to save his
voice for his law practice. But he ain’t had time to get good started yet.
Why, I’ll bet you Ma is still so excited about the new horse that she’ll never
even realize we’re home again till she sits down to supper tonight and sees
Boyd. And before supper is over she’ll be going strong and breathing ﬁre.
And it’ll be ten o’clock before Boyd gets a chance to tell her that it
wouldn’t have been honorable for any of us to stay in college after the way
the Chancellor talked to you and me. And it’ll be midnight before he gets
her turned around to where she’s so mad at the Chancellor she’ll be asking
Boyd why he didn’t shoot him. No, we can’t go home till after midnight.”
The twins looked at each other glumly. They were completely fearless of
wild horses, shooting affrays and the indignation of their neighbors, but
they had a wholesome fear of their red-haired mother’s outspoken remarks
and the riding crop that she did not scruple to lay across their breeches.
“Well, look,” said Brent. “Let’s go over to the Wilkes’. Ashley and the
girls’ll be glad to have us for supper.”
Stuart looked a little discomforted.

“No, don’t let’s go there. They’ll be in a stew getting ready for the
barbecue tomorrow and besides—”
“Oh, I forgot about that,” said Brent hastily. “No, don’t let’s go there.”
They clucked to their horses and rode along in silence for a while, a
ﬂush of embarrassment on Stuart’s brown cheeks. Until the previous
summer, Stuart had courted India Wilkes with the approbation of both
families and the entire County. The County felt that perhaps the cool and
contained India Wilkes would have a quieting effect on him. They
fervently hoped so, at any rate. And Stuart might have made the match,
but Brent had not been satisﬁed. Brent liked India but he thought her
mighty plain and tame, and he simply could not fall in love with her
himself to keep Stuart company. That was the ﬁrst time the twins’ interests
had ever diverged, and Brent was resentful of his brother’s attentions to a
girl who seemed to him not at all remarkable.
Then, last summer at a political speaking in a grove of oak trees at
Jonesboro, they both suddenly became aware of Scarlett O’Hara. They had
known her for years, and, since their childhood, she had been a favorite
playmate, for she could ride horses and climb trees almost as well as they.
But now to their amazement she had become a grown-up young lady and
quite the most charming one in all the world.
They noticed for the ﬁrst time how her green eyes danced, how deep her
dimples were when she laughed, how tiny her hands and feet and what a
small waist she had. Their clever remarks sent her into merry peals of
laughter and, inspired by the thought that she considered them a
remarkable pair, they fairly outdid themselves.
It was a memorable day in the life of the twins. Thereafter, when they
talked it over, they always wondered just why they had failed to notice
Scarlett’s charms before. They never arrived at the correct answer, which
was that Scarlett on that day had decided to make them notice. She was
constitutionally unable to endure any man being in love with any woman
not herself, and the sight of India Wilkes and Stuart at the speaking had
been too much for her predatory nature. Not content with Stuart alone,
she had set her cap for Brent as well, and with a thoroughness that
overwhelmed the two of them.
Now they were both in love with her, and India Wilkes and Letty
Munroe, from Lovejoy, whom Brent had been half-heartedly courting, were

far in the back of their minds. Just what the loser would do, should Scarlett
accept either one of them, the twins did not ask. They would cross that
bridge when they came to it. For the present they were quite satisﬁed to be
in accord again about one girl, for they had no jealousies between them. It
was a situation which interested the neighbors and annoyed their mother,
who had no liking for Scarlett.
“It will serve you right if that sly piece does accept one of you,” she said.
“Or maybe she’ll accept both of you, and then you’ll have to move to Utah,
if the Mormons’ll have you—which I doubt…. All that bothers me is that
some one of these days you’re both going to get lickered up and jealous of
each other about that two-faced, little, green-eyed baggage, and you’ll
shoot each other. But that might not be a bad idea either.”
Since the day of the speaking, Stuart had been uncomfortable in India’s
presence. Not that India ever reproached him or even indicated by look or
gesture that she was aware of his abruptly changed allegiance. She was too
much of a lady. But Stuart felt guilty and ill at ease with her. He knew he
had made India love him and he knew that she still loved him and, deep in
his heart, he had the feeling that he had not played the gentleman. He still
liked her tremendously and respected her for her cool good breeding, her
book learning and all the sterling qualities she possessed. But, damn it, she
was just so pallid and uninteresting and always the same, beside Scarlett’s
bright and changeable charm. You always knew where you stood with India
and you never had the slightest notion with Scarlett. That was enough to
drive a man to distraction, but it had its charm.
“Well, let’s go over to Cade Calvert’s and have supper. Scarlett said
Cathleen was home from Charleston. Maybe she’ll have some news about
Fort Sumter that we haven’t heard.”
“Not Cathleen. I’ll lay you two to one she didn’t even know the fort was
out there in the harbor, much less that it was full of Yankees until we
shelled them out. All she’ll know about is the balls she went to and the
beaux she collected.”
“Well, it’s fun to hear her gabble. And it’ll be somewhere to hide out till
Ma has gone to bed.”
“Well, hell! I like Cathleen and she is fun and I’d like to hear about
Caro Rhett and the rest of the Charleston folks; but I’m damned if I can
stand sitting through another meal with that Yankee stepmother of hers.”

“Don’t be too hard on her, Stuart. She means well.”
“I’m not being hard on her. I feel sorry for her, but I don’t like people
I’ve got to feel sorry for. And she fusses around so much, trying to do the
right thing and make you feel at home, that she always manages to say and
do just exactly the wrong thing. She gives me the ﬁdgets! And she thinks
Southerners are wild barbarians. She even told Ma so. She’s afraid of
Southerners. Whenever we’re there she always looks scared to death. She
reminds me of a skinny hen perched on a chair, her eyes kind of bright and
blank and scared, all ready to ﬂap and squawk at the slightest move
anybody makes.”
“Well, you can’t blame her. You did shoot Cade in the leg.”
“Well, I was lickered up or I wouldn’t have done it,” said Stuart. “And
Cade never had any hard feelings. Neither did Cathleen or Raiford or Mr.
Calvert. It was just that Yankee stepmother who squalled and said I was a
wild barbarian and decent people weren’t safe around uncivilized
Southerners.”
“Well, you can’t blame her. She’s a Yankee and ain’t got very good
manners; and, after all, you did shoot him and he is her stepson.”
“Well, hell! That’s no excuse for insulting me! You are Ma’s own blood
son, but did she take on that time Tony Fontaine shot you in the leg? No,
she just sent for old Doc Fontaine to dress it and asked the doctor what
ailed Tony’s aim. Said she guessed licker was spoiling his marksmanship.
Remember how mad that made Tony?”
Both boys yelled with laughter.
“Ma’s a card!” said Brent with loving approval. “You can always count
on her to do the right thing and not embarrass you in front of folks.”
“Yes, but she’s mighty liable to talk embarrassing in front of Father and
the girls when we get home tonight,” said Stuart gloomily. “Look, Brent. I
guess this means we don’t go to Europe. You know Mother said if we got
expelled from another college we couldn’t have our Grand Tour.”
“Well, hell! We don’t care, do we? What is there to see in Europe? I’ll
bet those foreigners can’t show us a thing we haven’t got right here in
Georgia. I’ll bet their horses aren’t as fast or their girls as pretty, and I know
damn well they haven’t got any rye whisky that can touch Father’s.”
“Ashley Wilkes said they had an awful lot of scenery and music. Ashley
liked Europe. He’s always talking about it.”

“Well—you know how the Wilkes are. They are kind of queer about
music and books and scenery. Mother says it’s because their grandfather
came from Virginia. She says Virginians set quite a store by such things.”
“They can have ’em. Give me a good horse to ride and some good licker
to drink and a good girl to court and a bad girl to have fun with and
anybody can have their Europe…. What do we care about missing the
Tour? Suppose we were in Europe now, with the war coming on? We
couldn’t get home soon enough. I’d heap rather go to a war than go to
Europe.”
“So would I, any day…. Look, Brent! I know where we can go for
supper. Let’s ride across the swamp to Able Wynder’s place and tell him
we’re all four home again and ready for drill.”
“That’s an idea!” cried Brent with enthusiasm. “And we can hear all the
news of the Troop and ﬁnd out what color they ﬁnally decided on for the
uniforms.”
“If it’s Zouave, I’m damned if I’ll go in the Troop. I’d feel like a sissy in
those baggy red pants. They look like ladies’ red ﬂannel drawers to me.”
“Is y’all aimin’ ter go ter Mist’ Wynder’s? ’Cause ef you is, you ain’ gwine
git much supper,” said Jeems. “Dey cook done died, an’ dey ain’ bought a
new one. Dey got a fe’el han’ cookin’, an’ de niggers tells me she is de
wustest cook in de state.”
“Good God! Why don’t they buy another cook?”
“Huccome po’ w’ite trash buy any niggers? Dey ain’ never owned mo’n
fo’ at de mostes’.”
There was frank contempt in Jeems’ voice. His own social status was
assured because the Tarletons owned a hundred negroes and, like all slaves
of large planters, he looked down on small farmers whose slaves were few.
“I’m going to beat your hide off for that,” cried Stuart ﬁercely. “Don’t
you call Able Wynder ‘po’ white.’ Sure he’s poor, but he ain’t trash; and I’m
damned if I’ll have any man, darky or white, throwing off on him. There
ain’t a better man in this County, or why else did the Troop elect him
lieutenant?”
“Ah ain’ never ﬁggered dat out, mahseff,” replied Jeems, undisturbed by
his master’s scowl. “Look ter me lak dey’d ’lect all de awﬁcers frum rich
gempmum, ’stead of swamp trash.”

“He ain’t trash! Do you mean to compare him with real white trash like
the Slatterys? Able just ain’t rich. He’s a small farmer, not a big planter, and
if the boys thought enough of him to elect him lieutenant, then it’s not for
any darky to talk impudent about him. The Troop knows what it’s doing.”
The troop of cavalry had been organized three months before, the very
day that Georgia seceded from the Union, and since then the recruits had
been whistling for war. The outﬁt was as yet unnamed, though not for want
of suggestions. Everyone had his own idea on that subject and was loath to
relinquish it, just as everyone had ideas about the color and cut of the
uniforms. “Clayton Wild Cats,” “Fire Eaters,” “North Georgia Hussars,”
“Zouaves,” “The Inland Riﬂes” (although the Troop was to be armed with
pistols, sabers and bowie knives, and not with riﬂes), “The Clayton Grays,”
“The Blood and Thunderers,” “The Rough and Readys,” all had their
adherents. Until matters were settled, everyone referred to the organization
as the Troop and, despite the high-sounding name ﬁnally adopted, they
were known to the end of their usefulness simply as “The Troop.”
The ofﬁcers were elected by the members, for no one in the County had
had any military experience except a few veterans of the Mexican and
Seminole wars and, besides, the Troop would have scorned a veteran as a
leader if they had not personally liked him and trusted him. Everyone liked
the four Tarleton boys and the three Fontaines, but regretfully refused to
elect them, because the Tarletons got lickered up too quickly and liked to
skylark, and the Fontaines had such quick, murderous tempers. Ashley
Wilkes was elected captain, because he was the best rider in the County
and because his cool head was counted on to keep some semblance of
order. Raiford Calvert was made ﬁrst lieutenant, because everybody liked
Raif, and Able Wynder, son of a swamp trapper, himself a small farmer, was
elected second lieutenant.
Able was a shrewd, grave giant, illiterate, kind of heart, older than the
other boys and with as good or better manners in the presence of ladies.
There was little snobbery in the Troop. Too many of their fathers and
grandfathers had come up to wealth from the small farmer class for that.
Moreover, Able was the best shot in the Troop, a real sharpshooter who
could pick out the eye of a squirrel at seventy-ﬁve yards, and, too, he knew
all about living outdoors, building ﬁres in the rain, tracking animals and
ﬁnding water. The Troop bowed to real worth and moreover, because they

liked him, they made him an ofﬁcer. He bore the honor gravely and with
no untoward conceit, as though it were only his due. But the planters’
ladies and the planters’ slaves could not overlook the fact that he was not
born a gentleman, even if their men folks could.
In the beginning, the Troop had been recruited exclusively from the
sons of planters, a gentleman’s outﬁt, each man supplying his own horse,
arms, equipment, uniform and body servant. But rich planters were few in
the young county of Clayton, and, in order to muster a full-strength troop,
it had been necessary to raise more recruits among the sons of small
farmers, hunters in the backwoods, swamp trappers, Crackers and, in a very
few cases, even poor whites, if they were above the average of their class.
These latter young men were as anxious to ﬁght the Yankees, should war
come, as were their richer neighbors; but the delicate question of money
arose. Few small farmers owned horses. They carried on their farm
operations with mules and they had no surplus of these, seldom more than
four. The mules could not be spared to go off to war, even if they had been
acceptable for the Troop, which they emphatically were not. As for the
poor whites, they considered themselves well off if they owned one mule.
The backwoods folks and the swamp dwellers owned neither horses nor
mules. They lived entirely off the produce of their lands and the game in
the swamp, conducting their business generally by the barter system and
seldom seeing ﬁve dollars in cash a year, and horses and uniforms were out
of their reach. But they were as ﬁercely proud in their poverty as the
planters were in their wealth, and they would accept nothing that smacked
of charity from their rich neighbors. So, to save the feelings of all and to
bring the Troop up to full strength, Scarlett’s father, John Wilkes, Buck
Munroe, Jim Tarleton, Hugh Calvert, in fact every large planter in the
County with the one exception of Angus MacIntosh, had contributed
money to completely outﬁt the Troop, horse and man. The upshot of the
matter was that every planter agreed to pay for equipping his own sons and
a certain number of the others, but the manner of handling the
arrangements was such that the less wealthy members of the outﬁt could
accept horses and uniforms without offense to their honor.
The Troop met twice a week in Jonesboro to drill and to pray for the war
to begin. Arrangements had not yet been completed for obtaining the full
quota of horses, but those who had horses performed what they imagined to

be cavalry maneuvers in the ﬁeld behind the courthouse, kicked up a great
deal of dust, yelled themselves hoarse and waved the Revolutionary-war
swords that had been taken down from parlor walls. Those who, as yet, had
no horses sat on the curb in front of Bullard’s store and watched their
mounted comrades, chewed tobacco and told yarns. Or else engaged in
shooting matches. There was no need to teach any of the men to shoot.
Most Southerners were born with guns in their hands, and lives spent in
hunting had made marksmen of them all.
From planters’ homes and swamp cabins, a varied array of ﬁrearms came
to each muster. There were long squirrel guns that had been new when ﬁrst
the Alleghenies were crossed, old muzzle-loaders that had seen service in
1812, in the Seminole wars and in Mexico, silver-mounted dueling pistols,
pocket derringers, double-barreled hunting pieces and handsome new riﬂes
of English make with shining stocks of ﬁne wood.
Drill always ended in the saloons of Jonesboro, and by nightfall so many
ﬁghts had broken out that the ofﬁcers were hard put to ward off casualties
until the Yankees could inﬂict them. It was during one of these brawls that
Stuart Tarleton had shot Cade Calvert and Tony Fontaine had shot Brent.
The twins had been at home, freshly expelled from the University of
Virginia, at the time the Troop was organized and they had joined
enthusiastically; but after the shooting episode, two months ago, their
mother had packed them off to the state university, with orders to stay
there. They had sorely missed the excitement of the drills while away, and
they counted education well lost if only they could ride and yell and shoot
off riﬂes in the company of their friends.
“Well, let’s cut across country to Able’s,” suggested Brent. “We can go
through Mr. O’Hara’s river bottom and the Fontaines’ pasture and get there
in no time.”
“We ain’ gwine git nothin’ ter eat ’cept possum an’ greens,” argued
Jeems.
“You ain’t going to get anything,” grinned Stuart. “Because you are
going home and tell Ma that we won’t be home for supper.”
“No, Ah ain’!” cried Jeems in alarm. “No, Ah ain’! Ah doan git no mo’
fun outer havin’ Miss Beetriss lay me out dan y’all does. Fust place she’ll ast
me huccome Ah let y’all git expelled agin. An’ nex’ thing, huccome Ah
din’ bring y’all home ternight so she could lay you out. An’ den she’ll light

on me lak a duck on a June bug, an’ fust thing Ah know Ah’ll be ter blame
fer it all. Ef y’all doan tek me ter Mist’ Wynder’s, Ah’ll lay out in de woods
all night an’ maybe de patterollers git me, ’cause Ah heap ruther de
patterollers git me dan Miss Beetriss when she in a state.”
The twins looked at the determined black boy in perplexity and
indignation.
“He’d be just fool enough to let the patterollers get him and that would
give Ma something else to talk about for weeks. I swear, darkies are more
trouble. Sometimes I think the Abolitionists have got the right idea.”
“Well, it wouldn’t be right to make Jeems face what we don’t want to
face. We’ll have to take him. But, look, you impudent black fool, if you put
on any airs in front of the Wynder darkies and hint that we all the time
have fried chicken and ham, while they don’t have nothing but rabbit and
possum, I’ll—I’ll tell Ma. And we won’t let you go to the war with us,
either.”
“Airs? Me put on airs fo’ dem cheap niggers? Nawsuh, Ah got better
manners. Ain’ Miss Beetriss taught me manners same as she taught y’all?”
“She didn’t do a very good job on any of the three of us,” said Stuart.
“Come on, let’s get going.”
He backed his big red horse and then, putting spurs to his side, lifted
him easily over the split rail fence into the soft ﬁeld of Gerald O’Hara’s
plantation. Brent’s horse followed and then Jeems’, with Jeems clinging to
pommel and mane. Jeems did not like to jump fences, but he had jumped
higher ones than this in order to keep up with his masters.
As they picked their way across the red furrows and down the hill to the
river bottom in the deepening dusk, Brent yelled to his brother:
“Look, Stu! Don’t it seem like to you that Scarlett would have asked us
to supper?”
“I kept thinking she would,” yelled Stuart. “Why do you suppose…”