-four
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 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 moment 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
white-washed 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 were 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 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. 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 bag
swells up an’ 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 an 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 her
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 udders. 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’s 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 has 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 Carreen 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 tip-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 over 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 jest 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.”
His face was reproachful.
“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
camp fires. 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 tower 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 that 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 “Kerbunk—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.”
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 negligé,
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 after 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 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’ what 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’ get
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’ 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 a 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 agin: ‘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 and 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 han
