CHAPTER 9

SCARLETT SAT IN THE WINDOW of her bedroom that midsummer morning
and disconsolately watched the wagons and carriages full of girls, soldiers
and chaperons ride gaily out Peachtree road in search of woodland
decorations for the bazaar which was to be held that evening for the benefit
of the hospitals. The red road lay checkered in shade and sun glare beneath
the over-arching trees and the many hooves kicked up little red clouds of
dust. One wagon, ahead of the others, bore four stout negroes with axes to
cut evergreens and drag down the vines, and the back of this wagon was
piled high with napkin-covered hampers, split-oak baskets of lunch and a
dozen watermelons. Two of the black bucks were equipped with banjo and
harmonica and they were rendering a spirited version of “If You Want to
Have a Good Time, Jine the Cavalry.” Behind them streamed the merry
cavalcade, girls cool in flowered cotton dresses, with light shawls, bonnets
and mitts to protect their skins and little parasols held over their heads;
elderly ladies placid and smiling amid the laughter and carriage-to-carriage
calls and jokes; convalescents from the hospitals wedged in between stout
chaperons and slender girls who made great fuss and to-do over them;
officers on horseback idling at a snail’s pace beside the carriages—wheels
creaking, spurs jingling, gold braid gleaming, parasols bobbing, fans
swishing, negroes singing. Everybody was riding out Peachtree road to
gather greenery and have a picnic and melon cutting. Everybody, thought
Scarlett, morosely, except me.
They all waved and called to her as they went by and she tried to
respond with good grace, but it was difficult. A hard little pain had started
in her heart and was traveling slowly up toward her throat where it would
become a lump and the lump would soon become tears. Everybody was
going to the picnic except her and Pittypat and Melly and the other
unfortunates in town who were in mourning. But Melly and Pittypat did

not seem to mind. It had not even occurred to them to want to go. It had
occurred to Scarlett. And she did want to go, tremendously.
It simply wasn’t fair. She had worked twice as hard as any girl in town,
getting things ready for the bazaar. She had knitted socks and baby caps
and afghans and mufflers and tatted yards of lace and painted china hair
receivers and mustache cups. And she had embroidered half a dozen sofa-
pillow cases with the Confederate flag on them. (The stars were a bit
lopsided, to be sure, some of them being almost round and others having
six or even seven points, but the effect was good.) Yesterday she had
worked until she was worn out in the dusty old barn of an Armory draping
yellow and pink and green cheesecloth on the booths that lined the walls.
Under the supervision of the Ladies Hospital Committee, this was plain
hard work and no fun at all. It was never fun to be around Mrs.
Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and Mrs. Whiting and have them boss you
like you were one of the darkies. And have to listen to them brag about
how popular their daughters were. And, worst of all, she had burned two
blisters on her finger helping Pittypat and Cookie make layer cakes for
raffling.
And now, having worked like a field hand, she had to retire decorously
when the fun was just beginning. Oh, it wasn’t fair that she should have a
dead husband and a baby yelling in the next room and be out of everything
that was pleasant. Just a little over a year ago, she was dancing and wearing
bright clothes instead of this dark mourning and was practically engaged to
three boys. She was only seventeen now and there was still a lot of dancing
left in her feet. Oh, it wasn’t fair! Life was going past her, down a hot shady
summer road, life with gray uniforms and jingling spurs and flowered
organdie dresses and banjos playing. She tried not to smile and wave too
enthusiastically to the men she knew best, the ones she’d nursed in the
hospital, but it was hard to subdue her dimples, hard to look as though her
heart were in the grave—when it wasn’t.
Her bowing and waving were abruptly halted when Pittypat entered the
room, panting as usual from climbing the stairs, and jerked her away from
the window unceremoniously.
“Have you lost your mind, honey, waving at men out of your bedroom
window? I declare, Scarlett, I’m shocked! What would your mother say?”
“Well, they didn’t know it was my bedroom.”

“But they’d suspect it was your bedroom and that’s just as bad. Honey,
you mustn’t do things like that. Everybody will be talking about you and
saying you are fast—and anyway, Mrs. Merriwether knew it was your
bedroom.”
“And I suppose she’ll tell all the boys, the old cat.”
“Honey, hush! Dolly Merriwether’s my best friend.”
“Well, she’s a cat just the same—oh, I’m sorry, Auntie, don’t cry! I
forgot it was my bedroom window. I won’t do it again—I—I just wanted to
see them go by. I wish I was going.”
“Honey!”
“Well, I do. I’m so tired of sitting at home.”
“Scarlett, promise me you won’t say things like that. People would talk
so. They’d say you didn’t have the proper respect for poor Charlie—”
“Oh, Auntie, don’t cry!”
“Oh, now I’ve made you cry, too,” sobbed Pittypat, in a pleased way,
fumbling in her skirt pocket for her handkerchief.
The hard little pain had at last reached Scarlett’s throat and she wailed
out loud—not, as Pittypat thought, for poor Charlie but because the last
sounds of the wheels and the laughter were dying away. Melanie rustled in
from her room, a worried frown puckering her forehead, a brush in her
hands, her usually tidy black hair, freed of its net, fluffing about her face in
a mass of tiny curls and waves.
“Darlings! What is the matter?”
“Charlie!” sobbed Pittypat, surrendering utterly to the pleasure of her
grief and burying her head on Melly’s shoulder.
“Oh,” said Melly, her lip quivering at the mention of her brother’s name.
“Be brave, dear. Don’t cry. Oh, Scarlett!”
Scarlett had thrown herself on the bed and was sobbing at the top of her
voice, sobbing for her lost youth and the pleasures of youth that were
denied her, sobbing with the indignation and despair of a child who once
could get anything she wanted by sobbing and now knows that sobbing can
no longer help her. She burrowed her head in the pillow and cried and
kicked with her feet at the tufted counterpane.
“I might as well be dead!” she sobbed passionately. Before such an
exhibition of grief, Pittypat’s easy tears ceased and Melly flew to the bedside
to comfort her sister-in-law.

“Dear, don’t cry! Try to think how much Charlie loved you and let that
comfort you! Try to think of your darling baby.”
Indignation at being misunderstood mingled with Scarlett’s forlorn
feeling of being left out of everything and strangled all utterance. That was
fortunate, for if she could have spoken she would have cried out truths
couched in Gerald’s forthright words. Melanie patted her shoulder and
Pittypat tiptoed heavily about the room pulling down the shades.
“Don’t do that!” shouted Scarlett, raising a red and swollen face from
the pillow. “I’m not dead enough for you to pull down the shades—though
I might as well be. Oh, do go away and leave me alone!”
She sank her head into the pillow again and, after a whispered
conference, the two standing over her tiptoed out. She heard Melanie say
to Pittypat in a low voice as they went down the stairs:
“Aunt Pitty, I wish you wouldn’t speak of Charles to her. You know how
it always affects her. Poor thing, she gets that queer look and I know she’s
trying not to cry. We mustn’t make it harder for her.”
Scarlett kicked the coverlet in impotent rage, trying to think of
something bad enough to say.
“God’s nightgown!” she cried at last, and felt somewhat relieved. How
could Melanie be content to stay at home and never have any fun and wear
crêpe for her brother when she was only eighteen years old? Melanie did
not seem to know, or care, that life was riding by with jingling spurs.
“But she’s such a stick,” thought Scarlett, pounding the pillow. “And she
never was popular like me, so she doesn’t miss the things I miss. And—and
besides she’s got Ashley and I—I haven’t got anybody!” And at this fresh
woe, she broke into renewed outcries.
She remained gloomily in her room until afternoon and then the sight
of the returning picnickers with wagons piled high with pine boughs, vines
and ferns did not cheer her. Everyone looked happily tired as they waved to
her again and she returned their greetings drearily. Life was a hopeless affair
and certainly not worth living.
Deliverance came in the form she least expected when, during the after-
dinner-nap period, Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing drove up. Startled at
having callers at such an hour, Melanie, Scarlett and Aunt Pittypat roused
themselves, hastily hooked their basques, smoothed their hair and
descended to the parlor.

“Mrs. Bonnell’s children have the measles,” said Mrs. Merriwether
abruptly, showing plainly that she held Mrs. Bonnell personally responsible
for permitting such a thing to happen.
“And the McLure girls have been called to Virginia,” said Mrs. Elsing in
her die-away voice, fanning herself languidly as if neither this nor anything
else mattered very much. “Dallas McLure is wounded.”
“How dreadful!” chorused their hostesses. “Is poor Dallas—”
“No. Just through the shoulder,” said Mrs. Merriwether briskly. “But it
couldn’t possibly have happened at a worse time. The girls are going North
to bring him home. But, skies above, we haven’t time to sit here talking.
We must hurry back to the Armory and get the decorating done. Pitty, we
need you and Melly tonight to take Mrs. Bonnell’s and the McLure girls’
places.”
“Oh, but, Dolly, we can’t go.”
“Don’t say ‘can’t’ to me, Pittypat Hamilton,” said Mrs. Merriwether
vigorously. “We need you to watch the darkies with the refreshments. That
was what Mrs. Bonnell was to do. And Melly, you must take the McLure
girls’ booth.”
“Oh, we just couldn’t—with poor Charlie dead only a—”
“I know how you feel but there isn’t any sacrifice too great for the
Cause,” broke in Mrs. Elsing in a soft voice that settled matters.
“Oh, we’d love to help but—why can’t you get some sweet pretty girls to
take the booths?”
Mrs. Merriwether snorted a trumpeting snort.
“I don’t know what’s come over the young people these days. They have
no sense of responsibility. All the girls who haven’t already taken booths
have more excuses than you could shake a stick at. Oh, they don’t fool me!
They just don’t want to be hampered in making up to the officers, that’s all.
And they’re afraid their new dresses won’t show off behind booth counters.
I wish to goodness that blockade runner—what’s his name?”
“Captain Butler,” supplied Mrs. Elsing.
“I wish he’d bring in more hospital supplies and less hoop skirts and lace.
If I’ve had to look at one dress today I’ve had to look at twenty dresses that
he ran in. Captain Butler—I’m sick of the name. Now, Pitty, I haven’t time
to argue. You must come. Everybody will understand. Nobody will see you
in the back room anyway, and Melly won’t be conspicuous. The poor

McLure girls’ booth is way down at the end and not very pretty so nobody
will notice you.”
“I think we should go,” said Scarlett, trying to curb her eagerness and to
keep her face earnest and simple. “It is the least we can do for the hospital.”
Neither of the visiting ladies had even mentioned her name, and they
turned and looked sharply at her. Even in their extremity, they had not
considered asking a widow of scarcely a year to appear at a social function.
Scarlett bore their gaze with a wide-eyed childlike expression.
“I think we should and help to make it a success, all of us. I think I
should go in the booth with Melly because—well, I think it would look
better for us both to be there instead of just one. Don’t you think so,
Melly?”
“Well,” began Melly helplessly. The idea of appearing publicly at a social
gathering while in mourning was so unheard of she was bewildered.
“Scarlett’s right,” said Mrs. Merriwether, observing signs of weakening.
She rose and jerked her hoops into place. “Both of you—all of you must
come. Now, Pitty, don’t start your excuses again. Just think how much the
hospital needs money for new beds and drugs. And I know Charlie would
like you to help the Cause he died for.”
“Well,” said Pittypat, helpless as always in the presence of a stronger
personality, “if you think people will understand.”
*     *     *
“Too good to be true! Too good to be true!” sang Scarlett’s joyful heart as
she slipped unobtrusively into the pink- and yellow-draped booth that was
to have been the McLure girls’. Actually she was at a party! After a year’s
seclusion, after crêpe and hushed voices and nearly going crazy with
boredom, she was actually at a party, the biggest party Atlanta had ever
seen. And she could see people and many lights and hear music and view
for herself the lovely laces and frocks and frills that the famous Captain
Butler had run through the blockade on his last trip.
She sank down on one of the little stools behind the counter of the
booth and looked up and down the long hall which, until this afternoon,
had been a bare and ugly drill room. How the ladies must have worked

today to bring it to its present beauty. It looked lovely. Every candle and
candlestick in Atlanta must be in this hall tonight, she thought, silver ones
with a dozen sprangling arms, china ones with charming figurines clustering
their bases, old brass stands, erect and dignified, laden with candles of all
sizes and colors, smelling fragrantly of bayberries, standing on the gun racks
that ran the length of the hall, on the long flower-decked tables, on booth
counters, even on the sills of the open windows where the draughts of
warm summer air were just strong enough to make them flare.
In the center of the hall the huge ugly lamp, hanging from the ceiling by
rusty chains, was completely transformed by twining ivy and wild
grapevines that were already withering from the heat. The walls were
banked with pine branches that gave out a spicy smell, making the corners
of the room into pretty bowers where the chaperons and old ladies would
sit. Long graceful ropes of ivy and grapevine and smilax were hung
everywhere, in looping festoons on the walls, draped above the windows,
twined in scallops all over the brightly colored cheesecloth booths. And
everywhere amid the greenery, on flags and bunting, blazed the bright stars
of the Confederacy on their background of red and blue.
The raised platform for the musicians was especially artistic. It was
completely hidden from view by the banked greenery and starry bunting
and Scarlett knew that every potted and tubbed plant in town was there,
coleus, geranium, hydrangea, oleander, elephant ear—even Mrs. Elsing’s
four treasured rubber plants, which were given posts of honor at the four
corners.
At the other end of the hall from the platform, the ladies had eclipsed
themselves. On this wall hung large pictures of President Davis and
Georgia’s own “Little Alec” Stephens, Vice-President of the Confederacy.
Above them was an enormous flag and, beneath, on long tables was the
loot of the gardens of the town, ferns, banks of roses, crimson and yellow
and white, proud sheaths of golden gladioli, masses of varicolored
nasturtiums, tall stiff hollyhocks rearing deep maroon and creamy heads
above the other flowers. Among them, candles burned serenely like altar
fires. The two faces looked down on the scene, two faces as different as
could be possible in two men at the helm of so momentous an undertaking:
Davis with the flat cheeks and cold eyes of an ascetic, his thin proud lips
set firmly; Stephens with dark burning eyes deep socketed in a face that

had known nothing but sickness and pain and had triumphed over them
with humor and with fire—two faces that were greatly loved.
The elderly ladies of the committee in whose hands rested the
responsibility for the whole bazaar rustled in as importantly as full-rigged
ships, hurried the belated young matrons and giggling girls into their
booths, and then swept through the doors into the back rooms where the
refreshments were being laid out. Aunt Pitty panted out after them.
The musicians clambered upon their platform, black, grinning, their fat
cheeks already shining with perspiration, and began tuning their fiddles
and sawing and whanging with their bows in anticipatory importance. Old
Levi, Mrs. Merriwether’s coachman, who had led the orchestras for every
bazaar, ball and wedding since Atlanta was named Marthasville, rapped
with his bow for attention. Few except the ladies who were conducting the
bazaar had arrived yet, but all eyes turned toward him. Then the fiddles,
bull fiddles, accordions, banjos and knuckle-bones broke into a slow
rendition of “Lorena”—too slow for dancing, the dancing would come later
when the booths were emptied of their wares. Scarlett felt her heart beat
faster as the sweet melancholy of the waltz came to her:
“The years creep slowly by, Lorena!
The snow is on the grass again.
The sun’s far down the sky, Lorena…”
One-two-three, one-two-three, dip-sway—three, turn—two-three.
What a beautiful waltz! She extended her hands slightly, closed her eyes
and swayed with the sad haunting rhythm. There was something about the
tragic melody and Lorena’s lost love that mingled with her own excitement
and brought a lump into her throat.
Then, as if brought into being by the waltz music, sounds floated in from
the shadowy moonlit street below, the trample of horses’ hooves and the
sound of carriage wheels, laughter on the warm sweet air and the soft
acrimony of negro voices raised in argument over hitching places for the
horses. There was confusion on the stairs and light-hearted merriment, the
mingling of girls’ fresh voices with the bass notes of their escorts, airy cries
of greeting and squeals of joy as girls recognized friends from whom they
had parted only that afternoon.

Suddenly the hall burst into life. It was full of girls, girls who floated in
butterfly bright dresses, hooped out enormously, lace pantalets peeping
from beneath; round little white shoulders bare, and faintest traces of soft
little bosoms showing above lace flounces; lace shawls carelessly hanging
from arms; fans spangled and painted, fans of swan’s-down and peacock
feathers, dangling at wrists by tiny velvet ribbons; girls with dark hair
smoothed sleekly from ears into chignons so heavy that their heads were
tilted back with saucy pride; girls with masses of golden curls about their
necks and fringed gold earbobs that tossed and danced with their dancing
curls. Laces and silks and braid and ribbons, all blockade run, all the more
precious and more proudly worn because of it, finery flaunted with an added
pride as an extra affront to the Yankees.
Not all the flowers of the town were standing in tribute to the leaders of
the Confederacy. The smallest, the most fragrant blossoms bedecked the
girls. Tea roses tucked behind pink ears, cape jessamine and bud roses in
round little garlands over cascades of side curls, blossoms thrust demurely
into satin sashes, flowers that before the night was over would find their
way into the breast pockets of gray uniforms as treasured souvenirs.
There were so many uniforms in the crowd—so many uniforms on so
many men whom Scarlett knew, men she had met on hospital cots, on the
streets, at the drill ground. They were such resplendent uniforms, brave
with shining buttons and dazzling with twined gold braid on cuffs and
collars, the red and yellow and blue stripes on the trousers, for the different
branches of the service, setting off the gray to perfection. Scarlet and gold
sashes swung to and fro, sabers glittered and banged against shining boots,
spurs rattled and jingled.
Such handsome men, thought Scarlett, with a swell of pride in her
heart, as the men called greetings, waved to friends, bent low over the
hands of elderly ladies. All of them were so young looking, even with their
sweeping yellow mustaches and full black and brown beards, so handsome,
so reckless, with their arms in slings, with head bandages startlingly white
across sun-browned faces. Some of them were on crutches and how proud
were the girls who solicitously slowed their steps to their escorts’ hopping
pace! There was one gaudy splash of color among the uniforms that put the
girls’ bright finery to shame and stood out in the crowd like a tropical bird
—a Louisiana Zouave, with baggy blue and white striped pants, cream

gaiters and tight little red jacket, a dark, grinning little monkey of a man,
with his arm in a black silk sling. He was Maybelle Merriwether’s especial
beau, René Picard. The whole hospital must have turned out, at least
everybody who could walk, and all the railroad and mail service and
hospital and commissary departments between here and Macon. How
pleased the ladies would be! The hospital should make a mint of money
tonight.
There was a ruffle of drums from the street below, the tramp of feet, the
admiring cries of coachmen. A bugle blared and a bass voice shouted the
command to break ranks. In a moment, the Home Guard and the militia
unit in their bright uniforms shook the narrow stairs and crowded into the
room, bowing, saluting, shaking hands. There were boys in the Home
Guard, proud to be playing at war, promising themselves they would be in
Virginia this time next year, if the war would just last that long; old men
with white beards, wishing they were younger, proud to march in uniform
in the reflected glory of sons at the front. In the militia, there were many
middle-aged men and some older men but there was a fair sprinkling of
men of military age who did not carry themselves quite so jauntily as their
elders or their juniors. Already people were beginning to whisper, asking
why they were not with Lee.
How would they all get into the hall! It had seemed such a large place a
few minutes before, and now it was packed, warm with summer-night odors
of sachet and cologne water and hair pomade and burning bayberry
candles, fragrant with flowers, faintly dusty as many feet trod the old drill
floors. The din and hubbub of voices made it almost impossible to hear
anything and, as if feeling the joy and excitement of the occasion, old Levi
choked off “Lorena” in mid-bar, rapped sharply with his bow and, sawing
away for dear life, the orchestra burst into “Bonnie Blue Flag.”
A hundred voices took it up, sang it, shouted it like a cheer. The Home
Guard bugler, climbing onto the platform, caught up with the music just as
the chorus began, and the high silver notes soared out thrillingly above the
massed singing, causing goose bumps to break out on bare arms and cold
chills of deeply felt emotion to fly down spines:
“Hurrah! Hurrah! For the Southern Rights, hurrah!
Hurrah for the Bonnie Blue Flag

That bears a single star!”
They crashed into the second verse and Scarlett, singing with the rest,
heard the high sweet soprano of Melanie mounting behind her, clear and
true and thrilling as the bugle notes. Turning, she saw that Melly was
standing with her hands clasped to her breast, her eyes closed, and tiny
tears oozing from the corners. She smiled at Scarlett, whimsically, as the
music ended, making a little moue of apology as she dabbed with her
handkerchief.
“I’m so happy,” she whispered, “and so proud of the soldiers that I just
can’t help crying about it.”
There was a deep, almost fanatic glow in her eyes that for a moment lit
up her plain little face and made it beautiful.
The same look was on the faces of all the women as the song ended,
tears of pride on cheeks, pink or wrinkled, smiles on lips, a deep hot glow
in eyes, as they turned to their men, sweetheart to lover, mother to son,
wife to husband. They were all beautiful with the blinding beauty that
transfigures even the plainest woman when she is utterly protected and
utterly loved and is giving back that love a thousandfold.
They loved their men, they believed in them, they trusted them to the
last breaths of their bodies. How could disaster ever come to women such
as they when their stalwart gray line stood between them and the Yankees?
Had there ever been such men as these since the first dawn of the world, so
heroic, so reckless, so gallant, so tender? How could anything but
overwhelming victory come to a Cause as just and right as theirs? A Cause
they loved as much as they loved their men, a Cause they served with their
hands and their hearts, a Cause they talked about, thought about, dreamed
about—a Cause to which they would sacrifice these men if need be, and
bear their loss as proudly as the men bore their battle flags.
It was high tide of devotion and pride in their hearts, high tide of the
Confederacy, for final victory was at hand. Stonewall Jackson’s triumphs in
the Valley and the defeat of the Yankees in the Seven Days’ Battle around
Richmond showed that clearly. How could it be otherwise with such
leaders as Lee and Jackson? One more victory and the Yankees would be on
their knees yelling for peace and the men would be riding home and there
would be kissing and laughter. One more victory and the war was over!

Of course, there were empty chairs and babies who would never see
their fathers’ faces and unmarked graves by lonely Virginia creeks and in
the still mountains of Tennessee, but was that too great a price to pay for
such a Cause? Silks for the ladies and tea and sugar were hard to get, but
that was something to joke about. Besides, the dashing blockade runners
were bringing in these very things under the Yankees’ disgruntled noses,
and that made the possession of them many times more thrilling. Soon
Raphael Semmes and the Confederate Navy would tend to those Yankee
gunboats and the ports would be wide open. And England was coming in to
help the Confederacy win the war, because the English mills were standing
idle for want of Southern cotton. And naturally the British aristocracy
sympathized with the Confederacy, as one aristocrat with another, against a
race of dollar lovers like the Yankees.
So the women swished their silks and laughed and, looking on their
men with hearts bursting with pride, they knew that love snatched in the
face of danger and death was doubly sweet for the strange excitement that
went with it.
When first she looked at the crowd, Scarlett’s heart had thump-thumped
with the unaccustomed excitement of being at a party, but as she half-
comprehendingly saw the high-hearted look on the faces about her, her joy
began to evaporate. Every woman present was blazing with an emotion she
did not feel. It bewildered and depressed her. Somehow, the hall did not
seem so pretty nor the girls so dashing, and the white heat of devotion to
the Cause that was still shining on every face seemed—why, it just seemed
silly!
In a sudden flash of self-knowledge that made her mouth pop open with
astonishment, she realized that she did not share with these women their
fierce pride, their desire to sacrifice themselves and everything they had for
the Cause. Before horror made her think: “No—no! I mustn’t think such
things! They’re wrong—sinful,” she knew the Cause meant nothing at all
to her and that she was bored with hearing other people talk about it with
that fanatic look in their eyes. The Cause didn’t seem sacred to her. The
war didn’t seem to be a holy affair, but a nuisance that killed men
senselessly and cost money and made luxuries hard to get. She saw that she
was tired of the endless knitting and the endless bandage rolling and lint
picking that roughened the cuticle of her nails. And oh, she was so tired of

the hospital! Tired and bored and nauseated with the sickening gangrene
smells and the endless moaning, frightened by the look that coming death
gave to sunken faces.
She looked furtively around her, as the treacherous, blasphemous
thoughts rushed through her mind, fearful that someone might find them
written clearly upon her face. Oh, why couldn’t she feel like these other
women! They were whole hearted and sincere in their devotion to the
Cause. They really meant everything they said and did. And if anyone
should ever suspect that she—No, no one must ever know! She must go on
making a pretense of enthusiasm and pride in the Cause which she could
not feel, acting out her part of the widow of a Confederate officer who
bears her grief bravely, whose heart is in the grave, who feels that her
husband’s death meant nothing if it aided the Cause to triumph.
Oh, why was she different, apart from these loving women? She could
never love anything or anyone so selflessly as they did. What a lonely
feeling it was—and she had never been lonely in either body or spirit
before. At first she tried to stifle the thoughts, but the hard self-honesty
that lay at the base of her nature would not permit it. And so, while the
bazaar went on, while she and Melanie waited on the customers who came
to their booth, her mind was busily working, trying to justify herself to
herself—a task which she seldom found difficult.
The other women were simply silly and hysterical with their talk of
patriotism and the Cause, and the men were almost as bad with their talk
of vital issues and States’ Rights. She, Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton, alone had
good hard-headed Irish sense. She wasn’t going to make a fool out of
herself about the Cause, but neither was she going to make a fool out of
herself by admitting her true feelings. She was hard headed enough to be
practical about the situation, and no one would ever know how she felt.
How surprised the bazaar would be if they knew what she really was
thinking! How shocked if she suddenly climbed on the bandstand and
declared that she thought the war ought to stop, so everybody could go
home and tend to their cotton and there could be parties and beaux again
and plenty of pale green dresses.
For a moment, her self-justification buoyed her up but still she looked
about the hall with distaste. The McLure girls’ booth was inconspicuous, as
Mrs. Merriwether had said, and there were long intervals when no one

came to their corner and Scarlett had nothing to do but look enviously on
the happy throng. Melanie sensed her moodiness but, crediting it to
longing for Charlie, did not try to engage her in conversation. She busied
herself arranging the articles in the booth in more attractive display, while
Scarlett sat and looked glumly around the room. Even the banked flowers
below the pictures of Mr. Davis and Mr. Stephens displeased her.
“It looks like an altar,” she sniffed. “And the way they all carry on about
those two, they might as well be the Father and the Son!” Then smitten
with sudden fright at her irreverence she began hastily to cross herself by
way of apology but caught herself in time.
“Well, it’s true,” she argued with her conscience. “Everybody carries on
like they were holy and they aren’t anything but men, and mighty
unattractive looking ones at that.”
Of course, Mr. Stephens couldn’t help how he looked for he had been
an invalid all his life, but Mr. Davis—She looked up at the cameo clean,
proud face. It was his goatee that annoyed her the most. Men should either
be clean shaven, mustached or wear full beards.
“That little wisp looks like it was just the best he could do,” she thought,
not seeing in his face the cold hard intelligence that was carrying the
weight of a new nation.
No, she was not happy now, and at first she had been radiant with the
pleasure of being in a crowd. Now just being present was not enough. She
was at the bazaar but not a part of it. No one paid her any attention and
she was the only young unmarried woman present who did not have a
beau. And all her life she had enjoyed the center of the stage. It wasn’t fair!
She was seventeen years old and her feet were patting the floor, wanting to
skip and dance. She was seventeen years old and she had a husband lying at
Oakland Cemetery and a baby in his cradle at Aunt Pittypat’s and
everyone thought she should be content with her lot. She had a whiter
bosom and a smaller waist and a tinier foot than any girl present, but for all
they mattered she might just as well be lying beside Charles with “Beloved
Wife of” carved over her.
She wasn’t a girl who could dance and flirt and she wasn’t a wife who
could sit with other wives and criticize the dancing and flirting girls. And
she wasn’t old enough to be a widow. Widows should be old—so terribly
old they didn’t want to dance and flirt and be admired. Oh, it wasn’t fair

that she should have to sit here primly and be the acme of widowed dignity
and propriety when she was only seventeen. It wasn’t fair that she must
keep her voice low and her eyes cast modestly down, when men, attractive
ones, too, came to their booth.
Every girl in Atlanta was three deep in men. Even the plainest girls were
carrying on like belles—and, oh, worst of all, they were carrying on in such
lovely, lovely dresses!
Here she sat like a crow with hot black taffeta to her wrists and
buttoned up to her chin, with not even a hint of lace or braid, not a jewel
except Ellen’s onyx mourning brooch, watching tacky-looking girls hanging
on the arms of good-looking men. All because Charles Hamilton had had
the measles. He didn’t even die in a fine glow of gallantry in battle, so she
could brag about him.
Rebelliously she leaned her elbows on the counter and looked at the
crowd, flouting Mammy’s oft-repeated admonition against leaning on
elbows and making them ugly and wrinkled. What did it matter if they did
get ugly? She’d probably never get a chance to show them again. She
looked hungrily at the frocks floating by, butter-yellow watered silks with
garlands of rosebuds; pink satins with eighteen flounces edged with tiny
black velvet ribbons; baby blue taffeta, ten yards in the skirt and foamy
with cascading lace; exposed bosoms; seductive flowers. Maybelle
Merriwether went toward the next booth on the arm of the Zouave, in an
apple-green tarlatan so wide that it reduced her waist to nothingness. It was
showered and flounced with cream-colored Chantilly lace that had come
from Charleston on the last blockader, and Maybelle was flaunting it as
saucily as if she and not the famous Captain Butler had run the blockade.
“How sweet I’d look in that dress,” thought Scarlett, a savage envy in
her heart. “Her waist is as big as a cow’s. That green is just my color and it
would make my eyes look—Why will blondes try to wear that color? Her
skin looks as green as an old cheese. And to think I’ll never wear that color
again, not even when I do get out of mourning. No, not even if I do
manage to get married again. Then I’ll have to wear tacky old grays and
tans and lilacs.”
For a brief moment she considered the unfairness of it all. How short
was the time for fun, for pretty clothes, for dancing, for coquetting! Only a
few, too few years! Then you married and wore dull-colored dresses and had

babies that ruined your waist line and sat in corners at dances with other
sober matrons and only emerged to dance with your husband or with old
gentlemen who stepped on your feet. If you didn’t do these things, the
other matrons talked about you and then your reputation was ruined and
your family disgraced. It seemed such a terrible waste to spend all your little
girlhood learning how to be attractive and how to catch men and then
only use the knowledge for a year or two. When she considered her
training at the hands of Ellen and Mammy, she knew it had been thorough
and good because it had always reaped results. There were set rules to be
followed, and if you followed them success crowned your efforts.
With old ladies you were sweet and guileless and appeared as simple
minded as possible, for old ladies were sharp and they watched girls as
jealously as cats, ready to pounce on any indiscretion of tongue or eye.
With old gentlemen, a girl was pert and saucy and almost, but not quite,
flirtatious, so that the old fools’ vanities would be tickled. It made them feel
devilish and young and they pinched your cheek and declared you were a
minx. And, of course, you always blushed on such occasions, otherwise
they would pinch you with more pleasure than was proper and then tell
their sons that you were fast.
With young girls and young married women, you slopped over with
sugar and kissed them every time you met them, even if it was ten times a
day. And you put your arms about their waists and suffered them to do the
same to you, no matter how much you disliked it. You admired their frocks
or their babies indiscriminately and teased about beaux and complimented
husbands and giggled modestly and denied you had any charms at all
compared with theirs. And, above all, you never said what you really
thought about anything, any more than they said what they really thought.
Other women’s husbands you let severely alone, even if they were your
own discarded beaux, and no matter how temptingly attractive they were.
If you were too nice to young husbands, their wives said you were fast and
you got a bad reputation and never caught any beaux of your own.
But with young bachelors—ah, that was a different matter! You could
laugh softly at them and when they came flying to see why you laughed,
you could refuse to tell them and laugh harder and keep them around
indefinitely trying to find out. You could promise, with your eyes, any
number of exciting things that would make a man maneuver to get you

alone. And, having gotten you alone, you could be very, very hurt or very,
very angry when he tried to kiss you. You could make him apologize for
being a cur and forgive him so sweetly that he would hang around trying to
kiss you a second time. Sometimes, but not often, you did let him kiss you.
(Ellen and Mammy had not taught her that but she learned it was
effective.) Then you cried and declared you didn’t know what had come
over you and that he couldn’t ever respect you again. Then he had to dry
your eyes and usually he proposed, to show just how much he did respect
you. And then there were—Oh, there were so many things to do to
bachelors and she knew them all, the nuance of the sidelong glance, the
half-smile behind the fan, the swaying of hips so that skirts swung like a
bell, the tears, the laughter, the flattery, the sweet sympathy. Oh, all the
tricks that never failed to work—except with Ashley.
No, it didn’t seem right to learn all these smart tricks, use them so
briefly and then put them away forever. How wonderful it would be never
to marry but to go on being lovely in pale green dresses and forever courted
by handsome men. But, if you went on too long, you got to be an old maid
like India Wilkes and everyone said “poor thing” in that smug hateful way.
No, after all it was better to marry and keep your self-respect even if you
never had any more fun.
Oh, what a mess life was! Why had she been such an idiot as to marry
Charles of all people and have her life end at sixteen?
Her indignant and hopeless reverie was broken when the crowd began
pushing back against the walls, the ladies carefully holding their hoops so
that no careless contact should turn them up against their bodies and show
more pantalets than was proper. Scarlett tiptoed above the crowd and saw
the captain of the militia mounting the orchestra platform. He shouted
orders and half of the Company fell into line. For a few minutes they went
through a brisk drill that brought perspiration to their foreheads and cheers
and applause from the audience. Scarlett clapped her hands dutifully with
the rest and, as the soldiers pushed forward toward the punch and
lemonade booths after they were dismissed, she turned to Melanie, feeling
that she had better begin her deception about the Cause as soon as
possible.
“They looked fine, didn’t they?” she said.
Melanie was fussing about with the knitted things on the counter.

“Most of them would look a lot finer in gray uniforms and in Virginia,”
she said, and she did not trouble to lower her voice.
Several of the proud mothers of members of the militia were standing
close by and overheard the remark. Mrs. Guinan turned scarlet and then
white, for her twenty-five-year-old Willie was in the company.
Scarlett was aghast at such words coming from Melly of all people.
“Why, Melly!”
“You know it’s true, Scarlett. I don’t mean the little boys and the old
gentlemen. But a lot of the militia are perfectly able to tote a rifle and
that’s what they ought to be doing this minute.”
“But—but—” began Scarlett, who had never considered the matter
before. “Somebody’s got to stay home to—” What was it Willie Guinan
had told her by way of excusing his presence in Atlanta? “Somebody’s got
to stay home to protect the state from invasion.”
“Nobody’s invading us and nobody’s going to,” said Melly coolly, looking
toward a group of the militia. “And the best way to keep out invaders is to
go to Virginia and beat the Yankees there. And as for all this talk about the
militia staying here to keep the darkies from rising—why, it’s the silliest
thing I ever heard of. Why should our people rise? It’s just a good excuse of
cowards. I’ll bet we could lick the Yankees in a month if all the militia of
all the states went to Virginia. So there!”
“Why, Melly!” cried Scarlett again, staring.
Melly’s soft dark eyes were flashing angrily. “My husband wasn’t afraid to
go and neither was yours. And I’d rather they’d both be dead than here at
home—Oh, darling, I’m sorry. How thoughtless and cruel of me!”
She stroked Scarlett’s arm appealingly and Scarlett stared at her. But it
was not of dead Charles she was thinking. It was of Ashley. Suppose he too
were to die? She turned quickly and smiled automatically as Dr. Meade
walked up to their booth.
“Well, girls,” he greeted them, “it was nice of you to come. I know what
a sacrifice it must have been for you to come out tonight. But it’s all for the
Cause. And I’m going to tell you a secret. I’ve a surprise way for making
some more money tonight for the hospital, but I’m afraid some of the ladies
are going to be shocked about it.”
He stopped and chuckled as he tugged at his gray goatee.
“Oh, what? Do tell!”

“On second thought I believe I’ll keep you guessing, too. But you girls
must stand up for me if the church members want to run me out of town for
doing it. However, it’s for the hospital. You’ll see. Nothing like this has
ever been done before.”
He went off pompously toward a group of chaperons in one corner, and
just as the two girls had turned to each other to discuss the possibilities of
the secret, two old gentlemen bore down on the booth, declaring in loud
voices that they wanted ten miles of tatting. Well, after all, old gentlemen
were better than no gentlemen at all, thought Scarlett, measuring out the
tatting and submitting demurely to being chucked under the chin. The old
blades charged off toward the lemonade booth and others took their places
at the counter. Their booth did not have so many customers as did the
other booths where the tootling laugh of Maybelle Merriwether sounded
and Fanny Elsing’s giggles and the Whiting girls’ repartee made merriment.
Melly sold useless stuff to men who could have no possible use for it as
quietly and serenely as a shopkeeper, and Scarlett patterned her conduct on
Melly’s.
There were crowds in front of every other counter but theirs, girls
chattering, men buying. The few who came to them talked about how they
went to the university with Ashley and what a fine soldier he was or spoke
in respectful tones of Charles and how great a loss to Atlanta his death had
been.
Then the music broke into the rollicking strains of “Johnny Booker, he’p
dis Nigger!” and Scarlett thought she would scream. She wanted to dance.
She wanted to dance. She looked across the floor and tapped her foot to
the music and her green eyes blazed so eagerly that they fairly snapped. All
the way across the floor, a man, newly come and standing in the doorway,
saw them, started in recognition and watched closely the slanting eyes in
the sulky, rebellious face. Then he grinned to himself as he recognized the
invitation that any male could read.
He was dressed in black broadcloth, a tall man, towering over the
officers who stood near him, bulky in the shoulders but tapering to a small
waist and absurdly small feet in varnished boots. His severe black suit, with
fine ruffled shirt and trousers smartly strapped beneath high insteps, was
oddly at variance with his physique and face, for he was foppishly groomed,
the clothes of a dandy on a body that was powerful and latently dangerous

in its lazy grace. His hair was jet black, and his black mustache was small
and closely clipped, almost foreign looking compared with the dashing,
swooping mustaches of the cavalrymen near by. He looked, and was, a man
of lusty and unashamed appetites. He had an air of utter assurance, of
displeasing insolence about him, and there was a twinkle of malice in his
bold eyes as he stared at Scarlett, until finally, feeling his gaze, she looked
toward him.
Somewhere in her mind, the bell of recognition rang, but for the
moment she could not recall who he was. But he was the first man in
months who had displayed an interest in her, and she threw him a gay
smile. She made a little curtsy as he bowed, and then, as he straightened
and started toward her with a peculiarly lithe Indian-like gait, her hand
went to her mouth in horror, for she knew who he was.
Thunderstruck, she stood as if paralyzed while he made his way through
the crowd. Then she turned blindly, bent on flight into the refreshment
rooms, but her skirt caught on a nail of the booth. She jerked furiously at
it, tearing it and, in an instant, he was beside her.
“Permit me,” he said bending over and disentangling the flounce. “I
hardly hoped that you would recall me, Miss O’Hara.”
His voice was oddly pleasant to the ear, the well-modulated voice of a
gentleman, resonant and overlaid with the flat slow drawl of the
Charlestonian.
She looked up at him imploringly, her face crimson with the shame of
their last meeting, and met two of the blackest eyes she had ever seen,
dancing in merciless merriment. Of all the people in the world to turn up
here, this terrible person who had witnessed that scene with Ashley which
still gave her nightmares; this odious wretch who ruined girls and was not
received by nice people; this despicable man who had said, and with good
cause, that she was not a lady.
At the sound of his voice, Melanie turned and for the first time in her
life Scarlett thanked God for the existence of her sister-in-law.
“Why—it’s—it’s Mr. Rhett Butler, isn’t it?” said Melanie with a little
smile, putting out her hand. “I met you—”
“On the happy occasion of the announcement of your betrothal,” he
finished, bending over her hand. “It is kind of you to recall me.”
“And what are you doing so far from Charleston, Mr. Butler?”

“A boring matter of business, Mrs. Wilkes. I will be in and out of your
town from now on. I find I must not only bring in goods but see to the
disposal of them.”
“Bring in—” began Melly, her brow wrinkling, and then she broke into a
delighted smile. “Why, you—you must be the famous Captain Butler we’ve
been hearing so much about—the blockade runner. Why, every girl here is
wearing dresses you brought in. Scarlett, aren’t you thrilled—what’s the
matter, dear? Are you faint? Do sit down.”
Scarlett sank to the stool, her breath coming so rapidly she feared the
lacings of her stays would burst. Oh, what a terrible thing to happen! She
had never thought to meet this man again. He picked up her black fan
from the counter and began fanning her solicitously, too solicitously, his
face grave but his eyes still dancing.
“It is quite warm in here,” he said. “No wonder Miss O’Hara is faint.
May I lead you to a window?”
“No,” said Scarlett, so rudely that Melly stared.
“She is not Miss O’Hara any longer,” said Melly. “She is Mrs. Hamilton.
She is my sister now,” and Melly bestowed one of her fond little glances on
her. Scarlett felt that she would strangle at the expression on Captain
Butler’s swarthy piratical face.
“I am sure that is a great gain to two charming ladies,” said he, making a
slight bow. That was the kind of remark all men made, but when he said it
it seemed to her that he meant just the opposite.
“Your husbands are here tonight, I trust, on this happy occasion? It
would be a pleasure to renew acquaintances.”
“My husband is in Virginia,” said Melly with a proud lift of her head.
“But Charles—” Her voice broke.
“He died in camp,” said Scarlett flatly. She almost snapped the words.
Would this creature never go away? Melly looked at her, startled, and the
Captain made a gesture of self-reproach.
“My dear ladies—how could I! You must forgive me. But permit a
stranger to offer the comfort of saying that to die for one’s country is to live
forever.”
Melanie smiled at him through sparkling tears while Scarlett felt the fox
of wrath and impotent hate gnaw at her vitals. Again he had made a
graceful remark, the kind of compliment any gentleman would pay under

such circumstances, but he did not mean a word of it. He was jeering at
her. He knew she hadn’t loved Charles. And Melly was just a big enough
fool not to see through him. Oh, please God, don’t let anybody else see
through him, she thought with a start of terror. Would he tell what he
knew? Of course he wasn’t a gentleman and there was no telling what men
would do when they weren’t gentlemen. There was no standard to judge
them by. She looked up at him and saw that his mouth was pulled down at
the corners in mock sympathy, even while he swished the fan. Something
in his look challenged her spirit and brought her strength back in a surge of
dislike. Abruptly she snatched the fan from his hand.
“I’m quite all right,” she said tartly. “There’s no need to blow my hair
out of place.”
“Scarlett, darling! Captain Butler, you must forgive her. She—she isn’t
herself when she hears poor Charlie’s name spoken—and perhaps, after all,
we shouldn’t have come here tonight. We’re still in mourning, you see, and
it’s quite a strain on her—all this gaiety and music, poor child.”
“I quite understand,” he said with elaborate gravity, but as he turned and
gave Melanie a searching look that went to the bottom of her sweet
worried eyes, his expression changed, reluctant respect and gentleness
coming over his dark face. “I think you’re a courageous little lady, Mrs.
Wilkes.”
“Not a word about me!” thought Scarlett indignantly, as Melly smiled in
confusion and answered,
“Dear me, no, Captain Butler! The hospital committee just had to have
us for this booth because at the last minute—A pillow case? Here’s a lovely
one with a flag on it.”
She turned to three cavalrymen who appeared at her counter. For a
moment, Melanie thought how nice Captain Butler was. Then she wished
that something more substantial than cheesecloth was between her skirt
and the spittoon that stood just outside the booth, for the aim of the
horsemen with amber streams of tobacco juice was not so unerring as with
their long horse pistols. Then she forgot about the Captain, Scarlett and
the spittoons as more customers crowded to her.
Scarlett sat quietly on the stool fanning herself, not daring to look up,
wishing Captain Butler back on the deck of his ship where he belonged.
“Your husband has been dead long?”

“Oh, yes, a long time. Almost a year.”
“An aeon, I’m sure.”
Scarlett was not sure what an aeon was, but there was no mistaking the
baiting quality of his voice, so she said nothing.
“Had you been married long? Forgive my questions but I have been away
from this section for so long.”
“Two months,” said Scarlett, unwillingly.
“A tragedy, no less,” his easy voice continued.
Oh, damn him, she thought violently. If he was any other man in the
world I could simply freeze up and order him off. But he knows about
Ashley and he knows I didn’t love Charlie. And my hands are tied. She
said nothing, still looking down at her fan.
“And this is your first social appearance?”
“I know it looks quite odd,” she explained rapidly. “But the McLure girls
who were to take this booth were called away and there was no one else, so
Melanie and I—”
“No sacrifice is too great for the Cause.”
Why, that was what Mrs. Elsing had said, but when she said it it didn’t
sound the same way. Hot words started to her lips but she choked them
back. After all, she was here, not for the Cause, but because she was tired of
sitting at home.
“I have always thought,” he said reflectively, “that the system of
mourning, of immuring women in crêpe for the rest of their lives and
forbidding them normal enjoyment is just as barbarous as the Hindu
suttee.”
“Settee?”
He laughed and she blushed for her ignorance. She hated people who
used words unknown to her.
“In India, when a man dies he is burned, instead of buried, and his wife
always climbs on the funeral pyre and is burned with him.”
“How dreadful! Why do they do it? Don’t the police do anything about
it?”
“Of course not. A wife who didn’t burn herself would be a social outcast.
All the worthy Hindu matrons would talk about her for not behaving as a
well-bred lady should—precisely as those worthy matrons in the corner
would talk about you, should you appear tonight in a red dress and lead a

reel. Personally, I think suttee much more merciful than our charming
Southern custom of burying widows alive!”
“How dare you say I’m buried alive!”
“How closely women clutch the very chains that bind them! You think
the Hindu custom barbarous—but would you have had the courage to
appear here tonight if the Confederacy hadn’t needed you?”
Arguments of this character were always confusing to Scarlett. His were
doubly confusing because she had a vague idea there was truth in them. But
now was the time to squelch him.
“Of course, I wouldn’t have come. It would have been—well,
disrespectful to—it would have seemed as if I hadn’t lov—”
His eyes waited on her words, cynical amusement in them, and she
could not go on. He knew she hadn’t loved Charlie and he wouldn’t let her
pretend to the nice polite sentiments that she should express. What a
terrible, terrible thing it was to have to do with a man who wasn’t a
gentleman. A gentleman always appeared to believe a lady even when he
knew she was lying. That was Southern chivalry. A gentleman always
obeyed the rules and said the correct things and made life easier for a lady.
But this man seemed not to care for rules and evidently enjoyed talking of
things no one ever talked about.
“I am waiting breathlessly.”
“I think you are horrid,” she said, helplessly, dropping her eyes.
He leaned down across the counter until his mouth was near her ear and
hissed in a very creditable imitation of the stage villains who appeared
infrequently at the Athenaeum Hall: “Fear not, fair lady! Your guilty secret
is safe with me!”
“Oh,” she whispered, feverishly, “how can you say such things!”
“I only thought to ease your mind. What would you have me say? ‘Be
mine, beautiful female, or I will reveal all’?”
She met his eyes unwillingly and saw they were as teasing as a small
boy’s. Suddenly she laughed. It was such a silly situation, after all. He
laughed too, and so loudly that several of the chaperons in the corner
looked their way. Observing how good a time Charles Hamilton’s widow
appeared to be having with a perfect stranger, they put their heads together
disapprovingly.

*     *     *
There was a roll of drums and many voices cried “Sh!” as Dr. Meade
mounted the platform and spread out his arms for quiet.
“We must all give grateful thanks to the charming ladies whose
indefatigable and patriotic efforts not only have made this bazaar a
pecuniary success,” he began, “but have transformed this rough hall into a
bower of loveliness, a fit garden for the charming rosebuds I see about me.”
Everyone clapped approvingly.
“The ladies have given their best, not only of their time but of the labor
of their hands, and these beautiful objects in the booths are doubly
beautiful, made as they are by the fair hands of our charming Southern
women.”
There were more shouts of approval, and Rhett Butler who had been
lounging negligently against the counter at Scarlett’s side whispered:
“Pompous goat, isn’t he?”
Startled, at first horrified, at this lese majesty toward Atlanta’s most
beloved citizen, she stared reprovingly at him. But the doctor did look like
a goat with his gray chin whiskers wagging away at a great rate, and with
difficulty she stifled a giggle.
“But these things are not enough. The good ladies of the hospital
committee, whose cool hands have soothed many a suffering brow and
brought back from the jaws of death our brave men wounded in the bravest
of all Causes, know our needs. I will not enumerate them. We must have
more money to buy medical supplies from England, and we have with us
tonight the intrepid captain who has so successfully run the blockade for a
year and who will run it again to bring us the drugs we need. Captain Rhett
Butler!”
Though caught unawares, the blockader made a graceful bow—too
graceful, thought Scarlett, trying to analyze it. It was almost as if he overdid
his courtesy because his contempt for everybody present was so great.
There was a loud burst of applause as he bowed and a craning of necks from
the ladies in the corner. So that was who poor Charles Hamilton’s widow
was carrying on with! And Charlie hardly dead a year!
“We need more gold and I am asking you for it,” the doctor continued.
“I am asking a sacrifice but a sacrifice so small compared with the sacrifices

our gallant men in gray are making that it will seem laughably small.
Ladies, I want your jewelry. I want your jewelry? No, the Confederacy
wants your jewelry, the Confederacy calls for it and I know no one will
hold back. How fair a gem gleams on a lovely wrist! How beautifully gold
brooches glitter on the bosoms of our patriotic women! But how much
more beautiful is sacrifice than all the gold and gems of the Ind. The gold
will be melted and the stones sold and the money used to buy drugs and
other medical supplies. Ladies, there will pass among you two of our gallant
wounded, with baskets and—” But the rest of his speech was lost in the
storm and tumult of clapping hands and cheering voices.
Scarlett’s first thought was one of deep thankfulness that mourning
forbade her wearing her precious earbobs and the heavy gold chain that
had been Grandma Robillard’s and the gold and black enameled bracelets
and the garnet brooch. She saw the little Zouave, a split-oak basket over
his unwounded arm, making the rounds of the crowd on her side of the hall
and saw women, old and young, laughing, eager, tugging at bracelets,
squealing in pretended pain as earrings came fro