Margaret Mitchell - Gone with the Wind

“But how silly of them to come back if there aren’t any houses! Where do they live?”

“Miss Scarlett, they’re living in tents and shacks and log cabins and doubling up six and seven families in the few houses still standing. And they’re trying to rebuild. Now, Miss Scarlett, don’t say they are silly. You know Atlanta folks as well as I do. They are plumb set on that town, most as bad as Charlestonians are about Charleston, and it’ll take more than Yankees and a burning to keep them away. Atlanta folks are—begging your pardon, Miss Melly—as stubborn as mules about Atlanta. I don’t know why, for I always thought that town a mighty pushy, impudent sort of place. But then, I’m a countryman born and I don’t like any town. And let me tell you, the ones who are getting back first are the smart ones. The ones who come back last won’t find a stick or stone or brick of their houses, because everybody’s out salvaging things all over town to rebuild their houses. Just day before yesterday, I saw Mrs. Merriwether and Miss Maybelle and their old darky woman out collecting brick in a wheelbarrow. And Mrs. Meade told me she was thinking about building a log cabin when the doctor comes back to help her. She said she lived in a log cabin when she first came to Atlanta, when it was Marthasville, and it wouldn’t bother her none to do it again. ’Course, she was only joking but that shows you how they feel about it.”

“I think they’ve got a lot of spirit,” said Melanie proudly. “Don’t you, Scarlett?”

Scarlett nodded, a grim pleasure and pride in her adopted town filling her. As Frank said, it was a pushy, impudent place and that was why she liked it. It wasn’t hide-bound and stick-in-themuddish like the older towns and it had a brash exuberance that matched her own. “I’m like Atlanta,” she thought. “It takes more than Yankees or a burning to keep me down.”

“If Aunt Pitty is going back to Atlanta, we’d better go back and stay with her, Scarlett,” said Melanie, interrupting her train of thought. “She’ll die of fright alone.”

“Now, how can I leave here, Melly?” Scarlett asked crossly. “If you are so anxious to go, go. I won’t stop you.”

“Oh, I didn’t mean it that way, darling,” cried Melanie, flushing with distress. “How thoughtless of me! Of course, you can’t leave Tara and—and I guess Uncle Peter and Cookie can take care of Auntie.”

“There’s nothing to keep you from going,” Scarlett pointed out, shortly.

“You know I wouldn’t leave you,” answered Melanie. “And I—I would be just frightened to death without you.”

“Suit yourself. Besides, you wouldn’t catch me going back to Atlanta. Just as soon as they get a few houses up, Sherman will come back and burn it again.”

“He won’t be back,” said Frank and, despite his efforts, his face drooped. “He’s gone on through the state to the coast. Savannah was captured this week and they say the Yankees are going on up into South Carolina.”

“Savannah taken!”

“Yes. Why, ladies, Savannah couldn’t help but fall. They didn’t have enough men to hold it, though they used every man they could get—every man who could drag one foot after another. Do you know that when the Yankees were marching on Milledgeville, they called out all the cadets from the military academies, no matter how young they were, and even opened the state penitentiary to get fresh troops? Yes, sir, they turned loose every convict who was willing to fight and promised him a pardon if he lived through the war. It kind of gave me the creeps to see those little cadets in the ranks with thieves and cutthroats.”

“They turned loose the convicts on us!”

“Now, Miss Scarlett, don’t you get upset. They’re a long way off from here, and furthermore they’re making good soldiers. I guess being a thief don’t keep a man from being a good soldier, does it?”

“I think it’s wonderful,” said Melanie softly.

“Well, I don’t,” said Scarlett flatly. “There’s thieves enough running around the country anyway, what with the Yankees and—” She caught herself in time but the men laughed.

“What with Yankees and our commissary department,” they finished and she flushed.

“But where’s General Hood’s army?” interposed Melanie hastily. “Surely he could have held Savannah.”

“Why, Miss Melanie,” Frank was startled and reproachful, “General Hood hasn’t been down in that section at all. He’s been fighting up in Tennessee, trying to draw the Yankees out of Georgia.”

“And didn’t his little scheme work well!” cried Scarlett sarcastically. “He left the damn Yankees to go through us with nothing but schoolboys and convicts and Home Guards to protect us.”

“Daughter,” said Gerald rousing himself, “you are profane. Your mother will be grieved.”

“They are damn Yankees!” cried Scarlett passionately. “And I never expect to call them anything else.”

At the mention of Ellen everyone felt queer and conversation suddenly ceased. Melanie again interposed.

“When you were in Macon did you see India and Honey Wilkes? Did they—had they heard anything of Ashley?”

“Now, Miss Melly, you know if I’d had news of Ashley, I’d have ridden up here from Macon right away to tell you,” said Frank reproachfully. “No, they didn’t have any news but—now, don’t you fret about Ashley, Miss Melly. I know it’s been a long time since you heard from him, but you can’t expect to hear from a fellow when he’s in prison, can you? And things aren’t as bad in Yankee prisons as they are in ours. After all, the Yankees have plenty to eat and enough medicines and blankets. They aren’t like we are—not having enough to feed ourselves, much less our prisoners.”

“Oh, the Yankees have got plenty,” cried Melanie, passionately bitter. “But they don’t give things to the prisoners. You know they don’t, Mr. Kennedy. You are just saying that to make me feel better. You know that our boys freeze to death up there and starve too and die without doctors and medicine, simply because the Yankees hate us so much! Oh, if we could just wipe every Yankee off the face of the earth! Oh, I know that Ashley is—”

“Don’t say it!” cried Scarlett, her heart in her throat. As long as no one said Ashley was dead, there persisted in her heart a faint hope that he lived, but she felt that if she heard the words pronounced, in that moment he would die.

“Now, Mrs. Wilkes, don’t you bother about your husband,” said the one-eyed man soothingly. “I was captured after first Manassas and exchanged later and when I was in prison, they fed me off the fat of the land, fried chicken and hot biscuits—”

“I think you are a liar,” said Melanie with a faint smile and the first sign of spirit Scarlett had ever seen her display with a man. “What do you think?”

“I think so too,” said the one-eyed man and slapped his leg with a laugh.

“If you’ll all come into the parlor, I’ll sing you some Christmas carols,” said Melanie, glad to change the subject. “The piano was one thing the Yankees couldn’t carry away. Is it terribly out of tune, Suellen?”

“Dreadfully,” answered Suellen, happily beckoning with a smile to Frank.

But as they all passed from the room, Frank hung back, tugging at Scarlett’s sleeve.

“May I speak to you alone?”

For an awful moment she feared he was going to ask about her livestock and she braced herself for a good lie.

When the room was cleared and they stood by the fire, all the false cheerfulness which had colored Frank’s face in front of the others passed and she saw that he looked like an old man. His face was as dried and brown as the leaves that were blowing about the lawn of Tara and his ginger-colored whiskers were thin and scraggly and streaked with gray. He clawed at them absently and cleared his throat in an annoying way before he spoke.