The smoke curled slowly to the ceiling and the red streams widened about her feet.

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

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

“Why — why — she’s like me! She understands how I feel!” thought Scarlett in that long moment. “She’d have done the same thing!”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Melanie’s white face went crimson.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Grandma interrupted.

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

“Oh, Mama Fontaine!”

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

“Why didn’t they burn the Calverts’ house?”

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

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

Now,” said Grandma, peering into her face, “what’s wrong at Tara? What are you keeping back?”

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

“Mother is dead,” she said flatly.

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

“Did the Yankees kill her?”

“She died of typhoid. Died — the day before I came home.”

“Don’t think about it,” said Grandma sternly and Scarlett saw her swallow. “And your Pa?”

“Pa is — Pa is not himself.”

“What do you mean? Speak up. Is he ill?”

“The shock — he is so strange — he is not —”

“Don’t tell me he’s not himself. Do you mean his mind is unhinged?”

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

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

“Melly — a baby? And she’s with you?”

“Yes.”

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

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

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

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

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

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

Every morning when Scarlett arose she thanked God for the pale-blue sky and the warm sun, for each day of good weather put off the inevitable time when warm clothing would be needed. And each warm day saw more and more cotton piling up in the empty slave quarters, the only storage place left on the plantation. There was more cotton in the fields than she or Pork had estimated, probably four bales, and soon the cabins would be full.

Scarlett had not intended to do any cotton picking herself, even after Grandma Fontaine’s tart remark. It was unthinkable that she, an O’Hara lady, now the mistress of Tara, should work in the fields. It put her on the same level with the snarly haired Mrs. Slattery and Emmie. She had intended that the negroes should do the field work, while she and the convalescent girls attended to the house, but here she was confronted with a caste feeling even stronger than her own. Pork, Mammy and Prissy set up outcries at the idea of working in the fields. They reiterated that they were house niggers, not field hands. Mammy, in particular, declared vehemently that she had never even been a yard nigger. She had been born in the Robillard great house, not in the quarters, and had been raised in Ole Miss’ bedroom, sleeping on a pallet at the foot of the bed. Dilcey alone said nothing and she fixed her Prissy with an unwinking eye that made her squirm

Dilcey worked tirelessly, silently, like a machine, and Scarlett, with her back aching and her shoulder raw from the tugging weight of the cotton bag she carried, thought that Dilcey was worth her weight in gold.

“Dilcey,” she said, “when good times come back, I’m not going to forget how you’ve acted. You’ve been mighty good.”

The bronze giantess did not grin pleasedly or squirm under praise like the other negroes. She turned an immobile face to Scarlett and said with dignity: “Thankee, Ma’m. But Mist’ Gerald and Miss Ellen been good to me. Mist’ Gerald buy my Prissy so I wouldn’ grieve and I doan forgit it. I is part Indian and Indians doan forgit them as is good to them. I sorry ‘bout my Prissy. She mighty wuthless. Look lak she all nigger lak her pa. Her pa was mighty flighty.”

She sawed savagely at the horse’s mouth just in time to swerve him from leaping up the front steps. He swung around sharply, covered the side lawn in three leaps and she put him across the four-foot hedge as if she were on the hunting field. They heard the heavy pounding of his hooves.

For a moment they stood paralyzed and then Suellen and Carreen began to sob and clutch each other’s fingers.

“Yankees?” said Gerald vaguely. “But the Yankees have already been here.”

“Mother of God!” cried Scarlett, her eyes meeting Melanie’s frightened eyes.

“They shan’t have them!” she cried aloud and they all turned startled faces to her, fearful her mind had cracked under the tidings. “I won’t go hungry! They shan’t have them!”

“What is it, Scarlett? What is it?”

“The horse! The cow! The pigs! They shan’t have them! I won’t let them have them!”

She turned swiftly to the four negroes who huddled in the doorway, their black faces a peculiarly ashen shade.

“The swamp,” she said rapidly.

“Whut swamp?”

“The river swamp, you fools! Take the pigs to the swamp. All of you. Quickly. Pork, you and Prissy crawl under the house and get the pigs out. Suellen, you and Carreen fill the baskets with as much food as you can carry and get to the woods. Mammy, put the silver in the well again. And Pork! Pork, listen to me, don’t stand there like that! Take Pa with you. Don’t ask me where! Anywhere! Go with Pork, Pa. That’s a sweet pa.”

Even in her frenzy she thought what the sight of bluecoats might do to Gerald’s wavering mind. She stopped and wrung her hands and the frightened sobbing of little Wade who was clutching Melanie’s skirt added to her panic.

“What shall I do, Scarlett?” Melanie’s voice was calm amid the wailing and tears and scurrying feet. Though her face was paper white and her whole body trembled, the very quietness of her voice steadied Scarlett, revealing to her that they all looked to her for commands, for guidance.

“The cow and the calf,” she said quickly. “They’re in the old pasture. Take the horse and drive them into the swamp and —”

She heard Suellen crying: “Come on, Carreen! Come on! We’ve got enough. Oh, Sister, hurry!” There were wild squealings, indignant gruntings in the back yard and, running to the widow, Scarlett saw Mammy waddling hurriedly across the cotton field with a struggling young pig under each arm. Behind her was Pork also carrying two pigs and pushing Gerald before him. Gerald was stumping across the furrows, waving his cane.

Leaning out of the window Scarlett yelled: “Get the sow, Dilcey! Make Prissy drive her out. You can chase her across the fields!”

Dilcey looked up, her bronzed face harassed. In her apron was a pile of silver tableware. She pointed under the house.

“The sow done bit Prissy and got her penned up unner the house.”

“Good for the sow,” thought Scarlett. She hurried back into her room and hastily gathered from their hiding place the bracelets, brooch, miniature and cup she had found on the dead Yankee. But where to hide them? It was awkward, carrying little Beau in one arm and the wallet and the trinkets in the other. She started to lay him on the bed.

He set up a wail at leaving her arms and a welcome thought came to her. What better hiding place could there be than a baby’s diaper? She quickly turned him over, pulled up his dress and thrust the wallet down the diaper next to his backside. He yelled louder at this treatment and she hastily tightened the triangular garment about his threshing legs.

“Now,” she thought, drawing a deep breath, “now for the swamp!”

Tucking him screaming under one arm and clutching the jewelry to her with the other, she raced into the upstairs hall. Suddenly her rapid steps paused, fright weakening her knees. How silent the house was! How dreadfully still! Had they all gone off and left her? Hadn’t anyone waited for her? She hadn’t meant for them to leave her here alone. These days anything could happen to a lone woman and with the Yankees coming —

She jumped as a slight noise sounded and, turning quickly, saw crouched by the banisters her forgotten son, his eyes enormous with terror. He tried to speak but his throat only worked silently.

“Get up, Wade Hampton,” she commanded swiftly. “Get up and walk. Mother can’t carry you now.”

He ran to her, like a small frightened animal, and clutching her wide skirt, buried his face in it. She could feel his small hands groping through the folds for her legs. She started down the stairs, each step hampered by Wade’s dragging hands and she said fiercely: “Turn me loose, Wade! Turn me loose and walk!” But the child only clung the closer.

She had forgotten the trinkets she had intended to hide and, with a sneer which she hoped was as eloquent as that pictured on Grandma Robillard’s face, she flung the articles to the floor and almost enjoyed the rapacious scramble that ensued.

“I’ll trouble you for thet ring and them earbobs.”

Scarlett tucked the baby more securely under her arm so that he hung face downward, crimson and screaming, and removed the garnet earrings which had been Gerald’s wedding present to Ellen. Then she stripped off the large sapphire solitaire which Charles had given her as an engagement ring.

“Don’t throw um. Hand um to me,” said the sergeant, putting out his hands. “Them bastards got enough already. What else have you got?” His eyes went over her basque sharply.

For a moment Scarlett went faint, already feeling rough hands thrusting themselves into her bosom, fumbling at her garters.

“That is all, but I suppose it is customary to strip your victims?”

“Oh, I’ll take your word,” said the sergeant good-naturedly, spitting again as he turned away. Scarlett righted the baby and tried to soothe him, holding her hand over the place on the diaper where the wallet was hidden, thanking God that Melanie had a baby and that baby had a diaper.

Upstairs she could hear heavy boots trampling, the protesting screech of furniture pulled across the floor, the crashing of china and mirrors, the curses when nothing of value appeared. From the yard came loud cries: “Head um off! Don’t let um get away!” and the despairing squawks of the hens and quacking and honking of the ducks and geese. A pang went through her as she heard an agonized squealing which was suddenly stilled by a pistol shot and she knew that the sow was dead. Damn Prissy! She had run off and left her. If only the shoats were safe! If only the family had gotten safely to the swamp! But there was no way of knowing.

She stood quietly in the hall while the soldiers boiled about her, shouting and cursing. Wade’s fingers were in her skirt in a terrified grip. But when a squad of bearded men came lumbering down the steps, laden with an assortment of stolen articles and she saw Charles’ sword in the hands of one, she did cry out.

That sword was Wade’s. It had been his father’s and his grandfather’s sword and Scarlett had given it to the little boy on his last birthday. Wade, peering from the protection of her skirts at the sound of her cry, found speech and courage in a mighty sob. Stretching out one hand he cried:

“Mine!”

said Scarlett swiftly, holding out her hand too.

“I can’t, hey?” said the little soldier who held it, grinning impudently at her. “Well, I can! It’s a Rebel sword!”

“

The sergeant, pleased at his promotion, stepped forward.

“Lemme see thet sword, Bub,” he said.

Reluctantly, the little trooper handed it to him. “It’s got a solid-gold hilt,” he said.

The sergeant turned it in his hand, held the hilt up to the sunlight to read the engraved inscription.

“‘To Colonel William R. Hamilton,’” he deciphered. “‘From His Staff. For Gallantry. Buena Vista. 1847.’”

“Ho, lady,” he said, “I was at Buena Vista myself.”

“

,” said Scarlett icily.

“Was I? Thet was hot fightin’, lemme tell you. I ain’t seen such hot fightin’ in this war as we seen in thet one. So this sword was this little tyke’s grandaddy’s?”

“

.”

“Well, he can have it,” said the sergeant, who was satisfied enough with the jewelry and trinkets tied up in his handkerchief.

“But it’s got a solid-gold hilt,” insisted the little trooper.

“We’ll leave her thet to remember us by,” grinned the sergeant.

Scarlett took the sword, not even saying “Thank you.” Why should she thank these thieves for returning her own property to her? She held the sword against her while the little cavalryman argued and wrangled with the sergeant.

“By God, I’ll give these damn Rebels something to remember me by,” shouted the private finally when the sergeant, losing his good nature, told him to go to hell and not talk back. The little man went charging toward the back of the house and Scarlett breathed more easily. They had said nothing about burning the house. They hadn’t told her to leave so they could fire it. Perhaps — perhaps — The men came rambling into the hall from the upstairs and the out of doors

Suddenly she swung about, rigid as a pointer, and stared with horror-struck eyes down the hall, down the covered passageway toward the kitchen. There was smoke coming from the kitchen!

Somewhere between the hall and the kitchen, she laid the baby down. Somewhere she flung off Wade’s grip, slinging him against the wall. She burst into the smoke-filled kitchen and reeled back, coughing, her eyes streaming tears from the smoke. Again she plunged in, her skirt held over her nose.

The room was dark, lit as it was by one small window, and so thick with smoke that she was blinded, but she could hear the hiss and crackle of flames. Dashing a hand across her eyes, she peered squinting and saw thin lines of flame creeping across the kitchen floor, toward the walls. Someone had scattered the blazing logs in the open fireplace across the whole room and the tinder-dry pine floor was sucking in the flames and spewing them up like water.

Back she rushed to the dining room and snatched a rag rug from the floor, spilling two chairs with a crash.

“I’ll never beat it out — never, never! Oh, God, if only there was someone to help! Tara is gone — gone! Oh, God! This was what that little wretch meant when he said he’d give me something to remember him by! Oh, if I’d only let him have the sword!”

In the hallway she passed her son lying in the corner with his sword. His eyes were closed and his face had a look of slack, unearthly peace.

“My God! He’s dead! They’ve frightened him to death!” she thought in agony but she raced by him to the bucket of drinking water which always stood in the passageway by the kitchen door.

She soused the end of the rug into the bucket and drawing a deep breath plunged again into the smoke-filled room slamming the door behind her. For an eternity she reeled and coughed, beating the rug against the lines of fire that shot swiftly beyond her. Twice her long skirt took fire and she slapped it out with her hands. She could smell the sickening smell of her hair scorching, as it came loose from its pins and swept about her shoulders. The flames raced ever beyond her, toward the walls of the covered runway, fiery snakes that writhed and leaped and, exhaustion sweeping her, she knew that it was hopeless.

Then the door swung open and the sucking draft flung the flames higher. It closed with a bang and, in the swirling smoke, Scarlett, half blind, saw Melanie, stamping her feet on the flames, beating at them with something dark and heavy. She saw her staggering, heard her coughing, caught a lightning-flash glimpse of her set white face and eyes narrow to slits against the smoke, saw her small body curving back and forth as she swung her rug up and down. For another eternity they fought and swayed, side by side, and Scarlett could see that the lines of fire were shortening. Then suddenly Melanie turned toward her and, with a cry, hit her across the shoulders with all her might. Scarlett went down in a whirlwind of smoke and darkness.

When she opened her eyes she was lying on the back porch, her head pillowed comfortably on Melanie’s lap, and the afternoon sunlight was shining on her face. Her hands, face and shoulders smarted intolerably from burns. Smoke was still rolling from the quarters, enveloping the cabins in thick clouds, and the smell of burning cotton was strong. Scarlett saw wisps of smoke drifting from the kitchen and she stirred frantically to rise.

Cold weather set in abruptly with a killing frost. Chilling winds swept beneath the doorsills and rattled the loose windowpanes with a monotonous tinkling sound. The last of the leaves fell from the bare trees and only the pines stood clothed, black and cold against pale skies. The rutted red roads were frozen to flintiness and hunger rode the winds through Georgia.

At Tara and throughout the County, the problem was food. Most of the families had nothing at all but the remains of their yam crops and their peanuts and such game as they could catch in the woods.
What they had, each shared with less fortunate friends, as they had done in more prosperous days. But the time soon came when there was nothing to share.

At Tara, they ate rabbit and possum and catfish, if Pork was lucky.
On other days a small amount of milk, hickory nuts, roasted acorns and yams. They were always hungry. To Scarlett it seemed that at every turn she met outstretched hands, pleading eyes. The sight of them drove her almost to madness, for she was as hungry as they.

Pork foraged far, at times not coming home all night, and Scarlett did not ask him where he went. Sometimes he returned with game, sometimes with a few ears of corn, a bag of dried peas. Once he brought home a rooster which he said he found in the woods. The family ate it with relish but a sense of guilt, knowing very well Pork had stolen it, as he had stolen the peas and corn. One night soon after this, he tapped on Scarlett's door long after the house was asleep and sheepishly exhibited a leg peppered with small shot.
As she bandaged it for him, he explained awkwardly that when attempting to get into a hen coop at Fayetteville, he had been discovered. Scarlett did not ask whose hen coop but patted Pork's shoulder gently, tears in her eyes.

Scarlett's nightmare

It was during these days that Scarlett dreamed and dreamed again the nightmare which was to haunt her for years. It was always the same dream, the details never varied, but the terror of it mounted each time it came to her and the fear of experiencing it again troubled even her waking hours. She remembered so well the incidents of the day when she had first dreamed it.

Cold rain had fallen for days and the house was chill with drafts and dampness. The logs in the fireplace were wet and smoky and gave little heat. There had been nothing to eat except milk since breakfast, for the yams were exhausted and Pork’s snares and fishlines had yielded nothing. One of the shoats would have to be killed the next day if they were to eat at all. Strained and hungry faces, black and white, were staring at her, mutely asking her to provide food. She would have to risk losing the horse and send Pork out to buy something. And to make matters worse, Wade was ill with a sore throat and a raging fever and there was neither doctor nor medicine for him.

Hungry, weary with watching her child, Scarlett left him to Melanie’s care for a while and lay down on her bed to nap. Her feet icy, she twisted and turned, unable to sleep, weighed down with fear and despair. Again and again, she thought: “What shall I do? Where shall I turn? Isn’t there anybody in the world who can help me?” Where had all the security of the world gone? Why wasn’t there someone, some strong wise person to take the burdens from her? She wasn’t made to carry them. She did not know how to carry them. And then she fell into an uneasy doze.

She was in a wild strange country so thick with swirling mist she could not see her hand before her face. The earth beneath her feet was uneasy.
It was a haunted land, still with a terrible stillness, and she was lost in it, lost and terrified as a child in the night. She was bitterly cold and hungry and so fearful of what lurked in the mists about her that she tried to scream and could not. There were things in the fog reaching out fingers to pluck at her skirt, to drag her down into the uneasy quaking earth on which she stood, silent, relentless, spectral hands. Then, she knew that somewhere in the opaque gloom about her there was shelter, help, a haven of refuge and warmth. But where was it? Could she reach it before the hands clutched her and dragged her down into the quicksands?

Suddenly she was running, running through the mist like a mad thing, crying and screaming, throwing out her arms to clutch only empty air and wet mist. Where was the haven? It eluded her but it was there, hidden, somewhere. If she could only reach it! If she could only reach it she would be safe! But terror was weakening her legs, hunger making her faint. She gave one despairing cry and awoke to find Melanie’s worried face above her and Melanie’s hand shaking her to wakefulness.

The dream returned again and again, whenever she went to sleep with an empty stomach. And that was frequently enough. It so frightened her that she feared to sleep, although she feverishly told herself there was nothing in such a dream to be afraid of. There was nothing in a dream about fog to scare her so. Nothing at all — yet the thought of dropping off into that mist-filled country so terrified her she began sleeping with Melanie, who would wake her up when her moaning and twitching revealed that she was again in the clutch of the dream.

Under the strain she grew white and thin. The pretty roundness left her face, throwing her cheek bones into prominence, emphasizing her slanting green eyes and giving her the look of a prowling, hungry cat.

“Daytime is enough like a nightmare without my dreaming things,” she thought desperately and began hoarding her daily ration to eat it just before she went to sleep.

But I thought Atlanta burned the night I left,” cried Scarlett, bewildered. “I thought our boys burned it!”

“Oh, no, Miss Scarlett!” cried Frank, shocked. “We’d never burn one of our own towns with our own folks in it! What you saw burning was the warehouses and the supplies we didn’t want the Yankees to capture and the foundries and the ammunition. But that was all. When Sherman took the town the houses and stores were standing there as pretty as you please. And he quartered his men in them.”

“But what happened to the people? Did he — did he kill them?”

“He killed some — but not with bullets,” said the one-eyed soldier grimly. “Soon’s he marched into Atlanta he told the mayor that all the people in town would have to move out, every living soul. And there were plenty of old folks that couldn’t stand the trip and sick folks that ought not to have been moved and ladies who were — well, ladies who hadn’t ought to be moved either. And he moved them out in the biggest rainstorm you ever saw, hundreds and hundreds of them, and dumped them in the woods near Rough and Ready and sent word to General Hood to come and get them. And a plenty of the folks died of pneumonia and not being able to stand that sort of treatment.”

“Oh, but why did he do that? They couldn’t have done him any harm,” cried Melanie.

“He said he wanted the town to rest his men and horses in,” said Frank. “And he rested them there till the middle of November and then he lit out. And he set fire to the whole town when he left and burned everything.”

“Oh, surely not everything!” cried the girls in dismay.

Well, almost everything,” Frank amended hastily, disturbed by the expressions on their faces. He tried to look cheerful, for he did not believe in upsetting ladies. Upset ladies always upset him and made him feel helpless. He could not bring himself to tell them the worst. Let them find out from some one else.

Frank cast about in his mind for some mitigating information that would make the ladies feel better.

“There’s some houses still standing,” he said, “houses that set on big lots away from other houses and didn’t catch fire. And the churches and the Masonic hall are left. And a few stores too. But the business section and all along the railroad tracks and at Five Points — well, ladies, that part of town is flat on the ground.”

“Then,” cried Scarlett bitterly, “that warehouse Charlie left me, down on the tracks, it’s gone too?”

“If it was near the tracks, it’s gone, but —” Suddenly he smiled. Why hadn’t he thought of it before? “Cheer up, ladies! Your Aunt Pitty’s house is still standing. It’s kind of damaged but there it is.”

“Oh, how did it escape?”

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?”