It ter mek money fer us."

"Whut Miss Talbot is dat?"

"Miss Suzannah Talbot of Milledgeville. Us done move up hyah affer

Old Marse wuz kilt."

"Does you know her, Miss Scarlett?"

"No," said Scarlett, regretfully. "I know so few Milledgeville

folks."

"Den us'll walk," said Mammy sternly. "Drive on, nigger."

She picked up the carpetbag which held Scarlett's new velvet frock

and bonnet and nightgown and tucked the neat bandanna bundle that

contained her own belongings under her arm and shepherded Scarlett

across the wet expanse of cinders. Scarlett did not argue the

matter, much as she preferred to ride, for she wished no

disagreement with Mammy. Ever since yesterday afternoon when Mammy

had caught her with the velvet curtains, there had been an alert

suspicious look in her eyes which Scarlett did not like. It was

going to be difficult to escape from her chaperonage and she did

not intend to rouse Mammy's fighting blood before it was absolutely

necessary.

As they walked along the narrow sidewalk toward Peachtree, Scarlett

was dismayed and sorrowful, for Atlanta looked so devastated and

different from what she remembered. They passed beside what had

been the Atlanta Hotel where Rhett and Uncle Henry had lived and of

that elegant hostelry there remained only a shell, a part of the

blackened walls. The warehouses which had bordered the train

tracks for a quarter of a mile and held tons of military supplies

had not been rebuilt and their rectangular foundations looked

dreary under the dark sky. Without the wall of buildings on either

side and with the car shed gone, the railroad tracks seemed bare

and exposed. Somewhere amid these ruins, undistinguishable from

the others, lay what remained of her own warehouse on the property

Charles had left her. Uncle Henry had paid last year's taxes on it

for her. She'd have to repay that money some time. That was

something else to worry about.

As they turned the corner into Peachtree Street and she looked

toward Five Points, she cried out with shock. Despite all Frank

had told her about the town burning to the ground, she had never

really visualized complete destruction. In her mind the town she

loved so well still stood full of close-packed buildings and fine

houses. But this Peachtree Street she was looking upon was so

denuded of landmarks it was as unfamiliar as if she had never seen

It before. This muddy street down which she had driven a thousand

times during the war, along which she had fled with ducked head and

fear-quickened legs when shells burst over her during the siege,

this street she had last seen in the heat and hurry and anguish of

the day of the retreat, was so strange looking she felt like

crying.

Though many new buildings had sprung up in the year since Sherman

marched out of the burning town and the Confederates returned,

there were still wide vacant lots around Five Points where heaps of

smudged broken bricks lay amid a jumble of rubbish, dead weeds and

broom-sedge. There were the remains of a few buildings she

remembered, roofless brick walls through which the dull daylight

shone, glassless windows gaping, chimneys towering lonesomely.

Here and there her eyes gladly picked out a familiar store which

had partly survived shell and fire and had been repaired, the fresh

red of new brick glaring bright against the smut of the old walls.

On new store fronts and new office windows she saw the welcome

names of men she knew but more often the names were unfamiliar,

especially the dozens of shingles of strange doctors and lawyers

and cotton merchants. Once she had known practically everyone in

Atlanta and the sight of so many strange names depressed her. But

she was cheered by the sight of new buildings going up all along

the street.

There were dozens of them and several were three stories high!

Everywhere building was going on, for as she looked down the

street, trying to adjust her mind to the new Atlanta, she heard the

blithe sound of hammers and saws, noticed scaffoldings rising and

saw men climbing ladders with hods of bricks on their shoulders.

She looked down the street she loved so well and her eyes misted a

little.

"They burned you," she thought, "and they laid you flat. But they

didn't lick you. They couldn't lick you. You'll grow back just as

big and sassy as you used to be!"

As she walked along Peachtree, followed by the waddling Mammy, she

found the sidewalks just as crowded as they were at the height of

the war and there was the same air of rush and bustle about the

resurrecting town which had made her blood sing when she came here,

so long ago, on her first visit to Aunt Pitty. There seemed to be

just as many vehicles wallowing in the mud holes as there had been

then, except that there were no Confederate ambulances, and just as

many horses and mules tethered to hitching racks in front of the

wooden awnings of the stores. Though the sidewalks were jammed,

the faces she saw were as unfamiliar as the signs overhead, new

people, many rough-looking men and tawdrily dressed women. The

streets were black with loafing negroes who leaned against walls or

sat on the curbing watching vehicles go past with the naive

curiosity of children at a circus parade.

"Free issue country niggers," snorted Mammy. "Ain' never seed a

proper cah'ige in dere lives. An' impident lookin', too."

They were impudent looking, Scarlett agreed, for they stared at her

in an insolent manner, but she forgot them in the renewed shock of

seeing blue uniforms. The town was full of Yankee soldiers, on

horses, afoot, in army wagons, loafing on the street, reeling out

of barrooms.

I'll never get used to them, she thought, clenching her fists.

Never! and over her shoulder: "Hurry, Mammy, let's get out of this

crowd."

"Soon's Ah kick dis black trash outer mah way," answered Mammy

loudly, swinging the carpetbag at a black buck who loitered

tantalizingly in front of her and making him leap aside. "Ah doan

lak disyere town, Miss Scarlett. It's too full of Yankees an'

cheap free issue."

"It's nicer where it isn't so crowded. When we get across Five

Points, it won't be so bad."

They picked their way across the slippery stepping stones that

bridged the mud of Decatur Street and continued up Peachtree,

through a thinning crowd. When they reached Wesley Chapel where

Scarlett had paused to catch her breath that day in 1864 when she

had run for Dr. Meade, she looked at it and laughed aloud, shortly

and grimly. Mammy's quick old eyes sought hers with suspicion and

question but her curiosity went unsatisfied. Scarlett was

recalling with contempt the terror which had ridden her that day.

She had been crawling with fear, rotten with fear, terrified by the

Yankees, terrified by the approaching birth of Beau. Now she

wondered how she could have been so frightened, frightened like a

child at a loud noise. And what a child she had been to think that

Yankees and fire and defeat were the worst things that could happen

to her! What trivialities they were beside Ellen's death and

Gerald's vagueness, beside hunger and cold and back-breaking work

and the living nightmare of insecurity. How easy she would find it

now to be brave before an invading army, but how hard to face the

danger that threatened Tara! No, she would never again be afraid

of anything except poverty.

Up Peachtree came a closed carriage and Scarlett went to the curb

eagerly to see if she knew the occupant, for Aunt Pitty's house was

still several blocks away. She and Mammy leaned forward as the

carriage came abreast and Scarlett, with a smile arranged, almost

called out when a woman's head appeared for a moment at the window--

a too bright red head beneath a fine fur hat. Scarlett took a

step back as mutual recognition leaped into both faces. It was

Belle Watling and Scarlett had a glimpse of nostrils distended with

dislike before she disappeared again. Strange that Belle's should

be the first familiar face she saw.

"Who dat?" questioned Mammy suspiciously. "She knowed you but she

din' bow. Ah ain' never seed ha'r dat color in mah life. Not even