In this atmosphere, as nerve straining as watching a slow fuse burn

toward a barrel of gunpowder, Scarlett came rapidly back to

strength. The healthy vigor which had carried her through the hard

days at Tara stood her in good stead now, and within two weeks of

Ella Lorena's birth she was strong enough to sit up and chafe at

her inactivity. In three weeks she was up, declaring she had to

see to the mills. They were standing idle because both Hugh and

Ashley feared to leave their families alone all day.

Then the blow fell.

Frank, full of the pride of new fatherhood, summoned up courage

enough to forbid Scarlett leaving the house while conditions were

so dangerous. His commands would not have worried her at all and

she would have gone about her business in spite of them, if he had

not put her horse and buggy in the livery stable and ordered that

they should not be surrendered to anyone except himself. To make

matters worse, he and Mammy had patiently searched the house while

she was ill and unearthed her hidden store of money. And Frank had

deposited it in the bank in his own name, so now she could not even

hire a rig.

Scarlett raged at both Frank and Mammy, then was reduced to begging

and finally cried all one morning like a furious thwarted child.

But for all her pains she heard only: "There, Sugar! You're just

a sick little girl." And: "Miss Scarlett, ef you doan quit

cahyin' on so, you gwine sour yo' milk an' de baby have colic, sho

as gun's iron."

In a furious temper, Scarlett charged through her back yard to

Melanie's house and there unburdened herself at the top of her

voice, declaring she would walk to the mills, she would go about

Atlanta telling everyone what a varmint she had married, she would

not be treated like a naughty simple-minded child. She would carry

a pistol and shoot anyone who threatened her. She had shot one man

and she would love, yes, love to shoot another. She would--

Melanie who feared to venture onto her own front porch was appalled

by such threats.

"Oh, you must not risk yourself! I should die if anything happened

to you! Oh, please--"

"I will! I will! I will walk--"

Melanie looked at her and saw that this was not the hysteria of a

woman still weak from childbirth. There was the same breakneck,

headlong determination in Scarlett's face that Melanie had often

seen in Gerald O'Hara's face when his mind was made up. She put

her arms around Scarlett's waist and held her tightly.

"It's all my fault for not being brave like you and for keeping

Ashley at home with me all this time when he should have been at

the mill. Oh, dear! I'm such a ninny! Darling, I'll tell Ashley

I'm not a bit frightened and I'll come over and stay with you and

Aunt Pitty and he can go back to work and--"

Not even to herself would Scarlett admit that she did not think

Ashley could cope with the situation alone and she shouted:

"You'll do nothing of the kind! What earthly good would Ashley do

at work if he was worried about you every minute? Everybody is

just so hateful! Even Uncle Peter refuses to go out with me! But

I don't care! I'll go alone. I'll walk every step of the way and

pick up a crew of darkies somewhere--"

"Oh, no! You mustn't do that! Something dreadful might happen to

you. They say that Shantytown settlement on the Decatur road is

just full of mean darkies and you'd have to pass right by it. Let

me think-- Darling, promise me you won't do anything today and

I'll think of something. Promise me you'll go home and lie down.

You look right peaked. Promise me."

Because she was too exhausted by her anger to do otherwise,

Scarlett sulkily promised and went home, haughtily refusing any

overtures of peace from her household.

That afternoon a strange figure stumped through Melanie's hedge and

across Pitty's back yard. Obviously, he was one of those men whom

Mammy and Dilcey referred to as "de riff-raff whut Miss Melly pick

up off de streets an' let sleep in her cellar."

There were three rooms in the basement of Melanie's house which

formerly had been servants' quarters and a wine room. Now Dilcey

occupied one, and the other two were in constant use by a stream of

miserable and ragged transients. No one but Melanie knew whence

they came or where they were going and no one but she knew where

she collected them. Perhaps the negroes were right and she did

pick them up from the streets. But even as the great and the near

great gravitated to her small parlor, so unfortunates found their

way to her cellar where they were fed, bedded and sent on their way

with packages of food. Usually the occupants of the rooms were

former Confederate soldiers of the rougher, illiterate type,

homeless men, men without families, beating their way about the

country in hope of finding work.

Frequently, brown and withered country women with broods of tow-

haired silent children spent the night there, women widowed by the

war, dispossessed of their farms, seeking relatives who were

scattered and lost. Sometimes the neighborhood was scandalized by

the presence of foreigners, speaking little or no English, who had

been drawn South by glowing tales of fortunes easily made. Once a

Republican had slept there. At least, Mammy insisted he was a

Republican, saying she could smell a Republican, same as a horse

could smell a rattlesnake; but no one believed Mammy's story, for

there must be some limit even to Melanie's charity. At least

everyone hoped so.

Yes, thought Scarlett, sitting on the side porch in the pale

November sunshine with the baby on her lap, he is one of Melanie's

lame dogs. And he's really lame, at that!

The man who was making his way across the back yard stumped, like

Will Benteen, on a wooden leg. He was a tall, thin old man with a

bald head, which shone pinkishly dirty, and a grizzled beard so

long he could tuck it in his belt. He was over sixty, to judge by

his hard, seamed face, but there was no sag of age to his body. He

was lank and ungainly but, even with his wooden peg, he moved as

swiftly as a snake.

He mounted the steps and came toward her and, even before he spoke,

revealing in his tones a twang and a burring of "r s" unusual in

the lowlands, Scarlett knew that he was mountain born. For all his

dirty, ragged clothes there was about him, as about most

mountaineers, an air of fierce silent pride that permitted no

liberties and tolerated no foolishness. His beard was stained with

tobacco juice and a large wad in his jaw made his face look

deformed. His nose was thin and craggy, his eyebrows bushy and

twisted into witches' locks and a lush growth of hair sprang from

his ears, giving them the tufted look of a lynx's ears. Beneath

his brow was one hollow socket from which a scar ran down his

cheek, carving a diagonal line through his beard. The other eye

was small, pale and cold, an unwinking and remorseless eye. There

was a heavy pistol openly in his trouser band and from the top of

his tattered boot protruded the hilt of a bowie knife.

He returned Scarlett's stare coldly and spat across the rail of the

banister before he spoke. There was contempt in his one eye, not a

personal contempt for her, but for her whole sex.

"Miz Wilkes sont me to work for you," he said shortly. He spoke

rustily, as one unaccustomed to speaking, the words coming slowly

and almost with difficulty. "M' name's Archie."

"I'm sorry but I have no work for you, Mr. Archie."

"Archie's m'fuss name."

"I beg your pardon. What is your last name?"

He spat again. "I reckon that's my bizness," he said. "Archie'll

do."

"I don't care what your last name is! I have nothing for you to

do."

"I reckon you have. Miz Wilkes was upsot about yore wantin' to run

aroun' like a fool by yoreself and she sont me over here to drive

aroun' with you."

"Indeed?" cried Scarlett, indignant both at the man's rudeness and

Melly's meddling.

His one eye met hers with an impersonal animosity. "Yes. A

woman's got no bizness botherin' her men folks when they're tryin'

to take keer of her. If you're bound to gad about, I'll drive you.