Iron statuary on the lawns of Atlanta now, for they had early

found their way into the melting pots of the rolling mills.

Here along Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the

headquarters of the various army departments, each office swarming

with uniformed men, the commissary, the signal corps, the mail

service, the railway transport, the provost marshal. On the

outskirts of town were the remount depots where horses and mules

milled about in large corrals, and along side streets were the

hospitals. As Uncle Peter told her about them, Scarlett felt that

Atlanta must be a city of the wounded, for there were general

hospitals, contagious hospitals, convalescent hospitals without

number. And every day the trains just below Five Points disgorged

more sick and more wounded.

The little town was gone and the face of the rapidly growing city

was animated with never-ceasing energy and bustle. The sight of

so much hurrying made Scarlett, fresh from rural leisure and

quiet, almost breathless, but she liked it. There was an exciting

atmosphere about the place that uplifted her. It was as if she

could actually feel the accelerated steady pulse of the town's

heart beating in time with her own.

As they slowly made their way through the mudholes of the town's

chief street, she noted with interest all the new buildings and

the new faces. The sidewalks were crowded with men in uniform,

bearing the insignia of all ranks and all service branches; the

narrow street was jammed with vehicles--carriages, buggies,

ambulances, covered army wagons with profane drivers swearing as

the mules struggled through the ruts; gray-clad couriers dashed

spattering through the streets from one headquarters to another,

bearing orders and telegraphic dispatches; convalescents limped

about on crutches, usually with a solicitous lady at either elbow;

bugle and drum and barked orders sounded from the drill fields

where the recruits were being turned into soldiers; and with her

heart in her throat, Scarlett had her first sight of Yankee

uniforms, as Uncle Peter pointed with his whip to a detachment of

dejected-looking bluecoats being shepherded toward the depot by a

squad of Confederates with fixed bayonets, to entrain for the

prison camp.

"Oh," thought Scarlett, with the first feeling of real pleasure

she had experienced since the day of the barbecue, "I'm going to

like it here! It's so alive and exciting!"

The town was even more alive than she realized, for there were new

barrooms by the dozens; prostitutes, following the army, swarmed

the town and bawdy houses were blossoming with women to the

consternation of the church people. Every hotel, boarding house

and private residence was crammed with visitors who had come to be

near wounded relatives in the big Atlanta hospitals. There were

parties and balls and bazaars every week and war weddings without

number, with the grooms on furlough in bright gray and gold braid

and the brides in blockade-run finery, aisles of crossed swords,

toasts drunk in blockaded champagne and tearful farewells.

Nightly the dark tree-lined streets resounded with dancing feet,

and from parlors tinkled pianos where soprano voices blended with

those of soldier guests in the pleasing melancholy of "The Bugles

Sang Truce" and "Your Letter Came, but Came Too Late"--plaintive

ballads that brought exciting tears to soft eyes which had never

known the tears of real grief.

As they progressed down the street, through the sucking mud,

Scarlett bubbled over with questions and Peter answered them,

pointing here and there with his whip, proud to display his

knowledge.

"Dat air de arsenal. Yas'm, dey keeps guns an' sech lak dar.

No'm, dem air ain' sto's, dey's blockade awfisses. Law, Miss

Scarlett, doan you know whut blockade awfisses is? Dey's awfisses

whar furriners stays dat buy us Confedruts' cotton an' ship it

outer Cha'ston and Wilmin'ton an' ship us back gunpowder. No'm,

Ah ain' sho whut kine of furriners dey is. Miss Pitty, she say

dey is Inlish but kain nobody unnerstan a' wud dey says. Yas'm

'tis pow'ful smoky an' de soot jes' ruinin' Miss Pitty's silk

cuttins. It' frum de foun'ry an' de rollin' mills. An' de noise

dey meks at night! Kain nobody sleep. No'm, Ah kain stop fer you

ter look around. Ah done promise Miss Pitty Ah bring you straight

home. . . . Miss Scarlett, mek yo' cu'tsy. Dar's Miss

Merriwether an' Miss Elsing a-bowin' to you."

Scarlett vaguely remembered two ladies of those names who came

from Atlanta to Tara to attend her wedding and she remembered that

they were Miss Pittypat's best friends. So she turned quickly

where Uncle Peter pointed and bowed. The two were sitting in a

carriage outside a drygoods store. The proprietor and two clerks

stood on the sidewalk with armfuls of bolts of cotton cloth they

had been displaying. Mrs. Merriwether was a tall, stout woman and

so tightly corseted that her bust jutted forward like the prow of

a ship. Her iron-gray hair was eked out by a curled false fringe

that was proudly brown and disdained to match the rest of her

hair. She had a round, highly colored face in which was combined

good-natured shrewdness and the habit of command. Mrs. Elsing was

younger, a thin frail woman, who had been a beauty, and about her

there still clung a faded freshness, a dainty imperious air.

These two ladies with a third, Mrs. Whiting, were the pillars of

Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged, the

clergy, the choirs and the parishioners. They organized bazaars

and presided over sewing circles, they chaperoned balls and

picnics, they knew who made good matches and who did not, who

drank secretly, who were to have babies and when. They were

authorities on the genealogies of everyone who was anyone in

Georgia, South Carolina and Virginia and did not bother their

heads about the other states, because they believed that no one

who was anybody ever came from states other than these three.

They knew what was decorous behavior and what was not and they

never failed to make their opinions known--Mrs. Merriwether at the

top of her voice, Mrs. Elsing in an elegant die-away drawl and

Mrs. Whiting in a distressed whisper which showed how much she

hated to speak of such things. These three ladies disliked and

distrusted one another as heartily as the First Triumvirate of

Rome, and their close alliance was probably for the same reason.

"I told Pitty I had to have you in my hospital," called Mrs.

Merriweather, smiling. "Don't you go promising Mrs. Meade or Mrs.

Whiting!"

"I won't," said Scarlett, having no idea what Mrs. Merriwether was

talking about but feeling a glow of warmth at being welcomed and

wanted. "I hope to see you again soon."

The carriage plowed its way farther and halted for a moment to

permit two ladies with baskets of bandages on their arms to pick

precarious passages across the sloppy street on stepping stones.

At the same moment, Scarlett's eye was caught by a figure on the

sidewalk in a brightly colored dress--too bright for street wear--

covered by a Paisley shawl with fringes to the heels. Turning she

saw a tall handsome woman with a bold face and a mass of red hair,

too red to be true. It was the first time she had ever seen any

woman who she knew for certain had "done something to her hair"

and she watched her, fascinated.

"Uncle Peter, who is that?" she whispered.

"Ah doan know."

"You do, too. I can tell. Who is she?"

"Her name Belle Watling," said Uncle Peter, his lower lip

beginning to protrude.

Scarlett was quick to catch the fact that he had not preceded the

name with "Miss" or "Mrs."

"Who is she?"

"Miss Scarlett," said Peter darkly, laying the whip on the

startled horse, "Miss Pitty ain' gwine ter lak it you astin'

questions dat ain' none of yo' bizness. Dey's a passel of no-

count folks in dis town now dat it ain' no use talkin' about."

"Good Heavens!" thought Scarlett, reproved into silence. "That

must be a bad woman!"

She had never seen a bad woman before and she twisted her head and

stared after her until she was lost in the crowd.

The stores and the new war buildings were farther apart now, with