Interested her not at all, and nursing was something she did

simply because she didn't know how to get out of it.

Certainly there was nothing romantic about nursing. To her, it

meant groans, delirium, death and smells. The hospitals were

filled with dirty, bewhiskered, verminous men who smelled terribly

and bore on their bodies wounds hideous enough to turn a

Christian's stomach. The hospitals stank of gangrene, the odor

assaulting her nostrils long before the doors were reached, a

sickish sweet smell that clung to her hands and hair and haunted

her in her dreams. Flies, mosquitoes and gnats hovered in

droning, singing swarms over the wards, tormenting the men to

curses and weak sobs; and Scarlett, scratching her own mosquito

bites, swung palmetto fans until her shoulders ached and she

wished that all the men were dead.

Melanie, however, did not seem to mind the smells, the wounds or

the nakedness, which Scarlett thought strange in one who was the

most timorous and modest of women. Sometimes when holding basins

and instruments while Dr. Meade cut out gangrened flesh, Melanie

looked very white. And once, alter such an operation, Scarlett

found her in the linen closet vomiting quietly into a towel. But

as long as she was where the wounded could see her, she was

gentle, sympathetic and cheerful, and the men in the hospitals

called her an angel of mercy. Scarlett would have liked that

title too, but it involved touching men crawling with lice,

running fingers down throats of unconscious patients to see if

they were choking on swallowed tobacco quids, bandaging stumps and

picking maggots out of festering flesh. No, she did not like

nursing!

Perhaps it might have been endurable if she had been permitted to

use her charms on the convalescent men, for many of them were

attractive and well born, but this she could not do in her widowed

state. The young ladies of the town, who were not permitted to

nurse for fear they would see sights unfit for virgin eyes, had

the convalescent wards in their charge. Unhampered by matrimony

or widowhood, they made vast inroads on the convalescents, and

even the least attractive girls, Scarlett observed gloomily, had

no difficulty in getting engaged.

With the exception of desperately ill and severely wounded men,

Scarlett's was a completely feminized world and this irked her,

for she neither liked nor trusted her own sex and, worse still,

was always bored by it. But on three afternoons a week she had to

attend sewing circles and bandage-rolling committees of Melanie's

friends. The girls who had all known Charles were very kind and

attentive to her at these gatherings, especially Fanny Elsing and

Maybelle Merriwether, the daughters of the town dowagers. But

they treated her deferentially, as if she were old and finished,

and their constant chatter of dances and beaux made her both

envious of their pleasures and resentful that her widowhood barred

her from such activities. Why, she was three times as attractive

as Fanny and Maybelle! Oh, how unfair life was! How unfair that

everyone should think her heart was in the grave when it wasn't at

all! It was in Virginia with Ashley!

But in spite of these discomforts, Atlanta pleased her very well.

And her visit lengthened as the weeks slipped by.

CHAPTER IX

Scarlett sat in the window of her bedroom that midsummer morning

and disconsolately watched the wagons and carriages full of girls,

soldiers and chaperons ride gaily out Peachtree road in search of

woodland decorations for the bazaar which was to be held that

evening for the benefit of the hospitals. The red road lay

checkered in shade and sun glare beneath the over-arching trees

and the many hooves kicked up little red clouds of dust. One

wagon, ahead of the others, bore four stout negroes with axes to

cut evergreens and drag down the vines, and the back of this wagon

was piled high with napkin-covered hampers, split-oak baskets of

lunch and a dozen watermelons. Two of the black bucks were

equipped with banjo and harmonica and they were rendering a

spirited version of "If You Want to Have a Good Time, Jine the

Cavalry." Behind them streamed the merry cavalcade, girls cool in

flowered cotton dresses, with light shawls, bonnets and mitts to

protect their skins and little parasols held over their heads;

elderly ladies placid and smiling amid the laughter and carriage-

to-carriage calls and jokes; convalescents from the hospitals

wedged in between stout chaperons and slender girls who made great

fuss and to-do over them; officers on horseback idling at snail's

pace beside the carriages--wheels creaking, spurs jingling, gold

braid gleaming, parasols bobbing, fans swishing, negroes singing.

Everybody was riding out Peachtree road to gather greenery and

have a picnic and melon cutting. Everybody, thought Scarlett,

morosely, except me.

They all waved and called to her as they went by and she tried to

respond with a good grace, but it was difficult. A hard little

pain had started in her heart and was traveling slowly up toward

her throat where it would become a lump and the lump would soon

become tears. Everybody was going to the picnic except her. And

everybody was going to the bazaar and the ball tonight except her.

That is everybody except her and Pittypat and Melly and the other

unfortunates in town who were in mourning. But Melly and Pittypat

did not seem to mind. It had not even occurred to them to want to

go. It had occurred to Scarlett. And she did want to go,

tremendously.

It simply wasn't fair. She had worked twice as hard as any girl

in town, getting things ready for the bazaar. She had knitted

socks and baby caps and afghans and mufflers and tatted yards of

lace and painted china hair receivers and mustache cups. And she

had embroidered half a dozen sofa-pillow cases with the

Confederate flag on them. (The stars were a bit lopsided, to be

sure, some of them being almost round and others having six or

even seven points, but the effect was good.) Yesterday she had

worked until she was worn out in the dusty old barn of an Armory

draping yellow and pink and green cheesecloth on the booths that

lined the walls. Under the supervision of the Ladies' Hospital

Committee, this was plain hard work and no fun at all. It was

never fun to be around Mrs. Merriwether and Mrs. Elsing and Mrs.

Whiting and have them boss you like you were one of the darkies.

And have to listen to them brag about how popular their daughters

were. And, worst of all, she had burned two blisters on her

fingers helping Pittypat and Cookie make layer cakes for raffling.

And now, having worked like a field hand, she had to retire

decorously when the fun was just beginning. Oh, it wasn't fair

that she should have a dead husband and a baby yelling in the next

room and be out of everything that was pleasant. Just a little

over a year ago, she was dancing and wearing bright clothes

instead of this dark mourning and was practically engaged to three

boys. She was only seventeen now and there was still a lot of

dancing left in her feet. Oh, it wasn't fair! Life was going

past her, down a hot shady summer road, life with gray uniforms

and jingling spurs and flowered organdie dresses and banjos

playing. She tried not to smile and wave too enthusiastically to

the men she knew best, the ones she'd nursed in the hospital, but

it was hard to subdue her dimples, hard to look as though her

heart were in the grave--when it wasn't.

Her bowing and waving were abruptly halted when Pittypat entered

the room, panting as usual from climbing the stairs, and jerked

her away from the window unceremoniously.

"Have you lost your mind, honey, waving at men out of your bedroom

window? I declare, Scarlett, I'm shocked! What would your mother

say?"

"Well, they didn't know it was my bedroom."

"But they'd suspect it was your bedroom and that's just as bad.

Honey, you mustn't do things like that. Everybody will be talking

about you and saying you are fast--and anyway, Mrs. Merriwether

knew it was your bedroom."

"And I suppose she'll tell all the boys, the old cat."

"Honey, hush! Dolly Merriwether's my best friend."

"Well, she's a cat just the same--oh, I'm sorry, Auntie, don't

cry! I forgot it was my bedroom window. I won't do it again--I--