Gone With the Wind (117 page)

“What’s the legislature been up to now?”

“They’ve flatly refused to ratify the amendment,” said Grandpa Merriwether and there was pride in his voice. “That’ll show the Yankees.”

“And there’ll be hell to pay for it—I beg your pardon, Scarlett,” said Ashley.

“Oh, the amendment?” questioned Scarlett, trying to look intelligent.

Politics were beyond her and she seldom wasted time thinking about them. There had been a Thirteenth Amendment ratified sometime before or maybe it had been the Sixteenth Amendment but what ratification meant she had no idea. Men were always getting excited about such things. Something of her lack of comprehension showed in her face and Ashley smiled.

“It’s the amendment letting the darkies vote, you know,” he explained. “It was submitted to the legislature and they refused to ratify it.”

“How silly of them! You know the Yankees are going to force it down our throats!”

“That’s what I meant by saying there’d be hell to pay,” said Ashley.

“I’m proud of the legislature, proud of their gumption!” shouted Uncle Henry. “The Yankees can’t force it down our throats if we won’t have it”

“They can and they will.” Ashley’s voice was calm but there was worry in his eyes. “And it’ll make things just that much harder for us.”

“Oh, Ashley, surely not! Things couldn’t be any harder than they are now!”

“Yes, things can get worse, even worse than they are now. Suppose we have a darky legislature? A darky governor? Suppose we have a worse military rule than we now have?”

Scarlett’s eyes grew large with fear as some understanding entered her mind.

“I’ve been trying to think what would be best for Georgia, best for all of us.” Ashley’s face was drawn. “Whether it’s wisest to fight this thing like the legislature has done, rouse the North against us and bring the whole Yankee Army on us to cram the darky vote down us, whether we want it or not. Or—swallow our pride as best we can, submit gracefully and get the whole matter over with as easily as possible. It will amount to the same thing in the end. We’re helpless. We’ve got to take the dose they’re determined to give us. Maybe it would be better for us to take it without kicking.”

Scarlett hardly heard his words, certainly their full import went over her head. She knew that Ashley, as usual, was seeing both sides of a question. She was seeing only one side—how this slap in the Yankees’ faces might affect her.

“Going to turn Radical and vote the Republican ticket, Ashley?” jeered Grandpa Merriwether harshly.

There was a tense silence. Scarlett saw Archie’s hand make a swift move toward his pistol and then stop. Archie thought, and frequently said, that Grandpa was an old bag of wind and Archie had no intention of letting him insult Miss Melanie’s husband, even if Miss Melanie’s husband was talking like a fool.

The perplexity vanished suddenly from Ashley’s eyes and hot anger flared. But before he could speak, Uncle Henry charged Grandpa.

“You God—you blast— I beg your pardon, Scarlett— Grandpa, you jackass, don’t you say that to Ashley!”

“Ashley can take care of himself without you defending him,” said Grandpa coldly. “And he is talking like a Scalawag. Submit, hell! I beg your pardon, Scarlett.”

“I didn’t believe in secession,” said Ashley and his voice shook with anger. “But when Georgia seceded, I went with her. And I didn’t believe in war but I fought in the war. And I don’t believe in making the Yankees madder than they already are. But if the legislature has decided to do it, I’ll stand by the legislature. I—”

“Archie,” said Uncle Henry abruptly, “drive Miss Scarlett on home. This isn’t any place for her. Politics aren’t for women folks anyway, and there’s going to be cussing in a minute. Go on, Archie. Good night, Scarlett.”

As they drove off down Peachtree Street, Scarlett’s heart was beating fast with fear. Would this foolish action of the legislature have any effect on her safety? Would it so enrage the Yankees that she might lose her mills?

“Well, sir,” rumbled Archie, “I’ve hearn tell of rabbits spittin’ in bulldogs’ faces but I ain’t never seen it till now. Them legislatures might just as well have hollered ‘Hurray for Jeff Davis and the Southern Confederacy’ for all the good it’ll do them—and us. Them nigger-lovin’ Yankees have made up their mind to make the niggers our bosses. But you got to admire them legislatures’ sperrit!”

“Admire them? Great balls of fire! Admire them? They ought to be shot! It’ll bring the Yankees down on us like a duck on a June bug. Why couldn’t they have rati—radi—whatever they were supposed to do to it and smoothed the Yankees down instead of stirring them up again? They’re going to make us knuckle under and we may as well knuckle now as later.”

Archie fixed her with a cold eye.

“Knuckle under without a fight? Women ain’t got no more pride than goats.”

When Scarlett leased ten convicts, five for each of her mills, Archie made good his threat and refused to have anything further to do with her. Not all Melanie’s pleading or Frank’s promises of higher pay would induce him to take up the reins again. He willingly escorted Melanie and Pitty and India and their friends about the town but not Scarlett. He would not even drive for the other ladies if Scarlett was in the carriage. It was an embarrassing situation, having the old desperado sitting in judgment upon her, and it was still more embarrassing to know that her family and friends agreed with the old man.

Frank pleaded with her against taking the step. Ashley at first refused to work convicts and was persuaded, against his will, only after tears and supplications and promises that when times were better she would hire free darkies. Neighbors were so outspoken in their disapproval that Frank, Pitty and Melanie found it hard to hold up their heads. Even Peter and Mammy declared that it was bad luck to work convicts and no good would come of it. Everyone said it was wrong to take advantage of the miseries and misfortunes of others.

“You didn’t have any objections to working slaves!” Scarlett cried indignantly.

Ah, but that was different. Slaves were neither miserable nor unfortunate. The negroes were far better off under slavery than they were now under freedom, and if she didn’t believe it, just look about her! But, as usual, opposition had the effect of making Scarlett more determined on her course. She removed Hugh from the management of the mill, put him to driving a lumber wagon and closed the final details of hiring Johnnie Gallegher.

He seemed to be the only person she knew who approved of the convicts. He nodded his bullet head briefly and said it was a smart move. Scarlett, looking at the little ex-jockey, planted firmly on his short bowed legs, his gnomish face hard and businesslike, thought: “Whoever let him ride their horses didn’t care much for horse flesh. I wouldn’t let him get within ten feet of any horse of mine.”

But she had no qualms in trusting him with a convict gang.

“And I’m to have a free hand with the gang?” he questioned, his eyes as cold as gray agates.

“A free hand. All I ask is that you keep that mill running and deliver my lumber when I want it and as much as I want.”

“I’m your man,” said Johnnie shortly. “I’ll tell Mr. Wellburn I’m leaving him.”

As he rolled off through the crowd of masons and carpenters and hod carriers Scarlett felt relieved and her spirits rose. Johnnie was indeed her man. He was tough and hard and there was no nonsense about him. “Shanty Irish on the make,” Frank had contemptuously called him, but for that very reason Scarlett valued him. She knew that an Irishman with a determination to get somewhere was a valuable man to have, regardless of what his personal characteristics might be. And she felt a closer kinship with him than with many men of her own class, for Johnnie knew the value of money.

The first week he took over the mill he justified all her hopes, for he accomplished more with five convicts than Hugh had ever done with his crew of ten free negroes. More than that, he gave Scarlett greater leisure than she had had since she came to Atlanta the year before, because he had no liking for her presence at the mill and said so frankly.

“You tend to your end of selling and let me tend to my end of lumbering,” he said shortly. “A convict camp ain’t any place for a lady and if nobody else’ll tell you so, Johnnie Gallegher’s telling you now. I’m delivering your lumber, ain’t I? Well, I’ve got no notion to be pestered every day like Mr. Wilkes. He needs pestering. I don’t.”

So Scarlett reluctantly stayed away from Johnnie’s mill, fearing that if she came too often he might quit and that would be ruinous. His remark that Ashley needed pestering stung her, for there was more truth in it than she liked to admit. Ashley was doing little better with convicts than he had done with free labor, although why, he was unable to tell. Moreover, he looked as if he were ashamed to be working convicts and he had little to say to her these days.

Scarlett was worried by the change that was coming over him. There were gray hairs in his bright head now and a tired slump in his shoulders. And he seldom smiled. He no longer looked the debonair Ashley who had caught her fancy so many years before. He looked like a man secretly gnawed by a scarcely endurable pain and there was a grim tight look about his mouth that baffled and hurt her. She wanted to drag his head fiercely down on her shoulder, stroke the graying hair and cry: “Tell me what’s worrying you! I’ll fix it! I’ll make it right for you!”

But his formal, remote air kept her at arm’s length.

CHAPTER XLIII

IT WAS ONE of those rare December days when the sun was almost as warm as Indian summer. Dry red leaves still clung to the oak in Aunt Pitty’s yard and a faint yellow green still persisted in the dying grass. Scarlett, with the baby in her arms, stepped out onto the side porch and sat down in a rocking chair in a patch of sunshine. She was wearing a new green challis dress trimmed with yards and yards of black rickrack braid and a new lace house cap which Aunt Pitty had made for her. Both were very becoming to her and she knew it and took great pleasure in them. How good it was to look pretty again after the long months of looking so dreadful!

As she sat rocking the baby and humming to herself, she heard the sound of hooves coming up the side street and, peering curiously through the tangle of dead vines on the porch, she saw Rhett Butler riding toward the house.

He had been away from Atlanta for months, since just after Gerald died, since long before Ella Lorena was born. She had missed him but she now wished ardently that there was some way to avoid seeing him. In fact, the sight of his dark face brought a feeling of guilty panic to her breast. A matter in which Ashley was concerned lay on her conscience and she did not wish to discuss it with Rhett, but she knew he would force the discussion, no matter how disinclined she might be.

He drew up at the gate and swung lightly to the ground and she thought, staring nervously at him, that he looked just like an illustration in a book Wade was always pestering her to read aloud.

“All he needs is earrings and a cutlass between his teeth,” she thought. “Well, pirate or no, he’s not going to cut my throat today if I can help it.”

As he came up the walk she called a greeting to him, summoning her sweetest smile. How lucky that she had on her new dress and the becoming cap and looked so pretty! As his eyes went swiftly over her, she knew he thought her pretty, too.

“A new baby! Why, Scarlett, this is a surprise!” he laughed, leaning down to push the blanket away from Ella Lorena’s small ugly face.

“Don’t be silly,” she said, blushing. “How are you, Rhett? You’ve been away a long time.”

“So I have. Let me hold the baby, Scarlett. Oh, I know how to hold babies. I have many strange accomplishments. Well, he certainly looks like Frank. All except the whiskers, but give him time.”

“I hope not. It’s a girl.”

“A girl? That’s better still. Boys are such nuisances. Don’t ever have any more boys, Scarlett.”

It was on the tip of her tongue to reply tartly that she never intended to have any more babies, boys or girls, but she caught herself in time and smiled, casting about quickly in her mind for some topic of conversation that would put off the bad moment when the subject she feared would come up for discussion.

“Did you have a nice trip, Rhett? Where did you go this time?”

“Oh—Cuba—New Orleans—other places. Here, Scarlett, take the baby. She’s beginning to slobber and I can’t get to my handkerchief. She’s a fine baby, I’m sure, but she’s wetting my shirt bosom.”

She took the child back into her lap and Rhett settled himself lazily on the banister and took a cigar from a silver case.

“You are always going to New Orleans,” she said and pouted a little. “And you never will tell me what you do there.”

“I am a hard-working man, Scarlett, and perhaps my business takes me there.”

“Hard-working! You!” she laughed impertinently. “You never worked in your life. You’re too lazy. All you ever do is finance Carpetbaggers in their thieving and take half the profits and bribe Yankee officials to let you in on schemes to rob us taxpayers.”

He threw back his head and laughed.

“And how you would love to have money enough to bribe officials, so you could do likewise!”

“The very idea—” She began to ruffle.

“But perhaps you will make enough money to get into bribery on a large scale some day. Maybe you’ll get rich off those convicts you leased.”

“Oh,” she said, a little disconcerted, “how did you find out about my gang so soon?”

“I arrived last night and spent the evening in the Girl of the Period Saloon, where one hears all the news of the town. It’s a clearing house for gossip. Better than a ladies’ sewing circle. Everyone told me that you’d leased a gang and put that little plug-ugly, Gallegher, in charge to work them to death.”

“That’s a lie,” she said angrily. “He won’t work them to death. I’ll see to that”

“Will you?”

“Of course I will! How can you even insinuate such things?”

“Oh, I do beg your pardon, Mrs. Kennedy! I know your motives are always above reproach. However, Johnnie Gallegher is a cold little bully if I ever saw one. Better watch him or you’ll be having trouble when the inspector comes around.”