-four
THE MARCH AFTERNOON was windy and cold, and Scarlett pulled the lap
robe high under her arms as she drove out the Decatur road toward Johnnie
Gallegher’s mill. Driving alone was hazardous these days and she knew it,
more hazardous than ever before, for now the negroes were completely out
of hand. As Ashley had prophesied, there had been hell to pay since the
legislature refused to ratify the amendment. The stout refusal had been like
a slap in the face of the furious North and retaliation had come swiftly. The
North was determined to force the negro vote on the state and, to this end,
Georgia had been declared in rebellion and put under the strictest martial
law. Georgia’s very existence as a state had been wiped out and it had
become, with Florida and Alabama, “Military District Number Three,”
under the command of a Federal general.
If life had been insecure and frightening before this, it was doubly so
now. The military regulations which had seemed so stringent the year
before were now mild by comparison with the ones issued by General Pope.
Confronted with the prospect of negro rule, the future seemed dark and
hopeless, and the embittered state smarted and writhed helplessly. As for
the negroes, their new importance went to their heads, and, realizing that
they had the Yankee Army behind them, their outrages increased. No one
was safe from them.
In this wild and fearful time, Scarlett was frightened—frightened but
determined, and she still made her rounds alone, with Frank’s pistol tucked
in the upholstery of the buggy. She silently cursed the legislature for
bringing this worse disaster upon them all. What good had it done, this fine
brave stand, this gesture which everyone called gallant? It had just made
matters so much worse.
As she drew near the path that led down through the bare trees into the
creek bottom where the Shantytown settlement was, she clucked to the
horse to quicken his speed. She always felt uneasy driving past this dirty,
sordid cluster of discarded army tents and slab cabins. It had the worst
reputation of any spot in or near Atlanta, for here lived in filth outcast
negroes, black prostitutes and a scattering of poor whites of the lowest
order. It was rumored to be the refuge of negro and white criminals and was
the first place the Yankee soldiers searched when they wanted a man.
Shootings and cuttings went on here with such regularity that the
authorities seldom troubled to investigate and generally left the Shanty-
towners to settle their own dark affairs. Back in the woods there was a still
that manufactured a cheap quality of corn whisky and, by night, the cabins
in the creek bottoms resounded with drunken yells and curses.
Even the Yankees admitted that it was a plague spot and should be
wiped out, but they took no steps in this direction. Indignation was loud
among the inhabitants of Atlanta and Decatur who were forced to use the
road for travel between the two towns. Men went by Shantytown with
their pistols loosened in their holsters and nice women never willingly
passed it, even under the protection of their men, for usually there were
drunken negro slatterns sitting along the road, hurling insults and shouting
coarse words.
As long as she had Archie beside her, Scarlett had not given
Shantytown a thought, because not even the most impudent negro woman
dared laugh in her presence. But since she had been forced to drive alone,
there had been any number of annoying, maddening incidents. The negro
sluts seemed to try themselves whenever she drove by. There was nothing
she could do except ignore them and boil with rage. She could not even
take comfort in airing her troubles to her neighbors or family because the
neighbors would say triumphantly: “Well, what else did you expect?” And
her family would take on dreadfully again and try to stop her. And she had
no intention of stopping her trips.
Thank Heaven, there were no ragged women along the roadside today!
As she passed the trail leading down to the settlement she looked with
distaste at the group of shacks squatting in the hollow in the dreary slant of
the afternoon sun. There was a chill wind blowing, and as she passed there
came to her nose the mingled smells of wood smoke, frying pork and
untended privies. Averting her nose, she flapped the reins smartly across
the horse’s back and hurried him past and around the bend of the road.
Just as she was beginning to draw a breath of relief, her heart rose in her
throat with sudden fright, for a huge negro slipped silently from behind a
large oak tree. She was frightened but not enough to lose her wits and, in
an instant, the horse was pulled up and she had Frank’s pistol in her hand.
“What do you want?” she cried with all the sternness she could muster.
The big negro ducked back behind the oak, and the voice that answered
was frightened.
“Lawd, Miss Scarlett, doan shoot Big Sam!”
Big Sam! For a moment she could not take in his words. Big Sam, the
foreman of Tara whom she had seen last in the days of the siege. What on
earth…
“Come out of there and let me see if you are really Sam!”
Reluctantly he slid out of his hiding place, a giant ragged figure,
barefooted, clad in denim breeches and a blue Union uniform jacket that
was far too short and tight for his big frame. When she saw it was really Big
Sam, she shoved the pistol down into the upholstery and smiled with
pleasure.
“Oh, Sam! How nice to see you!”
Sam galloped over to the buggy, his eyes rolling with joy and his white
teeth flashing, and clutched her outstretched hand with two black hands as
big as hams. His watermelon-pink tongue lapped out, his whole body
wiggled and his joyful contortions were as ludicrous as the gambolings of a
mastiff.
“Mah Lawd, it sho is good ter see some of de fambly agin!” he cried,
scrunching her hand until she felt that the bones would crack. “Huccome
you got so mean lak, totin’ a gun, Miss Scarlett?”
“So many mean folks these days, Sam, that I have to tote it. What on
earth are you doing in a nasty place like Shantytown, you, a respectable
darky? And why haven’t you been into town to see me?”
“Law’m, Miss Scarlett, Ah doan lib in Shantytown. Ah jes’ bidin’ hyah
fer a spell. Ah wouldn’ lib in dat place fer nuthin’. Ah nebber in mah life
seed sech trashy niggers. An’ Ah din’ know you wuz in ’Lanta. Ah thought
you wuz at Tara. Ah wuz aimin’ ter come home ter Tara soon as Ah got de
chance.”
“Have you been living in Atlanta ever since the siege?”
“No, Ma’m! Ah been trabelin’!” He released her hand and she painfully
flexed it to see if the bones were intact. “’Member w’en you seed me las’?”
Scarlett remembered the hot day before the siege began when she and
Rhett had sat in the carriage and the gang of negroes with Big Sam at their
head had marched down the dusty street toward the entrenchments singing
“Go Down, Moses.” She nodded.
“Well, Ah wuked lak a dawg diggin’ bresswuks an’ fillin’ san’ bags, tell de
Confedruts lef’ ’Lanta. De cap’n gempmum whut had me in charge, he wuz
kilt an’ dar warn’t nobody ter tell Big Sam whut ter do, so Ah jes’ lay low
in de bushes. Ah thought Ah’d try ter git home ter Tara, but den Ah hear
dat all de country roun’ Tara done buhnt up. ’Sides, Ah din’ hab no way ter
git back an’ Ah wuz sceered de patterollers pick me up, kase Ah din’ hab
no pass. Den de Yankees come in an’ a Yankee gempmum, he wuz a cunnel,
he tek a shine ter me an’ he keep me ter ten’ ter his hawse an’ his boots.
“Yas, Ma’m! Ah sho did feel biggity, bein’ a body serbant lak Poke, w’en
Ah ain’ nuthin’ but a fe’el han’. Ah ain’ tell de Cunnel Ah wuz a fe’el han’
an’ he— Well, Miss Scarlett, Yankees is iggerunt folks! He din’ know de
diffunce! So Ah stayed wid him an’ Ah went ter Sabannah wid him w’en
Gin’ul Sherman went dar, an’ fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett, Ah nebber seed sech
awful goin’-ons as Ah seed on de way ter Sabannah! A-stealin’ an’ a-
buhnin’—did dey buhn Tara, Miss Scarlett?”
“They set fire to it, but we put it out.”
“Well’m, Ah sho glad ter hear dat. Tara mah home an’ Ah is aimin’ ter
go back dar. An’ w’en de wah ober, de Cunnel he say ter me: ‘You Sam!
You come on back Nawth wid me. Ah pay you good wages.’ Well’m, lak all
de niggers, Ah wuz honin’ ter try disyere freedom fo’ Ah went home, so Ah
goes Nawth wid de Cunnel. Yas’m, us went ter Washin’ton an’ Noo Yawk
an’ den ter Bawston whar de Cunnel lib. Yas, Ma’m, Ah’s a trabeled nigger!
Miss Scarlett, dar’s mo hawses and cah’iges on dem Yankee streets dan you
kin shake a stick at! Ah wuz sceered all de time Ah wuz gwine git runned
ober!”
“Did you like it up North, Sam?”
Sam scratched his woolly head.
“Ah did—an’ Ah din’t. De Cunnel, he a mighty fine man an’ he
unnerstan’ niggers. But his wife, she sumpin’ else. His wife, she call me
‘Mister’ fust time she seed me. Yas’m, she do dat an’ Ah lak ter drap in mah
tracks w’en she do it. De Cunnel, he tell her ter call me ‘Sam’ an’ den she
do it. But all dem Yankee folks, fust time dey meet me, dey call me ‘Mist’
O’Hara.’ An’ dey ast me ter set down wid dem, lak Ah wuz jes’ as good as
dey wuz. Well, Ah ain’ nebber set down wid w’ite folks an’ Ah is too ole ter
learn. Dey treat me lak Ah jes’ as good as dey wuz, Miss Scarlett, but in
dere hearts, dey din’ lak me—dey din’ lak no niggers. An’ dey wuz sceered
of me, kase Ah’s so big. An’ dey wuz allus astin’ me ’bout de blood houn’s
dat chase me an’ de beatins Ah got. An’, Lawd, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain’
nebber got no beatin’s! You know Mist’ Gerald ain’ gwine let nobody beat a
’spensive nigger lak me!
“W’en Ah tell dem dat an’ tell dem how good Miss Ellen ter de niggers,
an’ how she set up a whole week wid me w’en Ah had de pneumony, dey
doan b’lieve me. An’, Miss Scarlett, Ah got ter honin’ fer Miss Ellen an’
Tara, tell it look lak Ah kain stan’ it no longer, an’ one night Ah lit out fer
home, an’ Ah rid de freight cahs all de way down ter ’Lanta. Ef you buy me
a ticket ter Tara, Ah sho be glad ter git home. Ah sho be glad ter see Miss
Ellen and Mist’ Gerald agin. Ah done had nuff freedom. Ah wants
somebody ter feed me good vittles reg’lar, and tell me whut ter do an’ whut
not ter do, an’ look affer me w’en Ah gits sick. S’pose Ah gits de pneumony
agin? Is dat Yankee lady gwine tek keer of me? No, Ma’m! She gwine call
me ‘Mist’ O’Hara’ but she ain’ gwine nuss me. But Miss Ellen, she gwine
nuss me, do Ah git sick an’—whut’s de mattuh, Miss Scarlett?”
“Pa and Mother are both dead, Sam.”
“Daid? Is you funnin’ wid me, Miss Scarlett? Dat ain’ no way ter treat
me!”
“I’m not funning. It’s true. Mother died when Sherman’s men came
through Tara and Pa—he went last June. Oh, Sam, don’t cry. Please don’t!
If you do, I’ll cry too. Sam, don’t! I just can’t stand it. Let’s don’t talk about
it now. I’ll tell you all about it some other time…. Miss Suellen is at Tara
and she’s married to a mighty fine man, Mr. Will Benteen. And Miss
Carreen, she’s in a—” Scarlett paused. She could never make plain to the
weeping giant what a convent was. “She’s living in Charleston now. But
Pork and Prissy are at Tara…. There, Sam, wipe your nose. Do you really
want to go home?”
“Yas’m, but it ain’ gwine be lak Ah thought wid Miss Ellen an’—”
“Sam, how’d you like to stay here in Atlanta and work for me? I need a
driver and I need one bad with so many mean folks around these days.”
“Yas’m. You sho do. Ah been aimin’ ter say you ain’ got no bizness
drivin’ ’round by yo’seff, Miss Scarlett. You ain’ got no notion how mean
some niggers is dese days, specially dem whut live hyah in Shantytown. It
ain’ safe fer you. Ah ain’ been in Shantytown but two days, but Ah hear
dem talk ’bout you. An’ yestiddy w’en you druv by an’ dem trashy black
wenches holler at you, Ah recernize you but you went by so fas’ Ah couldn’
ketch you. But Ah sho tan de hides of dem niggers! Ah sho did. Ain’ you
notice dar ain’ none of dem roun’ hyah terday?”
“I did notice and I certainly thank you, Sam. Well, how would you like
to be my carriage man?”
“Miss Scarlett, thankee, Ma’m, but Ah specs Ah better go ter Tara.”
Big Sam looked down and his bare toe traced aimless marks in the road.
There was a furtive uneasiness about him.
“Now, why? I’ll pay you good wages. You must stay with me.”
The big black face, stupid and as easily read as a child’s, looked up at her
and there was fear in it. He came closer and, leaning over the side of the
buggy, whispered: “Miss Scarlett, Ah got ter git outer ’Lanta. Ah got ter git
ter Tara whar dey woan fine me. Ah—Ah done kilt a man.”
“A darky?”
“No’m. A w’ite man. A Yankee sojer and dey’s lookin’ fer me. Dat de
reason Ah’m hyah at Shantytown.”
“How did it happen?”
“He wuz drunk an’ he said sumpin’ Ah couldn’ tek noways an’ Ah got
mah han’s on his neck—an’ Ah din’ mean ter kill him, Miss Scarlett, but
mah han’s is pow’ful strong, an’ fo Ah knowed it, he wuz kilt. An’ Ah wuz
so sceered Ah din’ know whut ter do! So Ah come out hyah ter hide an’
w’en Ah seed you go by yestiddy, Ah says ‘Bress Gawd! Dar Miss Scarlett!
She tek keer of me. She ain’ gwine let de Yankees git me. She sen’ me back
ter Tara.’”
“You say they’re after you? They know you did it?”
“Yas’m, Ah’s so big ain’ no mistakin’ me. Ah spec Ah’s de bigges’ nigger
in ’Lanta. Dey done been out hyah already affer me las’ night but a nigger
gal, she hid me in a cabe ober in de woods, tell dey wuz gone.”
Scarlett sat frowning for a moment. She was not in the least alarmed or
distressed that Sam had committed murder, but she was disappointed that
she could not have him as a driver. A big negro like Sam would be as good
a bodyguard as Archie. Well, she must get him safe to Tara somehow, for of
course the authorities must not get him. He was too valuable a darky to be
hanged. Why, he was the best foreman Tara had ever had! It did not enter
Scarlett’s mind that he was free. He still belonged to her, like Pork and
Mammy and Peter and Cookie and Prissy. He was still “one of our family”
and, as such, must be protected.
“I’ll send you to Tara tonight,” she said finally. “Now Sam, I’ve got to
drive out the road a piece, but I ought to be back here before sundown. You
be waiting here for me when I come back. Don’t tell anyone where you are
going and if you’ve got a hat, bring it along to hide your face.”
“Ah ain’ got no hat.”
“Well, here’s a quarter. You buy a hat from one of those shanty darkies
and meet me here.”
“Yas’m.” His face glowed with relief at once more having someone to
tell him what to do.
Scarlett drove on thoughtfully. Will would certainly welcome a good
field hand at Tara. Pork had never been any good in the fields and never
would be any good. With Sam on the place, Pork could come to Atlanta
and join Dilcey as she had promised him when Gerald died.
When she reached the mill the sun was setting and it was later than she
cared to be out. Johnnie Gallegher was standing in the doorway of the
miserable shack that served as cook room for the little lumber camp.
Sitting on a log in front of the slab-sided shack that was their sleeping
quarters were four of the five convicts Scarlett had apportioned to Johnnie’s
mill. Their convict uniforms were dirty and foul with sweat, shackles
clanked between their ankles when they moved tiredly, and there was an
air of apathy and despair about them. They were a thin, unwholesome lot,
Scarlett thought, peering sharply at them, and when she had leased them,
so short a time before, they were an upstanding crew. They did not even
raise their eyes as she dismounted from the buggy but Johnnie turned
toward her, carelessly dragging off his hat. His little brown face was as hard
as a nut as he greeted her.
“I don’t like the look of the men,” she said abruptly. “They don’t look
well. Where’s the other one?”
“Says he’s sick,” said Johnnie laconically. “He’s in the bunk house.”
“What ails him?”
“Laziness, mostly.”
“I’ll go see him.”
“Don’t do that. He’s probably nekkid. I’ll tend to him. He’ll be back at
work tomorrow.”
Scarlett hesitated and saw one of the convicts raise a weary head and
give Johnnie a stare of intense hatred before he looked at the ground again.
“Have you been whipping these men?”
“Now, Mrs. Kennedy, begging your pardon, who’s running this mill? You
put me in charge and told me to run it. You said I’d have a free hand. You
ain’t got no complaints to make of me, have you? Ain’t I making twice as
much for you as Mr. Elsing did?”
“Yes, you are,” said Scarlett, but a shiver went over her, like a goose
walking across her grave.
There was something sinister about this camp with its ugly shacks,
something which had not been here when Hugh Elsing had it. There was a
loneliness, an isolation, about it that chilled her. These convicts were so far
away from everything, so completely at the mercy of Johnnie Gallegher,
and if he chose to whip them or otherwise mistreat them, she would
probably never know about it. The convicts would be afraid to complain to
her for fear of worse punishment after she was gone.
“The men look thin. Are you giving them enough to eat? God knows, I
spend enough money on their food to make them fat as hogs. The flour and
pork alone cost thirty dollars last month. What are you giving them for
supper?”
She stepped over to the cook shack and looked in. A fat mulatto
woman, who was leaning over a rusty old stove, dropped a half curtsy as she
saw Scarlett and went on stirring a pot in which black-eyed peas were
cooking. Scarlett knew that Johnnie Gallegher lived with her but thought
it best to ignore the fact. She saw that except for the peas and a pan of corn
pone there was no other food being prepared.
“Haven’t you got anything else for these men?”
“No’m.”
“Haven’t you got any side meat in these peas?”
“No’m.”
“No boiling bacon in the peas? But black-eyed peas are no good without
bacon. There’s no strength to them. Why isn’t there any bacon?”
“Mist’ Johnnie, he say dar ain’ no use puttin’ in no side meat.”
“You’ll put bacon in. Where do you keep your supplies?”
The negro woman rolled frightened eyes toward the small closet that
served as a pantry and Scarlett threw the door open. There was an open
barrel of cornmeal on the floor, a small sack of flour, a pound of coffee, a
little sugar, a gallon jug of sorghum and two hams. One of the hams sitting
on the shelf had been recently cooked and only one or two slices had been
cut from it. Scarlett turned in a fury on Johnnie Gallegher and met his
coldly angry gaze.
“Where are the five sacks of white flour I sent out last week? And the
sugar sack and the coffee? And I had five hams sent and ten pounds of side
meat and God knows how many bushels of yams and Irish potatoes. Well,
where are they? You can’t have used them all in a week if you fed the men
five meals a day. You’ve sold them! That’s what you’ve done, you thief!
Sold my good supplies and put the money in your pocket and fed these men
on dried peas and corn pone. No wonder they look so thin. Get out of the
way.”
She stormed past him to the doorway.
“You, man, there on the end—yes, you! Come here!”
The man rose and walked awkwardly toward her, his shackles clanking,
and she saw that his bare ankles were red and raw from the chafing of the
iron.
“When did you last have ham?”
The man looked down at the ground.
“Speak up!”
Still the man stood silent and abject. Finally he raised his eyes, looked
Scarlett in the face imploringly and dropped his gaze again.
“Scared to talk, eh? Well, go in that pantry and get that ham off the
shelf. Rebecca, give him your knife. Take it out to those men and divide it
up. Rebecca, make some biscuits and coffee for the men. And serve plenty
of sorghum. Start now, so I can see you do it.”
“Dat’s Mist’ Johnnie’s privut flour an’ coffee,” Rebecca muttered
frightenedly.
“Mr. Johnnie’s my foot! I suppose it’s his private ham too. You do what I
say. Get busy. Johnnie Gallegher, come out to the buggy with me.”
She stalked across the littered yard and climbed into the buggy, noticing
with grim satisfaction that the men were tearing at the ham and cramming
bits into their mouths voraciously. They looked as if they feared it would be
taken from them at any minute.
“You are a rare scoundrel!” she cried furiously to Johnnie as he stood at
the wheel, his hat pushed back from his lowering brow. “And you can just
hand over to me the price of my supplies. In the future, I’ll bring you
provisions every day instead of ordering them by the month. Then you
can’t cheat me.”
“In the future I won’t be here,” said Johnnie Gallegher.
“You mean you are quitting!”
For a moment it was on Scarlett’s hot tongue to cry: “Go and good
riddance!” but the cool hand of caution stopped her. If Johnnie should quit,
what would she do? He had been doubling the amount of lumber Hugh
turned out. And just now she had a big order, the biggest she had ever had
and a rush order at that. She had to get that lumber into Atlanta. If
Johnnie quit, whom would she get to take over the mill?
“Yes, I’m quitting. You put me in complete charge here and told me that
all you expected of me was as much lumber as I could possibly get out. You
didn’t tell me how to run my business then and I’m not aiming to have you
start now. How I get the lumber out is no affair of yours. You can’t
complain that I’ve fallen down on my bargain. I’ve made money for you
and I’ve earned my salary—and what I could pick up on the side, too. And
here you come out here, interfering, asking questions and breaking my
authority in front of the men. How can you expect me to keep discipline
after this? What if the men do get an occasional lick? The lazy scum
deserve worse. What if they ain’t fed up and pampered? They don’t deserve
nothing better. Either you tend to your business and let me tend to mine or
I quit tonight.”
His hard little face looked flintier than ever and Scarlett was in a
quandary. If he quit tonight, what would she do? She couldn’t stay here all
night guarding the convicts!
Something of her dilemma showed in her eyes for Johnnie’s expression
changed subtly and some of the hardness went out of his face. There was an
easy agreeable note in his voice when he spoke.
“It’s getting late, Mrs. Kennedy, and you’d better be getting on home.
We ain’t going to fall out over a little thing like this, are we? S’pose you
take ten dollars out of my next month’s wages and let’s call it square.”
Scarlett’s eyes went unwillingly to the miserable group gnawing on the
ham and she thought of the sick man lying in the windy shack. She ought
to get rid of Johnnie Gallegher. He was a thief and a brutal man. There was
no telling what he did to the convicts when she wasn’t there. But, on the
other hand, he was smart and, God knows, she needed a smart man. Well,
she couldn’t part with him now. He was making money for her. She’d just
have to see to it that the convicts got their proper rations in the future.
“I’ll take twenty dollars out of your wages,” she said shortly, “and I’ll be
back and discuss the matter further in the morning.”
She picked up the reins. But she knew there would be no further
discussion. She knew the matter had ended there and she knew Johnnie
knew it.
As she drove off down the path to the Decatur road her conscience
battled with her desire for money. She knew she had no business exposing
human lives to the hard little man’s mercies. If he should cause the death of
one of them she would be as guilty as he was, for she had kept him in
charge after learning of his brutalities. But, on the other hand—well, on
the other hand, men had no business getting to be convicts. If they broke
laws and got caught, then they deserved what they got. This partly salved
her conscience but as she drove down the road the dull thin faces of the
convicts would keep coming back into her mind.
“Oh, I’ll think of them later,” she decided, and pushed the thought into
the lumber room of her mind and shut the door upon it.
* * *
The sun had completely gone when she reached the bend in the road
above Shantytown and the woods about her were dark. With the
disappearance of the sun, a bitter chill had fallen on the twilight world and
a cold wind blew through the dark woods, making the bare boughs crack
and the dead leaves rustle. She had never been out this late by herself and
she was uneasy and wished herself home.
Big Sam was nowhere to be seen and, as she drew rein to wait for him,
she worried about his absence, fearing the Yankees might have already
picked him up. Then she heard footsteps coming up the path from the
settlement and a sigh of relief went through her lips. She’d certainly dress
Sam down for keeping her waiting.
But it wasn’t Sam who came round the bend.
It was a ragged white man and a squat black negro with shoulders and
chest like a gorilla. Swiftly she flapped the reins on the horse’s back and
clutched the pistol. The horse started to trot and suddenly shied as the
white man threw up his hand.
“Lady,” he said, “can you give me a quarter? I’m sure hungry.”
“Get out of the way,” she answered, keeping her voice as steady as she
could. “I haven’t got any money. Giddap.”
With a sudden swift movement the man’s hand was on the horse’s
bridle.
“Grab her!” he shouted to the negro. “She’s probably got her money in
her bosom!”
What happened next was like a nightmare to Scarlett, and it all
happened so quickly. She brought up her pistol swiftly and some instinct
told her not to fire at the white man for fear of shooting the horse. As the
negro came running to the buggy, his black face twisted in a leering grin,
she fired point-blank at him. Whether or not she hit him, she never knew,
but the next minute the pistol was wrenched from her hand by a grasp that
almost broke her wrist. The negro was beside her, so close that she could
smell the rank odor of him as he tried to drag her over the buggy side. With
her one free hand she fought madly, clawing at his face, and then she felt
his big hand at her throat and, with a ripping noise, her basque was torn
open from neck to waist. Then the black hand fumbled between her
breasts, and terror and revulsion such as she had never known came over
her and she screamed like an insane woman.
“Shut her up! Drag her out!” cried the white man, and the black hand
fumbled across Scarlett’s face to her mouth. She bit as savagely as she could
and then screamed again, and through her screaming she heard the white
man swear and realized that there was a third man in the dark road. The
black hand dropped from her mouth and the negro leaped away as Big Sam
charged at him.
“Run, Miss Scarlett!” yelled Sam, grappling with the negro; and
Scarlett, shaking and screaming, clutched up the reins and whip and laid
them both over the horse. It went off at a jump and she felt the wheels pass
over something soft, something resistant. It was the white man who lay in
the road where Sam had knocked him down.
Maddened by terror, she lashed the horse again and again and it struck a
gait that made the buggy rock and sway. Through her terror she was
conscious of the sound of feet running behind her and she screamed at the
horse to go faster. If that black ape got her again, she would die before he
even got his hands upon her.
A voice yelled behind her: “Miss Scarlett! Stop!”
Without slacking, she looked trembling over her shoulder and saw Big
Sam racing down the road behind her, his long legs working like hard-
driven pistons. She drew rein as he came up and he flung himself into the
buggy, his big body crowding her to one side. Sweat and blood were
streaming down his face as he panted:
“Is you hu’t? Did dey hu’t you?”
She could not speak, but seeing the direction of his eyes and their quick
averting, she realized that her basque was open to the waist and her bare
bosom and corset cover were showing. With a shaking hand she clutched
the two edges together and bowing her head began to cry in terrified sobs.
“Gimme dem lines,” said Sam, snatching the reins from her. “Hawse,
mek tracks!”
The whip cracked and the startled horse went off at a wild gallop that
threatened to throw the buggy into the ditch.
“Ah hope Ah done kill dat black baboon. But Ah din’ wait ter fine out,”
he panted. “But ef he hahmed you, Miss Scarlett, Ah’ll go back an’ mek
sho of it.”
“No—no—drive on quickly,” she sobbed.
