Chapter - 5 | Gone with the Wind

IT WAS TEN O’CLOCK in the morning. The day was warm for April and the
golden sunlight streamed brilliantly into Scarlett’s room through the blue
curtains of the wide windows. The cream-colored walls glowed with light
and the depth of the mahogany furniture gleamed deep red like wine, while
the ﬂoor glistened as if it were glass, except where the rag rugs covered it
and they were spots of gay color.
Already summer was in the air, the ﬁrst hint of Georgia summer when
the high tide of spring gives way reluctantly before a ﬁercer heat. A balmy,
soft warmth poured into the room, heavy with velvety smells, redolent of
many blossoms, of newly ﬂedged trees and of the moist, freshly turned red
earth. Through the window Scarlett could see the bright riot of the twin
lines of daffodils bordering the graveled driveway and the golden masses of
yellow jessamine spreading ﬂowery sprangles modestly to the earth like
crinolines. The mockingbirds and the jays, engaged in their old feud for
possession of the magnolia tree beneath her window, were bickering, the
jays strident, acrimonious, the mockers sweet voiced and plaintive.
Such a glowing morning usually called Scarlett to the window, to lean
arms on the broad sill and drink in the scents and sounds of Tara. But,
today she had no eye for sun or azure sky beyond a hasty thought, “Thank
God, it isn’t raining.” On the bed lay the apple-green, watered-silk ball
dress with its festoons of ecru lace, neatly packed in a large cardboard box.
It was ready to be carried to Twelve Oaks to be donned before the dancing
began, but Scarlett shrugged at the sight of it. If her plans were successful,
she would not wear that dress tonight. Long before the ball began, she and
Ashley would be on their way to Jonesboro to be married. The troublesome
question was—what dress should she wear to the barbecue?
What dress would best set off her charms and make her most irresistible
to Ashley? Since eight o’clock she had been trying on and rejecting dresses,

and now she stood dejected and irritable in lace pantalets, linen corset
cover and three billowing lace and linen petticoats. Discarded garments lay
about her on the ﬂoor, the bed, the chairs, in bright heaps of color and
straying ribbons.
The rose organdie with long pink sash was becoming, but she had worn
it last summer when Melanie visited Twelve Oaks and she’d be sure to
remember it. And might be catty enough to mention it. The black
bombazine, with its puffed sleeves and princess lace collar, set off her white
skin superbly, but it did make her look a triﬂe elderly. Scarlett peered
anxiously in the mirror at her sixteen-year-old face as if expecting to see
wrinkles and sagging chin muscles. It would never do to appear sedate and
elderly before Melanie’s sweet youthfulness. The lavender barred muslin
was beautiful with those wide insets of lace and net about the hem, but it
had never suited her type. It would suit Carreen’s delicate proﬁle and
wishy-washy expression perfectly, but Scarlett felt that it made her look
like a schoolgirl. It would never do to appear schoolgirlish beside Melanie’s
poised self. The green plaid taffeta, frothing with ﬂounces and each ﬂounce
edged in green velvet ribbon, was most becoming, in fact her favorite dress,
for it darkened her eyes to emerald. But there was unmistakably a grease
spot on the front of the basque. Of course, her brooch could be pinned over
the spot, but perhaps Melanie had sharp eyes. There remained varicolored
cotton dresses which Scarlett felt were not festive enough for the occasion,
ball dresses and the green sprigged muslin she had worn yesterday. But it
was an afternoon dress. It was not suitable for a barbecue, for it had only
tiny puffed sleeves and the neck was low enough for a dancing dress. But
there was nothing else to do but wear it. After all she was not ashamed of
her neck and arms and bosom, even if it was not correct to show them in
the morning.
As she stood before the mirror and twisted herself about to get a side
view, she thought that there was absolutely nothing about her ﬁgure to
cause her shame. Her neck was short but rounded and her arms plump and
enticing. Her breasts, pushed high by her stays, were very nice breasts. She
had never had to sew tiny bows of silk rufﬂes in the lining of her basques, as
most sixteen-year-old girls did, to give their ﬁgures the desired curves and
fullness. She was glad she had inherited Ellen’s slender white hands and
tiny feet, and she wished she had Ellen’s height, too, but her own height

pleased her very well. What a pity legs could not be shown, she thought,
pulling up her petticoats and regretfully viewing them, plump and neat
under pantalets. She had such nice legs. Even the girls at the Fayetteville
Academy had admitted as much. And as for her waist—there was no one
in Fayetteville, Jonesboro or in three counties, for that matter, who had so
small a waist.
The thought of her waist brought her back to practical matters. The
green muslin measured seventeen inches about the waist, and Mammy had
laced her for the eighteen-inch bombazine. Mammy would have to lace her
tighter. She pushed open the door, listened and heard Mammy’s heavy
tread in the downstairs hall. She shouted for her impatiently, knowing she
could raise her voice with impunity, as Ellen was in the smokehouse,
measuring out the day’s food to Cookie.
“Some folks thinks as how Ah kin ﬂy,” grumbled Mammy, shufﬂing up
the stairs. She entered pufﬁng, with the expression of one who expects
battle and welcomes it. In her large black hands was a tray upon which
food smoked, two large yams covered with butter, a pile of buckwheat cakes
dripping syrup, and a large slice of ham swimming in gravy. Catching sight
of Mammy’s burden, Scarlett’s expression changed from one of minor
irritation to obstinate belligerency. In the excitement of trying on dresses
she had forgotten Mammy’s ironclad rule that, before going to any party,
the O’Hara girls must be crammed so full of food at home they would be
unable to eat any refreshments at the party.
“It’s no use. I won’t eat it. You can just take it back to the kitchen.”
Mammy set the tray on the table and squared herself, hands on hips.
“Yas’m, you is! Ah ain’ ﬁggerin’ on havin’ happen whut happen at dat
las’ barbecue w’en Ah wuz too sick frum dem chittlins Ah et ter fetch you
no tray befo’ you went. You is gwine eat eve’y bite of dis.”
“I am not! Now, come here and lace me tighter because we are late
already. I heard the carriage come round to the front of the house.”
Mammy’s tone became wheedling.
“Now, Miss Scarlett, you be good an’ come eat jes’ a lil. Miss Carreen
an’ Miss Suellen done eat all dey’n.”
“They would,” said Scarlett contemptuously. “They haven’t any more
spirit than a rabbit. But I won’t! I’m through with trays. I’m not forgetting
the time I ate a whole tray and went to the Calverts’ and they had ice

cream out of ice they’d brought all the way from Savannah, and I couldn’t
eat but a spoonful. I’m going to have a good time today and eat as much as
I please.”
At this deﬁant heresy, Mammy’s brow lowered with indignation. What a
young miss could do and what she could not do were as different as black
and white in Mammy’s mind; there was no middle ground of deportment
between. Suellen and Carreen were clay in her powerful hands and
harkened respectfully to her warning. But it had always been a struggle to
teach Scarlett that most of her natural impulses were unladylike. Mammy’s
victories over Scarlett were hard-won and represented guile unknown to
the white mind.
“Ef you doan care ’bout how folks talks ’bout dis fambly, Ah does,” she
rumbled. “Ah ain’ gwine stand by an’ have eve’ybody at de pahty sayin’
how you ain’ fotched up right. Ah has tole you an’ tole you dat you kin
allus tell a lady by dat she eat lak a bird. An’ Ah ain’ aimin’ ter have you go
ter Mist’ Wilkes’ an’ eat lak a fe’el han’ an’ gobble lak a hawg.”
“Mother is a lady and she eats,” countered Scarlett.
“W’en you is mahied, you kin eat, too,” retorted Mammy. “W’en Miss
Ellen yo’ age, she never et nuthin’ w’en she went out, an’ needer yo’ Aunt
Pauline nor yo’ Aunt Eulalie. An’ dey all done mahied. Young misses whut
eats heavy mos’ gener’ly doan never ketch husbands.”
“I don’t believe it. At that barbecue when you were sick and I didn’t eat
beforehand, Ashley Wilkes told me he liked to see a girl with a healthy
appetite.”
Mammy shook her head ominously.
“Whut gempmums says an’ what dey thinks is two diffunt things. An’
Ah ain’ noticed Mist’ Ashley axing fer ter mahy you.”
Scarlett scowled, started to speak sharply and then caught herself.
Mammy had her there and there was no argument. Seeing the obdurate
look on Scarlett’s face, Mammy picked up the tray and, with the bland
guile of her race, changed her tactics. As she started for the door, she
sighed.
“Well’m, awright. Ah wuz tellin’ Cookie w’ile she wuz a-ﬁxin’ dis tray,
‘You kin sho tell a lady by whut she doan eat,’ an’ Ah say ter Cookie, ‘Ah
ain’ never seed no w’ite lady who et less’n Miss Melly Hamilton did las’
time she wuz visitin’ Mist’ Ashley’—Ah means, visitin’ Miss India.”

Scarlett shot a look of sharp suspicion at her, but Mammy’s broad face
carried only a look of innocence and of regret that Scarlett was not the
lady Melanie Hamilton was.
“Put down that tray and come lace me tighter,” said Scarlett irritably.
“And I’ll try to eat a little afterwards. If I ate now I couldn’t lace tight
enough.”
Cloaking her triumph, Mammy set down the tray.
“Whut mah lamb gwine wear?”
“That,” answered Scarlett, pointing at the ﬂuffy mass of green ﬂowered
muslin. Instantly Mammy was in arms.
“No, you ain’. It ain’ ﬁttin’ fer mawnin’. You kain show yo’ buzzum befo’
three o’clock an’ dat dress ain’ got no neck an’ no sleeves. An’ you’ll git
freckled sho as you born, an’ Ah ain’ ﬁggerin’ on you gittin’ freckled affer
all de buttermilk Ah been puttin’ on you all dis winter, bleachin’ dem
freckles you got at Savannah settin’ on de beach. Ah sho gwine speak ter
yo’ Ma ’bout you.”
“If you say one word to her before I’m dressed I won’t eat a bite,” said
Scarlett coolly. “Mother won’t have time to send me back to change once
I’m dressed.”
Mammy sighed resignedly, beholding herself outguessed. Between the
two evils, it was better to have Scarlett wear an afternoon dress at a
morning barbecue than to have her gobble like a hog.
“Hole onter sumpin’ an’ suck in yo’ breaf,” she commanded.
Scarlett obeyed, bracing herself and catching ﬁrm hold of one of the
bedposts. Mammy pulled and jerked vigorously and, as the tiny
circumference of whalebonegirdled waist grew smaller, a proud, fond look
came into her eyes.
“Ain’ nobody got a wais’ lak mah lamb,” she said approvingly. “Eve’y
time Ah pulls Miss Suellen littler dan twenty inches, she up an’ faint.”
“Pooh!” gasped Scarlett, speaking with difﬁculty. “I never fainted in my
life.”
“Well, ’twouldn’ do no hahm ef you wuz ter faint now an’ den,” advised
Mammy. “You is so brash sometimes, Miss Scarlett. Ah been aimin’ ter tell
you, it jes’ doan look good de way you doan faint ’bout snakes and mouses
an’ sech. Ah doan mean round home but w’en you is out in comp’ny. An’
Ah has tole you an’—”

“Oh, hurry! Don’t talk so much. I’ll catch a husband. See if I don’t, even
if I don’t scream and faint. Goodness, but my stays are tight! Put on the
dress.”
Mammy carefully dropped the twelve yards of green sprigged muslin
over the mountainous petticoats and hooked up the back of the tight, low-
cut basque.
“You keep yo’ shawl on yo’ shoulders w’en you is in de sun, an’ doan you
go takin’ off yo’ hat w’en you is wahm,” she commanded. “Elsewise you be
comin’ home lookin’ brown lak Ole Miz Slattery. Now, you come eat,
honey, but doan eat too fas’. No use havin’ it come right back up agin.”
Scarlett obediently sat down before the tray, wondering if she would be
able to get any food into her stomach and still have room to breathe.
Mammy plucked a large towel from the washstand and carefully tied it
around Scarlett’s neck, spreading the white folds over her lap. Scarlett
began on the ham, because she liked ham, and forced it down.
“I wish to Heaven I was married,” she said resentfully as she attacked the
yams with loathing. “I’m tired of everlastingly being unnatural and never
doing anything I want to do. I’m tired of acting like I don’t eat more than a
bird, and walking when I want to run and saying I feel faint after a waltz,
when I could dance for two days and never get tired. I’m tired of saying
‘How wonderful you are!’ to fool men who haven’t got one-half the sense
I’ve got, and I’m tired of pretending I don’t know anything, so men can tell
me things and feel important while they’re doing it…. I can’t eat another
bite.”
“Try a hot cake,” said Mammy inexorably.
“Why is it a girl has to be so silly to catch a husband?”
“Ah specs it’s kase gempmums doan know whut dey wants. Dey jes’
knows whut dey thinks dey wants. An’ givin’ dem whut dey thinks dey
wants saves a pile of mizry an’ bein’ a ole maid. An’ dey thinks dey wants
mousy lil gals wid bird’s tastes an’ no sense at all. It doan make a gempmum
feel lak mahyin’ a lady ef he suspicions she got mo’ sense dan he has.”
“Don’t you suppose men get surprised after they’re married to ﬁnd that
their wives do have sense?”
“Well, it’s too late den. Dey’s already mahied. ’Sides, gempmums specs
dey wives ter have sense.”

“Some day I’m going to do and say everything I want to do and say, and
if people don’t like it I don’t care.”
“No, you ain’,” said Mammy grimly. “Not while Ah got breaf. You eat
dem cakes. Sop dem in de gravy, honey.”
“I don’t think Yankee girls have to act like such fools. When we were at
Saratoga last year, I noticed plenty of them acting like they had right good
sense and in front of men, too.”
Mammy snorted.
“Yankee gals! Yas’m, Ah guess dey speaks dey minds awright, but Ah
ain’ noticed many of dem gittin’ proposed ter at Saratoga.”
“But Yankees must get married,” argued Scarlett. “They don’t just grow.
They must get married and have children. There’s too many of them.”
“Men mahys dem fer dey money,” said Mammy ﬁrmly.
Scarlett sopped the wheat cake in the gravy and put it in her mouth.
Perhaps there was something in what Mammy said. There must be
something in it, for Ellen said the same things, in different and more
delicate words. In fact, the mothers of all her girl friends impressed on their
daughters the necessity of being helpless, clinging doe-eyed creatures.
Really, it took a lot of sense to cultivate and hold such a pose. Perhaps she
had been too brash. Occasionally she had argued with Ashley and frankly
aired her opinions. Perhaps this and her healthy enjoyment of walking and
riding had turned him from her to the frail Melanie. Perhaps if she changed
her tricks— But she felt that if Ashley succumbed to premeditated
feminine tricks, she could never respect him as she now did. Any man who
was fool enough to fall for a simper, a faint and an “Oh, how wonderful you
are!” wasn’t worth having. But they all seemed to like it.
If she had used the wrong tactics with Ashley in the past—well, that
was the past and done with. Today she would use different ones, the right
ones. She wanted him and she had only a few hours in which to get him. If
fainting, or pretending to faint, would do the trick, then she would faint. If
simpering, coquetry or empty-headedness would attract him, she would
gladly play the ﬂirt and be more empty-headed than even Cathleen
Calvert. And if bolder measures were necessary, she would take them.
Today was the day!
There was no one to tell Scarlett that her own personality, frighteningly
vital though it was, was more attractive than any masquerade she might

adopt. Had she been told, she would have been pleased but unbelieving.
And the civilization of which she was a part would have been unbelieving
too, for at no time, before or since, had so low a premium been placed on
feminine naturalness.
* * *
As the carriage bore her down the red road toward the Wilkes plantation,
Scarlett had a feeling of guilty pleasure that neither her mother nor
Mammy was with the party. There would be no one at the barbecue who,
by delicately lifted brows or out-thrust underlip, could interfere with her
plan of action. Of course, Suellen would be certain to tell tales tomorrow,
but if all went as Scarlett hoped, the excitement of the family over her
engagement to Ashley or her elopement would more than overbalance
their displeasure. Yes, she was very glad Ellen had been forced to stay at
home.
Gerald, primed with brandy, had given Jonas Wilkerson his dismissal
that morning, and Ellen had remained at Tara to go over the accounts of
the plantation before he took his departure. Scarlett had kissed her mother
good-by in the little ofﬁce where she sat before the tall secretary with its
paper-stuffed pigeonholes. Jonas Wilkerson, hat in hand, stood beside her,
his sallow tight-skinned face hardly concealing the fury of hate that
possessed him at being so unceremoniously turned out of the best overseer’s
job in the County. And all because of a bit of minor philandering. He had
told Gerald over and over that Emmie Slattery’s baby might have been
fathered by any one of a dozen men as easily as himself—an idea in which
Gerald concurred—but that had not altered his case so far as Ellen was
concerned. Jonas hated all Southerners. He hated their cool courtesy to
him and their contempt for his social status, so inadequately covered by
their courtesy. He hated Ellen O’Hara above anyone else, for she was the
epitome of all that he hated in Southerners.
Mammy, as head woman of the plantation, had remained to help Ellen,
and it was Dilcey who rode on the driver’s seat beside Toby, the girls’
dancing dresses in a long box across her lap. Gerald rode beside the carriage
on his big hunter, warm with brandy and pleased with himself for having

gotten through with the unpleasant business of Wilkerson so speedily. He
had shoved the responsibility onto Ellen, and her disappointment at
missing the barbecue and the gathering of her friends did not enter his
mind; for it was a ﬁne spring day and his ﬁelds were beautiful and the birds
were singing and he felt too young and frolicsome to think of anyone else.
Occasionally he burst out with “Peg in a Low-backed Car” and other Irish
ditties or the more lugubrious lament for Robert Emmet, “She is far from
the land where her young hero sleeps.”
He was happy, pleasantly excited over the prospect of spending the day
shouting about the Yankees and the war, and proud of his three pretty
daughters in their bright spreading hoop skirts beneath foolish little lace
parasols. He gave no thought to his conversation of the day before with
Scarlett, for it had completely slipped his mind. He only thought that she
was pretty and a great credit to him and that, today, her eyes were as green
as the hills of Ireland. The last thought made him think better of himself,
for it had a certain poetic ring to it, and so he favored the girls with a loud
and slightly off-key rendition of “The Wearin’ o’ the Green.”
Scarlett, looking at him with the affectionate contempt that mothers
feel for small swaggering sons, knew that he would be very drunk by
sundown. Coming home in the dark, he would try, as usual, to jump every
fence between Twelve Oaks and Tara and, she hoped, by the mercy of
Providence and the good sense of his horse, would escape breaking his
neck. He would disdain the bridge and swim his horse through the river
and come home roaring, to be put to bed on the sofa in the ofﬁce by Pork
who always waited up with a lamp in the front hall on such occasions.
He would ruin his new gray broadcloth suit, which would cause him to
swear horribly in the morning and tell Ellen at great length how his horse
fell off the bridge in the darkness—a palpable lie which would fool no one
but which would be accepted by all and make him feel very clever.
Pa is a sweet, selﬁsh, irresponsible darling, Scarlett thought, with a surge
of affection for him. She felt so excited and happy this morning that she
included the whole world, as well as Gerald, in her affection. She was
pretty and she knew it; she would have Ashley for her own before the day
was over; the sun was warm and tender and the glory of the Georgia spring
was spread before her eyes. Along the roadside the blackberry brambles
were concealing with softest green the savage red gulches cut by the

winter’s rains, and the bare granite boulders pushing up through the red
earth were being draped with sprangles of Cherokee roses and compassed
about by wild violets of palest purple hue. Upon the wooded hills above the
river, the dogwood blossoms lay glistening and white, as if snow still
lingered among the greenery. The ﬂowering crab trees were bursting their
buds and rioting from delicate white to deepest pink and, beneath the trees
where the sunshine dappled the pine straw, the wild honeysuckle made a
varicolored carpet of scarlet and orange and rose. There was a faint wild
fragrance of sweet shrub on the breeze and the world smelled good enough
to eat.
“I’ll remember how beautiful this day is till I die,” thought Scarlett.
“Perhaps it will be my wedding day!”
And she thought with a tingling heart how she and Ashley might ride
swiftly through this beauty of blossom and greenery this very afternoon, or
tonight by moonlight, toward Jonesboro and a preacher. Of course, she
would have to be remarried by a priest from Atlanta, but that would be
something for Ellen and Gerald to worry about. She quailed a little as she
thought how white with mortiﬁcation Ellen would be at hearing that her
daughter had eloped with another girl’s ﬁancé, but she knew Ellen would
forgive her when she saw her happiness. And Gerald would scold and bawl
but, for all his remarks of yesterday about not wanting her to marry Ashley,
he would be pleased beyond words at an alliance between his family and
the Wilkeses.
“But that’ll be something to worry about after I’m married,” she thought,
tossing the worry from her.
It was impossible to feel anything but palpitating joy in this warm sun,
in this spring, with the chimneys of Twelve Oaks just beginning to show on
the hill across the river.
“I’ll live there all my life and I’ll see ﬁfty springs like this and maybe
more, and I’ll tell my children and my grandchildren how beautiful this
spring was, lovelier than any they’ll ever see.” She was so happy at this last
thought that she joined in the last chorus of “The Wearin’ o’ the Green”
and won Gerald’s shouted approval.
“I don’t know why you’re so happy this morning,” said Suellen crossly,
for the thought still rankled in her mind that she would look far better in
Scarlett’s green silk dancing frock than its rightful owner would. And why

was Scarlett always so selﬁsh about lending her clothes and bonnets? And
why did Mother always back her up, declaring green was not Suellen’s
color? “You know as well as I do that Ashley’s engagement is going to be
announced tonight. Pa said so this morning. And I know you’ve been sweet
on him for months.”
“That’s all you know,” said Scarlett, putting out her tongue and refusing
to lose her good humor. How surprised Miss Sue would be by this time
tomorrow morning!
“Susie, you know that’s not so,” protested Carreen, shocked. “It’s Brent
that Scarlett cares about.”
Scarlett turned smiling green eyes upon her younger sister, wondering
how anyone could be so sweet. The whole family knew that Carreen’s
thirteen-year-old heart was set upon Brent Tarleton, who never gave her a
thought except as Scarlett’s baby sister. When Ellen was not present, the
O’Haras teased her to tears about him.
“Darling, I don’t care a thing about Brent,” declared Scarlett, happy
enough to be generous. “And he doesn’t care a thing about me. Why, he’s
waiting for you to grow up!”
Carreen’s round little face became pink, as pleasure struggled with
incredulity.
“Oh, Scarlett, really?”
“Scarlett, you know Mother said Carreen was too young to think about
beaux yet, and there you go putting ideas in her head.”
“Well, go and tattle and see if I care,” replied Scarlett. “You want to
hold Sissy back, because you know she’s going to be prettier than you in a
year or so.”
“You’ll be keeping civil tongues in your heads this day, or I’ll be taking
me crop to you,” warned Gerald. “Now whist! Is it wheels I’m hearing?
That’ll be the Tarletons or the Fontaines.”
As they neared the intersecting road that came down the thickly
wooded hill from Mimosa and Fairhill, the sound of hooves and carriage
wheels became plainer and clamorous feminine voices raised in pleasant
dispute sounded from behind the screen of trees. Gerald, riding ahead,
pulled up his horse and signed to Toby to stop the carriage where the two
roads met.

“’Tis the Tarleton ladies,” he announced to his daughters, his ﬂorid face
abeam, for excepting Ellen there was no lady in the County he liked more
than the red-haired Mrs. Tarleton. “And ’tis herself at the reins. Ah, there’s
a woman with ﬁne hands for a horse! Feather light and strong as rawhide,
and pretty enough to kiss for all that. More’s the pity none of you have
such hands,” he added, casting fond but reproving glances at his girls.
“With Carreen afraid of the poor beasts and Sue with hands like sadirons
when it comes to reins and you, Puss—”
“Well, at any rate I’ve never been thrown,” cried Scarlett indignantly.
“And Mrs. Tarleton takes a toss at every hunt.”
“And breaks a collar bone like a man,” said Gerald. “No fainting, no
fussing. Now, no more of it, for here she comes.”
He stood up in his stirrups and took off his hat with a sweep, as the
Tarleton carriage, overﬂowing with girls in bright dresses and parasols and
ﬂuttering veils, came into view, with Mrs. Tarleton on the box as Gerald
had said. With her four daughters, their mammy and their ball dresses in
long cardboard boxes crowding the carriage, there was no room for the
coachman. And, besides, Beatrice Tarleton never willingly permitted
anyone, black or white, to hold reins when her arms were out of slings.
Frail, ﬁne-boned, so white of skin that her ﬂaming hair seemed to have
drawn all the color from her face into its vital burnished mass, she was
nevertheless possessed of exuberant health and untiring energy. She had
borne eight children, as red of hair and as full of life as she, and had raised
them most successfully, so the County said, because she gave them all the
loving neglect and the stern discipline she gave the colts she bred. “Curb
them but don’t break their spirits,” was Mrs. Tarleton’s motto.
She loved horses and talked horses constantly. She understood them
and handled them better than any man in the County. Colts overﬂowed
the paddock onto the front lawn, even as her eight children overﬂowed the
rambling house on the hill, and colts and sons and daughters and hunting
dogs tagged after her as she went about the plantation. She credited her
horses, especially her red mare, Nellie, with human intelligence; and if the
cares of the house kept her busy beyond the time when she expected to
take her daily ride, she put the sugar bowl in the hands of some small
pickaninny and said: “Give Nellie a handful and tell her I’ll be out
terrectly.”

Except on rare occasions she always wore her riding habit, for whether
she rode or not she always expected to ride and in that expectation put on
her habit upon arising. Each morning, rain or shine, Nellie was saddled and
walked up and down in front of the house, waiting for the time when Mrs.
Tarleton could spare an hour away from her duties. But Fairhill was a
difﬁcult plantation to manage and spare time hard to get, and more often
than not Nellie walked up and down riderless hour after hour, while
Beatrice Tarleton went through the day with the skirt of her habit absently
looped up over her arm and six inches of shining boot showing below it.
Today, dressed in dull black silk over unfashionably narrow hoops, she
still looked as though in her habit, for the dress was as severely tailored as
her riding costume and the small black hat with its long black plume
perched over one warm, twinkling, brown eye was a replica of the battered
old hat she used for hunting.
She waved her whip when she saw Gerald and drew her dancing pair of
red horses to a halt, and the four girls in the back of the carriage leaned out
and gave such vociferous cries of greeting that the team pranced in alarm.
To a casual observer it would seem that years had passed since the Tarletons
had seen the O’Haras, instead of only two days. But they were a sociable
family and liked their neighbors, especially the O’Hara girls. That is, they
liked Suellen and Carreen. No girl in the County, with the possible
exception of the empty-headed Cathleen Calvert, really liked Scarlett.
In summers, the County averaged a barbecue and ball nearly every
week, but to the red-haired Tarletons with their enormous capacity for
enjoying themselves, each barbecue and each ball was as exciting as if it
were the ﬁrst they had ever attended. They were a pretty buxom quartette,
so crammed into the carriage that their hoops and ﬂounces overlapped and
their parasols nudged and bumped together above their wide leghorn sun
hats, crowned with roses and dangling with black velvet chin ribbons. All
shades of red hair were represented beneath these hats, Hetty’s plain red
hair, Camilla’s strawberry blonde, Randa’s coppery auburn and small Betsy’s
carrot top.
“That’s a ﬁne bevy, Ma’m,” said Gerald gallantly, reining his horse
alongside the carriage. “But it’s far they’ll go to beat their mother.”
Mrs. Tarleton rolled her red-brown eyes and sucked in her lower lip in
burlesqued appreciation, and the girls cried, “Ma, stop making eyes or we’ll

tell Pa!” “I vow, Mr. O’Hara, she never gives us a chance when there’s a
handsome man like you around!”
Scarlett laughed with the rest at these sallies but, as always, the freedom
with which the Tarletons treated their mother came as a shock. They acted
as if she were one of themselves and not a day over sixteen. To Scarlett, the
very idea of saying such things to her own mother was almost sacrilegious.
And yet—and yet—there was something very pleasant about the Tarleton
girls’ relations with their mother, and they adored her for all that they
criticized and scolded and teased her. Not, Scarlett loyally hastened to tell
herself, that she would prefer a mother like Mrs. Tarleton to Ellen, but still
it would be fun to romp with a mother. She knew that even that thought
was disrespectful to Ellen and felt ashamed of it. She knew no such
troublesome thoughts ever disturbed the brains under the four ﬂaming
thatches in the carriage and, as always when she felt herself different from
her neighbors, an irritated confusion fell upon her.
Quick though her brain was, it was not made for analysis, but she half-
consciously realized that, for all the Tarleton girls were as unruly as colts
and wild as March hares, there was an unworried single-mindedness about
them that was part of their inheritance. On both their mother’s and their
father’s side they were Georgians, north Georgians, only a generation away
from pioneers. They were sure of themselves and of their environment.
They knew instinctively what they were about, as did the Wilkeses, though
in widely divergent ways, and in them there was no such conﬂict as
frequently raged in Scarlett’s bosom where the blood of a soft-voiced,
overbred Coast aristocrat mingled with the shrewd, earthy blood of an Irish
peasant. Scarlett wanted to respect and adore her mother like an idol and
to rumple her hair and tease her too. And she knew she should be
altogether one way or the other. It was the same conﬂicting emotion that
made her desire to appear a delicate and high-bred lady with boys and to
be, as well, a hoyden who was not above a few kisses.
“Where’s Ellen this morning?” asked Mrs. Tarleton.
“She’s after discharging our overseer and stayed home to go over the
accounts with him. Where’s himself and the lads?”
“Oh, they rode over to Twelve Oaks hours ago—to sample the punch
and see if it was strong enough, I dare say, as if they wouldn’t have from
now till tomorrow morning to do it! I’m going to ask John Wilkes to keep

them overnight, even if he has to bed them down in the stable. Five men
in their cups are just too much for me. Up to three, I do very well but—”
Gerald hastily interrupted to change the subject. He could feel his own
daughters snickering behind his back as they remembered in what
condition he had come home from the Wilkeses’ last barbecue the autumn
before.
“And why aren’t you riding today, Mrs. Tarleton? Sure, you don’t look
yourself at all without Nellie. It’s a stentor, you are.”
“A stentor, me ignorant broth of a boy!” cried Mrs. Tarleton, aping his
brogue. “You mean a centaur. Stentor was a man with a voice like a brass
gong.”
“Stentor or centaur, ’tis no matter,” answered Gerald, unrufﬂed by his
error. “And ’tis a voice like brass you have, Ma’m, when you’re urging on
the hounds, so it is.”
“That’s one on you, Ma,” said Hetty. “I told you you yelled like a
Comanche whenever you saw a fox.”
“But not as loud as you yell when Mammy washes your ears,” returned
Mrs. Tarleton. “And you sixteen! Well, as to why I’m not riding today,
Nellie foaled early this morning.”
“Did she now!” cried Gerald with real interest, his Irishman’s passion for
horses shining in his eyes, and Scarlett again felt the sense of shock in
comparing her mother with Mrs. Tarleton. To Ellen, mares never foaled nor
cows calved. In fact, hens almost didn’t lay eggs. Ellen ignored these
matters completely. But Mrs. Tarleton had no such reticences.
“A little ﬁlly, was it?”
“No, a ﬁne little stallion with legs two yards long. You must ride over
and see him, Mr. O’Hara. He’s a real Tarleton horse. He’s as red as Hetty’s
curls.”
“And looks a lot like Hetty, too,” said Camilla, and then disappeared
shrieking amid a welter of skirts and pantalets and bobbing hats, as Hetty,
who did have a long face, began pinching her.
“My ﬁllies are feeling their oats this morning,” said Mrs. Tarleton.
“They’ve been kicking up their heels ever since we heard the news this
morning about Ashley and that little cousin of his from Atlanta. What’s
her name? Melanie? Bless the child, she’s a sweet little thing, but I can
never remember either her name or her face. Our cook is the broad wife of

the Wilkes butler, and he was over last night with the news that the
engagement would be announced tonight and Cookie told us this morning.
The girls are all excited about it, though I can’t see why. Everybody’s
known for years that Ashley would marry her, that is, if he didn’t marry one
of his Burr cousins from Macon. Just like Honey Wilkes is going to marry
Melanie’s brother, Charles. Now, tell me, Mr. O’Hara, is it illegal for the
Wilkes to marry outside of their family? Because if—”
Scarlett did not hear the rest of the laughing words. For one short
instant, it was as though the sun had ducked behind a cool cloud, leaving
the world in shadow, taking the color out of things. The freshly green
foliage looked sickly, the dogwood pallid, and the ﬂowering crab, so
beautifully pink a moment ago, faded and dreary. Scarlett dug her ﬁngers
into the upholstery of the carriage and for a moment her parasol wavered.
It was one thing to know that Ashley was engaged but it was another to
hear people talk about it so casually. Then her courage ﬂowed strongly back
and the sun came out again and the landscape glowed anew. She knew
Ashley loved her. That was certain. And she smiled as she thought how
surprised Mrs. Tarleton would be when no engagement was announced that
night—how surprised if there were an elopement. And she’d tell neighbors
what a sly boots Scarlett was to sit there and listen to her talk about
Melanie when all the time she and Ashley—She dimpled at her own
thoughts and Hetty, who had been watching sharply the effect of her
mother’s words, sank back with a small puzzled frown.
“I don’t care what you say, Mr. O’Hara,” Mrs. Tarleton was saying
emphatically. “It’s all wrong, this marrying of cousins. It’s bad enough for
Ashley to be marrying the Hamilton child, but for Honey to be marrying
that pale-looking Charles Hamilton—”
“Honey’ll never catch anybody else if she doesn’t marry Charlie,” said
Randa, cruel and secure in her own popularity. “She’s never had another
beau except him. And he’s never acted very sweet on her, for all that
they’re engaged. Scarlett, you remember how he ran after you last
Christmas—”
“Don’t be a cat, Miss,” said her mother. “Cousins shouldn’t marry, even
second cousins. It weakens the strain. It isn’t like horses. You can breed a
mare to a brother or a sire to a daughter and get good results if you know

your blood strains, but in people it just doesn’t work. You get good lines,
perhaps, but no stamina. You—”
“Now, Ma’m, I’m taking issue with you on that! Can you name me
better people than the Wilkes? And they’ve been intermarrying since Brian
Boru was a boy.”
“And high time they stopped it, for it’s beginning to show. Oh, not
Ashley so much, for he’s a good-looking devil, though even he—But look
at those two washed-out-looking Wilkes girls, poor things! Nice girls, of
course, but washed out. And look at little Miss Melanie. Thin as a rail and
delicate enough for the wind to blow away and no spirit at all. Not a
notion of her own. ‘No, Ma’m!’ ‘Yes, Ma’m!’ That’s all she has to say. You
see what I mean? That family needs new blood, ﬁne vigorous blood like my
red heads or your Scarlett. Now, don’t misunderstand me. The Wilkes are
ﬁne folks in their way, and you know I’m fond of them all, but be frank!
They are overbred and inbred too, aren’t they? They’ll do ﬁne on a dry
track, a fast track, but mark my words, I don’t believe the Wilkes can run
on a mud track. I believe the stamina has been bred out of them, and when
the emergency arises I don’t believe they can run against odds. Dry-weather
stock. Give me a big horse who can run in any weather! And their
intermarrying has made them different from other folks around here.
Always ﬁddling with the piano or sticking their heads in a book. I do
believe Ashley would rather read than hunt! Yes, I honestly believe that,
Mr. O’Hara! And just look at the bones of them. Too slender. They need
dams and sires with strength—”
“Ah-ah-hum,” said Gerald, suddenly and guiltily aware that the
conversation, a most interesting and entirely proper one to him, would
seem quite otherwise to Ellen. In fact, he knew she would never recover
should she learn that her daughters had been exposed to so frank a
conversation. But Mrs. Tarleton was, as usual, deaf to all other ideas when
pursuing her favorite topic, breeding, whether it be horses or humans.
“I know what I’m talking about because I had some cousins who married
each other and I give you my word their children all turned out as pop-eyed
as bullfrogs, poor things. And when my family wanted me to marry a
second cousin, I bucked like a colt. I said, ‘No, Ma. Not for me. My
children will all have spavins and heaves.’ Well, Ma fainted when I said
that about spavins, but I stood ﬁrm and Grandma backed me up. She knew

a lot about horse breeding too, you see, and said I was right. And she
helped me run away with Mr. Tarleton. And look at my children! Big and
healthy and not a sickly one or a runt among them, though Boyd is only
ﬁve feet ten. Now, the Wilkes—”
“Not meaning to change the subject, Ma’m,” broke in Gerald hurriedly,
for he had noticed Carreen’s bewildered look and the avid curiosity on
Suellen’s face and feared lest they might ask Ellen embarrassing questions
which would reveal how inadequate a chaperon he was. Puss, he was glad
to notice, appeared to be thinking of other matters as a lady should.
Hetty Tarleton rescued him from his predicament.
“Good Heavens, Ma, do let’s get on!” she cried impatiently. “This sun is
broiling me and I can just hear freckles popping out on my neck.”
“Just a minute, Ma’m, before you go,” said Gerald. “But what have you
decided to do about selling us the horses for the Troop? War may break any
day now and the boys want the matter settled. It’s a Clayton County troop
and it’s Clayton County horses we want for them. But you, obstinate
creature that you are, are still refusing to sell us your ﬁne beasts.”
“Maybe there won’t be any war,” Mrs. Tarleton temporized, her mind
diverted completely from the Wilkeses’ odd marriage habits.
“Why, Ma’m, you can’t—”
“Ma,” Hetty interrupted again, “can’t you and Mr. O’Hara talk about the
horses at Twelve Oaks as well as here?”
“That’s just it, Miss Hetty,” said Gerald, “and I won’t be keeping you but
one minute by the clock. We’ll be getting to Twelve Oaks in a little bit,
and every man there, old and young, wanting to know about the horses.
Ah, but it’s breaking me heart to see such a ﬁne pretty lady as your mother
so stingy with her beasts! Now, where’s your patriotism, Mrs. Tarleton?
Does the Confederacy mean nothing to you at all?”
“Ma,” cried small Betsy, “Randa’s sitting on my dress and I’m getting all
wrinkled.”
“Well, push Randa off you, Betsy, and hush. Now, listen to me, Gerald
O’Hara,” she retorted, her eyes beginning to snap. “Don’t you go throwing
the Confederacy in my face! I reckon the Confederacy means as much to
me as it does to you, me with four boys in the Troop and you with none.
But my boys can take care of themselves and my horses can’t. I’d gladly
give the horses free of charge if I knew they were going to be ridden by boys

I know, gentlemen used to thoroughbreds. No, I wouldn’t hesitate a
minute. But let my beauties be at the mercy of backwoodsmen and
Crackers who are used to riding mules! No, sir! I’d have nightmares
thinking they were being ridden with saddle galls and not groomed
properly. Do you think I’d let ignorant fools ride my tender-mouthed
darlings and saw their mouths to pieces and beat them till their spirits were
broken? Why, I’ve got goose ﬂesh this minute, just thinking about it! No,
Mr. O’Hara, you’re mighty nice to want my horses, but you’d better go to
Atlanta and buy some old plugs for your clodhoppers. They’ll never know
the difference.”
“Ma, can’t we please go on?” asked Camilla, joining the impatient
chorus. “You know mighty well you’re going to end up giving them your
darlings anyhow. When Pa and the boys get through talking about the
Confederacy needing them and so on, you’ll cry and let them go.”
Mrs. Tarleton grinned and shook the lines.
“I’ll do no such thing,” she said, touching the horses lightly with the
whip. The carriage went off swiftly.
“That’s a ﬁne woman,” said Gerald, putting on his hat and taking his
place beside his own carriage. “Drive on, Toby. We’ll wear her down and
get the horses yet. Of course, she’s right. She’s right. If a man’s not a
gentleman, he’s no business on a horse. The infantry is the place for him.
But more’s the pity, there’s not enough planters’ sons in this County to
make up a full troop. What did you say, Puss?”
“Pa, please ride behind us or in front of us. You kick up such a heap of
dust that we’re choking,” said Scarlett, who felt that she could endure
conversation no longer. It distracted her from her thoughts and she was
very anxious to arrange both her thoughts and her face in attractive lines
before reaching Twelve Oaks. Gerald obediently put spurs to his horse and
was off in a red cloud after the Tarleton carriage where he could continue
his horsy conversation.