"Your army has been here before," she said coolly.
"That's a fac'. We were in this neighborhood in September," said one of the men, turning something in his hand. "I'd forgot."
Scarlett saw it was Ellen's gold thimble that he held. How often she had seen it gleaming in and out of Ellen's fancy work. The sight of it brought back too many hurting memories of the slender hand which had worn it. There it lay in this stranger's calloused duly palm and soon it would find its way North and onto the finger of some Yankee woman who would be proud to wear stolen things. Ellen's thimble!
Scarlett dropped her head so the enemy could not see her cry and the tears fell slowly down on the baby's head. Through the blur, she saw the men moving toward the doorway, heard the sergeant calling commands in a loud rough voice. They were going and Tara was safe, but with the pain of Ellen's memory on her, she was hardly glad. The sound of the banging sabers and horses' hooves brought little relief and she stood, suddenly weak and nerveless, as they moved off down the avenue, every man laden with stolen goods, clothing, blankets, pictures, hens and ducks, the sow.
Then to her nostrils was borne the smell of smoke and she turned, too weak with lessening strain, to care about the cotton. Through the open windows of the dining room, she saw smoke drifting lazily out of the negro cabins. There went the cotton. There went the tax money and part of the money which was to see them through this bitter winter. There was nothing she could do about it either, except watch. She had seen fires in cotton before and she knew how difficult they were to put out, even with many men laboring at it. Thank God, the quarters were so far from the house! Thank God, there was no wind today to carry sparks to the roof of Tara!
Suddenly she swung about, rigid as a pointer, and stared with horror-struck eyes down the hall, down the covered passageway toward the kitchen. There was smoke coming from the kitchen!
Somewhere between the hall and the kitchen, she laid the baby down. Somewhere she flung off Wade's grip, slinging him against the wall. She burst into the smoke-filled kitchen and reeled back, coughing, her eyes streaming tears from the smoke. Again she plunged in, her skirt held over her nose.
The room was dark, lit as it was by one small window, and so thick with smoke that she was blinded, but she could hear the hiss and crackle of flames. Dashing a hand across her eyes, she peered squinting and saw thin lines of flame creeping across the kitchen floor, toward the walls. Someone had scattered the blazing logs in the open fireplace across the whole room and the tinder-dry pine floor was sucking in the flames and spewing them up like water.
Back she rushed to the dining room and snatched a rag rug from the floor, spilling two chairs with a crash.
"I'll never beat it out -- never, never! Oh, God, if only there was someone to help! Tara is gone -- gone! Oh, God! This was what that little wretch meant when he said he'd give me something to remember him by! Oh, if I'd only let him have the sword!"
In the hallway she passed her son lying in the corner with his sword. His eyes were closed and his face had a look of slack, unearthly peace.
"My God! He's dead! They've frightened him to death!" she thought in agony but she raced by him to the bucket of drinking water which always stood in the passageway by the kitchen door.
She soused the end of the rug into the bucket and drawing a deep breath plunged again into the smoke-filled room slamming the door behind her. For an eternity she reeled and coughed, beating the rug against the lines of fire that shot swiftly beyond her. Twice her long skirt took fire and she slapped it out with her hands. She could smell the sickening smell of her hair scorching, as it came loose from its pins and swept about her shoulders. The flames raced ever beyond her, toward the walls of the covered runway, fiery snakes that writhed and leaped and, exhaustion sweeping her, she knew that it was hopeless.
Then the door swung open and the sucking draft flung the flames higher. It closed with a bang and, in the swirling smoke, Scarlett, half blind, saw Melanie, stamping her feet on the flames, beating at them with something dark and heavy. She saw her staggering, heard her coughing, caught a lightning-flash glimpse of her set white face and eyes narrow to slits against the smoke, saw her small body curving back and forth as she swung her rug up and down. For another eternity they fought and swayed, side by side, and Scarlett could see that the lines of fire were shortening. Then suddenly Melanie turned toward her and, with a cry, hit her across the shoulders with all her might. Scarlett went down in a whirlwind of smoke and darkness. When she opened her eyes she was lying on the back porch, her head pillowed comfortably on Melanie's lap, and the afternoon sunlight was shining on her face. Her hands, face and shoulders smarted intolerably from burns. Smoke was still rolling from the quarters, enveloping the cabins in thick clouds, and the smell of burning cotton was strong. Scarlett saw wisps of smoke drifting from the kitchen and she stirred frantically to rise.
But she was pushed back as Melanie's calm voice said: "Lie still, dear. The fire's out."
She lay quiet for a moment, eyes closed, sighing with relief, and heard the slobbery gurgle of the baby near by and the reassuring sound of Wade's hiccoughing. So he wasn't dead, thank God! She opened her eyes and looked up into Melanie's face. Her curls were singed, her face black with smut but her eyes were sparkling with excitement and she was smiling.
"You look like a nigger," murmured Scarlett, burrowing her head wearily into its soft pillow.
"And you look like the end man in a minstrel show," replied Melanie equably. "Why did you have to hit me?"
"Because, my darling, your back was on fire. I didn't dream you'd faint, though the Lord knows you've had enough today to kill you. ... I came back as soon as I got the stock safe in the woods. I nearly died, thinking about you and the baby alone. Did -- the Yankees harm you?"
"If you mean did they rape me, no," said Scarlett, groaning as she tried to sit up. Though Melanie's lap was soft, the porch on which she was lying was far from comfortable. "But they've stolen everything, everything. We've lost everything -- Well, what is there to look so happy about?"
"We haven't lost each other and our babies are all right and we have a roof over our heads," said Melanie and there was a lilt in her voice. "And that's all anyone can hope for now. ... Goodness but Beau is wet! I suppose the Yankees even stole his extra diapers. He -- Scarlett, what on earth is in his diaper?"
She thrust a suddenly frightened hand down the baby's back and brought up the wallet. For a moment she looked at it as if she had never seen it before and then she began to laugh, peal on peal of mirth that had in it no hint of hysteria.
"Nobody but you would ever have thought of it," she cried and flinging her arms around Scarlett's neck she kissed her. "You are the beatenest sister I ever had!"
Scarlett permitted the embrace because she was too tired to struggle, because the words of praise brought balm to her spirit and because, in the dark smoke-filled kitchen, there had been born a greater respect for her sister-in-law, a closer feeling
of comradeship.
"I'll say this for her," she thought grudgingly, "she's always there when you need her."
CHAPTER XXVIII
COLD WEATHER set in abruptly with a killing frost Chilling winds swept beneath the doorsills and rattled the loose windowpanes with a monotonous tinkling sound. The last of the leaves fell from the bare trees and only the pines stood clothed, black and cold against pale skies. The rutted red roads were frozen to flintiness and hunger rode the winds through Georgia.
Scarlett recalled bitterly her conversation with Grandma Fontaine. On that afternoon two months ago, which now seemed years in the past, she had told the old lady she had already known the worst which could possibly happen to her, and she had spoken from the bottom of her heart. Now that remark sounded like schoolgirl hyperbole. Before Sherman's men came through Tara the second time, she had her small riches of food and money, she had neighbors more fortunate than she and she had the cotton which would tide her over until spring. Now the cotton was gone, the food was gone, the money was of no use to her, for there was no food to buy with it, and the neighbors were in worse plight than she. At least, she had the cow and the calf, a few shoats and the horse, and the neighbors had nothing but the little they had been able to hide in the woods and bury in the ground.
Fairhill, the Tarleton home, was burned to the foundations, and Mrs. Tarleton and the four girls were existing in the overseer's house. The Munroe house near Lovejoy was leveled too. The wooden wing of Mimosa had burned and only the thick resistant stucco of the main house and the frenzied work of the Fontaine women and their slaves with wet blankets and quilts had saved it The Calverts' house had again been spared, due to the intercession of Hilton, the Yankee overseer, but there was not a head of livestock, not a fowl, not an ear of corn left on the place.