Information, crowds massed about the telegraph office and the depot

hoping for tidings, good tidings, for everyone hoped that the

silence of Sherman's cannon meant that the Yankees were in full

retreat and the Confederates chasing them back up the road to

Dalton. But no news came. The telegraph wires were still, no

trains came in on the one remaining railroad from the south and the

mail service was broken.

Autumn with its dusty, breathless heat was slipping in to choke the

suddenly quiet town, adding its dry, panting weight to tired,

anxious hearts. To Scarlett, mad to hear from Tara, yet trying to

keep up a brave face, it seemed an eternity since the siege began,

seemed as though she had always lived with the sound of cannon in

her ears until this sinister quiet had fallen. And yet, it was

only thirty days since the siege began. Thirty days of siege! The

city ringed with red-clay rifle pits, the monotonous booming of

cannon that never rested, the long lines of ambulances and ox carts

dripping blood down the dusty streets toward the hospitals, the

overworked burial squads dragging out men when they were hardly

cold and dumping them like so many logs in endless rows of shallow

ditches. Only thirty days!

And it was only four months since the Yankees moved south from

Dalton! Only four months! Scarlett thought, looking back on that

far day, that it had occurred in another life. Oh, no! Surely not

just four months. It had been a lifetime.

Four months ago! Why, four months ago Dalton, Resaca, Kennesaw

Mountain had been to her only names of places on the railroad. Now

they were battles, battles desperately, vainly fought as Johnston

fell back toward Atlanta. And now, Peachtree Creek, Decatur, Ezra

Church and Utoy Creek were no longer pleasant names of pleasant

places. Never again could she think of them as quiet villages full

of welcoming friends, as green places where she picnicked with

handsome officers on the soft banks of slow-moving streams. These

names meant battles too, and the soft green grasses where she had

sat were cut to bits by heavy cannon wheels, trampled by desperate

feet when bayonet met bayonet and flattened where bodies threshed

In agonies. . . . And the lazy streams were redder now than ever

Georgia clay could make them. Peachtree Creek was crimson, so they

said, after the Yankees crossed it. Peachtree Creek, Decatur, Ezra

Church, Utoy Creek. Never names of places any more. Names of

graves where friends lay buried, names of tangled underbrush and

thick woods where bodies rotted unburied, names of the four sides

of Atlanta where Sherman had tried to force his army in and Hood's

men had doggedly beaten him back.

At last, news came from the south to the strained town and it was

alarming news, especially to Scarlett. General Sherman was trying

the fourth side of the town again, striking again at the railroad

at Jonesboro. Yankees in large numbers were on that fourth side of

the town now, no skirmishing units or cavalry detachments but the

massed Yankee forces. And thousands of Confederate troops had been

withdrawn from the lines close about the city to hurl themselves

against them. And that explained the sudden silence.

"Why Jonesboro?" thought Scarlett, terror striking at her heart at

the thought of Tara's nearness. "Why must they always hit

Jonesboro? Why can't they find some other place to attack the

railroad?"

For a week she had not heard from Tara and the last brief note from

Gerald had added to her fears. Carreen had taken a turn for the

worse and was very, very sick. Now it might be days before the

mails came through, days before she heard whether Carreen was alive

or dead. Oh, if she had only gone home at the beginning of the

siege, Melanie or no Melanie!

There was fighting at Jonesboro--that much Atlanta knew, but how

the battle went no one could tell and the most insane rumors

tortured the town. Finally a courier came up from Jonesboro with

the reassuring news that the Yankees had been beaten back. But

they had made a sortie into Jonesboro, burned the depot, cut the

telegraph wires and torn up three miles of track before they

retreated. The engineering corps was working like mad, repairing

the line, but it would take some time because the Yankees had torn

up the crossties, made bonfires of them, laid the wrenched-up rails

across them until they were red hot and then twisted them around

telegraph poles until they looked like giant corkscrews. These

days it was so hard to replace iron rails, to replace anything made

of iron.

No, the Yankees hadn't gotten to Tara. The same courier who

brought the dispatches to General Hood assured Scarlett of that.

He had met Gerald in Jonesboro after the battle, just as he was

starting to Atlanta, and Gerald had begged him to bring a letter to

her.

But what was Pa doing in Jonesboro? The young courier looked ill

at ease as he made answer. Gerald was hunting for an army doctor

to go to Tara with him.

As she stood in the sunshine on the front porch, thanking the young

man for his trouble, Scarlett felt her knees go weak. Carreen must

be dying if she was so far beyond Ellen's medical skill that Gerald

was hunting a doctor! As the courier went off in a small whirlwind

of red dust, Scarlett tore open Gerald's letter with fingers that

trembled. So great was the shortage of paper in the Confederacy

now that Gerald's note was written between the lines of her last

letter to him and reading it was difficult.

"Dear Daughter, Your Mother and both girls have the typhoid. They

are very ill but we must hope for the best. When your mother took

to her bed she bade me write you that under no condition were you

to come home and expose yourself and Wade to the disease. She

sends her love and bids you pray for her."

"Pray for her!" Scarlett flew up the stairs to her room and,

dropping on her knees by the bed, prayed as she had never prayed

before. No formal Rosaries now but the same words over and over:

"Mother of God, don't let her die! I'll be so good if you don't

let her die! Please, don't let her die!"

For the next week Scarlett crept about the house like a stricken

animal, waiting for news, starting at every sound of horses'

hooves, rushing down the dark stair at night when soldiers came

tapping at the door, but no news came from Tara. The width of the

continent might have spread between her and home instead of twenty-

five miles of dusty road.

The mails were still disrupted, no one knew where the Confederates

were or what the Yankees were up to. No one knew anything except

that thousands of soldiers, gray and blue, were somewhere between

Atlanta and Jonesboro. Not a word from Tara in a week.

Scarlett had seen enough typhoid in the Atlanta hospital to know

what a week meant in that dread disease. Ellen was ill, perhaps

dying, and here was Scarlett helpless in Atlanta with a pregnant

woman on her hands and two armies between her and home. Ellen was

ill--perhaps dying. But Ellen couldn't be ill! She had never been

ill. The very thought was incredible and it struck at the very

foundations of the security of Scarlett's life. Everyone else got

sick, but never Ellen. Ellen looked after sick people and made

them well again. She couldn't be sick. Scarlett wanted to be

home. She wanted Tara with the desperate desire of a frightened

child frantic for the only haven it had ever known.

Home! The sprawling white house with fluttering white curtains at

the windows, the thick clover on the lawn with the bees busy in it,

the little black boy on the front steps shooing the ducks and

turkeys from the flower beds, the serene red fields and the miles

and miles of cotton turning white in the sun! Home!

If she had only gone home at the beginning of the siege, when

everyone else was refugeeing! She could have taken Melanie with

her in safety with weeks to spare.

"Oh, damn Melanie!" she thought a thousand times. "Why couldn't

she have gone to Macon with Aunt Pitty? That's where she belongs,

with her own kinfolks, not with me. I'm none of her blood. Why

does she hang onto me so hard? If she'd only gone to Macon, then

I could have gone home to Mother. Even now--even now, I'd take a

chance on getting home in spite of the Yankees, if it wasn't for

this baby. Maybe General Hood would give me an escort. He's a

nice man, General Hood, and I know I could make him give me an

escort and a flag of truce to get me through the lines. But I have

to wait for this baby! . . . Oh, Mother! Mother! Don't die! . . .

Why don't this baby ever come? I'll see Dr. Meade today and ask

him if there's any way to hurry babies up so I can go home--if I

can get an escort. Dr. Meade said she'd have a bad time. Dear

God! Suppose she should die! Melanie dead. Melanie dead. And

Ashley-- No, I mustn't think about that, it isn't nice. But

Ashley-- No, I mustn't think about that because he's probably

dead, anyway. But he made me promise I'd take care of her. But--

if I didn't take care of her and she died and Ashley is still

alive-- No, I mustn't think about that. It's sinful. And I

promised God I'd be good if He would just not let Mother die. Oh,

if the baby would only come. If I could only get away from here--

get home--get anywhere but here."

Scarlett hated the sight of the ominously still town now and once

she had loved it. Atlanta was no longer the gay, the desperately

gay place she had loved. It was a hideous place like a plague-

stricken city so quiet, so dreadfully quiet after the din of the

siege. There had been stimulation in the noise and the danger of

the shelling. There was only horror in the quiet that followed.

The town seemed haunted, haunted with fear and uncertainty and

memories. People's faces looked pinched and the few soldiers

Scarlett saw wore the exhausted look of racers forcing themselves

on through the last lap of a race already lost.

The last day of August came and with it convincing rumors that the

fiercest fighting since the battle of Atlanta was taking place.

Somewhere to the south. Atlanta, waiting for news of the turn of

battle, stopped even trying to laugh and joke. Everyone knew now

what the soldiers had known two weeks before--that Atlanta was in

the last ditch, that if the Macon railroad fell, Atlanta would fall

too.

On the morning of the first of September, Scarlett awoke with a

suffocating sense of dread upon her, a dread she had taken to her

pillow the night before. She thought, dulled with sleep: "What

was it I was worrying about when I went to bed last night? Oh,

yes, the fighting. There was a battle, somewhere, yesterday! Oh,

who won?" She sat up hastily, rubbing her eyes, and her worried

heart took up yesterday's load again.

The air was oppressive even in the early morning hour, hot with the

scorching promise of a noon of glaring blue sky and pitiless bronze

sun. The road outside lay silent. No wagons creaked by. No

troops raised the red dust with their tramping feet. There were no

sounds of negroes' lazy voices in neighboring kitchens, no pleasant

sounds of breakfasts being prepared, for all the near neighbors

except Mrs. Meade and Mrs. Merriwether had refugeed to Macon. And

she could hear nothing from their houses either. Farther down the

street the business section was quiet and many of the stores and

offices were locked and boarded up, while their occupants were

somewhere about the countryside with rifles in their hands.

The stillness that greeted her seemed even more sinister this

morning than on any of the mornings of the queer quiet week

preceding it. She rose hastily, without her usual preliminary

burrowings and stretchings, and went to the window, hoping to see

some neighbor's face, some heartening sight. But the road was

empty. She noted how the leaves on the trees were still dark green

but dry and heavily coated with red dust, and how withered and sad

the untended flowers in the front yard looked.

As she stood, looking out of the window, there came to her ears a

far-off sound, faint and sullen as the first distant thunder of an

approaching storm.

"Rain," she thought in the first moment, and her country-bred mind

added, "we certainly need it." But, in a split instant: "Rain?

No! Not rain! Cannon!"

Her heart racing, she leaned from the window, her ear cocked to the

far-off roaring, trying to discover from which direction it came.

But the dim thundering was so distant that, for a moment, she could

not tell. "Make it from Marietta, Lord!" she prayed. "Or Decatur.

Or Peachtree Creek. But not from the south! Not from the south!"

She gripped the window still tighter and strained her ears and the

far-away booming seemed louder. And it was coming from the south.

Cannon to the south! And to the south lay Jonesboro and Tara--and

Ellen.

Yankees perhaps at Tara, now, this minute! She listened again but

the blood thudding in her ears all but blurred out the sound of

far-off firing. No, they couldn't be at Jonesboro yet. If they

were that far away, the sound would be fainter, more indistinct.

But they must be at least ten miles down the road toward Jonesboro,

probably near the little settlement of Rough and Ready. But

Jonesboro was scarcely more than ten miles below Rough and Ready.

Cannon to the south, and they might be tolling the knell of

Atlanta's fall. But to Scarlett, sick for her mother's safety,

fighting to the south only meant fighting near Tara. She walked

the floor and wrung her hands and for the first time the thought in

all its implications came to her that the gray army might be

defeated. It was the thought of Sherman's thousands so close to

Tara that brought it all home to her, brought the full horror of

the war to her as no sound of siege guns shattering windowpanes, no

privations of food and clothing and no endless rows of dying men

had done. Sherman's army within a few miles of Tara! And even if

the Yankees should be defeated, they might fall back down the road

to Tara. And Gerald couldn't possibly refugee out of their way

with three sick women.

Oh, if she were only there now, Yankees or not. She paced the

floor in her bare feet, her nightgown clinging to her legs and the

more she walked the stronger became her foreboding. She wanted to

be at home. She wanted to be near Ellen.

From the kitchen below, she heard the rattle of china as Prissy

prepared breakfast, but no sound of Mrs. Meade's Betsy. The

shrill, melancholy minor of Prissy was raised, "Jes' a few mo'

days, ter tote de wee-ry load . . ." The song grated on Scarlett,

its sad implications frightening her, and slipping on a wrapper she

pattered out into the hall and to the back stairs and shouted:

"Shut up that singing, Prissy!"

A sullen "Yas'm" drifted up to her and she drew a deep breath,

feeling suddenly ashamed of herself.

"Where's Betsy?"

"Ah doan know. She ain' came."

Scarlett walked to Melanie's door and opened it a crack, peering

into the sunny room. Melanie lay in bed in her nightgown, her eyes

closed and circled with black, her heart-shaped face bloated, her

slender body hideous and distorted. Scarlett wished viciously that

Ashley could see her now. She looked worse than any pregnant woman

she had ever seen. As she looked, Melanie's eyes opened and a soft

warm smile lit her face.

"Come in," she invited, turning awkwardly on her side. "I've been

awake since sun-up thinking, and, Scarlett, there's something I

want to ask you."

She entered the room and sat down on the bed that was glaring with

harsh sunshine.

Melanie reached out and took Scarlett's hand in a gentle confiding

clasp.

"Dear," she said, "I'm sorry about the cannon. It's toward

Jonesboro, isn't it?"

Scarlett said "Um," her heart beginning to beat faster as the

thought recurred.

"I know how worried you are. I know you'd have gone home last week

when you heard about your mother, if it hadn't been for me.

Wouldn't you?"

"Yes," said Scarlett ungraciously.

"Scarlett, darling. You've been so good to me. No sister could

have been sweeter or braver. And I love you for it. I'm so sorry

I'm in the way."

Scarlett stared. Loved her, did she? The fool!

"And Scarlett, I've been lying here thinking and I want to ask a

very great favor of you." Her clasp tightened. "If I should die,

will you take my baby?"

Melanie's eyes were wide and bright with soft urgency.

"Will you?"

Scarlett jerked away her hand as fear swamped her. Fear roughened

her voice as she spoke.

"Oh, don't be a goose, Melly. You aren't going to die. Every

woman thinks she's going to die with her first baby. I know I

did."

"No, you didn't. You've never been afraid of anything. You are

just saying that to try to cheer me up. I'm not afraid to die but

I'm so afraid to leave the baby, if Ashley is-- Scarlett, promise

me that you'll take my baby if I should die. Then I won't be

afraid. Aunt Pittypat is too old to raise a child and Honey and

India are sweet but--I want you to have my baby. Promise me,

Scarlett. And if it's a boy, bring him up like Ashley, and if it's

a girl--dear, I'd like her to be like you."

"God's nightgown!" cried Scarlett, leaping from the bed. "Aren't

things bad enough without you talking about dying?"

"I'm sorry, dear. But promise me. I think it'll be today. I'm

sure it'll be today. Please promise me."

"Oh, all right, I promise," said Scarlett, looking down at her in

bewilderment.

Was Melanie such a fool she really didn't know how she cared for

Ashley? Or did she know everything and feel that because of that

love, Scarlett would take good care of Ashley's child? Scarlett

had a wild impulse to cry out questions, but they died on her lips

as Melanie took her hand and held it for an instant against her

cheek. Tranquillity had come back into her eyes.

"Why do you think it will be today, Melly?"

"I've been having pains since dawn--but not very bad ones."

"You have? Well, why didn't you call me? I'll send Prissy for Dr.

Meade."

"No, don't do that yet, Scarlett. You know how busy he is, how

busy they all are. Just send word to him that we'll need him some

time today. Send over to Mrs. Meade's and tell her and ask her to

come over and sit with me. She'll know when to really send for

him."

"Oh, stop being so unselfish. You know you need a doctor as much

as anybody in the hospital. I'll send for him right away."

"No, please don't. Sometimes it takes all day having a baby and I

just couldn't let the doctor sit here for hours when all those poor

boys need him so much. Just send for Mrs. Meade. She'll know."

"Oh, all right," said Scarlett.

CHAPTER XXI

After sending up Melanie's breakfast tray, Scarlett dispatched

Prissy for Mrs. Meade and sat down with Wade to eat her own

breakfast. But for once she had no appetite. Between her nervous

apprehension over the thought that Melanie's time was approaching

and her unconscious straining to hear the sound of the cannon, she

could hardly eat. Her heart acted very queerly, beating regularly

for several minutes and then thumping so loudly and swiftly it

almost made her sick at her stomach. The heavy hominy stuck in her

throat like glue and never before had the mixture of parched corn

and ground-up yams that passed for coffee been so repulsive.

Without sugar or cream it was bitter as gall, for the sorghum used

for "long sweetening" did little to improve the taste. After one

swallow she pushed her cup away. If for no other reason she hated

the Yankees because they kept her from having real coffee with

sugar and thick cream in it.

Wade was quieter than usual and did not set up his every morning

complaint against the hominy that he so disliked. He ate silently

the spoonfuls she pushed into his mouth and washed them down with

noisily gulped water. His soft brown eyes followed her every

movement, large, round as dollars, a childish bewilderment in them

as though her own scarce-hidden fears had been communicated to him.

When he had finished she sent him off to the back yard to play and

watched him toddle across the straggling grass to his playhouse

with great relief.

She arose and stood irresolutely at the foot of the stairs. She

should go up and sit with Melanie and distract her mind from her

coming ordeal but she did not feel equal to it. Of all days in the

world, Melanie had to pick this day to have the baby! And of all

days to talk about dying!

She sat down on the bottom step of the stairs and tried to compose

herself, wondering again how yesterday's battle had gone, wondering

how today's fighting was going. How strange to have a big battle

going on just a few miles away and to know nothing of it! How

strange the quiet of this deserted end of town in contrast with the

day of the fighting at Peachtree Creek! Aunt Pitty's house was one

of the last on the north side of Atlanta and with the fighting

somewhere to the far south, there were no reinforcements going by

at double-quick, no ambulances and staggering lines of walking

wounded coming back. She wondered if such scenes were being

enacted on the south side of town and thanked God she was not

there. If only everyone except the Meades and the Merriwethers had

not refugeed from this north end of Peachtree! It made her feel

forsaken and alone. She wished fervently that Uncle Peter were

with her so he could go down to headquarters and learn the news.

If it wasn't for Melanie she'd go to town this very minute and

learn for herself, but she couldn't leave until Mrs. Meade arrived.

Mrs. Meade. Why didn't she come on? And where was Prissy?

She rose and went out onto the front porch and looked for them

impatiently, but the Meade house was around a shady bend in the

street and she could see no one. After a long while Prissy came

into view, alone, switching her skirts from side to side and

looking over her shoulder to observe the effect.

"You're as slow as molasses in January," snapped Scarlett as Prissy

opened the gate. "What did Mrs. Meade say? How soon will she be

over here?"

"She warn't dar," said Prissy.

"Where is she? When will she be home?"

"Well'm," answered Prissy, dragging out her words pleasurably to

give more weight to her message. "Dey Cookie say Miss Meade done

got wud early dis mawnin' dat young Mist' Phil done been shot an'

Miss Meade she tuck de cah'ige an' Ole Talbot an' Betsy an' dey

done gone ter fotch him home. Cookie say he bad hurt an' Miss

Meade ain' gwine ter be studyin' 'bout comin' up hyah."

Scarlett stared at her and had an impulse to shake her. Negroes

were always so proud of being the bearers of evil tidings.

"Well, don't stand there like a ninny. Go down to Mrs.

Merriwether's and ask her to come up or send her mammy. Now,

hurry."

"Dey ain' dar, Miss Scarlett. Ah drapped in ter pass time of de

day wid Mammy on mah way home. Dey's done gone. House all locked

up. Spec dey's at de horsepittle."

"So that's where you were so long! Whenever I send you somewhere

you go where I tell you and don't stop to 'pass any time' with

anybody. Go--"

She stopped and racked her brain. Who was left in town among their

friends who would be helpful? There was Mrs. Elsing. Of course,

Mrs. Elsing didn't like her at all these days but she had always

been fond of Melanie.

"Go to Mrs. Elsing's, and explain everything very carefully and

tell her to please come up here. And, Prissy, listen to me. Miss

Melly's baby is due and she may need you any minute now. Now you

hurry right straight back."

"Yas'm," said Prissy and, turning, sauntered down the walk at

snail's gait.

"Hurry, you slow poke!"

"Yas'm."

Prissy quickened her gait infinitesimally and Scarlett went back