In the stable."

"Dey ain' no stable, Miss Scarlett. Dey use it fer fiah wood."

"Don't tell me any more what 'They' did. Tell Dilcey to look after

them. And you, Pork, go dig up that whisky and then some

potatoes."

"But, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain' got no light ter dig by."

"You can use a stick of firewood, can't you?"

"Dey ain' no fiah wood--Dey--"

"Do something. . . . I don't care what. But dig those things and

dig them fast. Now, hurry."

Pork scurried from the room as her voice roughened and Scarlett was

left alone with Gerald. She patted his leg gently. She noted how

shrunken were the thighs that once bulged with saddle muscles. She

must do something to drag him from his apathy--but she could not

ask about Mother. That must come later, when she could stand it.

"Why didn't they burn Tara?"

Gerald stared at her for a moment as if not hearing her and she

repeated her question.

"Why--" he fumbled, "they used the house as a headquarters."

"Yankees--in this house?"

A feeling that the beloved walls had been defiled rose in her.

This house, sacred because Ellen had lived in it, and those--those--

in it.

"So they were, Daughter. We saw the smoke from Twelve Oaks, across

the river, before they came. But Miss Honey and Miss India and

some of their darkies had refugeed to Macon, so we did not worry

about them. But we couldn't be going to Macon. The girls were so

sick--your mother--we couldn't be going. Our darkies ran--I'm not

knowing where. They stole the wagons and the mules. Mammy and

Dilcey and Pork--they didn't run. The girls--your mother--we

couldn't be moving them."

"Yes, yes." He mustn't talk about Mother. Anything else. Even

that General Sherman himself had used this room, Mother's office,

for his headquarters. Anything else.

"The Yankees were moving on Jonesboro, to cut the railroad. And

they came up the road from the river--thousands and thousands--and

cannon and horses--thousands. I met them on the front porch."

"Oh, gallant little Gerald!" thought Scarlett, her heart swelling,

Gerald meeting the enemy on the stairs of Tara as if an army stood

behind him instead of in front of him.

"They said for me to leave, that they would be burning the place.

And I said that they would be burning it over my head. We could

not leave--the girls--your mother were--"

"And then?" Must he revert to Ellen always?

"I told them there was sickness in the house, the typhoid, and it

was death to move them. They could burn the roof over us. I did

not want to leave anyway--leave Tara--"

His voice trailed off into silence as he looked absently about the

walls and Scarlett understood. There were too many Irish ancestors

crowding behind Gerald's shoulders, men who had died on scant

acres, fighting to the end rather than leave the homes where they

had lived, plowed, loved, begotten sons.

"I said that they would be burning the house over the heads of

three dying women. But we would not leave. The young officer was--

was a gentleman."

"A Yankee a gentleman? Why, Pa!"

"A gentleman. He galloped away and soon he was back with a

captain, a surgeon, and he looked at the girls--and your mother."

"You let a damned Yankee into their room?"

"He had opium. We had none. He saved your sisters. Suellen was

hemorrhaging. He was as kind as he knew how. And when he reported

that they were--ill--they did not burn the house. They moved in,

some general, his staff, crowding in. They filled all the rooms

except the sick room. And the soldiers--"

He paused again, as if too tired to go on. His stubbly chin sank

heavily in loose folds of flesh on his chest. With an effort he

spoke again.

"They camped all round the house, everywhere, in the cotton, in the

corn. The pasture was blue with them. That night there were a

thousand campfires. They tore down the fences and burned them to

cook with and the barns and the stables and the smokehouse. They

killed the cows and the hogs and the chickens--even my turkeys."

Gerald's precious turkeys. So they were gone. "They took things,

even the pictures--some of the furniture, the china--"

"The silver?"

"Pork and Mammy did something with the silver--put it in the well--

but I'm not remembering now," Gerald's voice was fretful. "Then

they fought the battle from here--from Tara--there was so much

noise, people galloping up and stamping about. And later the

cannon at Jonesboro--it sounded like thunder--even the girls could

hear it, sick as they were, and they kept saying over and over:

'Papa, make it stop thundering.'"

"And--and Mother? Did she know Yankees were in the house?"

"She--never knew anything."

"Thank God," said Scarlett. Mother was spared that. Mother never

knew, never heard the enemy in the rooms below, never heard the

guns at Jonesboro, never learned that the land which was part of

her heart was under Yankee feet.

"I saw few of them for I stayed upstairs with the girls and your

mother. I saw the young surgeon mostly. He was kind, so kind,

Scarlett. After he'd worked all day with the wounded, he came and

sat with them. He even left some medicine. He told me when they

moved on that the girls would recover but your mother-- She was so

frail, he said--too frail to stand it all. He said she had

undermined her strength. . . ."