Into the dark hall and up the winding steps toward Gerald's room.

The room where Suellen and Carreen lay mumbling and tossing on the

same bed stank vilely with the smell of the twisted rag burning in

a saucer of bacon fat, which provided the only light. When

Scarlett first opened the door the thick atmosphere of the room,

with all windows closed and the air reeking with sick-room odors,

medicine smells and stinking grease, almost made her faint.

Doctors might say that fresh air was fatal in a sick room but if

she were to sit here, she must have air or die. She opened the

three windows, bringing in the smell of oak leaves and earth, but

the fresh air could do little toward dispelling the sickening odors

which had accumulated for weeks in this close room.

Carreen and Suellen, emaciated and white, slept brokenly and awoke

to mumble with wide, staring eyes in the tall four-poster bed where

they had whispered together in better, happier days. In the corner

of the room was an empty bed, a narrow French Empire bed with

curling head and foot, a bed which Ellen had brought from Savannah.

This was where Ellen had lain.

Scarlett sat beside the two girls, staring at them stupidly. The

whisky taken on a stomach long empty was playing tricks on her.

Sometimes her sisters seemed far away and tiny and their incoherent

voices came to her like the buzz of insects. And again, they

loomed large, rushing at her with lightning speed. She was tired,

tired to the bone. She could lie down and sleep for days.

If she could only lie down and sleep and wake to feel Ellen gently

shaking her arm and saying: "It is late, Scarlett. You must not

be so lazy." But she could not ever do that again. If there were

only Ellen, someone older than she, wiser and unweary, to whom she

could go! Someone in whose lap she could lay her head, someone on

whose shoulders she could rest her burdens!

The door opened softly and Dilcey entered, Melanie's baby held to

her breast, the gourd of whisky in her hand. In the smoky,

uncertain light, she seemed thinner than when Scarlett last saw her

and the Indian blood was more evident in her face. The high cheek

bones were more prominent, the hawk-bridged nose was sharper and

her copper skin gleamed with a brighter hue. Her faded calico

dress was open to the waist and her large bronze breast exposed.

Held close against her, Melanie's baby pressed his pale rosebud

mouth greedily to the dark nipple, sucking, gripping tiny fists

against the soft flesh like a kitten in the warm fur of its

mother's belly.

Scarlett rose unsteadily and put a hand on Dilcey's arm.

"It was good of you to stay, Dilcey."

"How could I go off wid them trashy niggers, Miss Scarlett, after

yo' pa been so good to buy me and my little Prissy and yo' ma been

so kine?"

"Sit down, Dilcey. The baby can eat all right, then? And how is

Miss Melanie?"

"Nuthin' wrong wid this chile 'cept he hongry, and whut it take to

feed a hongry chile I got. No'm, Miss Melanie is all right. She

ain' gwine die, Miss Scarlett. Doan you fret yo'seff. I seen too

many, white and black, lak her. She mighty tired and nervous like

and scared fo' this baby. But I hesh her and give her some of whut

was lef' in that go'de and she sleepin'."

So the corn whisky had been used by the whole family! Scarlett

thought hysterically that perhaps she had better give a drink to

little Wade and see if it would stop his hiccoughs-- And Melanie

would not die. And when Ashley came home--if he did come home . . .

No, she would think of that later too. So much to think of--

later! So many things to unravel--to decide. If only she could

put off the hour of reckoning forever! She started suddenly as a

creaking noise and a rhythmic "Ker-bunk--ker-bunk--" broke the

stillness of the air outside.

"That's Mammy gettin' the water to sponge off the young Misses.

They takes a heap of bathin'," explained Dilcey, propping the gourd

on the table between medicine bottles and a glass.

Scarlett laughed suddenly. Her nerves must be shredded if the

noise of the well windlass, bound up in her earliest memories,

could frighten her. Dilcey looked at her steadily as she laughed,

her face immobile in its dignity, but Scarlett felt that Dilcey

understood. She sank back in her chair. If she could only be rid

of her tight stays, the collar that choked her and the slippers

still full of sand and gravel that blistered her feet.

The windlass creaked slowly as the rope wound up, each creak

bringing the bucket nearer the top. Soon Mammy would be with her--

Ellen's Mammy, her Mammy. She sat silent, intent on nothing, while

the baby, already glutted with milk, whimpered because he had lost

the friendly nipple. Dilcey, silent too, guided the child's mouth

back, quieting him in her arms as Scarlett listened to the slow

scuffing of Mammy's feet across the back yard. How still the night

air was! The slightest sounds roared in her ears.

The upstairs hall seemed to shake as Mammy's ponderous weight came

toward the door. Then Mammy was in the room, Mammy with shoulders

dragged down by two heavy wooden buckets, her kind black face sad

with the uncomprehending sadness of a monkey's face.

Her eyes lighted up at the sight of Scarlett, her white teeth

gleamed as she set down the buckets, and Scarlett ran to her,

laying her head on the broad, sagging breasts which had held so

many heads, black and white. Here was something of stability,

thought Scarlett, something of the old life that was unchanging.

But Mammy's first words dispelled this illusion.

"Mammy's chile is home! Oh, Miss Scarlett, now dat Miss Ellen's in

de grabe, whut is we gwine ter do? Oh, Miss Scarlett, effen Ah wuz

jes' daid longside Miss Ellen! Ah kain make out widout Miss Ellen.

Ain' nuthin' lef' now but mizry an' trouble. Jes' weery loads,

honey, jes' weery loads."

As Scarlett lay with her head hugged close to Mammy's breast, two

words caught her attention, "weery loads." Those were the words

which had hummed in her brain that afternoon so monotonously they

had sickened her. Now, she remembered the rest of the song,

remembered with a sinking heart:

"Just a few more days for to tote the weary load!

No matter, 'twill never be light!

Just a few more days till we totter in the road--"

"No matter, 'twill never be light"--she took the words to her tired

mind. Would her load never be light? Was coming home to Tara to

mean, not blessed surcease, but only more loads to carry? She

slipped from Mammy's arms and, reaching up, patted the wrinkled

black face.

"Honey, yo' han's!" Mammy took the small hands with their blisters

and blood clots in hers and looked at them with horrified

disapproval. "Miss Scarlett, Ah done tole you an' tole you dat you

kin allus tell a lady by her han's an'--yo' face sunbuhnt too!"

Poor Mammy, still the martinet about such unimportant things even

though war and death had just passed over her head! In another

moment she would be saying that young Misses with blistered hands

and freckles most generally didn't never catch husbands and

Scarlett forestalled the remark.

"Mammy, I want you to tell me about Mother. I couldn't bear to

hear Pa talk about her."

Tears started from Mammy's eyes as she leaned down to pick up the

buckets. In silence she carried them to the bedside and, turning

down the sheet, began pulling up the night clothes of Suellen and

Carreen. Scarlett, peering at her sisters in the dim flaring

light, saw that Carreen wore a nightgown, clean but in tatters, and

Suellen lay wrapped in an old negligee, a brown linen garment heavy

with tagging ends of Irish lace. Mammy cried silently as she

sponged the gaunt bodies, using the remnant of an old apron as a

cloth.

"Miss Scarlett, it wuz dem Slatterys, dem trashy, no-good, low-down

po'-w'ite Slatterys dat kilt Miss Ellen. Ah done tole her an' tole

her it doan do no good doin' things fer trashy folks, but Miss

Ellen wuz so sot in her ways an' her heart so sof' she couldn'

never say no ter nobody whut needed her."

"Slatterys?" questioned Scarlett, bewildered. "How do they come

in?"

"Dey wuz sick wid disyere thing," Mammy gestured with her rag to

the two naked girls, dripping with water on their damp sheet. "Ole

Miss Slattery's gal, Emmie, come down wid it an' Miss Slattery come

hotfootin' it up hyah affer Miss Ellen, lak she allus done w'en

anything wrong. Why din' she nuss her own? Miss Ellen had mo'n

she could tote anyways. But Miss Ellen she went down dar an' she

nuss Emmie. An' Miss Ellen wuzn' well a-tall herseff, Miss

Scarlett. Yo' ma hadn' been well fer de longes'. Dey ain' been

too much ter eat roun' hyah, wid de commissary stealin' eve'y thing

us growed. An' Miss Ellen eat lak a bird anyways. An' Ah tole her

an' tole her ter let dem w'ite trash alone, but she din' pay me no

mine. Well'm, 'bout de time Emmie look lak she gittin' better,

Miss Carreen come down wid it. Yas'm, de typhoy fly right up de

road an' ketch Miss Carreen, an' den down come Miss Suellen. So

Miss Ellen, she tuck an' nuss dem too.

"Wid all de fightin' up de road an' de Yankees 'cross de river an'

us not knowin' whut wuz gwine ter happen ter us an' de fe'el han's

runnin' off eve'y night, Ah's 'bout crazy. But Miss Ellen jes' as

cool as a cucumber. 'Cept she wuz worried ter a ghos' 'bout de

young Misses kase we couldn' git no medicines nor nuthin'. An' one

night she say ter me affer we done sponge off de young Misses 'bout

ten times, she say, 'Mammy, effen Ah could sell mah soul, Ah'd sell