Ignoring his hint that she should sell. "Mr. Johnson says he never

knows when he comes to work in the morning whether he'll have a

full crew or not. You just can't depend on the darkies any more.

They work a day or two and then lay off till they've spent their

wages, and the whole crew is like as not to quit overnight. The

more I see of emancipation the more criminal I think it is. It's

just ruined the darkies. Thousands of them aren't working at all

and the ones we can get to work at the mill are so lazy and

shiftless they aren't worth having. And if you so much as swear at

them, much less hit them a few licks for the good of their souls,

the Freedmen's Bureau is down on you like a duck on a June bug."

"Sugar, you aren't letting Mr. Johnson beat those--"

"Of course not," she returned impatiently. "Didn't I just say the

Yankees would put me in jail if I did?"

"I'll bet your pa never hit a darky a lick in his life," said

Frank.

"Well, only one. A stable boy who didn't rub down his horse after

a day's hunt. But, Frank; it was different then. Free issue

niggers are something else, and a good whipping would do some of

them a lot of good."

Frank was not only amazed at his wife's views and her plans but at

the change which had come over her in the few months since their

marriage. This wasn't the soft, sweet, feminine person he had

taken to wife. In the brief period of the courtship, he thought he

had never known a woman more attractively feminine in her reactions

to life, ignorant, timid and helpless. Now her reactions were all

masculine. Despite her pink cheeks and dimples and pretty smiles,

she talked and acted like a man. Her voice was brisk and decisive

and she made up her mind instantly and with no girlish shilly-

shallying. She knew what she wanted and she went after it by the

shortest route, like a man, not by the hidden and circuitous routes

peculiar to women.

It was not that Frank had never seen commanding women before this.

Atlanta, like all Southern towns, had its share of dowagers whom no

one cared to cross. No one could be more dominating than stout

Mrs. Merriwether, more imperious than frail Mrs. Elsing, more

artful in securing her own ends than the silver-haired sweet-voiced

Mrs. Whiting. But no matter what devices these ladies employed in

order to get their own way, they were always feminine devices.

They made a point of being deferential to men's opinions, whether

they were guided by them or not. They had the politeness to appear

to be guided by what men said, and that was what mattered. But

Scarlett was guided by no one but herself and was conducting her

affairs in a masculine way which had the whole town talking about

her.

"And," thought Frank miserably, "probably talking about me too, for

letting her act so unwomanly."

Then, there was that Butler man. His frequent calls at Aunt

Pitty's house were the greatest humiliation of all. Frank had

always disliked him, even when he had done business with him before

the war. He often cursed the day he had brought Rhett to Twelve

Oaks and introduced him to his friends. He despised him for the

cold-blooded way he had acted in his speculations during the war

and for the fact that he had not been in the army. Rhett's eight

months' service with the Confederacy was known only to Scarlett,

for Rhett had begged her, with mock fear, not to reveal his "shame"

to anyone. Most of all Frank had contempt for him for holding on

to the Confederate gold, when honest men like Admiral Bulloch and

others confronted with the same situation had turned back thousands

to the Federal treasury. But whether Frank liked it or not, Rhett

was a frequent caller.

Ostensibly it was Miss Pitty he came to see and she had no better

sense than to believe it and give herself airs over his visits.

But Frank had an uncomfortable feeling that Miss Pitty was not the

attraction which brought him. Little Wade was very fond of him,

though the boy was shy of most people, and even called him "Uncle

Rhett," which annoyed Frank. And Frank could not help remembering

that Rhett had squired Scarlett about during the war days and there

had been talk about them then. He imagined there might be even

worse talk about them now. None of his friends had the courage to

mention anything of this sort to Frank, for all their outspoken

words on Scarlett's conduct in the matter of the mill. But he

could not help noticing that he and Scarlett were less frequently