Invited to meals and parties and fewer and fewer people came to

call on them. Scarlett disliked most of her neighbors and was too

busy with her mill to care about seeing the ones she did like, so

the lack of calls did not disturb her. But Frank felt it keenly.

All of his life, Frank had been under the domination of the phrase

"What will the neighbors say?" and he was defenseless against the

shocks of his wife's repeated disregard of the proprieties. He

felt that everyone disapproved of Scarlett and was contemptuous of

him for permitting her to "unsex herself." She did so many things

a husband should not permit, according to his views, but if he

ordered her to stop them, argued or even criticized, a storm broke

on his head.

"My! My!" he thought helplessly. "She can get mad quicker and

stay mad longer than any woman I ever saw!"

Even at the times when things were most pleasant, it was amazing

how completely and how quickly the teasing, affectionate wife who

hummed to herself as she went about the house could be transformed

into an entirely different person. He had only to say: "Sugar, if

I were you, I wouldn't--" and the tempest would break.

Her black brows rushed together to meet in a sharp angle over her

nose and Frank cowered, almost visibly. She had the temper of a

Tartar and the rages of a wild cat and, at such times, she did not

seem to care what she said or how much it hurt. Clouds of gloom

hung over the house on such occasions. Frank went early to the

store and stayed late. Pitty scrambled into her bedroom like a

rabbit panting for its burrow. Wade and Uncle Peter retired to the

carriage house and Cookie kept to her kitchen and forebore to raise

her voice to praise the Lord in song. Only Mammy endured

Scarlett's temper with equanimity and Mammy had had many years of

training with Gerald O'Hara and his explosions.

Scarlett did not mean to be short tempered and she really wanted to

make Frank a good wife, for she was fond of him and grateful for

his help in saving Tara. But he did try her patience to the

breaking point so often and in so many different ways.

She could never respect a man who let her run over him and the

timid, hesitant attitude he displayed in any unpleasant situation,

with her or with others, irritated her unbearably. But she could

have overlooked these things and even been happy, now that some of

her money problems were being solved, except for her constantly

renewed exasperation growing out of the many incidents which showed

that Frank was neither a good business man nor did he want her to

be a good business man.

As she expected, he had refused to collect the unpaid bills until

she prodded him into it, and then he had done it apologetically and

half heartedly. That experience was the final evidence she needed

to show her that the Kennedy family would never have more than a

bare living, unless she personally made the money she was

determined to have. She knew now that Frank would be contented to

dawdle along with his dirty little store for the rest of his life.

He didn't seem to realize what a slender fingerhold they had on

security and how important it was to make more money in these

troublous times when money was the only protection against fresh

calamities.

Frank might have been a successful business man in the easy days

before the war but he was so annoyingly old-fashioned, she thought,

and so stubborn about wanting to do things in the old ways, when

the old ways and the old days were gone. He was utterly lacking in

the aggressiveness needed in these new bitter times. Well, she had

the aggressiveness and she intended to use it, whether Frank liked

it or not. They needed money and she was making money and it was

hard work. The very least Frank could do, in her opinion, was not

to interfere with her plans which were getting results.

With her inexperience, operating the new mill was no easy job and

competition was keener now than it had been at first, so she was

usually tired and worried and cross when she came home at nights.

And when Frank would cough apologetically and say: "Sugar, I

wouldn't do this," or "I wouldn't do that, Sugar, if I were you,"

it was all she could do to restrain herself from flying into a

rage, and frequently she did not restrain herself. If he didn't

have the gumption to get out and make some money, why was he always

finding fault with her? And the things he nagged her about were so

silly! What difference did it make in times like these if she was

being unwomanly? Especially when her unwomanly sawmill was

bringing in money they needed so badly, she and the family and

Tara, and Frank too.

Frank wanted rest and quiet. The war in which he had served so

conscientiously had wrecked his health, cost him his fortune and

made him an old man. He regretted none of these things and after

four years of war, all he asked of life was peace and kindliness,

loving faces about him and the approval of friends. He soon found

that domestic peace had its price, and that price was letting

Scarlett have her own way, no matter what she might wish to do.

So, because he was tired, he bought peace at her own terms.

Sometimes, he thought it was worth it to have her smiling when she

opened the front door in the cold twilights, kissing him on the ear

or the nose or some other inappropriate place, to feel her head

snuggling drowsily on his shoulder at night under warm quilts.

Home life could be so pleasant when Scarlett was having her own

way. But the peace he gained was hollow, only an outward

semblance, for he had purchased it at the cost of everything he

held to be right in married life.

"A woman ought to pay more attention to her home and her family and

not be gadding about like a man," he thought. "Now, if she just

had a baby--"

He smiled when he thought of a baby and he thought of a baby very

often. Scarlett had been most outspoken about not wanting a child,

but then babies seldom waited to be invited. Frank knew that many

women said they didn't want babies but that was all foolishness and

fear. If Scarlett had a baby, she would love it and be content to

stay home and tend it like other women. Then she would be forced

to sell the mill and his problems would be ended. All women needed

babies to make them completely happy and Frank knew that Scarlett

was not happy. Ignorant as he was of women, he was not so blind

that he could not see she was unhappy at times.

Sometimes he awoke at night and heard the soft sound of tears

muffled in the pillow. The first time he had waked to feel the bed

shaking with her sobbing, he had questioned, in alarm: "Sugar,

what is it?" and had been rebuked by a passionate cry: "Oh, let me

alone!"

Yes, a baby would make her happy and would take her mind off things

she had no business fooling with. Sometimes Frank sighed, thinking

he had caught a tropic bird, all flame and jewel color, when a wren

would have served him just as well. In fact, much better.

CHAPTER XXXVII

It was on a wild wet night in April that Tony Fontaine rode in from

Jonesboro on a lathered horse that was half dead from exhaustion

and came knocking at their door, rousing her and Frank from sleep

with their hearts in their throats. Then for the second time in

four months, Scarlett was made to feel acutely what Reconstruction

in all its implications meant, made to understand more completely

what was in Will's mind when he said "Our troubles have just

begun," to know that the bleak words of Ashley, spoken in the wind-

swept orchard of Tara, were true: "This that's facing all of us is

worse than war--worse than prison--worse than death."

The first time she had come face to face with Reconstruction was

when she learned that Jonas Wilkerson with the aid of the Yankees

could evict her from Tara. But Tony's advent brought it all home

to her in a far more terrifying manner. Tony came in the dark and

the lashing rain and in a few minutes he was gone back into the

night forever, but in the brief interval between he raised the

curtain on a scene of new horror, a curtain that she felt

hopelessly would never be lowered again.

That stormy night when the knocker hammered on the door with such

hurried urgency, she stood on the landing, clutching her wrapper to

her and, looking down into the hall below, had one glimpse of

Tony's swarthy saturnine face before he leaned forward and blew out

the candle in Frank's hand. She hurried down in the darkness to

grasp his cold wet hand and hear him whisper: "They're after me--

going to Texas--my horse is about dead--and I'm about starved.

Ashley said you'd-- Don't light the candle! Don't wake the

darkies. . . . I don't want to get you folks in trouble if I can

help it."

With the kitchen blinds drawn and all the shades pulled down to the

sills, he permitted a light and he talked to Frank in swift jerky

sentences as Scarlett hurried about, trying to scrape together a

meal for him.

He was without a greatcoat and soaked to the skin. He was hatless

and his black hair was plastered to his little skull. But the

merriment of the Fontaine boys, a chilling merriment that night,

was in his little dancing eyes as he gulped down the whisky she

brought him. Scarlett thanked God that Aunt Pittypat was snoring

undisturbed upstairs. She would certainly swoon if she saw this

apparition.

"One damned bast--Scallawag less," said Tony, holding out his glass

for another drink. "I've ridden hard and it'll cost me my skin if

I don't get out of here quick, but it was worth it. By God, yes!

I'm going to try to get to Texas and lay low there. Ashley was

with me in Jonesboro and he told me to come to you all. Got to

have another horse, Frank, and some money. My horse is nearly

dead--all the way up here at a dead run--and like a fool I went out

of the house today like a bat out of hell without a coat or hat or

a cent of money. Not that there's much money in our house."

He laughed and applied himself hungrily to the cold corn pone and

cold turnip greens on which congealed grease was thick in white

flakes.

"You can have my horse," said Frank calmly. "I've only ten dollars

with me but if you can wait till morning--"

"Hell's afire, I can't wait!" said Tony, emphatically but jovially.

"They're probably right behind me. I didn't get much of a start.

If it hadn't been for Ashley dragging me out of there and making me

get on my horse, I'd have stayed there like a fool and probably had

my neck stretched by now. Good fellow, Ashley."

So Ashley was mixed up in this frightening puzzle. Scarlett went

cold, her hand at her throat. Did the Yankees have Ashley now?

Why, why didn't Frank ask what it was all about? Why did he take

it all so coolly, so much as a matter of course? She struggled to

get the question to her lips.

"What--" she began. "Who--"

"Your father's old overseer--that damned--Jonas Wilkerson."

"Did you--is he dead?"

"My God, Scarlett O'Hara!" said Tony peevishly. "When I start out

to cut somebody up, you don't think I'd be satisfied with

scratching him with the blunt side of my knife, do you? No, by

God, I cut him to ribbons."

"Good," said Frank casually. "I never liked the fellow."

Scarlett looked at him. This was not the meek Frank she knew, the

nervous beard clawer who she had learned could be bullied with such

ease. There was an air about him that was crisp and cool and he

was meeting the emergency with no unnecessary words. He was a man

and Tony was a man and this situation of violence was men's

business in which a woman had no part.

"But Ashley-- Did he--"

"No. He wanted to kill him but I told him it was my right, because

Sally is my sister-in-law, and he saw reason finally. He went into

Jonesboro with me, in case Wilkerson got me first. But I don't

think old Ash will get in any trouble about it. I hope not. Got

any jam for this corn pone? And can you wrap me up something to

take with me?"

"I shall scream if you don't tell me everything."

"Wait till I've gone and then scream if you've got to. I'll tell

you about it while Frank saddles the horse. That damned--Wilkerson

has caused enough trouble already. I know how he did you about

your taxes. That's just one of his meannesses. But the worst

thing was the way he kept the darkies stirred up. If anybody had

told me I'd ever live to see the day when I'd hate darkies! Damn

their black souls, they believe anything those scoundrels tell them

and forget every living thing we've done for them. Now the Yankees

are talking about letting the darkies vote. And they won't let us