Indifference to material wants. Dr. Meade could tell unlovely

stories of those families who had been driven from mansions to

boarding houses and from boarding houses to dingy rooms on back

streets. He had too many lady patients who were suffering from

"weak hearts" and "declines." He knew, and they knew he knew, that

slow starvation was the trouble. He could tell of consumption

making inroads on entire families and of pellagra, once found only

among poor whites, which was now appearing in Atlanta's best

families. And there were babies with thin rickety legs and mothers

who could not nurse them. Once the old doctor had been wont to

thank God reverently for each child he brought into the world. Now

he did not think life was such a boon. It was a hard world for

little babies and so many died in their first few months of life.

Bright lights and wine, fiddles and dancing, brocade and broadcloth

In the showy big houses and, just around the corners, slow

starvation and cold. Arrogance and callousness for the conquerors,

bitter endurance and hatred for the conquered.

CHAPTER XXXVIII

Scarlett saw it all, lived with it by day, took it to bed with her

at night, dreading always what might happen next. She knew that

she and Frank were already in the Yankees' black books, because of

Tony, and disaster might descend on them at any hour. But, now of

all times, she could not afford to be pushed back to her

beginnings--not now with a baby coming, the mill just commencing to

pay and Tara depending on her for money until the cotton came in in

the fall. Oh, suppose she should lose everything! Suppose she

should have to start all over again with only her puny weapons

against this mad world! To have to pit her red lips and green eyes

and her shrewd shallow brain against the Yankees and everything the

Yankees stood for. Weary with dread, she felt that she would

rather kill herself than try to make a new beginning.

In the ruin and chaos of that spring of 1866, she single mindedly

turned her energies to making the mill pay. There was money in

Atlanta. The wave of rebuilding was giving her the opportunity she

wanted and she knew she could make money if only she could stay out

of jail. But, she told herself time and again, she would have to

walk easily, gingerly, be meek under insults, yielding to

injustices, never giving offense to anyone, black or white, who

might do her harm. She hated the impudent free negroes as much as

anyone and her flesh crawled with fury every time she heard their

insulting remarks and high-pitched laughter as she went by. But

she never even gave them a glance of contempt. She hated the

Carpetbaggers and Scallawags who were getting rich with ease while

she struggled, but she said nothing in condemnation of them. No

one in Atlanta could have loathed the Yankees more than she, for

the very sight of a blue uniform made her sick with rage, but even

in the privacy of her family she kept silent about them.

I won't be a big-mouthed fool, she thought grimly. Let others

break their hearts over the old days and the men who'll never come

back. Let others burn with fury over the Yankee rule and losing

the ballot. Let others go to jail for speaking their minds and get

themselves hanged for being in the Ku Klux Klan. (Oh, what a

dreaded name that was, almost as terrifying to Scarlett as to the

negroes.) Let other women be proud that their husbands belonged.

Thank God, Frank had never been mixed up in it! Let others stew

and fume and plot and plan about things they could not help. What

did the past matter compared with the tense present and the dubious

future? What did the ballot matter when bread, a roof and staying

out of jail were the real problems? And, please God, just let me

stay out of trouble until June!

Only till June! By that month Scarlett knew she would be forced to

retire into Aunt Pitty's house and remain secluded there until

after her child was born. Already people were criticizing her for

appearing in public when she was in such a condition. No lady ever

showed herself when she was pregnant. Already Frank and Pitty were

begging her not to expose herself--and them--to embarrassment and

she had promised them to stop work in June.

Only till June! By June she must have the mill well enough

established for her to leave it. By June she must have money

enough to give her at least some little protection against

misfortune. So much to do and so little time to do it! She wished

for more hours of the day and counted the minutes, as she strained

forward feverishly in her pursuit of money and still more money.

Because she nagged the timid Frank, the store was doing better now

and he was even collecting some of the old bills. But it was the

sawmill on which her hopes were pinned. Atlanta these days was

like a giant plant which had been cut to the ground but now was

springing up again with sturdier shoots, thicker foliage, more

numerous branches. The demand for building materials was far

greater than could be supplied. Prices of lumber, brick and stone

soared and Scarlett kept the mill running from dawn until lantern

light.

A part of every day she spent at the mill, prying into everything,

doing her best to check the thievery she felt sure was going on.

But most of the time she was riding about the town, making the

rounds of builders, contractors and carpenters, even calling on

strangers she had heard might build at future dates, cajoling them