Into promises of buying from her and her only.

Soon she was a familiar sight on Atlanta's streets, sitting in her

buggy beside the dignified, disapproving old darky driver, a lap

robe pulled high about her, her little mittened hands clasped in

her lap. Aunt Pitty had made her a pretty green mantelet which hid

her figure and a green pancake hat which matched her eyes, and she

always wore these becoming garments on her business calls. A faint

dab of rouge on her cheeks and a fainter fragrance of cologne made

her a charming picture, as long as she did not alight from the

buggy and show her figure. And there was seldom any need for this,

for she smiled and beckoned and the men came quickly to the buggy

and frequently stood bareheaded in the rain to talk business with

her.

She was not the only one who had seen the opportunities for making

money out of lumber, but she did not fear her competitors. She

knew with conscious pride in her own smartness that she was the

equal of any of them. She was Gerald's own daughter and the shrewd

trading instinct she had inherited was now sharpened by her needs.

At first the other dealers had laughed at her, laughed with good-

natured contempt at the very idea of a woman in business. But now

they did not laugh. They swore silently as they saw her ride by.

The fact that she was a woman frequently worked in her favor, for

she could upon occasion look so helpless and appealing that she

melted hearts. With no difficulty whatever she could mutely convey

the impression of a brave but timid lady, forced by brutal

circumstance into a distasteful position, a helpless little lady

who would probably starve if customers didn't buy her lumber. But

when ladylike airs failed to get results she was coldly businesslike

and willingly undersold her competitors at a loss to herself if it

would bring her a new customer. She was not above selling a poor

grade of lumber for the price of good lumber if she thought she

would not be detected, and she had no scruples about black-guarding

the other lumber dealers. With every appearance of reluctance at

disclosing the unpleasant truth, she would sigh and tell prospective

customers that her competitors' lumber was far too high in price,

rotten, full of knot holes and in general of deplorably poor

quality.

The first time Scarlett lied in this fashion she felt disconcerted

and guilty--disconcerted because the lie sprang so easily and

naturally to her lips, guilty because the thought flashed into her

mind: What would Mother say?

There was no doubt what Ellen would say to a daughter who told lies

and engaged in sharp practices. She would be stunned and

incredulous and would speak gentle words that stung despite their

gentleness, would talk of honor and honesty and truth and duty to

one's neighbor. Momentarily, Scarlett cringed as she pictured the

look on her mother's face. And then the picture faded, blotted out

by an impulse, hard, unscrupulous and greedy, which had been born

in the lean days at Tara and was now strengthened by the present

uncertainty of life. So she passed this milestone as she had

passed others before it--with a sigh that she was not as Ellen

would like her to be, a shrug and the repetition of her unfailing

charm: "I'll think of all this later."

But she never again thought of Ellen in connection with her

business practices, never again regretted any means she used to

take trade away from other lumber dealers. She knew she was

perfectly safe in lying about them. Southern chivalry protected

her. A Southern lady could lie about a gentleman but a Southern

gentleman could not lie about a lady or, worse still, call the lady

a liar. Other lumbermen could only fume inwardly and state

heatedly, in the bosoms of their families, that they wished to God

Mrs. Kennedy was a man for just about five minutes.

One poor white who operated a mill on the Decatur road did try to

fight Scarlett with her own weapons, saying openly that she was a

liar and a swindler. But it hurt him rather than helped, for

everyone was appalled that even a poor white should say such

shocking things about a lady of good family, even when the lady was

conducting herself in such an unwomanly way. Scarlett bore his

remarks with silent dignity and, as time went by, she turned all

her attention to him and his customers. She undersold him so

relentlessly and delivered, with secret groans, such an excellent

quality of lumber to prove her probity that he was soon bankrupt.

Then, to Frank's horror, she triumphantly bought his mill at her

own price.

Once in her possession there arose the perplexing problem of

finding a trustworthy man to put in charge of it. She did not want

another man like Mr. Johnson. She knew that despite all her

watchfulness he was still selling her lumber behind her back, but

she thought it would be easy to find the right sort of man. Wasn't

everybody as poor as Job's turkey, and weren't the streets full of

men, some of them formerly rich, who were without work? The day

never went by that Frank did not give money to some hungry ex-

soldier or that Pitty and Cookie did not wrap up food for gaunt

beggars.

But Scarlett, for some reason she could not understand, did not

want any of these. "I don't want men who haven't found something

to do after a year," she thought. "If they haven't adjusted to

peace yet, they couldn't adjust to me. And they all look so

hangdog and licked. I don't want a man who's licked. I want

somebody who's smart and energetic like Renny or Tommy Wellburn or

Kells Whiting or one of the Simmons boys or--or any of that tribe.

They haven't got that I-don't-care-about-anything look the soldiers

had right after the surrender. They look like they cared a heap

about a heap of things."

But to her surprise the Simmons boys, who had started a brick kiln,

and Kells Whiting, who was selling a preparation made up in his

mother's kitchen, that was guaranteed to straighten the kinkiest

negro hair in six applications, smiled politely, thanked her and

refused. It was the same with the dozen others she approached. In

desperation she raised the wage she was offering but she was still

refused. One of Mrs. Merriwether's nephews observed impertinently

that while he didn't especially enjoy driving a dray, it was his

own dray and he would rather get somewhere under his own steam than

Scarlett's.

One afternoon, Scarlett pulled up her buggy beside Rene Picard's

pie wagon and hailed Rene and the crippled Tommy Wellburn, who was

catching a ride home with his friend.

"Look here, Renny, why don't you come and work for me? Managing a

mill is a sight more respectable than driving a pie wagon. I'd

think you'd be ashamed."

"Me, I am dead to shame," grinned Rene. "Who would be respectable?

All of my days I was respectable until ze war set me free lak ze

darkies. Nevaire again must I be deegneefied and full of ennui.

Free lak ze bird! I lak my pie wagon. I lak my mule. I lak ze

dear Yankees who so kindly buy ze pie of Madame Belle Mere. No, my

Scarlett, I must be ze King of ze Pies. Eet ees my destiny! Lak

Napoleon, I follow my star." He flourished his whip dramatically.

"But you weren't raised to sell pies any more than Tommy was raised

to wrastle with a bunch of wild Irish masons. My kind of work is

more--"

"And I suppose you were raised to run a lumber mill," said Tommy,

the corners of his mouth twitching. "Yes, I can just see little

Scarlett at her mother's knee, lisping her lesson, 'Never sell good

lumber if you can get a better price for bad.'"

Rene roared at this, his small monkey eyes dancing with glee as he

whacked Tommy on his twisted back.

"Don't be impudent," said Scarlett coldly, for she saw little humor

in Tommy's remark. "Of course, I wasn't raised to run a sawmill."

"I didn't mean to be impudent. But you are running a sawmill,

whether you were raised to it or not. And running it very well,

too. Well, none of us, as far as I can see, are doing what we

intended to do right now, but I think we'll make out just the same.

It's a poor person and a poor nation that sits down and cries

because life isn't precisely what they expected it to be. Why

don't you pick up some enterprising Carpetbagger to work for you,

Scarlett? The woods are full of them, God knows."

"I don't want a Carpetbagger. Carpetbaggers will steal anything

that isn't red hot or nailed down. If they amounted to anything

they'd have stayed where they were, instead of coming down here to

pick our bones. I want a nice man, from nice folks, who is smart

and honest and energetic and--"

"You don't want much. And you won't get it for the wage you're

offering. All the men of that description, barring the badly

maimed ones, have already got something to do. They may be round

pegs in square holes but they've all got something to do.

Something of their own that they'd rather do than work for a

woman."

"Men haven't got much sense, have they, when you get down to rock

bottom?"

"Maybe not but they've got a heap of pride," said Tommy soberly.

"Pride! Pride tastes awfully good, especially when the crust is

flaky and you put meringue on it," said Scarlett tartly.

The two men laughed, a bit unwillingly, and it seemed to Scarlett

that they drew together in united masculine disapproval of her.

What Tommy said was true, she thought, running over in her mind the

men she had approached and the ones she intended to approach. They

were all busy, busy at something, working hard, working harder than

they would have dreamed possible in the days before the war. They

weren't doing what they wanted to do perhaps, or what was easiest

to do, or what they had been reared to do, but they were doing

something. Times were too hard for men to be choosy. And if they

were sorrowing for lost hopes, longing for lost ways of living, no

one knew it but they. They were fighting a new war, a harder war

than the one before. And they were caring about life again, caring

with the same urgency and the same violence that animated them

before the war had cut their lives in two.

"Scarlett," said Tommy awkwardly, "I do hate to ask a favor of you,

after being impudent to you, but I'm going to ask it just the same.

Maybe it would help you anyway. My brother-in-law, Hugh Elsing,

isn't doing any too well peddling kindling wood. Everybody except

the Yankees goes out and collects his own kindling wood. And I

know things are mighty hard with the whole Elsing family. I--I do

what I can, but you see I've got Fanny to support, and then, too,

I've got my mother and two widowed sisters down in Sparta to look

after. Hugh is nice, and you wanted a nice man, and he's from nice

folks, as you know, and he's honest."

"But--well, Hugh hasn't got much gumption or else he'd make a

success of his kindling."

Tommy shrugged.

"You've got a hard way of looking at things, Scarlett," he said.

"But you think Hugh over. You could go far and do worse. I think

his honesty and his willingness will outweigh his lack of

gumption."

Scarlett did not answer, for she did not want to be too rude. But

to her mind there were few, if any, qualities that out-weighed

gumption.

After she had unsuccessfully canvassed the town and refused the