Importuning of many eager Carpetbaggers, she finally decided to

take Tommy's suggestion and ask Hugh Elsing. He had been a dashing

and resourceful officer during the war, but two severe wounds and

four years of fighting seemed to have drained him of all his

resourcefulness, leaving him to face the rigors of peace as

bewildered as a child. There was a lost-dog look in his eyes these

days as he went about peddling his firewood, and he was not at all

the kind of man she had hoped to get.

"He's stupid," she thought. "He doesn't know a thing about

business and I'll bet he can't add two and two. And I doubt if

he'll ever learn. But, at least, he's honest and won't swindle

me."

Scarlett had little use these days for honesty in herself, but the

less she valued it in herself the more she was beginning to value

it in others.

"It's a pity Johnnie Gallegher is tied up with Tommy Wellburn on

that construction work," she thought. "He's just the kind of man I

want. He's hard as nails and slick as a snake, but he'd be honest

if it paid him to be honest. I understand him and he understands

me and we could do business together very well. Maybe I can get

him when the hotel is finished and till then I'll have to make out

on Hugh and Mr. Johnson. If I put Hugh in charge of the new mill

and leave Mr. Johnson at the old one, I can stay in town and see to

the selling while they handle the milling and hauling. Until I can

get Johnnie I'll have to risk Mr. Johnson robbing me if I stay in

town all the time. If only he wasn't a thief! I believe I'll

build a lumber yard on half that lot Charles left me. If only

Frank didn't holler so loud about me building a saloon on the other

half! Well, I shall build the saloon just as soon as I get enough

money ahead, no matter how he takes on. If only Frank wasn't so

thin skinned. Oh, God, if only I wasn't going to have a baby at

this of all times! In a little while I'll be so big I can't go

out. Oh, God, if only I wasn't going to have a baby! And oh, God,

if the damned Yankees will only let me alone! If--"

If! If! If! There were so many ifs in life, never any certainty

of anything, never any sense of security, always the dread of

losing everything and being cold and hungry again. Of course,

Frank was making a little more money now, but Frank was always

ailing with colds and frequently forced to stay in bed for days.

Suppose he should become an invalid. No, she could not afford to

count on Frank for much. She must not count on anything or anybody

but herself. And what she could earn seemed so pitiably small.

Oh, what would she do if the Yankees came and took it all away from

her? If! If! If!

Half of what she made every month went to Will at Tara, part to

Rhett to repay his loan and the rest she hoarded. No miser ever

counted his gold oftener than she and no miser ever had greater

fear of losing it. She would not put the money in the bank, for it

might fail or the Yankees might confiscate it. So she carried what

she could with her, tucked into her corset, and hid small wads of

bills about the house, under loose bricks on the hearth, in her

scrap bag, between the pages of the Bible. And her temper grew

shorter and shorter as the weeks went by, for every dollar she

saved would be just one more dollar to lose if disaster descended.

Frank, Pitty and the servants bore her outbursts with maddening

kindness, attributing her bad disposition to her pregnancy, never

realizing the true cause. Frank knew that pregnant women must be

humored, so he put his pride in his pocket and said nothing more

about her running the mills and her going about town at such a

time, as no lady should do. Her conduct was a constant

embarrassment to him but he reckoned he could endure it for a while

longer. After the baby came, he knew she would be the same sweet,

feminine girl he had courted. But in spite of everything he did to

appease her, she continued to have her tantrums and often he

thought she acted like one possessed.

No one seemed to realize what really possessed her, what drove her

like a mad woman. It was a passion to get her affairs in order

before she had to retire behind doors, to have as much money as

possible in case the deluge broke upon her again, to have a stout

levee of cash against the rising tide of Yankee hate. Money was

the obsession dominating her mind these days. When she thought of

the baby at all, it was with baffled rage at the untimeliness of it.

"Death and taxes and childbirth! There's never any convenient time

for any of them!"

Atlanta had been scandalized enough when Scarlett, a woman, began

operating the sawmill but, as time went by, the town decided there

was no limit to what she would do. Her sharp trading was shocking,

especially when her poor mother had been a Robillard, and it was

positively indecent the way she kept on going about the streets

when everyone knew she was pregnant. No respectable white woman

and few negroes ever went outside their homes from the moment they

first suspected they were with child, and Mrs. Merriwether declared