Into Jonesboro or over to Fayetteville. 'Specially as some of

those Carpetbaggers' ladi--women was always flouncin' around in

fancy trimmin's. The wives of those damn Yankees that run the

Freedmen's Bureau, do they dress up! Well, it's kind of been a

point of honor with the ladies of the County to wear their worst-

lookin' dresses to town, just to show how they didn't care and was

proud to wear them. But not Suellen. And she wanted a horse and

carriage too. She pointed out that you had one."

"It's not a carriage, it's an old buggy," said Scarlett indignantly.

"Well, no matter what. I might as well tell you Suellen never has

got over your marryin' Frank Kennedy and I don't know as I blame

her. You know that was a kind of scurvy trick to play on a

sister."

Scarlett rose from his shoulder, furious as a rattler ready to

strike.

"Scurvy trick, hey? I'll thank you to keep a civil tongue in your

head, Will Benteen! Could I help it if he preferred me to her?"

"You're a smart girl, Scarlett, and I figger, yes, you could have

helped him preferrin' you. Girls always can. But I guess you kind

of coaxed him. You're a mighty takin' person when you want to be,

but all the same, he was Suellen's beau. Why, she'd had a letter

from him a week before you went to Atlanta and he was sweet as

sugar about her and talked about how they'd get married when he got

a little more money ahead. I know because she showed me the

letter."

Scarlett was silent because she knew he was telling the truth and

she could think of nothing to say. She had never expected Will, of

all people, to sit in judgment on her. Moreover the lie she had

told Frank had never weighed heavily upon her conscience. If a

girl couldn't keep a beau, she deserved to lose him.

"Now, Will, don't be mean," she said. "If Suellen had married him,

do you think she'd ever have spent a penny on Tara or any of us?"

"I said you could be right takin' when you wanted to," said Will,

turning to her with a quiet grin. "No, I don't think we'd ever

seen a penny of old Frank's money. But still there's no gettin'

'round it, it was a scurvy trick and if you want to justify the end

by the means, it's none of my business and who am I to complain?

But just the same Suellen has been like a hornet ever since. I

don't think she cared much about old Frank but it kind of teched

her vanity and she's been sayin' as how you had good clothes and a

carriage and lived in Atlanta while she was buried here at Tara.

She does love to go callin' and to parties, you know, and wear

pretty clothes. I ain't blamin' her. Women are like that.

"Well, about a month ago I took her into Jonesboro and left her to

go callin' while I tended to business and when I took her home, she

was still as a mouse but I could see she was so excited she was

ready to bust. I thought she'd found out somebody was goin' to

have a--that she'd heard some gossip that was interestin', and I

didn't pay her much mind. She went around home for about a week

all swelled up and excited and didn't have much to say. She went

over to see Miss Cathleen Calvert--Scarlett, you'd cry your eyes

out at Miss Cathleen. Pore girl, she'd better be dead than married

to that pusillanimous Yankee Hilton. You knew he'd mortgaged the

place and lost it and they're goin' to have to leave?"

"No, I didn't know and I don't want to know. I want to know about

Pa."

"Well, I'm gettin' to that," said Will patiently. "When she come

back from over there she said we'd all misjudged Hilton. She

called him Mr. Hilton and she said he was a smart man, but we just

laughed at her. Then she took to takin' your pa out to walk in the

afternoons and lots of times when I was comin' home from the field

I'd see her sittin' with him on the wall 'round the buryin' ground,

talkin' at him hard and wavin' her hands. And the old gentleman

would just look at her sort of puzzled-like and shake his head.

You know how he's been, Scarlett. He just got kind of vaguer and

vaguer, like he didn't hardly know where he was or who we were.

One time, I seen her point to your ma's grave and the old gentleman

begun to cry. And when she come in the house all happy and excited

lookin', I gave her a talkin' to, right sharp, too, and I said:

'Miss Suellen, why in hell are you devilin' your poor pa and

bringin' up your ma to him? Most of the time he don't realize

she's dead and here you are rubbin' it in.' And she just kind of

tossed her head and laughed and said: 'Mind your business. Some

day you'll be glad of what I'm doin'.' Miss Melanie told me last

night that Suellen had told her about her schemes but Miss Melly

said she didn't have no notion Suellen was serious. She said she

didn't tell none of us because she was so upset at the very idea."

"What idea? Are you ever going to get to the point? We're halfway

home now. I want to know about Pa."

"I'm trying to tell you," said Will, "and we're so near home, I

guess I'd better stop right here till I've finished."

He drew rein and the horse stopped and snorted. They had halted by

the wild overgrown mock-orange hedge that marked the Macintosh

property. Glancing under the dark trees Scarlett could just

discern the tall ghostly chimneys still rearing above the silent

ruin. She wished that Will had chosen any other place to stop.

"Well, the long and the short of her idea was to make the Yankees

pay for the cotton they burned and the stock they drove off and the

fences and the barns they tore down."

"The Yankees?"

"Haven't you heard about it? The Yankee government's been payin'

claims on all destroyed property of Union sympathizers in the

South."

"Of course I've heard about that," said Scarlett. "But what's that

got to do with us?"

"A heap, in Suellen's opinion. That day I took her to Jonesboro,

she run into Mrs. MacIntosh and when they were gossipin' along,

Suellen couldn't help noticin' what fine-lookin' clothes Mrs.

Macintosh had on and she couldn't help askin' about them. Then

Mrs. MacIntosh gave herself a lot of airs and said as how her

husband had put in a claim with the Federal government for

destroyin' the property of a loyal Union sympathizer who had never

given aid and comfort to the Confederacy in any shape or form."

"They never gave aid and comfort to anybody," snapped Scarlett.

"Scotch-Irish!"

"Well, maybe that's true. I don't know them. Anyway, the

government gave them, well--I forget how many thousand dollars. A

right smart sum it was, though. That started Suellen. She thought

about it all week and didn't say nothin' to us because she knew

we'd just laugh. But she just had to talk to somebody so she went

over to Miss Cathleen's and that damned white trash, Hilton, gave

her a passel of new ideas. He pointed out that your pa warn't even

born in this country, that he hadn't fought in the war and hadn't

had no sons to fight, and hadn't never held no office under the

Confederacy. He said they could strain a point about Mr. O'Hara

bein' a loyal Union sympathizer. He filled her up with such truck

and she come home and begun workin' on Mr. O'Hara. Scarlett, I bet

my life your pa didn't even know half the time what she was talkin'

about. That was what she was countin' on, that he would take the