Vacant lots between. Finally the business section fell behind and

the residences came into view. Scarlett picked them out as old

friends, the Leyden house, dignified and stately; the Bonnells',

with little white columns and green blinds; the close-lipped red-

brick Georgian home of the McLure family, behind its low box

hedges. Their progress was slower now, for from porches and

gardens and sidewalks ladies called to her. Some she knew

slightly, others she vaguely remembered, but most of them she knew

not at all. Pittypat had certainly broadcast her arrival. Little

Wade had to be held up time and again, so that ladies who ventured

as far through the ooze as their carriage blocks could exclaim

over him. They all cried to her that she must join their knitting

and sewing circles and their hospital committees, and no one

else's, and she promised recklessly to right and left.

As they passed a rambling green clapboard house, a little black

girl posted on the front steps cried, "Hyah she come," and Dr.

Meade and his wife and little thirteen-year-old Phil emerged,

calling greetings. Scarlett recalled that they too had been at

her wedding. Mrs. Meade mounted her carriage block and craned her

neck for a view of the baby, but the doctor, disregarding the mud,

plowed through to the side of the carriage. He was tall and gaunt

and wore a pointed beard of iron gray, and his clothes hung on his

spare figure as though blown there by a hurricane. Atlanta

considered him the root of all strength and all wisdom and it was

not strange that he had absorbed something of their belief. But

for all his habit of making oracular statements and his slightly

pompous manner, he was as kindly a man as the town possessed.

After shaking her hand and prodding Wade in the stomach and

complimenting him, the doctor announced that Aunt Pittypat had

promised on oath that Scarlett should be on no other hospital and

bandage-rolling committee save Mrs. Meade's.

"Oh, dear, but I've promised a thousand ladies already!" said

Scarlett.

"Mrs. Merriwether, I'll be bound!" cried Mrs. Meade indignantly.

"Drat the woman! I believe she meets every train!"

"I promised because I hadn't a notion what it was all about,"

Scarlett confessed. "What are hospital committees anyway?"

Both the doctor and his wife looked slightly shocked at her

ignorance.

"But, of course, you've been buried in the country and couldn't

know," Mrs. Meade apologized for her. "We have nursing committees

for different hospitals and for different days. We nurse the men

and help the doctors and make bandages and clothes and when the

men are well enough to leave the hospitals we take them into our

homes to convalesce till they are able to go back in the army.

And we look after the wives and families of some of the wounded

who are destitute--yes, worse than destitute. Dr. Meade is at the

Institute hospital where my committee works, and everyone says

he's marvelous and--"

"There, there, Mrs. Meade," said the doctor fondly. "Don't go

bragging on me in front of folks. It's little enough I can do,

since you wouldn't let me go in the army."

"'Wouldn't let!'" she cried indignantly. "Me? The town wouldn't

let you and you know it. Why, Scarlett, when folks heard he was

intending to go to Virginia as an army surgeon, all the ladies

signed a petition begging him to stay here. Of course, the town

couldn't do without you."

"There, there, Mrs. Meade," said the doctor, basking obviously in

the praise. "Perhaps with one boy at the front, that's enough for

the time being."

"And I'm going next year!" cried little Phil hopping about

excitedly. "As a drummer boy. I'm learning how to drum now. Do

you want to hear me? I'll run get my drum."

"No, not now," said Mrs. Meade, drawing him closer to her, a

sudden look of strain coming over her face. "Not next year,

darling. Maybe the year after."

"But the war will be over then!" he cried petulantly, pulling away

from her. "And you promised!"

Over his head the eyes of the parents met and Scarlett saw the

look. Darcy Meade was in Virginia and they were clinging closer

to the little boy that was left.

Uncle Peter cleared his throat.

"Miss Pitty were in a state when Ah lef' home an' ef Ah doan git

dar soon, she'll done swooned."

"Good-by. I'll be over this afternoon," called Mrs. Meade. "And

you tell Pitty for me that if you aren't on my committee, she's

going to be in a worse state."

The carriage slipped and slid down the muddy road and Scarlett

leaned back on the cushions and smiled. She felt better now than

she had felt in months. Atlanta, with its crowds and its hurry

and its undercurrent of driving excitement, was very pleasant,

very exhilarating, so very much nicer than the lonely plantation

out from Charleston, where the bellow of alligators broke the

night stillness; better than Charleston itself, dreaming in its

gardens behind its high walls; better than Savannah with its wide

streets lined with palmetto and the muddy river beside it. Yes,

and temporarily even better than Tara, dear though Tara was.

There was something exciting about this town with its narrow muddy

streets, lying among rolling red hills, something raw and crude

that appealed to the rawness and crudeness underlying the fine

veneer that Ellen and Mammy had given her. She suddenly felt that

this was where she belonged, not in serene and quiet old cities,

flat beside yellow waters.

The houses were farther and farther apart now, and leaning out

Scarlett saw the red brick and slate roof of Miss Pittypat's

house. It was almost the last house on the north side of town.

Beyond it, Peachtree road narrowed and twisted under great trees

out of sight into thick quiet woods. The neat wooden-paneled

fence had been newly painted white and the front yard it inclosed

was yellow starred with the last jonquils of the season. On the

front steps stood two women in black and behind them a large

yellow woman with her hands under her apron and her white teeth

showing in a wide smile. Plump Miss Pittypat was teetering

excitedly on tiny feet, one hand pressed to her copious bosom to

still her fluttering heart. Scarlett saw Melanie standing by her

and, with a surge of dislike, she realized that the fly in the

ointment of Atlanta would be this slight little person in black

mourning dress, her riotous dark curls subdued to matronly

smoothness and a loving smile of welcome and happiness on her

heart-shaped face.

When a Southerner took the trouble to pack a trunk and travel

twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration

than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as

enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing

unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and

remaining until July. Often when newly married couples went on

the usual round of honeymoon visits, they lingered in some

pleasant home until the birth of their second child. Frequently

elderly aunts and uncles came to Sunday dinner and remained until

they were buried years later. Visitors presented no problem, for

houses were large, servants numerous and the feeding of several

extra mouths a minor matter in that land of plenty. All ages and

sexes went visiting, honeymooners, young mothers showing off new

babies, convalescents, the bereaved, girls whose parents were

anxious to remove them from the dangers of unwise matches, girls

who had reached the danger age without becoming engaged and who,