“Oh,Ashley,”she thought,“I hope you are dead!I could never bear for you to see this.”
Ashley had married his bride here but his son and his son's son would never bring brides to this house.There would be no more matings and births beneath the roof which she had so loved and longed to rule.The house was dead and,to Scarlett,it was as if all the Wilkeses,too,were dead in its ashes.
“I won't think of it now.I can't stand it now.I'll think of it later,”she said aloud,turning her eyes away.
Seeking the garden,she limped around the ruins,by the trampled rose beds the Wilkes girls had tended so zealously,across the back yard and through the ashes of the smokehouse,barns and chicken houses.The split-rail fence around the kitchen garden had been demolished and the once orderly rows of green plants had suffered the same treatment as those at Tara.The soft earth was scarred with hoof prints and heavy wheels and the vegetables were mashed into the soil.There was nothing for her here.
She walked back across the yard and took the path down toward the silent row of whitewashed cabins in the quarters,calling “Hello!”as she went.But no voice answered her.Not even a dog barked.Evidently the Wilkes negroes had taken flight or followed the Yankees.She knew every slave had his own garden patch and as she reached the quarters,she hoped these little patches had been spared.
Her search was rewarded but she was too tired even to feel pleasure at the sight of turnips and cabbages,wilted for want of water but still standing,and straggling butter beans and snap beans,yellowing but edible.She sat down in the furrows and dug into the earth with hands that shook,filling her basket slowly.There would be a good meal at Tara tonight,in spite of the lack of side meat to boil with the vegetables.Perhaps some of the bacon grease Dilcey was using for illumination could be used for seasoning.She must remember to tell Dilcey to use pine knots and save the grease for cooking.
Close to the back step of one cabin,she found a short row of radishes and hunger assaulted her suddenly.A spicy,sharp-tasting radish was exactly what her stomach craved.Hardly waiting to rub the dirt off on her skirt,she bit off half and swallowed it hastily.It was old and coarse and so peppery that tears started in her eyes.No sooner had the lump gone down than her empty stomach revolted and she lay in the soft dirt and vomited tiredly.
The faint niggery smell which crept from the cabin increased her nausea and,without strength to combat it,she kept on retching miserably while the cabins and trees revolved swiftly around her.
After a long time,she lay weakly on her face,the earth as soft and comfortable as a feather pillow,and her mind wandered feebly here and there.She,Scarlett O'Hara,was lying behind a negro cabin,in the midst of ruins,too sick and too weak to move,and no one in the world knew or cared.No one would care if they did know,for everyone had too many troubles of their own to worry about her.And all this was happening to her,Scarlett O'Hara,who had never raised her hand even to pick up her discarded stockings from the floor or to tie the laces of her slippers—Scarlett,whose little headaches and tempers had been coddled and catered to all her life.
As she lay prostrate,too weak to fight off memories and worries,they rushed at her,circled about her like buzzards waiting for a death.No longer had she the strength to say:“I'll think of Mother and Pa and Ashley and all this ruin later—Yes,later when I can stand it.”She could not stand it now,but she was thinking of them whether she willed it or not.The thoughts circled and swooped above her,dived down and drove tearing claws and sharp beaks into her mind.For a timeless time,she lay still,her face in the dirt,the sun beating hotly upon her,remembering things and people who were dead,remembering a way of living that was gone forever—and looking upon the harsh vista of the dark future.
When she arose at last and saw again the black ruins of Twelve Oaks,her head was raised high and something that was youth and beauty and potential tenderness had gone out of her face forever.What was past was past.Those who were dead were dead.The lazy luxury of the old days was gone,never to return.And,as Scarlett settled the heavy basket across her arm,she had settled her own mind and her own life.
There was no going back and she was going forward.
Throughout the South for fifty years there would be bitter-eyed women who looked backward,to dead times,to dead men,evoking memories that hurt and were futile,bearing poverty with bitter pride because they had those memories.But Scarlett was never to look back.
She gazed at the blackened stones and,for the last time,she saw Twelve Oaks rise before her eyes as it had once stood,rich and proud,symbol of a race and a way of living.Then she started down the road toward Tara,the heavy basket cutting into her flesh.
Hunger gnawed at her empty stomach again and she said aloud:“As God is my witness,as God is my witness,the Yankees aren't going to lick me.I'm going to live through this,and when it's over,I'm never going to be hungry again.No,nor any of my folks.If I have to steal or kill—as God is my witness,I'm never going to be hungry again.”
In the days that followed,Tara might have been Crusoe's desert island,so still it was,so isolated from the rest of the world.The world lay only a few miles away,but a thousand miles of tumbling waves might have stretched between Tara and Jonesboro and Fayetteville and Lovejoy,even between Tara and the neighbors'plantations.With the old horse dead,their one mode of conveyance was gone,and there was neither time nor strength for walking the weary red miles.
