At Christmas time Frank Kennedy and a small troop from the commissary department jogged up to Tara on a futile hunt for grain and animals for the army.They were a ragged and ruffianly appearing crew,mounted on lame and heaving horses which obviously were in too bad condition to be used for more active service.Like their animals the men had been invalided out of the front-line forces and,except for Frank,all of them had an arm missing or an eye gone or stiffened joints.Most of them wore blue overcoats of captured Yankees and,for a brief instant of horror,those at Tara thought Sherman's men had returned.
They stayed the night on the plantation,sleeping on the floor in the parlor,luxuriating as they stretched themselves on the velvet rug,for it had been weeks since they had slept under a roof or on anything softer than pine needles and hard earth.For all their dirty beards and tatters they were a well-bred crowd,full of pleasant small talk,jokes and compliments and very glad to be spending Christmas Eve in a big house,surrounded by pretty women as they had been accustomed to do in days long past.They refused to be serious about the war,told outrageous lies to make the girls laugh and brought to the bare and looted house the first lightness,the first hint of festivity it had known in many a day.
“It's almost like the old days when we had house parties,isn't it?”whispered Suellen happily to Scarlett.Suellen was raised to the skies by having a beau of her own in the house again and she could hardly take her eyes off Frank Kennedy.Scarlett was surprised to see that Suellen could be almost pretty,despite the thinness which had persisted since her illness.Her cheeks were flushed and there was a soft luminous look in her eyes.
“She really must care about him,”thought Scarlett in contempt.“And I guess she'd be almost human if she ever had a husband of her own,even if her husband was old fuss-budget Frank.”
Carreen had brightened a little too,and some of the sleepwalking look left her eyes that night.She had found that one of the men had known Brent Tarleton and had been with him the day he was killed,and she promised herself a long private talk with him after supper.
At supper Melanie surprised them all by forcing herself out of her timidity and being almost vivacious.She laughed and joked and almost but not quite coquetted with a one-eyed soldier who gladly repaid her efforts with extravagant gallantries.Scarlett knew the effort this involved both mentally and physically,for Melanie suffered torments of shyness in the presence of anything male.Moreover she was far from well.She insisted she was strong and did more work even than Dilcey but Scarlett knew she was sick.When she lifted things her face went white and she had a way of sitting down suddenly after exertions,as if her legs would no longer support her.But tonight,she,like Suellen and Carreen,was doing everything possible to make the soldiers enjoy their Christmas Eve.Scarlett alone took no pleasure in the guests.
The troop had added their ration of parched corn and side meat to the supper of dried peas,stewed dried apples and peanuts which Mammy set before them and they declared it was the best meal they had had in months.Scarlett watched them eat and she was uneasy.She not only begrudged them every mouthful they ate but she was on tenterhooks lest they discover somehow that Pork had slaughtered one of the shoats the day before.It now hung in the pantry and she had grimly promised her household that she would scratch out the eyes of anyone who mentioned the shoat to their guests or the presence of the dead pig's sisters and brothers,safe in their pen in the swamp.These hungry men could devour the whole shoat at one meal and,if they knew of the live hogs,they could commandeer them for the army.She was alarmed,too,for the cow and the horse and wished they were hidden in the swamp,instead of tied in the woods at the bottom of the pasture.If the commissary took her stock,Tara could not possibly live through the winter.There would be no way of replacing them.As to what the army would eat,she did not care.Let the army feed the army—if it could.It was hard enough for her to feed her own.
The men added as dessert some “ramrod rolls”from their knapsacks,and this was the first time Scarlett had ever seen this Confederate article of diet about which there were almost as many jokes as about lice.They were charred spirals of what appeared to be wood.The men dared her to take a bite and,when she did,she discovered that beneath the smoke-blackened surface was unsalted corn bread.The soldiers mixed their ration of corn meal with water,and salt too when they could get it,wrapped the thick paste about their ramrods and roasted the mess over camp fires.It was as hard as rock candy and as tasteless as sawdust and after one bite Scarlett hastily handed it back amid roars of laughter.She met Melanie's eyes and the same thought was plain in both faces....“How can they go on fighting if they have only this stuff to eat?”
The meal was gay enough and even Gerald,presiding absently at the head of the table,managed to evoke from the back of his dim mind some of the manner of a host and an uncertain smile.The men talked,the women smiled and flattered—but Scarlett turning suddenly to Frank Kennedy to ask him news of Miss Pittypat,caught an expression on his face which made her forget what she intended to say.
His eyes had left Suellen's and were wandering about the room,to Gerald's childlike puzzled eyes,to the floor,bare of rugs,to the mantelpiece denuded of its ornaments,the sagging springs and torn upholstery into which Yankee bayonets had ripped,the cracked mirror above the sideboard,the unfaded squares on the wall where pictures had hung before the looters came,the scant table service,the decently mended but old dresses of the girls,the flour sack which had been made into a kilt for Wade.
