Then the door swung open and the sucking draft flung the flames higher. It closed with a bang and, in the swirling smoke, Scarlett, half blind, saw Melanie, stamping her feet on the flames, beating at them with something dark and heavy. She saw her staggering, heard her coughing, caught a lightning-flash glimpse of her set white face and eyes narrow to slits against the smoke, saw her small body curving back and forth as she swung her rug up and down. For another eternity they fought and swayed, side by side, and Scarlett could see that the lines of fire were shortening. Then suddenly Melanie turned toward her and, with a cry, hit her across the shoulders with all her might. Scarlett went down in a whirlwind of smoke and darkness. When she opened her eyes she was lying on the back porch, her head pillowed comfortably on Melanie’s lap, and the afternoon sunlight was shining on her face. Her hands, face and shoulders smarted intolerably from burns. Smoke was still rolling from the quarters, enveloping the cabins in thick clouds, and the smell of burning cotton was strong. Scarlett saw wisps of smoke drifting from the kitchen and she stirred frantically to rise.
But she was pushed back as Melanie’s calm voice said: “Lie still, dear. The fire’s out.”
She lay quiet for a moment, eyes closed, sighing with relief, and heard the slobbery gurgle of the baby near by and the reassuring sound of Wade’s hiccoughing. So he wasn’t dead, thank God! She opened her eyes and looked up into Melanie’s face. Her curls were singed, her face black with smut but her eyes were sparkling with excitement and she was smiling.
“You look like a nigger,” murmured Scarlett, burrowing her head wearily into its soft pillow.
“And you look like the end man in a minstrel show,” replied Melanie equably. “Why did you have to hit me?”
“Because, my darling, your back was on fire. I didn’t dream you’d faint, though the Lord knows you’ve had enough today to kill you. ... I came back as soon as I got the stock safe in the woods. I nearly died, thinking about you and the baby alone. Did—the Yankees harm you?”
“If you mean did they rape me, no,” said Scarlett, groaning as she tried to sit up. Though Melanie’s lap was soft, the porch on which she was lying was far from comfortable. “But they’ve stolen everything, everything. We’ve lost everything— Well, what is there to look so happy about?”
“We haven’t lost each other and our babies are all right and we have a roof over our heads,” said Melanie and there was a lilt in her voice. “And that’s all anyone can hope for now. ... Goodness but Beau is wet! I suppose the Yankees even stole his extra diapers. He— Scarlett, what on earth is in his diaper?”
She thrust a suddenly frightened hand down the baby’s back and brought up the wallet. For a moment she looked at it as if she had never seen it before and then she began to laugh, peal on peal of mirth that had in it no hint of hysteria.
“Nobody but you would ever have thought of it,” she cried and flinging her arms around Scarlett’s neck she kissed her. “You are the beatenest sister I ever had!”
Scarlett permitted the embrace because she was too tired to struggle, because the words of praise brought balm to her spirit and because, in the dark smoke-filled kitchen, there had been born a greater respect for her sister-in-law, a closer feeling of comradeship.
“I’ll say this for her,” she thought grudgingly, “she’s always there when you need her.”
CHAPTER XXVIII
COLD WEATHER set in abruptly with a killing frost Chilling winds swept beneath the doorsills and rattled the loose windowpanes with a monotonous tinkling sound. The last of the leaves fell from the bare trees and only the pines stood clothed, black and cold against pale skies. The rutted red roads were frozen to flintiness and hunger rode the winds through Georgia.
Scarlett recalled bitterly her conversation with Grandma Fontaine. On that afternoon two months ago, which now seemed years in the past, she had told the old lady she had already known the worst which could possibly happen to her, and she had spoken from the bottom of her heart. Now that remark sounded like schoolgirl hyperbole. Before Sherman’s men came through Tara the second time, she had her small riches of food and money, she had neighbors more fortunate than she and she had the cotton which would tide her over until spring. Now the cotton was gone, the food was gone, the money was of no use to her, for there was no food to buy with it, and the neighbors were in worse plight than she. At least, she had the cow and the calf, a few shoats and the horse, and the neighbors had nothing but the little they had been able to hide in the woods and bury in the ground.
Fairhill, the Tarleton home, was burned to the foundations, and Mrs. Tarleton and the four girls were existing in the overseer’s house. The Munroe house near Lovejoy was leveled too. The wooden wing of Mimosa had burned and only the thick resistant stucco of the main house and the frenzied work of the Fontaine women and their slaves with wet blankets and quilts had saved it The Calverts’ house had again been spared, due to the intercession of Hilton, the Yankee overseer, but there was not a head of livestock, not a fowl, not an ear of corn left on the place.
At Tara and throughout the County, the problem was food. Most of the families had nothing at all but the remains of their yam crops and their peanuts and such game as they could catch in the woods. What they had, each shared with less fortunate friends, as they had done in more prosperous days. But the time soon came when there was nothing to share.
At Tara, they ate rabbit and possum and catfish, if Pork was lucky. On other days a small amount of milk, hickory nuts, roasted acorns and yams. They were always hungry. To Scarlett it seemed that at every turn she met outstretched hands, pleading eyes. The sight of them drove her almost to madness, for she was as hungry as they.