LITMIR.BIZ

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was struck dumb for a moment. Three hundred dollars! It might just as well be three million dollars.

      “Why,” she floundered, “why-why, then we've got to raise three hundred, somehow.”

      “Yes'm-and a rainbow and a moon or two.”

      “Oh, but Will! They couldn't sell out Tara. Why-”

      His mild pale eyes showed more hate and bitterness than she thought possible.

      “Oh, couldn't they? Well, they could and they will and they'll like doin' it! Miss Scarlett, the country's gone plumb to hell, if you'll pardon me. Those Carpetbaggers and Scallawags can vote and most of us Democrats can't. Can't no Democrat in this state vote if he was on the tax books for more than two thousand dollars in 'sixty-five. That lets out folks like your pa and Mr. Tarleton and the McRaes and the Fontaine boys. Can't nobody vote who was a colonel and over in the war and, Miss Scarlett, I bet this state's got more colonels than any state in the Confederacy. And can't nobody vote who held office under the Confederate government and that lets out everybody from the notaries to the judges, and the woods are full of folks like that. Fact is, the way the Yankees have framed up that amnesty oath, can't nobody who was somebody before the war vote at all. Not the smart folks nor the quality folks nor the rich folks.

      “Huh! I could vote if I took their damned oath. I didn't have any money in 'sixty-five and I certainly warn't a colonel or nothin' remarkable. But I ain't goin' to take their oath. Not by a dinged sight! If the Yankees had acted right, I'd have taken their oath of allegiance but I ain't now. I can be restored to the Union but I can't be reconstructed into it. I ain't goin' to take their oath even if I don't never vote again- But scum like that Hilton feller, he can vote, and scoundrels like Jonas Wilkerson and pore whites like the Slatterys and no-counts like the MacIntoshes, they can vote. And they're runnin' things now. And if they want to come down on you for extra taxes a dozen times, they can do it. Just like a nigger can kill a white man and not get hung or-” He paused, embarrassed, and the memory of what had happened to a lone white woman on an isolated farm near Lovejoy was in both their minds…“Those niggers can do anything against us and the Freedmen's Bureau and the soldiers will back them up with guns and we can't vote or do nothin' about it.”

      “Vote!” she cried. “Vote! What on earth has voting got to do with all this, Will? It's taxes we're talking about… Will, everybody knows what a good plantation Tara is. We could mortgage it for enough to pay the taxes, if we had to.”

      “Miss Scarlett, you ain't any fool but sometimes you talk like one. Who's got any money to lend you on this property? Who except the Carpetbaggers who are tryin' to take Tara away from you? Why, everybody's got land. Everybody's land pore. You can't give away land.”

      “I've got those diamond earbobs I got off that Yankee. We could sell them.”

      “Miss Scarlett, who 'round here has got money for earbobs? Folks ain't got money to buy side meat, let alone gewgaws. If you've got ten dollars in gold, I take oath that's more than most folks have got.”

      They were silent again and Scarlett felt as if she were butting her head against a stone wall. There had been so many stone walls to butt against this last year.

      “What are we goin' to do, Miss Scarlett?”

      “I don't know,” she said dully and felt that she didn't care. This was one stone wall too many and she suddenly felt so tired that her bones ached. Why should she work and struggle and wear herself out? At the end of every struggle it seemed that defeat was waiting to mock her.

      “I don't know,” she said. “But don't let Pa know. It might worry him.”

      “I won't.”

      “Have you told anyone?”

      “No, I came right to you.”

      Yes, she thought, everyone always came right to her with bad news and she was tired of it.

      “Where is Mr. Wilkes? Perhaps he'll have some suggestion.”

      Will turned his mild gaze on her and she felt, as from the first day when Ashley came home, that he knew everything.

      “He's down in the orchard splittin' rails. I heard his axe when I was puttin' up the horse. But he ain't got any money any more than we have.”

      “If I want to talk to him about it, I can, can't I?” she snapped, rising to her feet and kicking the fragment of quilting from her ankles.

      Will did not take offense but continued rubbing his hands before the flame. “Better get your shawl, Miss Scarlett. It's raw outside.”

      But she went without the shawl, for it was upstairs and her need to see Ashley and lay her troubles before him was too urgent to wait.

      How lucky for her if she could find him alone! Never once since his return had she had a private word with him. Always the family clustered about him, always Melanie was by his side, touching his sleeve now and again to reassure herself he was really there. The sight of that happy possessive gesture had aroused in Scarlett all the jealous animosity which had slumbered during the months when she had thought Ashley probably dead. Now she was determined to see him alone. This time no one was going to prevent her from talking with him alone.

* * *

      She went through the orchard under the bare boughs and the damp weeds beneath them wet her feet. She could hear the sound of the axe ringing as Ashley split into rails the logs hauled from the swamp. Replacing the fences the Yankees had so blithely burned was a long hard task. Everything was a long hard task, she thought wearily, and she was tired of it, tired and mad and sick of it all. If only Ashley were her husband, instead of Melanie's, how sweet it would be to go to him and lay her head upon his shoulder and cry and shove her burdens onto him to work out as best he might.

      She rounded a thicket of pomegranate trees which were shaking bare limbs in the cold wind and saw him leaning on his axe, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He was wearing the remains of his butternut trousers and one of Gerald's shirts, a shirt which in better times went only to Court days and barbecues, a ruffled shirt which was far too short for its present owner. He had hung his coat on a tree limb, for the work was hot, and he stood resting as she came up to him.

      At the sight of Ashley in rags, with an axe in his hand, her heart went out in a surge of love and of fury at fate. She could not bear to see him in tatters, working, her debonaire immaculate Ashley. His hands were not made for work or his body for anything but broadcloth and fine linen. God intended him to sit in a great house, talking with pleasant people, playing the piano and writing things which sounded beautiful and made no sense whatsoever.

      She could endure the sight of her own child in aprons made of sacking and the girls in dingy old gingham, could bear it that Will worked harder than any field hand, but not Ashley. He was too fine for all this, too infinitely dear to her. She would rather split logs herself than suffer while he did it.

      “They say Abe Lincoln got his start splitting rails,” he said as she came up to him. “Just think to what heights I may climb!”

      She frowned. He was always saying light things like this about their hardships. They were deadly serious matters to her and sometimes she was almost irritated at his remarks.

      Abruptly she told him Will's news, tersely and in short words, feeling a sense of relief as she spoke. Surely, he'd have something helpful to offer. He said nothing but, seeing her shiver, he took his coat and placed it about her shoulders.

      “Well,” she said finally, “doesn't it occur to you that we'll have to get the money somewhere?”

      “Yes,” he said, “but where?”

      “I'm asking you,” she replied, annoyed. The sense of relief at unburdening herself had disappeared. Even if he couldn't help, why didn't he say something comforting, even if it was only: “Oh, I'm so sorry.”

      He smiled.

      “In all these months since I've been home I've only heard of one person, Rhett Butler, who actually has money,” he said.

      Aunt Pittypat had written Melanie the week before that Rhett was back in Atlanta with a carriage and two fine horses and pocketfuls

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