“And how would three lone women out here in the country know about the war when we haven’t seen a letter or a newspaper m weeks?” said the old lady tartly.
“One of our darkies talked to a darky who’d seen a darky who’d been to Jonesboro, and except for that we haven’t heard anything.
What they said was that the Yankees were just squatting in Atlanta resting up their men and their horses, but whether it’s true or not you’re as good a judge as I am.
Not that they wouldn’t need a rest, after the fight we gave them.”
“To think you’ve been at Tara all this time and we didn’t know!” Young Miss broke in.
“Oh, how I blame myself for not riding over to see!
But there’s been so much to do here with most all the darkies gone that I just couldn’t get away.
But I should have made time to go.
It wasn’t neighborly of me.
But, of course, we thought the Yankees had burned Tara like they did Twelve Oaks and the MacIntosh house and that your folks had gone to Macon.
And we never dreamed you were home, Scarlett.”
“Well, how were we to know different when Mr. O’Hara’s darkies came through here so scared they were popeyed and told us the Yankees were going to burn Tara?” Grandma interrupted.
“And we could see—” Sally began.
“I’m telling this, please,” said Old Miss shortly.
“And they said the Yankees were camped all over Tara and your folks were fixing to go to Macon.
And then that night we saw the glare of fire over toward Tara and it lasted for hours and it scared our fool darkies so bad they all ran off.
What burned?”
“All our cotton—a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth,” said Scarlett bitterly.
“Be thankful it wasn’t your house,” said Grandma, leaning her chin on her cane.
“You can always grow more cotton and you can’t grow a house.
By the bye, had you all started picking your cotton?”
“No,” said Scarlett, “and now most of it is ruined.
I don’t imagine there’s more than three bales left standing, in the far field in the creek bottom, and what earthly good will it do?
All our field hands are gone and there’s nobody to pick it.”
“Mercy me, all our field hands are gone and there’s nobody to pick it!” mimicked Grandma and bent a satiric glance on Scarlett.
“What’s wrong with your own pretty paws, Miss, and those of your sisters?”
“Me?
Pick cotton?” cried Scarlett aghast, as if Grandma had been suggesting some repulsive crime.
“Like a field hand?
Like white trash?
Like the Slattery women?”
“White trash, indeed!
Well, isn’t this generation soft and ladylike!
Let me tell you, Miss, when I was a girl my father lost all his money and I wasn’t above doing honest work with my hands and in the fields too, till Pa got enough money to buy some more darkies.
I’ve hoed my row and I’ve picked my cotton and I can do it again if I have to.
And it looks like I’ll have to.
White trash, indeed!”
“Oh, but Mama Fontaine,” cried her daughter-in-law, casting imploring glances at the two girls, urging them to help her smooth the old lady’s feathers.
“That was so long ago, a different day entirely, and times have changed.”
“Times never change when there’s a need for honest work to be done,” stated the sharp-eyed old lady, refusing to be soothed.
“And I’m ashamed for your mother, Scarlett, to hear you stand there and talk as though honest work made white trash out of nice people.
‘When Adam delved and Eve span’—” To change the subject, Scarlett hastily questioned:
“What about the Tarletons and the Calverts?
Were they burned out?
Have they refugeed to Macon?”
“The Yankees never got to the Tarletons.
They’re off the main road, like we are, but they did get to the Calverts and they stole all their stock and poultry and got all the darkies to run off with them—” Sally began.
Grandma interrupted.
“Hah!
They promised all the black wenches silk dresses and gold earbobs—that’s what they did.