“They’re in the old pasture.
Take the horse and drive them into the swamp and—”
Before she could finish her sentence, Melanie shook off Wade’s clutches and was down the front steps and running toward the horse, pulling up her wide skirts as she ran.
Scarlett caught a flashing glimpse of thin legs, a flurry of skirts and underclothing and Melanie was in the saddle, her feet dangling far above the stirrups.
She gathered up the reins and clapped her heels against the animal’s sides and then abruptly pulled him in, her face twisting with horror.
“My baby!” she cried.
“Oh, my baby!
The Yankees will kill him!
Give him to me!”
Her hand was on the pommel and she was preparing to slide off but Scarlett screamed at her.
“Go on!
Go on!
Get the cow!
I’ll look after the baby!
Go on, I tell you!
Do you think I’d let them get Ashley’s baby?
Go on!”
Melly looked despairingly backward but hammered her heels into the horse and, with a scattering of gravel, was off down the drive toward the pasture.
Scarlett thought: “I never expected to see Melly Hamilton straddling a horse!” and then she ran into the house.
Wade was at her heels, sobbing, trying to catch her flying skirts.
As she went up the steps, three at a bound, she saw Suellen and Carreen with split-oak baskets on their arms, running toward the pantry, and Pork tugging none too gently at Gerald’s arm, dragging him toward the back porch.
Gerald was mumbling querulously and pulling away like a child.
From the back yard she heard Mammy’s strident voice:
“You, Priss!
You git unner dat house an’ han’ me dem shoats!
You knows mighty
well Ah’s too big ter crawl thoo dem lattices.
Dilcey, comyere an’ mek dis wuthless chile—”
“And I thought it was such a good idea to keep the pigs under the house, so nobody could steal them,” thought Scarlett, running into her room.
“Why, oh, why didn’t I build a pen for them down in the swamp?”
She tore open her top bureau drawer and scratched about in the clothing until the Yankee’s wallet was in her hand.
Hastily she picked up the solitaire ring and the diamond earbobs from where she had hidden them in her sewing basket and shoved them into the wallet.
But where to hide it?
In the mattress?
Up the chimney?
Throw it in the well?
Put it in her bosom?
No, never there!
The outlines of the wallet might show through her basque and if the Yankees saw it they would strip her naked and search her.
“I shall die if they do!” she thought wildly.
Downstairs there was a pandemonium of racing feet and sobbing voices.
Even in her frenzy, Scarlett wished she had Melanie with her, Melly with her quiet voice, Melly who was so brave the day she shot the Yankee.
Melly was worth three of the others.
Melly—what had Melly said?
Oh, yes, the baby!
Clutching the wallet to her, Scarlett ran across the hall to the room where little Beau was sleeping in the low cradle.
She snatched him up into her arms and he awoke, waving small fists and slobbering sleepily.
She heard Suellen crying:
“Come on, Carreen!
Come on!