Good-by, Scarlett O’Hara!”
The Yankees would burn it all—all!
This was her last view of home, her last view except what she might see from the cover of the woods or the swamp, the tall chimneys wrapped in smoke, the roof crashing in flame.
“I can’t leave you,” she thought and her teeth chattered with fear.
“I can’t leave you.
Pa wouldn’t leave you.
He told them they’d have to burn you over his head.
Then, they’ll burn you over my head for I can’t leave you either.
You’re all I’ve got left.”
With the decision, some of her fear fell away and there remained only a congealed feeling in her breast, as if all hope and fear had frozen.
As she stood there, she heard from the avenue the sound of many horses’ feet, the jingle of bridle bits and sabers rattling in scabbards and a harsh voice crying a command:
“Dismount!”
Swiftly she bent to the child beside her and her voice was urgent but oddly gentle.
“Turn me loose, Wade, honey!
You run down the stairs quick and through the back yard toward the swamp. Mammy will be there and Aunt Melly.
Run quickly, darling, and don’t be afraid.”
At the change in her tone, the boy looked up and Scarlett was appalled at the look in his eyes, like a baby rabbit in a trap.
“Oh, Mother of God!” she prayed.
“Don’t let him have a convulsion!
Not—not before the Yankees.
They mustn’t know we are afraid.”
And, as the child only gripped her skirt the tighter, she said clearly:
“Be a little man, Wade.
They’re only a passel of damn Yankees!”
And she went down the steps to meet them.
Sherman was marching through Georgia, from Atlanta to the sea.
Behind him lay the smoking ruins of Atlanta to which the torch had been set as the blue army tramped out.
Before him lay three hundred miles of territory virtually undefended save by a few state militia and the old men and young boys of the Home Guard.
Here lay the fertile state, dotted with plantations, sheltering the women and children, the very old and the negroes.
In a swath eighty miles wide the Yankees were looting and burning.
There were hundreds of homes in flames, hundreds of homes resounding with their footsteps.
But, to Scarlett, watching the bluecoats pour into the front hall, it was not a countrywide affair.
It was entirely personal, a malicious action aimed directly at her and hers.
She stood at the foot of the stairs, the baby in her arms, Wade pressed tightly against her, his head hidden in her skirts as the Yankees swarmed through the house, pushing roughly past her up the stairs, dragging furniture onto the front porch, running bayonets and knives into upholstery and digging inside for concealed valuables.
Upstairs they were ripping open mattresses and feather beds until the air in the hall was thick with feathers that floated softly down on her head.
Impotent rage quelled what little fear was left in her heart as she stood helpless while they plundered and stole and ruined.
The sergeant in charge was a bow-legged, grizzled little man with a large wad of tobacco in his cheek. He reached Scarlett before any of his men and, spitting freely on the floor and her skirts, said briefly:
“Lemme have what you got in yore hand, lady.”
She had forgotten the trinkets she had intended to hide and, with a sneer which she hoped was as eloquent as that pictured on Grandma Robillard’s face, she flung the articles to the floor and almost enjoyed the rapacious scramble that ensued.
“I’ll trouble you for thet ring and them earbobs.”
Scarlett tucked the baby more securely under her arm so that he hung face downward, crimson and screaming, and removed the garnet earrings which had been Gerald’s wedding present to Ellen.
Then she stripped off the large sapphire solitaire which Charles had given her as an engagement ring.
“Don’t throw um.
Hand um to me,” said the sergeant, putting out his hands.
“Them bastards got enough already.
What else have you got?”
His eyes went over her basque sharply.
For a moment Scarlett went faint, already feeling rough hands thrusting themselves into her bosom, fumbling at her garters.
“That is all, but I suppose it is customary to strip your victims?”
“Oh, I’ll take your word,” said the sergeant good-naturedly, spitting again as he turned away.