Brother Henry could just barely pay taxes on this house.
He gave her a little something every month to live on and, though it was very humiliating to take money from him, she had to do it.
"Brother Henry says he doesn't know how he'll make ends meet with the load he's carrying and the taxes so high but, of course, he's probably lying and has loads of money and just won't give me much."
Scarlett knew Uncle Henry wasn't lying.
The few letters she had had from him in connection with Charles' property showed that.
The old lawyer was battling valiantly to save the house and the one piece of downtown property where the warehouse had been, so Wade and Scarlett would have something left from the wreckage.
Scarlett knew he was carrying these taxes for her at a great sacrifice.
"Of course, he hasn't any money," thought Scarlett grimly.
"Well, check him and Aunt Pitty off my list.
There's nobody left but Rhett.
I'll have to do it.
I must do it.
But I mustn't think about it now. . . . I must get her to talking about Rhett so I can casually suggest to her to invite him to call tomorrow."
She smiled and squeezed the plump palms of Aunt Pitty between her own.
"Darling Auntie," she said, "don't let's talk about distressing things like money any more.
Let's forget about them and talk of pleasanter things.
You must tell me all the news about our old friends.
How is Mrs. Merriwether and Maybelle?
I heard that Maybelle's little Creole came home safely.
How are the Elsings and Dr. and Mrs. Meade?"
Pittypat brightened at the change of subject and her baby face stopped quivering with tears.
She gave detailed reports about old neighbors, what they were doing and wearing and eating and thinking.
She told with accents of horror how, before Rene Picard came home from the war, Mrs. Merriwether and Maybelle had made ends meet by baking pies and selling them to the Yankee soldiers.
Imagine that!
Sometimes there were two dozen Yankees standing in the back yard of the Merriwether home, waiting for the baking to be finished.
Now that Rene was home, he drove an old wagon to the Yankee camp every day and sold cakes and pies and beaten biscuits to the soldiers.
Mrs. Merriwether said that when she made a little more money she was going to open a bake shop downtown.
Pitty did not wish to criticize but after all-- As for herself, said Pitty, she would rather starve than have such commerce with Yankees.
She made a point of giving a disdainful look to every soldier she met, and crossed to the other side of the street in as insulting a manner as possible, though, she said, this was quite inconvenient in wet weather.
Scarlett gathered that no sacrifice, even though it be muddy shoes, was too great to show loyalty to the Confederacy in so far as Miss Pittypat was concerned.
Mrs. Meade and the doctor had lost their home when the Yankees fired the town and they had neither the money nor the heart to rebuild, now that Phil and Darcy were dead.
Mrs. Meade said she never wanted a home again, for what was a home without children and grandchildren in it?
They were very lonely and had gone to live with the Elsings who had rebuilt the damaged part of their home.
Mr. and Mrs. Whiting had a room there, too, and Mrs. Bonnell was talking of moving in, if she was fortunate enough to rent her house to a Yankee officer and his family.
"But how do they all squeeze in?" cried Scarlett.
"There's Mrs. Elsing and Fanny and Hugh--"
"Mrs. Elsing and Fanny sleep in the parlor and Hugh in the attic," explained Pitty, who knew the domestic arrangements of all her friends.
"My dear, I do hate to tell you this but--Mrs. Elsing calls them 'paying guests' but," Pitty dropped her voice, "they are really nothing at all except boarders.
Mrs. Elsing is running a boarding house!
Isn't that dreadful?"
"I think it's wonderful," said Scarlett shortly.
"I only wish we'd had 'paying guests' at Tara for the last year instead of free boarders.
Maybe we wouldn't be so poor now."
"Scarlett, how can you say such things?
Your poor mother must be turning in her grave at the very thought of charging money for the hospitality of Tara!
Of course, Mrs. Elsing was simply forced to it because, while she took in fine sewing and Fanny painted china and Hugh made a little money peddling firewood, they couldn't make ends meet.
Imagine darling Hugh forced to peddle wood!
And he all set to be a fine lawyer!
I could just cry at the things our boys are reduced to!"
Scarlett thought of the rows of cotton beneath the glaring coppery sky at Tara and how her back had ached as she bent over them.