"What?"
"My Bonnie sucks her thumb.
I can't make her stop it."
"You should make her stop it," said Mrs. Merriwether vigorously.
"It will ruin the shape of her mouth."
"I know!
I know!
And she has a beautiful mouth.
But I don't know what to do."
"Well, Scarlett ought to know," said Mrs. Merriwether shortly.
"She's had two other children."
Rhett looked down at his shoes and sighed.
"I've tried putting soap under her finger nails," he said, passing over her remark about Scarlett.
"Soap!
Bah!
Soap is no good at all.
I put quinine on Maybelle's thumb and let me tell you, Captain Butler, she stopped sucking that thumb mighty quick."
"Quinine!
I would never have thought of it!
I can't thank you enough, Mrs. Merriwether.
It was worrying me."
He gave her a smile, so pleasant, so grateful that Mrs. Merriwether stood uncertainly for a moment.
But as she told him good-by she was smiling too.
She hated to admit to Mrs. Elsing that she had misjudged the man but she was an honest person and she said there had to be something good about a man who loved his child.
What a pity Scarlett took no interest in so pretty a creature as Bonnie!
There was something pathetic about a man trying to raise a little girl all by himself!
Rhett knew very well the pathos of the spectacle, and if it blackened Scarlett's reputation he did not care.
From the time the child could walk he took her about with him constantly, in the carriage or in front of his saddle.
When he came home from the bank in the afternoon, he took her walking down Peachtree Street, holding her hand, slowing his long strides to her toddling steps, patiently answering her thousand questions.
People were always in their front yards or on their porches at sunset and, as Bonnie was such a friendly, pretty child, with her tangle of black curls and her bright blue eyes, few could resist talking to her.
Rhett never presumed on these conversations but stood by, exuding fatherly pride and gratification at the notice taken of his daughter.
Atlanta had a long memory and was suspicious and slow to change.
Times were hard and feeling was bitter against anyone who had had anything to do with Bullock and his crowd.
But Bonnie had the combined charm of Scarlett and Rhett at their best and she was the small opening wedge Rhett drove into the wall of Atlanta's coldness.
Bonnie grew rapidly and every day it became more evident that Gerald O'Hara had been her grandfather.
She had short sturdy legs and wide eyes of Irish blue and a small square jaw that went with a determination to have her own way.
She had Gerald's sudden temper to which she gave vent in screaming tantrums that were forgotten as soon as her wishes were gratified.
And as long as her father was near her, they were always gratified hastily.
He spoiled her despite all the efforts of Mammy and Scarlett, for in all things she pleased him, except one.
And that was her fear of the dark.
Until she was two years old she went to sleep readily in the nursery she shared with Wade and Ella.
Then, for no apparent reason, she began to sob whenever Mammy waddled out of the room, carrying the lamp.
From this she progressed to wakening in the late night hours, screaming with terror, frightening the other two children and alarming the house.
Once Dr. Meade had to be called and Rhett was short with him when he diagnosed only bad dreams.
All anyone could get from her was one word,
"Dark."
Scarlett was inclined to be irritated with the child and favored a spanking.
She would not humor her by leaving a lamp burning in the nursery, for then Wade and Ella would be unable to sleep.
Rhett, worried but gentle, attempting to extract further information from his daughter, said coldly that if any spanking were done, he would do it personally and to Scarlett.
The upshot of the situation was that Bonnie was removed from the nursery to the room Rhett now occupied alone.