They look like they cared a heap about a heap of things."
But to her surprise the Simmons boys, who had started a brick kiln, and Kells Whiting, who was selling a preparation made up in his mother's kitchen, that was guaranteed to straighten the kinkiest negro hair in six applications, smiled politely, thanked her and refused.
It was the same with the dozen others she approached.
In desperation she raised the wage she was offering but she was still refused.
One of Mrs. Merriwether's nephews observed impertinently that while he didn't especially enjoy driving a dray, it was his own dray and he would rather get somewhere under his own steam than Scarlett's.
One afternoon, Scarlett pulled up her buggy beside Rene Picard's pie wagon and hailed Rene and the crippled Tommy Wellburn, who was catching a ride home with his friend.
"Look here, Renny, why don't you come and work for me?
Managing a mill is a sight more respectable than driving a pie wagon.
I'd think you'd be ashamed."
"Me, I am dead to shame," grinned Rene.
"Who would be respectable?
All of my days I was respectable until ze war set me free lak ze darkies.
Nevaire again must I be deegneefied and full of ennui.
Free lak ze bird!
I lak my pie wagon.
I lak my mule.
I lak ze dear Yankees who so kindly buy ze pie of Madame Belle Mere.
No, my Scarlett, I must be ze King of ze Pies.
Eet ees my destiny!
Lak Napoleon, I follow my star."
He flourished his whip dramatically.
"But you weren't raised to sell pies any more than Tommy was raised to wrastle with a bunch of wild Irish masons.
My kind of work is more--"
"And I suppose you were raised to run a lumber mill," said Tommy, the corners of his mouth twitching.
"Yes, I can just see little Scarlett at her mother's knee, lisping her lesson,
'Never sell good lumber if you can get a better price for bad.'"
Rene roared at this, his small monkey eyes dancing with glee as he whacked Tommy on his twisted back.
"Don't be impudent," said Scarlett coldly, for she saw little humor in Tommy's remark.
"Of course, I wasn't raised to run a sawmill."
"I didn't mean to be impudent.
But you are running a sawmill, whether you were raised to it or not.
And running it very well, too.
Well, none of us, as far as I can see, are doing what we intended to do right now, but I think we'll make out just the same.
It's a poor person and a poor nation that sits down and cries because life isn't precisely what they expected it to be.
Why don't you pick up some enterprising Carpetbagger to work for you, Scarlett?
The woods are full of them, God knows."
"I don't want a Carpetbagger.
Carpetbaggers will steal anything that isn't red hot or nailed down.
If they amounted to anything they'd have stayed where they were, instead of coming down here to pick our bones.
I want a nice man, from nice folks, who is smart and honest and energetic and--"
"You don't want much.
And you won't get it for the wage you're offering.
All the men of that description, barring the badly maimed ones, have already got something to do.
They may be round pegs in square holes but they've all got something to do.
Something of their own that they'd rather do than work for a woman."
"Men haven't got much sense, have they, when you get down to rock bottom?"
"Maybe not but they've got a heap of pride," said Tommy soberly.
"Pride!
Pride tastes awfully good, especially when the crust is flaky and you put meringue on it," said Scarlett tartly.
The two men laughed, a bit unwillingly, and it seemed to Scarlett that they drew together in united masculine disapproval of her.