Gone with the Wind

Peter laid the whip on the horse so suddenly that the startled animal jumped forward and as the buggy jounced off, Scarlett heard the Maine woman say with puzzled accents: “Her family? You don’t suppose she meant a relative? He’s exceedingly black.”

God damn them! They ought to be wiped off the face of the earth. If ever I get money enough, I’ll spit in all their faces! I’ll-

She glanced at Peter and saw that a tear was trickling down his nose. Instantly a passion of tenderness, of grief for his humiliation swamped her, made her eyes sting. It was as though someone had been senselessly brutal to a child. Those women had hurt Uncle Peter-Peter who had been through the Mexican War with old Colonel Hamilton, Peter who had held his master in his arms when he died, who had raised Melly and Charles and looked after the feckless, foolish Pittypat, “pertecked” her when she refugeed, and “’quired” a horse to bring her back from Macon through a war-torn country after the surrender. And they said they wouldn’t trust niggers!

“Peter,” she said, her voice breaking as she put her hand on his thin arm. “I’m ashamed of you for crying. What do you care? They aren’t anything but damned Yankees!”

“Dey talked in front of me lak Ah wuz a mule an’ couldn’ unnerstan’ dem-lak Ah wuz a Affikun an’ din’ know whut dey wuz talkin’ ’bout,” said Peter, giving a tremendous sniff. “An’ dey call me a nigger an’ Ah’ ain’ never been call a nigger by no w’ite folks, an’ dey call me a ole pet an’ say dat niggers ain’ ter be trus’ed! Me not ter be trus’ed! Why, w’en de ole Cunnel wuz dyin’ he say ter me, ‘You, Peter! You look affer mah chillun. Tek keer of yo’ young Miss Pittypat,’ he say, ‘’cause she ain’ got no mo’ sense dan a hoppergrass.’ An’ Ah done tek keer of her good all dese y’ars-”

“Nobody but the Angel Gabriel could have done better,” said Scarlett soothingly. “We just couldn’t have lived without you.”

“Yas’m, thankee kinely, Ma’m. Ah knows it an’ you knows it, but dem Yankee folks doan know it an’ dey doan want ter know it. Huccome dey come mixin’ in our bizness, Miss Scarlett? Dey doan unnerstan’ us Confedruts.”

Scarlett said nothing for she was still burning with the wrath she had not exploded in the Yankee women’s faces. The two drove home in silence. Peter’s sniffles stopped and his underlip began to protrude gradually until it stuck out alarmingly. His indignation was mounting, now that the initial hurt was subsiding.

Scarlett thought: What damnably queer people Yankees are! Those women seemed to think that because Uncle Peter was black, he had no ears to hear with and no feelings, as tender as their own, to be hurt. They did not know that negroes had to be handled gently, as though they were children, directed, praised, petted, scolded. They didn’t understand negroes or the relations between the negroes and their former masters. Yet they had fought a war to free them. And having freed them, they didn’t want to have anything to do with them, except to use them to terrorize Southerners. They didn’t like them, didn’t trust them, didn’t understand them, and yet their constant cry was that Southerners didn’t know how to get along with them.

Not trust a darky! Scarlett trusted them far more than most white people, certainly more than she trusted any Yankee. There were qualities of loyalty and tirelessness and love in them that no strain could break, no money could buy. She thought of the faithful few who remained at Tara in the face of the Yankee invasion when they could have fled or joined the troops for lives of leisure. But they had stayed. She thought of Dilcey toiling in the cotton fields beside her, of Pork risking his life in neighboring hen houses that the family might eat, of Mammy coming to Atlanta with her to keep her from doing wrong. She thought of the servants of her neighbors who had stood loyally beside their white owners, protecting their mistresses while the men were at the front, refugeeing with them through the terrors of the war, nursing the wounded, burying the dead, comforting the bereaved, working, begging, stealing to keep food on the tables. And even now, with the Freedmen’s Bureau promising all manner of wonders, they still stuck with their white folks and worked much harder than they ever worked in slave times. But the Yankees didn’t understand these things and would never understand them.

“Yet they set you free,” she said aloud.

“No, Ma’m! Dey din’ sot me free. Ah wouldn’ let no sech trash sot me free,” said Peter indignantly. “Ah still b’longs ter Miss Pitty an’ w’en Ah dies she gwine lay me in de Hamilton buhyin’ groun’ whar Ah b’longs… Mah Miss gwine ter be in a state w’en Ah tells her ’bout how you let dem Yankee women ’sult me.”

“I did no such thing!” cried Scarlett, startled.