Gone with the Wind

“Oh, yes, I do in a way,” he said removing the straw and surveying it as if it were highly interesting. “Suellen ain’t as bad as you think, Scarlett. I think we’ll get along right well. The only trouble with Suellen is that she needs a husband and some children and that’s just what every woman needs.”

The wagon jolted over the rutty road and for a few minutes while the two sat silent Scarlett’s mind was busy. There must be something more to it than appeared on the surface, something deeper, more important, to make the mild and soft-spoken Will want to marry a complaining nagger like Suellen.

“You haven’t told me the real reason, Will. If I’m head of the family, I’ve got a right to know.”

“That’s right,” said Will, “and I guess you’ll understand. I can’t leave Tara. It’s home to me, Scarlett, the only real home I ever knew and I love every stone of it. I’ve worked on it like it was mine. And when you put out work on somethin’, you come to love it. You know what I mean?”

She knew what he meant and her heart went out in a surge of warm affection for him, hearing him say he, too, loved the thing she loved best.

“And I figger it this way. With your pa gone and Carreen a nun, there’ll be just me and Suellen left here and, of course, I couldn’t live on at Tara without marryin’ Suellen. You know how folks talk.”

“But-but Will, there’s Melanie and Ashley-”

At Ashley’s name he turned and looked at her, his pale eyes unfathomable. She had the old feeling that Will knew all about her and Ashley, understood all and did not either censure or approve.

“They’ll be goin’ soon.”

“Going? Where? Tara is their home as well as yours.”

“No, it ain’t their home. That’s just what’s eatin’ on Ashley. It ain’t his home and he don’t feel like he’s earnin’ his keep. He’s a mighty pore farmer and he knows it. God knows he tries his best but he warn’t cut out for farmin’ and you know it as well as I do. If he splits kindlin’, like as not he’ll slice off his foot. He can’t no more keep a plow straight in a furrow than little Beau can, and what he don’t know about makin’ things grow would fill a book. It ain’t his fault. He just warn’t bred for it. And it worries him that he’s a man livin’ at Tara on a woman’s charity and not givin’ much in return.”

“Charity? Has he ever said-”

“No, he’s never said a word. You know Ashley. But I can tell. Last night when we were sittin’ up with your pa, I tole him I had asked Suellen and she’d said Yes. And then Ashley said that relieved him because he’d been feelin’ like a dog, stayin’ on at Tara, and he knew he and Miss Melly would have to keep stayin’ on, now that Mr. O’Hara was dead, just to keep folks from talkin’ about me and Suellen. So then he told me he was aimin’ to leave Tara and get work.”

“Work? What kind? Where?”

“I don’t know exactly what he’ll do but he said he was goin’ up North. He’s got a Yankee friend in New York who wrote him about workin’ in a bank up there.”

“Oh, no!” cried Scarlett from the bottom of her heart and, at the cry, Will gave her the same look as before.

“Maybe ‘twould be better all ‘round if he did go North.”

“No! No! I don’t think so.”

Her mind was working feverishly. Ashley couldn’t go North! She might never see him again. Even though she had not seen him in months, had not spoken to him alone since that fateful scene in the orchard, there had not been a day when she had not thought of him, been glad he was sheltered under her roof. She had never sent a dollar to Will that she had not been pleased that it would make Ashley’s life easier. Of course, he wasn’t any good as a farmer. Ashley was bred for better things, she thought proudly. He was born to rule, to live in a large house, ride fine horses, read books of poetry and tell negroes what to do. That there were no more mansions and horses and negroes and few books did not alter matters. Ashley wasn’t bred to plow and split rails. No wonder he wanted to leave Tara.

But she could not let him go away from Georgia. If necessary, she would bully Frank into giving him a job in the store, make Frank turn off the boy he now had behind the counter. But, no-Ashley’s place was no more behind a counter than it was behind a plow. A Wilkes a shopkeeper! Oh, never that! There must be something-why, her mill of course! Her relief at the thought was so great that she smiled. But would he accept an offer from her? Would he still think it was charity? She must manage it so he would think he was doing her a favor. She would discharge Mr. Johnson and put Ashley in charge of the old mill while Hugh operated the new one. She would explain to Ashley how Frank’s ill health and the pressure of work at the store kept him from helping her, and she would plead her condition as another reason why she needed his help.