Gone with the Wind

“I don’t know where she got the notion but some time in the afternoon she got a bottle of brandy and took Mr. O’Hara back to the office and begun pourin’ it for him. Scarlett, we haven’t had no spirits ‘round Tara for a year, just a little blackberry wine and scuppernong wine Dilcey makes, and Mr. O’Hara warn’t used to it. He got real drunk, and after Suellen had argued and nagged a couple of hours he gave in and said Yes, he’d sign anything she wanted. They got the oath out again and just as he was about to put pen to paper, Suellen made her mistake. She said: ‘Well, now. I guess the Slatterys and the MacIntoshes won’t be givin’ themselves airs over us!’ You see, Scarlett, the Slatterys had put in a claim for a big amount for that little shack of theirs that the Yankees burned and Emmie’s husband had got it through Washington for them.

“They tell me that when Suellen said those names, your pa kind of straightened up and squared his shoulders and looked at her, sharplike. He warn’t vague no more and he said: ‘Have the Slatterys and the MacIntoshes signed somethin’ like this?’ and Suellen got nervous and said Yes and No and stuttered and he shouted right loud: ‘Tell me, did that God-damned Orangeman and that God-damned poor white sign somethin’ like this?’ And that feller Hilton spoke up smooth-like and said: ‘Yes sir, they did and they got a pile of money like you’ll get. ‘

“And then the old gentleman let out a roar like a bull. Alex Fontaine said he heard him from down the street at the saloon. And he said with a brogue you could cut with a butterknife: ‘And were ye afther thinkin’ an O’Hara of Tara would be follyin’ the dirthy thracks of a Goddamned Orangeman and a God-damned poor white?’ And he tore the paper in two and threw it in Suellen’s face and he bellowed: ‘Ye’re no daughter of mine!’ and he was out of the office before you could say Jack Robinson.

“Alex said he saw him come out on the street, chargin’ like a bull. He said the old gentleman looked like his old self for the first time since your ma died. Said he was reelin’ drunk and cussin’ at the top of his lungs. Alex said he never heard such fine cussin’. Alex’s horse was standin’ there and your pa climbed on it without a by-your-leave and off he went in a cloud of dust so thick it choked you, cussin’ every breath he drew.

“Well, about sundown Ashley and me were sittin’ on the front step, lookin’ down the road and mighty worried. Miss Melly was upstairs cryin’ on her bed and wouldn’t tell us nothin’. Terrectly, we heard a poundin’ down the road and somebody yellin’ like they was fox huntin’ and Ashley said: ‘That’s queer! That sounds like Mr. O’Hara when he used to ride over to see us before the war.”

“And then we seen him way down at the end of the pasture. He must have jumped the fence right over there. And he come ridin’ hellfor-leather up the hill, singin’ at the top of his voice like he didn’t have a care in the world. I didn’t know your pa had such a voice. He was singin’ ‘Peg in a Low-backed Car’ and beatin’ the horse with his hat and the horse was goin’ like mad. He didn’t draw rein when he come near the top and we seen he was goin’ to jump the pasture fence and we hopped up, scared to death, and then he yelled: ‘Look, Ellen! Watch me take this one!’ But the horse stopped right on his haunches at the fence and wouldn’t take the jump and your pa went right over his head. He didn’t suffer none. He was dead time we got to him. I guess it broke his neck.”

Will waited a minute for her to speak and when she did not he picked up the reins. “Giddap, Sherman,” he said, and the horse started on toward home.

Chapter XL

Scarlett slept little that night. When the dawn had come and the sun was creeping over the black pines on the hills to the east, she rose from her tumbled bed and, seating herself on a stool by the window, laid her tired head on her arm and looked out over the barn yard and orchard of Tara toward the cotton fields. Everything was fresh and dewy and silent and green and the sight of the cotton fields brought a measure of balm and comfort to her sore heart. Tara, at sunrise, looked loved, well tended and at peace, for all that its master lay dead. The squatty log chicken house was clay daubed against rats, weasels and clean with whitewash, and so was the log stable. The garden with its rows of corn, bright-yellow squash, butter beans and turnips was well weeded and neatly fenced with split-oak rails. The orchard was cleared of underbrush and only daisies grew beneath the long rows of trees. The sun picked out with faint glistening the apples and the furred pink peaches half hidden in the green leaves. Beyond lay the curving rows of cotton, still and green under the gold of the new sky. The ducks and chickens were waddling and strutting off toward the fields, for under the bushes in the soft plowed earth were found the choicest worms and slugs.