ON A COLD January afternoon in 1866, Scarlett sat in the office writing a letter to Aunt Pitty,explaining in detail for the tenth time why neither she, Melanie nor Ashley could come back toAtlanta to live with her. She wrote impatiently because she knew Aunt Pitty would read no fartherthan the opening lines and then write her again, wailing: “But I’m afraid to live by myself!”

　　Her hands were chilled and she paused to rub them together and to scuff her feet deeper into thestrip of old quilting wrapped about them. The soles of her slippers were practically gone and werereinforced with pieces of carpet. The carpet kept her feet off the floor but did little to keep themwarm. That morning Will had taken the horse to Jonesboro to get him shod. Scarlett thoughtgrimly that things were indeed at a pretty pass when horses had shoes and people’s feet were asbare as yard dogs’.

　　She picked up her quill to resume her writing but laid it down when she heard Will coming in atthe back door. She heard the thump-thump of his wooden leg in the hall outside the office and thenhe stopped. She waited for a moment for him to enter and when he made no move she called tohim. He came in, his ears red from the cold, his pinkish hair awry, and stood looking down at her, afaintly humorous smile on his lips.

　　“Miss Scarlett,” he questioned, “just how much cash money have you got?”

　　“Are you going to try to marry me for my money, Will?” she asked somewhat crossly.

　　“No, Ma’m. But I just wanted to know.”

　　She stared at him inquiringly. Will didn’t look serious, but then he never looked serious.

　　However, she felt that something was wrong.

　　“I’ve got ten dollars in gold,” she said. “The last of that Yankee’s money.”

　　“Well, Ma’m, that won’t be enough.”

　　“Enough for what?”

　　“Enough for the taxes,” he answered and, stumping over to the fireplace, he leaned down andheld his red hands to the blaze.

　　“Taxes?” she repeated. “Name of God, Will! We’ve already paid the taxes.”

　　“Yes’m. But they say you didn’t pay enough. I heard about it today over to Jonesboro.”

　　“But, Will, I can’t understand. What do you mean?”

　　“Miss Scarlett, I sure hate to bother you with more trouble when you’ve had your share but I’vegot to tell you. They say you ought to paid lots more taxes than you did. They’re runnin’ theassessment up on Tara sky high—higher than any in the County, I’ll be bound.”

　　“But they can’t make us pay more taxes when we’ve already paid them once.”

　　“Miss Scarlett, you don’t never go to Jonesboro often and I’m glad you don’t. It ain’t no placefor a lady these days. But if you’d been there much, you’d know there’s a mighty rough bunch ofScallawags and Republicans and Carpetbaggers been runnin’ things recently. They’d make youmad enough to pop. And then, too, niggers pushin’ white folks off the sidewalks and—”

　　“But what’s that got to do with our taxes?”

　　“I’m gettin’ to it, Miss Scarlett. For some reason the rascals have histed the taxes on Tara tillyou’d think it was a thousand-bale place. After I heard about it, I sorter oozed around the barroomspickin’ up gossip and I found out that somebody wants to buy in Tara cheap at the sheriffs sale, ifyou can’t pay the extra taxes. And everybody knows pretty well that you can’t pay them. I don’tknow yet who it is wants this place. I couldn’t find out. But I think that pusillanimous feller,Hilton, that married Miss Cathleen knows, because he laughed kind of nasty when I tried to soundhim out.”

　　Will sat down on the sofa and rubbed the stump of his leg. It ached in cold weather and thewooden peg was neither well padded nor comfortable. Scarlett looked at him wildly. His mannerwas so casual when he was sounding the death knell of Tara. Sold out at the sheriff’s sale? Wherewould they all go? And Tara belonging to some one else! No, that was unthinkable!

　　She had been so engrossed with the job of making Tara produce she had paid little heed to whatwas going on in the world outside. Now that she had Will and Ashley to attend to whateverbusiness she might have in Jonesboro and Fayetteville, she seldom left the plantation. And even asshe had listened with deaf ears to her father’s war talk in the days before the war came, so she hadpaid little heed to Will and Ashley’s discussions around the table after supper about the beginningsof Reconstruction.

　　Oh, of course, she knew about the Scalawags—Southerners who had turned Republican veryprofitably—and the Carpetbaggers, those Yankees who came South like buzzards after thesurrender with all their worldly possessions in one carpetbag. And she had had a few unpleasantexperiences with the Freedmen’s Bureau. She had gathered, also, that some of the free negroeswere getting quite insolent. This last she could hardly believe, for she had never seen an insolentnegro in her life.

　　But there were many things which Will and Ashley had conspired to keep from her. The scourgeof war had been followed by the worse scourge of Reconstruction, but the two men had agreed notto mention the more alarming details when they discussed the situation at home. And when Scarletttook the trouble to listen to them at all, most of what they said went in one ear and out the other.

　　She had heard Ashley say that the South was being treated as a conquered province and thatvindictiveness was the dominant policy of the conquerors. But that was the kind of statementwhich meant less than nothing at all to Scarlett. Politics was men’s business. She had heard Willsay it looked to him like the North just wasn’t aiming to let the South get on its feet again. Well,thought Scarlett, men always had to have something foolish to worry about. As far as she wasconcerned, the Yankees hadn’t whipped her once and they wouldn’t do it this time. The thing to dowas to work like the devil and stop worrying about the Yankee government. After all, the war wasover.

　　Scarlett did not realize that all the rules of the game had been changed and that honest laborcould no longer earn its just reward. Georgia was virtually under martial law now. The Yankeesoldiers garrisoned throughout the section and the Freedmen’s Bureau were in complete commandof everything and they were fixing the rules to suit themselves.

　　This Bureau, organized by the Federal government to take care of the idle and excited ex-slaves,was drawing them from the plantations into the villages and cities by the thousands. The Bureaufed them while they loafed and poisoned their minds against their former owners. Gerald’s oldoverseer, Jonas Wilkerson, was in charge of the local Bureau, and his assistant was Hilton,Cathleen Calvert’s husband. These two industriously spread the rumor that the Southerners andDemocrats were just waiting for a good chance to put the negroes back into slavery and that thenegroes’ only hope of escaping this fate was the protection given them by the Bureau and theRepublican party.

　　Wilkerson and Hilton furthermore told the negroes they were as good as the whites in every wayand soon white and negro marriages would be permitted, soon the estates of their former ownerswould be divided and every negro would be given forty acres and a mule for his own. They keptthe negroes stirred up with tales of cruelty perpetrated by the whites and, in a section long famedfor the affectionate relations between slaves and slave owners, hate and suspicion began to grow.

　　The Bureau was backed up by the soldiers and the military had issued many and conflictingorders governing the conduct of the conquered. It was easy to get arrested, even for snubbing theofficials of the Bureau. Military orders had been promulgated concerning the schools, sanitation,the kind of buttons one wore on one’s suit, the sale of commodities and nearly everything else.

　　Wilkerson and Hilton had the power to interfere in any trade Scarlett might make and to fix theirown prices on anything she sold or swapped.

　　Fortunately Scarlett had come into contact with the two men very little, for Will had persuadedher to let him handle the trading while she managed the plantation. In his mild-tempered way, Willhad straightened out several difficulties of this kind and said nothing to her about them. Will couldget along with Carpetbaggers and Yankees—if he had to. But now a problem had arisen which wastoo big for him to handle. The extra tax assessment and the danger of losing Tara were mattersScarlett had to know about—and right away.

　　She looked at him with flashing eyes.

　　“Oh, damn the Yankees!” she cried. “Isn’t it enough that they’ve licked us and beggared uswithout turning loose scoundrels on us?”

　　The war was over, peace had been declared, but the Yankees could still rob her, they could stillstarve her, they could still drive her from her house. And fool that she was, she had thoughtthrough weary months that if she could just hold out until spring, everything would be all right.

　　This crushing news brought by Will, coming on top of a year of back-breaking work and hopedeferred, was the last straw.

　　“Oh, Will, and I thought our troubles were all over when the war ended!”

　　“No’m.” Will raised his lantern-jawed, country-looking face and gave her a long steady look.

　　“Our troubles are just gettin’ started.”

　　“How much extra taxes do they want us to pay?”

　　“Three hundred dollars.”

　　She was struck dumb for a moment. Three hundred dollars! It might just as well be three milliondollars.

　　“Why,” she floundered, “why—why, then we’ve got to raise three hundred, somehow.”

　　“Yes’m—add a rainbow and a moon or two.”

　　“Oh, but Will! They couldn’t sell out Tara. Why—”

　　His mild pale eyes showed more hate and bitterness than she thought possible.

　　“Oh, couldn’t they? Well, they could and they will and they’ll like doin’ it! Miss Scarlett, thecountry’s gone plumb to hell, if you’ll pardon me. Those Carpetbaggers and Scalawags can voteand most of us Democrats can’t. Can’t no Democrat in this state vote if he was on the tax books formore than two thousand dollars in ‘sixty-five. That lets out folks like your pa and Mr. Tarleton andthe McRaes and the Fontaine boys. Can’t nobody vote who was a colonel and over in the war and,Miss Scarlett, I bet this state’s got more colonels than any state in the Confederacy. And can’tnobody vote who held office under the Confederate government and that lets out everybody fromthe notaries to the judges, and the woods are full of folks like that. Fact is, the way the Yankeeshave framed up that amnesty oath, can’t nobody who was somebody before the war vote at all. Notthe smart folks nor the quality folks nor the rich folks.

　　“Huh! I could vote if I took their damned oath. I didn’t have any money in ‘sixty-five and Icertainly warn’t a colonel or nothin’ remarkable. But I ain’t goin’ to take their oath. Not by adinged sight! If the Yankees had acted right, I’d have taken their oath of allegiance but I ain’t now.

　　I can be restored to the Union but I can’t be reconstructed into it. I ain’t goin’ to take their oatheven if I don’t never vote again— But scum like that Hilton feller, he can vote, and scoundrels likeJonas Wilkerson and pore whites like the Slatterys and no-counts like the Macintoshes, they canvote. And they’re runnin’ things now. And if they want to come down on you for extra taxes adozen times, they can do it. Just like a nigger can kill a white man and not get hung or—” Hepaused, embarrassed, and the memory of what had happened to a lone white woman on an isolatedfarm near Lovejoy was in both their minds. ... “Those niggers can do anything against us and theFreedmen’s Bureau and the soldiers will back them up with guns and we can’t vote or do nothin’

　　about it.”

　　“Vote!” she cried. “Vote! What on earth has voting got to do with all this, Will? It’s taxes we’re talking about. ... Will, everybody knows what a good plantation Tara is. We could mortgage it forenough to pay the taxes, if we had to.”

　　“Miss Scarlett, you ain’t any fool but sometimes you talk like one. Who’s got any money to lendyou on this property? Who except the Carpetbaggers who are tryin’ to take Tara away from you?

　　Why, everybody’s got land. Everybody’s land pore. You can’t give away land.”

　　“I’ve got those diamond earbobs I got off that Yankee. We could sell them.”

　　“Miss Scarlett, who ‘round here has got money for ear-bobs? Folks ain’t got money to buy sidemeat, let alone gewgaws. If you’ve got ten dollars in gold, I take oath that’s more than most folkshave got.”

　　They were silent again and Scarlett felt as if she were butting her head against a stone wall.

　　There had been so many stone walls to butt against this last year.

　　“What are we goin’ to do, Miss Scarlett?”

　　“I don’t know,” she said dully and felt that she didn’t care. This was one stone wall too manyand she suddenly felt so tired that her bones ached. Why should she work and struggle and wearherself out? At the end of every struggle it seemed that defeat was waiting to mock her.

　　“I don’t know,” she said. “But don’t let Pa know. It might worry him.”

　　“I won’t.”

　　“Have you told anyone?”

　　“No, I came right to you.”

　　Yes, she thought, everyone always came right to her with bad news and she was tired of it.

　　“Where is Mr. Wilkes? Perhaps he’ll have some suggestion.”

　　Will turned his mild gaze on her and she felt, as from the first day when Ashley came home, thathe knew everything.

　　“He’s down in the orchard splittin’ rails. I heard his axe when I was puttin’ up the horse. But heain’t got any money any more than we have.”

　　“If I want to talk to him about it, I can, can’t I?” she snapped, rising to her feet and kicking thefragment of quilting from her ankles.

　　Will did not take offense but continued rubbing his hands before the flame. “Better get yourshawl, Miss Scarlett. It’s raw outside.”

　　But she went without the shawl, for it was upstairs and her need to see Ashley and lay hertroubles before him was too urgent to wait.

　　How lucky for her if she could find him alone! Never once since his return had she had a privateword with him. Always the family clustered about him, always Melanie was by his side, touchinghis sleeve now and again to reassure herself he was really there. The sight of that happy possessivegesture had aroused in Scarlett all the jealous animosity which had slumbered during the monthswhen she had thought Ashley probably dead. Now she was determined to see him alone. This timeno one was going to prevent her from talking with him alone.

　　She went through the orchard under the bare boughs and the damp weeds beneath them wet herfeet. She could hear the sound of the axe ringing as Ashley split into rails the logs hauled from theswamp. Replacing the fences the Yankees had so blithely burned was a long hard task. Everythingwas a long hard task, she thought wearily, and she was tired of it, tired and mad and sick of it all. Ifonly Ashley were her husband, instead of Melanie’s, how sweet it would be to go to him and layher head upon his shoulder and cry and shove her burdens onto him to work out as best he might.

　　She rounded a thicket of pomegranate trees which were shaking bare limbs in the cold wind andsaw him leaning on his axe, wiping his forehead with the back of his hand. He was wearing theremains of his butternut trousers and one of Gerald’s shirts, a shirt which in better times went onlyto Court days and barbecues, a ruffled shirt which was far too short for its present owner. He hadhung his coat on a tree limb, for the work was hot, and he stood resting as she came up to him.

　　At the sight of Ashley in rags, with an axe in his hand, her heart went out in a surge of love andof fury at fate. She could not bear to see him in tatters, working, her debonair immaculate Ashley.

　　His hands were not made for work or his body for anything but broadcloth and fine linen. Godintended him to sit in a great house, talking with pleasant people, playing the piano and writingthings which sounded beautiful and made no sense whatsoever.

　　She could endure the sight of her own child in aprons made of sacking and the girls in dingy oldgingham, could bear it that Will worked harder than any field hand, but not Ashley. He was toofine for all this, too infinitely dear to her. She would rather split logs herself than suffer while hedid it.

　　“They say Abe Lincoln got his start splitting rails,” he said as she came up to him. “Just think towhat heights I may climb!”

　　She frowned. He was always saying light things like this about their hardships. They weredeadly serious matters to her and sometimes she was almost irritated at his remarks.

　　Abruptly she told him Will’s news, tersely and in short words, feeling a sense of relief as shespoke. Surely, he’d have something helpful to offer. He said nothing but, seeing her shiver, he tookhis coat and placed it about her shoulders.

　　“Well,” she said finally, “doesn’t it occur to you that well have to get the money somewhere?”

　　“Yes,” he said, “but where?”

　　“I’m asking you,” she replied, annoyed. The sense of relief at unburdening herself haddisappeared. Even if he couldn’t help, why didn’t he say something comforting, even if it wasonly: “Oh, I’m so sorry.”

　　He smiled.

　　“In all these months since I’ve been home I’ve only heard of one person, Rhett Butler, whoactually has money,” he said.

　　Aunt Pittypat had written Melanie the week before that Rhett was back in Atlanta with acarriage and two fine horses and pocketfuls of greenbacks. She had intimated, however, that hedidn’t come by them honestly. Aunt Pitty had a theory, largely shared by Atlanta, that Rhett had managed to get away with the mythical millions of the Confederate treasury.

　　“Don’t let’s talk about him,” said Scarlett shortly. “He’s a skunk if ever there was one. What’s tobecome of us all?”

　　Ashley put down the axe and looked away and his eyes seemed to be journeying to some far-offcountry where she could not follow.

　　“I wonder,” he said. “I wonder not only what will become of us at Tara but what will become ofeverybody in the South.”

　　She felt like snapping out abruptly: “To hell with everybody in the South! What about us?” butshe remained silent because the tired feeling was back on her more strongly than ever. Ashleywasn’t being any help at all.

　　“In the end what will happen will be what has happened whenever a civilization breaks up. Thepeople who have brains and courage come through and the ones who haven’t are winnowed out. Atleast, it has been interesting, if not comfortable, to witness a G.tterd.mmerung.”

　　“A what?”

　　“A dusk of the gods. Unfortunately, we Southerners did think we were gods.”

　　“For Heaven’s sake, Ashley Wilkes! Don’t stand there and talk nonsense at me when it’s us whoare going to be winnowed out!”

　　Something of her exasperated weariness seemed to penetrate his mind, calling it back from itswanderings, for he raised her hands with tenderness and, turning them palm up, looked at thecalluses.

　　“These are the most beautiful hands I know,”............