Gone with the Wind

She picked her way rapidly through the wounded and back to Peachtree Street. The doctor wasn’t coming. She would have to see it through herself. Thank God, Prissy knew all about midwifery. Her head ached from the heat and she could feel her basque, soaking wet from perspiration, sticking to her. Her mind felt numb and so did her legs, numb as in a nightmare when she tried to run and could not move them. She thought of the long walk back to the house and it seemed interminable.

Then, “The Yankees are coming!” began to beat its refrain in her mind again. Her heart began to pound and new life came into her limbs. She hurried into the crowd at Five Points, now so thick there was no room on the narrow sidewalks and she was forced to walk in the street. Long lines of soldiers were passing, dust covered, sodden with weariness. There seemed thousands of them, bearded, dirty, their guns slung over their shoulders, swiftly passing at route step. Cannon rolled past, the drivers flaying the thin mules with lengths of rawhide. Commissary wagons with torn canvas covers rocked through the ruts. Cavalry raising clouds of choking dust went past endlessly. She had never seen so many soldiers together before. Retreat! Retreat! The army was moving out.

The hurrying lines pushed her back onto the packed sidewalk and she smelled the reek of cheap corn whisky. There were women in the mob near Decatur Street, garishly dressed women whose bright finery and painted faces gave a discordant note of holiday. Most of them were drunk and the soldiers on whose arms they hung were drunker. She caught a fleeting glimpse of a head of red curls and saw that creature, Belle Watling, heard her shrill drunken laughter as she clung for support to a one-armed soldier who reeled and staggered.

When she had shoved and pushed her way through the mob for a block beyond Five Points the crowd thinned a little and, gathering up her skirts, she began to run again. When she reached Wesley Chapel, she was breathless and dizzy and sick at her stomach. Her stays were cutting her ribs in two. She sank down on the steps of the church and buried her head in her hands until she could breathe more easily. If she could only get one deep breath, way down in her abdomen. If her heart would only stop bumping and drumming and cavorting. If there were only someone in this mad place to whom she could turn.

Why, she had never had to do a thing for herself in all her life. There had always been someone to do things for her, to look after her, shelter and protect her and spoil her. It was incredible that she could be in such a fix. Not a friend, not a neighbor to help her. There had always been friends, neighbors, the competent hands of willing slaves. And now in this hour of greatest need, there was no one. It was incredible that she could be so completely alone, and frightened, and far from home.

Home! If she were only home, Yankees or no Yankees. Home, even if Ellen was sick. She longed for the sight of Ellen’s sweet face, for Mammy’s strong arms around her.

She rose dizzily to her feet and started walking again. When she came in sight of the house, she saw Wade swinging on the front gate. When he saw her, his face puckered and he began to cry, holding up a grubby bruised finger.

“Hurt!” he sobbed. “Hurt!”

“Hush! Hush! Hush! Or I’ll spank you. Go out in the back yard and make mud pies and don’t move from there.”

“Wade hungwy,” he sobbed and put the hurt finger in his mouth.

“I don’t care. Go in the back yard and-”

She looked up and saw Prissy leaning out of the upstairs window, fright and worry written on her face; but in an instant they were wiped away in relief as she saw her mistress. Scarlett beckoned to her to come down and went into the house. How cool it was in the hall. She untied her bonnet and flung it on the table, drawing her forearms across her wet forehead. She heard the upstairs door open and a low wailing moan, wrenched from the depths of agony, came to her ears. Prissy came down the stairs three at a time.

“Is de doctah come?”

“No. He can’t come.”

“Gawd, Miss Scarlett! Miss Melly bad off!”

“The doctor can’t come. Nobody can come. You’ve got to bring the baby and I’ll help you.”

Prissy’s mouth fell open and her tongue wagged wordlessly. She looked at Scarlett sideways and scuffed her feet and twisted her thin body.

“Don’t look so simple minded!” cried Scarlett, infuriated at her silly expression. “What’s the matter?”

Prissy edged back up the stairs.

“Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett-” Fright and shame were in her rolling eyes.

“Well?”

“Fo’ Gawd, Miss Scarlett! We’s got ter have a doctah. Ah-Ah-Miss Scarlett, Ah doan know nuthin’ ’bout bringin’ babies. Maw wouldn’ nebber lemme be ‘round folkses whut wuz havin’ dem.”

All the breath went out of Scarlett’s lungs in one gasp of horror before rage swept her. Prissy made a lunge past her, bent on flight, but Scarlett grabbed her.