Gone with the Wind

“Well, go there, now, as quick as you can run and tell him I want him. I want him to come quickly and bring his horse and carriage or an ambulance if he can get one. Tell him about the baby. Tell him I want him to take us out of here. Go, now. Hurry!”

She sat upright and gave Prissy a push to speed her feet.

“Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett! Ah’s sceered ter go runnin’ roun’ in de dahk by mahseff! Spose de Yankees gits me?”

“If you run fast you can catch up with those soldiers and they won’t let the Yankees get you. Hurry!”

“Ah’s sceered! Sposin’ Cap’n Butler ain’ at de hotel?”

“Then ask where he is. Haven’t you any gumption? If he isn’t at the hotel, go to the barrooms on Decatur Street and ask for him. Go to Belle Watling’s house. Hunt for him. You fool, don’t you see that if you don’t hurry and find him the Yankees will surely get us all?”

“Miss Scarlett, Maw would weah me out wid a cotton stalk, did Ah go in a bahroom or a ho’ house.”

Scarlett pulled herself to her feet.

“Well, I’ll wear you out if you don’t. You can stand outside in the street and yell for him, can’t you? Or ask somebody if he’s inside. Get going.”

When Prissy still lingered, shuffling her feet and mouthing, Scarlett gave her another push which nearly sent her headlong down the front steps.

“You’ll go or I’ll sell you down the river. You’ll never see your mother again or anybody you know and I’ll sell you for a field hand too. Hurry!”

“Gawdlmighty, Miss Scarlett-”

But under the determined pressure of her mistress’ hand she started down the steps. The front gate clicked and Scarlett cried: “Run, you goose!”

She heard the patter of Prissy’s feet as she broke into a trot, and then the sound died away on the soft earth.

Chapter XXIII

After Prissy had gone, Scarlett went wearily into the downstairs hall and lit a lamp. The house felt steamingly hot, as though it held in its walls all the heat of the noontide. Some of her dullness was passing now and her stomach was clamoring for food. She remembered she had had nothing to eat since the night before except a spoonful of hominy, and picking up the lamp she went into the kitchen. The fire in the oven had died but the room was stifling hot. She found half a pone of hard corn bread in the skillet and gnawed hungrily on it while she looked about for other food. There was some hominy left in the pot and she ate it with a big cooking spoon, not waiting to put it on a plate. It needed salt badly but she was too hungry to hunt for it. After four spoonfuls of it, the heat of the room was too much and, taking the lamp in one hand and a fragment of pone in the other, she went out into the hall.

She knew she should go upstairs and sit beside Melanie. If anything went wrong, Melanie would be too weak to call. But the idea of returning to that room where she had spent so many nightmare hours was repulsive to her. Even if Melanie were dying, she couldn’t go back up there. She never wanted to see that room again. She set the lamp on the candle stand by the window and returned to the front porch. It was so much cooler here, and even the night was drowned in soft warmth. She sat down on the steps in the circle of faint light thrown by the lamp and continued gnawing on the corn bread.

When she had finished it, a measure of strength came back to her and with the strength came again the pricking of fear. She could hear a humming of noise far down the street, but what it portended she did not know. She could distinguish nothing but a volume of sound that rose and fell. She strained forward trying to hear and soon she found her muscles aching from the tension. More than anything in the world she yearned to hear the sound of hooves and to see Rhett’s careless, self-confident eyes laughing at her fears. Rhett would take them away, somewhere. She didn’t know where. She didn’t care.

As she sat straining her ears toward town, a faint glow appeared above the trees. It puzzled her. She watched it and saw it grow brighter. The dark sky became pink and then dull red, and suddenly above the trees, she saw a huge tongue of flame leap high to the heavens. She jumped to her feet, her heart beginning again its sickening thudding and bumping.

The Yankees had come! She knew they had come and they were burning the town. The flames seemed to be off to the east of the center of town. They shot higher and higher and widened rapidly into a broad expanse of red before her terrified eyes. A whole block must be burning. A faint hot breeze that had sprung up bore the smell of smoke to her.