CHAPTER TEN

It was the next day. The sun burned slowly in a gray sky. The carriage had almost reached Tara, but the horse was nearly dead from exhaustion. The sun was terribly hot, and all around, the land was as quiet as death. The Northern soldiers had been through this area, and had burned plantation homes to the ground. When Scarlett saw the burned homes of families she knew, she was filled with hatred and anger. It was as if all of Georgia had died, thought Scarlett. Where were all the people?

Now, Scarlett's deepest fear was that Tara would be burned to the ground. This fear made her whip the horse to make it go faster, but the poor animal was barely walking.

"Scarlett ... could I have some water, please?" asked Melanie weakly, from the back of the carriage. "Yes, Miss Scarlett, I'm thirsty too!" Prissy cried. Wade kept crying out, "I'm hungry! I'm hungry!"

Scarlett wanted to leave them all behind. They were looking to her to take control of the situation, and help them. They did not know that Scarlett was just as hungry, thirsty, tired, and frightened as they were. "We don't have any water—quiet, Wade! Mother will take you home soon!" Scarlett said loudly.

Suddenly, the carriage turned a corner in the road, and there was Tara!

It was not burned down. The great house stood there. Scarlett had not been home in more than two years. Forgetting about Wade, Prissy, Melanie and the baby, Scarlett jumped out of the carriage and ran as fast as she could up the road. She was almost crying with joy. Finally, she would see Ellen, hear her comforting voice! Ellen would take care of everything, and Scarlett could lay the terrible responsibility in her lap ... 

She ran up the steps to the house, crying "Mother! Mother!"

Before she could open the door, it had opened and she was looking at her father's face.

"Oh, Pa, I've come home! I'm so glad to see you! The journey here was so horrible ... where's Mother?" Scarlett cried, hugging her father.

Mammy, the housekeeper, and Pork, the butler, came running out of the house to greet Scarlett. They were loyal and capable black slaves, who had been with Scarlett's family all her life. "Miss Scarlett! The Lord has answered my prayers! My child is home!" Mammy cried. Scarlett ran into her arms, sobbing with relief.

"Mammy, where's mother? Oh, I can't wait to see her! And Suellen and Carreen, how are they ... where are they?" Scarlett cried.

It was only then that she saw the look on her father's face. Gerald looked like he had aged twenty years, even though he was only sixty-three. When Scarlett had left Tara, Gerald had been a loud, strong, cheerful man. Now, he looked like a ghost.

"Katie Scarlett ... Suellen and Carreen are very ill with the scarlet fever. They caught it from your mother. And ... your mother is dead."

Ellen was dead.

Scarlett screamed. It was too much. The terrible fear of the long night, the fires of Atlanta, the long journey to Tara, the fear that soldiers would attack them ... and now, Ellen was dead. Scarlett did not hear her own screaming as she fell to the ground in a faint.

When Scarlett woke up, she was lying in her own bed. Mammy was sitting beside her, wiping her face with cool water. "Where are Melanie and the baby and Wade?" Scarlett whispered.

"They are in the other room, Miss Scarlett. They're all right. Miss Melanie is surely weak! But I think she'll be all right. She doesn't have any milk for that baby, though. It's lucky that Dilcey just had another baby, and has lots of extra milk." Dilcey was another slave on the plantation.

"Mammy ... how did my mother die?" Scarlett cried weakly.

"Oh, Miss Scarlett, it's terrible. Your mother caught a terrible fever from taking care of that nasty, poor Emmie Slattery down the road. You know how kind and giving your mother is, always nursing the sick? Well, she caught the sickness from Emmie. And she had been working so hard here, that her body had no more strength. She died only last night, Miss Scarlett. Her last words were about you. She said, 'Tell Scarlett I love her ... Tara is hers now.'"

"Your sisters got the sickness also. They are still very sick, but I don't think they'll die. They don't know your mother is dead, Miss Scarlett. Oh, Miss Scarlett, what are we going to do now? All our people have run away. Your father ... he's not the same. The news of your mother's death has killed his mind, I think. He's like an old man now!"

Scarlett could not handle all this information. Ellen was dead, Gerald was sick in his mind, and her sisters had scarlet fever. All the slaves had run away, and only Mammy, Pork, and Dilcey had stayed. Everyone was looking to her, Scarlett, to lead them and help them. It was too much to understand at once.

"I'll think about it all in a minute. I'll think about it tomorrow. Now, I just want to sleep," Scarlett kept telling herself. But she could not rest. Quickly, she got up and without a word to Mammy, went downstairs to the dining room. Here, Gerald had kept some bottles of liquor. Without thinking, Scarlett opened one of the bottles, and took a long drink. She wanted something to make her forget the terrible fear. The liquor burned inside her, and made her cough, but soon she felt warm inside. Suddenly she realized how hungry she was.

"Pork, what do we have to eat?" asked Scarlett.

"Miss Scarlett, we don't have much food at all. The Northern soldiers came and took all our food supplies. All we have are a few old vegetables and a lot of corn in the field," cried Pork.

Scarlett took a deep breath. "Pork, go into the kitchen and cook some of the corn and vegetables. Take some food to Miss Melanie and Wade and the baby. I'm going outside to see if there are any vegetables left in our garden."

Scarlett walked outside and went into the garden. For a long, long time she stood there, staring at the quiet, burned land around her. Ashley had been right when he had said, "The South that you and I grew up in is gone forever." Oh, where was Ashley now?

Scarlett fell to the ground, too weak to stand up any longer. As she lay there, she smelled the rich earth of the garden.

When she stood up again, her face was changed. It was no longer a girl's face. It was the face of a woman who knew what pain, fear, hatred, and suffering were.

"God, I promise you something. I'm going to survive. The Yankees (here Scarlett used the Southern name for Northern people) aren't going to kill me. I'm going to keep us all alive. I don't know how, but I'll do it. And I'll hate the Yankees for the rest of my life. That will be my revenge on the Northerners—my people and I will survive!"

(end of section)