第289章

The situation gave her many sleepless nights. She worried about Ashley， both because she knew he was unhappy and because she knew his unhappiness wasn’t helping him to become a good lumber dealer. It was a torture to have her mills in the hands of two men with no more business sense than Hugh and Ashley， heartbreaking to see her competitors taking her best customers away when she had worked so hard and planned so carefully for these helpless months. Oh， if she could only get back to work again！ She would take Ashley in hand and then he would certainly learn. And Johnnie Gallegher could run the other mill， and she could handle the selling， and then everything would be fine. As for Hugh， he could drive a delivery wagon if he still wanted to work for her. That was all he was good for.

Of course， Gallegher looked like an unscrupulous man， for all of his smartness， but—who else could she get？ Why had the other men who were both smart and honest been so perverse about working for her？ If she only had one of them working for her now in place of Hugh， she wouldn’t have to worry so much， but—Tommy Wellburn， in spite of his crippled back， was the busiest contractor in town and coining money， so people said. Mrs. Merriwether and René were prospering and now had opened a bakery downtown. René was managing it with true French thrift and Grandpa Merriwether， glad to escape from his chimney corner， was driving René’s pie wagon. The Simmons boys were so busy they were operating their brick kiln with three shifts of labor a day. And Kells Whiting was cleaning up money with his hair straightener， because he told the negroes they wouldn’t ever be permitted to vote the Republican ticket if they had kinky hair.

It was the same with all the smart young men she knew， the doctors， the lawyers， the storekeepers. The apathy which had clutched them immediately after the war had completely disappeared and they were too busy building their own fortunes to help her build hers. The ones who were not busy were the men of Hugh’s type—or Ashley’s.

What a mess it was to try to run a business and have a baby too！

“I’ll never have another one，” she decided firmly. “I’m not going to be like other women and have a baby every year. Good Lord， that would mean six months out of the year when I’d have to be away from the mills！ And I see now I can’t afford to be away from them even one day. I shall simply tell Frank that I won’t have any more children.”

Frank wanted a big family， but she could manage Frank somehow. Her mind was made up. This was her last child. The mills were far more important.

CHAPTER XLII

SCARLETT’S CHILD was a girl， a small bald-headed mite， ugly as a hairless monkey and absurdly like Frank. No one except the doting father could see anything beautiful about her， but the neighbors were charitable enough to say that all ugly babies turned out pretty， eventually. She was named Ella Lorena， Ella for her grandmother Ellen， and Lorena because it was the most fashionable name of the day for girls， even as Robert E. Lee and Stonewall Jackson were popular for boys and Abraham Lincoln and Emancipation for negro children.

She was born in the middle of a week when frenzied excitement gripped Atlanta and the air was tense with expectation of disaster. A negro who had boasted of rape had actually been arrested， but before he could be brought to trial the jail had been raided by the Ku Klux Klan and he had been quietly hanged. The Klan had acted to save the as yet unnamed victim from having to testify in open court. Rather than have her appear and advertise her shame， her father and brother would have shot her， so lynching the negro seemed a sensible solution to the townspeople， in fact， the only decent solution possible. But the military authorities were in a fury. They saw no reason why the girl should mind testifying publicly.

The soldiers made arrests right and left， swearing to wipe out the Klan if they had to put every white man in Atlanta in jail. The negroes， frightened and sullen， muttered of retaliatory house burnings. The air was thick with rumors of wholesale hangings by the Yankees should the guilty parties be found and of a concerted uprising against the whites by the negroes. The people of the town stayed at home behind locked doors and shuttered windows， the men fearing to go to their businesses and leave their women and children unprotected.

Scarlett， lying exhausted in bed， feebly and silently thanked God that Ashley had too much sense to belong to the Klan and Frank was too old and poor spirited. How dreadful it would be to know that the Yankees might swoop down and arrest them at any minute！ Why didn’t the crack-brained young fools in the Klan leave bad enough alone and not stir up the Yankees like this？ Probably the girl hadn’t been raped after all. Probably she’d just been frightened silly and， because of her， a lot of men might lose their lives.

In this atmosphere， as nerve straining as watching a slow fuse burn toward a barrel of gunpowder， Scarlett came rapidly back to strength. The healthy vigor which had carried her through the hard days at Tara stood her in good stead now， and within two weeks of Ella Lorena’s birth she was strong enough to sit up and chafe at her inactivity. In three weeks she was up， declaring she had to see to the mills. They were standing idle because both Hugh and Ashley feared to leave their families alone all day.

Then the blow fell.

Frank， full of the pride of new fatherhood， summoned up courage enough to forbid Scarlett leaving the house while conditions were so dangerous. His commands would not have worried her at all and she would have gone about her business in spite of them， if he had not put her horse and buggy in the livery stable and ordered that they should not be surrendered to anyone except himself. To make matters worse， he and Mammy had patiently searched the house while she was ill and unearthed her hidden store of money. And Frank had deposited it in the bank in his own name， so now she could not even hire a rig.