On either side of her, the twin brothers sat in their chairs, laughing and talking. Nineteen years old, six feet two inches tall, they were as much alike as two bolls of cotton.
Their faces were typical of country people who have spent all their lives in the open and troubled their heads very little with dull things in books. Raising good cotton, riding well, shooting straight, dancing lightly, and drinking like a gentleman were the things that mattered.
Their family had more money, more horses, more slaves than anyone else in the County, but the boys had less grammar than most of their neighbors.
They had just been expelled from the University of Georgia, the fourth university that had thrown them out in two years; and their older brothers, Tom and Boyd, had come home with them, because they refused to remain at an institution where the twins were not welcome. As for Scarlett, she had not opened a book since leaving the Fayetteville Female Academy the year before.
“I know you two don’t care about being expelled, or Tom either,” she said. “But what about Boyd? He wants to get an education. He’ll never get finished at this rate.”
“It don’t matter much,” answered Brent carelessly. “We had to come home before the term was out anyway.”
“Why?”
“The war, goose! The war’s going to start any day, and you don’t suppose any of us would stay in college with a war going on, do you?”
“You know there isn’t going to be any war,” said Scarlett, bored. “It’s all just talk. Why, Ashley Wilkes and his father told Pa just last week that our commissioners in Washington would come to – to – an – agreement with Mr. Lincoln[3] about the Confederacy[4]. And anyway, the Yankees are too scared of us to fight. There won’t be any war, and I’m tired of hearing about it.”
“Not going to be any war!” cried the twins indignantly.
Scarlett made a mouth of bored impatience.
“If you say ‘war’ just once more, I’ll go in the house and shut the door. I’ve never gotten so tired of any one word in my life as ‘war,’ unless it’s ‘secession.’ Pa talks war morning, noon and night, and all the gentlemen who come to see him shout about Fort Sumter[5] and States’ Rights and Abe Lincoln and their old Troop[6] till I get so bored I could scream! And I’m mighty glad Georgia waited till after Christmas before it seceded or it would have ruined the Christmas parties, too. If you say ‘war’ again, I’ll go in the house.”
The boys apologized for boring her. Indeed, war was men’s business, not ladies’.
Then Scarlett went back with interest to their immediate situation.
“What did your mother say about you two being expelled again?”
The boys looked uncomfortable. “Well,” said Stuart, “she hasn’t had a chance to say anything yet. Tom and us left home early this morning before she got up.”
“Do you suppose she’ll hit Boyd?” Scarlett, like the rest of the County, could never get used to the way small Mrs. Tarleton bullied her grown sons and occasionally whipped them. Beatrice Tarleton was a busy woman, having on her hands not only a large cotton plantation, a hundred negroes and eight children, but the largest horse-breeding farm in the state as well. She was hot-tempered, and while no one was permitted to whip a horse or a slave, she felt that a lick now and then didn’t do the boys any harm.
“Of course she won’t hit Boyd. Ma ought to stop licking us! We’re nineteen and Tom’s twenty-one, and she acts like we’re six years old.”
“Will your mother ride her new horse to the Wilkes barbecue tomorrow?”
“She wants to, but Pa says he’s too dangerous. And, anyway, the girls won’t let her. They want to see her going to one party at least like a lady, riding in the carriage.”
“I hope it doesn’t rain tomorrow,” said Scarlett. “There’s nothing worse than a barbecue turned into an indoor picnic.”
“Oh, it’ll be clear tomorrow,” said Stuart. “Look at that sunset. I never saw one redder. You can always tell weather by sunsets.”
They looked out across the endless acres of Gerald O’Hara’s newly plowed cotton fields toward the red horizon. Spring had come early that year. Already the plowing was nearly finished and the moist hungry earth was waiting for the cotton seeds.
To the ears of the three on the porch came the sounds of negro voices, as the field hands and mules came in from the fields. Scarlett’s mother, Ellen O’Hara, went toward the smokehouse where she would ration out the food to the home-coming hands. There was the click of china and the rattle of silver as Pork, the valet-butler of Tara, laid the table for supper.
The twins realized it was time they were starting home.
“Look, Scarlett. About tomorrow,” said Brent. “You haven’t promised all dances, have you?”
“Well, I have! How did I know you all would be home?
I couldn’t risk being a wallflower just waiting on you two.”
“You a wallflower!” The boys laughed.
“Now, come on, promise us all the waltzes and the supper,” grinned Brent.
“If you’ll promise, we’ll tell you a secret,” said Stuart.
“What?” cried Scarlett, alert as a child at the word.
“Is it what we heard yesterday in Atlanta, Stu? If it is, you know we promised not to tell.”
“Well, Miss Pitty told us.”
“Miss Who?”
“You know, Ashley Wilkes’ cousin who lives in Atlanta, Miss Pittypat Hamilton – Charles and Melanie Hamilton’s aunt.”
“I do, and a sillier old lady I never met in all my life.”
“Well, when we were in Atlanta yesterday, she told us there was going to be an engagement announced tomorrow night at the Wilkes ball.”
“Oh. I know about that,” said Scarlett in disappointment. “That silly nephew of hers, Charlie Hamilton, and Honey Wilkes. Everybody’s known for years that they’d get married some time.”
“But it isn’t his engagement that’s going to be announced,” said Stuart triumphantly. “It’s Ashley’s to Charlie’s sister, Miss Melanie!”
Scarlett’s face did not change but her lips went white.
“Miss Pitty told us they hadn’t intended announcing it till next year, because Miss Melly hasn’t been very well; but with all the war talk going around, everybody in both families thought it would be better to get married soon. Now, Scarlett, we’ve told you the secret, so you’ve got to promise to eat supper with us.”
“Of course I will,” Scarlett said automatically.
“And all the waltzes?”
“All.”
“You’re sweet! I’ll bet the other boys will be hopping mad.”
They were so filled with enthusiasm by their success that some time had passed before they realized that Scarlett was having very little to say. The atmosphere had somehow changed.
Finally, the boys bowed, shook hands and told Scarlett they’d be over at the Wilkeses’ early in the morning, waiting for her. Then they mounted their horses and went down the road at a gallop, waving their hats and yelling back to her.
They rode along in silence for a while when Brent turned to Stu.
“It looked to me like she was mighty glad to see us when we came.”
“I thought so, too.”
“And then, about a half-hour ago, she got kind of quiet, like she had a headache.”
“I noticed that. Do you suppose we said something that made her mad?”
They both thought for a minute.
“I