She and Melanie were alone in a big house “and without male protection,” wrote Miss Pittypat, “now that dear Charlie has gone. Of course, there is my brother Henry but he does not make his home with us. Melly and I would feel much easier and safer if Scarlett were with us. Three lonely women are better than two. And perhaps dear Scarlett could find some outlet for her sorrow, as Melly is doing, by nursing our brave boys in the hospitals here.”
So Scarlett’s trunk was packed again with her mourning clothes and off she went to Atlanta. She did not especially want to go to Atlanta. She thought Aunt Pitty the silliest of old ladies and the very idea of living under the same roof with Ashley’s wife was awful. But the County with its memories was impossible now, and any change was welcome.
Part two
Chapter VIII
As the train carried Scarlett northward that May morning in 1862, she remembered what Gerald had told her when she was a child. The fact was that she and Atlanta were christened in the same year. It had had different names before, and not until the year of Scarlett’s birth had it become Atlanta.
When Gerald first moved to north Georgia, there had been no Atlanta at all, not even a village. But the next year, in 1836, the State had authorized the building of a railroad through the territory which the Cherokees[26] had recently left.
The people who settled the town were a pushy people. Restless, energetic people from Georgia and more distant states were drawn to this town by the railroads. They came with enthusiasm. They built their stores around the muddy red roads. They built their fine homes where Indian feet had beaten a path[27]called the Peachtree Trail. They were proud of the place, proud of its growth, proud of themselves for making it grow.
Scarlett stood on the lower step of the train, a pale pretty figure in her black mourning dress. She hesitated, unwilling to soil her slippers, and looked about for Miss Pittypat. There was no sign of her, but soon Scarlett saw an old negro, who came toward her through the mud, his hat in his hand.
“Dis Miss Scarlett, ain’ it? Dis hyah Peter, Miss Pitty’s coachman. Doan step down in dat mud,” he ordered, as Scarlett gathered up her skirts. “Lemme cahy you.”
He picked Scarlett up with ease. As he was carrying her toward the carriage, she recalled what Charles had said about Uncle Peter: “He went through all the Mexican campaigns with Father, nursed him when he was wounded – in fact, he saved his life. Uncle Peter practically raised Melanie and me, for we were very young when Father and Mother died. He was the one who decided I should have a larger allowance when I was fifteen, and he insisted that I should go to Harvard. He’s the smartest old darky I’ve ever seen and about the most devoted.”
When Uncle Peter finally maneuvered the carriage out of the mudholes and onto Peachtree Street, she noticed how the town had grown in a year! It did not seem possible that the little Atlanta she knew could have changed so much.
For the past year, Atlanta had been transformed. It was humming like a beehive, proudly conscious of its importance to the Confederacy. There were factories turning out machinery to manufacture war materials. There were strange faces on the streets of Atlanta now. One could hear foreign tongues of Europeans who had run the blockade[28] to have made pistols, rifles, cannon and powder for the Confederacy. Trains roared in and out of the town at all hours.
Here along Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the headquarters of the various army departments, each office swarming with uniformed men. Scarlett felt that Atlanta must be a city of the wounded, for there were general hospitals without number. And every day the trains brought more sick and more wounded.
There was an exciting atmosphere about the place that uplifted her. It was as if she could actually feel the pulse of the town’s heart beating in time with her own.
The sidewalks were crowded with men in uniform; the narrow street was jammed with vehicles – carriages, buggies, ambulances; convalescents limped about on crutches; and Scarlett had her first sight of Yankee uniforms, as Uncle Peter pointed to a detachment of bluecoats going toward the depot to entrain for the prison camp.
“Oh,” thought Scarlett, with a feeling of real pleasure, “I’m going to like it here! It’s so alive and exciting!”
The town was even more alive than she realized, for there were new barrooms by the dozens; prostitutes, following the army, filled the town and bawdy houses were blossoming with women. There were parties and balls and bazaars every week and war weddings without number.
As they progressed down the street, Scarlett asked a lot of questions and Peter answered them, pointing here and there with his whip, proud to display his knowledge.
Now Uncle Peter pointed to three ladies and bowed. These ladies were Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Whiting, and Mrs. Elsing – the pillars of Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged. They organized bazaars and presided over sewing circles, they arranged balls and picnics, they knew who made good matches and who did not, who drank secretly, who were to have babies and when. But in fact, these three ladies heartily disliked and distrusted one another.
The carriage stopped for a moment to permit two ladies with baskets of bandages to cross the street on stepping stones. At the same moment, Scarlett’s eye was caught by a figure on the sidewalk in a brightly colored dress – too bright for street wear. Turning she saw a tall handsome woman with a bold face and a mass of red hair. She watched her, fascinated.
“Uncle Peter, who is that?” she whispered.
“Ah doan know.”
“You do, too. I can tell. Who is she?”
“Her name Belle Watling,” said Uncle Peter.
Scarlett was quick to catch the fact that he had not said “Miss” or “Mrs.”
“Who is she?”
“Miss Scarlett,” said Peter darkly, laying the whip on the horse, “Miss Pitty ain’ gwine ter lak it you astin’ questions dat ain’ none of yo’ bizness.”
“Good Heavens!” thought Scarlett. “That must be a bad woman!”
She had never seen a bad woman before and she twisted her head and stared after her until she was lost in the crowd.
Finally the business section was behind and the residences came into view. As they passed a green clapboard house, Dr. Meade and his wife came out, calling greetings. Scarlett recalled that they had been at her wedding. The doctor went through the mud to the side of the carriage. He was tall and gaunt, and his clothes hung on his figure. Atlanta considered him the root of all strength and all wisdom. But for all his pompous manner, he was a very kind man.
After shaking Scarlett’s hand, the doctor announced that Aunt Pittypat had promised that she should be on Mrs. Meade’s hospital and bandage-rolling committee.
“What are hospital committees anyway?”
Both the doctor and his wife looked shocked at her ignorance.
“But, of course, you’ve been buried in the country and couldn’t know,” Mrs. Meade apologized for her. “We have nursing committees for different hospitals and for different days. We nurse the men and help the doctors and make bandages and clothes and when the men are well enough to leave the hospitals we take them into our homes till they are able to go back in the army. Dr. Meade is at the Institute hospital where my committee works, and everyone says he’s marvelous and —”
“There, there, Mrs. Meade,” said the doctor fondly. “Don’t go bragging on me in front of folks.”
Uncle