It annoyed her that her quick reprimands brought such acute fright to his round eyes, for he looked so simple minded when he was frightened. She did not realize that the little boy lived shoulder to shoulder with terror too great for an adult to comprehend. Fear lived with Wade, fear that shook his soul and made him wake screaming in the night. Any unexpected noise or sharp word set him to trembling, for in his mind noises and harsh words were inextricably mixed with Yankees and he was more afraid of Yankees than of Prissy's hants.
Until the thunders of the siege began, he had never known anything but a happy, placid,
quiet life. Even though his mother paid him little attention, he had known nothing but petting and kind words until the night when he was jerked from slumber to find the sky aflame and the air deafening with explosions. In that night and the day which followed, he had been slapped by his mother for the first time and had heard her voice raised at him in harsh words. Life in the pleasant brick house on Peachtree Street, the only life he knew, had vanished that night and he would never recover from its loss. In the flight from Atlanta, he had understood nothing except that the Yankees were after him and now he still lived in fear that the Yankees would catch him and cut him to pieces. Whenever Scarlett raised her voice in reproof, he went weak with fright as his vague childish memory brought up the horrors of the first time she had ever done it. Now, Yankees and a cross voice were linked forever in his mind and he was afraid of his mother.
Scarlett could not help noticing that the child was beginning to avoid her and, in the rare moments when her unending duties gave her time to think about it, it bothered her a great deal. It was even worse than having him at her skirts all the time and she was offended that his refuge was Melanie's bed where he played quietly at games Melanie suggested or listened to stories she told. Wade adored "Auntee" who had a gentle voice, who always smiled and who never said:
"Hush, Wade! You give me a headache" or "Stop fidgeting, Wade, for Heaven's sake!"
Scarlett had neither the time nor the impulse to pet him but it made her jealous to see
Melanie do it. When she found him one day standing on his head in Melanie's bed and saw him collapse on her, she slapped him.
"Don't you know better than to jiggle Auntee like that when she's sick? Now, trot right out in the yard and play, and don't come in here again."
But Melanie reached out a weak arm and drew the wailing child to her.
"There, there, Wade. You didn't mean to jiggle me, did you? He doesn't bother me,
Scarlett. Do let him stay with me. Let me take care of him. It's the only thing I can do till I get well, and you've got your hands full enough without having to watch him."
"Don't be a goose, Melly," said Scarlett shortly. "You aren't getting well like you should and having Wade fall on your stomach won't help you. Now, Wade, if I ever catch you on
Auntee's bed again, I'll wear you out. And stop sniffling. You are always sniffling. Try to be a little man."
Wade flew sobbing to hide himself under the house. Melanie bit her lip and tears came to
her eyes, and Mammy standing in the hall, a witness to the scene, scowled and breathed hard. But
no one talked back to Scarlett these days. They were all afraid of her sharp tongue, all afraid of the new person who walked in her body.
Scarlett reigned supreme at Tara now and, like others suddenly elevated to authority, all the Bullying instincts in her nature rose to the surface. It was not that she was basically unkind. It was because she was so frightened and unsure of herself she was harsh lest others learn her inadequacies: and refuse her authority. Besides, there was some pleasure in shouting at people and knowing they were afraid. Scarlett found that it relieved her overwrought nerves. She was not blind to the fact that her personality was changing. Sometimes when her curt orders made Pork stick out his under lip and Mammy mutter: "Some folks rides mighty high dese days," she wondered where her good manners had gone. All the courtesy, all the gentleness Ellen had
striven to instill in her had fallen away from her as quickly as leaves fall from trees in the first chill wind of autumn.
Time and again, Ellen had said: "Be firm but be gentle with inferiors, especially darkies."
But if she was gentle the darkies would sit in the kitchen all day, talking endlessly about the good old days when a house nigger wasn't supposed to do a field hand's work.
"Love and cherish your sisters. Be kind to the afflicted," said Ellen. "Show tenderness to those in sorrow and in trouble."
She couldn't love her sisters now. They were simply a dead weight on her shoulders. And