So on the first day when her foot had healed enough to stand a slipper, she mounted the
Yankee's horse. One foot in the shortened stirrup and the other leg crooked about the pommel in an approximation of a side saddle, she set out across the fields toward Mimosa, steeling herself to find it burned.
To her surprise and pleasure, she saw the faded yellow-stucco house standing amid the
mimosa trees, looking as it had always looked. Warm happiness, happiness that almost brought tears, flooded her when the three Fontaine women came out of the house to welcome her with kisses and cries of joy.
But when the first exclamations of affectionate greeting were over and they all had
trooped into the dining room to sit down, Scarlett felt a chill. The Yankees had not reached Mimosa because it was far off the main road. And so the Fontaines still had their stock and their provisions, but Mimosa was held by the same strange silence that hung over Tara, over the whole countryside. All the slaves except four women house servants had run away, frightened by the approach of the Yankees. There was not a man on the place unless Sally's little boy, Joe, hardly out of diapers, could be counted as a man. Alone in the big house were Grandma Fontaine, in her seventies, her daughter-in-law who would always be known as Young Miss, though she was in her fifties, and Sally, who had barely turned twenty. They were far away from neighbors and unprotected, but if they were afraid it did not show on their faces. Probably, thought Scarlett, because Sally and Young Miss were too afraid of the porcelain-frail but indomitable old
Grandma to dare voice any qualms. Scarlett herself was afraid of the old lady, for she had sharp eyes and a sharper tongue and Scarlett had felt them both in the past.
Though unrelated by blood and far apart in age, there was a kinship of spirit and
experience binding these women together. All three wore home-dyed mourning, all were worn, sad, worried, all bitter with a bitterness that did not sulk or complain but, nevertheless, peered out from behind their smiles and their words of welcome. For their slaves were gone, their money was worthless, Sally's husband, Joe, had died at Gettysburg and Young Miss was also a widow, for young Dr. Fontaine had died of dysentery at Vicksburg. The other two boys, Alex and Tony,
were somewhere in Virginia and nobody knew whether they were alive or dead; and old Dr.
Fontaine was off somewhere with Wheeler's cavalry.
"And the old fool is seventy-three years old though he tries to act younger and he's as full of rheumatism as a hog is of fleas," said Grandma, proud of her husband, the light in her eyes belying her sharp words.
"Have you all had any news of what's been happening in Atlanta?" asked Scarlett when they were comfortably settled. "We're completely buried at Tara."
"Law, child," said Old Miss, taking charge of the conversation, as was her habit, "we're in the same fix as you are. We don't know a thing except that Sherman finally got the town."
"So he did get it. What's he doing now? Where's the fighting now?"
"And how would three lone women out here in the country know about the war when we
haven't seen a letter or a newspaper in weeks?" said the old lady tartly. "One of our darkies talked to a darky who'd seen a darky who'd been to Jonesboro, and except for that we haven't heard anything. What they said was that the Yankees were just squatting in Atlanta resting up their men and their horses, but whether it's true or not you're as good a judge as I am. Not that they wouldn't need a rest, after the fight we gave them."
To think you've been at Tara all this time and we didn't know!" Young Miss broke in.
"Oh, how I blame myself for not riding over to see! But there's been so much to do here with most all the darkies gone that I just couldn't get away. But I should have made time to go. It wasn't neighborly of me. But, of course, we thought the Yankees had burned Tara like they did Twelve Oaks and the Macintosh house and that your folks had gone to Macon. And we never
dreamed you were home, Scarlett."
"Well, how were we to know different when Mr. O'Hara's darkies came through here so
scared they were popeyed and told us the Yankees were going to burn Tara?" Grandma
interrupted.
"And we could see--"Sally began.
"I'm telling this, please," said Old Miss shortly. "And they said the Yankees were camped all over Tara and your folks were fixing to go to Macon. And then that night we saw the glare of fire over toward Tara and it lasted for hours and it scared our fool darkies so bad they all ran off.
What burned?"
"All our cotton--a hundred and fifty thousand dollars worth," said Scarlett bitterly.