"She really must care about him," thought Scarlett in contempt. "And I guess she'd be almost human if she ever had a husband of her own, even if her husband was old fuss-budget Frank."
Carreen had brightened a little too, and some of the sleepwalking look left her eyes that night. She had found that one of the men had known Brent Tarleton and had been with him the day he was killed, and she promised herself a long private talk with him after supper.
At supper Melanie surprised them all by forcing herself out of her timidity and being
almost vivacious. She laughed and joked and almost but not quite coquetted with a one-eyed soldier who gladly repaid her efforts with extravagant gallantries. Scarlett knew the effort this involved both mentally and physically, for Melanie suffered torments of shyness in the presence of anything male. Moreover she was far from well. She insisted she was strong and did more work even than Dilcey but Scarlett knew she was sick. When she lifted things her face went white and she had a way of sitting down suddenly after exertions, as if her legs would no longer support her. But tonight she, like Suellen and Carreen, was doing everything possible to make the soldiers enjoy their Christmas Eve. Scarlett alone took no pleasure in the guests.
The troop had added their ration of parched corn and side meat to the supper of dried
peas, stewed dried apples and peanuts which Mammy set before them and they declared it was the best meal they had had in months. Scarlett watched them eat and she was uneasy. She not
only begrudged them every mouthful they ate but she was on tenterhooks lest they discover somehow that Pork had slaughtered one of the shoats the day before. It now hung in the pantry and she had grimly promised her household that she would scratch out the eyes of anyone who mentioned the shoat to their guests or the presence of the dead pig's sisters and brothers, safe in their pen in the swamp. These hungry men could devour the whole shoat at one meal and, if they knew of the live hogs, they could commandeer them for the army. She was alarmed, too, for the cow and the horse and wished they were hidden in the swamp, instead of tied in the woods at the bottom of the pasture. If the commissary took her stock, Tara could not possibly live through the winter. There would be no way of replacing them. As to what this army would eat, she did not care. Let the army feed the army--if it could. It was hard enough for her to feed her own.
The men added as dessert some "ramrod rolls" from their knapsacks, and this was the first time Scarlett had ever seen this Confederate article of diet about which there were almost as many jokes as about lice. They were charred spirals of what appeared to be wood. The men dared her to take a bite and, when she did, she discovered that beneath the smoke-blackened surface was unsalted corn bread. The soldiers mixed their ration of corn meal with water, and salt too when they could get it, wrapped the thick paste about their ramrods and roasted the mess over camp fires. It was as hard as rock candy and as tasteless as sawdust and after one bite Scarlett hastily handed it back amid roars of laughter. She met Melanie's eyes and the same thought was plain in both faces… "How can they go on fighting if they have only this stuff to eat?"
The meal was gay enough and even Gerald, presiding absently at the head of the table,
managed to evoke from the back of his dim mind some of the manner of a host and an uncertain smile. The men talked, the women smiled and flattered--but Scarlett turning suddenly to Frank Kennedy to ask him news of Miss Pittypat, caught an expression on his face which made her forget what she intended to say.
His eyes had left Suellen's and were wandering about the room, to Gerald's childlike
puzzled eyes, to the floor, bare of rugs, to the mantelpiece denuded of its ornaments, the sagging springs and torn upholstery into which Yankee bayonets had ripped, the cracked mirror above the sideboard, the unfaded squares on the wall where pictures had hung before the looters came, the scant table service, the decently mended but old dresses of the girls, the flour sack which had been made into a kilt for Wade.
Frank was remembering the Tara he had known before the war and on his face was a hurt
look, a look of tired impotent anger. He loved Suellen, liked her sisters, respected Gerald and had a genuine fondness for the plantation. Since Sherman had swept through Georgia, Frank had seen many appalling sights as he rode about the state trying to collect supplies, but nothing had gone to his heart as Tara did now. He wanted to do something for the O'Haras, especially Suellen, and there was nothing he could do. He was unconsciously wagging his whiskered head in pity and clicking his tongue against his teeth when Scarlett caught his eye. He saw the flame of indignant pride in them and he dropped his gaze quickly to his plate in embarrassment.