Though many new buildings had sprung up in the year since Sherman marched out of the
burning town and the Confederates returned, there were still wide vacant lots around Five Points where heaps of smudged broken bricks lay amid a jumble of rubbish, dead weeds and broomsedge. There were the remains of a few buildings she remembered, roofless brick walls through which the dull daylight shone, glassless windows gaping, chimneys towering lonesomely. Here and there her eyes gladly picked out a familiar store which had partly survived shell and fire and had been repaired, the fresh red of new brick glaring bright against the smut of the old walls. On new store fronts and new office windows she saw the welcome names of men she knew but more often the names were unfamiliar, especially the dozens of shingles of strange doctors and lawyers and cotton merchants. Once she had known practically everyone in Atlanta and the sight of so many strange names depressed her. But she was cheered by the sight of new buildings going up all along the street.
There were dozens of them and several were three stories high! Everywhere building was
going on, for as she looked down the street, trying to adjust her mind to the new Atlanta, she
heard the blithe sound of hammers and saws, noticed scaffoldings rising and saw men climbing ladders with hods of bricks on their shoulders. She looked down the street she loved so well and her eyes misted a little.
"They burned you," she thought, "and they laid you flat. But they didn't lick you. They couldn't lick you. You'll grow back just as big and sassy as you used to be!"
As she walked along Peachtree, followed by the waddling Mammy, she found the
sidewalks just as crowded as they were at the height of the war and there was the same air of rush and bustle about the resurrecting town which had made her blood sing when she came here, so long ago, on her first visit to Aunt Pitty. There seemed to be just as many vehicles wallowing in the mud holes as there had been then, except that there were no Confederate ambulances, and just as many horses and mules tethered to hitching racks in front of the wooden awnings of the stores.
Though the sidewalks were jammed, the faces she saw were as unfamiliar as the signs overhead, new people, many rough-looking men and tawdrily dressed women. The streets were black with loafing negroes who leaned against walls or sat on the curbing watching vehicles go past with the na?ve curiosity of children at a circus parade.
"Free issue country niggers," snorted Mammy. "Ain' never seed a proper cah'ige in dere lives. An' impident lookin', too."
They were impudent looking, Scarlett agreed, for they stared at her in an insolent manner, but she forgot them in the renewed shock of seeing blue uniforms. The town was full of Yankee soldiers, on horses, afoot, in army wagons, loafing on the street, reeling out of barrooms.
I'll never get used to them, she thought, clenching her fists. Never! and over her shoulder:
"Hurry, Mammy, let's get out of this crowd."
"Soon's Ah kick dis black trash outer mah way," answered Mammy loudly, swinging the carpetbag at a black buck who loitered tantalizingly in front of her and making him leap aside.
"Ah doan lak disyere town, Miss Scarlett. It's too full of Yankees an' cheap free issue."
"It's nicer where it isn't so crowded. When we get across Five Points, it won't be so bad."
They picked their way across the slippery stepping stones that bridged the mud of Decatur Street and continued up Peachtree, through a thinning crowd. When they reached Wesley Chapel where Scarlett had paused to catch her breath that day in 1864 when she had run for Dr. Meade, she looked at it and laughed aloud, shortly and grimly. Mammy's quick old eyes sought hers with suspicion and question but her curiosity went unsatisfied. Scarlett was recalling with contempt the terror which had ridden her that day. She had been crawling with fear, rotten with fear, terrified by the Yankees, terrified by the approaching birth of Beau. Now she wondered how she could have been so frightened, frightened like a child at a loud noise. And what a child she had been to think that Yankees and fire and defeat were the worst things that could happen to her!
What trivialities they were beside Ellen's death and Gerald's vagueness, beside hunger and cold and backbreaking work and the living nightmare of insecurity. How easy she would find it now to be brave before an invading army, but how hard to face the danger that threatened Tara! No, she would never again be afraid of anything except poverty.
Up Peachtree came a closed carriage and Scarlett went to the curb eagerly to see if she
knew the occupant, for Aunt Pitty's house was still several blocks away. She and Mammy leaned forward as the carriage came abreast and Scarlett, with a smile arranged, almost called out when a woman's head appeared for a moment at the window--a too bright red head beneath a fine fur hat. Scarlett took a step back as mutual recognition leaped into both faces. It was Belle Watling and Scarlett had a glimpse of nostrils distended with dislike before she disappeared again.