perfect in all things--except that she was so headstrong. Frank learned early in his marriage that so long as she had her own way, life could be very pleasant, but when she was opposed--Given her own way, she was as gay as a child, laughed a good deal, made foolish little jokes, sat on his knee and tweaked his beard until he vowed he felt twenty years younger. She could be
unexpectedly sweet and thoughtful, having his slippers toasting at the fire when he came home at night, fussing affectionately about his wet feet and interminable head colds, remembering that he always liked the gizzard of the chicken and three spoonfuls of sugar in his coffee. Yes, life was very sweet and cozy with Scarlett--as long as she had her own way.
When the marriage was two weeks old, Frank contracted the grippe and Dr. Meade put
him to bed. In the first year of the war, Frank had spent two months in the hospital with pneumonia and he had lived in dread of another attack since that time, so he was only too glad to lie sweating under three blankets and drink the hot concoctions Mammy and Aunt Pitty brought him every hour.
The illness dragged on and Frank worried more and more about the store as each day
passed. The place was in charge of the counter boy, who came to the house every night to report on the day's transactions, but Frank was not satisfied. He fretted until Scarlett who had only been waiting for such an opportunity laid a cool hand on his forehead and said: "Now, sweetheart, I shall be vexed if you take on so. I'll go to town and see how things are."
And she went, smiling as she smothered his feeble protests. During the three weeks of her new marriage, she had been in a fever to see his account books and find out just how money matters stood. What luck that he was bedridden!
The store stood near Five Points, its new roof glaring against the smoked bricks of the old walls. Wooden awnings covered the sidewalk to the edge of the street, and at the long iron bars connecting the uprights horses and mules were hitched, their heads bowed against the cold misty rain, their backs covered with torn blankets and quilts. The inside of the store was almost like Bullard's store in Jonesboro, except that there were no loungers about the roaring red-hot stove, whittling and spitting streams of tobacco juice at the sand boxes. It was bigger than Bullard's store and much darker. The wooden awnings cut off most of the winter daylight and the interior was dim and dingy, only a trickle of light coming in through the small fly-specked windows high up on the side walls. The floor was covered with muddy sawdust and everywhere was dust and dirt. There was a semblance of order in the front of the store, where tall shelves rose into the gloom stacked with bright bolts of cloth, china, cooking utensils and notions. But in the back, behind the partition, chaos reigned.
Here there was no flooring and the assorted jumble of stock was piled helter-skelter on the hard-packed earth. In the semidarkness she saw boxes and bales of goods, plows and harness and saddles and cheap pine coffins. Secondhand furniture, ranging from cheap gum to mahogany and rosewood, reared up in the gloom, and the rich but worn brocade and horsehair upholstery
gleamed incongruously in the dingy surroundings. China chambers and bowl and pitcher sets littered the floor and all around the four walls were deep bins, so dark she had to hold the lamp directly over them to discover they contained seeds, nails, bolts and carpenters' tools.
"I'd think a man as fussy and old maidish as Frank would keep things tidier," she thought, scrubbing her grimy hands with her handkerchief. "This place is a pigpen. What a way to run a store! If he'd only dust up this stuff and put it out in front where folks could see it, he could sell things much quicker."
And if his stock was in such condition, what mustn't his accounts be!
I'll look at his account book now, she thought and, picking up the lamp, she went into the front of the store. Willie, the counter boy, was reluctant to give her the large dirty-backed ledger.
It was obvious that, young as he was, he shared Frank's opinion that women had no place in business. But Scarlett silenced him with a sharp word and sent him out to get his dinner. She felt better when he was gone, for his disapproval annoyed her, and she settled herself in a split-bottomed chair by the roaring stove, tucked one foot under her and spread the book across her lap. It was dinner time and the streets were deserted. No customers called and she had the store to herself.
She turned the pages slowly, narrowly scanning the rows of names and figures written in
Frank's cramped copperplate hand. It was just as she had expected, and she frowned as she saw this newest evidence of Frank's lack of business sense. At least five hundred dollars in debts, some of them months old, were set down against the names of people she knew well, the