"Well, about a month ago I took her into Jonesboro and left her to go callin' while I tended to business and when I took her home, she was still as a mouse but I could see she was so excited she was ready to bust. I thought she'd found out somebody was goin' to have a--that she'd heard some gossip that was interestin', and I didn't pay her much mind. She went around home for about a week all swelled up and excited and didn't have much to say. She went over to see Miss Cathleen Calvert--Scarlett, you'd cry your eyes out at Miss Cathleen. Pore girl, she'd better be dead than married to that pusillanimous Yankee Hilton. You knew he'd mortaged the place and lost it and they're goin' to have to leave?"
"No, I didn't know and I don't want to know. I want to know about Pa."
"Well, I'm gettin' to that," said Will patiently. "When she come back from over there she said we'd all misjudged Hilton, She called him Mr. Hilton and she said he was a smart man, but we just laughed at her. Then she took to takin' your pa out to walk in the afternoons and lots of times when I was comin' home from the field, I'd see her sittin' with him on the wall 'round the buryin' ground, talkin' at him hard and wavin' her hands. And the old gentleman would just look at her sort of puzzled-like and shake his head. You know how he's been, Scarlett. He just got kind of vaguer and vaguer, like he didn't hardly know where he was or who we were. One time, I seen her point to your ma's grave and the old gentleman begun to cry. And when she come in the house all happy and excited lookin', I gave her a talkin' to, right sharp, too, and I said: 'Miss Suellen, why in hell are you devilin' your poor pa and bringin' up your ma to him? Most of the time he don't realize she's dead and here you are rubbin' it in.' And she just kind of tossed her head and laughed and said: 'Mind your business. Some day you'll be glad of what I'm doin'.' Miss Melanie told me last night that Suellen had told her about her schemes but Miss Melly said she didn't have no notion Suellen was serious. She said she didn't tell none of us because she was so upset at the very idea."
"What idea? Are you ever going to get to the point? We're halfway home now. I want to know about Pa."
"I'm trying to tell you," said Will, "and we're so near home, I guess I'd better stop right here till I've finished."
He drew rein and the horse stopped and snorted. They had halted by the wild overgrown
mock-orange hedge that marked the Macintosh property. Glancing under the dark trees Scarlett could just discern the tall ghostly chimneys still rearing above the silent ruin. She wished that Will had chosen any other place to stop.
"Well, the long and the short of her idea was to make the Yankees pay for the cotton they burned and the stock they drove off and the fences and the barns they tore down."
"The Yankees?"
"Haven't you heard about it? The Yankee government's been payin' claims on all
destroyed property of Union sympathizers in the South."
"Of course I've heard about that," said Scarlett "But what's that got to do with us?"
"A heap, in Suellen's opinion. That day I took her to Jonesboro, she run into Mrs.
Macintosh and when they were gossipin' along, Suellen couldn't help noticin' what fine-lookin'
clothes Mrs. Macintosh had on and she couldn't help askin' about them. Then Mrs. Macintosh gave herself a lot of airs and said as how her husband had put in a claim with the Federal government for destroyin' the property of a loyal Union sympathizer who had never given aid and comfort to the Confederacy in any shape or form."
"They never gave aid and comfort to anybody," snapped Scarlett. "Scotch-Irish!"
"Well, maybe that's true. I don't know them. Anyway, the government gave them, well--I forget how many thousand dollars. A right smart sum it was, though. That started Suellen. She thought about it all week and didn't say nothin' to us because she knew we'd just laugh. But she just had to talk to somebody so she went over to Miss Cathleen's and that damned white trash, Hilton, gave her a passel of new ideas. He pointed out that your pa warn't even born in this country, that he hadn't fought in the war and hadn't had no sons to fight, and hadn't never held no office under the Confederacy. He said they could strain a point about Mr. O'Hara bein' a loyal Union sympathizer. He filled her up with such truck and she come home and begun workin' on Mr. O'Hara. Scarlett, I bet my life your pa didn't even know half the time what she was talkin'
about. That was what she was countin' on, that he would take the Iron Clad oath and not even know it."