But Will's a gentleman at heart. He's got the right instincts. Nobody but a born gentleman could have put his finger on what is wrong with us as accurately as he just did, down there at the burying. The whole world can't lick us but we can lick ourselves by longing too hard for things we haven't got any more--and by remembering too much. Yes, Will will do well by Suellen and by Tara."
"Then you approve of me letting him marry her?"
"God, no!" The old voice was tired and bitter but vigorous. "Approve of Crackers marrying into old families? Bah! Would I approve of breeding scrub stock to thoroughbreds? Oh, Crackers are good and solid and honest but--"
"But you said you thought it would be a successful match!" cried Scarlett bewildered.
"Oh, I think it's good for Suellen to marry Will--to marry anybody for that matter, because she needs a husband bad. And where else could she get one? And where else could you get as good a manager for Tara? But that doesn't mean I like the situation any better than you do."
But I do like it, thought Scarlett trying to grasp the old lady's meaning. I'm glad Will is going to marry her. Why should she think I minded? She's taking it for granted that I do mind, just like her.
She felt puzzled and a little ashamed, as always when people attributed to her emotions
and motives they possessed and thought she shared.
Grandma fanned herself with her palmetto leaf and went on briskly: "I don't approve of the match any more than you do but I'm practical and so are you. And when it comes to
something that's unpleasant but can't be helped, I don't see any sense in screaming and kicking about it. That's no way to meet the ups and downs of life. I know because my family and the Old Doctor's family have had more than our share of ups and downs. And if we folks have a motto, it's this: 'Don't holler--smile and bide your time.' We've survived a passel of things that way, smiling and biding our time, and we've gotten to be experts at surviving. We had to be. We've always bet on the wrong horses. Run out of France with the Huguenots, run out of England with the Cavaliers, run out of Scotland with Bonnie Prince Charlie, run out of Haiti by the niggers and now licked by the Yankees. But we always turn up on top in a few years. You know why?"
She cocked her head and Scarlett thought she looked like nothing so much as an old,
knowing parrot.
"No, I don't know, I'm sure," she answered politely. But she was heartily bored, even as she had been the day when Grandma launched on her memories of the Creek uprising.
"Well, this is the reason. We bow to the inevitable. We're not wheat, we're buckwheat!
When a storm comes along it flattens ripe wheat because it's dry and can't bend with the wind.
But ripe buckwheat's got sap in it and it bends. And when the wind has passed, it springs up almost as straight and strong as before. We aren't a stiff-necked tribe. We're mighty limber when a hard wind's blowing, because we know it pays to be limber. When trouble comes we bow to the inevitable without any mouthing, and we work and we smile and we bide our time. And we play along with lesser folks and we take what we can get from them. And when we're strong enough, we kick the folks whose necks we've climbed over. That, my child, is the secret of the survival."
And after a pause, she added: "I pass it on to you."
The old lady cackled, as if she were amused by her words, despite the venom in them. She
looked as if she expected some comment from Scarlett but the words had made little sense to her and she could think of nothing to say.
"No, sir," Old Miss went on, "our folks get flattened out but they rise up again, and that's more than I can say for plenty of people not so far away from here. Look at Cathleen Calvert.
You can see what she's come to. Poor white! And a heap lower than the man she married. Look at the McRae family. Flat to the ground, helpless, don't know what to do, don't know how to do anything. Won't even try. They spend their time whining about the good old days. And look at--
well, look at nearly anybody in this County except my Alex and my Sally and you and Jim
Tarleton and his girls and some others. The rest have gone under because they didn't have any sap in them, because they didn't have the gumption to rise up again. There never was anything to those folks but money and darkies, and now that the money and darkies are gone, those folks will be Cracker in another generation."
"You forgot the Wilkes."
"No, I didn't forget them. I just thought I'd be polite and not mention them, seeing that Ashley's a guest under this roof. But seeing as how you've brought up their names--look at them!