Студопедия
Случайная страница | ТОМ-1 | ТОМ-2 | ТОМ-3
АрхитектураБиологияГеографияДругоеИностранные языки
ИнформатикаИсторияКультураЛитератураМатематика
МедицинаМеханикаОбразованиеОхрана трудаПедагогика
ПолитикаПравоПрограммированиеПсихологияРелигия
СоциологияСпортСтроительствоФизикаФилософия
ФинансыХимияЭкологияЭкономикаЭлектроника

Scarlett O’Hara was not beautiful, but men seldom realized it when caught by her charm as the Tarleton twins were. In her face were too sharply blended the delicate features of her mother, a Coast 33 страница



 

“Daughter,” he said with an effort. “Daughter.”

 

Then he was silent.

 

Why-he’s an old man! thought Scarlett.

 

Gerald’s shoulders sagged. In the face which she could only see dimly, there was none of the virility, the restless vitality of Gerald, and the eyes that looked into hers had almost the same fear-stunned look that lay in little Wade’s eyes. He was only a little old man and broken.

 

And now, fear of unknown things seized her, leaped swiftly out of the darkness at her and she could only stand and stare at him, all the flood of questioning dammed up at her lips.

 

From the wagon the faint wailing sounded again and Gerald seemed to rouse himself with an effort.

 

“It’s Melanie and her baby,” whispered Scarlett rapidly. “She’s very ill-I brought her home.”

 

Gerald dropped his hand from her arm and straightened his shoulders. As he moved slowly to the side of the wagon, there was a ghostly semblance of the old host of Tara welcoming guests, as if Gerald spoke words from out of shadowy memory.

 

“Cousin Melanie!”

 

Melanie’s voice murmured indistinctly.

 

“Cousin Melanie, this is your home. Twelve Oaks is burned. You must stay with us.”

 

Thoughts of Melanie’s prolonged suffering spurred Scarlett to action. The present was with her again, the necessity of laying Melanie and her child on a soft bed and doing those small things for her that could be done.

 

“She must be carried. She can’t walk.”

 

There was a scuffle of feet and a dark figure emerged from the cave of the front hall. Pork ran down the steps.

 

“Miss Scarlett! Miss Scarlett!” he cried.

 

Scarlett caught him by the arms. Pork, part and parcel of Tara, as dear as the bricks and the cool corridors! She felt his tears stream down on her hands as he patted her clumsily, crying: “Sho is glad you back! Sho is-”

 

Prissy burst into tears and incoherent mumblings: “Poke! Poke, honey!” And little Wade, encouraged by the weakness of his elders, began sniffling: “Wade thirsty!”

 

Scarlett caught them all in hand.

 

“Miss Melanie is in the wagon and her baby too. Pork, you must carry her upstairs very carefully and put her in the back company room. Prissy, take the baby and Wade inside and give Wade a drink of water. Is Mammy here, Pork? Tell her I want her.”

 

Galvanized by the authority in her voice, Pork approached the wagon and fumbled at the backboard. A moan was wrenched from Melanie as he half-lifted, half-dragged her from the feather tick on which she had lain so many hours. And then she was in Pork’s strong arms, her head drooping like a child’s across his shoulder. Prissy, holding the baby and dragging Wade by the hand, followed them up the wide steps and disappeared into the blackness of the hall.

 

Scarlett’s bleeding fingers sought her father’s hand urgently.

 

“Did they get well, Pa?”

 

“The girls are recovering.”

 

Silence fell and in the silence an idea too monstrous for words took form. She could not, could not force it to her lips. She swallowed and swallowed but a sudden dryness seemed to have stuck the sides of her throat together. Was this the answer to the frightening riddle of Tara’s silence? As if answering the question in her mind Gerald spoke.

 

“Your mother-” he said and stopped.

 

“And-Mother?”

 

“Your mother died yesterday.”

 

Her father’s arm held tightly in her own, Scarlett felt her way down the wide dark hall which, even in its blackness, was as familiar as her own mind. She avoided the high-backed chairs, the empty gun rack, the old sideboard with its protruding claw feet, and she felt herself drawn by instinct to the tiny office at the back of the house where Ellen always sat, keeping her endless accounts. Surely, when she entered that room, Mother would again be sitting there before the secretary and would look up, quill poised, and rise with sweet fragrance and rustling hoops to meet her tired daughter. Ellen could not be dead, not even though Pa had said it, said it over and over like a parrot that knows only one phrase: “She died yesterday-she died yesterday-she died yesterday.”



 

Queer that she should feel nothing now, nothing except a weariness that shackled her limbs with heavy iron chains and a hunger that made her knees tremble. She would think of Mother later. She must put her mother out of her mind now, else she would stumble stupidly like Gerald or sob monotonously like Wade.

 

Pork came down the wide dark steps toward them, hurrying to press close to Scarlett like a cold animal toward a fire.

 

“Lights?” she questioned. “Why is the house so dark, Pork? Bring candles.”

 

“Dey tuck all de candles, Miss Scarlett, all ’cept one we been usin’ ter fine things in de dahk wid, an’ it’s ’bout gone. Mammy been usin’ a rag in a dish of hawg fat fer a light fer nussin’ Miss Careen an’ Miss Suellen.”

 

“Bring what’s left of the candle,” she ordered. “Bring it into Mother’s-into the office.”

 

Pork pattered into the dining room and Scarlett groped her way into the inky small room and sank down on the sofa. Her father’s arm still lay in the crook of hers, helpless, appealing, trusting, as only the hands of the very young and the very old can be.

 

 

“He’s an old man, an old tired man,” she thought again and vaguely wondered why she could not care.

 

Light wavered into the room as Pork entered carrying high a halfburned candle stuck in a saucer. The dark cave came to life, the sagging old sofa on which they sat, the tall secretary reaching toward the ceiling with Mother’s fragile carved chair before it, the racks of pigeonholes, still stuffed with papers written in her fine hand, the worn carpet-all, all were the same, except that Ellen was not there, Ellen with the faint scent of lemon verbena sachet and the sweet look in her up-tilted eyes. Scarlett felt a small pain in her heart as of nerves numbed by a deep wound, struggling to make themselves felt again. She must not let them come to life now; there was all the rest of her life ahead of her in which they could ache. But, not now! Please, God, not now!

 

She looked into Gerald’s putty-colored face and, for the first time in her life, she saw him unshaven, his once florid face covered with silvery bristles. Pork placed the candle on the candle stand and came to her side. Scarlett felt that if he had been a dog he would have laid his muzzle in her lap and whined for a kind hand upon his head.

 

“Pork, how many darkies are here?”

 

“Miss Scarlett, dem trashy niggers done runned away an’ some of dem went off wid de Yankees an’-”

 

“How many are left?”

 

“Dey’s me, Miss Scarlett, an’ Mammy. She been nussin’ de young Misses all day. An’ Dilcey, she settin’ up wid de young Misses now. Us three, Miss Scarlett.”

 

“Us three” where there had been a hundred. Scarlett with an effort lifted her head on her aching neck. She knew she must keep her voice steady. To her surprise, words came out as coolly and naturally as if there had never been a war and she could, by waving her hand, call ten house servants to her.

 

“Pork, I’m starving. Is there anything to eat?”

 

“No’m. Dey tuck it all.”

 

“But the garden?”

 

“Dey tuhned dey hawses loose in it.”

 

“Even the sweet potato hills?”

 

Something almost like a pleased smile broke his thick lips.

 

“Miss Scarlett, Ah done fergit de yams. Ah specs dey’s right dar. Dem Yankee folks ain’ never seed no yams an’ dey thinks dey’s jes’ roots an’-”

 

“The moon will be up soon. You go out and dig us some and roast them. There’s no corn meal? No dried peas? No chickens?”

 

“No’m. No’m. Whut chickens dey din’ eat right hyah dey cah’ied off ‘cross dey saddles.”

 

They-They-They-Was there no end to what ‘They” had done? Was it not enough to burn and kill? Must they also leave women and children and helpless negroes to starve in a country which they had desolated?

 

“Miss Scarlett, Ah got some apples Mammy buhied unner de house. We been eatin’ on dem today.”

 

“Bring them before you dig the potatoes. And, Pork-I-I feel so faint. Is there any wine in the cellar, even blackberry?”

 

“Oh, Miss Scarlett, de cellar wuz de fust place dey went.”

 

A swimming nausea compounded of hunger, sleeplessness, exhaustion and stunning blows came on suddenly and she gripped the carved roses under her hand.

 

“No wine,” she said dully, remembering the endless rows of bottles in the cellar. A memory stirred.

 

“Pork, what of the corn whisky Pa buried in the oak barrel under the scuppernong arbor?”

 

Another ghost of a smile lit the black face, a smile of pleasure and respect.

 

“Miss Scarlett, you sho is de beatenes’ chile! Ah done plum fergit dat bah’l. But, Miss Scarlett, dat whisky ain’ no good. Ain’ been dar but ’bout a year an’ whisky ain’ no good fer ladies nohow.”

 

How stupid negroes were! They never thought of anything unless they were told. And the Yankees wanted to free them.

 

“It’ll be good enough for this lady and for Pa. Hurry, Pork, and dig it up and bring us two glasses and some mint and sugar and I’ll mix a julep.”

 

“Miss Scarlett, you knows dey ain’ been no sugar at Tara fer de longes’. An’ dey hawses done et up all de mint an’ dey done broke all de glasses.”

 

If he says “They” once more, I’ll scream. I can’t help it, she thought, and then, aloud: “Well, hurry and get the whisky, quickly. We’ll take it neat.” And, as he turned: “Wait, Pork. There’s so many things to do that I can’t seem to think… Oh, yes. I brought home a horse and a cow and the cow needs milking, badly, and unharness the horse and water him. Go tell Mammy to look after the cow. Tell her she’s got to fix the cow up somehow. Miss Melanie’s baby will die if he doesn’t get something to eat and-”

 

“Miss Melly ain’-kain-?” Pork paused delicately.

 

“Miss Melanie has no milk.” Dear God, but Mother would faint at that!

 

“Well, Miss Scarlett, mah Dilcey ten’ ter Miss Melly’s chile. Mah Dilcey got a new chile herseff an’ she got mo’n nuff fer both.”

 

“You’ve got a new baby, Pork?”

 

Babies, babies, babies. Why did God make so many babies? But no, God didn’t make them. Stupid people made them.

 

“Yas’m, big fat black boy. He-”

 

“Go tell Dilcey to leave the girls. I’ll look after them. Tell her to nurse Miss Melanie’s baby and do what she can for Miss Melanie. Tell Mammy to look after the cow and put that poor horse in the stable.”

 

“Dey ain’ no stable, Miss Scarlett. Dey use it fer fiah wood.”

 

“Don’t tell me any more what ‘They’ did. Tell Dilcey to look after them. And you, Pork, go dig up that whisky and then some potatoes.”

 

“But, Miss Scarlett, Ah ain’ got no light ter dig by.”

 

“You can use a stick of firewood, can’t you?”

 

“Dey ain’ no fiah wood-Dey-”

 

“Do something… I don’t care what. But dig those things and dig them fast. Now, hurry.”

 

Pork scurried from the room as her voice roughened and Scarlett was left alone with Gerald. She patted his leg gently. She noted how shrunken were the thighs that once bulged with saddle muscles. She must do something to drag him from his apathy-but she could not ask about Mother. That must come later, when she could stand it.

 

“Why didn’t they burn Tara?”

 

Gerald stared at her for a moment as if not hearing her and she repeated her question.

 

“Why-” he fumbled, “they used the house as a headquarters.”

 

“Yankees-in this house?”

 

A feeling that the beloved walls had been defiled rose in her. This house, sacred because Ellen had lived in it, and those-those-in it.

 

“So they were, Daughter. We saw the smoke from Twelve Oaks, across the river, before they came. But Miss Honey and Miss India and some of their darkies had refugeed to Macon, so we did not worry about them. But we couldn’t be going to Macon. The girls were so sick-your mother-we couldn’t be going. Our darkies ran-I’m not knowing where. They stole the wagons and the mules. Mammy and Dilcey and Pork-they didn’t run. The girls-your mother-we couldn’t be moving them.”

 

“Yes, yes.” He mustn’t talk about Mother. Anything else. Even that General Sherman himself had used this room, Mother’s office, for his headquarters. Anything else.

 

“The Yankees were moving on Jonesboro, to cut the railroad. And they came up the road from the river-thousands and thousands-and cannon and horses-thousands. I met them on the front porch.”

 

“Oh, gallant little Gerald!” thought Scarlett, her heart swelling, Gerald meeting the enemy on the stairs of Tara as if an army stood behind him instead of in front of him.

 

“They said for me to leave, that they would be burning the place. And I said that they would be burning it over my head. We could not leave-the girls-your mother were-”

 

“And then?” Must he revert to Ellen always?

 

“I told them there was sickness in the house, the typhoid, and it was death to move them. They could burn the roof over us. I did not want to leave anyway-leave Tara-”

 

His voice trailed off into silence as he looked absently about the walls and Scarlett understood. There were too many Irish ancestors crowding behind Gerald’s shoulders, men who had died on scant acres, fighting to the end rather than leave the homes where they had lived, plowed, loved, begotten sons.

 

“I said that they would be burning the house over the heads of three dying women. But we would not leave. The young officer was-was a gentleman.”

 

“A Yankee a gentleman? Why, Pa!”

 

“A gentleman. He galloped away and soon he was back with a captain, a surgeon, and he looked at the girls-and your mother.”

 

“You let a damned Yankee into their room?”

 

“He had opium. We had none. He saved your sisters. Suellen was hemorrhaging. He was as kind as he knew how. And when he reported that they were-ill-they did not burn the house. They moved in, some general, his staff, crowding in. They filled all the rooms except the sick room. And the soldiers-”

 

He paused again, as if too tired to go on. His stubbly chin sank heavily in loose folds of flesh on his chest. With an effort he spoke again.

 

“They camped all round the house, everywhere, in the cotton, in the corn. The pasture was blue with them. That night there were a thousand campfires. They tore down the fences and burned them to cook with and the barns and the stables and the smokehouse. They killed the cows and the hogs and the chickens-even my turkeys.” Gerald’s precious turkeys. So they were gone. “They took things, even the pictures-some of the furniture, the china-”

 

“The silver?”

 

“Pork and Mammy did something with the silver-put it in the well-but I’m not remembering now,” Gerald’s voice was fretful. “Then they fought the battle from here-from Tara-there was so much noise, people galloping up and stamping about. And later the cannon at Jonesboro-it sounded like thunder-even the girls could hear it, sick as they were, and they kept saying over and over: ‘Papa, make it stop thundering.”

 

“And-and Mother? Did she know Yankees were in the house?”

 

“She-never knew anything.”

 

“Thank God,” said Scarlett. Mother was spared that. Mother never knew, never heard the enemy in the rooms below, never heard the guns at Jonesboro, never learned that the land which was part of her heart was under Yankee feet.

 

“I saw few of them for I stayed upstairs with the girls and your mother. I saw the young surgeon mostly. He was kind, so kind, Scarlett. After he’d worked all day with the wounded, he came and sat with them. He even left some medicine. He told me when they moved on that the girls would recover but your mother-She was so frail, he said-too frail to stand it all. He said she had undermined her strength… ”

 

In the silence that fell, Scarlett saw her mother as she must have been in those last days, a thin power of strength in Tara, nursing, working, doing without sleep and food that the others might rest and eat.

 

“And then, they moved on. Then, they moved on.”

 

He was silent for a long time and then fumbled at her hand.

 

“It’s glad I am you are home,” he said simply.

 

There was a scraping noise on the back porch. Poor Pork, trained for forty years to clean his shoes before entering the house, did not forget, even in a time like this. He came in, carefully carrying two gourds, and the strong smell of dripping spirits entered before him.

 

“Ah spilt a plen’y, Miss Scarlett. It’s pow’ful hard ter po’ outer a bung hole inter a go’de.”

 

“That’s quite all right, Pork, and thank you.” She took the wet gourd dipper from him, her nostrils wrinkling in distaste at the reek.

 

“Drink this, Father,” she said, pushing the whisky in its strange receptacle into his hand and taking the second gourd of water from Pork. Gerald raised it, obedient as a child, and gulped noisily.

 

She handed the water to him but he shook his head.

 

As she took the whisky from him and held it to her mouth, she saw his eyes follow her, a vague stirring of disapproval in them.

 

“I know no lady drinks spirits,” she said briefly. “But today I’m no lady, Pa, and there is work to do tonight.”

 

She tilted the dipper, drew a deep breath and drank swiftly. The hot liquid burned down her throat to her stomach, choking her and bringing tears to her eyes. She drew another breath and raised it again.

 

“Katie Scarlett,” said Gerald, the first note of authority she had heard in his voice since her return, “that is enough. You’re not knowing spirits and they will be making you tipsy.”

 

“Tipsy?” She laughed an ugly laugh. “Tipsy? I hope it makes me drunk. I would like to be drunk and forget all of this.”

 

She drank again, a slow train of warmth lighting in her veins and stealing through her body until even her finger tips tingled. What a blessed feeling, this kindly fire. It seemed to penetrate even her ice-locked heart and strength came coursing back into her body. Seeing Gerald’s puzzled hurt face, she patted his knee again and managed an imitation of the pert smile he used to love.

 

“How could it make me tipsy, Pa? I’m your daughter. Haven’t I inherited the steadiest head in Clayton County?”

 

He almost smiled into her tired face. The whisky was bracing him too. She handed it back to him.

 

“Now you’re going to take another drink and then I am going to take you upstairs and put you to bed.”

 

She caught herself. Why, this was the way she talked to Wade-she should not address her father like this. It was disrespectful. But he hung on her words.

 

“Yes, put you to bed,” she added lightly, “and give you another drink-maybe all the dipper and make you go to sleep. You need sleep and Katie Scarlett is here, so you need not worry about anything. Drink.”

 

He drank again obediently and, slipping her arm through his, she pulled him to his feet.

 

“Pork… ”

 

Pork took the gourd in one hand and Gerald’s arm in the other. Scarlett picked up the flaring candle and the three walked slowly into the dark hall and up the winding steps toward Gerald’s room.

 

The room where Suellen and Carreen lay mumbling and tossing on the same bed stank vilely with the smell of the twisted rag burning in a saucer of bacon fat, which provided the only light. When Scarlett first opened the door the thick atmosphere of the room, with all windows closed and the air reeking with sick-room odors, medicine smells and stinking grease, almost made her faint. Doctors might say that fresh air was fatal in a sick room but if she were to sit here, she must have air or die. She opened the three windows, bringing in the smell of oak leaves and earth, but the fresh air could do little toward dispelling the sickening odors which had accumulated for weeks in this close room.

 

Carreen and Suellen, emaciated and white, slept brokenly and awoke to mumble with wide, staring eyes in the tall four-poster bed where they had whispered together in better, happier days. In the corner of the room was an empty bed, a narrow French Empire bed with curling head and foot, a bed which Ellen had brought from Savannah. This was where Ellen had lain.

 

Scarlett sat beside the two girls, staring at them stupidly. The whisky taken on a stomach long empty was playing tricks on her. Sometimes her sisters seemed far away and tiny and their incoherent voices came to her like the buzz of insects. And again, they loomed large, rushing at her with lightning speed. She was tired, tired to the bone. She could lie down and sleep for days.

 

If she could only lie down and sleep and wake to feel Ellen gently shaking her arm and saying: “It is late, Scarlett. You must not be so lazy.” But she could not ever do that again. If there were only Ellen, someone older than she, wiser and unweary, to whom she could go! Someone in whose lap she could lay her head, someone on whose shoulders she could rest her burdens!

 

The door opened softly and Dilcey entered, Melanie’s baby held to her breast, the gourd of whisky in her hand. In the smoky, uncertain light, she seemed thinner than when Scarlett last saw her and the Indian blood was more evident in her face. The high cheek bones were more prominent, the hawk-bridged nose was sharper and her copper skin gleamed with a brighter hue. Her faded calico dress was open to the waist and her large bronze breast exposed. Held close against her, Melanie’s baby pressed his pale rosebud mouth greedily to the dark nipple, sucking, gripping tiny fists against the soft flesh like a kitten in the warm fur of its mother’s belly.

 

Scarlett rose unsteadily and put a hand on Dilcey’s arm.

 

“It was good of you to stay, Dilcey.”

 

“How could I go off wid them trashy niggers, Miss Scarlett, after yo’ pa been so good to buy me and my little Prissy and yo’ ma been so kine?”

 

“Sit down, Dilcey. The baby can eat all right, then? And how is Miss Melanie?”

 

“Nuthin’ wrong wid this chile ’cept he hongry, and whut it take to feed a hongry chile I got. No’m, Miss Melanie is all right. She ain’ gwine die, Miss Scarlett. Doan you fret yo’seff. I seen too many, white and black, lak her. She mighty tired and nervous like and scared fo’ this baby. But I hesh her and give her some of whut was lef’ in that go’de and she sleepin’.”

 

So the corn whisky had been used by the whole family! Scarlett thought hysterically that perhaps she had better give a drink to little Wade and see if it would stop his hiccoughs-And Melanie would not die. And when Ashley came home-if he did come home… No, she would think of that later too. So much to think of-later! So many things to unravel-to decide. If only she could put off the hour of reckoning forever! She started suddenly as a creaking noise and a rhythmic “Ker-bunk-ker-bunk-” broke the stillness of the air outside.

 

“That’s Mammy gettin’ the water to sponge off the young Misses. They takes a heap of bathin’,” explained Dilcey, propping the gourd on the table between medicine bottles and a glass.

 

Scarlett laughed suddenly. Her nerves must be shredded if the noise of the well windlass, bound up in her earliest memories, could frighten her. Dilcey looked at her steadily as she laughed, her face immobile in its dignity, but Scarlett felt that Dilcey understood. She sank back in her chair. If she could only be rid of her tight stays, the collar that choked her and the slippers still full of sand and gravel that blistered her feet.

 

The windlass creaked slowly as the rope wound up, each creak bringing the bucket nearer the top. Soon Mammy would be with her-Ellen’s Mammy, her Mammy. She sat silent, intent on nothing, while the baby, already glutted with milk, whimpered because he had lost the friendly nipple. Dilcey, silent too, guided the child’s mouth back, quieting him in her arms as Scarlett listened to the slow scuffing of Mammy’s feet across the back yard. How still the night air was! The slightest sounds roared in her ears.

 

The upstairs hall seemed to shake as Mammy’s ponderous weight came toward the door. Then Mammy was in the room, Mammy with shoulders dragged down by two heavy wooden buckets, her kind black face sad with the uncomprehending sadness of a monkey’s face.

 

Her eyes lighted up at the sight of Scarlett, her white teeth gleamed as she set down the buckets, and Scarlett ran to her, laying her head on the broad, sagging breasts which had held so many heads, black and white. Here was something of stability, thought Scarlett, something of the old life that was unchanging. But Mammy’s first words dispelled this illusion.

 

“Mammy’s chile is home! Oh, Miss Scarlett, now dat Miss Ellen’s in de grabe, whut is we gwine ter do? Oh, Miss Scarlett, effen Ah wuz jes’ daid longside Miss Ellen! Ah kain make out widout Miss Ellen. Ain’ nuthin’ lef’ now but mizry an’ trouble. Jes’ weery loads, honey, jes’ weery loads.”

 

As Scarlett lay with her head hugged close to Mammy’s breast, two words caught her attention, “weery loads.” Those were the words which had hummed in her brain that afternoon so monotonously they had sickened her. Now, she remembered the rest of the song, remembered with a sinking heart:

 

“Just a few more days for to tote the weary load! No matter, ‘twill never be light! Just a few more days till we totter in the road-”

 

“No matter, ‘twill never be light”-she took the words to her tired mind. Would her load never be light? Was coming home to Tara to mean, not blessed surcease, but only more loads to carry? She slipped from Mammy’s arms and, reaching up, patted the wrinkled black face.

 

“Honey, yo’ han’s!” Mammy took the small hands with their blisters and blood clots in hers and looked at them with horrified disapproval. “Miss Scarlett, Ah done tole you an’ tole you dat you kin allus tell a lady by her han’s an’-yo’ face sunbuhnt too!”

 

Poor Mammy, still the martinet about such unimportant things even though war and death had just passed over her head! In another moment she would be saying that young Misses with blistered hands and freckles most generally didn’t never catch husbands and Scarlett forestalled the remark.

 

“Mammy, I want you to tell me about Mother. I couldn’t bear to hear Pa talk about her.”

 

Tears started from Mammy’s eyes as she leaned down to pick up the buckets. In silence she carried them to the bedside and, turning down the sheet, began pulling up the night clothes of Suellen and Carreen. Scarlett, peering at her sisters in the dim flaring light, saw that Carreen wore a nightgown, clean but in tatters, and Suellen lay wrapped in an old negligee, a brown linen garment heavy with tagging ends of Irish lace. Mammy cried silently as she sponged the gaunt bodies, using the remnant of an old apron as a cloth.

 

“Miss Scarlett, it wuz dem Slatterys, dem trashy, no-good, low-down po’-w’ite Slatterys dat kilt Miss Ellen. Ah done tole her an’ tole her it doan do no good doin’ things fer trashy folks, but Miss Ellen wuz so sot in her ways an’ her heart so sof’ she couldn’ never say no ter nobody whut needed her.”

 

“Slatterys?” questioned Scarlett, bewildered. “How do they come in?”

 

“Dey wuz sick wid disyere thing,” Mammy gestured with her rag to the two naked girls, dripping with water on their damp sheet. “Ole Miss Slattery’s gal, Emmie, come down wid it an’ Miss Slattery come hotfootin’ it up hyah affer Miss Ellen, lak she allus done w’en anything wrong. Why din’ she nuss her own? Miss Ellen had mo’n she could tote anyways. But Miss Ellen she went down dar an’ she nuss Emmie. An’ Miss Ellen wuzn’ well a-tall herseff, Miss Scarlett. Yo’ ma hadn’ been well fer de longes’. Dey ain’ been too much ter eat roun’ hyah, wid de commissary stealin’ eve’y thing us growed. An’ Miss Ellen eat lak a bird anyways. An’ Ah tole her an’ tole her ter let dem w’ite trash alone, but she din’ pay me no mine. Well’m, ’bout de time Emmie look lak she gittin’ better, Miss Carreen come down wid it. Yas’m, de typhoy fly right up de road an’ ketch Miss Carreen, an’ den down come Miss Suellen. So Miss Ellen, she tuck an’ nuss dem too.


Дата добавления: 2015-11-04; просмотров: 23 | Нарушение авторских прав







mybiblioteka.su - 2015-2024 год. (0.049 сек.)







<== предыдущая лекция | следующая лекция ==>