Scarlett stood on the lower step of the train, a pale pretty figure in her black mourning dress. She hesitated, unwilling to soil her slippers, and looked about for Miss Pittypat. There was no sign of her, but soon Scarlett saw an old negro, who came toward her through the mud, his hat in his hand.

“Dis Miss Scarlett, ain’ it? Dis hyah Peter, Miss Pitty’s coachman. Doan step down in dat mud,” he ordered, as Scarlett gathered up her skirts. “Lemme cahy you.”

He picked Scarlett up with ease. As he was carrying her toward the carriage, she recalled what Charles had said about Uncle Peter: “He went through all the Mexican campaigns with Father, nursed him when he was wounded – in fact, he saved his life. Uncle Peter practically raised Melanie and me, for we were very young when Father and Mother died. He was the one who decided I should have a larger allowance when I was fifteen, and he insisted that I should go to Harvard. He’s the smartest old darky I’ve ever seen and about the most devoted.”

When Uncle Peter finally maneuvered the carriage out of the mudholes and onto Peachtree Street, she noticed how the town had grown in a year! It did not seem possible that the little Atlanta she knew could have changed so much.

For the past year, Atlanta had been transformed. It was humming like a beehive, proudly conscious of its importance to the Confederacy. There were factories turning out machinery to manufacture war materials. There were strange faces on the streets of Atlanta now. One could hear foreign tongues of Europeans who had run the blockade^[28] to have made pistols, rifles, cannon and powder for the Confederacy. Trains roared in and out of the town at all hours.

Here along Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the headquarters of the various army departments, each office swarming with uniformed men. Scarlett felt that Atlanta must be a city of the wounded, for there were general hospitals without number. And every day the trains brought more sick and more wounded.

There was an exciting atmosphere about the place that uplifted her. It was as if she could actually feel the pulse of the town’s heart beating in time with her own.

The sidewalks were crowded with men in uniform; the narrow street was jammed with vehicles – carriages, buggies, ambulances; convalescents limped about on crutches; and Scarlett had her first sight of Yankee uniforms, as Uncle Peter pointed to a detachment of bluecoats going toward the depot to entrain for the prison camp.

“Oh,” thought Scarlett, with a feeling of real pleasure, “I’m going to like it here! It’s so alive and exciting!”

The town was even more alive than she realized, for there were new barrooms by the dozens; prostitutes, following the army, filled the town and bawdy houses were blossoming with women. There were parties and balls and bazaars every week and war weddings without number.

As they progressed down the street, Scarlett asked a lot of questions and Peter answered them, pointing here and there with his whip, proud to display his knowledge.

Now Uncle Peter pointed to three ladies and bowed. These ladies were Mrs. Merriwether, Mrs. Whiting, and Mrs. Elsing – the pillars of Atlanta. They ran the three churches to which they belonged. They organized bazaars and presided over sewing circles, they arranged balls and picnics, they knew who made good matches and who did not, who drank secretly, who were to have babies and when. But in fact, these three ladies heartily disliked and distrusted one another.

The carriage stopped for a moment to permit two ladies with baskets of bandages to cross the street on stepping stones. At the same moment, Scarlett’s eye was caught by a figure on the sidewalk in a brightly colored dress – too bright for street wear. Turning she saw a tall handsome woman with a bold face and a mass of red hair. She watched her, fascinated.

“Uncle Peter, who is that?” she whispered.

“Ah doan know.”

“You do, too. I can tell. Who is she?”

“Her name Belle Watling,” said Uncle Peter.

Scarlett was quick to catch the fact that he had not said “Miss” or “Mrs.”

“Who is she?”

“Miss Scarlett,” said Peter darkly, laying the whip on the horse, “Miss Pitty ain’ gwine ter lak it you astin’ questions dat ain’ none of yo’ bizness.”

“Good Heavens!” thought Scarlett. “That must be a bad woman!”

She had never seen a bad woman before and she twisted her head and stared after her until she was lost in the crowd.

Finally the business section was behind and the residences came into view. As they passed a green clapboard house, Dr. Meade and his wife came out, calling greetings. Scarlett recalled that they had been at her wedding. The doctor went through the mud to the side of the carriage. He was tall and gaunt, and his clothes hung on his figure. Atlanta considered him the root of all strength and all wisdom. But for all his pompous manner, he was a very kind man.

After shaking Scarlett’s hand, the doctor announced that Aunt Pittypat had promised that she should be on Mrs. Meade’s hospital and bandage-rolling committee.

“What are hospital committees anyway?”

Both the doctor and his wife looked shocked at her ignorance.

“But, of course, you’ve been buried in the country and couldn’t know,” Mrs. Meade apologized for her. “We have nursing committees for different hospitals and for different days. We nurse the men and help the doctors and make bandages and clothes and when the men are well enough to leave the hospitals we take them into our homes till they are able to go back in the army. Dr. Meade is at the Institute hospital where my committee works, and everyone says he’s marvelous and —”

“There, there, Mrs. Meade,” said the doctor fondly. “Don’t go bragging on me in front of folks.”

Uncle Peter cleared his throat.

“Miss Pitty were in a state when Ah lef’ home an’ ef Ah doan git dar soon, she’ll done fainted.”

“Good-by. I’ll be over this afternoon,” called Mrs. Meade. “And you tell Pitty for me that if you aren’t on my committee, she’s going to be in a worse state.”

The houses were farther apart now, and leaning out Scarlett saw the red brick and slate roof of Miss Pittypat’s house. It was almost the last house on the north side of town. On the front steps stood two women in black. They were Miss Pittypat and Melanie. And Scarlett realized that the fly in the ointment ^[29]of Atlanta would be this slight little person in black dress and a loving smile of welcome and happiness on her heart-shaped face.

When a Southerner packed a trunk and traveled twenty miles for a visit, the visit was seldom of shorter duration than a month, usually much longer. Southerners were as enthusiastic visitors as they were hosts, and there was nothing unusual in relatives coming to spend the Christmas holidays and remaining until July. Visitors added excitement and variety to the slow-moving Southern life and they were always welcome.

So Scarlett had come to Atlanta with no idea as to how long she would remain. If her stay was pleasant, she would remain indefinitely. But as soon as she had arrived, Aunt Pitty and Melanie began a campaign to make her home permanently with them. They brought up every possible argument. They were lonely and often frightened at night in the big house, and she was so brave she gave them courage. She was so charming that she cheered them in their sorrow. Now that Charles was dead, her place was with his relatives. Besides, half the house now belonged to her, through Charles’ will. Last, the Confederacy needed every pair of hands for sewing, knitting, bandage rolling and nursing the wounded.

Charles’ Uncle Henry Hamilton, who lived in bachelor state at the Atlanta Hotel near the depot, also talked seriously to her on this subject. He liked Scarlett immediately because, he said, he could see that she had sense. He was trustee, not only of Pitty’s and Melanie’s estates, but also of that left Scarlett by Charles. It came to Scarlett as a pleasant surprise that she was now a well-to-do young woman, for Charles had not only left her half of Aunt Pitty’s house but farm lands and town property as well. And the stores and warehouses along the railroad track near the depot, which were part of her inheritance, had tripled in value since the war began.

As for Uncle Peter, he took it for granted^[30] that Scarlett had come to stay. To all these arguments, Scarlett smiled but said nothing, as now that she was away from Tara, she missed it very much. For the first time, she realized what Gerald had meant when he said that the love of the land was in her blood.

Gradually, Scarlett came back to herself, and almost before she realized it her spirits rose to normal. She was only seventeen, she had superb health and energy, and Charles’ people did their best to make her happy. They not only admired her high-spirits, her figure, her tiny hands and feet, her white skin, but they said so frequently, petting, hugging and kissing her to emphasize their loving words.

Scarlett basked in the compliments. No one at Tara had ever said so many charming things about her.

All in all, life went on as happily as was possible under the circumstances. Atlanta was more interesting than Savannah or Charleston or Tara and it offered so many strange war-time occupations she had little time to think or mope. But, sometimes, when she blew out the candle, she sighed and thought: “If only Ashley wasn’t married! If only I didn’t have to nurse in that hospital! Oh, if only I could have some beaux!”

She had immediately hated nursing but she could not escape this duty because she was on both Mrs. Meade’s and Mrs. Merriwether’s committees. And they would have been shocked to know how slight an interest in the war she had. Four mornings a week she spent in the sweltering, stinking hospital. Except for the ever-present worry that Ashley might be killed, the war interested her not at all, and nursing was something she did simply because she didn’t know how to get out of it.

Certainly there was nothing romantic about nursing. To her, it meant groans, delirium, death and smells.

Melanie, however, did not seem to mind the smells or the wounds. And where the wounded could see her, she was gentle, sympathetic and cheerful, and the men in the hospitals called her an angel of mercy^[31].

On three afternoons a week Scarlett had to attend sewing circles and bandage-rolling committees of Melanie’s friends. The girls who had all known Charles were very kind to her at these gatherings but treated her, as if she were old and finished. How unfair that everyone should think her heart was in the grave when it wasn’t at all! It was in Virginia with Ashley!

But in spite of these discomforts, Atlanta pleased her very well. And her visit lengthened as the weeks went by.