Meade and his wife and little thirteen-year-old Phil emerged,calling greetings.Scarlett recalled that they too had been at her wedding.Mrs.Meade mounted her carriage block and craned her neck for a view of the baby,but the doctor,disregarding the mud,plowed through to the side of the carriage.He was tall and gaunt and wore a pointed beard of iron gray,and his clothes hung on his spare figure as though blown there by a hurricane.Atlanta considered him the root of all strength and all wisdom and it was not strange that he had absorbed something of their belief.But for all his habit of making oracular statements and his slightly pompous manner,he was as kindly a man as the town possessed.
After shaking her hand and prodding Wade in the stomach and complimenting him,the doctor announced that Aunt Pittypat had promised on oath that Scarlett should be on no other hospital and bandage-rolling committee save Mrs.Meade's.
“Oh,dear,but I've promised a thousand ladies already!”said Scarlett.
“Mrs.Merriwether,I'll be bound!”cried Mrs.Meade indignantly.“Drat the woman!I believe she meets every train!”
“I promised because I hadn't a notion of what it was all about,”
Scarlett confessed.“What are hospital committees anyway?”
Both the doctor and his wife looked slightly 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 to convalesce till they are able to go back in the army.And we look after the wives and families of some of the wounded who are destitute—yes,worse than destitute.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.It's little enough I can do,since you wouldn't let me go in the army.”
“‘Wouldn't let!’”she cried indignantly.“Me?The town wouldn't let you and you know it.Why,Scarlett,when folks heard he was intending to go to Virginia as an army surgeon,all the ladies signed a petition begging him to stay here.Of course,the town couldn't do without you.”
“There,there,Mrs.Meade,”said the doctor,basking obviously in the praise.“Perhaps with one boy at the front,that's enough for the time being.”
“And I'm going next year!”cried little Phil,hopping about excitedly.“As a drummer boy.I'm learning how to drum now.Do you want to hear me?I'll run get my drum.”
“No,not now,”said Mrs.Meade,drawing him closer to her,a sudden look of strain coming over her face.“Not next year,darling.Maybe the year after.”
“But the war will be over then!”he cried petulantly,pulling away from her.“And you promised!”
Over his head the eyes of the parents met and Scarlett saw the look.Darcy Meade was in Virginia and they were clinging closer to the little boy that was left.
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 swooned.”
“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 carriage slipped and slid down the muddy road and Scarlett leaned back on the cushions and smiled.She felt better now than she had felt in months.Atlanta,with its crowds and its hurry and its undercurrent of driving excitement,was very pleasant,very exhilarating,so very much nicer than the lonely plantation
out from Charleston,where the bellow of alligators broke the night stillness;better than Charleston itself,dreaming in its gardens behind its high walls;better than Savannah with its wide streets lined with palmetto and the muddy river beside it.Yes,and temporarily even better than Tara,dear though Tara was.
There was something exciting about this town with its narrow muddy streets,lying among rolling red hills,something raw and crude that appealed to the rawness and crudeness underlying the fine veneer that Ellen and Mammy had given her.She suddenly felt that this was where she belonged,not in serene and quiet old cities,flat beside yellow waters.
The houses were farther and 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.Beyond it,Peachtree road narrowed and twisted under great trees out of sight into thick quiet woods.The neat wooden-paneled fence had been newly painted white and the front yard it inclosed was yellow starred with the last jonquils of the season.On the front steps stood two women in black and behind them a large yellow woman with her hands under her apron and her white teeth showing in a wide smile.Plump Miss Pittypat was teetering excitedly on tiny feet,one hand pressed to her copious bosom to still her fluttering heart.Scarlett saw Melanie standing by her and,with a surge of dislike,she realized that the fly in the ointment of Atlanta would be this slight little person in black mourning dress,her riotous dark curls subdued to matronly smoothness and a loving smile of welcome and happiness on her heart-shaped face.