seal with a smile

 They had all made her welcome at Mimosa and had insisted on giving, not selling, her the seedcorn. The quick Fontaine tempers flared when she put a greenback on the table and they flatlyrefused payment. Scarlett took the corn and privately slipped a dollar bill into Sally’s hand. Sallylooked like a different person from the girl who had greeted her eight months before when Scarlettfirst came home to Tara. Then she had been pale and sad but there had been a buoyancy about her.
Now that buoyancy had gone, as if the surrender had taken all hope from her.
“Scarlett,” she whispered as she clutched the bill, “what was the good of it all? Why did we everfight? Oh, my poor Joe! Oh, my poor baby!”
“I don’t know why we fought and I don’t care,” said Scarlett, “And I’m not interested. I neverwas interested. War is a man’s business, not a woman’s. All I’m interested in now is a good cottoncrop. Now take this dollar and buy little Joe a dress. God knows, he needs it. I’m not going to robyou of your corn, for all Alex and Tony’s politeness.”
The boys followed her to the wagon and assisted her in, , gay with the volatile Fontaine gaiety, but with the picture of their destitution in her eyes, she shivered as shedrove away from Mimosa. She was so tired of poverty and pinching. What a pleasure it would beto know people who were rich and not worried as to where the next meal was coming from!
Cade Calvert was at home at Pine Bloom and, as Scarlett came up the steps of the old house inwhich she had danced so often in happier days, she saw that death was in his face. He with her, he would sanction everything at oncehe answered. wasemaciated and he coughed as he lay in an easy chair in the sunshine with a shawl across his knees,but his face lit up when he saw her. Just a little cold which had settled in his chest, he said, tryingto rise to greet her. Got it from sleeping so much in the rain. But it would be gone soon and thenhe’d lend a hand in the work.
Cathleen Calvert, who came out of the house at the sound of voices, met Scarlett’s eyes aboveher brother’s head and in them Scarlett read knowledge and bitter despair. Cade might not knowbut Cathleen knew. Pine Bloom looked straggly and overgrown with weeds, seedling pines werebeginning to show in the fields and the house was sagging and untidy. Cathleen was thin and taut.
The two of them, with their Yankee stepmother, their four little half-sisters, and Hilton, theYankee overseer, remained in the silent, oddly echoing house. Scarlett had never liked Hilton anymore than she liked their own overseer Jonas Wilkerson, and she liked him even less now, as hesauntered forward and greeted her like an equal. Formerly he had the same combination ofservility and impertinence which Wilkerson possessed but now, with Mr. Calvert and Raiford deadin the war and Cade sick, he had dropped all servility. The second Mrs. Calvert had never knownhow to compel respect from negro servants and it was not to be expected that she could get it froma white man.