With the coal scuttle held in front of her Scarlett walked forward with firm steps. Almost at once the tin bucket clanged against something. She laughed aloud when she smelled the sharp resinous odor of fresh cut pine. She was at the woodpile, with the coal bin immediately beside it. It was exactly where she’d set out to go.

The iron door of the stove closed on the renewed flames with a loud noise that made Mammy stir in her bed. Scarlett hurried across to pull the quilts up again. The room was cold.

Mammy squinted through her pain at Scarlett. “You got a dirty face—and hands, too,” she grumbled in a weak voice.

“I know,” said Scarlett, “I’ll wash them right this minute.” Before the old woman drifted away, Scarlett kissed her forehead. “I love you, Mammy.”

“No need to tell me what I knows already.” Mammy slid into sleep, escaping from pain.

“Yes, there is a need,” Scarlett told her. She knew Mammy couldn’t hear her, but she spoke aloud anyhow, half to herself. “There’s all kinds of need. I never told Melanie, and I didn’t tell Rhett until it was too late. I never took the time to know I loved them, or you either. At least with you I won’t make the mistake I did with them.”

Scarlett stared down at the skull-like face of the dying old woman. “I love you, Mammy,” she whispered. “What’s going to become of me when I don’t have you to love me?”

2

Prissy’s head poked sideways around the cracked-open door to the sickroom. “Miss Scarlett, Mister Will he say for me to come sit with Mammy whilst you eat some breakfast. Delilah say you going wear yourself out with all the nursing, and she done fix you a fine big slice of ham with gravy for your grits.”