“Sit down and Hong Kong international school smooth your ruffled fur,” he said, and his voice changed. He reached up andtaking her hand pulled her back into her chair. “Why are you blue?”
“Oh, I had a letter from Tara today. The Yankees are close to home and my little sister is ill withtyphoid and—and—so now, even if I could go home, like I want to, Mother wouldn’t let me forfear I’d catch it too. Oh, dear, and I do so want to go home!”
“Well, don’t cry about it,” he said, but his voice was kinder. “You are much safer here in Atlantaeven if the Yankees do come than you’d be at Tara. The Yankees won’t hurt you and typhoidwould.”
“The Yankees wouldn’t hurt me! How can you say such a lie?”
“My dear girl, the Yankees aren’t fiends. They haven’t horns and hoofs, as you seem to think.
They are pretty much like Southerners—except with worse manners, of course, and terribleaccents.”
“Why, the moving truck rentalYankees would—”
“Rape you? I think not. Though, of course, they’d want to.”
“If you are going to talk vilely I shall go into the house,” she cried, grateful that the shadows hid her crimson face.
“Be frank. Wasn’t that what you were thinking?”
“Oh, certainly not!”
“Oh, but it was! No use getting mad at me for reading your thoughts. That’s what all ourdelicately nurtured and pure-minded Southern ladies think. They have it on their minds constantly.
I’ll wager even dowagers like Mrs. Merriwether ...”
Scarlett gulped in silence, remembering that wherever two or more matrons were gatheredtogether, in these trying days, they whispered of such happenings, always in Virginia or Tennesseeor Louisiana, never close to home. The Yankees raped women and ran bayonets through children’sstomachs and burned houses over the heads of old people. Everyone knew these things were trueeven if they didn’t work visa hong kong. And if Rhett had any decency he would realizethey were true. And not talk about them. And it wasn’t any laughing matter either.
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