CHAPTER XL
SCARLETT SLEPT little that night. When the dawn had come and the sun was creeping over the black pines on the hills to the east, she rose from her tumbled bed and, seating herself on a stool by the window, laid her tired head on her arm and looked out over the barn yard and orchard of Tara toward the cotton fields. Everything was fresh and dewy and silent and green and the sight of the cotton fields brought a measure of balm and comfort to her sore heart. Tara, at sunrise, looked loved, well tended and at peace, for all that its master lay dead. The squatty log chicken house was clay daubed against rats weasels and clean with whitewash, and so was the log stable.
The garden with its rows of corn, bright-yellow squash, butter beans and turnips was well weeded and neatly fenced
