Gone with the Wind / Унесённые ветром

The people who settled the town were a pushy people. Restless, energetic people from Georgia and more distant states were drawn to this town by the railroads. They came with enthusiasm. They built their stores around the muddy red roads. They built their fine homes where Indian feet had beaten a path[27 - проложили тропу]called the Peachtree Trail. They were proud of the place, proud of its growth, proud of themselves for making it grow.

Scarlett stood on the lower step of the train, a pale pretty figure in her black mourning dress.

She hesitated, unwilling to soil her slippers, and looked about for Miss Pittypat. There was no sign of her, but soon Scarlett saw an old negro, who came toward her through the mud, his hat in his hand.

“Dis Miss Scarlett, ain’ it? Dis hyah Peter, Miss Pitty’s coachman. Doan step down in dat mud,” he ordered, as Scarlett gathered up her skirts. “Lemme cahy you.”

He picked Scarlett up with ease. As he was carrying her toward the carriage, she recalled what Charles had said about Uncle Peter: “He went through all the Mexican campaigns with Father, nursed him when he was wounded – in fact, he saved his life.

Uncle Peter practically raised Melanie and me, for we were very young when Father and Mother died. He was the one who decided I should have a larger allowance when I was fifteen, and he insisted that I should go to Harvard. He’s the smartest old darky I’ve ever seen and about the most devoted.”

When Uncle Peter finally maneuvered the carriage out of the mudholes and onto Peachtree Street, she noticed how the town had grown in a year! It did not seem possible that the little Atlanta she knew could have changed so much.

For the past year, Atlanta had been transformed. It was humming like a beehive, proudly conscious of its importance to the Confederacy. There were factories turning out machinery to manufacture war materials. There were strange faces on the streets of Atlanta now. One could hear foreign tongues of Europeans who had run the blockade[28 - прорвали бл окаду] to have made pistols, rifles, cannon and powder for the Confederacy.

Trains roared in and out of the town at all hours.

Here along Peachtree Street and near-by streets were the headquarters of the various army departments, each office swarming with uniformed men. Scarlett felt that Atlanta must be a city of the wounded, for there were general hospitals without number.