Gone with the Wind: Chapter 24 Summary & Analysis

The sun wakes Scarlett the next morning. Wade is asleep on her lap, and Melanie, Prissy, and the baby are curled up in the back of the wagon. Scarlett thinks about the horrible night they had. They’d had to pull the wagon out of a ditch, avoid passing soldiers, and they got lost. When Scarlett finally found the right path, the horse refused to move. So Scarlett crawled in the back of the wagon to rest. She’d had to tell Melanie there wasn’t any water.

Scarlett is amazed she slept so well when usually she can only sleep in featherbeds. She gasps when she sees that Melanie looks dead, but Melanie is breathing. Scarlett realizes they’re stopped at the Mallorys’ place. It’s deserted, and the house is just a pile of burned rubble. Will Scarlett find Tara like this? They have to keep going, but first, they need food and water. Scarlett tries to smooth her dress and then remembers the horse. Jumping out of the wagon, she’s relieved to find the horse still alive, breathing weakly. Scarlett wakes Prissy and they go to the Mallorys’ well. When Scarlett asks if Melanie should nurse the baby, Prissy says that Melanie doesn’t have milk. As Scarlett picks up fallen apples, she thinks of Rhett. She thought he’d take care of them—and she let him kiss her!

Back at the wagon, Scarlett hands out the apples. She harnesses the weak horse and gets him moving with a tree branch. If she were alone, she could run the 15 miles home in an instant. She puts her bonnet over Melanie’s bare face. Scarlett has never been in the sun without a bonnet. She’ll get freckly! She’s never experienced any hardship, and suddenly she’s in this horrible wagon in a deserted land. It’s like the war is a storm that’s swept away her whole life. Is Tara also “gone with the wind?” She whips the horse to make him go faster. They pass burned houses and dead men, and Scarlett feels like the woods are haunted. She wishes she was home, resting in Ellen’s arms. The four people in the wagon depend on her, but Scarlett doesn’t feel strong enough to take care of them.

By twilight, Tara is a mile away. Scarlett recognizes the hedges that surround the neighbors’ property. She can see the two tall chimneys standing above the ruined house. Scarlett shouts a hello, but Prissy shushes her. Scarlett urges the horse forward quietly. They pass more burned plantations. Tara could be burned, and everyone gone. Why did she even come here? It would’ve been better to die in Atlanta. But she promised Ashley she’s take care of Melanie. Where is Ashley now? Is he dead?

Suddenly, there is a sound in the underbrush. Scarlett jumps, but it’s only a cow. Prissy shrieks that it’s a ghost, and Scarlett turns and whips her with the tree branch, unable to tolerate Prissy’s weakness. The cow’s udder is full of milk. Scarlett decides to bring the cow so they can have milk for Melanie’s baby. She tears up her petticoat—the last pretty thing she owns—and tells Prissy to tie the cow to the wagon. When Prissy says she’s afraid, Scarlett calls her a “fool nigger.” Ellen wouldn’t like Scarlett saying something like that.

As Scarlett stumbles to the wagon after tying up the cow, Melanie asks if they’re home, her voice a croak. The word home brings tears to Scarlett’s eyes. Scarlett says they’re not home, but soon they’ll have milk for the baby. Scarlett climbs back into the wagon and whips the horse. She feels guilty for beating the poor, tired animal. The cow slows them down, but Scarlett feels the cow is all she has in the world.

Scarlett’s eyes fill with tears when they reach the edge of Tara. Then she realizes the horse won’t make it up the hill. She gets out, takes the horse’s bridle, and tells Prissy to get out and walk with Wade. Prissy and Wade complain, and Scarlett scolds them. Scarlett wonders why God invented children; Wade is nothing but a burden and a reminder of her stupid marriage with Charles. Prissy wonders if anyone is at Tara. Scarlett fears the same thing but hushes her. She thinks of a line from the song she sang with Rhett at Pitty’s party, “just a few more steps for to tote the weary load.”

Scarlett looks for Tara’s lights, but everything is dark. Her heart sinks. But as they get closer, the white brick house slowly appears. Why did the war, which destroyed everything, leave Tara? A figure appears on the veranda, but the person is still. Is something wrong? In a whisper, Scarlett calls for her father. Gerald walks toward her as if sleepwalking. He is an old man; his shoulders sag, and the vitality is gone from his eyes. Scarlett is scared. The baby cries and Gerald looks into the wagon. Scarlett knows she needs to get Melanie inside.

Pork runs from the house, calling for Scarlett. Scarlett clutches his arms and Prissy bursts into tears. Getting down to business, Scarlett directs Pork to carry Melanie into one of the rooms, and Prissy to get Wade a drink of water. With bleeding fingers, Scarlett holds Gerald’s hand and asks if Carreen, Suellen, and Ellen are well. Gerald says the girls are recovering, but Ellen died yesterday. He clings to Scarlett as they enter Tara. Scarlett is drawn by instinct to the office where Ellen always sat. Ellen can’t be dead. Strangely, Scarlett feels nothing. She asks Pork for light, but he says “they” took all the candles. They enter Ellen’s office, and Pork comes in with a makeshift candle made of a rag and bacon fat. Ellen’s office is exactly the same, except that Ellen isn’t there.

Pork attends to Scarlett like a “dutiful dog.” She asks him who else is here. He says only Mammy and Dilcey are here; all the “trashy niggers” left with the Yankees. Scarlett asks if there’s anything to eat. Pork says the Yankees took everything, from the chickens to the wine. When Scarlett asks if they took the sweet potato hills, or the whiskey barrel in the scuppernong arbor, Pork praises Scarlett for remembering. Scarlett thinks “negroes” are all unintelligent—to think the Yankees want to free them!

Scarlett tells Pork to bring two glasses of the whiskey with sugar and mint, but Pork shares that the Yankees smashed the glasses and took the sugar. Scarlett is ready to scream, but she mentions that the cow needs to be milked. Though it’s improper to speak of pregnancy, she says Melanie doesn’t have milk for the baby. Pork shares that Dilcey just had a baby boy and has milk to spare. Again, Scarlett muses that unintelligent people keep having babies. Pork leaves the room.

Scarlett asks Gerald why the Yankees didn’t burn Tara, unwilling to talk about Ellen. He responds the Yankees used the house for headquarters. Scarlett is appalled that the Yankees were in Ellen’s house. When the Yankees came after burning Twelve Oaks, Gerald says, he stood on the porch and said there were three sick women inside—they’d have to burn the house over them. The officer was a Yankee gentleman, and he brought a surgeon who tended to Carreen, Suellen, and Ellen. The soldiers camped around the house, tore up the yard, and stole everything. Scarlett asks if Ellen knew the Yankees were in the house. She’s relieved when Gerald says she didn’t.

Gerald had stayed upstairs while they were there, talking only to the nice surgeon. The surgeon said Suellen and Carreen would recover but Ellen wouldn’t. Then, the Yankees all left. Gerald says he’s glad Scarlett’s home. Pork enters carrying two gourds filled with whiskey. Pork and Gerald disapprove of her drinking whiskey, but Scarlett snaps that she’s no lady and drinks deeply. Gerald says she’ll get tipsy. She laughs and says she hopes she’ll get drunk. In a motherly tone, Scarlett says she’ll put Gerald to bed. Pork takes the gourd and Scarlett escorts Gerald to bed.

After Scarlett puts Gerald to bed, she goes to the sick room. It smells bad because of the bacon fat candle. She opens a window, not caring if it’s doctor’s orders to keep fresh air out of the sick room. Suellen and Carreen, thin and white, toss restlessly in a large bed. There is a narrow bed in the corner where Ellen had lain. Scarlett sits by the girls. Her vision becomes blurry from the whiskey. She wants to sleep and be woken tomorrow by someone older and wiser than her, like Ellen. 

Dilcey enters, holding Melanie’s baby and the whiskey gourd. Her dress is open, and the baby clings to her large breast with his mouth. Scarlett thanks Dilcey for staying, but Dilcey says she won’t leave after the O’Haras were so good to her. Then, Dilcey assures Scarlett that Melanie and the baby will both live. When the women hear a clunk outside, Dilcey explains that it's just Mammy getting water. Scarlett knows what the well sounds like, but her nerves are so tense that it scared her anyway.

The hall shakes as Mammy comes up the stairs. Mammy enters and smiles when she sees Scarlett. Scarlett runs to her, burying her head in the big, sagging body. Mammy makes Scarlett feel stable and remember the old days. Mammy says life is just “weery loads” without Ellen. Scarlett remembers another line of the song she’d sung with Rhett: “No matter, ‘twill never be light.” Does coming home to Tara only mean more burdens? Mammy despairs over Scarlett’s blisters and sunburn. Scarlett smiles, thinking that any moment Mammy will threaten that she’d never catch a husband!

Scarlett asks Mammy about Ellen. Tears fall from Mammy’s eyes as she starts to sponge down Carreen and Suellen. Mammy says it was those “low-down po’-w’ite” Slatterys.” Emmie Slattery came down with typhoid and Ellen insisted on nursing her. When the war started, provisions were low, and Ellen got weak from working too hard. Then Carreen got typhoid, and Ellen nursed her too. Mammy explains that Ellen died quickly. When Scarlett asks if Ellen mentioned her on her deathbed, Mammy says Ellen didn’t mention anyone—but Dilcey says that on the night the cotton burned, Ellen called for Philippe. Scarlett has no idea who Philippe is.

Scarlett has made it to Tara, but not to Ellen’s arms. Scarlett’s not a protected child anymore; she’s just Scarlett O’Hara Hamilton, a widow with a child. No one can take her burdens: Gerald is old, and Carreen, Suellen, and Melanie are weak. She looks out the window at the desolate land. She could leave and live with family. Scarlett looks at her sisters and realizes they are her family. They’re weak and she doesn’t love them, but Scarlett couldn’t send them to distant family. She drinks the rest of the whiskey.

Scarlett finds herself alone in her moonlit room. Mammy and Dilcey undress her and bathe her feet. She is drunk and tired. She knows she left girlhood behind on the road to Tara; she’s a woman now. Scarlett realizes she belongs to Tara and vows to keep the plantation and take care of her family. She’ll search the burned plantations for food and pawn Ellen’s jewelry. She thinks of Gerald and his ancestors. They all suffered misfortune and rose above it. These ancestors seem to be in the room with her. Tara is Scarlett’s fate and her challenge to conquer. She thanks her ancestors for their encouragement and falls asleep.