With deep auburn hair, indigo blue eyes, and a lively expression on her face, Margaret Mitchell turned ten. Her parents called her "Chatterbox," and it was fitting that she often read a magazine by that title. Maybelle tried to make her daughter into a lady by replacing trousers with skirts, but Margaret's tomboyishness was not hidden by skirts. She was even sent to dance classes, but her walk was boyish, she had strong hands, and could climb a tree as fast as any of Stephens' friends. She was accepted by a boys' baseball team to be pitcher, a sport she played until she was fourteen years old. Anther great sport for her were the Mudball battles.
When Margaret dramatized Thomas Dixon's The Traitor, Maybelle was away and Eugene was in charge. He was in his office when Margaret directed her play, putting herself into the leading role of Steve because no little boy in the neighborhood would play a part that involved kissing a girl. The play was performed in the sitting room of the Mitchell residence. Margaret wrote Mr. Dixon years later:
' "I had my troubles with the clansmen as, after Act 2, they went on strike, demanding a ten cent wage instead of a five cent one. Then, too, just as I was about to be hanged, two of the clansmen had to go to the bathroom, necessitating a dreadful stage wait which made the audience scream with delight, but which mortified me intensely . . . On (my mother's) return, she and my father . . . gave me a long lecture on infringement of copy-rights. . . . For years afterward I expected Mr. Thomas Dixon to sue me for a million dollars." '
Margaret received quite a spanking after being scolded by Eugene, so that, Margaret further explained, ' "I would never forget I must not take what wasn't mine,"' and that ' "plagiarism was exactly the same as stealing."'
Maybelle had a great respect for science and scientific achievement. Margaret's stories, to her, were wastes of time. Margaret was aware of her mother's dreams of her future, so when anyone asked her that age-old question, "What do you want to be when you grow up?" she would always reply "A doctor."
The neighborhood that the Mitchells lived in was no longer suitable to the class they had risen to. So the family moved to a large lot on Peachtree Street. Eugene traded his children's ponies for a pedigreed horse they named "Bucephalus" after Alexander the Great's famous mount. Margaret soon mastered the art to riding him. She was so small on top of the great horse that she looked ridiculously tiny.
(This part is straight from the book as well.)
'One sunny day, while Stephens and her cousins stood admiringly on the curbside, Margaret let out a great whoop and, tearing past them, shouted, "Watch me turn him 'round!" She pulled Bucephalus into a sharp turnabout, but the horse lost his footing and careened to the ground with Margaret beneath him, screaming in terror. When the boys reached her, she was lying unconscious on her left side, her left leg oozing blood and badly crushed, and Bucephalus was running wild in the tall grass of the open field.'
(I bet that would hurt. This is the end of my direct quote.)
Bucephalus was sold during Margaret's recuperation. She was also upset by the command not to ride a horse again. Stephens was at school most of the day and Maybelle had her activities. Margaret was forced to entertain herself. She began to read the books in the family's library. Maybelle urged her to read War and Peace, but she found that she could not. But, when asked if she had read the book, she lied brazenly, saying she had even though she never got farther than the opening chapter.
Margaret, although her leg had healed a lot better than even the doctor had expected, was left with a limp. She returned to dance lessons to strengthen her muscles.
After a trip to New York, the house on Peachtree Street was completed. It was a large, imposing structure. It was built in the columned style popular in the South a long time before the war, and looked odd on the city lot. The interior was even more impressive than the outside. You would enter into a central hall bordered with a sitting room and a music room.
Margaret was not accepted by the youngsters on Peachtree Street. Although she was vivacious and pretty, funny, and nice, they did not come to her home and did not invite her to theirs. Stephens, at this time, was seventeen, preparing for college, and in and out of love. He had always been 'at the center of his sister's live; now he treated her in a patronizing fashion.' The first months on Peachtree Street were unhappy, lonely ones for Margaret.
With their new position to uphold, the Mitchells hired new staff, and formal address was adapted. Margaret realized that they could not afford their new way of living. The heat was kept way down in the winter, because, as she was often told, Eugene was "not a millionaire." Guests were not frequent, and any purchase was debated before buying it. Though Maybelle remained active with the women's movement, meetings were not held at her house. Margaret felt 'a stranger in her own home.' She found comfort in writing, and so she did so. Her mother took her on a trip to talk to farm women about women's liberation once, but the act Maybelle had intended to bring her daughter into her world made Margaret feel even more excluded.
Margaret was thirteen when it was announced that the war in Europe was real. Stephens was ready to fight and Maybelle was proudly, yet anxiously, behind him. The news that her brother might be included in the bloody combats of war worried Margaret, and she returned to school with a heavy heart.
During the War, Margaret worked in a refuge center. She was told to attend to the children first, the poor children who were in the center, lost, without anyone to look after them. She jumped onto the top of a desk and shouted, "Lost children here!" until the children flocked around her. She called each child's name as she lifted it onto the desk and tried to reunite them with their families.
In June, 1918, Margaret learned how to drive the black six-passenger Hanson the Mitchells owned. It was the only motorcar manufactured in Atlanta. She would drive out and pile in young officers to bring back to her house for the weekend. The tomboy had suddenly been pushed into the background, leaving the beautiful Southern belle for the world to see. She no longer wore childish braids, she wore organdy and silk under the cotton and serge of a schoolgirl. She was tiny, standing under five feet, was ninety-two pounds, and had a nineteen inch waist. She had a lively sense of humor, was extremely spirited, good fun, and knew how to be 'one of the gang.' Stephens said, "There was no girl in Atlanta more popular with the officers."
Margaret soon learned on the verandah of the Peachtree Street house how to flirt. She never let anyone kiss her, though. 'To let someone kiss her meant, somehow, that she must become engaged.' There were many barbeques and picnics to keep the spirits of their war bound boys up. At one of these parties, she met Lieutenant Clifford West Henry. Born in New York, he had graduated Harvard, was slim and fair, and could quote poetry and passages from Shakespeare. Some of Margaret's friends thought that he was of weak personality, strongly contrasting to Margaret's, and was unmanly. But Margaret was quite taken by him. Clifford soon gave her a heavy gold family ring. In August, however, Clifford was told he was to be transferred overseas, and that night, he and Margaret secretly got engaged.
Margaret attended Smith College in Northampton, Massachusetts, that fall. She did not want to attend a Southern College, and this one was near her Aunt Edyth and, perhaps more importantly, Clifford Henry's family. As she waited to attend college, she send Clifford long, romantic letters. Neither marriage nor plans for the future were ever a topic of discussion.
The war was still raging. It looked like Germany might win, until a twist of events made that seem less and less likely. In high spirits, Margaret and Maybelle went to New York for two weeks before the start of the fall term at Smith. They had a 'grand time' picking out a wardrobe for Margaret and sightseeing and window shopping. One afternoon, Margaret noticed a man sitting across from her on a train to Greenwich who looked familiar. She wrote to her father and Grandmother Stephens:
'I noticed the man was looking at us. Our Southern accent marks us anyway. But when I pulled off my glove and changed the heavy ring from one hand to the other, I caught his brown eyes and grinned for I knew who he was. He arouse and came over to us--
"You are Miss Mitchell, aren't you?" he questioned, smiling. And as if I had been meeting him every day for years, I replied--
"You are Clifford's father." And it was!
"I recognized the ring," he laughed. "Cliff was so fond of it."
And then we all began to chatter. I liked him immensely and I believe Mother does too. He is a pleasant man, with a quiet sense of humor and hi is more forceful than Clifford. He's no plain New Yorker but very cosmopolitan (cultured) and well educated. He is intensely proud of his son, though he tries not to show it and he handed me some letters from him that he had in his pocket.'
That was the start of a long friendship with Clifford's parents. But her own father were concerned about their daughter, and the intensity of her love for a man when she was only seventeen. Maybelle told him to put his mind at rest, saying that he must have had 'no youth or forgotten it if you attach so much importance to the affections of seventeen years.'
Smith turned out to be a "crusty old place." The girls were spirited, but Margaret did not feel comfortable with her new classmates. The girls came from well-to-do families, and were sophisticated, well-traveled, and their clothes were incredibly chic. But soon she started enjoying it. The girls thought her a romantic figure because of the letters she received from a lover overseas. She was known as Peggy, and, except in her letters to Clifford and her parents, signed herself as such. She was a skilled smoker, cut classes to see movies, and entertained girls in the evening rather than studying. She dated a lot, and did well in some subjects. She had very little respect for her English teacher, who thought everything was wonderful.
The letters from Clifford Henry stopped coming. They had always been a month late, but they had simply stopped. The last one was dated September 11 and post marked Saint-Mihiel. Margaret soon discovered that early in the morning of September 12, the Americans had attacked the Germans under the cover of heavy fog, and that eight thousand lives (nearly) had been taken. Margaret telephoned the Henrys, but they had not heard from him either. Then, they received a telegram informing them that their son had been severly injured in the battle of Saint-Mihiel, having 'bravely taken over for his disabled captain in what amounted to hand-to-hand combat. Fragments from a bomb dropped by a German plane had severed the lieutenant's leg and penetrated his stomach. He had been awarded the Croix de Guerre as he lay in his hospital bed, but, on the morning of October 16, he had died.'
Margaret was (understandably) very upset by the news of what Stephens claimed was the great love of her life. Margaret maintained contact with the Henrys for many years, 'but probably she had been more in love with a romantic fantasy than with Clifford Henry himself. She had admired his intellect, his golden good looks, his poetic nature, and his gentlemanliness, but it is doubtful that Margaret truly understood the young man she thought she had loved.' (That is like with Scarlett and Ashley. The next part I am quoting is TRUE, right from the text, and very, very, gross in my opinion!) 'Clifford Henry's friends had recognized and accepted his homosexual tendencies, but Margaret had seemed completely oblivious to this side of her fiance's nature.' (YUCK!)
Maybelle, in Atlanta, was ill and dying. She fought it for nearly two weeks, not letting anyone tell Margaret about her condition. But, on January 22, Eugene was forced to write her. The following day, Maybelle dictated a letter to Stephens for Margaret, thinking that she would never see her again. (Dated January 23, 1919.)
'Dear Margaret,
'I have been thinking of you all day long. Yesterday you received a letter saying I am sick. I expect your father drew the situation with a strong hand and dark colors and I hope I am not as sick as he thought. I have pneumonia in one lung and were it not for flu complications, I would have had more than a fair chance of recovery. But Mrs. Riley had pneumonia in both lungs and is now well and strong. We shall hope for the best but remember, dear, that if I go now it is the best time for me to go.
'I should have liked a few more years of life, but if I had had those it may have been that I should have lived too long. Waste no sympathy on me. However little it seems to you I got out of life, I have held in my hands all that the world can give. I have had a happy childhood and married the man I wanted. I had children who loved me, as I have loved them. I have been able to give what will put them on the high road to mental, moral, and perhaps financial success, were I going to give them nothing else.
'I expect to see you again, but if I do not I must warn you of one mistake a woman of your temperament might fall into. Give of yourself with both hands and overflowing heart, but give only the excess after you have lived your own life. This is badly put. What I mean is that your life and energies belong first to yourself, your husband and your children. Anything left over after you have served these, give and give generously, but be sure there is no stinting of attention at home. Your father loves you dearly, but do not let the thought of being with him keep you from marrying if you wish to do so. He has lived his life; live yours as best you can. Both of my children have loved me so much that there is no need to dwell on it. You have done all you can for me and have given me the greatest love that children can give to parents. Care for your father when he is old, as I cared for my mother. But never let his or anyone else's life interfere with your real life. Goodbye, darling, and if you see me no more than it may be best that you remember me as I was in New York.
'Your Loving Mother.'
The same day this was mailed, Margaret got a telegram ordering her home at once, for her mother had fallen into a coma. That night she had a 'prescient feeling that her mother had died, and as she stepped off the train in Atlanta to be reunited with Stephens for the first time since he had gone off to France, his somber expression confirmed her fears that she had arrived too late.'
Margaret was able to handle the news, but, although Stephens had warned her that heir father was in 'complete despair,' she was not prepared for the man she met up with. "Your mother's not well," he kept repeating, until the coffin was lowered into the ground.
(It is exactly like Gerald O'Hara when Ellen died.)
Margaret returned to Smith, but nothing seemed the same. "I am beginning to miss Mother so
much now," she wrote to her father. "I only had her for eighteen years but you loved her for
twenty-six years and I know how lonely you must be now. I wish I could make up just a little for
her in the place in your heart."
Maybelle had always been the one who pushed Margaret to continue her education. But with her passing, it no longer seemed important. Caring for the Mitchell men seemed appealing now. During her last week at Smith, she had a date with Billy Williams, who she confided to that "When I get through here I'm going to find out if I can really write." This took him off guard, and made him think of her as queer, but blamed her words on her grief.
**Margaret Mitchell (1919-1925)**
Bibliography
Edwards, Anne. Road to Tara - The Life of Margaret Mitchell. New Haven and New York: Ticknor and Fields, 1983.
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