Of course, before the war, Will would certainly not have been an eligible suitor.

Scarlett would have been eternally grateful to Will, had he asked her for Carreen's hand.

She thought, too, that if Carreen had the sense of a mouse she would see that Will cared for her.

It was so convenient to have a man about the house.

But even with this thought, she would pray fervently that he would remain indefinitely.

Sometimes, she thought that if he were anybody and had any gumption he would go home, even if he no longer had a home.

He said nothing of leaving Tara, and Scarlett was careful not to question him, fearful that he might leave them.

He had gradually slipped into the status of a member of the family and slept on a cot in the little dressing room off Gerald's room.

When the cow had the colic and the horse fell ill with a mysterious ailment which threatened to remove him permanently from them, Will sat up nights with them and saved them.

And he could get work out of Pork, which was, to Scarlett, a marvelous thing.

Though he had only one leg, he could work faster than Pork.

He did them silently, patiently and competently.

He never had much to say, never displayed any energy, never seemed to take much interest in anything that went on about him, but he knew everything about everybody at Tara.

Undoubtedly, as Mammy frequently declared, Will was something the Lord had provided and Scarlett often wondered how Tara could have lived through the last few months without him.

She looked at the lank figure leaning against the porch column, chewing a straw.

He had delayed closing the bargain until he discussed it with Scarlett.

However, he had learned that day in Fayetteville that he could cut this expense a fourth by lending the horse and wagon for two weeks to the gin owner.

Will Benteen sat on the front steps at Scarlett's feet in the pleasant sunshine of the early autumn afternoon and his flat voice went on and on languidly about the exorbitant costs ...

It was September and time to pick the cotton.

With Will in the house, everyone felt safe in leaving Wade and the two babies while they went about their tasks, for he could care for them as deftly as Mammy and only Melly surpas ...

He was clever at whittling and Wade was constantly by his side, for he whittled out toys for him, the only toys the little boy had.

When he was able to totter about the house, he turned his hands to weaving baskets of split oak and mending the furniture ruined by the Yankees.

Eventually all the family found their way to Will's room to air their troubles��even Mammy, who had at first been distant with him because he was not quality and had owned only t ...

She even told him of killing the Yankee and glowed with pride when he commented briefly: Good work!

She could tell Will anything.

Yes, Will was a comfort to Scarlett after hard days when the negroes muttered and Suellen nagged and cried and Gerald asked too frequently where Ellen was.

Yet, none of these things seemed to bother him any more than the leg he had left in Virginia.

His sister, his only relative, had moved to Texas with her husband years ago and he was alone in the world.

He knew his slaves were free now and the farm gone to weeds and seedling pines.

She told him about her problems of weeding and hoeing and planting, of fattening the hogs and breeding the cow, and he gave good advice for he had owned a small farm in south Georg ...

Will was pleasant to talk to because he had so little to say and yet was so understanding a listener.

Not Miss Carreen, he said with finality.

She said as much to Will but he shook his head.

And she knew one girl in Atlanta who had been widowed three times by the war and was still able to take notice of men.

She'd certainly gotten over Charles.

Lots of girls got over dead sweethearts, yes, dead husbands, too.

Well, she'd get over it.

So that was why Carreen mooned about, praying all the time.

So he knew things about her own family which she had not troubled to discover.

She looked curiously at this lanky man with his bony stooped shoulders, his pinkish hair and calm unwavering eyes.

She said he was the only boy she'd ever cared about and so it kind of comforts her to pray for him.

But, all the same, he was her beau after you turned him down, because when he come home on his last furlough they got engaged.

Looks like most of the County was your beaux.

Yes, so she told me.

Her beau, nothing! He and his brother were my beaux.

Her beau? said Scarlett shortly.

Her beau, that boy Brent something-or-other who was killed at Gettysburg.

He took it as naturally as he did the fact that Carreen had found comfort in talking to him, a stranger.

That Scarlett did not know what was in her sister's heart did not seem odd to him.

Perhaps he had seen too much of the unexpected ever to be startled again.