静かな撤退

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Somehow Melanie made her way to the center of the excited throng and somehow made her usually soft voice heard above the tumult. Her heart was in her throat with fright at daring to address the indignant gathering and her voice shook but she kept crying: “Ladies! Please!” till the din died down.
　“I want to say—I mean, I’ve thought for a long time that—that not only should we pull up the weeds but we should plant flowers on— I—I don’t care what you think but every time I go to take flowers to dear Charlie’s grave, I always put some on the grave of an unknown Yankee which is near by. It—it looks so forlorn!”
　The excitement broke out again in louder words and this time the two organizations merged and spoke as one.
　“On Yankee graves! Oh, Melly, how could you! “And they killed Charlie!” “They almost killed you!” “Why, the Yankees might have killed Beau when he was born!” “They tried to burn you out of Tara!”
　Melanie held onto the back of her chair for support, almost crumpling beneath the weight of a disapproval she had never known before.
　“Oh, ladies!” she cried, pleading. “Please, let me finish! I know I haven’t the right to speak on this matter, for none of my loved ones were killed except Charlie, and I know where he lies, thank God! But there are so many among us today who do not know where their sons and husbands and brothers are buried and—”
　She choked and there was a dead silence in the room.
　Mrs. Meade’s flaming eyes went somber. She had made the long trip to Gettysburg after the battle to bring back Darcy’s body but no one had been able to tell her where he was buried. Somewhere in some hastily dug trench in the enemy’s country. And Mrs. Allan’s mouth quivered. Her husband and brother had been on that ill-starred raid Morgan made into Ohio and the last information she had of them was that they fell on the banks of the river, just as the Yankee cavalry stormed up. She did not know where they lay. Mrs. Allison’s son had died in a Northern prison camp and she, the poorest of the poor, was unable to bring his body home. There were others who had read on casualty lists: “Missing—believed dead,” and in those words had learned the last news they were ever to learn of men they had seen march away.