CHAPTER 6

Summary

The barbecue takes place at the Wilkes’ Twelve Oaks Plantation. Everyone from miles around is in attendance. Scarlett notices with a scorn that her sister Suellen has singled out Frank Kennedy to flirt with. India Wilkes is nowhere to be seen, but Scarlett knows that she in interested in Stuart Tarleton who has appeared to prefer Scarlett. She compares herself with many of the other girls. The Wilkes girls, particularly, she considers "plain." Frank Kennedy is nearly 40 and not particularly handsome, but Scarlett smiles flirtatiously at him anyway as part of her plan to make Ashley jealous. Before descending the stairs to touch up her hair, she greets Charles Hamilton, calling him a "handsome old thing." He blushes, as he is not used to girls speaking so to him.

Scarlett notices a strange, dark man and soon finds out that he is Rhett Butler, a man with a "terrible reputation" whose own folks won’t even talk to him. Supposedly his reputation was compromised when he took a girl out buggy riding and kept her out nearly all night due to an accident with the buggy. Since he hadn’t done anything to her, he refused to marry her. The girl’s brother called him out in a duel, and Rhett shot the boy.

During the barbecue, Scarlett purposely sits apart from the other people, the better to draw all the boys around her. Charles Hamilton ignores Honey Wilkes who is ready to cry. Frank Kennedy fusses over Scarlett, ignoring Suellen, and the Munroe girls try to hide their frustration over the Fontaine boys who are supposed to be their beaux. Meanwhile, Scarlett tries to draw Ashley into the circle around her, but he has eyes only for Melanie. The custom is for the girls to retire to the bedrooms and take an afternoon nap between the noon barbecue and the evening dance, but first the guests enter a discussion on the possibility of war and on who will sign up to fight. At one point Rhett Butler antagonizes the men by reminding them that there are no cannon factories south of the Mason Dixon line, just one detail of many in a lack of southern preparation. He says the Yankees would beat them in a month. Stuart Tarleton confronts Rhett, but Rhett rebukes him and excuses himself for some business he has to tend to with John Wilkes.

After making sure that Melanie is lying down along with the other girls, Scarlett sneaks downstairs and searches for a place to waylay Ashley. Finally she takes refuge in the library where Ashley accidentally spots her. There she tells him that she loves him and tries to convince him to abandon Melanie. He refuses, insisting that although he has always been fond of Scarlett, he believes they are too different for a marriage to ever work. Unable to change his mind, she finally slaps him. He leaves her fuming in the library. In a temper, she picks up a small bowl and hurls it across the room only to find that Rhett Butler has been lying on the sofa and has heard the entire exchange between herself and Ashley. In a fury, she leaves the library, hoping she will be able to slip into one of the dressing rooms and then onto one of the beds beside the other girls. Her plans are disrupted by the sound of female voices. Scarlett hears the other girls talking about her, and, to her chagrin, Melanie is defending her. Scarlett considers it just Melanie’s way of flaunting her success with Ashley.

In a desperate attempt to show her competitors that they can’t hurt her, Scarlett agrees to marry Charlie. She finds that war has been declared and Charlie will join up, but she is going to marry him before he leaves.