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Few small farmers owned horses. They carried on their farm operations with mules and they had no surplus of these, seldom more than four. The mules could not be spared to go off to war, even if they had been acceptable for the Troop, which they emphatically were not. As for the poor whites, they considered themselves well off if they owned one mule. The backwoods folks and the swamp dwellers owned neither horses nor mules.
小農中很少有人是有馬的。他們是使用騾子耕作，也沒有富余的，最多不過四頭騾子。這些騾子即使營里同意接受，也不能從田里拉到戰場呀，何況營里還口口聲聲說不要呢。至于那些窮白人，他們只要有一頭騾子便自以為滿不錯了。邊遠林區的人和沼澤地帶的居民既無馬也沒有騾子。
They lived entirely off the produce of their lands and the game in the swamp, conducting their business generally by the barter system and seldom seeing five dollars in cash a year, and horses and uniforms were out of their reach. But they were as fiercely proud in their poverty as the planters were in their wealth, and they would accept nothing that smacked of charity from their rich neighbors.
他們完全靠林地里的出產和沼澤中的獵物過活，做生意也是以物換物，一年看不見五元現金，要自備馬匹、制服是辦不到的。可是這些人身處貧困仍非常驕傲，就像那些擁有財富的農場主一樣；他們決不接受來自富裕鄰居的任何帶施舍意味的東西。
So, to save the feelings of all and to bring the Troop up to full strength, Scarlett’s father, John Wilkes, Buck Munroe, Jim Tarleton, Hugh Calvert, in fact every large planter in the County with the one exception of Angus Macintosh, had contributed money to completely outfit the Troop, horse and man. The upshot of the matter was that every planter agreed to pay for equipping his own sons and a certain number of the others, but the manner of handling the arrangements was such that the less wealthy members of the outfit could accept horses and uniforms without offense to their honor.
在這種局面下，為了保持大家的感情和把軍營建成一個充實的組織，思嘉的父親，約翰·威爾克斯，巴克·芒羅，吉姆·塔爾頓，休·卡爾弗特，實際除寧格斯·麥金托什以外，全縣每個大農場主，都捐錢把軍營全面裝面起來，馬匹和人員也一樣。這件事是由每個農場主同意出錢裝備自己的兒子和別的若干人開始的，但經過適當的安排以后，營里那些不怎么富裕的成員也就能夠坦然接受他們的馬匹和制服而不覺得有失體面了。
The Troop met twice a week in Jonesboro to drill and to pray for the war to begin. Arrangements had not yet been completed for obtaining the full quota of horses, but those who had horses performed what they imagined to be cavalry maneuvers in the field behind the courthouse, kicked up a great deal of dust, yelled themselves hoarse and waved the Revolutionary-war swords that had been taken down from parlor walls.
營隊每周在瓊斯博羅集合兩次，進行操練和祈禱戰爭早日發生。馬匹還沒有備齊，但那些有馬的人已經在縣府背后的田野里搞起了他們想象中的騎兵演習，攪起滿天灰塵土，扯著嘶的嗓子叫喊著，揮舞著從客廳墻上取下來的革命戰爭時代的軍刀。
Those who, as yet, had no horses sat on the curb in front of Bullard’s store and watched their mounted comrades, chewed tobacco and told yarns. Or else engaged in shooting matches. There was no need to teach any of the men to shoot. Most Southerners were born with guns in their hands, and lives spent in hunting had made marksmen of them all.
那些還沒有馬匹的人只好坐布拉德倉庫前面的鑲邊石上一面觀看，一面嚼著煙草閑聊。要不他們就比賽打靶。誰也用不著你去教他打槍。因為大多數南方人生來就是玩槍的，他們終日消磨在打獵中的時間把他們全都練成了好射手。
