"That's all right, son." Atticus grinned slowly. "Looks like all  of Maycomb was out tonight, in one way or another. Jem, there's some wrapping paper in the pantry, I think. Go get it and we'll-" 

  "Atticus, no sir!"  

  Jem seemed to have lost his mind. He began pouring out our secrets right and left in total disregard for my safety if not for his own, omitting nothing, knot-hole, pants and all.

  "...Mr. Nathan put cement in that tree, Atticus, an' he did it to stop us findin' things- he's crazy, I reckon, like they say, but   Atticus, I swear to God he ain't ever harmed us, he ain't ever hurt us, he coulda cut my throat from ear to ear that night but he tried to  mend my pants instead... he ain't ever hurt us, Atticus-"

  Atticus said, "Whoa, son," so gently that I was greatly heartened. It was obvious that he had not followed a word Jem said, for all   Atticus said was, "You're right. We'd better keep this and the blanket  to ourselves. Someday, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her  up."

  "Thank who?" I asked. 

  "Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn't know it  when he put the blanket around you." 

  My stomach turned to water and I nearly threw up when Jem held out the blanket and crept toward me. "He sneaked out of the house- turn

'round- sneaked up, an' went like this!" 

  Atticus said dryly, "Do not let this inspire you to further glory, Jeremy." 

  Jem scowled, "I ain't gonna do anything to him," but I watched the spark of fresh adventure leave his eyes. "Just think, Scout," he said,

"if you'd just turned around, you'da seen him." 

  Calpurnia woke us at noon. Atticus had said we need not go to school  that day, we'd learn nothing after no sleep. Calpurnia said for us  to try and clean up the front yard.  

  Miss Maudie's sunhat was suspended in a thin layer of ice, like a fly in amber, and we had to dig under the dirt for her hedge-clippers.  We found her in her back yard, gazing at her frozen charred azaleas.  

  "We're bringing back your things, Miss Maudie," said Jem. "We're  awful sorry." 

  Miss Maudie looked around, and the shadow of her old grin crossed her face. "Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Gives me more  yard. Just think, I'll have more room for my azaleas now!"  

  "You ain't grievin', Miss Maudie?" I asked, surprised. Atticus   said her house was nearly all she had.

  "Grieving, child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of settin'  fire to it a hundred times myself, except they'd lock me up."

  "But-" 

  "Don't you worry about me, Jean Louise Finch. There are ways of   doing things you don't know about. Why, I'll build me a little house and take me a couple of roomers and- gracious, I'll have the finest yard in Alabama. Those Bellingraths'll look plain puny when I get   started!"

  Jem and I looked at each other. "How'd it catch, Miss Maudie?" he asked.  

  "I don't know, Jem. Probably the flue in the kitchen. I kept a   fire in there last night for my potted plants. Hear you had some   unexpected company last night, Miss Jean Louise."  

  "How'd you know?"

  "Atticus told me on his way to town this morning. Tell you the   truth, I'd like to've been with you. And I'd've had sense enough to turn around, too." 

  Miss Maudie puzzled me. With most of her possessions gone and her beloved yard a shambles, she still took a lively and cordial   interest in Jem's and my affairs.

  She must have seen my perplexity. She said, "Only thing I worried about last night was all the danger and commotion it caused. This   whole neighborhood could have gone up. Mr. Avery'll be in bed for a week- he's right stove up. He's too old to do things like that and I told him so. Soon as I can get my hands clean and when Stephanie   Crawford's not looking, I'll make him a Lane cake. That Stephanie's been after my recipe for thirty years, and if she thinks I'll give  it to her just because I'm staying with her she's got another think coming." 

  I reflected that if Miss Maudie broke down and gave it to her,   Miss Stephanie couldn't follow it anyway. Miss Maudie had once let  me see it: among other things, the recipe called for one large cup  of sugar.

  It was a still day. The air was so cold and clear we heard the   courthouse clock clank, rattle and strain before it struck the hour. Miss Maudie's nose was a color I had never seen before, and I inquired  about it.

  "I've been out here since six o'clock," she said. "Should be frozen by now." She held up her hands. A network of tiny lines crisscrossed her palms, brown with dirt and dried blood.

  "You've ruined 'em," said Jem. "Why don't you get a colored man?" There was no note of sacrifice in his voice when he added, "Or Scout'n'me, we can help you."

  Miss Maudie said, "Thank you sir, but you've got a job of your own over there." She pointed to our yard. 

  "You mean the Morphodite?" I asked. "Shoot, we can rake him up in a jiffy."

  Miss Maudie stared down at me, her lips moving silently. Suddenly she put her hands to her head and whooped. When we left her, she was still chuckling. 

  Jem said he didn't know what was the matter with her- that was   just Miss Maudie.  

  9  

  

  "You can just take that back, boy!" 

  This order, given by me to Cecil Jacobs, was the beginning of a   rather thin time for Jem and me. My fists were clenched and I was   ready to let fly. Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fighting any more; I was far too old and too big   for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the  better off everybody would be. I soon forgot. 

  Cecil Jacobs made me forget. He had announced in the schoolyard   the day before that Scout Finch's daddy defended niggers. I denied it,  but told Jem. 

  "What'd he mean sayin' that?" I asked. 

  "Nothing," Jem said. "Ask Atticus, he'll tell you."

  "Do you defend niggers, Atticus?" I asked him that evening.

  "Of course I do. Don't say nigger, Scout. That's common."  

  "'s what everybody at school says." 

  "From now on it'll be everybody less one-"  

  "Well if you don't want me to grow up talkin' that way, why do you send me to school?"

  My father looked at me mildly, amusement in his eyes. Despite our compromise, my campaign to avoid school had continued in one form or another since my first day's dose of it: the beginning of last September had brought on sinking spells, dizziness, and mild gastric complaints. I went so far as to pay a nickel for the privilege of   rubbing my head against the head of Miss Rachel's cook's son, who   was afflicted with a tremendous ringworm. It didn't take.

  But I was worrying another bone. "Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?"

  "Of course they do, Scout."

  "Then why did Cecil say you defended niggers? He made it sound   like you were runnin' a still." 

  Atticus sighed. "I'm simply defending a Negro- his name's Tom Robinson. He lives in that little settlement beyond the town dump.  He's a member of Calpurnia's church, and Cal knows his family well. She says they're clean-living folks. Scout, you aren't old enough to understand some things yet, but there's been some high talk around  town to the effect that I shouldn't do much about defending this   man. It's a peculiar case- it won't come to trial until summer session. John Taylor was kind enough to give us a postponement..."

  "If you shouldn't be defendin' him, then why are you doin' it?" 

  "For a number of reasons," said Atticus. "The main one is, if I   didn't I couldn't hold up my head in town, I couldn't represent this county in the legislature, I couldn't even tell you or Jem not to do something again."  

  "You mean if you didn't defend that man, Jem and me wouldn't have to  mind you any more?"

  "That's about right." 

  "Why?" 

  "Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his  lifetime that affects him personally. This one's mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for  me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists   down. No matter what anybody says to you, don't you let 'em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change... it's a good one,  even if it does resist learning."

  "Atticus, are we going to win it?" 

  "No, honey."

  "Then why-" 

  "Simply because we were licked a hundred years before we started  is no reason for us not to try to win," Atticus said.

  "You sound like Cousin Ike Finch," I said. Cousin Ike Finch was   Maycomb County's sole surviving Confederate veteran. He wore a General  Hood type beard of which he was inordinately vain. At least once a  year Atticus, Jem and I called on him, and I would have to kiss him. It was horrible. Jem and I would listen respectfully to Atticus and Cousin Ike rehash the war. "Tell you, Atticus," Cousin Ike would   say, "the Missouri Compromise was what licked us, but if I had to go through it agin I'd walk every step of the way there an' every step back jist like I did before an' furthermore we'd whip 'em this time...  now in 1864, when Stonewall Jackson came around by- I beg your pardon,  young folks. Ol' Blue Light was in heaven then, God rest his saintly brow...."

  "Come here, Scout," said Atticus. I crawled into his lap and tucked my head under his chin. He put his arms around me and rocked me  gently. "It's different this time," he said. "This time we aren't   fighting the Yankees, we're fighting our friends. But remember this, no matter how bitter things get, they're still our friends and this is  still our home." 

  With this in mind, I faced Cecil Jacobs in the schoolyard next   day: "You gonna take that back, boy?" 

  "You gotta make me first!" he yelled. "My folks said your daddy   was a disgrace an' that nigger oughta hang from the water-tank!"  

  I drew a bead on him, remembered what Atticus had said, then dropped  my fists and walked away, "Scout's a cow- ward!" ringing in my ears. It was the first time I ever walked away from a fight.  

  Somehow, if I fought Cecil I would let Atticus down. Atticus so   rarely asked Jem and me to do something for him, I could take being called a coward for him. I felt extremely noble for having remembered,  and remained noble for three weeks. Then Christmas came and disaster struck.  

  

  Jem and I viewed Christmas with mixed feelings. The good side was the tree and Uncle Jack Finch. Every Christmas Eve day we met Uncle Jack at Maycomb Junction, and he would spend a week with us. 

  A flip of the coin revealed the uncompromising lineaments of Aunt Alexandra and Francis. 

  I suppose I should include Uncle Jimmy, Aunt Alexandra's husband, but as he never spoke a word to me in my life except to say, "Get   off the fence," once, I never saw any reason to take notice of him. Neither did Aunt Alexandra. Long ago, in a burst of friendliness,   Aunty and Uncle Jimmy produced a son named Henry, who left home as  soon as was humanly possible, married, and produced Francis. Henry and  his wife deposited Francis at his grandparents' every Christmas,   then pursued their own pleasures.

  No amount of sighing could induce Atticus to let us spend Christmas day at home. We went to Finch's Landing every Christmas in my memory. The fact that Aunty was a good cook was some compensation for being forced to spend a religious holiday with Francis Hancock. He  was a year older than I, and I avoided him on principle: he enjoyed everything I disapproved of, and disliked my ingenuous diversions.

  Aunt Alexandra was Atticus's sister, but when Jem told me about   changelings and siblings, I decided that she had been swapped at   birth, that my grandparents had perhaps received a Crawford instead of  a Finch. Had I ever harbored the mystical notions about mountains that  seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been   analogous to Mount Everest: throughout my early life, she was cold and  there.  

  When Uncle Jack jumped down from the train Christmas Eve day, we had  to wait for the porter to hand him two long packages. Jem and I always  thought it funny when Uncle Jack pecked Atticus on the cheek; they  were the only two men we ever saw kiss each other. Uncle Jack shook hands with Jem and swung me high, but not high enough: Uncle Jack   was a head shorter than Atticus; the baby of the family, he was younger than Aunt Alexandra. He and Aunty looked alike, but Uncle Jack  made better use of his face: we were never wary of his sharp nose   and chin.

  He was one of the few men of science who never terrified me, probably because he never behaved like a doctor. Whenever he performed  a minor service for Jem and me, as removing a splinter from a foot, he  would tell us exactly what he was going to do, give us an estimation of how much it would hurt, and explain the use of any tongs he employed. One Christmas I lurked in corners nursing a twisted splinter  in my foot, permitting no one to come near me. When Uncle Jack caught me, he kept me laughing about a preacher who hated going to  church so much that every day he stood at his gate in his dressing-gown, smoking a hookah and delivering five-minute sermons  to any passers-by who desired spiritual comfort. I interrupted to make  Uncle Jack let me know when he would pull it out, but he held up a  bloody splinter in a pair of tweezers and said he yanked it while I was laughing, that was what was known as relativity.

  "What's in those packages?" I asked him, pointing to the long thin parcels the porter had given him.

  "None of your business," he said.  

  Jem said, "How's Rose Aylmer?" 

  Rose Aylmer was Uncle Jack's cat. She was a beautiful yellow female Uncle Jack said was one of the few women he could stand permanently. He reached into his coat pocket and brought out some   snapshots. We admired them. 

  "She's gettin' fat," I said.  

  "I should think so. She eats all the leftover fingers and ears   from the hospital."

  "Aw, that's a damn story," I said. 

  "I beg your pardon?" 

  Atticus said, "Don't pay any attention to her, Jack. She's trying you out. Cal says she's been cussing fluently for a week, now."  

  Uncle Jack raised his eyebrows and said nothing. I was proceeding on  the dim theory, aside from the innate attractiveness of such words, that if Atticus discovered I had picked them up at school he   wouldn't make me go.  

  But at supper that evening when I asked him to pass the damn ham, please, Uncle Jack pointed at me. "See me afterwards, young lady,"  he said. 

  When supper was over, Uncle Jack went to the livingroom and sat   down. He slapped his thighs for me to come sit on his lap. I liked  to smell him: he was like a bottle of alcohol and something pleasantly  sweet. He pushed back my bangs and looked at me. "You're more like  Atticus than your mother," he said. "You're also growing out of your pants a little." 

  "I reckon they fit all right." 

  "You like words like damn and hell now, don't you?"

  I said I reckoned so. 

  "Well I don't," said Uncle Jack, "not unless there's extreme provocation connected with 'em. I'll be here a week, and I don't   want to hear any words like that while I'm here. Scout, you'll get  in trouble if you go around saying things like that. You want to   grow up to be a lady, don't you?"

  I said not particularly. 

  "Of course you do. Now let's get to the tree."

  We decorated the tree until bedtime, and that night I dreamed of the  two long packages for Jem and me. Next morning Jem and I dived for  them: they were from Atticus, who had written Uncle Jack to get them for us, and they were what we had asked for.  

  "Don't point them in the house," said Atticus, when Jem aimed at a picture on the wall.  

  "You'll have to teach 'em to shoot," said Uncle Jack. 

  "That's your job," said Atticus. "I merely bowed to the inevitable."

  It took Atticus's courtroom voice to drag us away from the tree.  He declined to let us take our air rifles to the Landing (I had already begun to think of shooting Francis) and said if we made one false move he'd take them away from us for good.

  Finch's Landing consisted of three hundred and sixty-six steps   down a high bluff and ending in a jetty. Farther down stream, beyond the bluff, were traces of an old cotton landing, where Finch Negroes had loaded bales and produce, unloaded blocks of ice, flour and sugar,  farm equipment, and feminine apparel. A two-rut road ran from the   riverside and vanished among dark trees. At the end of the road was a two-storied white house with porches circling it upstairs and downstairs. In his old age, our ancestor Simon Finch had built it to please his nagging wife; but with the porches all resemblance to   ordinary houses of its era ended. The internal arrangements of the  Finch house were indicative of Simon's guilelessness and the   absolute trust with which he regarded his offspring.

  There were six bedrooms upstairs, four for the eight female  children, one for Welcome Finch, the sole son, and one for visiting relatives. Simple enough; but the daughters' rooms could be reached only by one staircase, Welcome's room and the guestroom only by another. The Daughters' Staircase was in the ground-floor bedroom of their parents, so Simon always knew the hours of his daughters' nocturnal comings and goings.

  There was a kitchen separate from the rest of the house, tacked onto  it by a wooden catwalk; in the back yard was a rusty bell on a pole, used to summon field hands or as a distress signal; a widow's walk was  on the roof, but no widows walked there- from it, Simon oversaw his overseer, watched the river-boats, and gazed into the lives of surrounding landholders.

  There went with the house the usual legend about the Yankees: one Finch female, recently engaged, donned her complete trousseau to   save it from raiders in the neighborhood; she became stuck in the door  to the Daughters' Staircase but was doused with water and finally   pushed through. When we arrived at the Landing, Aunt Alexandra kissed Uncle Jack, Francis kissed Uncle Jack, Uncle Jimmy shook hands silently with Uncle Jack, Jem and I gave our presents to Francis, who gave us a present. Jem felt his age and gravitated to the  adults, leaving me to entertain our cousin. Francis was eight and   slicked back his hair. 

  "What'd you get for Christmas?" I asked politely.

  "Just what I asked for," he said. Francis had requested a pair of knee-pants, a red leather booksack, five shirts and an untied bow tie.

  "That's nice," I lied. "Jem and me got air rifles, and Jem got a  chemistry set-"  

  "A toy one, I reckon."

  "No, a real one. He's gonna make me some invisible ink, and I'm   gonna write to Dill in it." 

  Francis asked what was the use of that. 

  "Well, can't you just see his face when he gets a letter from me  with nothing in it? It'll drive him nuts." 

  Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean. He was the most boring child I ever met. As he lived in Mobile, he could not inform on me to school authorities,   but he managed to tell everything he knew to Aunt Alexandra, who in turn unburdened herself to Atticus, who either forgot it or gave me hell, whichever struck his fancy. But the only time I ever heard   Atticus speak sharply to anyone was when I once heard him say,

"Sister, I do the best I can with them!" It had something to do with my going around in overalls.

  Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could  do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn't supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra's vision of my deportment involved  playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl   necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father's lonely life. I suggested that one could  be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown   progressively worse every year. She hurt my feelings and set my teeth permanently on edge, but when I asked Atticus about it, he   said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go on  about my business, he didn't mind me much the way I was.

  At Christmas dinner, I sat at the little table in the diningroom; Jem and Francis sat with the adults at the dining table. Aunty had  continued to isolate me long after Jem and Francis graduated to the big table. I often wondered what she thought I'd do, get up and throw something? I sometimes thought of asking her if she would let me  sit at the big table with the rest of them just once, I would prove to  her how civilized I could be; after all, I ate at home every day   with no major mishaps. When I begged Atticus to use his influence,  he said he had none- we were guests, and we sat where she told us to sit. He also said Aunt Alexandra didn't understand girls much, she'd never had one.

  But her cooking made up for everything: three kinds of meat, summer vegetables from her pantry shelves; peach pickles, two kinds of  cake and ambrosia constituted a modest Christmas dinner. Afterwards, the adults made for the livingroom and sat around in a dazed   condition. Jem lay on the floor, and I went to the back yard. "Put  on your coat," said Atticus dreamily, so I didn't hear him.  

  Francis sat beside me on the back steps. "That was the best yet," I said.  

  "Grandma's a wonderful cook," said Francis. "She's gonna teach me how."

  "Boys don't cook." I giggled at the thought of Jem in an apron. 

  "Grandma says all men should learn to cook, that men oughta be   careful with their wives and wait on 'em when they don't feel good," said my cousin.  

  "I don't want Dill waitin' on me," I said. "I'd rather wait on him."

  "Dill?"

  "Yeah. Don't say anything about it yet, but we're gonna get  married as soon as we're big enough. He asked me last summer."

  Francis hooted.  

  "What's the matter with him?" I asked. "Ain't anything the matter with him."  

  "You mean that little runt Grandma says stays with Miss Rachel every  summer?" 

  "That's exactly who I mean."  

  "I know all about him," said Francis.  

  "What about him?"

  "Grandma says he hasn't got a home-"

  "Has too, he lives in Meridian."  

  "-he just gets passed around from relative to relative, and Miss  Rachel keeps him every summer." 

  "Francis, that's not so!" 

  Francis grinned at me. "You're mighty dumb sometimes, Jean Louise. Guess you don't know any better, though." 

  "What do you mean?" 

  "If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that's his own business, like Grandma says, so it ain't your fault. I guess it ain't your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I'm here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family-"

  "Francis, what the hell do you mean?"  

  "Just what I said. Grandma says it's bad enough he lets you all   run wild, but now he's turned out a nigger-lover we'll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He's ruinin' the family, that's what he's doin'."  

  Francis rose and sprinted down the catwalk to the old kitchen. At a safe distance he called, "He's nothin' but a nigger-lover!"

  "He is not!" I roared. "I don't know what you're talkin' about,   but you better cut it out this red hot minute!" 

  I leaped off the steps and ran down the catwalk. It was easy to   collar Francis. I said take it back quick. 

  Francis jerked loose and sped into the old kitchen.

"Nigger-lover!" he yelled. 

  When stalking one's prey, it is best to take one's time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge. Francis appeared at the kitchen door. "You still mad, Jean Louise?" he  asked tentatively. 

  "Nothing to speak of," I said. 

  Francis came out on the catwalk.  

  "You gonna take it back, Fra- ancis?" But I was too quick on the  draw. Francis shot back into the kitchen, so I retired to the steps. I  could wait patiently. I had sat there perhaps five minutes when I   heard Aunt Alexandra speak: "Where's Francis?"

  "He's out yonder in the kitchen."  

  "He knows he's not supposed to play in there."

  Francis came to the door and yelled, "Grandma, she's got me in   here and she won't let me out!" 

  "What is all this, Jean Louise?"  

  I looked up at Aunt Alexandra. "I haven't got him in there, Aunty, I  ain't holdin' him."

  "Yes she is," shouted Francis, "she won't let me out!"

  "Have you all been fussing?"  

  "Jean Louise got mad at me, Grandma," called Francis. 

  "Francis, come out of there! Jean Louise, if I hear another word out  of you I'll tell your father. Did I hear you say hell a while ago?"

  "Nome."

  "I thought I did. I'd better not hear it again." 

  Aunt Alexandra was a back-porch listener. The moment she was out  of sight Francis came out head up and grinning. "Don't you fool with me," he said. 

  He jumped into the yard and kept his distance, kicking tufts of   grass, turning around occasionally to smile at me. Jem appeared on the  porch, looked at us, and went away. Francis climbed the mimosa tree, came down, put his hands in his pockets and strolled around the yard. "Hah!" he said. I asked him who he thought he was, Uncle Jack? Francis said he reckoned I got told, for me to just sit there and   leave him alone. 

  "I ain't botherin' you," I said.  

  Francis looked at me carefully, concluded that I had been sufficiently subdued, and crooned softly, "Nigger-lover..."  

  This time, I split my knuckle to the bone on his front teeth. My  left impaired, I sailed in with my right, but not for long. Uncle Jack  pinned my arms to my sides and said, "Stand still!"

  Aunt Alexandra ministered to Francis, wiping his tears away with her  handkerchief, rubbing his hair, patting his cheek. Atticus, Jem, and Uncle Jimmy had come to the back porch when Francis started yelling.  

  "Who started this?" said Uncle Jack.

  Francis and I pointed at each other. "Grandma," he bawled, "she   called me a whore-lady and jumped on me!" 

  "Is that true, Scout?" said Uncle Jack. 

  "I reckon so." 

  When Uncle Jack looked down at me, his features were like Aunt   Alexandra's. "You know I told you you'd get in trouble if you used  words like that? I told you, didn't I?"  

  "Yes sir, but-"   

  "Well, you're in trouble now. Stay there."  

  I was debating whether to stand there or run, and tarried in indecision a moment too long: I turned to flee but Uncle Jack was   quicker. I found myself suddenly looking at a tiny ant struggling with  a bread crumb in the grass. 

  "I'll never speak to you again as long as I live! I hate you an'  despise you an' hope you die tomorrow!" A statement that seemed to  encourage Uncle Jack, more than anything. I ran to Atticus for comfort, but he said I had it coming and it was high time we went   home. I climbed into the back seat of the car without saying   good-bye to anyone, and at home I ran to my room and slammed the door.  Jem tried to say something nice, but I wouldn't let him.

  When I surveyed the damage there were only seven or eight red marks,  and I was reflecting upon relativity when someone knocked on the door.  I asked who it was; Uncle Jack answered. 

  "Go away!"  

  Uncle Jack said if I talked like that he'd lick me again, so I was quiet. When he entered the room I retreated to a corner and turned  my back on him. "Scout," he said, "do you still hate me?"

  "Go on, please sir." 

  "Why, I didn't think you'd hold it against me," he said. "I'm disappointed in you- you had that coming and you know it."  

  "Didn't either." 

  "Honey, you can't go around calling people-"

  "You ain't fair," I said, "you ain't fair." 

  Uncle Jack's eyebrows went up. "Not fair? How not?"

  "You're real nice, Uncle Jack, an' I reckon I love you even after what you did, but you don't understand children much."  

  Uncle Jack put his hands on his hips and looked down at me. "And why  do I not understand children, Miss Jean Louise? Such conduct as yours required little understanding. It was obstreperous, disorderly and abusive-" 

  "You gonna give me a chance to tell you? I don't mean to sass you, I'm just tryin' to tell you."

  Uncle Jack sat down on the bed. His eyebrows came together, and he peered up at me from under them. "Proceed," he said.

  I took a deep breath. "Well, in the first place you never stopped to  gimme a chance to tell you my side of it- you just lit right into   me. When Jem an' I fuss Atticus doesn't ever just listen to Jem's side  of it, he hears mine too, an' in the second place you told me never to  use words like that except in ex-extreme provocation, and Francis   provocated me enough to knock his block off-" 

  Uncle Jack scratched his head. "What was your side of it, Scout?"

  "Francis called Atticus somethin', an' I wasn't about to take it off  him."

  "What did Francis call him?"  

  "A nigger-lover. I ain't very sure what it means, but the way Francis said it- tell you one thing right now, Uncle Jack, I'll be- I swear before God if I'll sit there and let him say somethin' about Atticus."

  "He called Atticus that?" 

  "Yes sir, he did, an' a lot more. Said Atticus'd be the ruination of  the family an' he let Jem an me run wild...." 

  From the look on Uncle Jack's face, I thought I was in for it again.  When he said, "We'll see about this," I knew Francis was in for it.

"I've a good mind to go out there tonight."

  "Please sir, just let it go. Please."  

  "I've no intention of letting it go," he said. "Alexandra should  know about this. The idea of- wait'll I get my hands on that boy...." 

  "Uncle Jack, please promise me somethin', please sir. Promise you won't tell Atticus about this. He- he asked me one time not to let  anything I heard about him make me mad, an' I'd ruther him think we were fightin' about somethin' else instead. Please promise..."

  "But I don't like Francis getting away with something like that-"

  "He didn't. You reckon you could tie up my hand? It's still bleedin'  some."  

  "Of course I will, baby. I know of no hand I would be more delighted  to tie up. Will you come this way?"  

  Uncle Jack gallantly bowed me to the bathroom. While he cleaned   and bandaged my knuckles, he entertained me with a tale about a funny nearsighted old gentleman who had a cat named Hodge, and who  counted all the cracks in the sidewalk when he went to town. "There now," he said. "You'll have a very unladylike scar on your wedding-ring finger." 

  "Thank you sir. Uncle Jack?"  

  "Ma'am?"  

  "What's a whore-lady?"

  Uncle Jack plunged into another long tale about an old Prime Minister who sat in the House of Commons and blew feathers in the   air and tried to keep them there when all about him men were losing their heads. I guess he was trying to answer my question, but he   made no sense whatsoever.  

  Later, when I was supposed to be in bed, I went down the hall for a drink of water and heard Atticus and Uncle Jack in the livingroom:  

  "I shall never marry, Atticus."

  "Why?" 

  "I might have children." 

  Atticus said, "You've a lot to learn, Jack."

  "I know. Your daughter gave me my first lessons this afternoon.   She said I didn't understand children much and told me why. She was quite right. Atticus, she told me how I should have treated her- oh dear, I'm so sorry I romped on her." 

  Atticus chuckled. "She earned it, so don't feel too remorseful."

  I waited, on tenterhooks, for Uncle Jack to tell Atticus my side  of it. But he didn't. He simply murmured, "Her use of bathroom invective leaves nothing to the imagination. But she doesn't know   the meaning of half she says- she asked me what a whore-lady was..."  

  "Did you tell her?" 

  "No, I told her about Lord Melbourne." 

  "Jack! When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness' sake. But don't make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply   muddles 'em. No," my father mused, "you had the right answer this   afternoon, but the wrong reasons. Bad language is a stage all children  go through, and it dies with time when they learn they're not  attracting attention with it. Hotheadedness isn't. Scout's got to   learn to keep her head and learn soon, with what's in store for her these next few months. She's coming along, though. Jem's getting older  and she follows his example a good bit now. All she needs is   assistance sometimes." 

  "Atticus, you've never laid a hand on her." 

  "I admit that. So far I've been able to get by with threats. Jack, she minds me as well as she can. Doesn't come up to scratch half the time, but she tries." 

  "That's not the answer," said Uncle Jack.

  "No, the answer is she knows I know she tries. That's what makes the  difference. What bothers me is that she and Jem will have to absorb some ugly things pretty soon. I'm not worried about Jem keeping his head, but Scout'd just as soon jump on someone as look at him if her pride's at stake...." 

  I waited for Uncle Jack to break his promise. He still didn't. 

  "Atticus, how bad is this going to be? You haven't had too much   chance to discuss it." 

  "It couldn't be worse, Jack. The only thing we've got is a black  man's word against the Ewells'. The evidence boils down to you-did- I-didn't. The jury couldn't possibly be expected to take Tom   Robinson's word against the Ewells'- are you acquainted with the   Ewells?" 

  Uncle Jack said yes, he remembered them. He described them to Atticus, but Atticus said, "You're a generation off. The present   ones are the same, though." 

  "What are you going to do, then?"  

  "Before I'm through, I intend to jar the jury a bit- I think we'll have a reasonable chance on appeal, though. I really can't tell at  this stage, Jack. You know, I'd hoped to get through life without a case of this kind, but John Taylor pointed at me and said, 'You're  It.'"

  "Let this cup pass from you, eh?"  

  "Right. But do you think I could face my children otherwise? You  know what's going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray  I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness, and most of  all, without catching Maycomb's usual disease. Why reasonable people go stark raving mad when anything involving a Negro comes up, is   something I don't pretend to understand... I just hope that Jem and Scout come to me for their answers instead of listening to the town. I  hope they trust me enough.... Jean Louise?"

  My scalp jumped. I stuck my head around the corner. "Sir?" 

  "Go to bed."

  I scurried to my room and went to bed. Uncle Jack was a prince of a fellow not to let me down. But I never figured out how Atticus   knew I was listening, and it was not until many years later that I  realized he wanted me to hear every word he said.  

  10 

  

  Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt  reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the  parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said,  "My  father-" 

  Jem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play  keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him Atticus would say, "I'm too old for that, son." 

  Our father didn't do anything. He worked in an office, not in a   drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything  that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.

  Besides that, he wore glasses. He was nearly blind in his left   eye, and said left eyes were the tribal curse of the Finches. Whenever  he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye.

  He did not do the things our schoolmates' fathers did: he never went  hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the livingroom and read.

  With these attributes, however, he would not remain as inconspicuous  as we wished him to: that year, the school buzzed with talk about   him defending Tom Robinson, none of which was complimentary. After  my bout with Cecil Jacobs when I committed myself to a policy of   cowardice, word got around that Scout Finch wouldn't fight any more, her daddy wouldn't let her. This was not entirely correct: I   wouldn't fight publicly for Atticus, but the family was private ground. I would fight anyone from a third cousin upwards tooth and  nail. Francis Hancock, for example, knew that.

  When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn't teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus  wasn't interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, "I'd rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you'll go after   birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit 'em, but remember it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

  That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.  

  "Your father's right," she said. "Mockingbirds don't do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat up people's gardens, don't nest in corncribs, they don't do one thing but sing their hearts  out for us. That's why it's a sin to kill a mockingbird."

  "Miss Maudie, this is an old neighborhood, ain't it?" 

  "Been here longer than the town."  

  "Nome, I mean the folks on our street are all old. Jem and me's   the only children around here. Mrs. Dubose is close on to a hundred and Miss Rachel's old and so are you and Atticus." 

  "I don't call fifty very old," said Miss Maudie tartly. "Not being wheeled around yet, am I? Neither's your father. But I must say Providence was kind enough to burn down that old mausoleum of mine, I'm too old to keep it up- maybe you're right, Jean Louise, this is a settled neighborhood. You've never been around young folks much,  have you?"  

  "Yessum, at school." 

  "I mean young grown-ups. You're lucky, you know. You and Jem have the benefit of your father's age. If your father was thirty you'd find  life quite different." 

  "I sure would. Atticus can't do anything...." 

  "You'd be surprised," said Miss Maudie. "There's life in him yet."  

  "What can he do?"

  "Well, he can make somebody's will so airtight can't anybody meddle with it." 

  "Shoot..."  

  "Well, did you know he's the best checker-player in this town?   Why, down at the Landing when we were coming up, Atticus Finch could beat everybody on both sides of the river."

  "Good Lord, Miss Maudie, Jem and me beat him all the time."

  "It's about time you found out it's because he lets you. Did you  know he can play a Jew's Harp?" 

  This modest accomplishment served to make me even more ashamed of him.

   "Well..."  she said. 

  "Well, what, Miss Maudie?"

  "Well nothing. Nothing- it seems with all that you'd be proud of  him. Can't everybody play a Jew's Harp. Now keep out of the way of the  carpenters. You'd better go home, I'll be in my azaleas and can't   watch you. Plank might hit you." 

  I went to the back yard and found Jem plugging away at a tin can, which seemed stupid with all the bluejays around. I returned to the front yard and busied myself for two hours erecting a complicated   breastworks at the side of the porch, consisting of a tire, an orange crate, the laundry hamper, the porch chairs, and a small U.S. flag Jem gave me from a popcorn box. 

  When Atticus came home to dinner he found me crouched down aiming across the street. "What are you shooting at?"

  "Miss Maudie's rear end." 

  Atticus turned and saw my generous target bending over her bushes. He pushed his hat to the back of his head and crossed the street. 

"Maudie," he called, "I thought I'd better warn you. You're in considerable peril."  

  Miss Maudie straightened up and looked toward me. She said,

"Atticus, you are a devil from hell." 

  When Atticus returned he told me to break camp. "Don't you ever   let me catch you pointing that gun at anybody again," he said.

  I wished my father was a devil from hell. I sounded out Calpurnia on  the subject. "Mr. Finch? Why, he can do lots of things."

  "Like what?" I asked. 

  Calpurnia scratched her head. "Well, I don't rightly know," she   said.

  Jem underlined it when he asked Atticus if he was going out for   the Methodists and Atticus said he'd break his neck if he did, he   was just too old for that sort of thing. The Methodists were trying to  pay off their church mortgage, and had challenged the Baptists to a game of touch football. Everybody in town's father was playing, it  seemed, except Atticus. Jem said he didn't even want to go, but he was  unable to resist football in any form, and he stood gloomily on the sidelines with Atticus and me watching Cecil Jacobs's father make   touchdowns for the Baptists.

  One Saturday Jem and I decided to go exploring with our air-rifles to see if we could find a rabbit or a squirrel. We had gone about five  hundred yards beyond the Radley Place when I noticed Jem squinting  at something down the street. He had turned his head to one side and was looking out of the corners of his eyes.

  "Whatcha looking at?" 

  "That old dog down yonder," he said.

  "That's old Tim Johnson, ain't it?" 

  "Yeah."

  Tim Johnson was the property of Mr. Harry Johnson who drove the   Mobile bus and lived on the southern edge of town. Tim was a   liver-colored bird dog, the pet of Maycomb.

  "What's he doing?"  

  "I don't know, Scout. We better go home."

  "Aw Jem, it's February." 

  "I don't care, I'm gonna tell Cal." 

  We raced home and ran to the kitchen.  

  "Cal," said Jem, "can you come down the sidewalk a minute?"

  "What for, Jem? I can't come down the sidewalk every time you want me."

  "There's somethin' wrong with an old dog down yonder."

  Calpurnia sighed. "I can't wrap up any dog's foot now. There's   some gauze in the bathroom, go get it and do it yourself."  

  Jem shook his head. "He's sick, Cal. Something's wrong with him."

  "What's he doin', trying to catch his tail?"

  "No, he's doin' like this."

  Jem gulped like a goldfish, hunched his shoulders and twitched his torso. "He's goin' like that, only not like he means to."

  "Are you telling me a story, Jem Finch?" Calpurnia's voice hardened.

  "No Cal, I swear I'm not."

  "Was he runnin'?"

  "No, he's just moseyin' along, so slow you can't hardly tell it.  He's comin' this way." 

  Calpurnia rinsed her hands and followed Jem into the yard. "I don't see any dog," she said.

  She followed us beyond the Radley Place and looked where Jem pointed. Tim Johnson was not much more than a speck in the distance, but he was closer to us. He walked erratically, as if his right legs were shorter than his left legs. He reminded me of a car stuck in a sandbed. 

  "He's gone lopsided," said Jem.

  Calpurnia stared, then grabbed us by the shoulders and ran us home. She shut the wood door behind us, went to the telephone and   shouted, "Gimme Mr. Finch's office!" 

  "Mr. Finch!" she shouted. "This is Cal. I swear to God there's a mad  dog down the street a piece- he's comin' this way, yes sir, he's-   Mr. Finch, I declare he is- old Tim Johnson, yes sir... yessir...   yes-"

  She hung up and shook her head when we tried to ask her what Atticus  had said. She rattled the telephone hook and said, "Miss Eula May- now  ma'am, I'm through talkin' to Mr. Finch, please don't connect me no more- listen, Miss Eula May, can you call Miss Rachel and Miss Stephanie Crawford and whoever's got a phone on this street and tell  

'em a mad dog's comin'? Please ma'am!"

  Calpurnia listened. "I know it's February, Miss Eula May, but I know  a mad dog when I see one. Please ma'am hurry!"

  Calpurnia asked Jem, "Radleys got a phone?" 

  Jem looked in the book and said no. "They won't come out anyway,  Cal."

  "I don't care, I'm gonna tell 'em." 

  She ran to the front porch, Jem and I at her heels. "You stay in  that house!" she yelled.

  Calpurnia's message had been received by the neighborhood. Every  wood door within our range of vision was closed tight. We saw no trace  of Tim Johnson. We watched Calpurnia running toward the Radley Place, holding her skirt and apron above her knees. She went up to the  front steps and banged on the door. She got no answer, and she shouted, "Mr. Nathan, Mr. Arthur, mad dog's comin'! Mad dog's comin'!"

  "She's supposed to go around in back," I said.

  Jem shook his head. "Don't make any difference now," he said.  

  Calpurnia pounded on the door in vain. No one acknowledged her   warning; no one seemed to have heard it. 

  As Calpurnia sprinted to the back porch a black Ford swung into   the driveway. Atticus and Mr. Heck Tate got out.

  Mr. Heck Tate was the sheriff of Maycomb County. He was as tall as Atticus, but thinner. He was long-nosed, wore boots with shiny metal eye-holes, boot pants and a lumber jacket. His belt had a row of   bullets sticking in it. He carried a heavy rifle. When he and  Atticus reached the porch, Jem opened the door. 

  "Stay inside, son," said Atticus. "Where is he, Cal?" 

  "He oughta be here by now," said Calpurnia, pointing down the street.  

  "Not runnin', is he?" asked Mr. Tate.  

  "Naw sir, he's in the twitchin' stage, Mr. Heck."

  "Should we go after him, Heck?" asked Atticus.

  "We better wait, Mr. Finch. They usually go in a straight line,   but you never can tell. He might follow the curve- hope he does or  he'll go straight in the Radley back yard. Let's wait a minute." 

  "Don't think he'll get in the Radley yard," said Atticus.  

"Fence'll stop him. He'll probably follow the road...." 

  I thought mad dogs foamed at the mouth, galloped, leaped and lunged at throats, and I thought they did it in August. Had Tim Johnson behaved thus, I would have been less frightened.

  Nothing is more deadly than a deserted, waiting street. The trees were still, the mockingbirds were silent, the carpenters at Miss   Maudie's house had vanished. I heard Mr. Tate sniff, then blow his  nose. I saw him shift his gun to the crook of his arm. I saw Miss   Stephanie Crawford's face framed in the glass window of her front   door. Miss Maudie appeared and stood beside her. Atticus put his   foot on the rung of a chair and rubbed his hand slowly down the side of his thigh. 

  "There he is," he said softly. 

  Tim Johnson came into sight, walking dazedly in the inner rim of the  curve parallel to the Radley house.  

  "Look at him," whispered Jem. "Mr. Heck said they walked in a straight line. He can't even stay in the road." 

  "He looks more sick than anything," I said. 

  "Let anything get in front of him and he'll come straight at it."

  Mr. Tate put his hand to his forehead and leaned forward. "He's   got it all right, Mr. Finch."

  Tim Johnson was advancing at a snail's pace, but he was not  playing or sniffing at foliage: he seemed dedicated to one course   and motivated by an invisible force that was inching him toward us. We  could see him shiver like a horse shedding flies; his jaw opened and shut; he was alist, but he was being pulled gradually toward us. 

  "He's lookin' for a place to die," said Jem.

  Mr. Tate turned around. "He's far from dead, Jem, he hasn't got   started yet." 

  Tim Johnson reached the side street that ran in front of the Radley Place, and what remained of his poor mind made him pause and seem to consider which road he would take. He made a few hesitant   steps and stopped in front of the Radley gate; then he tried to turn around, but was having difficulty.  

  Atticus said, "He's within range, Heck. You better get him before he  goes down the side street- Lord knows who's around the corner. Go   inside, Cal." 

  Calpurnia opened the screen door, latched it behind her, then unlatched it and held onto the hook. She tried to block Jem and me  with her body, but we looked out from beneath her arms. 

  "Take him, Mr. Finch." Mr. Tate handed the rifle to Atticus; Jem and  I nearly fainted.  

  "Don't waste time, Heck," said Atticus. "Go on." 

  "Mr. Finch, this is a one-shot job."

  Atticus shook his head vehemently: "Don't just stand there, Heck! He  won't wait all day for you-"

  "For God's sake, Mr. Finch, look where he is! Miss and you'll go  straight into the Radley house! I can't shoot that well and you know it!"

  "I haven't shot a gun in thirty years-" 

  Mr. Tate almost threw the rifle at Atticus. "I'd feel mighty comfortable if you did now," he said. 

  In a fog, Jem and I watched our father take the gun and walk out  into the middle of the street. He walked quickly, but I thought he  moved like an underwater swimmer: time had slowed to a nauseating   crawl.  

  When Atticus raised his glasses Calpurnia murmured, "Sweet Jesus  help him," and put her hands to her cheeks.

  Atticus pushed his glasses to his forehead; they slipped down, and he dropped them in the street. In the silence, I heard them crack.  Atticus rubbed his eyes and chin; we saw him blink hard.

  In front of the Radley gate, Tim Johnson had made up what was left of his mind. He had finally turned himself around, to pursue his   original course up our street. He made two steps forward, then stopped  and raised his head. We saw his body go rigid.

  With movements so swift they seemed simultaneous, Atticus's hand  yanked a ball-tipped lever as he brought the gun to his shoulder. 

  The rifle cracked. Tim Johnson leaped, flopped over and crumpled  on the sidewalk in a brown-and-white heap. He didn't know what hit  him.

  Mr. Tate jumped off the porch and ran to the Radley Place. He stopped in front of the dog, squatted, turned around and tapped his finger on his forehead above his left eye. "You were a little to the right, Mr. Finch," he called.

  "Always was," answered Atticus. "If I had my 'druthers I'd take a shotgun."

  He stooped and picked up his glasses, ground the broken lenses to powder under his heel, and went to Mr. Tate and stood looking down  at Tim Johnson.  

  Doors opened one by one, and the neighborhood slowly came alive.  Miss Maudie walked down the steps with Miss Stephanie Crawford.  

  Jem was paralyzed. I pinched him to get him moving, but when Atticus  saw us coming he called, "Stay where you are."

  When Mr. Tate and Atticus returned to the yard, Mr. Tate was smiling. "I'll have Zeebo collect him," he said. "You haven't forgot much, Mr. Finch. They say it never leaves you." 

  Atticus was silent. 

  "Atticus?" said Jem. 

  "Yes?" 

  "Nothin'."  

  "I saw that, One-Shot Finch!" 

  Atticus wheeled around and faced Miss Maudie. They looked at one  another without saying anything, and Atticus got into the sheriff's car. "Come here," he said to Jem. "Don't you go near that dog, you  understand? Don't go near him, he's just as dangerous dead as alive." 

  "Yes sir," said Jem. "Atticus-"

  "What, son?"

  "Nothing."  

  "What's the matter with you, boy, can't you talk?" said Mr. Tate, grinning at Jem. "Didn't you know your daddy's-"

  "Hush, Heck," said Atticus, "let's go back to town."  

  When they drove away, Jem and I went to Miss Stephanie's front   steps. We sat waiting for Zeebo to arrive in the garbage truck.  

  Jem sat in numb confusion, and Miss Stephanie said, "Uh, uh, uh,  who'da thought of a mad dog in February? Maybe he wadn't mad, maybe he  was just crazy. I'd hate to see Harry Johnson's face when he gets in from the Mobile run and finds Atticus Finch's shot his dog. Bet he was  just full of fleas from somewhere-"  

  Miss Maudie said Miss Stephanie'd be singing a different tune if Tim  Johnson was still coming up the street, that they'd find out soon   enough, they'd send his head to Montgomery.

  Jem became vaguely articulate: "'d you see him, Scout? 'd you see him just standin' there?... 'n' all of a sudden he just relaxed all over, an' it looked like that gun was a part of him... an' he did it so quick, like... I hafta aim for ten minutes 'fore I can hit  somethin'...."

  Miss Maudie grinned wickedly. "Well now, Miss Jean Louise," she   said, "still think your father can't do anything? Still ashamed of  him?"

  "Nome," I said meekly.

  "Forgot to tell you the other day that besides playing the Jew's  Harp, Atticus Finch was the deadest shot in Maycomb County in his   time."  

  "Dead shot..." echoed Jem.

  "That's what I said, Jem Finch. Guess you'll change  your  tune now.  The very idea, didn't you know his nickname was Ol' One-Shot when he was a boy? Why, down at the Landing when he was coming up, if he   shot fifteen times and hit fourteen doves he'd complain about  wasting ammunition."  

  "He never said anything about that," Jem muttered.

  "Never said anything about it, did he?" 

  "No ma'am." 

  "Wonder why he never goes huntin' now," I said.  

  "Maybe I can tell you," said Miss Maudie. "If your father's  anything, he's civilized in his heart. Marksmanship's a gift of God, a  talent- oh, you have to practice to make it perfect, but shootin's  different from playing the piano or the like. I think maybe he put his  gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. I guess he decided he wouldn't shoot till  he had to, and he had to today." 

  "Looks like he'd be proud of it," I said.

  "People in their right minds never take pride in their talents,"  said Miss Maudie.  

  We saw Zeebo drive up. He took a pitchfork from the back of the   garbage truck and gingerly lifted Tim Johnson. He pitched the dog onto  the truck, then poured something from a gallon jug on and around the spot where Tim fell. "Don't yawl come over here for a while," he   called.  

  When we went home I told Jem we'd really have something to talk   about at school on Monday. Jem turned on me.  

  "Don't say anything about it, Scout," he said.

  "What? I certainly am. Ain't everybody's daddy the deadest shot in Maycomb County." 

  Jem said, "I reckon if he'd wanted us to know it, he'da told us.  If he was proud of it, he'da told us."

  "Maybe it just slipped his mind," I said.

  "Naw, Scout, it's something you wouldn't understand. Atticus is real  old, but I wouldn't care if he couldn't do anything- I wouldn't care if he couldn't do a blessed thing."  

  Jem picked up a rock and threw it jubilantly at the carhouse. Running after it, he called back: "Atticus is a gentleman, just like me!"

  11 

  

  When we were small, Jem and I confined our activities to the southern neighborhood, but when I was well into the second grade at school and tormenting Boo Radley became passe, the business section of  Maycomb drew us frequently up the street past the real property of  Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. It was impossible to go to town without passing her house unless we wished to walk a mile out of the way.   Previous minor encounters with her left me with no desire for more, but Jem said I had to grow up some time. 

  Mrs. Dubose lived alone except for a Negro girl in constant  attendance, two doors up the street from us in a house with steep   front steps and a dog-trot hall. She was very old; she spent most of each day in bed and the rest of it in a wheelchair. It was rumored  that she kept a CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and  wraps.  

  Jem and I hated her. If she was on the porch when we passed, we   would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy   prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was   always nothing. We had long ago given up the idea of walking past   her house on the opposite side of the street; that only made her raise  her voice and let the whole neighborhood in on it. 

  We could do nothing to please her. If I said as sunnily as I could, "Hey, Mrs. Dubose," I would receive for an answer, "Don't you say hey to me, you ugly girl! You say good afternoon, Mrs. Dubose!"

  She was vicious. Once she heard Jem refer to our father as "Atticus"  and her reaction was apoplectic. Besides being the sassiest, most   disrespectful mutts who ever passed her way, we were told that it   was quite a pity our father had not remarried after our mother's   death. A lovelier lady than our mother never lived, she said, and it was heartbreaking the way Atticus Finch let her children run wild. I did not remember our mother, but Jem did- he would tell me about her sometimes- and he went livid when Mrs. Dubose shot us this message.

  Jem, having survived Boo Radley, a mad dog and other terrors, had concluded that it was cowardly to stop at Miss Rachel's front steps and wait, and had decreed that we must run as far as the post office corner each evening to meet Atticus coming from work. Countless evenings Atticus would find Jem furious at something Mrs. Dubose had said when we went by. 

  "Easy does it, son," Atticus would say. "She's an old lady and she's  ill. You just hold your head high and be a gentleman. Whatever she  says to you, it's your job not to let her make you mad."

  Jem would say she must not be very sick, she hollered so. When the three of us came to her house, Atticus would sweep off his hat, wave gallantly to her and say, "Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening."

  I never heard Atticus say like a picture of what. He would tell   her the courthouse news, and would say he hoped with all his heart  she'd have a good day tomorrow. He would return his hat to his head, swing me to his shoulders in her very presence, and we would go home in the twilight. It was times like these when I thought my father, who  hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who  ever lived.  

  The day after Jem's twelfth birthday his money was burning up his pockets, so we headed for town in the early afternoon. Jem thought  he had enough to buy a miniature steam engine for himself and a twirling baton for me. 

  I had long had my eye on that baton: it was at V. J. Elmore's, it was bedecked with sequins and tinsel, it cost seventeen cents. It   was then my burning ambition to grow up and twirl with the Maycomb  County High School band. Having developed my talent to where I could throw up a stick and almost catch it coming down, I had caused Calpurnia to deny me entrance to the house every time she saw me   with a stick in my hand. I felt that I could overcome this defect with  a real baton, and I thought it generous of Jem to buy one for me. 

  Mrs. Dubose was stationed on her porch when we went by.

  "Where are you two going at this time of day?" she shouted. "Playing  hooky, I suppose. I'll just call up the principal and tell him!" She put her hands on the wheels of her chair and executed a perfect right face.  

  "Aw, it's Saturday, Mrs. Dubose," said Jem. 

  "Makes no difference if it's Saturday," she said obscurely. "I   wonder if your father knows where you are?"

  "Mrs. Dubose, we've been goin' to town by ourselves since we were this high." Jem placed his hand palm down about two feet above the  sidewalk.

  "Don't you lie to me!" she yelled. "Jeremy Finch, Maudie Atkinson told me you broke down her scuppernong arbor this morning. She's going  to tell your father and then you'll wish you never saw the light of day! If you aren't sent to the reform school before next week, my   name's not Dubose!"

  Jem, who hadn't been near Miss Maudie's scuppernong arbor since last  summer, and who knew Miss Maudie wouldn't tell Atticus if he had,   issued a general denial.

  "Don't you contradict me!" Mrs. Dubose bawled. "And  you-"  she   pointed an arthritic finger at me- "what are you doing in those overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady! You'll grow up waiting on tables if somebody doesn't change your ways- a   Finch waiting on tables at the O.K. Cafe- hah!" 

  I was terrified. The O.K. Cafe was a dim organization on the north side of the square. I grabbed Jem's hand but he shook me loose.  

  "Come on, Scout," he whispered. "Don't pay any attention to her,  just hold your head high and be a gentleman." 

  But Mrs. Dubose held us: "Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one  in the courthouse lawing for niggers!"

  Jem stiffened. Mrs. Dubose's shot had gone home and she knew it:

  "Yes indeed, what has this world come to when a Finch goes against his raising? I'll tell you!" She put her hand to her mouth. When she drew it away, it trailed a long silver thread of saliva. "Your father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for!" 

  Jem was scarlet. I pulled at his sleeve, and we were followed up the  sidewalk by a philippic on our family's moral degeneration, the major premise of which was that half the Finches were in the asylum anyway, but if our mother were living we would not have come to such a  state.  

  I wasn't sure what Jem resented most, but I took umbrage at Mrs.  Dubose's assessment of the family's mental hygiene. I had become   almost accustomed to hearing insults aimed at Atticus. But this was the first one coming from an adult. Except for her remarks about   Atticus, Mrs. Dubose's attack was only routine. There was a hint of summer in the air- in the shadows it was cool, but the sun was warm, which meant good times coming: no school and Dill. 

  Jem bought his steam engine and we went by Elmore's for my baton. Jem took no pleasure in his acquisition; he jammed it in his pocket and walked silently beside me toward home. On the way home I nearly hit Mr. Link Deas, who said, "Look out now, Scout!" when I missed a toss, and when we approached Mrs. Dubose's house my baton was grimy from having picked it up out of the dirt so many times. 

  She was not on the porch. 

  In later years, I sometimes wondered exactly what made Jem do it, what made him break the bonds of "You just be a gentleman, son," and the phase of self-conscious rectitude he had recently entered. Jem had  probably stood as much guff about Atticus lawing for niggers as had I,  and I took it for granted that he kept his temper- he had a naturally tranquil disposition and a slow fuse. At the time,   however, I thought the only explanation for what he did was that for a  few minutes he simply went mad. 

  What Jem did was something I'd do as a matter of course had I not been under Atticus's interdict, which I assumed included not   fighting horrible old ladies. We had just come to her gate when Jem snatched my baton and ran flailing wildly up the steps into Mrs.   Dubose's front yard, forgetting everything Atticus had said,   forgetting that she packed a pistol under her shawls, forgetting   that if Mrs. Dubose missed, her girl Jessie probably wouldn't.

  He did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with green buds and leaves. He bent my baton against his knee, snapped it in two and threw it down.  

  By that time I was shrieking. Jem yanked my hair, said he didn't  care, he'd do it again if he got a chance, and if I didn't shut up  he'd pull every hair out of my head. I didn't shut up and he kicked me. I lost my balance and fell on my face. Jem picked me up roughly but looked like he was sorry. There was nothing to say. 

  We did not choose to meet Atticus coming home that evening. We   skulked around the kitchen until Calpurnia threw us out. By some   voo-doo system Calpurnia seemed to know all about it. She was a less than satisfactory source of palliation, but she did give Jem a hot  biscuit-and-butter which he tore in half and shared with me. It tasted  like cotton.  

  We went to the livingroom. I picked up a football magazine, found a picture of Dixie Howell, showed it to Jem and said, "This looks like  you." That was the nicest thing I could think to say to him, but it was no help. He sat by the windows, hunched down in a rocking chair, scowling, waiting. Daylight faded.  

  Two geological ages later, we heard the soles of Atticus's shoes  scrape the front steps. The screen door slammed, there was a pause- Atticus was at the hat rack in the hall- and we heard him call, "Jem!"  His voice was like the winter wind.  

  Atticus switched on the ceiling light in the livingroom and found us  there, frozen still. He carried my baton in one hand; its filthy   yellow tassel trailed on the rug. He held out his other hand; it   contained fat camellia buds.

  "Jem," he said, "are you responsible for this?"  

  "Yes sir."  

  "Why'd you do it?"  

  Jem said softly, "She said you lawed for niggers and trash."

  "You did this because she said that?"  

  Jem's lips moved, but his, "Yes sir," was inaudible.  

  "Son, I have no doubt that you've been annoyed by your  contemporaries about me lawing for niggers, as you say, but to do   something like this to a sick old lady is inexcusable. I strongly   advise you to go down and have a talk with Mrs. Dubose," said Atticus.

"Come straight home afterward." 

  Jem did not move.

  "Go on, I said." 

  I followed Jem out of the livingroom. "Come back here," Atticus said  to me. I came back.

  Atticus picked up the  Mobile Press  and sat down in the rocking  chair Jem had vacated. For the life of me, I did not understand how he  could sit there in cold blood and read a newspaper when his only son stood an excellent chance of being murdered with a Confederate Army relic. Of course Jem antagonized me sometimes until I could kill   him, but when it came down to it he was all I had. Atticus did not  seem to realize this, or if he did he didn't care. 

  I hated him for that, but when you are in trouble you become easily tired: soon I was hiding in his lap and his arms were around me. 

  "You're mighty big to be rocked," he said.  

  "You don't care what happens to him," I said. "You just send him  on to get shot at when all he was doin' was standin' up for you." 

  Atticus pushed my head under his chin. "It's not time to worry yet,"  he said. "I never thought Jem'd be the one to lose his head over this-  thought I'd have more trouble with you." 

  I said I didn't see why we had to keep our heads anyway, that nobody  I knew at school had to keep his head about anything.

  "Scout," said Atticus, "when summer comes you'll have to keep your head about far worse things... it's not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we  conduct ourselves when the chips are down- well, all I can say is,  when you and Jem are grown, maybe you'll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn't let you down. This case, Tom  Robinson's case, is something that goes to the essence of a man's   conscience- Scout, I couldn't go to church and worship God if I didn't  try to help that man." 

  "Atticus, you must be wrong...."  

  "How's that?"  

  "Well, most folks seem to think they're right and you're wrong...." 

  "They're certainly entitled to think that, and they're entitled to full respect for their opinions," said Atticus, "but before I can live  with other folks I've got to live with myself. The one thing that   doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience."

  When Jem returned, he found me still in Atticus's lap, "Well, son?" said Atticus. He set me on my feet, and I made a secret  reconnaissance of Jem. He seemed to be all in one piece, but he had a queer look on his face. Perhaps she had given him a dose of calomel.

  "I cleaned it up for her and said I was sorry, but I ain't, and that  I'd work on 'em ever Saturday and try to make 'em grow back out." 

  "There was no point in saying you were sorry if you aren't," said Atticus. "Jem, she's old and ill. You can't hold her responsible for what she says and does. Of course, I'd rather she'd have said it to me  than to either of you, but we can't always have our 'druthers."  

  Jem seemed fascinated by a rose in the carpet. "Atticus," he said,  

"she wants me to read to her."  

  "Read to her?" 

  "Yes sir. She wants me to come every afternoon after school and   Saturdays and read to her out loud for two hours. Atticus, do I have to?"

  "Certainly."

  "But she wants me to do it for a month." 

  "Then you'll do it for a month."  

  Jem planted his big toe delicately in the center of the rose and  pressed it in. Finally he said, "Atticus, it's all right on the sidewalk but inside it's- it's all dark and creepy. There's shadows and things on the ceiling...."  

  Atticus smiled grimly. "That should appeal to your imagination. Just  pretend you're inside the Radley house." 

  

  The following Monday afternoon Jem and I climbed the steep front  steps to Mrs. Dubose's house and padded down the open hallway. Jem, armed with  Ivanhoe  and full of superior knowledge, knocked at the second door on the left.

  "Mrs. Dubose?" he called. 

  Jessie opened the wood door and unlatched the screen door. 

  "Is that you, Jem Finch?" she said. "You got your sister with you. I  don't know-"  

  "Let 'em both in, Jessie," said Mrs. Dubose. Jessie admitted us   and went off to the kitchen.

  An oppressive odor met us when we crossed the threshold, an odor I had met many times in rain-rotted gray houses where there are coal-oil  lamps, water dippers, and unbleached domestic sheets. It always made me afraid, expectant, watchful. 

  In the corner of the room was a brass bed, and in the bed was Mrs. Dubose. I wondered if Jem's activities had put her there, and for a moment I felt sorry for her. She was lying under a pile of quilts   and looked almost friendly. 

  There was a marble-topped washstand by her bed; on it were a glass with a teaspoon in it, a red ear syringe, a box of absorbent cotton, and a steel alarm clock standing on three tiny legs.

  "So you brought that dirty little sister of yours, did you?" was her  greeting.

  Jem said quietly, "My sister ain't dirty and I ain't scared of you,"  although I noticed his knees shaking. 

  I was expecting a tirade, but all she said was, "You may commence reading, Jeremy."  

  Jem sat down in a cane-bottom chair and opened  Ivanhoe.  I pulled up another one and sat beside him.   

  "Come closer," said Mrs. Dubose. "Come to the side of the bed." 

  We moved our chairs forward. This was the nearest I had ever been to  her, and the thing I wanted most to do was move my chair back again.  

  She was horrible. Her face was the color of a dirty pillowcase,   and the corners of her mouth glistened with wet, which inched like a glacier down the deep grooves enclosing her chin. Old-age liver spots dotted her cheeks, and her pale eyes had black pinpoint  pupils. Her hands were knobby, and the cuticles were grown up over her  fingernails. Her bottom plate was not in, and her upper lip protruded;  from time to time she would draw her nether lip to her upper plate and  carry her chin with it. This made the wet move faster.  

  I didn't look any more than I had to. Jem reopened  Ivanhoe  and  began reading. I tried to keep up with him, but he read too fast. When  Jem came to a word he didn't know, he skipped it, but Mrs. Dubose   would catch him and make him spell it out. Jem read for perhaps twenty  minutes, during which time I looked at the soot-stained mantelpiece, out the window, anywhere to keep from looking at her. As he read   along, I noticed that Mrs. Dubose's corrections grew fewer and farther  between, that Jem had even left one sentence dangling in mid-air.   She was not listening. 

  I looked toward the bed. 

  Something had happened to her. She lay on her back, with the quilts up to her chin. Only her head and shoulders were visible. Her head moved slowly from side to side. From time to time she would   open her mouth wide, and I could see her tongue undulate faintly.   Cords of saliva would collect on her lips; she would draw them in,  then open her mouth again. Her mouth seemed to have a private  existence of its own. It worked separate and apart from the rest of her, out and in, like a clam hole at low tide. Occasionally it would say, "Pt," like some viscous substance coming to a boil.

  I pulled Jem's sleeve.

  He looked at me, then at the bed. Her head made its regular sweep toward us, and Jem said, "Mrs. Dubose, are you all right?" She did not  hear him.

  The alarm clock went off and scared us stiff. A minute later, nerves  still tingling, Jem and I were on the sidewalk headed for home. We did  not run away, Jessie sent us: before the clock wound down she was in the room pushing Jem and me out of it.

  "Shoo," she said, "you all go home."

  Jem hesitated at the door.

  "It's time for her medicine," Jessie said. As the door swung shut behind us I saw Jessie walking quickly toward Mrs. Dubose's bed. 

  It was only three forty-five when we got home, so Jem and I  drop-kicked in the back yard until it was time to meet Atticus. Atticus had two yellow pencils for me and a football magazine for Jem,  which I suppose was a silent reward for our first day's session with Mrs. Dubose. Jem told him what happened. 

  "Did she frighten you?" asked Atticus. 

  "No sir," said Jem, "but she's so nasty. She has fits or somethin'. She spits a lot."

  "She can't help that. When people are sick they don't look nice   sometimes."  

  "She scared me," I said. 

  Atticus looked at me over his glasses. "You don't have to go with Jem, you know."  

  The next afternoon at Mrs. Dubose's was the same as the first, and so was the next, until gradually a pattern emerged: everything would begin normally- that is, Mrs. Dubose would hound Jem for a while on her favorite subjects, her camellias and our father's nigger-loving propensities; she would grow increasingly silent, then go away from us. The alarm clock would ring, Jessie would shoo us out, and the rest  of the day was ours.  

  "Atticus," I said one evening, "what exactly is a nigger-lover?"

  Atticus's face was grave. "Has somebody been calling you that?" 

  "No sir, Mrs. Dubose calls you that. She warms up every afternoon calling you that. Francis called me that last Christmas, that's where I first heard it."

  "Is that the reason you jumped on him?" asked Atticus.

  "Yes sir..."

  "Then why are you asking me what it means?" 

  I tried to explain to Atticus that it wasn't so much what Francis said that had infuriated me as the way he had said it. "It was like he'd said snot-nose or somethin'."  

  "Scout," said Atticus, "nigger-lover is just one of those terms that  don't mean anything- like snot-nose. It's hard to explain- ignorant, trashy people use it when they think somebody's favoring Negroes   over and above themselves. It's slipped into usage with some people like ourselves, when they want a common, ugly term to label somebody."

  "You aren't really a nigger-lover, then, are you?"

  "I certainly am. I do my best to love everybody... I'm hard put,  sometimes- baby, it's never an insult to be called what somebody   thinks is a bad name. It just shows you how poor that person is, it doesn't hurt you. So don't let Mrs. Dubose get you down. She has   enough troubles of her own."

  One afternoon a month later Jem was ploughing his way through Sir Walter Scout, as Jem called him, and Mrs. Dubose was correcting him at  every turn, when there was a knock on the door. "Come in!" she screamed.

  Atticus came in. He went to the bed and took Mrs. Dubose's hand.

"I was coming from the office and didn't see the children," he said.  

"I thought they might still be here." 

  Mrs. Dubose smiled at him. For the life of me I could not figure out  how she could bring herself to speak to him when she seemed to hate him so. "Do you know what time it is, Atticus?" she said. "Exactly  fourteen minutes past five. The alarm clock's set for five-thirty. I want you to know that." 

  It suddenly came to me that each day we had been staying a little longer at Mrs. Dubose's, that the alarm clock went off a few minutes later every day, and that she was well into one of her fits by the  time it sounded. Today she had antagonized Jem for nearly two hours with no intention of having a fit, and I felt hopelessly trapped.   The alarm clock was the signal for our release; if one day it did   not ring, what would we do? 

  "I have a feeling that Jem's reading days are numbered," said Atticus. 

  "Only a week longer, I think," she said, "just to make sure..." 

  Jem rose. "But-" 

  Atticus put out his hand and Jem was silent. On the way home, Jem said he had to do it just for a month and the month was up and it   wasn't fair.  

  "Just one more week, son," said Atticus. 

  "No," said Jem.  

  "Yes," said Atticus. 

  The following week found us back at Mrs. Dubose's. The alarm clock had ceased sounding, but Mrs. Dubose would release us with, "That'll do," so late in the afternoon Atticus would be home reading the paper when we returned. Although her fits had passed off, she was in every other way her old self: when Sir Walter Scott became involved in  lengthy descriptions of moats and castles, Mrs. Dubose would become bored and pick on us: 

  "Jeremy Finch, I told you you'd live to regret tearing up my camellias. You regret it now, don't you?" 

  Jem would say he certainly did.

  "Thought you could kill my Snow-on-the-Mountain, did you? Well,   Jessie says the top's growing back out. Next time you'll know how to do it right, won't you? You'll pull it up by the roots, won't you?"

  Jem would say he certainly would.  

  "Don't you mutter at me, boy! You hold up your head and say yes   ma'am. Don't guess you feel like holding it up, though, with your   father what he is."

  Jem's chin would come up, and he would gaze at Mrs. Dubose with a face devoid of resentment. Through the weeks he had cultivated an   expression of polite and detached interest, which he would present  to her in answer to her most blood-curdling inventions. 

  At last the day came. When Mrs. Dubose said, "That'll do," one   afternoon, she added, "And that's all. Good-day to you."

  It was over. We bounded down the sidewalk on a spree of sheer relief, leaping and howling.

  That spring was a good one: the days grew longer and gave us more playing time. Jem's mind was occupied mostly with the vital statistics  of every college football player in the nation. Every night Atticus would read us the sports pages of the newspapers. Alabama might go  to the Rose Bowl again this year, judging from its prospects, not   one of whose names we could pronounce. Atticus was in the middle of Windy Seaton's column one evening when the telephone rang.  

  He answered it, then went to the hat rack in the hall. "I'm going down to Mrs. Dubose's for a while," he said. "I won't be long."  

  But Atticus stayed away until long past my bedtime. When he returned  he was carrying a candy box. Atticus sat down in the livingroom and put the box on the floor beside his chair. 

  "What'd she want?" asked Jem. 

  We had not seen Mrs. Dubose for over a month. She was never on the porch any more when we passed.  

  "She's dead, son," said Atticus. "She died a few minutes ago." 

  "Oh," said Jem. "Well."  

  "Well is right," said Atticus. "She's not suffering any more. She was sick for a long time. Son, didn't you know what her fits were?"

  Jem shook his head. 

  "Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict," said Atticus. "She took it as a  pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She'd have spent   the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was  too contrary-"

  "Sir?" said Jem. 

  Atticus said, "Just before your escapade she called me to make her will. Dr. Reynolds told her she had only a few months left. Her business affairs were in perfect order but she said, 'There's still one thing out of order.'"  

  "What was that?" Jem was perplexed. 

  "She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing   and nobody. Jem, when you're sick as she was, it's all right to take anything to make it easier, but it wasn't all right for her. She   said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that's what  she did."

  Jem said, "You mean that's what her fits were?"  

  "Yes, that's what they were. Most of the time you were reading to her I doubt if she heard a word you said. Her whole mind and body were  concentrated on that alarm clock. If you hadn't fallen into her hands,  I'd have made you go read to her anyway. It may have been some distraction. There was another reason-"  

  "Did she die free?" asked Jem. 

  "As the mountain air," said Atticus. "She was conscious to the last,  almost. Conscious," he smiled, "and cantankerous. She still disapproved heartily of my doings, and said I'd probably spend the  rest of my life bailing you out of jail. She had Jessie fix you this box-"

  Atticus reached down and picked up the candy box. He handed it to Jem.

  Jem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a  white, waxy, perfect camellia. It was a Snow-on-the-Mountain.

  Jem's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Old hell-devil, old   hell-devil!" he screamed, flinging it down. "Why can't she leave me alone?"  

  In a flash Atticus was up and standing over him. Jem buried his face  in Atticus's shirt front. "Sh-h," he said. "I think that was her way of telling you- everything's all right now, Jem, everything's all   right. You know, she was a great lady."  

  "A lady?" Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. "After all   those things she said about you, a lady?" 

  "She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her-  I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the   idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you   know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.   Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her   views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew."  

  Jem picked up the candy box and threw it in the fire. He picked up the camellia, and when I went off to bed I saw him fingering the   wide petals. Atticus was reading the paper.

  PART TWO  

  12 

  

  Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to  stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: "Reckon he's got a tapeworm?" Atticus said no, Jem was growing. I must be patient with him and disturb him as little as possible. 

  This change in Jem had come about in a matter of weeks. Mrs. Dubose was not cold in her grave- Jem had seemed grateful enough for my company when he went to read to her. Overnight, it seemed, Jem   had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went so far as to tell me what to do. After one altercation when Jem hollered, "It's time you started bein' a girl and  acting right!" I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia.

  "Don't you fret too much over Mister Jem-" she began. 

  "Mister Jem?"  

  "Yeah, he's just about Mister Jem now." 

  "He ain't that old," I said. "All he needs is somebody to beat him up, and I ain't big enough."

  "Baby," said Calpurnia, "I just can't help it if Mister Jem's growin' up. He's gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin'   whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the kitchen when you feel lonesome. We'll find lots of things to do in here."

  The beginning of that summer boded well: Jem could do as he pleased;  Calpurnia would do until Dill came. She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl. 

  But summer came and Dill was not there. I received a letter and a snapshot from him. The letter said he had a new father whose picture was enclosed, and he would have to stay in Meridian because they   planned to build a fishing boat. His father was a lawyer like Atticus,  only much younger. Dill's new father had a pleasant face, which made me glad Dill had captured him, but I was crushed. Dill concluded by saying he would love me forever and not to worry, he would come get me  and marry me as soon as he got enough money together, so please write.

  The fact that I had a permanent fiance was little compensation for his absence: I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by   the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings  we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without  him, life was unbearable. I stayed miserable for two days.  

  As if that were not enough, the state legislature was called into emergency session and Atticus left us for two weeks. The Governor   was eager to scrape a few barnacles off the ship of state; there   were sit-down strikes in Birmingham; bread lines in the cities grew longer, people in the country grew poorer. But these were events   remote from the world of Jem and me. 

  We were surprised one morning to see a cartoon in the  Montgomery Advertiser  above the caption, "Maycomb's Finch." It showed Atticus barefooted and in short pants, chained to a desk: he was diligently writing on a slate while some frivolous-looking girls yelled,

"Yoo-hoo!" at him. 

  "That's a compliment," explained Jem. "He spends his time doin'   things that wouldn't get done if nobody did 'em."  

  "Huh?" 

  In addition to Jem's newly developed characteristics, he had acquired a maddening air of wisdom.  

  "Oh, Scout, it's like reorganizing the tax systems of the counties and things. That kind of thing's pretty dry to most men."

  "How do you know?"  

  "Oh, go on and leave me alone. I'm readin' the paper."

  Jem got his wish. I departed for the kitchen. 

  While she was shelling peas, Calpurnia suddenly said, "What am I  gonna do about you all's church this Sunday?" 

  "Nothing, I reckon. Atticus left us collection." 

  Calpurnia's eyes narrowed and I could tell what was going through her mind. "Cal," I said, "you know we'll behave. We haven't done   anything in church in years."

  Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both   fatherless and teacherless. Left to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly  to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more- Jem Finch  said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there.  

  "Besides, Cal, this isn't the first time Atticus has left us," I  protested.  

  "Yeah, but he makes certain your teacher's gonna be there. I didn't hear him say this time- reckon he forgot it." Calpurnia scratched her head. Suddenly she smiled. "How'd you and Mister Jem  like to come to church with me tomorrow?" 

  "Really?"  

  "How 'bout it?" grinned Calpurnia. 

  If Calpurnia had ever bathed me roughly before, it was nothing   compared to her supervision of that Saturday night's routine. She made  me soap all over twice, drew fresh water in the tub for each rinse; she stuck my head in the basin and washed it with Octagon soap and  castile. She had trusted Jem for years, but that night she invaded his  privacy and provoked an outburst: "Can't anybody take a bath in this house without the whole family lookin'?" 

  Next morning she began earlier than usual, to "go over our clothes."  When Calpurnia stayed overnight with us she slept on a folding cot  in the kitchen; that morning it was covered with our Sunday habiliments. She had put so much starch in my dress it came up like a tent when I sat down. She made me wear a petticoat and she wrapped a  pink sash tightly around my waist. She went over my patent-leather  shoes with a cold biscuit until she saw her face in them.

  "It's like we were goin' to Mardi Gras," said Jem. "What's all   this for, Cal?"  

  "I don't want anybody sayin' I don't look after my children," she muttered. "Mister Jem, you absolutely can't wear that tie with that suit. It's green." 

  "'smatter with that?" 

  "Suit's blue. Can't you tell?" 

  "Hee hee," I howled, "Jem's color blind."

  His face flushed angrily, but Calpurnia said, "Now you all quit   that. You're gonna go to First Purchase with smiles on your faces."

  First Purchase African M.E. Church was in the Quarters outside the southern town limits, across the old sawmill tracks. It was an ancient  paint-peeled frame building, the only church in Maycomb with a steeple  and bell, called First Purchase because it was paid for from the first  earnings of freed slaves. Negroes worshiped in it on Sundays and white  men gambled in it on weekdays.  

  The churchyard was brick-hard clay, as was the cemetery beside it. If someone died during a dry spell, the body was covered with chunks of ice until rain softened the earth. A few graves in the cemetery  were marked with crumbling tombstones; newer ones were outlined with brightly colored glass and broken Coca-Cola bottles. Lightning rods guarding some graves denoted dead who rested uneasily; stumps of   burned-out candles stood at the heads of infant graves. It was a happy  cemetery.

  The warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we  entered the churchyard- Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with   asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's Mule, peppermint, and lilac  talcum.  

  When they saw Jem and me with Calpurnia, the men stepped back and took off their hats; the women crossed their arms at their waists,  weekday gestures of respectful attention. They parted and made a small  pathway to the church door for us. Calpurnia walked between Jem and me, responding to the greetings of her brightly clad neighbors.  

  "What you up to, Miss Cal?" said a voice behind us.

  Calpurnia's hands went to our shoulders and we stopped and looked around: standing in the path behind us was a tall Negro woman. Her  weight was on one leg; she rested her left elbow in the curve of her hip, pointing at us with upturned palm. She was bullet-headed with  strange almond-shaped eyes, straight nose, and an Indian-bow mouth. She seemed seven feet high. 

  I felt Calpurnia's hand dig into my shoulder. "What you want, Lula?"  she asked, in tones I had never heard her use. She spoke quietly,   contemptuously.  

  "I wants to know why you bringin' white chillun to nigger church."  

  "They's my comp'ny," said Calpurnia. Again I thought her voice   strange: she was talking like the rest of them. 

  "Yeah, an' I reckon you's comp'ny at the Finch house durin' the   week."  

  A murmur ran through the crowd. "Don't you fret," Calpurnia  whispered to me, but the roses on her hat trembled indignantly.  

  When Lula came up the pathway toward us Calpurnia said, "Stop right there, nigger." 

  Lula stopped, but she said, "You ain't got no business bringin'   white chillun here- they got their church, we got our'n. It is our  church, ain't it, Miss Cal?"

  Calpurnia said, "It's the same God, ain't it?"

  Jem said, "Let's go home, Cal, they don't want us here-"  

  I agreed: they did not want us here. I sensed, rather than saw, that  we were being advanced upon. They seemed to be drawing closer to us, but when I looked up at Calpurnia there was amusement in her eyes.  When I looked down the pathway again, Lula was gone. In her place   was a solid mass of colored people.  

  One of them stepped from the crowd. It was Zeebo, the garbage collector. "Mister Jem," he said, "we're mighty glad to have you all here. Don't pay no 'tention to Lula, she's contentious because Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She's a troublemaker from way  back, got fancy ideas an' haughty ways- we're mighty glad to have   you all."

  With that, Calpurnia led us to the church door where we were greeted  by Reverend Sykes, who led us to the front pew. 

  First Purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls unlighted kerosene lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner  proclaimed God Is Love, the church's only decoration except a  rotogravure print of Hunt's  The Light of the World.  There was no  sign of piano, organ, hymn-books, church programs- the familiar ecclesiastical impedimenta we saw every Sunday. It was dim inside,  with a damp coolness slowly dispelled by the gathering congregation. At each seat was a cheap cardboard fan bearing a garish Garden of   Gethsemane, courtesy Tyndal's Hardware Co. (You-Name-It-We-Sell-It).  

  Calpurnia motioned Jem and me to the end of the row and placed   herself between us. She fished in her purse, drew out her handkerchief, and untied the hard wad of change in its corner. She  gave a dime to me and a dime to Jem. "We've got ours," he whispered.  

"You keep it," Calpurnia said, "you're my company." Jem's face showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but  his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did likewise with no qualms.

  "Cal," I whispered, "where are the hymn-books?"  

  "We don't have any," she said. 

  "Well how-?"

  "Sh-h," she said. Reverend Sykes was standing behind the pulpit   staring the congregation to silence. He was a short, stocky man in a black suit, black tie, white shirt, and a gold watch-chain that glinted in the light from the frosted windows.

  He said, "Brethren and sisters, we are particularly glad to have  company with us this morning. Mister and Miss Finch. You all know   their father. Before I begin I will read some announcements."

  Reverend Sykes shuffled some papers, chose one and held it at arm's length. "The Missionary Society meets in the home of Sister   Annette Reeves next Tuesday. Bring your sewing."

  He read from another paper. "You all know of Brother Tom Robinson's trouble. He has been a faithful member of First Purchase since he was a boy. The collection taken up today and for the next  three Sundays will go to Helen- his wife, to help her out at home."

  I punched Jem. "That's the Tom Atticus's de-" 

  "Sh-h!"

  I turned to Calpurnia but was hushed before I opened my mouth.   Subdued, I fixed my attention upon Reverend Sykes, who seemed to be waiting for me to settle down. "Will the music superintendent lead  us in the first hymn," he said. 

  Zeebo rose from his pew and walked down the center aisle, stopping in front of us and facing the congregation. He was carrying a battered  hymn-book. He opened it and said, "We'll sing number two  seventy-three."  

  This was too much for me. "How're we gonna sing it if there ain't any hymn-books?" 

  Calpurnia smiled. "Hush baby," she whispered, "you'll see in a   minute." 

  Zeebo cleared his throat and read in a voice like the rumble of   distant artillery: 

  "There's a land beyond the river." 

  Miraculously on pitch, a hundred voices sang out Zeebo's words.   The last syllable, held to a husky hum, was followed by Zeebo saying, 

  "That we call the sweet forever."  

  Music again swelled around us; the last note lingered and Zeebo   met it with the next line: "And we only reach that shore by faith's decree." 

  The congregation hesitated, Zeebo repeated the line carefully, and it was sung. At the chorus Zeebo closed the book, a signal for the  congregation to proceed without his help. 

  On the dying notes of "Jubilee," Zeebo said, "In that far-off sweet forever, just beyond the shining river."

  Line for line, voices followed in simple harmony until the hymn   ended in a melancholy murmur.

  I looked at Jem, who was looking at Zeebo from the corners of his eyes. I didn't believe it either, but we had both heard it.  

  Reverend Sykes then called on the Lord to bless the sick and the  suffering, a procedure no different from our church practice, except Reverend Sykes directed the Deity's attention to several specific   cases.  

  His sermon was a forthright denunciation of sin, an austere  declaration of the motto on the wall behind him: he warned his flock against the evils of heady brews, gambling, and strange women. Bootleggers caused enough trouble in the Quarters, but women were   worse. Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted  with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all   clergymen.  

  Jem and I had heard the same sermon Sunday after Sunday, with only one exception. Reverend Sykes used his pulpit more freely to express his views on individual lapses from grace: Jim Hardy had been absent from church for five Sundays and he wasn't sick; Constance Jackson had  better watch her ways- she was in grave danger for quarreling with her  neighbors; she had erected the only spite fence in the history of   the Quarters. 

  Reverend Sykes closed his sermon. He stood beside a table in front of the pulpit and requested the morning offering, a proceeding that was strange to Jem and me. One by one, the congregation came forward and dropped nickels and dimes into a black enameled coffee can. Jem and I followed suit, and received a soft, "Thank you, thank you," as our dimes clinked. 

  To our amazement, Reverend Sykes emptied the can onto the table   and raked the coins into his hand. He straightened up and said,  

"This is not enough, we must have ten dollars." 

  The congregation stirred. "You all know what it's for- Helen can't leave those children to work while Tom's in jail. If everybody gives one more dime, we'll have it-" Reverend Sykes waved his hand and   called to someone in the back of the church. "Alec, shut the doors. Nobody leaves here till we have ten dollars." 

  Calpurnia scratched in her handbag and brought forth a battered   leather coin purse. "Naw Cal," Jem whispered, when she handed him a shiny quarter, "we can put ours in. Gimme your dime, Scout." 

  The church was becoming stuffy, and it occurred to me that   Reverend Sykes intended to sweat the amount due out of his flock. Fans  crackled, feet shuffled, tobacco-chewers were in agony. 

  Reverend Sykes startled me by saying sternly, "Carlow Richardson, I haven't seen you up this aisle yet."

  A thin man in khaki pants came up the aisle and deposited a coin. The congregation murmured approval.  

  Reverend Sykes then said, "I want all of you with no children to  make a sacrifice and give one more dime apiece. Then we'll have it."  

  Slowly, painfully, the ten dollars was collected. The door was   opened, and the gust of warm air revived us. Zeebo lined  On   Jordan's Stormy Banks,  and church was over.  

  I wanted to stay and explore, but Calpurnia propelled me up the   aisle ahead of her. At the church door, while she paused to talk   with Zeebo and his family, Jem and I chatted with Reverend Sykes. I was bursting with questions, but decided I would wait and let  Calpurnia answer them. 

  "We were 'specially glad to have you all here," said Reverend Sykes.

"This church has no better friend than your daddy."

  My curiosity burst: "Why were you all takin' up collection for Tom Robinson's wife?"  

  "Didn't you hear why?" asked Reverend Sykes. "Helen's got three   little'uns and she can't go out to work-" 

  "Why can't she take 'em with her, Reverend?" I asked. It was customary for field Negroes with tiny children to deposit them in   whatever shade there was while their parents worked- usually the   babies sat in the shade between two rows of cotton. Those unable to sit were strapped papoose-style on their mothers' backs, or resided in  extra cotton bags. 

  Reverend Sykes hesitated. "To tell you the truth, Miss Jean  Louise, Helen's finding it hard to get work these days... when it's picking time, I think Mr. Link Deas'll take her."  

  "Why not, Reverend?" 

  Before he could answer, I felt Calpurnia's hand on my shoulder. At its pressure I said, "We thank you for lettin' us come." Jem echoed me, and we made our way homeward.

  "Cal, I know Tom Robinson's in jail an' he's done somethin' awful, but why won't folks hire Helen?" I asked. 

  Calpurnia, in her navy voile dress and tub of a hat, walked  between Jem and me. "It's because of what folks say Tom's done," she said. "Folks aren't anxious to- to have anything to do with any of his  family." 

  "Just what did he do, Cal?"

  Calpurnia sighed. "Old Mr. Bob Ewell accused him of rapin' his   girl an' had him arrested an' put in jail-"

  "Mr. Ewell?" My memory stirred. "Does he have anything to do with those Ewells that come every first day of school an' then go home?  Why, Atticus said they were absolute trash- I never heard Atticus talk  about folks the way he talked about the Ewells. He said-"

  "Yeah, those are the ones."

  "Well, if everybody in Maycomb knows what kind of folks the Ewells are they'd be glad to hire Helen... what's rape, Cal?"  

  "It's somethin' you'll have to ask Mr. Finch about," she said. "He can explain it better than I can. You all hungry? The Reverend took a long time unwindin' this morning, he's not usually so tedious." 

  "He's just like our preacher," said Jem, "but why do you all sing hymns that way?" 

  "Linin'?" she asked. 

  "Is that what it is?" 

  "Yeah, it's called linin'. They've done it that way as long as I can  remember."  

  Jem said it looked like they could save the collection money for a year and get some hymn-books.

  Calpurnia laughed. "Wouldn't do any good," she said. "They can't  read."  

  "Can't read?" I asked. "All those folks?"

  "That's right," Calpurnia nodded. "Can't but about four folks in  First Purchase read... I'm one of 'em."  

  "Where'd you go to school, Cal?" asked Jem. 

  "Nowhere. Let's see now, who taught me my letters? It was Miss   Maudie Atkinson's aunt, old Miss Buford-" 

  "Are you  that  old?" 

  "I'm older than Mr. Finch, even." Calpurnia grinned. "Not sure how much, though. We started rememberin' one time, trying to figure out how old I was- I can remember back just a few years more'n he can,  so I'm not much older, when you take off the fact that men can't   remember as well as women." 

  "What's your birthday, Cal?"  

  "I just have it on Christmas, it's easier to remember that way- I don't have a real birthday."

  "But Cal," Jem protested, "you don't look even near as old as Atticus."

  "Colored folks don't show their ages so fast," she said.  

  "Maybe because they can't read. Cal, did you teach Zeebo?" 

  "Yeah, Mister Jem. There wasn't a school even when he was a boy. I made him learn, though."

  Zeebo was Calpurnia's eldest son. If I had ever thought about it, I would have known that Calpurnia was of mature years- Zeebo had   half-grown children- but then I had never thought about it.  

  "Did you teach him out of a primer, like us?" I asked.

  "No, I made him get a page of the Bible every day, and there was a book Miss Buford taught me out of- bet you don't know where I got it,"  she said.

  We didn't know.  

  Calpurnia said, "Your Granddaddy Finch gave it to me."

  "Were you from the Landing?" Jem asked. "You never told us that."

  "I certainly am, Mister Jem. Grew up down there between the Buford Place and the Landin'. I've spent all my days workin' for the  Finches or the Bufords, an' I moved to Maycomb when your daddy and  your mamma married."  

  "What was the book, Cal?" I asked. 

  "Blackstone's  Commentaries." 

  Jem was thunderstruck. "You mean you taught Zeebo outa  that?" 

  "Why yes sir, Mister Jem." Calpurnia timidly put her fingers to   her mouth. "They were the only books I had. Your grandaddy said Mr. Blackstone wrote fine English-" 

  "That's why you don't talk like the rest of 'em," said Jem.

  "The rest of who?"  

  "Rest of the colored folks. Cal, but you talked like they did in  church...."  

  That Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea  that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages.  

  "Cal," I asked, "why do you talk nigger-talk to the- to your folks when you know it's not right?"  

  "Well, in the first place I'm black-"  

  "That doesn't mean you hafta talk that way when you know better," said Jem.

  Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her hat down carefully over her ears. "It's right hard to say," she said. "Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks' talk at home it'd be out of place, wouldn't it? Now what if I talked white-folks' talk at church, and with my neighbors? They'd think I was puttin' on airs to beat Moses."  

  "But Cal, you know better," I said. 

  "It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in   the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin'  more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your  mouth shut or talk their language."  

  "Cal, can I come to see you sometimes?" 

  She looked down at me. "See me, honey? You see me every day."  

  "Out to your house," I said. "Sometimes after work? Atticus can   get me." 

  "Any time you want to," she said. "We'd be glad to have you."  

  We were on the sidewalk by the Radley Place.

  "Look on the porch yonder," Jem said.  

  I looked over to the Radley Place, expecting to see its phantom   occupant sunning himself in the swing. The swing was empty.  

  "I mean our porch," said Jem. 

  I looked down the street. Enarmored, upright, uncompromising, Aunt Alexandra was sitting in a rocking chair exactly as if she had sat  there every day of her life.

  13 

  

  "Put my bag in the front bedroom, Calpurnia," was the first thing Aunt Alexandra said. "Jean Louise, stop scratching your head," was the  second thing she said. 

  Calpurnia picked up Aunty's heavy suitcase and opened the door. 

"I'll take it," said Jem, and took it. I heard the suitcase hit the bedroom floor with a thump. The sound had a dull permanence about it. 

  "Have you come for a visit, Aunty?" I asked. Aunt Alexandra's visits  from the Landing were rare, and she traveled in state. She owned a  bright green square Buick and a black chauffeur, both kept in an   unhealthy state of tidiness, but today they were nowhere to be seen.  

  "Didn't your father tell you?" she asked.

  Jem and I shook our heads.

  "Probably he forgot. He's not in yet, is he?" 

  "Nome, he doesn't usually get back till late afternoon," said Jem.  

  "Well, your father and I decided it was time I came to stay with you  for a while."  

  "For a while" in Maycomb meant anything from three days to thirty years. Jem and I exchanged glances.  

  "Jem's growing up now and you are too," she said to me. "We  decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence.  It won't be many years, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys-" 

  I could have made several answers to this: Cal's a girl, it would be  many years before I would be interested in boys, I would never be   interested in clothes... but I kept quiet. 

  "What about Uncle Jimmy?" asked Jem. "Is he comin', too?"  

  "Oh no, he's staying at the Landing. He'll keep the place going."

  The moment I said, "Won't you miss him?" I realized that this was not a tactful question. Uncle Jimmy present or Uncle Jimmy absent made  not much difference, he never said anything. Aunt Alexandra ignored my  question.

  I could think of nothing else to say to her. In fact I could never think of anything to say to her, and I sat thinking of past painful conversations between us: How are you, Jean Louise? Fine, thank you ma'am, how are you? Very well, thank you, what have you been doing  with yourself? Nothin'. Don't you do anything? Nome. Certainly you  have friends? Yessum. Well what do you all do? Nothin'. 

  It was plain that Aunty thought me dull in the extreme, because I once heard her tell Atticus that I was sluggish.

  There was a story behind all this, but I had no desire to extract it  from her then. Today was Sunday, and Aunt Alexandra was positively  irritable on the Lord's Day. I guess it was her Sunday corset. She was  not fat, but solid, and she chose protective garments that drew up her  bosom to giddy heights, pinched in her waist, flared out her rear, and  managed to suggest that Aunt Alexandra's was once an hour-glass figure. From any angle, it was formidable. 

  The remainder of the afternoon went by in the gentle gloom that   descends when relatives appear, but was dispelled when we heard a   car turn in the driveway. It was Atticus, home from Montgomery. Jem, forgetting his dignity, ran with me to meet him. Jem seized his briefcase and bag, I jumped into his arms, felt his vague dry kiss and  said, "'d you bring me a book? 'd you know Aunty's here?"

  Atticus answered both questions in the affirmative. "How'd you   like for her to come live with us?"  

  I said I would like it very much, which was a lie, but one must   lie under certain circumstances and at all times when one can't do  anything about them.  

  "We felt it was time you children needed- well, it's like this,   Scout," Atticus said. "Your aunt's doing me a favor as well as you  all. I can't stay here all day with you, and the summer's going to  be a hot one."

  "Yes sir," I said, not understanding a word he said. I had an idea, however, that Aunt Alexandra's appearance on the scene was not so much Atticus's doing as hers. Aunty had a way of declaring What  Is Best For The Family, and I suppose her coming to live with us was in that category.  

  Maycomb welcomed her. Miss Maudie Atkinson baked a Lane cake so   loaded with shinny it made me tight; Miss Stephanie Crawford had   long visits with Aunt Alexandra, consisting mostly of Miss Stephanie shaking her head and saying, "Uh, uh, uh." Miss Rachel next door had Aunty over for coffee in the afternoons, and Mr. Nathan Radley went so  far as to come up in the front yard and say he was glad to see her.

  When she settled in with us and life resumed its daily pace, Aunt Alexandra seemed as if she had always lived with us. Her Missionary Society refreshments added to her reputation as a hostess (she did not  permit Calpurnia to make the delicacies required to sustain the Society through long reports on Rice Christians); she joined and   became Secretary of the Maycomb Amanuensis Club. To all parties present and participating in the life of the county, Aunt Alexandra was one of the last of her kind: she had river-boat, boarding-school manners; let any moral come along and she would uphold it; she was  born in the objective case; she was an incurable gossip. When Aunt  Alexandra went to school, self-doubt could not be found in any textbook, so she knew not its meaning. She was never bored, and given the slightest chance she would exercise her royal prerogative: she would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. 

  She never let a chance escape her to point out the shortcomings of other tribal groups to the greater glory of our own, a habit that   amused Jem rather than annoyed him: "Aunty better watch how she talks-  scratch most folks in Maycomb and they're kin to us."

  Aunt Alexandra, in underlining the moral of young Sam Merriweather's  suicide, said it was caused by a morbid streak in the family. Let a sixteen-year-old girl giggle in the choir and Aunty would say, "It  just goes to show you, all the Penfield women are flighty." Everybody in Maycomb, it seemed, had a Streak: a Drinking Streak, a Gambling Streak, a Mean Streak, a Funny Streak. 

  Once, when Aunty assured us that Miss Stephanie Crawford's   tendency to mind other people's business was hereditary, Atticus said,

"Sister, when you stop to think about it, our generation's practically  the first in the Finch family not to marry its cousins. Would you   say the Finches have an Incestuous Streak?"

  Aunty said no, that's where we got our small hands and feet.

  I never understood her preoccupation with heredity. Somewhere, I had  received the impression that Fine Folks were people who did the best they could with the sense they had, but Aunt Alexandra was of the   opinion, obliquely expressed, that the longer a family had been squatting on one patch of land the finer it was.

  "That makes the Ewells fine folks, then," said Jem. The tribe of  which Burris Ewell and his brethren consisted had lived on the same plot of earth behind the Maycomb dump, and had thrived on county   welfare money for three generations. 

  Aunt Alexandra's theory had something behind it, though. Maycomb was  an ancient town. It was twenty miles east of Finch's Landing,  awkwardly inland for such an old town. But Maycomb would have been  closer to the river had it not been for the nimble-wittedness of one Sinkfield, who in the dawn of history operated an inn where two pig-trails met, the only tavern in the territory. Sinkfield, no patriot, served and supplied ammunition to Indians and settlers alike,  neither knowing or caring whether he was a part of the Alabama Territory or the Creek Nation so long as business was good. Business was excellent when Governor William Wyatt Bibb, with a view to promoting the newly created county's domestic tranquility, dispatched a team of surveyors to locate its exact center and there establish its seat of government. The surveyors, Sinkfield's guests, told their host that he was in the territorial confines of Maycomb  County, and showed him the probable spot where the county seat would be built. Had not Sinkfield made a bold stroke to preserve his holdings, Maycomb would have sat in the middle of Winston Swamp, a  place totally devoid of interest. Instead, Maycomb grew and sprawled out from its hub, Sinkfield's Tavern, because Sinkfield reduced his guests to myopic drunkenness one evening, induced them to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there,  and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements. He   sent them packing next day armed with their charts and five quarts  of shinny in their saddlebags- two apiece and one for the Governor.

  Because its primary reason for existence was government, Maycomb was  spared the grubbiness that distinguished most Alabama towns its size. In the beginning its buildings were solid, its courthouse proud,  its streets graciously wide. Maycomb's proportion of professional   people ran high: one went there to have his teeth pulled, his wagon fixed, his heart listened to, his money deposited, his soul saved, his  mules vetted. But the ultimate wisdom of Sinkfield's maneuver is   open to question. He placed the young town too far away from the   only kind of public transportation in those days- river-boat- and it took a man from the north end of the county two days to travel to   Maycomb for store-bought goods. As a result the town remained the same  size for a hundred years, an island in a patchwork sea of cottonfields  and timberland.  

  Although Maycomb was ignored during the War Between the States,   Reconstruction rule and economic ruin forced the town to grow. It grew  inward. New people so rarely settled there, the same families  married the same families until the members of the community looked faintly alike. Occasionally someone would return from Montgomery or Mobile with an outsider, but the result caused only a ripple in the quiet stream of family resemblance. Things were more or less the   same during my early years. 

  There was indeed a caste system in Maycomb, but to my mind it worked  this way: the older citizens, the present generation of people who had  lived side by side for years and years, were utterly predictable to one another: they took for granted attitudes, character shadings, even  gestures, as having been repeated in each generation and refined by time. Thus the dicta No Crawford Minds His Own Business, Every Third Merriweather Is Morbid, The Truth Is Not in the Delafields, All the Bufords Walk Like That, were simply guides to daily living: never take  a check from a Delafield without a discreet call to the bank; Miss  Maudie Atkinson's shoulder stoops because she was a Buford; if Mrs. Grace Merriweather sips gin out of Lydia E. Pinkham bottles it's   nothing unusual- her mother did the same. 

  Aunt Alexandra fitted into the world of Maycomb like a hand into a glove, but never into the world of Jem and me. I so often wondered how  she could be Atticus's and Uncle Jack's sister that I revived  half-remembered tales of changelings and mandrake roots that Jem had spun long ago.

  These were abstract speculations for the first month of her stay, as  she had little to say to Jem or me, and we saw her only at mealtimes and at night before we went to bed. It was summer and we were  outdoors. Of course some afternoons when I would run inside for a   drink of water, I would find the livingroom overrun with Maycomb   ladies, sipping, whispering, fanning, and I would be called: "Jean  Louise, come speak to these ladies." 

  When I appeared in the doorway, Aunty would look as if she regretted  her request; I was usually mud-splashed or covered with sand.

  "Speak to your Cousin Lily," she said one afternoon, when she had trapped me in the hall. 

  "Who?" I said. 

  "Your Cousin Lily Brooke," said Aunt Alexandra.  

  "She our cousin? I didn't know that."  

  Aunt Alexandra managed to smile in a way that conveyed a gentle   apology to Cousin Lily and firm disapproval to me. When Cousin Lily Brooke left I knew I was in for it.  

  It was a sad thing that my father had neglected to tell me about the  Finch Family, or to install any pride into his children. She   summoned Jem, who sat warily on the sofa beside me. She left the   room and returned with a purple-covered book on which  Meditations  of Joshua S. St. Clair  was stamped in gold.  

  "Your cousin wrote this," said Aunt Alexandra. "He was a beautiful character."  

  Jem examined the small volume. "Is this the Cousin Joshua who was locked up for so long?" 

  Aunt Alexandra said, "How did you know that?" 

  "Why, Atticus said he went round the bend at the University. Said he  tried to shoot the president. Said Cousin Joshua said he wasn't anything but a sewer-inspector and tried to shoot him with an old   flintlock pistol, only it just blew up in his hand. Atticus said it cost the family five hundred dollars to get him out of that one-" 

  Aunt Alexandra was standing stiff as a stork. "That's all," she   said. "We'll see about this."

  Before bedtime I was in Jem's room trying to borrow a book, when  Atticus knocked and entered. He sat on the side of Jem's bed, looked at us soberly, then he grinned. 

  "Er- h'rm," he said. He was beginning to preface some things he said  with a throaty noise, and I thought he must at last be getting old, but he looked the same. "I don't exactly know how to say this," he  began.  

  "Well, just say it," said Jem. "Have we done something?"  

  Our father was actually fidgeting. "No, I just want to explain to you that- your Aunt Alexandra asked me... son, you know you're a   Finch, don't you?" 

  "That's what I've been told." Jem looked out of the corners of his eyes. His voice rose uncontrollably, "Atticus, what's the matter?"

  Atticus crossed his knees and folded his arms. "I'm trying to tell you the facts of life." 

  Jem's disgust deepened. "I know all that stuff," he said.  

  Atticus suddenly grew serious. In his lawyer's voice, without a   shade of inflection, he said: "Your aunt has asked me to try and   impress upon you and Jean Louise that you are not from run-of-the-mill  people, that you are the product of several generations' gentle breeding-" Atticus paused, watching me locate an elusive redbug on  my leg.  

  "Gentle breeding," he continued, when I had found and scratched   it, "and that you should try to live up to your name-" Atticus persevered in spite of us: "She asked me to tell you you must try to behave like the little lady and gentleman that you are. She wants to talk to you about the family and what it's meant to Maycomb County  through the years, so you'll have some idea of who you are, so you  might be moved to behave accordingly," he concluded at a gallop. 

  Stunned, Jem and I looked at each other, then at Atticus, whose   collar seemed to worry him. We did not speak to him.

  Presently I picked up a comb from Jem's dresser and ran its teeth along the edge.  

  "Stop that noise," Atticus said.  

  His curtness stung me. The comb was midway in its journey, and I  banged it down. For no reason I felt myself beginning to cry, but I could not stop. This was not my father. My father never thought these thoughts. My father never spoke so. Aunt Alexandra had put him up to this, somehow. Through my tears I saw Jem standing in a  similar pool of isolation, his head cocked to one side. 

  There was nowhere to go, but I turned to go and met Atticus's vest front. I buried my head in it and listened to the small internal   noises that went on behind the light blue cloth: his watch ticking, the faint crackle of his starched shirt, the soft sound of his breathing.  

  "Your stomach's growling," I said. 

  "I know it," he said. 

  "You better take some soda."  

  "I will," he said.  

  "Atticus, is all this behavin' an' stuff gonna make things   different? I mean are you-?"

  I felt his hand on the back of my head. "Don't you worry about   anything," he said. "It's not time to worry." 

  When I heard that, I knew he had come back to us. The blood in my legs began to flow again, and I raised my head. "You really want us to  do all that? I can't remember everything Finches are supposed to   do...."  

  "I don't want you to remember it. Forget it." 

  He went to the door and out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He nearly slammed it, but caught himself at the last minute and closed it softly. As Jem and I stared, the door opened again and   Atticus peered around. His eyebrows were raised, his glasses had   slipped. "Get more like Cousin Joshua every day, don't I? Do you think  I'll end up costing the family five hundred dollars?"

  I know now what he was trying to do, but Atticus was only a man.  It takes a woman to do that kind of work. 

  14 

  

  Although we heard no more about the Finch family from Aunt   Alexandra, we heard plenty from the town. On Saturdays, armed with our  nickels, when Jem permitted me to accompany him (he was now positively  allergic to my presence when in public), we would squirm our way   through sweating sidewalk crowds and sometimes hear, "There's his   chillun," or, "Yonder's some Finches." Turning to face our accusers, we would see only a couple of farmers studying the enema bags in the Mayco Drugstore window. Or two dumpy countrywomen in straw hats sitting in a Hoover cart.  

  "They c'n go loose and rape up the countryside for all of 'em who run this county care," was one obscure observation we met head on from  a skinny gentleman when he passed us. Which reminded me that I had a question to ask Atticus.

  "What's rape?" I asked him that night. 

  Atticus looked around from behind his paper. He was in his chair  by the window. As we grew older, Jem and I thought it generous to   allow Atticus thirty minutes to himself after supper.

  He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent.  

  "Well if that's all it is why did Calpurnia dry me up when I asked her what it was?"  

  Atticus looked pensive. "What's that again?"

  "Well, I asked Calpurnia comin' from church that day what it was and  she said ask you but I forgot to and now I'm askin' you."

  His paper was now in his lap. "Again, please," he said.

  I told him in detail about our trip to church with Calpurnia. Atticus seemed to enjoy it, but Aunt Alexandra, who was sitting in a corner quietly sewing, put down her embroidery and stared at us. 

  "You all were coming back from Calpurnia's church that Sunday?" 

  Jem said, "Yessum, she took us."  

  I remembered something. "Yessum, and she promised me I could come out to her house some afternoon. Atticus. I'll go next Sunday if   it's all right, can I? Cal said she'd come get me if you were off in the car."

  "You may  not."  

  Aunt Alexandra said it. I wheeled around, startled, then turned back  to Atticus in time to catch his swift glance at her, but it was too late. I said, "I didn't ask you!"

  For a big man, Atticus could get up and down from a chair faster  than anyone I ever knew. He was on his feet. "Apologize to your aunt,"  he said. 

  "I didn't ask her, I asked you-"  

  Atticus turned his head and pinned me to the wall with his good eye.  His voice was deadly: "First, apologize to your aunt."  

  "I'm sorry, Aunty," I muttered.

  "Now then," he said. "Let's get this clear: you do as Calpurnia   tells you, you do as I tell you, and as long as your aunt's in this house, you will do as she tells you. Understand?"  

  I understood, pondered a while, and concluded that the only way I could retire with a shred of dignity was to go to the bathroom, where I stayed long enough to make them think I had to go. Returning, I lingered in the hall to hear a fierce discussion going on  in the livingroom. Through the door I could see Jem on the sofa with a  football magazine in front of his face, his head turning as if its  pages contained a live tennis match. 

  "...you've got to do something about her," Aunty was saying. "You've  let things go on too long, Atticus, too long."

  "I don't see any harm in letting her go out there. Cal'd look after her there as well as she does here." 

  Who was the "her" they were talking about? My heart sank: me. I felt  the starched walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and  for the second time in my life I thought of running away. Immediately.

  "Atticus, it's all right to be soft-hearted, you're an easy man, but  you have a daughter to think of. A daughter who's growing up."

  "That's what I am thinking of."

  "And don't try to get around it. You've got to face it sooner or  later and it might as well be tonight. We don't need her now."

  Atticus's voice was even: "Alexandra, Calpurnia's not leaving this house until she wants to. You may think otherwise, but I couldn't have  got along without her all these years. She's a faithful member of this  family and you'll simply have to accept things the way they are.   Besides, sister, I don't want you working your head off for us- you've  no reason to do that. We still need Cal as much as we ever did." 

  "But Atticus-" 

  "Besides, I don't think the children've suffered one bit from her having brought them up. If anything, she's been harder on them in some  ways than a mother would have been... she's never let them get away with anything, she's never indulged them the way most colored nurses do. She tried to bring them up according to her lights, and Cal's   lights are pretty good- and another thing, the children love her."

  I breathed again. It wasn't me, it was only Calpurnia they were   talking about. Revived, I entered the livingroom. Atticus had  retreated behind his newspaper and Aunt Alexandra was worrying her  embroidery. Punk, punk, punk, her needle broke the taut circle. She stopped, and pulled the cloth tighter: punk-punk-punk. She was furious. 

  Jem got up and padded across the rug. He motioned me to follow. He led me to his room and closed the door. His face was grave.  

  "They've been fussing, Scout." 

  Jem and I fussed a great deal these days, but I had never heard of or seen anyone quarrel with Atticus. It was not a comfortable sight.  

  "Scout, try not to antagonize Aunty, hear?" 

  Atticus's remarks were still rankling, which made me miss the request in Jem's question. My feathers rose again. "You tryin' to tell  me what to do?"  

  "Naw, it's- he's got a lot on his mind now, without us worrying   him."

  "Like what?" Atticus didn't appear to have anything especially on his mind.

  "It's this Tom Robinson case that's worryin' him to death-"

  I said Atticus didn't worry about anything. Besides, the case never bothered us except about once a week and then it didn't last.

  "That's because you can't hold something in your mind but a little while," said Jem. "It's different with grown folks, we-"

  His maddening superiority was unbearable these days. He didn't   want to do anything but read and go off by himself. Still, everything he read he passed along to me, but with this difference: formerly, because he thought I'd like it; now, for my edification   and instruction. 

  "Jee crawling hova, Jem! Who do you think you are?"

  "Now I mean it, Scout, you antagonize Aunty and I'll- I'll spank  you."

  With that, I was gone. "You damn morphodite, I'll kill you!" He   was sitting on the bed, and it was easy to grab his front hair and  land one on his mouth. He slapped me and I tried another left, but a punch in the stomach sent me sprawling on the floor. It nearly knocked  the breath out of me, but it didn't matter because I knew he was   fighting, he was fighting me back. We were still equals.

  "Ain't so high and mighty now, are you!" I screamed, sailing in   again. He was still on the bed and I couldn't get a firm stance, so I threw myself at him as hard as I could, hitting, pulling, pinching, gouging. What had begun as a fist-fight became a brawl. We were still struggling when Atticus separated us.

  "That's all," he said. "Both of you go to bed right now."  

  "Taah!" I said at Jem. He was being sent to bed at my bedtime. 

  "Who started it?" asked Atticus, in resignation. 

  "Jem did. He was tryin' to tell me what to do. I don't have to   mind  him  now, do I?" 

  Atticus smiled. "Let's leave it at this: you mind Jem whenever he can make you. Fair enough?" 

  Aunt Alexandra was present but silent, and when she went down the hall with Atticus we heard her say, "...just one of the things I've been telling you about," a phrase that united us again. 

  Ours were adjoining rooms; as I shut the door between them Jem said,

"Night, Scout."  

  "Night," I murmured, picking my way across the room to turn on the light. As I passed the bed I stepped on something warm, resilient, and  rather smooth. It was not quite like hard rubber, and I had the sensation that it was alive. I also heard it move. 

  I switched on the light and looked at the floor by the bed. Whatever  I had stepped on was gone. I tapped on Jem's door. 

  "What," he said. 

  "How does a snake feel?" 

  "Sort of rough. Cold. Dusty. Why?" 

  "I think there's one under my bed. Can you come look?"

  "Are you bein' funny?" Jem opened the door. He was in his pajama  bottoms. I noticed not without satisfaction that the mark of my knuckles was still on his mouth. When he saw I meant what I said, he said, "If you think I'm gonna put my face down to a snake you've got another think comin'. Hold on a minute." 

  He went to the kitchen and fetched the broom. "You better get up  on the bed," he said. 

  "You reckon it's really one?" I asked. This was an occasion. Our  houses had no cellars; they were built on stone blocks a few feet   above the ground, and the entry of reptiles was not unknown but was not commonplace. Miss Rachel Haverford's excuse for a glass of neat whiskey every morning was that she never got over the fright of finding a rattler coiled in her bedroom closet, on her washing, when she went to hang up her negligee.

  Jem made a tentative swipe under the bed. I looked over the foot  to see if a snake would come out. None did. Jem made a deeper swipe.  

  "Do snakes grunt?"  

  "It ain't a snake," Jem said. "It's somebody."

  Suddenly a filthy brown package shot from under the bed. Jem raised the broom and missed Dill's head by an inch when it appeared.  

  "God Almighty." Jem's voice was reverent.

  We watched Dill emerge by degrees. He was a tight fit. He stood up and eased his shoulders, turned his feet in their ankle sockets,   rubbed the back of his neck. His circulation restored, he said, "Hey."

  Jem petitioned God again. I was speechless. 

  "I'm 'bout to perish," said Dill. "Got anything to eat?"  

  In a dream, I went to the kitchen. I brought him back some milk   and half a pan of corn bread left over from supper. Dill devoured   it, chewing with his front teeth, as was his custom.

  I finally found my voice. "How'd you get here?"  

  By an involved route. Refreshed by food, Dill recited this   narrative: having been bound in chains and left to die in the basement  (there were basements in Meridian) by his new father, who disliked  him, and secretly kept alive on raw field peas by a passing farmer who  heard his cries for help (the good man poked a bushel pod by pod   through the ventilator), Dill worked himself free by pulling the   chains from the wall. Still in wrist manacles, he wandered two miles out of Meridian where he discovered a small animal show and was immediately engaged to wash the camel. He traveled with the show all over Mississippi until his infallible sense of direction told him he was in Abbott County, Alabama, just across the river from Maycomb.  He walked the rest of the way.  

  "How'd you get here?" asked Jem.  

  He had taken thirteen dollars from his mother's purse, caught the nine o'clock from Meridian and got off at Maycomb Junction. He had  walked ten or eleven of the fourteen miles to Maycomb, off the highway  in the scrub bushes lest the authorities be seeking him, and had   ridden the remainder of the way clinging to the backboard of a cotton wagon. He had been under the bed for two hours, he thought;  he had heard us in the diningroom, and the clink of forks on plates nearly drove him crazy. He thought Jem and I would never go to bed; he  had considered emerging and helping me beat Jem, as Jem had grown   far taller, but he knew Mr. Finch would break it up soon, so he thought it best to stay where he was. He was worn out, dirty beyond belief, and home.  

  "They must not know you're here," said Jem. "We'd know if they   were lookin' for you...."  

  "Think they're still searchin' all the picture shows in Meridian." Dill grinned. 

  "You oughta let your mother know where you are," said Jem. "You   oughta let her know you're here...." 

  Dill's eyes flickered at Jem, and Jem looked at the floor. Then he rose and broke the remaining code of our childhood. He went out of the  room and down the hall. "Atticus," his voice was distant, "can you  come here a minute, sir?"  

  Beneath its sweat-streaked dirt Dill's face went white. I felt sick.  Atticus was in the doorway. 

  He came to the middle of the room and stood with his hands in his pockets, looking down at Dill.  

  I finally found my voice: "It's okay, Dill. When he wants you to  know somethin', he tells you."  

  Dill looked at me. "I mean it's all right," I said. "You know he  wouldn't bother you, you know you ain't scared of Atticus."  

  "I'm not scared..." Dill muttered. 

  "Just hungry, I'll bet." Atticus's voice had its usual pleasant   dryness. "Scout, we can do better than a pan of cold corn bread, can't  we? You fill this fellow up and when I get back we'll see what we   can see."

  "Mr. Finch, don't tell Aunt Rachel, don't make me go back, 

 please  sir! I'll run off again-!"  

  "Whoa, son," said Atticus. "Nobody's about to make you go anywhere but to bed pretty soon. I'm just going over to tell Miss Rachel you're  here and ask her if you could spend the night with us- you'd like   that, wouldn't you? And for goodness' sake put some of the county back  where it belongs, the soil erosion's bad enough as it is."  

  Dill stared at my father's retreating figure. 

  "He's tryin' to be funny," I said. "He means take a bath. See there,  I told you he wouldn't bother you."  

  Jem was standing in a corner of the room, looking like the traitor he was. "Dill, I had to tell him," he said. "You can't run three   hundred miles off without your mother knowin'."