To Kill A Mockingbird

  "To Kill A Mocking bird"

By Harper Lee

superstition|Good, Evil, and Human Dignity|  

Growing up|Courage |

Small Town|Southern Life| Southern Gothic Bildungsroman

"To Kill A Mockingbird"

(Part - 1) 

Chapter - 3 , 4 :

Getting Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard gave me some joy, however when

I was shaming him with the soil Jem stopped by and advised me to stop. "You're bigger'n he will be," he said.

"He's essentially as old as you, almost," I said. "He made me get going all wrong."

"Release him, Scout. Why?"

"He had no lunch," I said, and made sense of my inclusion in Walter's

dietary issues.

Walter had gotten himself and was standing discreetly paying attention to Jem and me.

His clench hands were half positioned, as though expecting a surge from the two of us. I stepped

at him to pursue him away, however Jem put out his hand and halted me. He inspected

Walter with a quality of theory. "Your daddy Mr. Walter Cunningham from Old

Sarum?" he asked, and Walter gestured.

Walter looked as though he had been raised on fish food: his eyes, as blue as Dill

Harris', were red-rimmed and watery. There was no variety in his face besides at

the tip of his nose, which was damply pink. He fingered the lashes of his overalls,

apprehensively picking at the metal snares.

Jem unexpectedly smiled at him. "Come on home to supper with us, Walter," he said.

"We'd very much love to have you."

Walter's face lit up, then, at that point, obscured.

Jem said, "Our daddy's a companion of your daddy's. Scout here, she's insane she

won't battle you any longer."

"I wouldn't be excessively sure of that," I said. Jem's free agreement of my promise

incensed me, however valuable early afternoon minutes were ticking endlessly. "Definitely Walter, I

won't hop on you once more. Don't you like butterbeans? Our Cal's a genuine decent

cook."

Walter stood where he was, gnawing his lip. Jem and I surrendered, and we were almost

to the Radley Place when Walter called, "Hello, I'm comin'!"

At the point when Walter found us, Jem made charming discussion with him. "A

hain't lives there," he said unconditionally, highlighting the Radley house. "At any point hear

about him, Walter?"

"Figure I have," said Walter. "Nearly passed on first year I come to school and et

them walnuts people say he pizened them and put them over on the school side of the

fence."

Jem seemed to have little fear of Boo Radley now that Walter and I walked beside 

him. Indeed, Jem grew boastful: “I went all the way up to the house once,” he said 

to Walter.

“Anybody who went up to the house once oughta not to still run every time he 

passes it,” I said to the clouds above.

“And who’s runnin‘, Miss Priss?”

“You are, when ain’t anybody with you.”

By the time we reached our front steps Walter had forgotten he was a 

Cunningham. Jem ran to the kitchen and asked Calpurnia to set an extra plate, we 

had company. Atticus greeted Walter and began a discussion about crops neither 

Jem nor I could follow.

“Reason I can’t pass the first grade, Mr. Finch, is I’ve had to stay out ever‘ spring 

an’ help Papa with the choppin‘, but there’s another’n at the house now that’s 

field size.”

“Did you pay a bushel of potatoes for him?” I asked, but Atticus shook his head at 

me.

While Walter piled food on his plate, he and Atticus talked together like two men, 

to the wonderment of Jem and me. Atticus was expounding upon farm problems 

when Walter interrupted to ask if there was any molasses in the house. Atticus 

summoned Calpurnia, who returned bearing the syrup pitcher. She stood waiting 

for Walter to help himself. Walter poured syrup on his vegetables and meat with a 

generous hand. He would probably have poured it into his milk glass had I not 

asked what the sam hill he was doing.

The silver saucer clattered when he replaced the pitcher, and he quickly put his 

hands in his lap. Then he ducked his head.

Atticus shook his head at me again. “But he’s gone and drowned his dinner in 

syrup,” I protested. “He’s poured it all over-”

It was then that Calpurnia requested my presence in the kitchen.

She was furious, and when she was furious Calpurnia’s grammar became erratic. 

When in tranquility, her grammar was as good as anybody’s in Maycomb. Atticus 

said Calpurnia had more education than most colored folks.

When she squinted down at me the tiny lines around her eyes deepened. “There’s 

some folks who don’t eat like us,” she whispered fiercely, “but you ain’t called on 

to contradict ‘em at the table when they don’t. That boy’s yo’ comp’ny and if he 

wants to eat up the table cloth you let him, you hear?”

“He ain’t company, Cal, he’s just a Cunningham-”

“Hush your mouth! Don’t matter who they are, anybody sets foot in this house’s 

yo‘ comp’ny, and don’t you let me catch you remarkin’ on their ways like you 

was so high and mighty! Yo‘ folks might be better’n the Cunninghams but it 

don’t count for nothin’ the way you’re disgracin‘ ’em—if you can’t act fit to eat 

at the table you can just set here and eat in the kitchen!”

Calpurnia sent me through the swinging door to the diningroom with a stinging 

smack. I retrieved my plate and finished dinner in the kitchen, thankful, though, 

that I was spared the humiliation of facing them again. I told Calpurnia to just 

wait, I’d fix her: one of these days when she wasn’t looking I’d go off and drown 

myself in Barker’s Eddy and then she’d be sorry. Besides, I added, she’d already 

gotten me in trouble once today: she had taught me to write and it was all her 

fault. “Hush your fussin‘,” she said.

Jem and Walter returned to school ahead of me: staying behind to advise Atticus 

of Calpurnia’s iniquities was worth a solitary sprint past the Radley Place. “She 

likes Jem better’n she likes me, anyway,” I concluded, and suggested that Atticus 

lose no time in packing her off.

“Have you ever considered that Jem doesn’t worry her half as much?” Atticus’s 

voice was flinty. “I’ve no intention of getting rid of her, now or ever. We couldn’t 

operate a single day without Cal, have you ever thought of that? You think about 

how much Cal does for you, and you mind her, you hear?”

I returned to school and hated Calpurnia steadily until a sudden shriek shattered 

my resentments. I looked up to see Miss Caroline standing in the middle of the 

room, sheer horror flooding her face. Apparently she had revived enough to 

persevere in her profession.

“It’s alive!” she screamed.

The male population of the class rushed as one to her assistance. Lord, I thought,

she’s scared of a mouse. Little Chuck Little, whose patience with all living things 

was phenomenal, said, “Which way did he go, Miss Caroline? Tell us where he 

went, quick! D.C.-” he turned to a boy behind him—“D.C., shut the door and 

we’ll catch him. Quick, ma’am, where’d he go?”

Miss Caroline pointed a shaking finger not at the floor nor at a desk, but to a 

hulking individual unknown to me. Little Chuck’s face contracted and he said 

gently, “You mean him, ma’am? Yessum, he’s alive. Did he scare you some 

way?”

Miss Caroline said desperately, “I was just walking by when it crawled out of his 

hair… just crawled out of his hair-”

Little Chuck grinned broadly. “There ain’t no need to fear a cootie, ma’am. Ain’t 

you ever seen one? Now don’t you be afraid, you just go back to your desk and 

teach us some more.”

Little Chuck Little was another member of the population who didn’t know where 

his next meal was coming from, but he was a born gentleman. He put his hand 

under her elbow and led Miss Caroline to the front of the room. “Now don’t you 

fret, ma’am,” he said. “There ain’t no need to fear a cootie. I’ll just fetch you 

some cool water.” The cootie’s host showed not the faintest interest in the furor 

he had wrought. He searched the scalp above his forehead, located his guest and 

pinched it between his thumb and forefinger.

Miss Caroline watched the process in horrid fascination. Little Chuck brought 

water in a paper cup, and she drank it gratefully. Finally she found her voice. 

“What is your name, son?” she asked softly.

The boy blinked. “Who, me?” Miss Caroline nodded.

“Burris Ewell.”

Miss Caroline inspected her roll-book. “I have a Ewell here, but I don’t have a 

first name… would you spell your first name for me?”

“Don’t know how. They call me Burris’t home.”

“Well, Burris,” said Miss Caroline, “I think we’d better excuse you for the rest of 

the afternoon. I want you to go home and wash your hair.”

From her desk she produced a thick volume, leafed through its pages and read for a moment. “A good home remedy for—Burris, I want you to go home and wash 

your hair with lye soap. When you’ve done that, treat your scalp with kerosene.”

“What fer, missus?”

“To get rid of the—er, cooties. You see, Burris, the other children might catch 

them, and you wouldn’t want that, would you?”

The boy stood up. He was the filthiest human I had ever seen. His neck was dark 

gray, the backs of his hands were rusty, and his fingernails were black deep into 

the quick. He peered at Miss Caroline from a fist-sized clean space on his face. 

No one had noticed him, probably, because Miss Caroline and I had entertained 

the class most of the morning.

“And Burris,” said Miss Caroline, “please bathe yourself before you come back 

tomorrow.”

The boy laughed rudely. “You ain’t sendin‘ me home, missus. I was on the verge 

of leavin’—I done done my time for this year.”

Miss Caroline looked puzzled. “What do you mean by that?”

The boy did not answer. He gave a short contemptuous snort.

One of the elderly members of the class answered her: “He’s one of the Ewells, 

ma’am,” and I wondered if this explanation would be as unsuccessful as my 

attempt. But Miss Caroline seemed willing to listen. “Whole school’s full of ‘em. 

They come first day every year and then leave. The truant lady gets ’em here 

‘cause she threatens ’em with the sheriff, but she’s give up tryin‘ to hold ’em. She 

reckons she’s carried out the law just gettin‘ their names on the roll and runnin’ 

‘em here the first day. You’re supposed to mark ’em absent the rest of the year…”

“But what about their parents?” asked Miss Caroline, in genuine concern.

“Ain’t got no mother,” was the answer, “and their paw’s right contentious.”

Burris Ewell was flattered by the recital. “Been comin‘ to the first day o’ the first 

grade fer three year now,” he said expansively. “Reckon if I’m smart this year 

they’ll promote me to the second…”

Miss Caroline said, “Sit back down, please, Burris,” and the moment she said it I 

knew she had made a serious mistake. The boy’s condescension flashed to anger.

“You try and make me, missus.”

Little Chuck Little got to his feet. “Let him go, ma’am,” he said. “He’s a mean 

one, a hard-down mean one. He’s liable to start somethin‘, and there’s some little 

folks here.”

He was among the most diminutive of men, but when Burris Ewell turned toward 

him, Little Chuck’s right hand went to his pocket. “Watch your step, Burris,” he 

said. “I’d soon’s kill you as look at you. Now go home.”

Burris seemed to be afraid of a child half his height, and Miss Caroline took 

advantage of his indecision: “Burris, go home. If you don’t I’ll call the principal,” 

she said. “I’ll have to report this, anyway.”

The boy snorted and slouched leisurely to the door.

Safely out of range, he turned and shouted: “Report and be damned to ye! Ain’t 

no snot-nosed slut of a schoolteacher ever born c’n make me do nothin‘! You 

ain’t makin’ me go nowhere, missus. You just remember that, you ain’t makin‘ 

me go nowhere!”

He waited until he was sure she was crying, then he shuffled out of the building.

Soon we were clustered around her desk, trying in our various ways to comfort 

her. He was a real mean one… below the belt… you ain’t called on to teach folks 

like that… them ain’t Maycomb’s ways, Miss Caroline, not really… now don’t 

you fret, ma’am. Miss Caroline, why don’t you read us a story? That cat thing 

was real fine this mornin‘…

Miss Caroline smiled, blew her nose, said, “Thank you, darlings,” dispersed us, 

opened a book and mystified the first grade with a long narrative about a toadfrog 

that lived in a hall.

When I passed the Radley Place for the fourth time that day—twice at a full gallop

—my gloom had deepened to match the house. If the remainder of the school year 

were as fraught with drama as the first day, perhaps it would be mildly 

entertaining, but the prospect of spending nine months refraining from reading 

and writing made me think of running away.

By late afternoon most of my traveling plans were complete; when Jem and I 

raced each other up the sidewalk to meet Atticus coming home from work, I 

didn’t give him much of a race. It was our habit to run meet Atticus the moment

we saw him round the post office corner in the distance. Atticus seemed to have 

forgotten my noontime fall from grace; he was full of questions about school. My 

replies were monosyllabic and he did not press me.

Perhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her 

fix supper. “Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a surprise,” she 

said.

It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but 

with both of us at school today had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved 

crackling bread.

“I missed you today,” she said. “The house got so lonesome ‘long about two 

o’clock I had to turn on the radio.”

“Why? Jem’n me ain’t ever in the house unless it’s rainin‘.”

“I know,” she said, “But one of you’s always in callin‘ distance. I wonder how 

much of the day I spend just callin’ after you. Well,” she said, getting up from the 

kitchen chair, “it’s enough time to make a pan of cracklin‘ bread, I reckon. You 

run along now and let me get supper on the table.”

Calpurnia bent down and kissed me. I ran along, wondering what had come over 

her. She had wanted to make up with me, that was it. She had always been too 

hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and 

too stubborn to say so. I was weary from the day’s crimes.

After supper, Atticus sat down with the paper and called, “Scout, ready to read?” 

The Lord sent me more than I could bear, and I went to the front porch. Atticus 

followed me.

“Something wrong, Scout?”

I told Atticus I didn’t feel very well and didn’t think I’d go to school any more if 

it was all right with him.

Atticus sat down in the swing and crossed his legs. His fingers wandered to his 

watchpocket; he said that was the only way he could think. He waited in amiable 

silence, and I sought to reinforce my position: “You never went to school and you 

do all right, so I’ll just stay home too. You can teach me like Granddaddy taught 

you ‘n’ Uncle Jack.” “No I can’t,” said Atticus. “I have to make a living. Besides, they’d put me in jail 

if I kept you at home—dose of magnesia for you tonight and school tomorrow.”

“I’m feeling all right, really.”

“Thought so. Now what’s the matter?”

Bit by bit, I told him the day’s misfortunes. “-and she said you taught me all 

wrong, so we can’t ever read any more, ever. Please don’t send me back, please 

sir.”

Atticus stood up and walked to the end of the porch. When he completed his 

examination of the wisteria vine he strolled back to me.

“First of all,” he said, “if you can learn a simple trick, Scout, you’ll get along a lot 

better with all kinds of folks. You never really understand a person until you 

consider things from his point of view-”

“Sir?”

“-until you climb into his skin and walk around in it.”

Atticus said I had learned many things today, and Miss Caroline had learned 

several things herself. She had learned not to hand something to a Cunningham, 

for one thing, but if Walter and I had put ourselves in her shoes we’d have seen it 

was an honest mistake on her part. We could not expect her to learn all 

Maycomb’s ways in one day, and we could not hold her responsible when she 

knew no better.

“I’ll be dogged,” I said. “I didn’t know no better than not to read to her, and she 

held me responsible—listen Atticus, I don’t have to go to school!” I was bursting 

with a sudden thought. “Burris Ewell, remember? He just goes to school the first 

day. The truant lady reckons she’s carried out the law when she gets his name on 

the roll-” “You can’t do that, Scout,” Atticus said. “Sometimes it’s better to bend 

the law a little in special cases. In your case, the law remains rigid. So to school 

you must go.”

“I don’t see why I have to when he doesn’t.”

“Then listen.”

Atticus said the Ewells had been the disgrace of Maycomb for three generations. 

None of them had done an honest day’s work in his recollection. He said that some Christmas, when he was getting rid of the tree, he would take me with him 

and show me where and how they lived. They were people, but they lived like 

animals. “They can go to school any time they want to, when they show the 

faintest symptom of wanting an education,” said Atticus. “There are ways of 

keeping them in school by force, but it’s silly to force people like the Ewells into 

a new environment-”

“If I didn’t go to school tomorrow, you’d force me to.”

“Let us leave it at this,” said Atticus dryly. “You, Miss Scout Finch, are of the 

common folk. You must obey the law.” He said that the Ewells were members of 

an exclusive society made up of Ewells. In certain circumstances the common 

folk judiciously allowed them certain privileges by the simple method of 

becoming blind to some of the Ewells’ activities. They didn’t have to go to 

school, for one thing. Another thing, Mr. Bob Ewell, Burris’s father, was 

permitted to hunt and trap out of season.

“Atticus, that’s bad,” I said. In Maycomb County, hunting out of season was a 

misdemeanor at law, a capital felony in the eyes of the populace.

“It’s against the law, all right,” said my father, “and it’s certainly bad, but when a 

man spends his relief checks on green whiskey his children have a way of crying 

from hunger pains. I don’t know of any landowner around here who begrudges 

those children any game their father can hit.”

“Mr. Ewell shouldn’t do that-”

“Of course he shouldn’t, but he’ll never change his ways. Are you going to take 

out your disapproval on his children?”

“No sir,” I murmured, and made a final stand: “But if I keep on goin‘ to school, 

we can’t ever read any more…”

“That’s really bothering you, isn’t it?”

“Yes sir.”

When Atticus looked down at me I saw the expression on his face that always 

made me expect something. “Do you know what a compromise is?” he asked.

“Bending the law?”

“No, an agreement reached by mutual concessions. It works this way,” he said. “If

you’ll concede the necessity of going to school, we’ll go on reading every night 

just as we always have. Is it a bargain?”

“Yes sir!”

“We’ll consider it sealed without the usual formality,” Atticus said, when he saw 

me preparing to spit.

As I opened the front screen door Atticus said, “By the way, Scout, you’d better 

not say anything at school about our agreement.”

“Why not?”

“I’m afraid our activities would be received with considerable disapprobation by 

the more learned authorities.”

Jem and I were accustomed to our father’s last-will-and-testament diction, and we 

were at all times free to interrupt Atticus for a translation when it was beyond our 

understanding.

“Huh, sir?”

“I never went to school,” he said, “but I have a feeling that if you tell Miss 

Caroline we read every night she’ll get after me, and I wouldn’t want her after 

me.”

Atticus kept us in fits that evening, gravely reading columns of print about a man 

who sat on a flagpole for no discernible reason, which was reason enough for Jem 

to spend the following Saturday aloft in the treehouse. Jem sat from after 

breakfast until sunset and would have remained overnight had not Atticus severed 

his supply lines. I had spent most of the day climbing up and down, running 

errands for him, providing him with literature, nourishment and water, and was 

carrying him blankets for the night when Atticus said if I paid no attention to him, 

Jem would come down. Atticus was right.

 Chapter - 4 :

The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first. Indeed, 

they were an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of 

construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its 

well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics. What Jem called 

the Dewey Decimal System was school-wide by the end of my first year, so I had 

no chance to compare it with other teaching techniques. I could only look around 

me: Atticus and my uncle, who went to school at home, knew everything—at 

least, what one didn’t know the other did. Furthermore, I couldn’t help noticing 

that my father had served for years in the state legislature, elected each time 

without opposition, innocent of the adjustments my teachers thought essential to 

the development of Good Citizenship. Jem, educated on a half-Decimal half-

Duncecap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group, but Jem was a 

poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stopped him from 

getting at books. As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Time 

magazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home, but as I inched 

sluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not 

help receiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of 

what I knew not, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom 

was exactly what the state had in mind for me.

As the year passed, released from school thirty minutes before Jem, who had to 

stay until three o’clock, I ran by the Radley Place as fast as I could, not stopping 

until I reached the safety of our front porch. One afternoon as I raced by, 

something caught my eye and caught it in such a way that I took a deep breath, a 

long look around, and went back.

Two live oaks stood at the edge of the Radley lot; their roots reached out into the 

side-road and made it bumpy. Something about one of the trees attracted my 

attention.

Some tinfoil was sticking in a knot-hole just above my eye level, winking at me in 

the afternoon sun. I stood on tiptoe, hastily looked around once more, reached 

into the hole, and withdrew two pieces of chewing gum minus their outer 

wrappers.

My first impulse was to get it into my mouth as quickly as possible, but I 

remembered where I was. I ran home, and on our front porch I examined my loot. 

The gum looked fresh. I sniffed it and it smelled all right. I licked it and waited 

for a while. When I did not die I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley’s Double-

Mint.

When Jem came home he asked me where I got such a wad. I told him I found it.

“Don’t eat things you find, Scout.”

“This wasn’t on the ground, it was in a tree.”

Jem growled.

“Well it was,” I said. “It was sticking in that tree yonder, the one comin‘ from 

school.”

“Spit it out right now!”

I spat it out. The tang was fading, anyway. “I’ve been chewin‘ it all afternoon and 

I ain’t dead yet, not even sick.”

Jem stamped his foot. “Don’t you know you’re not supposed to even touch the 

trees over there? You’ll get killed if you do!”

“You touched the house once!”

“That was different! You go gargle—right now, you hear me?”

“Ain’t neither, it’ll take the taste outa my mouth.”

“You don’t ‘n’ I’ll tell Calpurnia on you!”

Rather than risk a tangle with Calpurnia, I did as Jem told me. For some reason, 

my first year of school had wrought a great change in our relationship: 

Calpurnia’s tyranny, unfairness, and meddling in my business had faded to gentle 

grumblings of general disapproval. On my part, I went to much trouble, 

sometimes, not to provoke her.

Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our 

best season: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep 

in the treehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a 

parched landscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.

The authorities released us early the last day of school, and Jem and I walked home together. “Reckon old Dill’ll be coming home tomorrow,” I said.

“Probably day after,” said Jem. “Mis’sippi turns ‘em loose a day later.”

As we came to the live oaks at the Radley Place I raised my finger to point for the 

hundredth time to the knot-hole where I had found the chewing gum, trying to 

make Jem believe I had found it there, and found myself pointing at another piece 

of tinfoil.

“I see it, Scout! I see it-”

Jem looked around, reached up, and gingerly pocketed a tiny shiny package. We 

ran home, and on the front porch we looked at a small box patchworked with bits 

of tinfoil collected from chewing-gum wrappers. It was the kind of box wedding 

rings came in, purple velvet with a minute catch. Jem flicked open the tiny catch. 

Inside were two scrubbed and polished pennies, one on top of the other. Jem 

examined them.

“Indian-heads,” he said. “Nineteen-six and Scout, one of em’s nineteen-hundred. 

These are real old.”

“Nineteen-hundred,” I echoed. “Say-”

“Hush a minute, I’m thinkin‘.”

“Jem, you reckon that’s somebody’s hidin‘ place?”

“Naw, don’t anybody much but us pass by there, unless it’s some grown 

person’s-”

“Grown folks don’t have hidin‘ places. You reckon we ought to keep ’em, Jem?”

“I don’t know what we could do, Scout. Who’d we give ‘em back to? I know for a 

fact don’t anybody go by there—Cecil goes by the back street an’ all the way 

around by town to get home.”

Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, 

walked a total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and old Mrs. 

Henry Lafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose lived two doors up the street from us; 

neighborhood opinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old 

woman who ever lived. Jem wouldn’t go by her place without Atticus beside him.

“What you reckon we oughta do, Jem?”

Finders were keepers unless title was proven. Plucking an occasional camellia, 

getting a squirt of hot milk from Miss Maudie Atkinson’s cow on a summer day, 

helping ourselves to someone’s scuppernongs was part of our ethical culture, but 

money was different.

“Tell you what,” said Jem. “We’ll keep ‘em till school starts, then go around and 

ask everybody if they’re theirs. They’re some bus child’s, maybe—he was too 

taken up with gettin’ outa school today an‘ forgot ’em. These are somebody’s, I 

know that. See how they’ve been slicked up? They’ve been saved.”

“Yeah, but why should somebody wanta put away chewing gum like that? You 

know it doesn’t last.”

“I don’t know, Scout. But these are important to somebody…”

“How’s that, Jem…?”

“Well, Indian-heads—well, they come from the Indians. They’re real strong 

magic, they make you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you’re not 

lookin‘ for it, but things like long life ’n‘ good health, ’n‘ passin’ six-weeks 

tests… these are real valuable to somebody. I’m gonna put em in my trunk.”

Before Jem went to his room, he looked for a long time at the Radley Place. He 

seemed to be thinking again.

Two days later Dill arrived in a blaze of glory: he had ridden the train by himself 

from Meridian to Maycomb Junction (a courtesy title—Maycomb Junction was in 

Abbott County) where he had been met by Miss Rachel in Maycomb’s one taxi; 

he had eaten dinner in the diner, he had seen two twins hitched together get off 

the train in Bay St. Louis and stuck to his story regardless of threats. He had 

discarded the abominable blue shorts that were buttoned to his shirts and wore 

real short pants with a belt; he was somewhat heavier, no taller, and said he had 

seen his father. Dill’s father was taller than ours, he had a black beard (pointed), 

and was president of the L & N Railroad.

“I helped the engineer for a while,” said Dill, yawning.

“In a pig’s ear you did, Dill. Hush,” said Jem. “What’ll we play today?”

“Tom and Sam and Dick,” said Dill. “Let’s go in the front yard.” Dill wanted the 

Rover Boys because there were three respectable parts. He was clearly tired of

being our character man.

“I’m tired of those,” I said. I was tired of playing Tom Rover, who suddenly lost 

his memory in the middle of a picture show and was out of the script until the 

end, when he was found in Alaska.

“Make us up one, Jem,” I said.

“I’m tired of makin‘ ’em up.”

Our first days of freedom, and we were tired. I wondered what the summer would 

bring.

We had strolled to the front yard, where Dill stood looking down the street at the 

dreary face of the Radley Place. “I—smell—death,” he said. “I do, I mean it,” he 

said, when I told him to shut up.

“You mean when somebody’s dyin‘ you can smell it?”

“No, I mean I can smell somebody an‘ tell if they’re gonna die. An old lady 

taught me how.” Dill leaned over and sniffed me. “Jean—Louise—Finch, you are 

going to die in three days.”

“Dill if you don’t hush I’ll knock you bowlegged. I mean it, now-”

“Yawl hush,” growled Jem, “you act like you believe in Hot Steams.”

“You act like you don’t,” I said.

“What’s a Hot Steam?” asked Dill.

“Haven’t you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot 

place?” Jem asked Dill. “A Hot Steam’s somebody who can’t get to heaven, just 

wallows around on lonesome roads an‘ if you walk through him, when you die 

you’ll be one too, an’ you’ll go around at night suckin‘ people’s breath-”

“How can you keep from passing through one?”

“You can’t,” said Jem. “Sometimes they stretch all the way across the road, but if 

you hafta go through one you say, ‘Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, 

don’t suck my breath.’ That keeps ‘em from wrapping around you-”

“Don’t you believe a word he says, Dill,” I said. “Calpurnia says that’s nigger-

talk.”

Jem scowled darkly at me, but said, “Well, are we gonna play anything or not?”

“Let’s roll in the tire,” I suggested.

Jem sighed. “You know I’m too big.”

“You c’n push.”

I ran to the back yard and pulled an old car tire from under the house. I slapped it 

up to the front yard. “I’m first,” I said.

Dill said he ought to be first, he just got here.

Jem arbitrated, awarded me first push with an extra time for Dill, and I folded 

myself inside the tire.

Until it happened I did not realize that Jem was offended by my contradicting him 

on Hot Steams, and that he was patiently awaiting an opportunity to reward me. 

He did, by pushing the tire down the sidewalk with all the force in his body. 

Ground, sky and houses melted into a mad palette, my ears throbbed, I was 

suffocating. I could not put out my hands to stop, they were wedged between my 

chest and knees. I could only hope that Jem would outrun the tire and me, or that I 

would be stopped by a bump in the sidewalk. I heard him behind me, chasing and 

shouting.

The tire bumped on gravel, skeetered across the road, crashed into a barrier and 

popped me like a cork onto pavement. Dizzy and nauseated, I lay on the cement 

and shook my head still, pounded my ears to silence, and heard Jem’s voice: 

“Scout, get away from there, come on!”

I raised my head and stared at the Radley Place steps in front of me. I froze.

“Come on, Scout, don’t just lie there!” Jem was screaming. “Get up, can’tcha?”

I got to my feet, trembling as I thawed.

“Get the tire!” Jem hollered. “Bring it with you! Ain’t you got any sense at all?”

When I was able to navigate, I ran back to them as fast as my shaking knees 

would carry me.

“Why didn’t you bring it?” Jem yelled.

“Why don’t you get it?” I screamed.

Jem was silent.

“Go on, it ain’t far inside the gate. Why, you even touched the house once,  remember?”

Jem looked at me furiously, could not decline, ran down the sidewalk, treaded 

water at the gate, then dashed in and retrieved the tire.

“See there?” Jem was scowling triumphantly. “Nothin‘ to it. I swear, Scout, 

sometimes you act so much like a girl it’s mortifyin’.”

There was more to it than he knew, but I decided not to tell him.

Calpurnia appeared in the front door and yelled, “Lemonade time! You all get in 

outa that hot sun ‘fore you fry alive!” Lemonade in the middle of the morning was 

a summertime ritual. Calpurnia set a pitcher and three glasses on the porch, then 

went about her business. Being out of Jem’s good graces did not worry me 

especially. Lemonade would restore his good humor.

Jem gulped down his second glassful and slapped his chest. “I know what we are 

going to play,” he announced. “Something new, something different.”

“What?” asked Dill.

“Boo Radley.”

Jem’s head at times was transparent: he had thought that up to make me 

understand he wasn’t afraid of Radleys in any shape or form, to contrast his own 

fearless heroism with my cowardice.

“Boo Radley? How?” asked Dill.

Jem said, “Scout, you can be Mrs. Radley-”

“I declare if I will. I don’t think-”

“‘Smatter?” said Dill. “Still scared?”

“He can get out at night when we’re all asleep…” I said.

Jem hissed. “Scout, how’s he gonna know what we’re doin‘? Besides, I don’t 

think he’s still there. He died years ago and they stuffed him up the chimney.”

Dill said, “Jem, you and me can play and Scout can watch if she’s scared.”

I was fairly sure Boo Radley was inside that house, but I couldn’t prove it, and 

felt it best to keep my mouth shut or I would be accused of believing in Hot 

Steams, phenomena I was immune to in the daytime.

Jem parceled out our roles: I was Mrs. Radley, and all I had to do was come out and sweep the porch. Dill was old Mr. Radley: he walked up and down the 

sidewalk and coughed when Jem spoke to him. Jem, naturally, was Boo: he went 

under the front steps and shrieked and howled from time to time.

As the summer progressed, so did our game. We polished and perfected it, added 

dialogue and plot until we had manufactured a small play upon which we rang 

changes every day.

Dill was a villain’s villain: he could get into any character part assigned him, and 

appear tall if height was part of the devilry required. He was as good as his worst 

performance; his worst performance was Gothic. I reluctantly played assorted 

ladies who entered the script. I never thought it as much fun as Tarzan, and I 

played that summer with more than vague anxiety despite Jem’s assurances that 

Boo Radley was dead and nothing would get me, with him and Calpurnia there in 

the daytime and Atticus home at night.

Jem was a born hero.

It was a melancholy little drama, woven from bits and scraps of gossip and 

neighborhood legend: Mrs. Radley had been beautiful until she married Mr. 

Radley and lost all her money. She also lost most of her teeth, her hair, and her 

right forefinger (Dill’s contribution. Boo bit it off one night when he couldn’t find 

any cats and squirrels to eat.); she sat in the livingroom and cried most of the 

time, while Boo slowly whittled away all the furniture in the house.

The three of us were the boys who got into trouble; I was the probate judge, for a 

change; Dill led Jem away and crammed him beneath the steps, poking him with 

the brushbroom. Jem would reappear as needed in the shapes of the sheriff, 

assorted townsfolk, and Miss Stephanie Crawford, who had more to say about the 

Radleys than anybody in Maycomb.

When it was time to play Boo’s big scene, Jem would sneak into the house, steal 

the scissors from the sewing-machine drawer when Calpurnia’s back was turned, 

then sit in the swing and cut up newspapers. Dill would walk by, cough at Jem, 

and Jem would fake a plunge into Dill’s thigh. From where I stood it looked real.

When Mr. Nathan Radley passed us on his daily trip to town, we would stand still 

and silent until he was out of sight, then wonder what he would do to us if he 

suspected. Our activities halted when any of the neighbors appeared, and once I saw Miss Maudie Atkinson staring across the street at us, her hedge clippers 

poised in midair.

One day we were so busily playing Chapter XXV, Book II of One Man’s Family, 

we did not see Atticus standing on the sidewalk looking at us, slapping a rolled 

magazine against his knee. The sun said twelve noon.

“What are you all playing?” he asked.

“Nothing,” said Jem.

Jem’s evasion told me our game was a secret, so I kept quiet.

“What are you doing with those scissors, then? Why are you tearing up that 

newspaper? If it’s today’s I’ll tan you.”

“Nothing.”

“Nothing what?” said Atticus.

“Nothing, sir.”

“Give me those scissors,” Atticus said. “They’re no things to play with. Does this 

by any chance have anything to do with the Radleys?”

“No sir,” said Jem, reddening.

“I hope it doesn’t,” he said shortly, and went inside the house.

“Je-m…”

“Shut up! He’s gone in the livingroom, he can hear us in there.”

Safely in the yard, Dill asked Jem if we could play any more.

“I don’t know. Atticus didn’t say we couldn’t-”

“Jem,” I said, “I think Atticus knows it anyway.”

“No he don’t. If he did he’d say he did.”

I was not so sure, but Jem told me I was being a girl, that girls always imagined 

things, that’s why other people hated them so, and if I started behaving like one I 

could just go off and find some to play with.

“All right, you just keep it up then,” I said. “You’ll find out.”

Atticus’s arrival was the second reason I wanted to quit the game. The first reason 

happened the day I rolled into the Radley front yard. Through all the head shaking, quelling of nausea and Jem-yelling, I had heard another sound, so low I 

could not have heard it from the sidewalk. Someone inside the house was 

laughing.