Journal #9- Chapters 28-31 from the perspective of Aunt Alexandra

Jem and Jean Louise left, they were going to the pageant. I was sorry I couldn’t go but I had inconveniences and was too tired to go. I hope she does well on the pageant.

I was home; I began listening to the radio as well as Atticus. It was dark outside.

I was sitting down quietly when suddenly I heard a noise outside. I went to look at what was going on and I saw Atticus and I man, I had never seen, bring Jem inside the house. Jem was unconscious. Jean Louise was in the front door. I was running to meet her.

“Call Dr. Reynolds!” Atticus’s voice came sharply from Jem’s room. “Where is Scout?”

“Here she is,” I called, pulling Jean Louise along with me to the telephone. I tugged at Jean Louise anxiously. “I’m all right, Aunty,” she said, “you better call.”

I pulled the receiver from the hook and said, “Eula May, get Dr. Reynolds, quick!”

“Agnes, is your father home? Oh God, where is he? Please tell him to come over here as soon as he comes in. Please it’s urgent!”

Atticus came out of Jem’s room. The moment I broke the connection, Atticus took the receiver from me. He rattled the hook, then said, “Eula May, get me the sheriff, please.”

“Heck? Atticus Finch. Someone’s been after my children. Jem’s hurt. Between here and the schoolhouse. I can’t leave my boy. Run out there for me, please, and see if he’s still around. Doubt if you’ll find him now, but I’d like to see him if you do. Got to go now. Thanks, Heck.”

“Atticus, is Jem dead?”

“No, Scout. Look after her, sister,” he called, as he went down the hall.

My fingers trembled as I unwound the crushed fabric and wire from Jean Louise.

“Aunty, is Jem dead?”

I guess Jean Louise was so scared she allegedly thought Jem was dead.

“No-no, darling, he’s unconscious. We won’t know how badly he’s hurt until Dr. Reynolds gets here. Jean Louise, what happened?”

“I don’t know.”

I consented to leave it at that. I brought Jean Louise something to put on.

“Put these on, darling,” I said.

Dr. Reynolds then arrived. He went into Jem's room. When he emerged, he informed Scout that Jem had a broken arm and a bump on his head, but that he will be all right.

Later, Heck Tate arrived. As he came in he said, “You all right, Scout?”

“Yes sir, I’m goin’ in to see Jem. Atticus’n’them’s in there.”

“I’ll go with you,” said Heck.

Heck and Jean Louise came in to see Jem.

“Jem…..?”

“He can’t hear you, Scout, he’s out like a light. He was coming around, but Dr. Reynolds put him out again,” said Atticus.

I was sitting in a rocking-chair by the fireplace. Atticus was standing by Jem’s bed. Heck stood in the doorway. His hat was in his hand, and a flashlight bulged from his pants pocket.

“Come in, Heck,” said Atticus. “Did you find anything? I can’t conceive of anyone low-down enough to do a thing like this, but I hope you found him.”

“Sit down, Mr. Finch,” he said pleasantly.

“Let’s all sit down. Have that chair, Heck. I’ll get another one from the livingroom.”

“Mr. Finch,” said Heck, “tell you what I found. I found a little girl’s dress-it’s out there in my car. That your dress, Scout?”

“Yes sir, if it’s a pink one with smockin’,” she said.

“I found some funny-looking pieces of muddy-colored cloth-”

“That’s m’costume, Mr. Tate.”

“What is it Heck?” said Atticus.

“Bob Ewell’s lyin’ on the ground under that tree down yonder with a kitchen knife stuck up under his ribs. He’s dead, Mr. Finch.”

By what Heck said I believed Jem and Jean Louise were persecuted by Bob Ewell.

We stayed in Jem’s room and as Heck Tate began looking at Jem’s injuries, Jean Louise started telling us what happened. Later, Heck Tate showed Jean Louise her costume with a mark on it where a knife slashed and was stopped by the wire.

After a while, Scout took the man that brought Jem inside the house down to the porch and they sat by Atticus and Heck Tate. Atticus and Heck were arguing about who had killed Bob Ewell. Atticus thought it was Jem and Heck said that Bob Ewell’s death was an accident. The argument ended when Heck told Atticus: “Let the dead bury the dead.”

Jean Louise and the country-man went upstairs to say goodnight to Jem. Then Jean Louise walked the man to his house.

As I was in my room I thought about everything that had happened tonight. My assessment to these events were to be surprised to think of how mean Bob Ewell was to try to kill two innocent children because of a trial. I sometimes couldn’t understand people and the way they behave. Before falling asleep, I heard Atticus reading a book to Jean Louise and telling her something about nice people that caught my attention: “Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them.”

Journal #8- Chapters 25-27 from the perspective of Jem

September had begun and Scout and I were on the back porch when Scout noticed a roly-poly bug. She sustained it. She was about to mash it with her hand when I said, “Don’t do that, Scout. Set him out on the back steps.”

“Jem, are you crazy?......”

“I said set him out on the back of the steps.”

Sighing, Scout scooped up the small creature, placed him on the bottom step and went back to her cot.

“Why couldn’t I mash him?” Scout asked.

“Because they don’t bother you,” I answered in the darkness. I had turned out my reading light.

“Reckon you’re at the stage now where you don’t kill flies and mosquitoes now, I reckon,” Scout said. “Lemme know when you change your mind. Tell you one thing, though, I ain’t gonna sit around and not scratch a redbug.”

“Aw dry up,” I answered.

I suddenly remembered the last two days of August when Dill and I ran into Atticus as we started home from swimming. I had convinced Atticus to let Dill and I accompany him to Helen Robinson’s house, where we saw her collapse even before Atticus could say that her husband, Tom, was dead. It was obscure how Tom really died. I thought Tom’s death was a result of him allegedly raping Mayella. I don’t know how people can be so mean.

Meanwhile, the news occupied Maycomb’s attention for about two days, and everyone agreed that it was typical for a black man to do something irrational like try to escape. Mr. Underwood wrote a long editorial condemning Tom’s death as the murder of an innocent man.

Miss Stephanie Crawford told Aunt Alexandra in my presence that Mr. Ewell said it made one down and about two more to go. I told Scout not to be afraid; Mr. Ewell was more hot gas than anything. I also told Scout that if she breathed a word to Atticus, if in any way she let Atticus know she knew, I would personally never speak to her again.

The summer ended and Dill had to go back to Meridian.

School started and so did our daily trips past the Radley Place. I was in the seventh grade and went to high school, beyond the grammar-school building; Scout was in the third grade, our routines were different I only walked to school with Scout in the mornings and saw her mealtimes.

I went out for football, but I was too slender and too young yet to do anything but carry the team water buckets. This I did with enthusiasm; most afternoons I was seldom home before dark.

One day in school, Scout told me that her third-grade teacher, Miss Gates, had lectured her about how Hitler persecuted the Jews and about the virtues of equality and democracy. Later, Scout asked me how Miss Gates could preach about equality when she came out of the courthouse after the trial and told Miss Stephanie Crawford that it was about time that someone taught the blacks in town a lesson. I was about to answer her question and say that it meant that Miss Gates was a hypocrite but when I heard the word “trial” I became furious and told Scout, “I never wanta hear about the courthouse again, ever, ever, you hear me? You hear me? Now go on!”

Scout crept from my room and shut the door softly. I heard her talking to Atticus. Atticus told her softly, “Don’t let Jem get you down. He’s having a rough time these days. I heard you go back there.”

Journal #7- Chapters 20-24 from the perspective of Miss Maudie

I was outside; Stephanie Crawford was gossiping with Mr. Avery and I. Jem, Jean Louise and that boy Dill came out on the front porch. I looked at them as they were talking. Then I called Jem Finch to come over.

Jem groaned and heaved himself up from the swing.

Stephanie Crawford’s nose quivered with curiosity. She wanted to know who all gave them permission to go to the court. She started asking them lots of questions until I said, “Hush, Stephanie.”

“I’ve not got all the morning to pass on the porch-Jem Finch, I called to find out if you and your colleagues can eat some cake. Got up at five to make it, so you better say yes. Excuse us, Stephanie. Good morning, Mr. Avery,” I said.

They accepted and we went inside the kitchen. There was a big cake and two little ones on my kitchen table. I gave Dill and Jean Louise each a little cake and I gave Jem Finch a slice of cake from the big one.

They began eating their cakes and suddenly I said, “Don’t fret, Jem. Things are never as bad as they seem.”

I had heard from Stephanie and from the whole town that Tom Robinson was found guilty. There was always the possibility, no matter how improbable, that he was innocent but I guess the jury could never rule on a black person’s favor. I thought the court had committed a fraud against Tom because I am pretty sure he was innocent. I also heard from Stephanie that before the jury went on to tell whether Tom was innocent or guilty, Atticus said in his closing statement, “But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal-there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentleman, is a court.”

“I simply want to tell you that there are some men in this world who were born to do our unpleasant jobs for us. Your father’s one of them,” I continued.

“Oh,” said Jem. “Well.”

“Don’t you oh well me, sir,” I replied, “you are not old enough to appreciate what I said.”

“It’s like bein’ a caterpillar in a cocoon, that’s what it is,” he said. “Like somethin’ asleep wrapped up in a warm place. I always thought Maycomb folks were the best folks in the world, least that’s what they seemed like.”

“We’re the safest folks in the world,” I said. “We’re so rarely called on to be Christians, but when we are, we’ve got men like Atticus to go for us.”

Jem grinned ruefully. “Wish the rest of the county thought that.”

“You’d be surprised how many of us.”

“Who in this town did one thing to help Tom Robinson, just who?” asked Jem.

“His colored friends for one thing, and people like us. People like Judge Taylor. People like Mr. Heck Tate. Stop eating and start thinking Jem. Did it ever strike you that Judge Taylor naming Atticus to defend that boy was no accident? That Judge Taylor might have had his reasons for naming him?”

As the children left my house, Miss Stephanie ran over to tell them that Bob Ewell accosted their father that morning, spat on him, and swore revenge. Mr. Bob Ewell was a veteran of an obscure war. I didn’t know much about him but I guess he was not a nice person.

The next day I saw Jem and Jean Louise dragging around the neighborhood, taking little interest in their normal pursuits, I discovered how deeply frightened they were about their father and Mr. Ewell.

Journal #6- Chapters 16-19 from the perspective of Mayella Ewell

We were outside the courtroom. Everyone was there from Maycomb even people who I had never seen where there. I guess everyone was interested in this case of Tom Robinson. I wonder how he feels right now. Does he feel as nervous as I do? I think today is going to be a long day I hope I can go through all of it. I hope that Tom Robinson is found guilty.
Inside the courtroom I heard a little girl say, “Judge Taylor permits smoking in his room but he does not himself indulge.”
I was sat down quietly. Mr. Gilmer called Mr. Heck Tate up to testify. He recounted how on the night of November 21, my dad urged him to go to our house and told him that I had been raped. When Tate got there, he found me bruised and beaten, and I told him that Tom Robinson had raped me. Atticus came up and crossed examined the witness, who admitted that no doctor was summoned, and told Atticus that my bruises were concentrated on the right side of my face. Tate left the stand, and my dad was called up to testify.
Suddenly I started hearing people talking about us. I guess we were not really liked by the town of Maycomb because we are Ewells. We live behind the town garbage dump in a tin-roofed cabin with a yard full of trash. Our house was probably the worst house of the town. I don't like being a Ewell; my life is really bad. I have no friends I just stay in that horrible house and do chores all day. My dad takes the welfare money and he just drinks. He gets really different when he is drunk sometimes he just hits me. I hate it when that happens.
My dad testified that on the evening in question he was coming out of the woods with a load of kindling when he heard me yelling. When he reached the house, he looked in the window and saw Tom Robinson raping me. Robinson fled, and, my dad went into the house, saw that I was all right and ran for the sheriff. Atticus later cross-examined my dad. He asked my dad why no doctor was called. He said the doctor was too expensive. Then he made him write his name. My dad wrote on the back of the envelope and looked up complacently to see Judge Taylor staring at him as if he were some fragment gardenia in full bloom on the witness stand.
“What's so interestin'?” my dad asked.
“You're left-handed, Mr. Ewell,” said Judge Taylor. My dad turned angrily to the judge and said he didn't see what his being left-handed had to do with it, that fearing man and Atticus Finch was taking advantage of him. I guess he was really angry because that would prove that a left-handed man would be more likely to leave bruises on the right side of a girl's face. I was scared, that white lawyer would keep asking my dad those questions and making the truth come out. The impression in my face dispelled when that white lawyer stopped asking those questions to my Papa. I was called up to testify.
“Mayella Violet Ewell-!” I went stealthy to the witness stand.
Mr. Gilmer asked me to tell the jury in my own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first of last year, just in my own words, please.
I sat silently.
“Where were you at dusk on that evening?” began Mr. Gilmer amiably.
“On the porch,” I said.
“Which porch?”
“Ain't but one, the front porch.”
“What were you doing on the porch?”
“Nothin'.”
Judge Taylor said, “Just tell us what happened. You can do that can't you?”
I stared at him and burst into tears. I covered my mouth with my hands and sobbed.
Judge Taylor let me cry for a while, then he said, “That's enough now. Don't be 'fraid of anybody here, as long as you tell the truth. All this is strange to you, I know, but you've nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear. What are you scared of?”
I said something behind my hands. “What was that?” asked the judge.
“Him,” I sobbed, pointing at Atticus.
“Mr. Finch?”
I nodded vigorously, saying, “Don't want him doin' me like he done my Papa, tryin' to make him out left-handed...”
Judge Taylor scratched his thick white hair.
“How old are you?” he asked.
“Nineteen-and-a-half,” I said.
“Mr. Finch has no idea of scaring you,” he growled, “and if he did, I’m here to stop him. That’s one thing I’m sitting up here for. Now you’re a big girl, so you just sit up straight and tell the-tell us what happened to you. You can do that, can’t you?”
I started telling Mr. Gilmer my side of the story I said I called Tom Robinson inside the fence that evening and offered him a nickel to break up a dresser for me, and that once he got inside the house he grabbed me and took advantage of me. In Atticus’s cross-examination he asked me weird questions like if I had friends. At first I thought he was making fun of me but I guess he wasn’t. I mostly revealed that my life consisted of seven unhelpful siblings, a drunken father and no friends.
Atticus then examined my testimony and asked me why I didn’t put up a better fight, why my screams didn’t bring the other children running, and most important how Tom Robinson managed the crime: how he bruised the right side of my face with his useless left hand, which was torn apart by a cotton gin when he was a boy, thats what all the town would say. Atticus pleaded with me to admit that there was no rape, that my father beat me up. I shouted at him and yelled that the courtroom would have to be a bunch of cowards not to convict Tom Robinson: then I just burst into tears, and refused to answer any more questions.
After that we went on a ten minute recess.
After the recess Tom Robinson was called up to testify. I was a I little nervous about what he could say.
Tom Robinson testified that he always passed our house on the way to work and that I often asked him to do chores for me. On the evening in question, he recounted, I asked him to come inside the house and fix a door, and he noticed that the other children were gone. He said I told him I had saved my money and sent them all to buy ice cream. Then he said I asked him to lift a box down from a dresser. When Tom climbed on a chair, I grabbed his legs, scaring him so much that he jumped down. I then hugged him around the waist and asked him to kiss me. As I struggled, my father appeared at the window, calling me a whore and threatening to kill me. Tom fled. This was mostly the true story but I had to pretend this had not happen and that what I said first was true or if not I don’t know what my father would do to me.

Link Deas, Tom's white employer, stood up and declared that in eight years of work, he had never had any trouble from Tom. Judge Taylor furiously expelled Deas from the courtroom for interrupting. Mr. Gilmer got up and cross-examined Tom. The prosecutor pointed out that the defendant was once arrested for disorderly conduct and got Tom to admit that he had the strength, even with one hand, to choke the breath out of a woman and sling her to the floor. He began to badger the witness, asking about his motives for always helping me with my chores, until Tom declared that he felt sorry for me. This statement put the courtroom ill at ease—in Maycomb, black people weren't supposed to feel sorry for a white person. Mr. Gilmer reviewed my testimony, accusing Tom of lying about everything. I felt really happy because that Tom Robinson was goin’ to be found guilty.

Journal #5- Chapters 13-15 from the perspective of Dill

I was in Scout's room; I had ran away from home, the lights in her room where off. Suddenly, she came in and stepped on me and then she turn on the light. When she turned on the light I hid under Scout's bed. She went and knock on Jem's room.
“What,” said Jem.
“How does a snake feel?” said Scout.
“Sort of rough. Cold. Dusty. Why?”
“I think there's one under my bed. Can you look?”
“Are you bein' funny?” I heard Jem open the door.
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.”
Then I heard Jem leave and a little after he came and said, “You better get up on the bed.”
“You reckon it's really one?” Scout said.
Then he began to swipe under the bed where I was. Later, he made a deeper swipe.
“Do snakes grunt?” said Scout.
“It ain't a snake,” Jem said. “It's somebody.”
Suddenly, I just came from under the bed. Jem raised the broom and missed my head by an inch when it appeared.
“God Almighty,” Jem said.
I emerged by degrees. I stood up and eased my shoulders, turned my feet in their ankle sockets, rubbed the back of my neck. My circulation restored and I said, “Hey.” Jem petitioned God. Scout was speechless.
“I'm'bout to perish,” I said. “Got anything to eat?” Scout went to the kitchen and brought me some milk and half a pan of corn bread. I devoured it, chewing with my front teeth, as was my custom.
Scout said, “How'd you get here?”
I told them that I had been bound in chains and left to die in the basement by my new father, who disliked me, and secretly kept alive on raw field peas by a passing farmer who heard my cries for help (the good man poked a bushel pod by pod through the ventilator), I worked myself free by pulling the chains from the wall. Still in wrist manacles, I wandered two miles out of Meridian where I discovered a small animal show and I was immediately engaged to wash the camel. I traveled with the show all over Mississippi until my infallible sense of direction told me I was in Abbott County, Alabama, just across the river from Maycomb. I walked the rest of the way.
“How’d you get here?” asked Jem.
I told them the real story. I had taken thirteen dollars from my mom’s purse, caught the nine o’clock from Meridian and got off at Maycomb Junction. I had walked ten or eleven of the fourteen miles to Maycomb, off the highway in the scrub bushes lest the authorities be seeking me, and I had ridden the remainder of the way clinging to the backboard of a cotton wagon. I had been under the bed for two hours, I thought; I had heard Jem and Scout in the diningroom, and the clink of forks on plates nearly drove me crazy. I thought Jem and Scout would never go to bed: I had considered emerging and helping Scout beat Jem, but I knew Mr. Finch would break it up soon, so I thought it best to stay where I was.
“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.” I grinned.
“You oughta let your mother know where you are,” said Jem. “You oughta let her know you’re here…”
Later, Jem went down the hall and told Atticus I was there. I got scared for a moment because I didn’t want to go back to Meridian. Atticus came in the room and asked Scout to get me more food than a pan of cold corn bread, before going next door to tell my aunt, Miss Rachel, of my whereabouts. I ate, then I got into Jem’s bed to sleep, but soon I climb over to Scout’s bed and we started talking about why I had ran away from home. I told Scout that I ran away from home because my mother and new father did not pay enough attention to me. Later I told Scout that we should get us a baby. I told her there was a man I had heard of who had a boat that he rowed across to a foggy island where all these babies were; you could order one-
“That’s a lie. Aunty said God drops em’ down the chimney. At least that’s what I think she said” said Scout.
“Dill?”
“Mm?”
"Why do you reckon Boo Radley’s never run off?”
I sighed a long sigh and turned away from Scout.
“Maybe he doesn’t have anywhere to run off to…”


After many telephone calls, much pleading on behalf the defendant, which was me, and a long forgiving letter from my mother, it was decided that I could stay.
A week after my arrival, a group of men led by the sheriff, Heck Tate, came to Atticus's house in the evening. Atticus went outside to talk to the group of men while Jem, Scout, and I looked at him through the windows in the livingroom. They were talking about Tom Robinson.
“…movin’ him to the county jail tomorrow,” Mr. Tate was saying, “I don’t look for any trouble, but I can’t guarantee there won’t be any…”
“Don’t be foolish, Heck,” Atticus said. “This is Maycomb.”
“..said I was just unesy.”
“Heck, we’ve gotten one postponement of this case just to make sure there’s nothing to be uneasy about. This is Saturday,” Atticus said. “Trial’ll probably Monday. You can keep him one night, can’t you? I don’t think anybody in Maycomb’ll begrudge me a client, with times this hard.”
Atticus kept talking to those men until Jem screamed, “Atticus, the telephone’s ringing!”
Then Atticus came in and saw us all in the livingroom.
Later, Scout walked home with me.
The next evening at about ten o’clock Jem whistled bobwhite in front of my window. My face appeared at the screen, disappeared, and five minutes later I unhooked the screen and crawled out. I did not speak until we were on the sidewalk.
“What’s up?”
We followed Atticus to the town center. From a distance, we saw Atticus sitting in front of the Maycomb jail, reading a newspaper. He was sitting in one of his office chairs, and he was reading, oblivious of the nightbugs dancing over his head. Jem suggested that we didn't disturb Atticus and return home.
At that moment, four cars drove into Maycomb and parked near the jail. A group of men got out, and one demanded that Atticus move away from the jailhouse door. Atticus refused, and Scout suddenly came racing out of our hiding place next door, only to realize that this group of men differed from the group that came to Jem and Scout’s house the previous night. Jem and I followed her, and Atticus ordered Jem to go home. Jem refused, and one of the men told Atticus that he had fifteen seconds to get his children to leave.
Meanwhile, Scout looked around the group and recognized Mr. Walter Cunningham. She started talking to him about his legal entailments and his son, and asked him to tell his son “hey.” All of the men stare at her. Mr. Cunningham, suddenly ashamed, squated down and told Scout that he will tell his son “hey” for her, and then told his companions to clear out. They depart, and Mr. Underwood, the owner of the newspaper, spoke from a nearby window where he was positioned with a double-barreled shotgun: “Had you covered all the time, Atticus.” Atticus and Mr. Underwood talked for a while. Finally Atticus returned, switched off the light above the jail door, and picked up his chair.
“Can I carry it for you, Mr. Finch?” I asked. I had not said a word the whole time.
“Why, thank you, son.”
Walking toward the office, Scout and I fell into step behind Atticus and Jem. I was encumbered by the chair, and my pace was slower. Atticus and Jem were well ahead of us. As they passed under a streetlight, Atticus reached out and massaged Jem’s hair. I didn’t know what that meant and Scout told me it was Atticus’s one gesture of affection.

Journal #4- Chapters 10-12 from the perspective of Atticus

I was nearly fifty years old. Once Jem and Scout asked me why I was so old, I said I got started late. I was much older than the parents of Jem and Scout’s school contemporaries.
Jem was football crazy. I was never too tired to keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle me I would say, “I’m too old for that, son.”
Sometimes I thought Jem and Scout thought I couldn’t do anything because I was fifty. I worked in an office and not in a drugstore. I did not drive a dump-truck for the county, I was not a sheriff, I did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone, as Scout would say. Besides all that, I wore glasses. I was nearly blind in my left eye, and would say that left eyes are the tribal curse of the Finches. Whenever I wanted to see something well, I turned my head and looked from my right eye. Sometimes I would hear Scout talking to Jem about me. Scout would say that I did not do things her schoolmates’ fathers did: I never went hunting, I did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. I just sat in the livingroom and read. One day as I came home for dinner I heard Scout say to Jem, “Atticus would not remain as inconspicuous as we wished him to: this year, the school has been buzzing with talk about him defending Tom Robinson.” Later, I thought about Tom Robinson and how people would judge him for being a different color and judge me because I was defending him.
When I gave Jem and Scout their air-riffles I wouldn’t teach them to shoot. Jack instructed them in the rudiments thereof; he said I wasn’t interested in guns. I 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.”
The next day when I came home to dinner I found Scout crouched down aiming across the street. “What are you shooting at?” I said.
“Miss Maudie’s rear end,” said Scout.
I turned and saw Scout’s generous target bending over Miss Maudie’s bushes. I pushed my hat to the back of my head and crossed the street. “Maudie,” I called, “I thought I’d better warn you. You’re in considerable peril.”
Miss Maudie straightened up and looked toward Scout. She said, “Atticus, you are a devil from hell.”
When I returned I told Scout to break camp. “Don’t you ever let me catch you pointing that gun at anybody again,” I said.
Later, Jem asked me if I was going out for the Methodists and I said I’d break my neck if I did, I 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.
One Saturday I received a phone call at work from Calpurnia.
“Mr. Finch!” she shouted. “This is Cal. I swear to God there’s a mad dog down the street a piece-he’s coming this way, yes sir, he’s- Mr. Finch...”
I decided to go home immediately with Mr. Heck Tate. Mr. Heck Tate was the sheriff of Maycomb County. When Mr. Heck Tate and I reached the porch, Jem opened the door.
“Stay inside, son,” I said. “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,” said Calpurnia.
“Should we go after him, Heck?” I asked.
“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,” said Mr. Heck.
“Don’t think he’ll get in the Radley Yard,” I said. “Fence’ll stop him. He’ll probably follow the road…”
I put my foot on the rung of a chair and rubbed my hands slowly down of my thigh.
“There he is,” I said softly.
“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,” said Scout.
“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.”
“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.”
I 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.”
“Take him, Mr. Finch.” Mr. Tate handed me the rifle.
“Don’t waste time, Heck,” I said. “Go on.”
“Mr. Finch, this is a one-shot job.”
I shook my 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 me. “I’d feel mighty comfortable if you did now,” he said.
I took the gun and walked out into the middle of the street. I pushed my glasses to my forehead: they slipped down, and I dropped them in the street.
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 on our street. He made two steps forward, then stopped and raised his head. My hand yanked a ball-tipped lever as I brought the gun to my 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,” I answered. “If I had my ’druthers I’d take a shotgun.”
I stooped and picked up my glasses, ground the broken lenses to powder under my heel; I 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.
When I saw Jem and Scout coming I called, “Stay where you are.”
When Mr. Tate and I 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.”
I was silent.
“Atticus?” said Jem.
“Yes?”
“Nothin’.”
“I saw that, One-Shot Finch!”
I wheeled around and faced Miss Maudie. We looked at one another without saying anything, and I got into the sheriff’s car. “Come here,” I 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,” I said, “let’s go back to town.”
As we drove away I thought about what Jem and Scout would say when they found out I was the deadest shot in Maycomb County in my time.

Mrs. Dubose lived alone except for a 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. Countless evenings I would find Jem furious at something Mrs. Dubose had said when they went by her house.
“Easy does it, son,” I 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.”
When the three of us came to her house, I would sweep off my hat, wave gallantly to her and say, “Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening.”
I would tell her the courthouse news, and would say I hoped with all my heart she’d have a good day tomorrow. I would return my hat to my head, swing Scout to my shoulders in her very presence, and we would go home in the twilight.
One day as I was coming from work Mrs. Dubose called me and said Jem had cut the tops off every camellia bush she owned.
I switched on the ceiling light in the livingroom and found Jem and Scout there, frozen still. I carried Scout’s baton in one hand. I held out my other hand; it contained fat camellia buds.
“Jem,” I 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,” I said. “Come straight home afterward.”
Jem did not move.
“Go on, I said.”
Scout followed Jem out of the livingroom. “Come back here,” I said to Scout. Scout came back.
I picked up the Mobile Press and sat down in the rocking chair Jem had vacated. Scout was hiding in my lap and my arms were around her.
“You’re mighty big to be rocked,” I said.
“You don’t care what happens to him,” Scout said. “You just send him on to get shot at when all he was doin’ was standin’ up for you.”
I pushed my head under my chin. “It’s not time to worry yet,” I said. “I never thought Jem’d be the one to lose his head over this-thought I’d have more trouble with you.”
Scout said she didn’t see why they had to keep their head anyway, that nobody she knew at school had to keep his head about anything.
“Scout,” I said, “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,” I said, “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, Scout was still in my lap.
“Well, son? I said. I set Scout on her feet, and Scout made a secret reconnaissance of Jem.
“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,” I said. “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.”
“Atticus,” Jem 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.”
Finally Jem said, “Atticus, it’s all right on the sidewalk but inside it’s-it’s dark and creepy. There’s shadows and things on the ceilings…”
I smiled grimly. “That should appeal to your imagination. Just pretend you’re inside the Radley house.”
The following days Jem went with Scout to read to Mrs. Dubose. A little more than one month passed and Jem finally finished. I was in the middle of Windy Seaton’s column one evening when the telephone rang.
I answered it, then I went to the hat rack in the hall. “I’m going down to Mrs. Dubose for a while,” I said. “I won’t be long.”
When I returned I was carrying a candy box. I sat down in the livingroom and put the box on the floor beside my chair.
“What’d she want?” asked Jem.
“She’s dead, son,” I said. “She died a few minutes ago.”
“Oh,” said Jem. “Well.”
“Well is right,” I said. “She’s not suffering anymore. 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,” I said. “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 was too contrary-”
“Sir?” said Jem.
I 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,” I said. “She was conscious to the last, almost. Conscious,” I 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-”
I reached down and picked up the candy box. I handed it to Jem. Jem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a white, waxy, perfect camellia. It was Snow-on-the-Mountain.
“Old hell-devil, old hell-devil!” Jem screamed, flinging it down. “Why can’t she leave me alone?”
I stood up and Jem buried his face in my shirt front. “Sh-h,” I 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. “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 did beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew.”
Jem picked up the candy box and threw it on the fire. He picked up the camellia, and went off to bed.

Journal #3- Chapters 8-9 from the perspective of Jem

We had two weeks of the coldest weather since 1885, Atticus said. Mr. Avery said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes and made war on each other, the seasons would change: Scout and I were burdened with the guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature, thereby causing unhappiness to our neighbors and discomfort to ourselves.
Old Mrs. Radley died that winter, but her death caused hardly a ripple- the neighborhood seldom saw her, except when she watered her cannas. Scout and I decided that Boo had got her at last, but when Atticus returned from the Radley house he said she died of natural causes, to our disappointment.
“Ask him,” I whispered.
“You ask him, you’re the oldest,” said Scout.
“That’s why you oughta ask him,” I said.
“Atticus,” Scout said, “did you see Mr. Arthur?”
Atticus looked sternly around his newspaper at Scout: “I did not.”
I restrained Scout from further questions. I told her that Atticus was still touchous about us and the Radleys and it wouldn’t do to push him any. I had a notion that Atticus thought our activities that night last summer were not solely confirmed to strip poker. I had no firm basis for my ideas; I said it was merely a twitch.
Next morning, it was snowing. I had never seen snow, but I knew what it was, Atticus said he didn’t know any more about snow than I did. “I think, though, if it’s watery like that, it’ll turn to rain.”
The telephone rang and Atticus left the breakfast table to answer it. “That was Eula May,” he said when he returned. “I quote-‘As it has not snowed in Maycomb County since 1885, there will be no school today.’ ”
Eula May was Maycomb’s leading telephone operator. She was entrusted with issuing public announcements, wedding invitations, setting off the fire siren, and giving first-aid instructions when Dr. Reynolds was away.
When Atticus finally called us to order and bade us look at our plates instead of out the windows, I asked, “How do you make a snowman?”
“I haven’t the slightest idea,” said Atticus. “I don’t want you all to be disappointed, but I doubt if there’ll be enough snow for a snowball, even.”
Scout and I went with Miss Maudie and asked her if we could borrow some of her snow and she said: “Heavens alive, take it all! There’s an old peach basket under the house, haul it off in that.”
Scout and I haul as much snow as we could from Miss Maudie’s yard to our own. Since there was still not enough snow to make a real snowman, Scout and I build a small figure out of dirt and covered it with snow. We made it look like Mr. Avery, an unpleasant man who lives down our street. When Atticus got home for dinner he saw our snowman and saw that the figure’s likeness to Mr. Avery was so strong that he demanded us to disguise it. I decided to place Miss Maudie’s sunhat on its head and stocked her hedge clippers in its hands. The snow stopped in the afternoon, the temperature dropped, and by nightfall Mr. Avery’s direst predictions came true: Calpurnia kept every fireplace in the house blazing, but we were cold. When Atticus came home that evening he said we were in for it, and asked Calpurnia if she wanted to stay with us for the night. Calpurnia glanced up at the high ceilings and long windows and said she thought she’d be warmer at her house. Atticus drove her home in the car.
Minutes later that I had fallen asleep I was woken up by Atticus. Then we both went to go wake up Scout.
“Baby, get up,” Atticus told Scout.
Atticus was holding out Scout’s bathrobe and coat. “Put your robe on first,” he said.
I was standing beside Atticus, holding my overcoat closed at the neck, my other hand was jammed into my pocket.
“Hurry, hon,” said Atticus. “Here’re your shoes and socks.”
“Whose is it?” said Scout.
“Miss Maudie’s, hon.” said Atticus gently.
At the front door, we saw fire spewing from Miss Maudie’s diningroom windows. As if to confirm what we saw, the town fire siren wailed up the scale to a treble pitch and remained there, screaming.
“It’s gone, ain’t it?” I moaned.
“I expect so,” said Atticus. “Now listen, both of you. Go down and stand in front of the Radley Place. Keep out of the way, do you hear? See which way the wind’s blowing?”
“Oh,” I said. “Atticus, reckon we oughta start moving the furniture out?”
“Not yet, son. Do as I tell you. Run now. Take care of Scout, you hear? Don’t let her out of sight.”
The old fire truck, killed by the cold, was being pushed from town by a crowd of men. When the men attached its hose to a hydrant, the hose burst and water shot up, tinkling down on the pavement.
“Oh-h Lord, Jem…” said Scout.
I put my arm around Scout. “Hush, Scout,” I said. “It ain’t time to worry yet. I’ll let you know when.”
Scout and I would see how the neighbors were trying to help save Miss Maudie’s furniture. Later, another fire truck appeared and stopped in front of Miss Stephanie Crawford’s. There was no hydrant for another hose, and the men tried to soak her house with hand extinguishers.
Miss Maudie’s tin roof quelled the flames. Roaring, the house collapsed; fire gushed everywhere, followed by a flurry of blankets from men on top of the adjacent houses, beating out sparks and burning chunks of wood. Once everything was over Scout, Atticus, and I went home. Atticus asked us if we wanted chocolate and Scout and I agreed. As we drank our cocoa Atticus began looking at Scout and then he asked her where she got the blanket she had on from. I looked at Scout and noticed that Scout had a brown woolen blanket.
Scout turned to me for an answer, but I was even more bewildered than her. I said I didn’t know how it got there, we did exactly as Atticus had told us, we stood down by the Radley gate away from everybody, we didn’t move an inch-I stopped.
“Mr. Nathan was at the fire,” I babbled, “I saw him, I saw him, he was tuggin’ that mattress-Atticus, I swear…”
“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!” I said.
Suddenly, I began pouring out our secrets right and left in total disregard, 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, Atticus-”
Atticus said, “Whoa, son.”
“You’re right. We’d better keep this and the blanket to ourselves. Somebody, maybe, Scout can thank him for covering her up.”
“Thank who?” Scout asked.
“Boo Radley. You were so busy looking at the fire you didn’t know it when he put the blanket around you”
Next day, despite having lost her house, Miss Maudie was cheerful.
“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 Mauduie said. Miss Maudie puzzled Scout and I. With most of her possessions gone and her beloved yard a shambles, she still took a lively and cordial interest in Scout and my affairs.
She must have seen Scout’s 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.”
At school, Scout nearly starts a fight with a classmate named Cecil Jacobs after Cecil declares that Atticus defends niggers. Atticus has been asked to defend Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. It is a case he cannot hope to win, but he tells Scout that he must argue it to uphold his sense of justice and self-respect.
At Christmastime, Atticus's brother, Jack, comes to stay with Atticus for a week during the holidays. Scout generally gets along well with Uncle Jack, but when he arrives in Maycomb, she begins cursing in front of him (a habit that she has recently picked up). On Christmas Day, Atticus took Scout and I and Jack to Finch's Landing, a rambling old house in the country where Atticus's sister, Alexandra, and her husband live. There, Scout endures Francis, Alexandra's grandson, who had been dropped off at Finch's Landing for the holiday. Scout thinks Francis is the most “boring” child she has ever met. He is a year older than Scout and she avoids him on principle: he enjoyed everything she disapproved of, and disliked her indigenous diversions. She also has to put up with the prim and proper Alexandra, who was fanatical on the subject of Scout’s attire and insists that Scout dress like a lady instead of wearing pants.

One night, Francis told Scout that Dill was a runt and then called Atticus a “nigger-lover.” Scout curses him and beats him up. Later, Francis told Alexandra and Uncle Jack that Scout hit him, and Uncle Jack spanked her without hearing her side of the story. After we return to Maycomb, Scout told Jack what Francis said and Jack becomes furious. Scout makes him promise not to tell Atticus, however, because Atticus had asked her not to fight anyone over what is said about him. Jack promises and keeps his word.