Tuesday, May 19, 2009

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.