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
School started and so did our daily trips past the
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.”
