Harper Lee – To Kill a Mockingbird, Jan 21, 2019

First Edition Cover, 1960

To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM) by Harper Lee has become a classic novel of young adult literature in America. Boys and girls read it in school as an assignment by the age of twelve or thirteen. Just as with other challenging books, attempts have been made to block it from juvenile readers, under one pretext or another. The vain attempt to stifle literature has now stopped.

KumKum and Devika

Perhaps TKAM owes its fame even more to the film that was released in 1962 within two years of the novel’s publication. Atticus Finch (AF) was played by Gregory Peck and the character of AF has more or less become identified with Peck. The identification was so complete, and the performance of such quality, that the author, Harper Lee, (who died in 2015) never gave her consent to a second movie version.

Pamela, Zakia, Kavita, and Geetha

In the law profession there has been a movement to identify the virtues of the legal profession with the grit and character shown by AF. He has been cited as a role model for lawyers. However, a debate was sparked in 1992 by professor of law, Monroe Freedman, in the Legal Times of Feb 24, 1992 pointing out several deficiencies of AF, courageous and skilful though he was in defending Tom Robinson, the accused black rapist.

Arundhaty and Thommo

Harper Lee has mined her own experiences of growing up in the South to give flesh to the characters and scenes in the book. The picture she paints of AF, a widower bringing up two spirited children, and imparting his discipline to them gently but firmly, has appealed to generations of readers. His kind demeanour allowed them to grow up with their individuality intact. We see them actually grow up during the two year period covered by the novel.

Priya

Here is a group picture of the readers:

(standing) Pamela, Zakia, Geetha, Arundhaty, Thommo, Priya, KumKum, Devika (sitting (Joe, Hemjit)

Harper Lee, the author

To Kill a Mockingbird (TKAM) by Harper Lee – Full Account and Record of the Reading on Jan 21, 2019

Present: Geetha, Kavita, KumKum, Zakia, Joe, Hemjit, Thommo, Priya, Pamela, Devika
Virtually Present: Gopa, Saras
Absent: Preeti, Shoba, Sunil
Guest: Arundhaty Nayar

The dates for the next two readings were set:

Mon Feb 18, 2019 – Selected Short Stories by Saadat Hasan Manto, translated by Aatish Taseer

Fri Mar 29, 2019 – American Pastoral by Philip Roth

[This will be a costume day – women in sarees (or better, kasavu mundu and neryathu) and men in mundu & shirt/jubba]


We celebrated the birthdays of Zakia and Hemjit that fell in January. Sugandhi brought sandwiches and veg cutlets and Zakia, Marble Cake. Many happy returns to both of them!

Arundhaty, Geetha, Thommo, Zakia - Tucking into Zakia's birthday treats – sandwiches, cutlets, marble cake

Introduction to TKAM (compiled by Devika)

Devika attended in a full-length gown

Devika and Saras chose this book, an all-time favourite, for its heart-warming story of a little girl — describing her thoughts and emotions as she grows up. They deliberately chose this slender novel of ~100,000 words for its ease of reading. The epigraph quotes Charles Lamb, the essayist: Lawyers, I suppose, were children once. Atticus Finch is a lawyer in a small town, a widower who brings up two children, with a measure of discipline tempered by fairness and understanding. They learn by example, more than by admonition.

He turns out to be an even-tempered and understanding father who never has to paddle his children. His firmness is respected, and he explains things in their terms, sure that children understand what is fair, but will quickly see through pretensions and evasions. This book was originally submitted under a different name (Watchman something or the other) but the publisher changed it repeatedly, until it was finally published as TKAM in 1960.

It was hugely successful. To date it has sold about 30m copies and been translated into 40 languages. Part of its success may be attributed to the film version, starring Gregory Peck as Atticus Finch, a role which won him an Oscar for Best Actor. Harper Lee was very grateful to him and presented him with a pocket watch that had belonged to her father, which he showed at the Oscar presentation. Gregory Peck's grandson, Harper Peck Voll, was named after the author. Harper Lee was so taken with the performance of Gregory Peck that she never gave permission for another film version in her lifetime; but she allowed a stage play to be developed. When Mr Peck died, his eulogy was delivered by Brock Peters, the black actor who did the role of Tom Robinson in the film.

Harper Lee cried when she saw Gregory Peck in costume – he looked so like her father

Harper Lee’s father was also a lawyer, in Alabama who had defended a black person. Much of the locale and scenes take life from Harper Lee’s own growing up. She brought out the radical racial divide in the deep south of America.

The character of Dill in the book who is their friend and relative, was based on Truman Capote, the author with whom HarperLee had a close friendship; his blurb on the inside front jacket of the first edition reads:

Someone rare has written this very fine first novel: a writer with the liveliest sense of life and the warmest, most authentic humour. A touching book; and so funny, so likeable.

Thommo said there was a falling out between them much later. The second and only other novel by Harper Lee is called Go Set a Watchman; a different Atticus Finch is described in the new novel (published 2015) — a disagreeable racist, not the venerated single father and heroic defender of the weak and powerless.

Harper Lee was awarded the Presidential Medal of Freedom (the highest civilian award in the United States) in 2007 by President George W. Bush, and the the National Medal of Arts in 2010 by President Barack Obama. Ms Lee died in an old age home at the age of 89.

Thommo commented that Atticus Finch was held up as a role model for lawyers. KumKum said he was similarly lauded as a role model for fathers.

Regarding the first claim, a professor of law, Monroe Freedman, wrote an article titled Atticus Finch, Esq., R.I.P. in the Feb 24, 1992 Legal Times. In it he points out some aspects that make Atticus Finch (AF) non-ideal as a lawyer’s role model:

1. AF soft-pedals the virulent racism and violent mobocracy advocated by the Ku Klux Klan when he tells his children: “Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a Klan, but it was a political organisation more than anything.”

2. AF also tells his children the leader of the lynch-mob, “Mr. Cunningham’s basically a good man, he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.” This is again a white-wash.

3. AF lives his life in the passive acceptance of the pervasive injustice of racial discrimination. He does nothing to advance the cause of social justice in his law practice. Remember his defence of Tom Robinson was compelled, and he would have been in contempt and disbarred from law practice, if he disregarded the court’s appointment.

For these reasons Prof. Monroe Freedman concludes that AF is not a role model for lawyers. Here is a more detailed review from the Huffington Post.

When Thommo was in the Crossword book store in Panampilly Nagar he saw a graphic novel of TKAM.

Cover of the graphic novel

Some interesting trivia about the 1962 film version of TKAM are on the page linked below:

https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0056592/trivia

Famous Quotes from TKAM:

• The one thing that doesn't abide by majority rule is a person's conscience.
• You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb inside of his skin and walk around in it.
• Real courage … is when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what.
• People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for.
• There are just some kind of men who're so busy worrying about the next world they've never learned to live in this one.
• 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.

1. Devika

The passage Devika read was from the last chapter of the book, Chapter 31, where Boo Radley appears in the open for the first time, having saved Jem and Scout from the murderous onslaught of Bob Ewell, who was taking revenge on the children of Atticus Finch, for having defended Tom Robinson. In the film and in the book Boo Bradley has no speaking part. It is notable that all the events of the chapter are viewed through Boo Radley’s eyes.

Joe read in some notes on the novel, that Boo Radley was an albino and his staying indoors had to do with the normal reaction to light by albinos. In the movie the makeup of Robert Duvall (for whom this was the debut role in films) as Boo Radley clearly imparts the albino look as you can see in this Youtube clip 
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRmIef02Ajk

when he appears from behind the door in Jem’s room. Robert Duvall stayed out of the sun for six weeks and dyed his hair blonde for the role, it seems. Boo is described in the book as leaving the house only at night, because the sun hurt his eyes; this might suggest that Boo Radley suffered from Albinism (lack of pigment in the skin, hair and irises of the eyes).

Robert Duvall as Boo Radley in the 1962 film where he is shown as an albino

2. Kavita

Kavita chose a passage from Chapter 9 which described Finch’s Landing where the Finch family came from, and the home they visited there from time to time. Scout talks of the stereotypical slotting of girls who had to grow into proper ladies. Aunt Alexandra was particularly critical of Scout who preferred pants to dresses, and remarked that Scout ‘was born good but [she] had grown progressively worse every year.’

3. Pamela

Pamela took up the commanding scene in court where Atticus Finch addresses the jury, and outlines the weak case made by the prosecution for the alleged crime of rape by Tom Robinson on Mayella Ewell. He admonishes them to deliver the verdict of not guilty, based on the paucity of evidence. Atticus Finch starts his summation thus: “To begin with this case should never have come to trial” and ends on a note of exhortation: “… in the name of God do your duty. In the name of God believe Tom Robinson.”

The scene is captured in this court scene clip on Youtube. The six and a half minute speech was captured in a single take on film — great credit to Gregory Peck. The entire film is now available for rent in HD on Youtube for ₹120.00.

The jury consisted only of white people and it was a foregone conclusion in those days that they would return the verdict of guilty. Atticus Finch’s optimism was misplaced; he should have known the outcome when poor white people with scarcely any education served on the jury in such a case. The case should have been thrown out for lack of evidence, but this was 1930s America of the deep south (to answer a question of Priya’s).

4. Gopa
Gopa voice file of TKAM passage

Gopa read from the very first chapter introducing the main characters of the novel: Atticus Finch, his children Jem and Scout, and their housekeeper Calpurnia. The author introduces some humour too when Scout describes Calpurnia: ‘her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard.’

5. Zakia

Zakia read the passage from Chapter 10 where Atticus Finch tells the children not to kill a mockingbird with the air rifles he presented them. Scout finds out by asking around:

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

You can hear the sweet sound of a mockingbird recorded by the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. The blue jay is somewhat more raucous, perhaps even garrulous, but I can’t understand Atticus Finch saying:“Shoot all the bluejays you want.” The bluejay is a spectacular bird when seen in flight!

The blue colour shades from light lavender-blue at the crown to a deeper blue in the wings; the striations make the blue jay a swift meteoric apparition in flight. The colour does not arise from pigments, but from the interference of light waves, just as do a peacock’s colouration; one should marvel at such a creature, not shoot it. “When sunlight strikes a bluejay feather, the beam passes through the barb's transparent outer layer to the air-filled cavities that scatter the blue light and absorb the longer red wavelengths.” (Cf. What color is a bluejay?).

6. Joe
Joe’s first choice had been the same as Pamela’s - the classic court scene of Atticus Finch, above. He therefore went for his second (Joe prepares and keeps 3 passages in reserve), the court scene when Atticus Finch puts Mayella Ewell, the alleged victim of the rape, in the witness box to cross-examine her. It is also equally climactic and ends with a frantic, ranting Mayella maintaining her false story of being raped. Anyone who would overlook the crime and deny her justice is a ‘stinking coward,’ she raves.

7. Thommo

Atticus Finch was a crack shot but he didn’t want his children to know that side of him. ‘Tim Johnson’, an old dog known as the pet of Maycomb, goes mad with rabies and needs to be put down. The sheriff is not good with a rifle and pleads with Atticus Finch to do the job; AF in his prime was known as One-Shot Finch, a sharpshooter who could bring down any creature with a single shot. Finally Atticus is persuaded and takes the sheriff’s rifle to put an end to ‘Tim Johnson.’ His children witness it and his prowess with the gun makes them proud — but Atticus didn’t want them to know about his shooting skill.

8. Priya

On a Sunday when their father was not at home Jem and Scout accompany Calpurnia to the African Methodist Episcopal Church and learn about life and the collective spirit of unity among the black people. At first they are rebuffed by a contentious parishioner, Lula:

“You ain’t got no business bringin‘ white chillun here —they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?”

Calpurnia said, “It’s the same God, ain’t it?”

Jem and Scout also learn that few of the those who worshipped in the AME church knew to read, yet they could sing with whole-hearted passion. The willingness of the poor black people to help the wife of Tom Robinson who had been imprisoned for rape falsely, is eloquently brought out by the pastor, Reverend Sykes. He shut the door of the church until a further sum of money had been put in the collection plate to support Helen, the wife of the victim Tom Robinson.

The hymn sung in the AME Church ‘When They Ring the Golden Bells’
There's a land beyond the river
That they call the sweet forever

is on YouTube:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xyhvki1NXCI

There is a passage from Reverend Sykes’ sermon in which women are blamed:
[the pastor] warned his flock against the evils of heady brews, gambling, and strange women. Bootleggers caused enough trouble in the Quarters, but women were worse. Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all clergymen.

Priya said it seemed that the tenets about the ‘impurity of women’ are everywhere propagated by religion, not just in the current Sabarimala temple case where the Supreme Court of India has declared that the practice of women of menstrual age being banned from worship at the Ayappa temple, was violative of the right to equality guaranteed under Article 14 of the Indian Constitution.

In the Judaeo-Christian Bible, it was Eve who tempted Adam with the forbidden fruit of the Tree of Knowledge, upon eating which came the Fall from grace and the banishment from the Garden of Eden. Thommo said in the Chinese version of the same story when the serpent offered the fruit to Eve, the couple killed the snake and ate it, instead of the fruit!

Joe mentioned a sojourn in Mississippi in 1968-69 when there were two separate Catholic Churches nearby, one for Blacks (led by a charismatic white priest), and one for Whites, and though they preferred to go to the black church, he and KumKum were accepted at both churches.

9. KumKum

KumKum read a passage from Chapter 11 in which Jem is instructed by his father to apologise to Mrs Dubose for despoiling her yard. He and Scout are then forced to read for a month to the old lady. They learn she is suffering from an addiction to morphine intended to alleviate the fits she suffered from.

KumKum’s passage has a quote from Atticus Finch when his children say that other people think he is wrong to defend Tom Robinson. His reply is:

… 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.

KumKum thought Atticus was sweet as a father and very fair in his dealings with them, free from harsh words of chastisement even when he corrected them.

10. Hemjit

Jem and Scout are six and ten years old at the beginning of the novel. The passage Hemjit chose from Chapter 12 shows the children growing up and Calpurnia helping Scout adapt to the increasing distance coming between her beloved brother Jem and her. One of the humorous events is Scout getting a letter from Dill who has found a new relative to father him in another town; he declares his eternal love for her in these words:

Dill concluded by saying he would love me forever and not to worry, he would come get me and marry me as soon as he got enough money together, so please write.

11. Geetha

In this scene from Chapter 15 Atticus Finch leaves his children at home and goes off at night to stand guard outside the jail where Tom Robinson is being held. He fears that white men may come to lynch Tom. It is an important passage of the novel, because it illustrates many things:

1. On display is the courage of lawyer Atticus Finch who is willing to confront the frenzied mob that has come to lynch a man out of sheer racial prejudice.

2. The calm demeanour of AF and his dedication to non-violence is noteworthy; he takes his stance, not with a gun, but with a newspaper.

3. It is the scene when Jem grows up and stoutly resists his father’s plea to go back home, and instead stands with his endangered father.

4. Finally, it is the scene where Scout gives a mighty kick to a man from the mob who tries to manhandle Jem, and shows that she too is made of the same grit as her revered father.

12. Saras
Saras sent her reading by the voice file below, but regrettably it was not played at the session because the same scene from Chapter 15 had just been read by Geetha. In future, voice file readings should be played first preferably, since readers at the session can always choose an alternate reading on the fly.

Nevertheless, here is the voice file Saras submitted:

Saras voice file

Readings

1. Devika
Ch 31 - Boo Radley appears in the open for the first time after saving Jem and Scout from the attempted murder by Bob Ewell

When Boo Radley shuffled to his feet, light from the living-room windows glistened on his forehead. Every move he made was uncertain, as if he were not sure his hands and feet could make proper contact with the things he touched. He coughed his dreadful racking cough, and was so shaken he had to sit down again. His hand searched for his hip pocket, and he pulled out a handkerchief. He coughed into it, then he wiped his forehead.

Having been so accustomed to his absence, I found it incredible that he had been sitting beside me all this time, present. He had not made a sound.

Once more, he got to his feet. He turned to me and nodded toward the front door.

“You’d like to say good night to Jem, wouldn’t you, Mr. Arthur? Come right in.”

I led him down the hall. Aunt Alexandra was sitting by Jem’s bed. “Come in,

Arthur,” she said. “He’s still asleep. Dr. Reynolds gave him a heavy sedative.

Jean Louise, is your father in the living-room?”

“Yes ma’am, I think so.”

“I’ll just go speak to him a minute. Dr. Reynolds left some…” her voice trailed away.

Boo had drifted to a corner of the room, where he stood with his chin up, peering from a distance at Jem. I took him by the hand, a hand surprisingly warm for its whiteness. I tugged him a little, and he allowed me to lead him to Jem’s bed.

Dr. Reynolds had made a tent-like arrangement over Jem’s arm, to keep the cover off, I guess, and Boo leaned forward and looked over it. An expression of timid curiosity was on his face, as though he had never seen a boy before. His mouth

was slightly open, and he looked at Jem from head to foot. Boo’s hand came up, but he let it drop to his side.

“You can pet him, Mr. Arthur, he’s asleep. You couldn’t if he was awake, though, he wouldn’t let you…” I found myself explaining. “Go ahead.”

Boo’s hand hovered over Jem’s head.

“Go on, sir, he’s asleep.”

His hand came down lightly on Jem’s hair.

I was beginning to learn his body English. His hand tightened on mine and he indicated that he wanted to leave.

I led him to the front porch, where his uneasy steps halted. He was still holding my hand and he gave no sign of letting me go.

“Will you take me home?”

He almost whispered it, in the voice of a child afraid of the dark.

I put my foot on the top step and stopped. I would lead him through our house, but I would never lead him home.

“Mr. Arthur, bend your arm down here, like that. That’s right, sir.” I slipped my hand into the crook of his arm.

He had to stoop a little to accommodate me, but if Miss Stephanie Crawford was watching from her upstairs window, she would see Arthur Radley escorting me down the sidewalk, as any gentleman would do.

We came to the street light on the corner, and I wondered how many times Dill had stood there hugging the fat pole, watching, waiting, hoping. I wondered how many times Jem and I had made this journey, but I entered the Radley front gate for the second time in my life. Boo and I walked up the steps to the porch. His fingers found the front doorknob. He gently released my hand, opened the door, went inside, and shut the door behind him. I never saw him again.

Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Boo was our neighbor. He gave us two soap dolls, a broken watch and chain, a pair of good-luck pennies, and our lives. But neighbors give in return. We never put back into the tree what we took out of it: we had given him nothing, and it made me sad.


I turned to go home. Street lights winked down the street all the way to town. I had never seen our neighborhood from this angle. There were Miss Maudie’s, Miss Stephanie’s—there was our house, I could see the porch swing—Miss Rachel’s house was beyond us, plainly visible. I could even see Mrs. Dubose’s.

I looked behind me. To the left of the brown door was a long shuttered window. I walked to it, stood in front of it, and turned around. In daylight, I thought, you could see to the postoffice corner.

Daylight… in my mind, the night faded. It was daytime and the neighborhood was busy. Miss Stephanie Crawford crossed the street to tell the latest to Miss Rachel. Miss Maudie bent over her azaleas. It was summertime, and two children scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance. The man waved, and the children raced each other to him.

It was still summertime, and the children came closer. A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishingpole behind him. A man stood waiting with his hands on his hips. Summertime, and his children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention.

It was fall, and his children fought on the sidewalk in front of Mrs. Dubose’s. The boy helped his sister to her feet, and they made their way home. Fall, and his children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day’s woes and triumphs on their faces. They stopped at an oak tree, delighted, puzzled, apprehensive.

Winter, and his children shivered at the front gate, silhouetted against a blazing house. Winter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog.

Summer, and he watched his children’s heart break. Autumn again, and Boo’s children needed him.

Atticus was right. One time he said you never really know a man until you stand in his shoes and walk around in them. Just standing on the Radley porch was enough.

2. Kavita
Ch 9 - The antecedents of the Finch family who came from a place called Finch’s landing

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

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

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

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

“What’d you get for Christmas?” I asked politely.

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

“That’s nice,” I lied. “Jem and me got air rifles, and Jem got a chemistry set—” “A toy one, I reckon.”

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

Francis asked what was the use of that.

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

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

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

3. Pamela
Ch 20 - Atticus in Court makes the summation of his argument in defence of Tom Robinson, falsely accused of rape

“Gentlemen,” he was saying, “I shall be brief, but I would like to use my remaining time with you to remind you that this case is not a difficult one, it requires no minute sifting of complicated facts, but it does require you to be sure beyond all reasonable doubt as to the guilt of the defendant. To begin with, this case should never have come to trial. This case is as simple as black and white.

“The state has not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson is charged with ever took place. It has relied instead upon the testimony of two witnesses whose evidence has not only been called into serious question on cross-examination, but has been flatly contradicted by the defendant. The defendant is not guilty, but somebody in this courtroom is.

“I have nothing but pity in my heart for the chief witness for the state, but my pity does not extend so far as to her putting a man’s life at stake, which she has done in an effort to get rid of her own guilt.

“I say guilt, gentlemen, because it was guilt that motivated her. She has committed no crime, she has merely broken a rigid and time-honored code of our society, a code so severe that whoever breaks it is hounded from our midst as unfit to live with. She is the victim of cruel poverty and ignorance, but I cannot pity her: she is white. She knew full well the enormity of her offense, but because her desires were stronger than the code she was breaking, she persisted in breaking it. She persisted, and her subsequent reaction is something that all of us have known at one time or another. She did something every child has done—she tried to put the evidence of her offense away from her. But in this case she was no child hiding stolen contraband: she struck out at her victim—of necessity she must put him away from her—he must be removed from her presence, from this world. She must destroy the evidence of her offense.

“What was the evidence of her offense? Tom Robinson, a human being. She must put Tom Robinson away from her. Tom Robinson was her daily reminder of what she did. What did she do? She tempted a Negro.

“She was white, and she tempted a Negro. She did something that in our society is unspeakable: she kissed a black man. Not an old Uncle, but a strong young Negro man. No code mattered to her before she broke it, but it came crashing down on her afterwards.


“Her father saw it, and the defendant has testified as to his remarks. What did her father do? We don’t know, but there is circumstantial evidence to indicate that Mayella Ewell was beaten savagely by someone who led almost exclusively with his left. We do know in part what Mr. Ewell did: he did what any God-fearing, persevering, respectable white man would do under the circumstances—he swore out a warrant, no doubt signing it with his left hand, and Tom Robinson now sits before you, having taken the oath with the only good hand he possesses—his right hand.

“And so a quiet, respectable, humble Negro who had the unmitigated temerity to ‘feel sorry’ for a white woman has had to put his word against two white people’s. I need not remind you of their appearance and conduct on the stand— you saw them for yourselves. The witnesses for the state, with the exception of the sheriff of Maycomb County, have presented themselves to you gentlemen, to this court, in the cynical confidence that their testimony would not be doubted, confident that you gentlemen would go along with them on the assumption—the evil assumption—that all Negroes lie, that all Negroes are basically immoral beings, that all Negro men are not to be trusted around our women, an assumption one associates with minds of their caliber.

“Which, gentlemen, we know is in itself a lie as black as Tom Robinson’s skin, a lie I do not have to point out to you. You know the truth, and the truth is this: some Negroes lie, some Negroes are immoral, some Negro men are not to be trusted around women—black or white. But this is a truth that applies to the human race and to no particular race of men. There is not a person in this courtroom who has never told a lie, who has never done an immoral thing, and there is no man living who has never looked upon a woman without desire.”

4. Gopa
Ch 1 - Introduction to the three main characters in the novel

During his first five years in Maycomb, Atticus practiced economy more than anything; for several years thereafter he invested his earnings in his brother’s education. John Hale Finch was ten years younger than my father, and chose to study medicine at a time when cotton was not worth growing; but after getting Uncle Jack started, Atticus derived a reasonable income from the law. He liked Maycomb, he was Maycomb County born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him, and because of Simon Finch’s industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in the town.

Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainy weather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthouse sagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’s day; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the live oaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathed before noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes with frostings of sweat and sweet talcum.

People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of the stores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long but seemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear itself.

We lived on the main residential street in town— Atticus, Jem and I, plus Calpurnia our cook. Jem and I found our father satisfactory: he played with us, read to us, and treated us with courteous detachment.

Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones; she was nearsighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She was always ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jem when she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn’t ready to come. Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side. She had been with us ever since Jem was born, and I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember.

Our mother died when I was two, so I never felt her absence. She was a Graham from Montgomery; Atticus met her when he was first elected to the state legislature. He was middle-aged then, she was fifteen years his junior. Jem was the product of their first year of marriage; four years later I was born, and two years later our mother died from a sudden heart attack. They said it ran in her family. I did not miss her, but I think Jem did. He remembered her clearly, and sometimes in the middle of a game he would sigh at length, then go off and play by himself behind the car-house. When he was like that, I knew better than to bother him.

When I was almost six and Jem was nearly ten, our summertime boundaries (within calling distance of Calpurnia) were Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose’s house two doors to the north of us, and the Radley Place three doors to the south. We were never tempted to break them. The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown entity the mere description of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end; Mrs. Dubose was plain hell.

That was the summer Dill came to us.

5. Zakia
Ch 10 - Why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

6. Joe
Ch 18 - Mayella Ewell under cross-examination says Tom Robinson choked and beat her, and held her down so she could not escape (561 words)
Atticus said, “Is this the man who raped you?”
“It most certainly is.”
Atticus’s next question was one word long. “How?”
Mayella was raging. “I don’t know how he done it, but he done it—I said it all happened so fast I—”
“Now let’s consider this calmly—” began Atticus, …
“Miss Mayella, you’ve testified that the defendant choked and beat you—you didn’t say that he sneaked up behind you and knocked you cold, but you turned around and there he was—” Atticus was back behind his table, and he emphasized his words by tapping his knuckles on it. “—do you wish to reconsider any of your testimony?”
“You want me to say something that didn’t happen?”
“No ma’am, I want you to say something that did happen. Tell us once more, please, what happened?”
“I told’ja what happened.”
“You testified that you turned around and there he was. He choked you then?”
“Yes.”
“Then he released your throat and hit you?”
“I said he did.”“He blacked your left eye with his right fist?”
“I ducked and it—it glanced, that’s what it did. I ducked and it glanced off.” Mayella had finally seen the light.
“You’re becoming suddenly clear on this point. A while ago you couldn’t remember too well, could you?”
“I said he hit me.”
“All right. He choked you, he hit you, then he raped you, that right?”
“It most certainly is.”
“You’re a strong girl, what were you doing all the time, just standing there?”
“I told’ja I hollered’n‘kicked’n’fought—”
… Judge Taylor said, “One question at a time, Atticus. Give the witness a chance to answer.”
“All right, why didn’t you run?”
“I tried…”
“Tried to? What kept you from it?”
“I—he slung me down. That’s what he did, he slung me down’n got on top of me.”
“You were screaming all this time?”
“I certainly was.”
“Then why didn’t the other children hear you? Where were they? At the dump?”
“Where were they?”
No answer.
“Why didn’t your screams make them come running? The dump’s closer than the woods, isn’t it?”
No answer.
“Or didn’t you scream until you saw your father in the window? You didn’t think to scream until then, did you?”
No answer.“Did you scream first at your father instead of at Tom Robinson? Was that it?”
No answer.
“Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father?”
No answer.
“What did your father see in the window, the crime of rape or the best defense to it? Why don’t you tell the truth, child, didn’t Bob Ewell beat you up?”
When Atticus turned away from Mayella he looked like his stomach hurt, but Mayella’s face was a mixture of terror and fury. Atticus sat down wearily and polished his glasses with his handkerchief.
Suddenly Mayella became articulate. “I got somethin‘ to say,” she said.
Atticus raised his head. “Do you want to tell us what happened?”
But she did not hear the compassion in his invitation. “I got somethin‘ to say an’ then I ain’t gonna say no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an‘ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanta do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin‘ cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don’t come to nothin‘—your ma’amin’ and Miss Mayellerin‘ don’t come to nothin’, Mr. Finch —”
Then she burst into real tears.

7. Thommo
Ch 10 - Atticus shoots ‘Tim Johnson’ an old dog of Maycomb who’s gone mad (caught rabies).

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

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

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

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

“Don’t waste time, Heck,” said Atticus. “Go on.” “Mr. Finch, this is a one-shot job.”

Atticus shook his head vehemently: “Don’t just stand there, Heck! He won’t wait all day for you—”

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

“I haven’t shot a gun in thirty years—”

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“Always was,” answered Atticus. “If I had my ‘druthers I’d take a shotgun.”

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

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

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

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

Atticus was silent.

“Atticus?” said Jem.

“Yes?”

“Nothin‘.”

“I saw that, One-Shot Finch!”

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

8. Priya
Ch 12 - Jim and Scout accompany Calpurnia to the African Methodist Episcopal Church on a Sunday

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

“I wants to know why you bringin‘ white chillun to nigger church.”

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

“Yeah, an‘ I reckon you’s comp’ny at the Finch house durin’ the week.”

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

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

Lula stopped, but she said, “You ain’t got no business bringin‘ white chillun here —they got their church, we got our’n. It is our church, ain’t it, Miss Cal?”

Calpurnia said, “It’s the same God, ain’t it?”

Jem said, “Let’s go home, Cal, they don’t want us here—”

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

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

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

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

Calpurnia motioned Jem and me to the end of the row and placed herself between us. She fished in her purse, drew out her handkerchief, and untied the hard wad of change in its corner. She gave a dime to me and a dime to Jem. “We’ve got ours,” he whispered. “You keep it,” Calpurnia said, “you’re my company.” Jem’s face showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did likewise with no qualms.

“Cal,” I whispered, “where are the hymn-books?” “We don’t have any,” she said. “Well how—?”

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

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

Reverend Sykes shuffled some papers, chose one and held it at arm’s length. “The

Missionary Society meets in the home of Sister Annette Reeves next Tuesday. Bring your sewing.”

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

I punched Jem. “That’s the Tom Atticus’s de—” “Sh-h!”

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

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

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

Calpurnia smiled. “Hush baby,” she whispered, “you’ll see in a minute.”

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

“There’s a land beyond the river.”

Miraculously on pitch, a hundred voices sang out Zeebo’s words. The last syllable, held to a husky hum, was followed by Zeebo saying, “That we call the sweet forever.”

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

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

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

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

9. KumKum
Ch 11 - Jem has to apologise for despoiling the yard of Mrs Dubose, and is then forced to read for a month to the old lady (725 words)

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

Jem did not move.

“Go on, I said.”

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

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

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

“You’re mighty big to be rocked,” he said.

“You don’t care what happens to him,” I said. “You just send him on to get shot at when all he was doin‘ was standin’ up for you.”Atticus pushed my head under his chin. “It’s not time to worry yet,” he said. “I never thought Jem’d be the one to lose his head over this—thought I’d have more trouble with you.”

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

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

“Atticus, you must be wrong…”

“How’s that?”

“Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong…”

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

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

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

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

Jem seemed fascinated by a rose in the carpet. “Atticus,” he said, “she wants me to read to her.”

“Read to her?”

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

“Certainly.”

“But she wants me to do it for a month.”

“Then you’ll do it for a month.”

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

Atticus smiled grimly. “That should appeal to your imagination. Just pretend you’re inside the Radley house.”

10. Hemjit
Ch 12 - Jem grows up and Scout receives a letter from Dill saying he’d love her forever.

Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent, moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: “Reckon he’s got a tapeworm?” Atticus said no, Jem was growing. I must be patient with him and disturb him as little as possible.
This change in Jem had come about in a matter of weeks. Mrs. Dubose was not cold in her grave—Jem had seemed grateful enough for my company when he went to read to her. Overnight, it seemed, Jem had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on me: several times he went so far as to tell me what to do. After one altercation when Jem hollered, “It’s time you started bein‘ a girl and acting right!” I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia.
“Don’t you fret too much over Mister Jem—” she began.
“Mister Jem?”
“Yeah, he’s just about Mister Jem now.”
“He ain’t that old,” I said. “All he needs is somebody to beat him up, and I ain’t big enough.”
“Baby,” said Calpurnia, “I just can’t help it if Mister Jem’s growin‘ up. He’s gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin’ whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the kitchen when you feel lonesome. We’ll find lots of things to do in here.”
The beginning of that summer boded well: Jem could do as he pleased; Calpurnia would do until Dill came. She seemed glad to see me when I appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there was some skill involved in being a girl.
But summer came and Dill was not there. I received a letter and a snapshot from him. The letter said he had a new father whose picture was enclosed, and he would have to stay in Meridian because they planned to build a fishing boat. His father was a lawyer like Atticus, only much younger. Dill’s new father had a pleasant face, which made me glad Dill had captured him, but I was crushed. Dill concluded by saying he would love me forever and not to worry, he would come get me and marry me as soon as he got enough money together, so please write.
The fact that I had a permanent fiancé was little compensation for his absence: I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by the fishpool smoking string, Dill’s eyes alive with complicated plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without him, life was unbearable. I stayed miserable for two days.
As if that were not enough, the state legislature was called into emergency session and Atticus left us for two weeks. The Governor was eager to scrape a few barnacles off the ship of state; there were sit-down strikes in Birmingham; bread lines in the cities grew longer, people in the country grew poorer. But these were events remote from the world of Jem and me.

11. Geetha
Ch 15 - The confrontation between Atticus Finch at the jail, the Cunningham crew who came to lynch Tom Robinson, and Jem and Scout who take a stand.

The Maycomb jail was the most venerable and hideous of the county’s buildings. Atticus said it was like something Cousin Joshua St. Clair might have designed. It was certainly someone’s dream. Starkly out of place in a town of square-faced stores and steep-roofed houses, the Maycomb jail was a miniature Gothic joke one cell wide and two cells high, complete with tiny battlements and flying buttresses. Its fantasy was heightened by its red brick facade and the thick steel bars at its ecclesiastical windows. It stood on no lonely hill, but was wedged between Tyndal’s Hardware Store and The Maycomb Tribune office. The jail was Maycomb’s only conversation piece: its detractors said it looked like a Victorian privy; its supporters said it gave the town a good solid respectable look, and no stranger would ever suspect that it was full of niggers.

As we walked up the sidewalk, we saw a solitary light burning in the distance. “That’s funny,” said Jem, “jail doesn’t have an outside light.”

“Looks like it’s over the door,” said Dill.

A long extension cord ran between the bars of a second-floor window and down the side of the building. In the light from its bare bulb, Atticus was sitting propped against the front door. He was sitting in one of his office chairs, and he was reading, oblivious of the nightbugs dancing over his head.

I made to run, but Jem caught me. “Don’t go to him,” he said, “he might not like it. He’s all right, let’s go home. I just wanted to see where he was.”

We were taking a short cut across the square when four dusty cars came in from the Meridian highway, moving slowly in a line. They went around the square, passed the bank building, and stopped in front of the jail.

Nobody got out. We saw Atticus look up from his newspaper. He closed it, folded it deliberately, dropped it in his lap, and pushed his hat to the back of his head. He seemed to be expecting them.

“Come on,” whispered Jem. We streaked across the square, across the street, until we were in the shelter of the Jitney Jungle door. Jem peeked up the sidewalk. “We can get closer,” he said. We ran to Tyndal’s Hardware door—near enough, at the same time discreet.

In ones and twos, men got out of the cars. Shadows became substance as lights revealed solid shapes moving toward the jail door. Atticus remained where he was. The men hid him from view.

“He in there, Mr. Finch?” a man said.

“He is,” we heard Atticus answer, “and he’s asleep. Don’t wake him up.”

In obedience to my father, there followed what I later realized was a sickeningly comic aspect of an unfunny situation: the men talked in near-whispers.

“You know what we want,” another man said. “Get aside from the door, Mr. Finch.”

“You can turn around and go home again, Walter,” Atticus said pleasantly. “Heck Tate’s around somewhere.”

“The hell he is,” said another man. “Heck’s bunch’s so deep in the woods they won’t get out till mornin‘.”

“Indeed? Why so?”

“Called ‘em off on a snipe hunt,” was the succinct answer. “Didn’t you think a’that, Mr. Finch?”

“Thought about it, but didn’t believe it. Well then,” my father’s voice was still the same, “that changes things, doesn’t it?”

“It do,” another deep voice said. Its owner was a shadow.

“Do you really think so?”

This was the second time I heard Atticus ask that question in two days, and it meant somebody’s man would get jumped. This was too good to miss. I broke away from Jem and ran as fast as I could to Atticus.

Jem shrieked and tried to catch me, but I had a lead on him and Dill. I pushed my way through dark smelly bodies and burst into the circle of light.

“H-ey, Atticus!”

I thought he would have a fine surprise, but his face killed my joy. A flash of plain fear was going out of his eyes, but returned when Dill and Jem wriggled into the light.

There was a smell of stale whiskey and pigpen about, and when I glanced around I discovered that these men were strangers. They were not the people I saw last

night. Hot embarrassment shot through me: I had leaped triumphantly into a ring of people I had never seen before.

Atticus got up from his chair, but he was moving slowly, like an old man. He put the newspaper down very carefully, adjusting its creases with lingering fingers. They were trembling a little.

“Go home, Jem,” he said. “Take Scout and Dill home.”

We were accustomed to prompt, if not always cheerful acquiescence to Atticus’s instructions, but from the way he stood Jem was not thinking of budging.

“Go home, I said.”

Jem shook his head. As Atticus’s fists went to his hips, so did Jem’s, and as they faced each other I could see little resemblance between them: Jem’s soft brown hair and eyes, his oval face and snug-fitting ears were our mother’s, contrasting oddly with Atticus’s graying black hair and square-cut features, but they were somehow alike. Mutual defiance made them alike.

“Son, I said go home.”

Jem shook his head.

“I’ll send him home,” a burly man said, and grabbed Jem roughly by the collar.

He yanked Jem nearly off his feet.

“Don’t you touch him!” I kicked the man swiftly. Barefooted, I was surprised to see him fall back in real pain. I intended to kick his shin, but aimed too high.

“That’ll do, Scout.” Atticus put his hand on my shoulder. “Don’t kick folks. No —” he said, as I was pleading justification.

“Ain’t nobody gonna do Jem that way,” I said.

“All right, Mr. Finch, get ‘em outa here,” someone growled. “You got fifteen seconds to get ’em outa here.”

In the midst of this strange assembly, Atticus stood trying to make Jem mind him. “I ain’t going,” was his steady answer to Atticus’s threats, requests, and finally, “Please Jem, take them home.”

I was getting a bit tired of that, but felt Jem had his own reasons for doing as he did, in view of his prospects once Atticus did get him home. I looked around the crowd. It was a summer’s night, but the men were dressed, most of them, in overalls and denim shirts buttoned up to the collars. I thought they must be cold-natured, as their sleeves were unrolled and buttoned at the cuffs. Some wore hats pulled firmly down over their ears. They were sullen-looking, sleepy-eyed men who seemed unused to late hours. I sought once more for a familiar face, and at the center of the semi-circle I found one.

“Hey, Mr. Cunningham.”
= The man did not hear me, it seemed.

“Hey, Mr. Cunningham. How’s your entailment gettin‘ along?”

Mr. Walter Cunningham’s legal affairs were well known to me; Atticus had once described them at length. The big man blinked and hooked his thumbs in his overall straps. He seemed uncomfortable; he cleared his throat and looked away. My friendly overture had fallen flat.

Mr. Cunningham wore no hat, and the top half of his forehead was white in contrast to his sunscorched face, which led me to believe that he wore one most days. He shifted his feet, clad in heavy work shoes.

“Don’t you remember me, Mr. Cunningham? I’m Jean Louise Finch. You brought us some hickory nuts one time, remember?” I began to sense the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance.

“I go to school with Walter,” I began again. “He’s your boy, ain’t he? Ain’t he, sir?”

Mr. Cunningham was moved to a faint nod. He did know me, after all.

“He’s in my grade,” I said, “and he does right well. He’s a good boy,” I added, “a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Maybe he told you about me, I beat him up one time but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won’t you?”

Atticus had said it was the polite thing to talk to people about what they were interested in, not about what you were interested in. Mr. Cunningham displayed no interest in his son, so I tackled his entailment once more in a last-ditch effort to make him feel at home.

“Entailments are bad,” I was advising him, when I slowly awoke to the fact that I was addressing the entire aggregation. The men were all looking at me, some had their mouths half-open. Atticus had stopped poking at Jem: they were standing together beside Dill. Their attention amounted to fascination. Atticus’s mouth, even, was half-open, an attitude he had once described as uncouth. Our eyes met and he shut it.

“Well, Atticus, I was just sayin‘ to Mr. Cunningham that entailments are bad an’ all that, but you said not to worry, it takes a long time sometimes… that you all’d ride it out together…” I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed. Entailments seemed all right enough for livingroom talk.

I began to feel sweat gathering at the edges of my hair; I could stand anything but a bunch of people looking at me. They were quite still.

“What’s the matter?” I asked.

Atticus said nothing. I looked around and up at Mr. Cunningham, whose face was equally impassive. Then he did a peculiar thing. He squatted down and took me by both shoulders.

“I’ll tell him you said hey, little lady,” he said.

Then he straightened up and waved a big paw. “Let’s clear out,” he called. “Let’s get going, boys.”

As they had come, in ones and twos the men shuffled back to their ramshackle cars. Doors slammed, engines coughed, and they were gone.