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I escorted Arthur home, I know I can’t be seen leading him, so I asked him to bend his arm, so it looks like he’s escorting me. I lead him right to his front door and I never saw him again. Neighbors bring food with death and flowers with sickness and little things in between. Arthur 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.

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.

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I may not be much, Mr. Finch, but I’m still sheriff of Maycomb County and Bob Ewell fell on his knife. Good night, sir.

Heck Tate

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Mr. Tate had asked me who has helped Jem and I against Mr. Ewell and I said, “Why there he is, Mr. Tate, he can tell you his name.”

As I said it, I half pointed to the man in the corner, but brought my arm down quickly lest Atticus reprimand me for pointing. It was impolite to point.

He was still leaning against the wall. He had been leaning against the wall when I came into the room, his arms folded across his chest. As I pointed he brought his arms down and pressed the palms of his hands against the wall. They were white hands, sickly white hands that had never seen the sun, so white they stood out garishly against the dull cream wall in the dim light of Jem’s room.

I looked from his hands to his sand-stained khaki pants; my eyes traveled up his thin frame to his torn denim shirt. His face was as white as his hands, but for a shadow on his jutting chin. His cheeks were thin to hollowness; his mouth was wide; there were shallow, almost delicate indentations at his temples, and his gray eyes were so colorless I thought he was blind. His hair was dead and thin, almost feathery on top of his head.

When I pointed to him his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall, and he hooked his thumbs in his belt. A strange small spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape slate, but as I gazed at him in wonder the tension slowly drained from his face. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor’s image blurred with my sudden tears.

“Hey, Boo,” I said.

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Coming out of the courthouse that night Miss Gates was—she was goin‘ down the steps in front of Jem, Dill and I, she was talking with Miss Stephanie Crawford. I heard her say it’s time somebody taught ’em a lesson, they were gettin‘ way above themselves, an’ the next thing they think they can do is marry us. How can you hate Hitler so bad an‘ then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home?

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The Radley Place had ceased to terrify me, but it was no less gloomy, no less chilly under its great oaks, and no less uninviting. Mr. Nathan Radley could still be seen on a clear day, walking to and from town; we knew Boo was there, for the same old reason— nobody’d seen him carried out yet. I sometimes felt a twinge of remorse, when passing by the old place, at ever having taken part in what must have been sheer torment to Arthur Radley—what reasonable recluse wants children peeping through his shutters, delivering greetings on the end of a fishing-pole, wandering in his collards at night? And yet I remembered. Two Indian-head pennies, chewing gum, soap dolls, a rusty medal, a  broken watch and chain. Jem must have put them away somewhere. I stopped and looked at the tree one afternoon: the trunk was swelling around its cement patch. The patch itself was turning yellow.

We had almost seen him a couple of times, a good enough score for anybody.  

But I still looked for him each time I went by. Maybe someday we would see him. I imagined how it would be: when it happened, he’d just be sitting in the swing when I came along. “Hidy do, Mr. Arthur,” I would say, as if I had said it every afternoon of my life. “Evening, Jean Louise,” he would say, as if he had said it every afternoon of my life, “right pretty spell we’re having, isn’t it?” “Yes sir, right pretty,” I would say, and go on.  

It was only a fantasy. We would never see him. He probably did go out when the moon was down and gaze upon Miss Stephanie Crawford. I’d have picked somebody else to look at, but that was his business. He would never gaze at us.

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How could this be so, I wondered, while I read Mr. Underwood’s editorial. Senseless killing—Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way. Then Mr. Underwood’s meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.

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After Atticus told Aunt Alexandra about Tom Robinson being shot we still had to go back to her missionary circle. I was shaking but if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.

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Calpurnia served Aunt Alexandra’s missionary circle today. I didn’t know whether to go into the dining room or stay out. Aunt Alexandra told me to join them for refreshments; it was not necessary that I attend the business part of the meeting, she said it’d bore me. I was wearing my pink Sunday dress, shoes, and a petticoat, and reflected that if I spilled anything Calpurnia would have to wash my dress again for tomorrow. This had been a busy day for her. I decided to stay out. Wishing to be of some service I even offered to help, Calpurnia let me carry in the coffee pitcher.  

I wondered at the world of women. There was no doubt about it, I must soon enter this world, where on its surface fragrant ladies rocked slowly, fanned gently, and drank cool water. But I was more at home in my father’s world. People like Mr. Heck Tate did not trap you with innocent questions to make fun of you; even Jem was not highly critical unless you said something stupid. Ladies seemed to live in faint horror of men, seemed unwilling to approve wholeheartedly of them. But I liked them. There was something about them, no matter how much they cussed and drank and gambled and chewed; no matter how undelectable they were, there was something about them that I instinctively liked…  

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You know something, Scout? I’ve got it all figured out, now. I’ve thought about it a lot lately and I’ve got it figured out. There’s four kinds of folks in the world. There’s the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there’s the kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes

Jeremy Atticus "Jem" Finch

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I don’t think family background is about how long someone’s been readin’ and writin’, everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin‘. Walter’s as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin’s wrong with him and his family background, they’re good folks.  

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I studied Jem today and realized he’s growing taller and getting slimmer, he even said some hair was growing on his chest. He had been a comfort to me, so I said it looked lovely, but I didn’t see anything.

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Double First Cousins

Atticus said the Cunningham that was part of the jury was Walter’s dad, Mr. Cunningham’s double first cousin. I tortured myself and decided that if I married Jem and Dill had a sister whom he married, our children would be double first cousins.

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I knew Tom was guilty before the judge said it. A jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted, and when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson.

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In court while Tom Robinson was giving his statement it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. When Atticus asked had she any friends, she seemed not to know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was white. She couldn’t live like Mr. Dolphus Raymond, who preferred the company of Negroes, because she didn’t own a riverbank and she wasn’t from a fine old family. Nobody said, “That’s just their way,” about the Ewells. Maycomb gave them Christmas baskets, welfare money, and the back of its hand. Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet.

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I heard Atticus talking to a group of men about if a man was still in the jail. They told Atticus to move aside and share him cause Mr. Tate is out in the woods on a phony call. Jam, Dill and I then raced to Atticus' hoping to surprise him, but it was plain fear in his eyes. I didn’t recognize the men, and they smelled of stale whiskey and pigpen. One even yanked Jem in the collar, so I kicked him in the groin. I looked for a friendly face and I found Mr. Cunningham. I asked about his entailment and about Walter; I think it made him uncomfortable.  

Atticus once told me to talk to people about what they’re interested in, I mentioned the entailment again, but everyone, even Atticus stared at me open-mouthed. I asked what’s wrong, but Mr. Cunningham squatted and told me he’ll tell Walter hi then he lead the men away.  

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I heard Atticus and Aunt Alexandra arguing about me not acting girly enough. Then Jem came up his maddening superiority is unbearable these days. He didn’t want to do anything but read and go off by himself. Still, everything he read he passed along to me, but with this difference: formerly, because he thought I’d like it; now, for my edification and instruction. He even threatened to spank me and I called him a damn morphodite.  

I landed one on his mouth then he slapped me and I tried another left, but a punch in the stomach sent me sprawling on the floor. It nearly knocked the breath out of me, but it didn’t matter because I knew he was fighting, he was fighting me back. We were still equals.

Atticus even said I didn’t have to mind him until he could make me.  

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We decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence. It won’t be many years, Jean Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys.

Alexandra Finch