No More Learning

”
“No,” said Miss Stephanie. “Shot in the air. Scared him pale, though. Says if anybody sees a white nigger around, that’s the one. Says he’s got the other barrel waitin‘ for the next sound he hears in that patch, an’ next time he won’t aim high, be it dog, nigger, or—Jem Finch! ”
“Ma’am? ” asked Jem.
Atticus spoke. “Where’re your pants, son? ”
“Pants, sir? ”
“Pants. ”
It was no use. In his shorts before God and everybody. I sighed.
“Ah—Mr. Finch? ”
In the glare from the streetlight, I could see Dill hatching one: his eyes widened, his fat cherub face grew rounder.
“What is it, Dill? ” asked Atticus.
“Ah—I won ‘em from him,” he said vaguely.
“Won them? How? ”
Dill’s hand sought the back of his head. He brought it forward and across his forehead. “We were playin‘ strip poker up yonder by the fishpool,” he said.
Jem and I relaxed. The neighbors seemed satisfied: they all stiffened. But what was strip poker?
We had no chance to find out: Miss Rachel went off like the town fire siren: “Do- o-o Jee-sus, Dill Harris! Gamblin‘ by my fishpool? I’ll strip-poker you, sir! ”
Atticus saved Dill from immediate dismemberment. “Just a minute, Miss Rachel,” he said. “I’ve never heard of ‘em doing that before. Were you all playing cards? ”
Jem fielded Dill’s fly with his eyes shut: “No sir, just with matches. ” I admired my brother. Matches were dangerous, but cards were fatal.
“Jem, Scout,” said Atticus, “I don’t want to hear of poker in any form again. Go by Dill’s and get your pants, Jem. Settle it yourselves. ”
“Don’t worry, Dill,” said Jem, as we trotted up the sidewalk, “she ain’t gonna get you. He’ll talk her out of it. That was fast thinkin‘, son. Listen. . . you hear? ”
We stopped, and heard Atticus’s voice:“. . . not serious. . . they all go through it, Miss Rachel. . . ”
Dill was comforted, but Jem and I weren’t. There was the problem of Jem showing up some pants in the morning.
“‘d give you some of mine,” said Dill, as we came to Miss Rachel’s steps. Jem said he couldn’t get in them, but thanks anyway. We said good-bye, and Dill went inside the house. He evidently remembered he was engaged to me, for he ran back out and kissed me swiftly in front of Jem. “Yawl write, hear? ” he bawled after us.
Had Jem’s pants been safely on him, we would not have slept much anyway.
Every night-sound I heard from my cot on the back porch was magnified three- fold; every scratch of feet on gravel was Boo Radley seeking revenge, every passing Negro laughing in the night was Boo Radley loose and after us; insects splashing against the screen were Boo Radley’s insane fingers picking the wire to pieces; the chinaberry trees were malignant, hovering, alive. I lingered between sleep and wakefulness until I heard Jem murmur.
“Sleep, Little Three-Eyes? ”
“Are you crazy? ”
“Sh-h. Atticus’s light’s out. ”
In the waning moonlight I saw Jem swing his feet to the floor. “I’m goin‘ after ’em,” he said.
I sat upright. “You can’t. I won’t let you. ”
He was struggling into his shirt. “I’ve got to. ” “You do an‘ I’ll wake up Atticus. ”
“You do and I’ll kill you. ”
I pulled him down beside me on the cot. I tried to reason with him. “Mr. Nathan’s gonna find ‘em in the morning, Jem. He knows you lost ’em. When he shows ‘em to Atticus it’ll be pretty bad, that’s all there is to it. Go’n back to bed. ”
“That’s what I know,” said Jem. “That’s why I’m goin‘ after ’em. ”
I began to feel sick. Going back to that place by himself—I remembered Miss Stephanie: Mr. Nathan had the other barrel waiting for the next sound he heard, be it nigger, dog. . . Jem knew that better than I.
I was desperate: “Look, it ain’t worth it, Jem. A lickin‘ hurts but it doesn’t last. You’ll get your head shot off, Jem. Please. . . ”
He blew out his breath patiently. “I—it’s like this, Scout,” he muttered. “Atticus ain’t ever whipped me since I can remember. I wanta keep it that way. ”
This was a thought. It seemed that Atticus threatened us every other day. “You mean he’s never caught you at anything. ”
“Maybe so, but—I just wanta keep it that way, Scout. We shouldn’a done that tonight, Scout. ”
It was then, I suppose, that Jem and I first began to part company. Sometimes I did not understand him, but my periods of bewilderment were short-lived. This was beyond me. “Please,” I pleaded, “can’tcha just think about it for a minute— by yourself on that place—”
“Shut up! ”
“It’s not like he’d never speak to you again or somethin‘. . . I’m gonna wake him up, Jem, I swear I am—”
Jem grabbed my pajama collar and wrenched it tight. “Then I’m goin‘ with you —” I choked.
“No you ain’t, you’ll just make noise. ”
It was no use. I unlatched the back door and held it while he crept down the steps. It must have been two o’clock. The moon was setting and the lattice-work shadows were fading into fuzzy nothingness. Jem’s white shirt-tail dipped and bobbed like a small ghost dancing away to escape the coming morning. A faint breeze stirred and cooled the sweat running down my sides.
He went the back way, through Deer’s Pasture, across the schoolyard and around to the fence, I thought—at least that was the way he was headed. It would take longer, so it was not time to worry yet. I waited until it was time to worry and listened for Mr. Radley’s shotgun. Then I thought I heard the back fence squeak. It was wishful thinking.
Then I heard Atticus cough. I held my breath. Sometimes when we made a midnight pilgrimage to the bathroom we would find him reading. He said he often woke up during the night, checked on us, and read himself back to sleep. I waited for his light to go on, straining my eyes to see it flood the hall. It stayed off, and I breathed again. The night-crawlers had retired, but ripe chinaberries drummed on the roof when the wind stirred, and the darkness was desolate with the barking of distant dogs.
There he was, returning to me. His white shirt bobbed over the back fence and slowly grew larger. He came up the back steps, latched the door behind him, and sat on his cot. Wordlessly, he held up his pants. He lay down, and for a while I heard his cot trembling. Soon he was still. I did not hear him stir again.
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Chapter 7
Jem stayed moody and silent for a week. As Atticus had once advised me to do, I tried to climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley Place at two in the morning, my funeral would have been held the next afternoon. So I left Jem alone and tried not to bother him.
School started. The second grade was as bad as the first, only worse—they still flashed cards at you and wouldn’t let you read or write. Miss Caroline’s progress next door could be estimated by the frequency of laughter; however, the usual crew had flunked the first grade again, and were helpful in keeping order. The only thing good about the second grade was that this year I had to stay as late as Jem, and we usually walked home together at three o’clock.
One afternoon when we were crossing the schoolyard toward home, Jem suddenly said: “There’s something I didn’t tell you. ”
As this was his first complete sentence in several days, I encouraged him: “About what? ”
“About that night. ”
“You’ve never told me anything about that night,” I said.
Jem waved my words away as if fanning gnats. He was silent for a while, then he said, “When I went back for my breeches—they were all in a tangle when I was gettin‘ out of ’em, I couldn’t get ‘em loose. When I went back—” Jem took a deep breath. “When I went back, they were folded across the fence. . . like they were expectin’ me. ”
“Across—”
“And something else—” Jem’s voice was flat. “Show you when we get home. They’d been sewed up. Not like a lady sewed ‘em, like somethin’ I’d try to do.
All crooked. It’s almost like—”
“—somebody knew you were comin‘ back for ’em. ”
Jem shuddered. “Like somebody was readin‘ my mind. . . like somebody could tell what I was gonna do. Can’t anybody tell what I’m gonna do lest they know me, can they, Scout? ”
Jem’s question was an appeal. I reassured him: “Can’t anybody tell what you’re gonna do lest they live in the house with you, and even I can’t tell sometimes. ”
We were walking past our tree. In its knot-hole rested a ball of gray twine. “Don’t take it, Jem,” I said. “This is somebody’s hidin‘ place. ”
“I don’t think so, Scout. ”
“Yes it is. Somebody like Walter Cunningham comes down here every recess and hides his things—and we come along and take ‘em away from him. Listen, let’s leave it and wait a couple of days. If it ain’t gone then, we’ll take it, okay? ”
“Okay, you might be right,” said Jem. “It must be some little kid’s place—hides his things from the bigger folks. You know it’s only when school’s in that we’ve found things. ”
“Yeah,” I said, “but we never go by here in the summertime. ”
We went home. Next morning the twine was where we had left it. When it was still there on the third day, Jem pocketed it. From then on, we considered everything we found in the knot-hole our property. -
The second grade was grim, but Jem assured me that the older I got the better school would be, that he started off the same way, and it was not until one reached the sixth grade that one learned anything of value. The sixth grade seemed to please him from the beginning: he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me—he tried to walk flat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one foot behind the other. He declared Egyptians walked that way; I said if they did I didn’t see how they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americans ever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where would we be today if they hadn’t? Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have
the facts.
There are no clearly defined seasons in South Alabama; summer drifts into autumn, and autumn is sometimes never followed by winter, but turns to a days- old spring that melts into summer again. That fall was a long one, hardly cool enough for a light jacket. Jem and I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon when our knot-hole stopped us again. Something white was inside this time.
Jem let me do the honors: I pulled out two small images carved in soap. One was the figure of a boy, the other wore a crude dress. Before I remembered that there was no such thing as hoo-dooing, I shrieked and threw them down.
Jem snatched them up. “What’s the matter with you? ” he yelled. He rubbed the figures free of red dust. “These are good,” he said. “I’ve never seen any these good. ”
He held them down to me. They were almost perfect miniatures of two children. The boy had on shorts, and a shock of soapy hair fell to his eyebrows. I looked up at Jem. A point of straight brown hair kicked downwards from his part. I had never noticed it before. Jem looked from the girl-doll to me. The girl-doll wore bangs. So did I.
“These are us,” he said.
“Who did ‘em, you reckon? ”
“Who do we know around here who whittles? ” he asked.
“Mr. Avery. ”
“Mr. Avery just does like this. I mean carves. ”
Mr. Avery averaged a stick of stovewood per week; he honed it down to a toothpick and chewed it.
“There’s old Miss Stephanie Crawford’s sweetheart,” I said.
“He carves all right, but he lives down the country. When would he ever pay any attention to us? ”
“Maybe he sits on the porch and looks at us instead of Miss Stephanie. If I was him, I would. ”
Jem stared at me so long I asked what was the matter, but got Nothing, Scout for an answer. When we went home, Jem put the dolls in his trunk.
Less than two weeks later we found a whole package of chewing gum, which we enjoyed, the fact that everything on the Radley Place was poison having slipped Jem’s memory.
The following week the knot-hole yielded a tarnished medal. Jem showed it to Atticus, who said it was a spelling medal, that before we were born the Maycomb County schools had spelling contests and awarded medals to the winners. Atticus said someone must have lost it, and had we asked around? Jem camel-kicked me when I tried to say where we had found it. Jem asked Atticus if he remembered anybody who ever won one, and Atticus said no.
Our biggest prize appeared four days later. It was a pocket watch that wouldn’t run, on a chain with an aluminum knife.
“You reckon it’s white gold, Jem? ” “Don’t know. I’ll show it to Atticus. ”
Atticus said it would probably be worth ten dollars, knife, chain and all, if it were new. “Did you swap with somebody at school? ” he asked.
“Oh, no sir! ” Jem pulled out his grandfather’s watch that Atticus let him carry once a week if Jem were careful with it. On the days he carried the watch, Jem walked on eggs. “Atticus, if it’s all right with you, I’d rather have this one instead. Maybe I can fix it. ”
When the new wore off his grandfather’s watch, and carrying it became a day’s burdensome task, Jem no longer felt the necessity of ascertaining the hour every five minutes.
He did a fair job, only one spring and two tiny pieces left over, but the watch would not run. “Oh-h,” he sighed, “it’ll never go. Scout—? ”
“Huh? ”
“You reckon we oughta write a letter to whoever’s leaving us these things? ” “That’d be right nice, Jem, we can thank ‘em—what’s wrong? ”
Jem was holding his ears, shaking his head from side to side. “I don’t get it, I just don’t get it—I don’t know why, Scout. . . ” He looked toward the livingroom. “I’ve
gotta good mind to tell Atticus—no, I reckon not. ” “I’ll tell him for you. ”
“No, don’t do that, Scout. Scout? ”
“Wha-t? ”
He had been on the verge of telling me something all evening; his face would brighten and he would lean toward me, then he would change his mind. He changed it again. “Oh, nothin‘. ”
“Here, let’s write a letter. ” I pushed a tablet and pencil under his nose. “Okay. Dear Mister. . . ”
“How do you know it’s a man? I bet it’s Miss Maudie—been bettin‘ that for a long time. ”
“Ar-r, Miss Maudie can’t chew gum—” Jem broke into a grin. “You know, she can talk real pretty sometimes. One time I asked her to have a chew and she said no thanks, that—chewing gum cleaved to her palate and rendered her speechless,” said Jem carefully. “Doesn’t that sound nice? ”
“Yeah, she can say nice things sometimes. She wouldn’t have a watch and chain anyway. ”
“Dear sir,” said Jem. “We appreciate the—no, we appreciate everything which you have put into the tree for us. Yours very truly, Jeremy Atticus Finch. ”
“He won’t know who you are if you sign it like that, Jem. ”
Jem erased his name and wrote, “Jem Finch. ” I signed, “Jean Louise Finch (Scout),” beneath it. Jem put the note in an envelope.
Next morning on the way to school he ran ahead of me and stopped at the tree. Jem was facing me when he looked up, and I saw him go stark white.
“Scout! ”
I ran to him.
Someone had filled our knot-hole with cement.
“Don’t you cry, now, Scout. . . don’t cry now, don’t you worry-” he muttered at me all the way to school.
When we went home for dinner Jem bolted his food, ran to the porch and stood on the steps. I followed him. “Hasn’t passed by yet,” he said.
Next day Jem repeated his vigil and was rewarded. “Hidy do, Mr. Nathan,” he said.
“Morning Jem, Scout,” said Mr. Radley, as he went by. “Mr. Radley,” said Jem.
Mr. Radley turned around.
“Mr. Radley, ah—did you put cement in that hole in that tree down yonder? ”
“Yes,” he said. “I filled it up. ”
“Why’d you do it, sir? ”
“Tree’s dying. You plug ‘em with cement when they’re sick. You ought to know that, Jem. ”
Jem said nothing more about it until late afternoon. When we passed our tree he gave it a meditative pat on its cement, and remained deep in thought. He seemed to be working himself into a bad humor, so I kept my distance.
As usual, we met Atticus coming home from work that evening. When we were at our steps Jem said, “Atticus, look down yonder at that tree, please sir. ”
“What tree, son? ”
“The one on the corner of the Radley lot comin‘ from school. ”
“Yes? ”
“Is that tree dyin‘? ”
“Why no, son, I don’t think so. Look at the leaves, they’re all green and full, no brown patches anywhere—”
“It ain’t even sick? ”
“That tree’s as healthy as you are, Jem. Why? ”
“Mr. Nathan Radley said it was dyin‘. ”
“Well maybe it is. I’m sure Mr. Radley knows more about his trees than we do. ”
Atticus left us on the porch. Jem leaned on a pillar, rubbing his shoulders against it.
“Do you itch, Jem? ” I asked as politely as I could. He did not answer. “Come on in, Jem,” I said.
“After while. ”
He stood there until nightfall, and I waited for him. When we went in the house I saw he had been crying; his face was dirty in the right places, but I thought it odd that I had not heard him.
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Chapter 8
For reasons unfathomable to the most experienced prophets in Maycomb County, autumn turned to winter that year. 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: Jem 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. Jem 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,” Jem whispered.
“You ask him, you’re the oldest. ”
“That’s why you oughta ask him. ”
“Atticus,” I said, “did you see Mr. Arthur? ”
Atticus looked sternly around his newspaper at me: “I did not. ”
Jem restrained me from further questions. He said Atticus was still touchous about us and the Radleys and it wouldn’t do to push him any. Jem had a notion
that Atticus thought our activities that night last summer were not solely confined to strip poker. Jem had no firm basis for his ideas, he said it was merely a twitch.
Next morning I awoke, looked out the window and nearly died of fright. My screams brought Atticus from his bathroom half-shaven.
“The world’s endin‘, Atticus! Please do something—! ” I dragged him to the window and pointed.
“No it’s not,” he said. “It’s snowing. ”
Jem asked Atticus would it keep up. Jem had never seen snow either, but he knew what it was. Atticus said he didn’t know any more about snow than Jem 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, Jem 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. ”
Calpurnia came in and said she thought it was sticking. When we ran to the back yard, it was covered with a feeble layer of soggy snow.
“We shouldn’t walk about in it,” said Jem. “Look, every step you take’s wasting it. ”
I looked back at my mushy footprints. Jem said if we waited until it snowed some more we could scrape it all up for a snowman. I stuck out my tongue and caught a fat flake. It burned.