When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow.
When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, hewas seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than hisright; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, histhumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass andpunt.
When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimesdiscussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, butJem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began thesummer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley comeout.
I said if he wanted to take a broad view of the thing, it really began with AndrewJackson. If General Jackson hadn’t run the Creeks up the creek, Simon Finch wouldnever have paddled up the Alabama, and where would we be if he hadn’t? We were fartoo old to settle an argument with a fist-fight, so we consulted Atticus. Our father said wewere both right.
Being Southerners, it was a source of shame to some members of the family that wehad no recorded ancestors on either side of the Battle of Hastings. All we had wasSimon Finch, a fur-trapping apothecary from Cornwall whose piety was exceeded onlyby his stinginess. In England, Simon was irritated by the persecution of those who calledthemselves Methodists at the hands of their more liberal brethren, and as Simon calledhimself a Methodist, he worked his way across the Atlantic to Philadelphia, thence toJamaica, thence to Mobile, and up the Saint Stephens. Mindful of John Wesley’sstrictures on the use of many words in buying and selling, Simon made a pile practicingmedicine, but in this pursuit he was unhappy lest he be tempted into doing what heknew was not for the glory of God, as the putting on of gold and costly apparel. SoSimon, having forgotten his teacher’s dictum on the possession of human chattels,bought three slaves and with their aid established a homestead on the banks of theAlabama River some forty miles above Saint Stephens. He returned to Saint Stephensonly once, to find a wife, and with her established a line that ran high to daughters.
Simon lived to an impressive age and died rich.
It was customary for the men in the family to remain on Simon’s homestead, Finch’sLanding, and make their living from cotton. The place was self-sufficient: modest incomparison with the empires around it, the Landing nevertheless produced everythingrequired to sustain life except ice, wheat flour, and articles of clothing, supplied by river-boats from Mobile.
Simon would have regarded with impotent fury the disturbance between the North andthe South, as it left his descendants stripped of everything but their land, yet the traditionof living on the land remained unbroken until well into the twentieth century, when myfather, Atticus Finch, went to Montgomery to read law, and his younger brother went toBoston to study medicine. Their sister Alexandra was the Finch who remained at theLanding: she married a taciturn man who spent most of his time lying in a hammock bythe river wondering if his trot-lines were full.
When my father was admitted to the bar, he returned to Maycomb and began hispractice. Maycomb, some twenty miles east of Finch’s Landing, was the county seat ofMaycomb County. Atticus’s office in the courthouse contained little more than a hat rack,a spittoon, a checkerboard and an unsullied Code of Alabama. His first two clients werethe last two persons hanged in the Maycomb County jail. Atticus had urged them toaccept the state’s generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murderand escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a namesynonymous with jackass. The Haverfords had dispatched Maycomb’s leadingblacksmith in a misunderstanding arising from the alleged wrongful detention of a mare,were imprudent enough to do it in the presence of three witnesses, and insisted that the-son-of-a-bitch-had-it-coming-to-him was a good enough defense for anybody. Theypersisted in pleading Not Guilty to first-degree murder, so there was nothing muchAtticus could do for his clients except be present at their departure, an occasion thatwas probably the beginning of my father’s profound distaste for the practice of criminallaw.
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. JohnHale Finch was ten years younger than my father, and chose to study medicine at atime when cotton was not worth growing; but after getting Uncle Jack started, Atticusderived a reasonable income from the law. He liked Maycomb, he was MaycombCounty born and bred; he knew his people, they knew him, and because of SimonFinch’s industry, Atticus was related by blood or marriage to nearly every family in thetown.
Maycomb was an old town, but it was a tired old town when I first knew it. In rainyweather the streets turned to red slop; grass grew on the sidewalks, the courthousesagged in the square. Somehow, it was hotter then: a black dog suffered on a summer’sday; bony mules hitched to Hoover carts flicked flies in the sweltering shade of the liveoaks on the square. Men’s stiff collars wilted by nine in the morning. Ladies bathedbefore noon, after their three-o’clock naps, and by nightfall were like soft teacakes withfrostings of sweat and sweet talcum.
People moved slowly then. They ambled across the square, shuffled in and out of thestores around it, took their time about everything. A day was twenty-four hours long butseemed longer. There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and nomoney to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Maycomb County. But itwas a time of vague optimism for some of the people: Maycomb County had recentlybeen 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 ourcook. Jem and I found our father satisfactory: he played with us, read to us, and treatedus with courteous detachment.
Calpurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones; she wasnearsighted; she squinted; her hand was wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. She wasalways ordering me out of the kitchen, asking me why I couldn’t behave as well as Jemwhen she knew he was older, and calling me home when I wasn’t ready to come. Ourbattles were epic and one-sided. Calpurnia always won, mainly because Atticus alwaystook her side. She had been with us ever since Jem was born, and I had felt hertyrannical presence as long as I could remember.
Our mother died when I was two, so I never felt her absence. She was a Graham fromMontgomery; Atticus met her when he was first elected to the state legislature. He wasmiddle-aged then, she was fifteen years his junior. Jem was the product of their firstyear of marriage; four years later I was born, and two years later our mother died from asudden 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 atlength, then go off and play by himself behind the car-house. When he was like that, Iknew better than to bother him.
When I was almost six and Jem was nearly ten, our summertime boundaries (withincalling distance of Calpurnia) were Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose’s house two doors tothe north of us, and the Radley Place three doors to the south. We were never temptedto break them. The Radley Place was inhabited by an unknown entity the meredescription of whom was enough to make us behave for days on end; Mrs. Dubose wasplain hell.
That was the summer Dill came to us.
Early one morning as we were beginning our day’s play in the back yard, Jem and Iheard something next door in Miss Rachel Haverford’s collard patch. We went to thewire fence to see if there was a puppy—Miss Rachel’s rat terrier was expecting—instead we found someone sitting looking at us. Sitting down, he wasn’t much higherthan the collards. We stared at him until he spoke
Hey.
Hey yourself,” said Jem pleasantly.
I’m Charles Baker Harris,” he said. “I can read.
So what?” I said.
I just thought you’d like to know I can read. You got anything needs readin‘ I can doit
How old are you,” asked Jem, “four-and-a-half
Goin‘ on seven.
Shoot no wonder, then,” said Jem, jerking his thumb at me. “Scout yonder’s beenreadin‘ ever since she was born, and she ain’t even started to school yet. You look rightpuny for goin’ on seven.
I’m little but I’m old,” he said.
Jem brushed his hair back to get a better look. “Why don’t you come over, CharlesBaker Harris?” he said. “Lord, what a name.
s not any funnier’n yours. Aunt Rachel says your name’s Jeremy Atticus Finch.
Jem scowled. “I’m big enough to fit mine,” he said. “Your name’s longer’n you are. Betit’s a foot longer.
Folks call me Dill,” said Dill, struggling under the fence.
Do better if you go over it instead of under it,” I said. “Where’d you come from
Dill was from Meridian, Mississippi, was spending the summer with his aunt, MissRachel, and would be spending every summer in Maycomb from now on. His family wasfrom Maycomb County originally, his mother worked for a photographer in Meridian, hadentered his picture in a Beautiful Child contest and won five dollars. She gave themoney to Dill, who went to the picture show twenty times on it.
Don’t have any picture shows here, except Jesus ones in the courthouse sometimes
said Jem. “Ever see anything good
Dill had seen Dracula, a revelation that moved Jem to eye him with the beginning ofrespect. “Tell it to us,” he said.
Dill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts that buttoned to his shirt, his hair wassnow white and stuck to his head like duckfluff; he was a year my senior but I toweredover him. As he told us the old tale his blue eyes would lighten and darken; his laughwas sudden and happy; he habitually pulled at a cowlick in the center of his forehead.
When Dill reduced Dracula to dust, and Jem said the show sounded better than thebook, I asked Dill where his father was: “You ain’t said anything about him.
I haven’t got one.
Is he dead
No
Then if he’s not dead you’ve got one, haven’t you
Dill blushed and Jem told me to hush, a sure sign that Dill had been studied and foundacceptable. Thereafter the summer passed in routine contentment. Routine contentmentwas: improving our treehouse that rested between giant twin chinaberry trees in theback yard, fussing, running through our list of dramas based on the works of OliverOptic, Victor Appleton, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In this matter we were lucky to haveDill. He played the character parts formerly thrust upon me—the ape in Tarzan, Mr.
Crabtree in The Rover Boys, Mr. Damon in Tom Swift. Thus we came to know Dill as apocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric plans, strange longings, and quaintfancies.
But by the end of August our repertoire was vapid from countless reproductions, and itwas then that Dill gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.
The Radley Place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew himas the moon draws water, but drew him no nearer than the light-pole on the corner, asafe distance from the Radley gate. There he would stand, his arm around the fat pole,staring and wondering.
The Radley Place jutted into a sharp curve beyond our house. Walking south, onefaced its porch; the sidewalk turned and ran beside the lot. The house was low, wasonce white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to thecolor of the slate-gray yard around it. Rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of theveranda; oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded thefront yard—a “swept” yard that was never swept—where johnson grass and rabbit-tobacco grew in abundance.
Inside the house lived a malevolent phantom. People said he existed, but Jem and Ihad never seen him. People said he went out at night when the moon was down, andpeeped in windows. When people’s azaleas froze in a cold snap, it was because he hadbreathed on them. Any stealthy small crimes committed in Maycomb were his work.
Once the town was terrorized by a series of morbid nocturnal events: people’s chickensand household pets were found mutilated; although the culprit was Crazy Addie, whoeventually drowned himself in Barker’s Eddy, people still looked at the Radley Place,unwilling to discard their initial suspicions. A Negro would not pass the Radley Place atnight, he would cut across to the sidewalk opposite and whistle as he walked. TheMaycomb school grounds adjoined the back of the Radley lot; from the Radleychickenyard tall pecan trees shook their fruit into the schoolyard, but the nuts layuntouched by the children: Radley pecans would kill you. A baseball hit into the Radleyyard was a lost ball and no questions asked.
The misery of that house began many years before Jem and I were born. TheRadleys, welcome anywhere in town, kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable inMaycomb. They did not go to church, Maycomb’s principal recreation, but worshiped athome; Mrs. Radley seldom if ever crossed the street for a mid-morning coffee break withher neighbors, and certainly never joined a missionary circle. Mr. Radley walked to townat eleven-thirty every morning and came back promptly at twelve, sometimes carrying abrown paper bag that the neighborhood assumed contained the family groceries. I neverknew how old Mr. Radley made his living—Jem said he “bought cotton,” a polite term fordoing nothing—but Mr. Radley and his wife had lived there with their two sons as longas anybody could remember.
The shutters and doors of the Radley house were closed on Sundays, another thingalien to Maycomb’s ways: closed doors meant illness and cold weather only. Of all daysSunday was the day for formal afternoon visiting: ladies wore corsets, men wore coats,children wore shoes. But to climb the Radley front steps and call, “He-y,” of a Sundayafternoon was something their neighbors never did. The Radley house had no screendoors. I once asked Atticus if it ever had any; Atticus said yes, but before I was born.
According to neighborhood legend, when the younger Radley boy was in his teens hebecame acquainted with some of the Cunninghams from Old Sarum, an enormous andconfusing tribe domiciled in the northern part of the county, and they formed the nearestthing to a gang ever seen in Maycomb. They did little, but enough to be discussed bythe town and publicly warned from three pulpits: they hung around the barbershop; theyrode the bus to Abbottsville on Sundays and went to the picture show; they attendeddances at the county’s riverside gambling hell, the Dew-Drop Inn & Fishing Camp; theyexperimented with stumphole whiskey. Nobody in Maycomb had nerve enough to tellMr. Radley that his boy was in with the wrong crowd.
One night, in an excessive spurt of high spirits, the boys backed around the square ina borrowed flivver, resisted arrest by Maycomb’s ancient beadle, Mr. Conner, andlocked him in the courthouse outhouse. The town decided something had to be done;Mr. Conner said he knew who each and every one of them was, and he was bound anddetermined they wouldn’t get away with it, so the boys came before the probate judgeon charges of disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, assault and battery, and usingabusive and profane language in the presence and hearing of a female. The judgeasked Mr. Conner why he included the last charge; Mr. Conner said they cussed so loudhe was sure every lady in Maycomb heard them. The judge decided to send the boys tothe state industrial school, where boys were sometimes sent for no other reason than toprovide them with food and decent shelter: it was no prison and it was no disgrace. Mr.
Radley thought it was. If the judge released Arthur, Mr. Radley would see to it thatArthur gave no further trouble. Knowing that Mr. Radley’s word was his bond, the judgewas glad to do so.
The other boys attended the industrial school and received the best secondaryeducation to be had in the state; one of them eventually worked his way throughengineering school at Auburn. The doors of the Radley house were closed on weekdaysas well as Sundays, and Mr. Radley’s boy was not seen again for fifteen years.
But there came a day, barely within Jem’s memory, when Boo Radley was heard fromand was seen by several people, but not by Jem. He said Atticus never talked muchabout the Radleys: when Jem would question him Atticus’s only answer was for him tomind his own business and let the Radleys mind theirs, they had a right to; but when ithappened Jem said Atticus shook his head and said, “Mm, mm, mm.
So Jem received most of his information from Miss Stephanie Crawford, aneighborhood scold, who said she knew the whole thing. According to Miss Stephanie,Boo was sitting in the livingroom cutting some items from The Maycomb Tribune topaste in his scrapbook. His father entered the room. As Mr. Radley passed by, Boodrove the scissors into his parent’s leg, pulled them out, wiped them on his pants, andresumed his activities.
Mrs. Radley ran screaming into the street that Arthur was killing them all, but when thesheriff arrived he found Boo still sitting in the livingroom, cutting up the Tribune. He wasthirty-three years old then.
Miss Stephanie said old Mr. Radley said no Radley was going to any asylum, when itwas suggested that a season in Tuscaloosa might be helpful to Boo. Boo wasn’t crazy,he was high-strung at times. It was all right to shut him up, Mr. Radley conceded, butinsisted that Boo not be charged with anything: he was not a criminal. The sheriff hadn’tthe heart to put him in jail alongside Negroes, so Boo was locked in the courthousebasement.
Boo’s transition from the basement to back home was nebulous in Jem’s memory.
Miss Stephanie Crawford said some of the town council told Mr. Radley that if he didn’ttake Boo back, Boo would die of mold from the damp. Besides, Boo could not liveforever on the bounty of the county.
Nobody knew what form of intimidation Mr. Radley employed to keep Boo out of sight,but Jem figured that Mr. Radley kept him chained to the bed most of the time. Atticussaid no, it wasn’t that sort of thing, that there were other ways of making people intoghosts.
My memory came alive to see Mrs. Radley occasionally open the front door, walk tothe edge of the porch, and pour water on her cannas. But every day Jem and I wouldsee Mr. Radley walking to and from town. He was a thin leathery man with colorlesseyes, so colorless they did not reflect light. His cheekbones were sharp and his mouthwas wide, with a thin upper lip and a full lower lip. Miss Stephanie Crawford said he wasso upright he took the word of God as his only law, and we believed her, because Mr.
Radley’s posture was ramrod straight.
He never spoke to us. When he passed we would look at the ground and say, “Goodmorning, sir,” and he would cough in reply. Mr. Radley’s elder son lived in Pensacola; hecame home at Christmas, and he was one of the few persons we ever saw enter orleave the place. From the day Mr. Radley took Arthur home, people said the house died.
But there came a day when Atticus told us he’d wear us out if we made any noise inthe yard and commissioned Calpurnia to serve in his absence if she heard a sound outof us. Mr. Radley was dying.
He took his time about it. Wooden sawhorses blocked the road at each end of theRadley lot, straw was put down on the sidewalk, traffic was diverted to the back street.
Dr. Reynolds parked his car in front of our house and walked to the Radley’s every timehe called. Jem and I crept around the yard for days. At last the sawhorses were takenaway, and we stood watching from the front porch when Mr. Radley made his finaljourney past our house.
There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into,” murmured Calpurnia, andshe spat meditatively into the yard. We looked at her in surprise, for Calpurnia rarelycommented on the ways of white people.
The neighborhood thought when Mr. Radley went under Boo would come out, but ithad another think coming: Boo’s elder brother returned from Pensacola and took Mr.
Radley’s place. The only difference between him and his father was their ages. Jemsaid Mr. Nathan Radley “bought cotton,” too. Mr. Nathan would speak to us, however,when we said good morning, and sometimes we saw him coming from town with amagazine in his hand.
The more we told Dill about the Radleys, the more he wanted to know, the longer hewould stand hugging the light-pole on the corner, the more he would wonder.
Wonder what he does in there,” he would murmur. “Looks like he’d just stick his headout the door.
Jem said, “He goes out, all right, when it’s pitch dark. Miss Stephanie Crawford saidshe woke up in the middle of the night one time and saw him looking straight throughthe window at her… said his head was like a skull lookin‘ at her. Ain’t you ever waked upat night and heard him, Dill? He walks like this-” Jem slid his feet through the gravel.
Why do you think Miss Rachel locks up so tight at night? I’ve seen his tracks in ourback yard many a mornin’, and one night I heard him scratching on the back screen, buthe was gone time Atticus got there.
Wonder what he looks like?” said Dill.
Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about six-and-a-half feet tall,judging from his tracks; he dined on raw squirrels and any cats he could catch, that’swhy his hands were bloodstained—if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash theblood off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth he had wereyellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of the time.
Let’s try to make him come out,” said Dill. “I’d like to see what he looks like.
Jem said if Dill wanted to get himself killed, all he had to do was go up and knock onthe front door.
Our first raid came to pass only because Dill bet Jem The Gray Ghost against twoTom Swifts that Jem wouldn’t get any farther than the Radley gate. In all his life, Jemhad never declined a dare.
Jem thought about it for three days. I suppose he loved honor more than his head, forDill wore him down easily: “You’re scared,” Dill said, the first day. “Ain’t scared, justrespectful,” Jem said. The next day Dill said, “You’re too scared even to put your big toein the front yard.” Jem said he reckoned he wasn’t, he’d passed the Radley Place everyschool day of his life.
Always runnin‘,” I said.
But Dill got him the third day, when he told Jem that folks in Meridian certainly weren’tas afraid as the folks in Maycomb, that he’d never seen such scary folks as the ones inMaycomb.
This was enough to make Jem march to the corner, where he stopped and leanedagainst the light-pole, watching the gate hanging crazily on its homemade hinge.
I hope you’ve got it through your head that he’ll kill us each and every one, DillHarris,” said Jem, when we joined him. “Don’t blame me when he gouges your eyes out.
You started it, remember.
You’re still scared,” murmured Dill patiently.
Jem wanted Dill to know once and for all that he wasn’t scared of anything: “It’s justthat I can’t think of a way to make him come out without him gettin‘ us.” Besides, Jemhad his little sister to think of.
When he said that, I knew he was afraid. Jem had his little sister to think of the time Idared him to jump off the top of the house: “If I got killed, what’d become of you?” heasked. Then he jumped, landed unhurt, and his sense of responsibility left him untilconfronted by the Radley Place.
You gonna run out on a dare?” asked Dill. “If you are, then
Dill, you have to think about these things,” Jem said. “Lemme think a minute… it’ssort of like making a turtle come out
How’s that?” asked Dill.
Strike a match under him.
I told Jem if he set fire to the Radley house I was going to tell Atticus on him.
Dill said striking a match under a turtle was hateful.
Ain’t hateful, just persuades him—‘s not like you’d chunk him in the fire,” Jemgrowled.
How do you know a match don’t hurt him
Turtles can’t feel, stupid,” said Jem.
Were you ever a turtle, huh
My stars, Dill! Now lemme think… reckon we can rock him
Jem stood in thought so long that Dill made a mild concession: “I won’t say you ranout on a dare an‘ I’ll swap you The Gray Ghost if you just go up and touch the house.
Jem brightened. “Touch the house, that all
Dill nodded.
Sure that’s all, now? I don’t want you hollerin‘ something different the minute I getback.
Yeah, that’s all,” said Dill. “He’ll probably come out after you when he sees you in theyard, then Scout’n‘ me’ll jump on him and hold him down till we can tell him we ain’tgonna hurt him.
We left the corner, crossed the side street that ran in front of the Radley house, andstopped at the gate.
Well go on,” said Dill, “Scout and me’s right behind you.
I’m going,” said Jem, “don’t hurry me.
He walked to the corner of the lot, then back again, studying the simple terrain as ifdeciding how best to effect an entry, frowning and scratching his head.
Then I sneered at him.
Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palmand ran back past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful. Dill and I followedon his heels. Safely on our porch, panting and out of breath, we looked back.
The old house was the same, droopy and sick, but as we stared down the street wethought we saw an inside shutter move. Flick. A tiny, almost invisible movement, andthe house was still.
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