he had enough to buy a miniature steam engine for himself and a
twirling baton for me.
I had long had my eye on that baton: it was at V. J. Elmore's, it
was bedecked with sequins and tinsel, it cost seventeen cents. It
was then my burning ambition to grow up and twirl with the Maycomb
County High School band. Having developed my talent to where I could
throw up a stick and almost catch it coming down, I had caused
Calpurnia to deny me entrance to the house every time she saw me
with a stick in my hand. I felt that I could overcome this defect with
a real baton, and I thought it generous of Jem to buy one for me.
Mrs. Dubose was stationed on her porch when we went by.
"Where are you two going at this time of day?" she shouted. "Playing
hooky, I suppose. I'll just call up the principal and tell him!" She
put her hands on the wheels of her chair and executed a perfect
right face.
"Aw, it's Saturday, Mrs. Dubose," said Jem.
"Makes no difference if it's Saturday," she said obscurely. "I
wonder if your father knows where you are?"
"Mrs. Dubose, we've been goin' to town by ourselves since we were
this high." Jem placed his hand palm down about two feet above the
sidewalk.
"Don't you lie to me!" she yelled. "Jeremy Finch, Maudie Atkinson
told me you broke down her scuppernong arbor this morning. She's going
to tell your father and then you'll wish you never saw the light of
day! If you aren't sent to the reform school before next week, my
name's not Dubose!"
Jem, who hadn't been near Miss Maudie's scuppernong arbor since last
summer, and who knew Miss Maudie wouldn't tell Atticus if he had,
issued a general denial.
"Don't you contradict me!" Mrs. Dubose bawled. "And you-" she
pointed an arthritic finger at me- "what are you doing in those
overalls? You should be in a dress and camisole, young lady! You'll
grow up waiting on tables if somebody doesn't change your ways- a
Finch waiting on tables at the O.K. Cafe- hah!"
I was terrified. The O.K. Cafe was a dim organization on the north
side of the square. I grabbed Jem's hand but he shook me loose.
"Come on, Scout," he whispered. "Don't pay any attention to her,
just hold your head high and be a gentleman."
But Mrs. Dubose held us: "Not only a Finch waiting on tables but one
in the courthouse lawing for niggers!"
Jem stiffened. Mrs. Dubose's shot had gone home and she knew it:
"Yes indeed, what has this world come to when a Finch goes against
his raising? I'll tell you!" She put her hand to her mouth. When she
drew it away, it trailed a long silver thread of saliva. "Your
father's no better than the niggers and trash he works for!"
Jem was scarlet. I pulled at his sleeve, and we were followed up the
sidewalk by a philippic on our family's moral degeneration, the
major premise of which was that half the Finches were in the asylum
anyway, but if our mother were living we would not have come to such a
state.
I wasn't sure what Jem resented most, but I took umbrage at Mrs.
Dubose's assessment of the family's mental hygiene. I had become
almost accustomed to hearing insults aimed at Atticus. But this was
the first one coming from an adult. Except for her remarks about
Atticus, Mrs. Dubose's attack was only routine. There was a hint of
summer in the air- in the shadows it was cool, but the sun was warm,
which meant good times coming: no school and Dill.
Jem bought his steam engine and we went by Elmore's for my baton.
Jem took no pleasure in his acquisition; he jammed it in his pocket
and walked silently beside me toward home. On the way home I nearly
hit Mr. Link Deas, who said, "Look out now, Scout!" when I missed a
toss, and when we approached Mrs. Dubose's house my baton was grimy
from having picked it up out of the dirt so many times.
She was not on the porch.
In later years, I sometimes wondered exactly what made Jem do it,
what made him break the bonds of "You just be a gentleman, son," and
the phase of self-conscious rectitude he had recently entered. Jem had
probably stood as much guff about Atticus lawing for niggers as had I,
and I took it for granted that he kept his temper- he had a
naturally tranquil disposition and a slow fuse. At the time,
however, I thought the only explanation for what he did was that for a
few minutes he simply went mad.
What Jem did was something I'd do as a matter of course had I not
been under Atticus's interdict, which I assumed included not
fighting horrible old ladies. We had just come to her gate when Jem
snatched my baton and ran flailing wildly up the steps into Mrs.
Dubose's front yard, forgetting everything Atticus had said,
forgetting that she packed a pistol under her shawls, forgetting
that if Mrs. Dubose missed, her girl Jessie probably wouldn't.
He did not begin to calm down until he had cut the tops off every
camellia bush Mrs. Dubose owned, until the ground was littered with
green buds and leaves. He bent my baton against his knee, snapped it
in two and threw it down.
By that time I was shrieking. Jem yanked my hair, said he didn't
care, he'd do it again if he got a chance, and if I didn't shut up
he'd pull every hair out of my head. I didn't shut up and he kicked
me. I lost my balance and fell on my face. Jem picked me up roughly
but looked like he was sorry. There was nothing to say.
We did not choose to meet Atticus coming home that evening. We
skulked around the kitchen until Calpurnia threw us out. By some
voo-doo system Calpurnia seemed to know all about it. She was a less
than satisfactory source of palliation, but she did give Jem a hot
biscuit-and-butter which he tore in half and shared with me. It tasted
like cotton.
We went to the livingroom. I picked up a football magazine, found
a picture of Dixie Howell, showed it to Jem and said, "This looks like
you." That was the nicest thing I could think to say to him, but it
was no help. He sat by the windows, hunched down in a rocking chair,
scowling, waiting. Daylight faded.
Two geological ages later, we heard the soles of Atticus's shoes
scrape the front steps. The screen door slammed, there was a pause-
Atticus was at the hat rack in the hall- and we heard him call, "Jem!"
His voice was like the winter wind.
Atticus switched on the ceiling light in the livingroom and found us
there, frozen still. He carried my baton in one hand; its filthy
yellow tassel trailed on the rug. He held out his other hand; it
contained fat camellia buds.
"Jem," he said, "are you responsible for this?"
"Yes sir."
"Why'd you do it?"
Jem said softly, "She said you lawed for niggers and trash."
"You did this because she said that?"
Jem's lips moved, but his, "Yes sir," was inaudible.
"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."
