playing time. Jem's mind was occupied mostly with the vital statistics
of every college football player in the nation. Every night Atticus
would read us the sports pages of the newspapers. Alabama might go
to the Rose Bowl again this year, judging from its prospects, not
one of whose names we could pronounce. Atticus was in the middle of
Windy Seaton's column one evening when the telephone rang.
He answered it, then went to the hat rack in the hall. "I'm going
down to Mrs. Dubose's for a while," he said. "I won't be long."
But Atticus stayed away until long past my bedtime. When he returned
he was carrying a candy box. Atticus sat down in the livingroom and
put the box on the floor beside his chair.
"What'd she want?" asked Jem.
We had not seen Mrs. Dubose for over a month. She was never on the
porch any more when we passed.
"She's dead, son," said Atticus. "She died a few minutes ago."
"Oh," said Jem. "Well."
"Well is right," said Atticus. "She's not suffering any more. She
was sick for a long time. Son, didn't you know what her fits were?"
Jem shook his head.
"Mrs. Dubose was a morphine addict," said Atticus. "She took it as a
pain-killer for years. The doctor put her on it. She'd have spent
the rest of her life on it and died without so much agony, but she was
too contrary-"
"Sir?" said Jem.
Atticus said, "Just before your escapade she called me to make her
will. Dr. Reynolds told her she had only a few months left. Her
business affairs were in perfect order but she said, 'There's still
one thing out of order.'"
"What was that?" Jem was perplexed.
"She said she was going to leave this world beholden to nothing
and nobody. Jem, when you're sick as she was, it's all right to take
anything to make it easier, but it wasn't all right for her. She
said she meant to break herself of it before she died, and that's what
she did."
Jem said, "You mean that's what her fits were?"
"Yes, that's what they were. Most of the time you were reading to
her I doubt if she heard a word you said. Her whole mind and body were
concentrated on that alarm clock. If you hadn't fallen into her hands,
I'd have made you go read to her anyway. It may have been some
distraction. There was another reason-"
"Did she die free?" asked Jem.
"As the mountain air," said Atticus. "She was conscious to the last,
almost. Conscious," he smiled, "and cantankerous. She still
disapproved heartily of my doings, and said I'd probably spend the
rest of my life bailing you out of jail. She had Jessie fix you this
box-"
Atticus reached down and picked up the candy box. He handed it to
Jem.
Jem opened the box. Inside, surrounded by wads of damp cotton, was a
white, waxy, perfect camellia. It was a Snow-on-the-Mountain.
Jem's eyes nearly popped out of his head. "Old hell-devil, old
hell-devil!" he screamed, flinging it down. "Why can't she leave me
alone?"
In a flash Atticus was up and standing over him. Jem buried his face
in Atticus's shirt front. "Sh-h," he said. "I think that was her way
of telling you- everything's all right now, Jem, everything's all
right. You know, she was a great lady."
"A lady?" Jem raised his head. His face was scarlet. "After all
those things she said about you, a lady?"
"She was. She had her own views about things, a lot different from
mine, maybe... son, I told you that if you hadn't lost your head I'd
have made you go read to her. I wanted you to see something about her-
I wanted you to see what real courage is, instead of getting the
idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you
know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see
it through no matter what. You rarely win, but sometimes you do.
Mrs. Dubose won, all ninety-eight pounds of her. According to her
views, she died beholden to nothing and nobody. She was the bravest
person I ever knew."
Jem picked up the candy box and threw it in the fire. He picked up
the camellia, and when I went off to bed I saw him fingering the
wide petals. Atticus was reading the paper.
PART TWO
12
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 fiance 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.
We were surprised one morning to see a cartoon in the Montgomery
Advertiser above the caption, "Maycomb's Finch." It showed Atticus
barefooted and in short pants, chained to a desk: he was diligently
writing on a slate while some frivolous-looking girls yelled,
"Yoo-hoo!" at him.
"That's a compliment," explained Jem. "He spends his time doin'
things that wouldn't get done if nobody did 'em."
"Huh?"
In addition to Jem's newly developed characteristics, he had
acquired a maddening air of wisdom.
"Oh, Scout, it's like reorganizing the tax systems of the counties
and things. That kind of thing's pretty dry to most men."
"How do you know?"
"Oh, go on and leave me alone. I'm readin' the paper."
Jem got his wish. I departed for the kitchen.
While she was shelling peas, Calpurnia suddenly said, "What am I
gonna do about you all's church this Sunday?"
"Nothing, I reckon. Atticus left us collection."
Calpurnia's eyes narrowed and I could tell what was going through
her mind. "Cal," I said, "you know we'll behave. We haven't done
anything in church in years."
Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both
fatherless and teacherless. Left to its own devices, the class tied
Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We
forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly
to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator
pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth
Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more- Jem Finch
said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot
down there.
"Besides, Cal, this isn't the first time Atticus has left us," I
protested.
"Yeah, but he makes certain your teacher's gonna be there. I
didn't hear him say this time- reckon he forgot it." Calpurnia
scratched her head. Suddenly she smiled. "How'd you and Mister Jem
like to come to church with me tomorrow?"
"Really?"
"How 'bout it?" grinned Calpurnia.
If Calpurnia had ever bathed me roughly before, it was nothing
compared to her supervision of that Saturday night's routine. She made
me soap all over twice, drew fresh water in the tub for each rinse;
she stuck my head in the basin and washed it with Octagon soap and
castile. She had trusted Jem for years, but that night she invaded his
privacy and provoked an outburst: "Can't anybody take a bath in this
house without the whole family lookin'?"
Next morning she began earlier than usual, to "go over our clothes."
When Calpurnia stayed overnight with us she slept on a folding cot
in the kitchen; that morning it was covered with our Sunday
habiliments. She had put so much starch in my dress it came up like
a tent when I sat down. She made me wear a petticoat and she wrapped a
pink sash tightly around my waist. She went over my patent-leather
shoes with a cold biscuit until she saw her face in them.
"It's like we were goin' to Mardi Gras," said Jem. "What's all
this for, Cal?"
