This was the weirdest reason for flight I had ever heard. "How
come?"
"Well, they stayed gone all the time, and when they were home, even,
they'd get off in a room by themselves."
"What'd they do in there?"
"Nothin', just sittin' and readin'- but they didn't want me with
'em."
I pushed the pillow to the headboard and sat up. "You know
something? I was fixin' to run off tonight because there they all
were. You don't want 'em around you all the time, Dill-"
Dill breathed his patient breath, a half-sigh.
"-good night, Atticus's gone all day and sometimes half the night
and off in the legislature and I don't know what- you don't want 'em
around all the time, Dill, you couldn't do anything if they were."
"That's not it."
As Dill explained, I found myself wondering what life would be if
Jem were different, even from what he was now; what I would do if
Atticus did not feel the necessity of my presence, help and advice.
Why, he couldn't get along a day without me. Even Calpurnia couldn't
get along unless I was there. They needed me.
"Dill, you ain't telling me right- your folks couldn't do without
you. They must be just mean to you. Tell you what to do about that-"
Dill's voice went on steadily in the darkness: "The thing is, what
I'm tryin' to say is- they do get on a lot better without me, I
can't help them any. They ain't mean. They buy me everything I want,
but it's now-you've-got-it-go-play-with-it. You've got a roomful of
things. I-got-you-that-book-so-go-read-it." Dill tried to deepen his
voice. "You're not a boy. Boys get out and play baseball with other
boys, they don't hang around the house worryin' their folks."
Dill's voice was his own again: "Oh, they ain't mean. They kiss
you and hug you good night and good mornin' and good-bye and tell
you they love you- Scout, let's get us a baby."
"Where?"
There was a man Dill had heard of who had a boat that he rowed
across to a foggy island where all these babies were; you could
order one-
"That's a lie. Aunty said God drops 'em down the chimney. At least
that's what I think she said." For once, Aunty's diction had not
been too clear.
"Well that ain't so. You get babies from each other. But there's
this man, too- he has all these babies just waitin' to wake up, he
breathes life into 'em...."
Dill was off again. Beautiful things floated around in his dreamy
head. He could read two books to my one, but he preferred the magic of
his own inventions. He could add and subtract faster than lightning,
but he preferred his own twilight world, a world where babies slept,
waiting to be gathered like morning lilies. He was slowly talking
himself to sleep and taking me with him, but in the quietness of his
foggy island there rose the faded image of a gray house with sad brown
doors.
"Dill?"
"Mm?"
"Why do you reckon Boo Radley's never run off?"
Dill sighed a long sigh and turned away from me.
"Maybe he doesn't have anywhere to run off to...."
15
After many telephone calls, much pleading on behalf of the
defendant, and a long forgiving letter from his mother, it was decided
that Dill could stay. We had a week of peace together. After that,
little, it seemed. A nightmare was upon us.
It began one evening after supper. Dill was over; Aunt Alexandra was
in her chair in the corner, Atticus was in his; Jem and I were on
the floor reading. It had been a placid week: I had minded Aunty;
Jem had outgrown the treehouse, but helped Dill and me construct a new
rope ladder for it; Dill had hit upon a foolproof plan to make Boo
Radley come out at no cost to ourselves (place a trail of lemon
drops from the back door to the front yard and he'd follow it, like an
ant). There was a knock on the front door, Jem answered it and said it
was Mr. Heck Tate.
"Well, ask him to come in," said Atticus.
"I already did. There's some men outside in the yard, they want
you to come out."
In Maycomb, grown men stood outside in the front yard for only two
reasons: death and politics. I wondered who had died. Jem and I went
to the front door, but Atticus called, "Go back in the house."
Jem turned out the livingroom lights and pressed his nose to a
window screen. Aunt Alexandra protested. "Just for a second, Aunty,
let's see who it is," he said.
Dill and I took another window. A crowd of men was standing around
Atticus. They all seemed to be talking at once.
"...movin' him to the county jail tomorrow," Mr. Tate was saying, "I
don't look for any trouble, but I can't guarantee there won't be
any...."
"Don't be foolish, Heck," Atticus said. "This is Maycomb."
"...said I was just uneasy."
"Heck, we've gotten one postponement of this case just to make
sure there's nothing to be uneasy about. This is Saturday," Atticus
said. "Trial'll probably be Monday. You can keep him one night,
can't you? I don't think anybody in Maycomb'll begrudge me a client,
with times this hard."
There was a murmur of glee that died suddenly when Mr. Link Deas
said, "Nobody around here's up to anything, it's that Old Sarum
bunch I'm worried about... can't you get a- what is it, Heck?"
"Change of venue," said Mr. Tate. "Not much point in that, now is
it?"
Atticus said something inaudible. I turned to Jem, who waved me to
silence.
"-besides," Atticus was saying, "you're not scared of that crowd,
are you?"
"...know how they do when they get shinnied up."
"They don't usually drink on Sunday, they go to church most of the
day..." Atticus said.
"This is a special occasion, though..." someone said.
They murmured and buzzed until Aunty said if Jem didn't turn on
the livingroom lights he would disgrace the family. Jem didn't hear
her.
"-don't see why you touched it in the first place," Mr. Link Deas
was saying. "You've got everything to lose from this, Atticus. I
mean everything."
"Do you really think so?"
This was Atticus's dangerous question. "Do you really think you want
to move there, Scout?" Bam, bam, bam, and the checkerboard was swept
clean of my men. "Do you really think that, son? Then read this."
Jem would struggle the rest of an evening through the speeches of
Henry W. Grady.
"Link, that boy might go to the chair, but he's not going till the
truth's told." Atticus's voice was even. "And you know what the
truth is."
There was a murmur among the group of men, made more ominous when
Atticus moved back to the bottom front step and the men drew nearer to
him.
Suddenly Jem screamed, "Atticus, the telephone's ringing!"
The men jumped a little and scattered; they were people we saw every
day: merchants, in-town farmers; Dr. Reynolds was there; so was Mr.
Avery.
"Well, answer it, son," called Atticus.
Laughter broke them up. When Atticus switched on the overhead
light in the livingroom he found Jem at the window, pale except for
the vivid mark of the screen on his nose.
"Why on earth are you all sitting in the dark?" he asked.
Jem watched him go to his chair and pick up the evening paper. I
sometimes think Atticus subjected every crisis of his life to tranquil
evaluation behind The Mobile Register, The Birmingham News and
The Montgomery Advertiser.
"They were after you, weren't they?" Jem went to him. "They wanted
to get you, didn't they?"
Atticus lowered the paper and gazed at Jem. "What have you been
reading?" he asked. Then he said gently, "No son, those were our
friends."
"It wasn't a- a gang?" Jem was looking from the corners of his eyes.
Atticus tried to stifle a smile but didn't make it. "No, we don't
have mobs and that nonsense in Maycomb. I've never heard of a gang
in Maycomb."
"Ku Klux got after some Catholics one time."
"Never heard of any Catholics in Maycomb either," said Atticus,
"you're confusing that with something else. Way back about
nineteen-twenty there was a Klan, but it was a political
organization more than anything. Besides, they couldn't find anybody
to scare. They paraded by Mr. Sam Levy's house one night, but Sam just
stood on his porch and told 'em things had come to a pretty pass, he'd
sold 'em the very sheets on their backs. Sam made 'em so ashamed of
themselves they went away."
The Levy family met all criteria for being Fine Folks: they did
the best they could with the sense they had, and they had been
living on the same plot of ground in Maycomb for five generations.
"The Ku Klux's gone," said Atticus. "It'll never come back."
I walked home with Dill and returned in time to overhear Atticus
saying to Aunty, "...in favor of Southern womanhood as much as
anybody, but not for preserving polite fiction at the expense of human
life," a pronouncement that made me suspect they had been fussing
again.
I sought Jem and found him in his room, on the bed deep in
thought. "Have they been at it?" I asked.
"Sort of. She won't let him alone about Tom Robinson. She almost
said Atticus was disgracin' the family. Scout... I'm scared."
"Scared'a what?"
"Scared about Atticus. Somebody might hurt him." Jem preferred to
remain mysterious; all he would say to my questions was go on and
leave him alone.
Next day was Sunday. In the interval between Sunday School and
Church when the congregation stretched its legs, I saw Atticus
standing in the yard with another knot of men. Mr. Heck Tate was
