sickening to me than a low-grade white man who'll take advantage of
a Negro's ignorance. Don't fool yourselves- it's all adding up and one
of these days we're going to pay the bill for it. I hope it's not in
you children's time."
Jem was scratching his head. Suddenly his eyes widened. "Atticus,"
he said, "why don't people like us and Miss Maudie ever sit on juries?
You never see anybody from Maycomb on a jury- they all come from out
in the woods."
Atticus leaned back in his rocking-chair. For some reason he
looked pleased with Jem. "I was wondering when that'd occur to you,"
he said. "There are lots of reasons. For one thing, Miss Maudie
can't serve on a jury because she's a woman-"
"You mean women in Alabama can't-?" I was indignant.
"I do. I guess it's to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases
like Tom's. Besides," Atticus grinned, "I doubt if we'd ever get a
complete case tried- the ladies'd be interrupting to ask questions."
Jem and I laughed. Miss Maudie on a jury would be impressive. I
thought of old Mrs. Dubose in her wheelchair- "Stop that rapping, John
Taylor, I want to ask this man something." Perhaps our forefathers
were wise.
Atticus was saying, "With people like us- that's our share of the
bill. We generally get the juries we deserve. Our stout Maycomb
citizens aren't interested, in the first place. In the second place,
they're afraid. Then, they're-"
"Afraid, why?" asked Jem.
"Well, what if- say, Mr. Link Deas had to decide the amount of
damages to award, say, Miss Maudie, when Miss Rachel ran over her with
a car. Link wouldn't like the thought of losing either lady's business
at his store, would he? So he tells Judge Taylor that he can't serve
on the jury because he doesn't have anybody to keep store for him
while he's gone. So Judge Taylor excuses him. Sometimes he excuses him
wrathfully."
"What'd make him think either one of 'em'd stop trading with him?" I
asked.
Jem said, "Miss Rachel would, Miss Maudie wouldn't. But a jury's
vote's secret, Atticus."
Our father chuckled. "You've many more miles to go, son. A jury's
vote's supposed to be secret. Serving on a jury forces a man to make
up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to
do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant."
"Tom's jury sho' made up its mind in a hurry," Jem muttered.
Atticus's fingers went to his watchpocket. "No it didn't," he
said, more to himself than to us. "That was the one thing that made me
think, well, this may be the shadow of a beginning. That jury took a
few hours. An inevitable verdict, maybe, but usually it takes 'em just
a few minutes. This time-" he broke off and looked at us. "You might
like to know that there was one fellow who took considerable wearing
down- in the beginning he was rarin' for an outright acquittal."
"Who?" Jem was astonished.
Atticus's eyes twinkled. "It's not for me to say, but I'll tell
you this much. He was one of your Old Sarum friends..."
"One of the Cunninghams?" Jem yelped. "One of- I didn't recognize
any of 'em... you're jokin'." He looked at Atticus from the corners of
his eyes.
"One of their connections. On a hunch, I didn't strike him. Just
on a hunch. Could've, but I didn't."
"Golly Moses," Jem said reverently. "One minute they're tryin' to
kill him and the next they're tryin' to turn him loose... I'll never
understand those folks as long as I live."
Atticus said you just had to know 'em. He said the Cunninghams
hadn't taken anything from or off of anybody since they migrated to
the New World. He said the other thing about them was, once you earned
their respect they were for you tooth and nail. Atticus said he had
a feeling, nothing more than a suspicion, that they left the jail that
night with considerable respect for the Finches. Then too, he said, it
took a thunderbolt plus another Cunningham to make one of them
change his mind. "If we'd had two of that crowd, we'd've had a hung
jury."
Jem said slowly, "You mean you actually put on the jury a man who
wanted to kill you the night before? How could you take such a risk,
Atticus, how could you?"
"When you analyze it, there was little risk. There's no difference
between one man who's going to convict and another man who's going
to convict, is there? There's a faint difference between a man who's
going to convict and a man who's a little disturbed in his mind, isn't
there? He was the only uncertainty on the whole list."
"What kin was that man to Mr. Walter Cunningham?" I asked.
Atticus rose, stretched and yawned. It was not even our bedtime, but
we knew he wanted a chance to read his newspaper. He picked it up,
folded it, and tapped my head. "Let's see now," he droned to
himself. "I've got it. Double first cousin."
"How can that be?"
"Two sisters married two brothers. That's all I'll tell you- you
figure it out."
I tortured myself and decided that if I married Jem and Dill had a
sister whom he married our children would be double first cousins.
"Gee minetti, Jem," I said, when Atticus had gone, "they're funny
folks. 'd you hear that, Aunty?"
Aunt Alexandra was hooking a rug and not watching us, but she was
listening. She sat in her chair with her workbasket beside it, her rug
spread across her lap. Why ladies hooked woolen rugs on boiling nights
never became clear to me.
"I heard it," she said.
I remembered the distant disastrous occasion when I rushed to
young Walter Cunningham's defense. Now I was glad I'd done it. "Soon's
school starts I'm gonna ask Walter home to dinner," I planned,
having forgotten my private resolve to beat him up the next time I saw
him. "He can stay over sometimes after school, too. Atticus could
drive him back to Old Sarum. Maybe he could spend the night with us
sometime, okay, Jem?"
"We'll see about that," Aunt Alexandra said, a declaration that with
her was always a threat, never a promise. Surprised, I turned to
her. "Why not, Aunty? They're good folks."
She looked at me over her sewing glasses. "Jean Louise, there is
no doubt in my mind that they're good folks. But they're not our
kind of folks."
Jem says, "She means they're yappy, Scout."
"What's a yap?"
"Aw, tacky. They like fiddlin' and things like that."
"Well I do too-"
"Don't be silly, Jean Louise," said Aunt Alexandra. "The thing is,
you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in
shoes and a new suit, but he'll never be like Jem. Besides, there's
a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch women aren't
interested in that sort of people."
"Aun-ty," said Jem, "she ain't nine yet."
"She may as well learn it now."
Aunt Alexandra had spoken. I was reminded vividly of the last time
she had put her foot down. I never knew why. It was when I was
absorbed with plans to visit Calpurnia's house- I was curious,
interested; I wanted to be her "company," to see how she lived, who
her friends were. I might as well have wanted to see the other side of
the moon. This time the tactics were different, but Aunt Alexandra's
aim was the same. Perhaps this was why she had come to live with us-
to help us choose our friends. I would hold her off as long as I
could: "If they're good folks, then why can't I be nice to Walter?"
"I didn't say not to be nice to him. You should be friendly and
polite to him, you should be gracious to everybody, dear. But you
don't have to invite him home."
"What if he was kin to us, Aunty?"
"The fact is that he is not kin to us, but if he were, my answer
would be the same."
"Aunty," Jem spoke up, "Atticus says you can choose your friends but
you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no
matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right
silly when you don't."
"That's your father all over again," said Aunt Alexandra, "and I
still say that Jean Louise will not invite Walter Cunningham to this
house. If he were her double first cousin once removed he would
still not be received in this house unless he comes to see Atticus
on business. Now that is that."
She had said Indeed Not, but this time she would give her reasons:
"But I want to play with Walter, Aunty, why can't I?"
She took off her glasses and stared at me. "I'll tell you why,"
she said. "Because- he- is- trash, that's why you can't play with him.
I'll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning
Lord-knows-what. You're enough of a problem to your father as it is."
I don't know what I would have done, but Jem stopped me. He caught
me by the shoulders, put his arm around me, and led me sobbing in fury
to his bedroom. Atticus heard us and poked his head around the door.
"'s all right, sir," Jem said gruffly, "'s not anything." Atticus went
away.
"Have a chew, Scout." Jem dug into his pocket and extracted a
Tootsie Roll. It took a few minutes to work the candy into a
comfortable wad inside my jaw.
Jem was rearranging the objects on his dresser. His hair stuck up
behind and down in front, and I wondered if it would ever look like
a man's- maybe if he shaved it off and started over, his hair would
grow back neatly in place. His eyebrows were becoming heavier, and I
noticed a new slimness about his body. He was growing taller.
When he looked around, he must have thought I would start crying
again, for he said, "Show you something if you won't tell anybody."
I said what. He unbuttoned his shirt, grinning shyly.
"Well what?"
"Well can't you see it?"
"Well no."
"Well it's hair."
"Where?"
"There. Right there."
He had been a comfort to me, so I said it looked lovely, but I
