charge at the fence and started climbing over. Right in front of
them-"
"Didn't they try to stop him? Didn't they give him any warning?"
Aunt Alexandra's voice shook.
"Oh yes, the guards called to him to stop. They fired a few shots in
the air, then to kill. They got him just as he went over the fence.
They said if he'd had two good arms he'd have made it, he was moving
that fast. Seventeen bullet holes in him. They didn't have to shoot
him that much. Cal, I want you to come out with me and help me tell
Helen."
"Yes sir," she murmured, fumbling at her apron. Miss Maudie went
to Calpurnia and untied it.
"This is the last straw, Atticus," Aunt Alexandra said.
"Depends on how you look at it," he said. "What was one Negro,
more or less, among two hundred of 'em? He wasn't Tom to them, he
was an escaping prisoner."
Atticus leaned against the refrigerator, pushed up his glasses,
and rubbed his eyes. "We had such a good chance," he said. "I told him
what I thought, but I couldn't in truth say that we had more than a
good chance. I guess Tom was tired of white men's chances and
preferred to take his own. Ready, Cal?"
"Yessir, Mr. Finch."
"Then let's go."
Aunt Alexandra sat down in Calpurnia's chair and put her hands to
her face. She sat quite still; she was so quiet I wondered if she
would faint. I heard Miss Maudie breathing as if she had just
climbed the steps, and in the diningroom the ladies chattered happily.
I thought Aunt Alexandra was crying, but when she took her hands
away from her face, she was not. She looked weary. She spoke, and
her voice was flat.
"I can't say I approve of everything he does, Maudie, but he's my
brother, and I just want to know when this will ever end." Her voice
rose: "It tears him to pieces. He doesn't show it much, but it tears
him to pieces. I've seen him when- what else do they want from him,
Maudie, what else?"
"What does who want, Alexandra?" Miss Maudie asked.
"I mean this town. They're perfectly willing to let him do what
they're too afraid to do themselves- it might lose 'em a nickel.
They're perfectly willing to let him wreck his health doing what
they're afraid to do, they're-"
"Be quiet, they'll hear you," said Miss Maudie. "Have you ever
thought of it this way, Alexandra? Whether Maycomb knows it or not,
we're paying the highest tribute we can pay a man. We trust him to
do right. It's that simple."
"Who?" Aunt Alexandra never knew she was echoing her twelve-year-old
nephew.
"The handful of people in this town who say that fair play is not
marked White Only; the handful of people who say a fair trial is for
everybody, not just us; the handful of people with enough humility
to think, when they look at a Negro, there but for the Lord's kindness
am l." Miss Maudie's old crispness was returning: "The handful of
people in this town with background, that's who they are."
Had I been attentive, I would have had another scrap to add to Jem's
definition of background, but I found myself shaking and couldn't
stop. I had seen Enfield Prison Farm, and Atticus had pointed out
the exercise yard to me. It was the size of a football field.
"Stop that shaking," commanded Miss Maudie, and I stopped. "Get
up, Alexandra, we've left 'em long enough."
Aunt Alexandra rose and smoothed the various whalebone ridges
along her hips. She took her handkerchief from her belt and wiped
her nose. She patted her hair and said, "Do I show it?"
"Not a sign," said Miss Maudie. "Are you together again, Jean
Louise?"
"Yes ma'am."
"Then let's join the ladies," she said grimly.
Their voices swelled when Miss Maudie opened the door to the
diningroom. Aunt Alexandra was ahead of me, and I saw her head go up
as she went through the door.
"Oh, Mrs. Perkins," she said, "you need some more coffee. Let me get
it."
"Calpurnia's on an errand for a few minutes, Grace," said Miss
Maudie. "Let me pass you some more of those dewberry tarts. 'dyou hear
what that cousin of mine did the other day, the one who likes to go
fishing?..."
And so they went, down the row of laughing women, around the
diningroom, refilling coffee cups, dishing out goodies as though their
only regret was the temporary domestic disaster of losing Calpurnia.
The gentle hum began again. "Yes sir, Mrs. Perkins, that J. Grimes
Everett is a martyred saint, he... needed to get married so they
ran... to the beauty parlor every Saturday afternoon... soon as the
sun goes down. He goes to bed with the... chickens, a crate full of
sick chickens, Fred says that's what started it all. Fred says...."
Aunt Alexandra looked across the room at me and smiled. She looked
at a tray of cookies on the table and nodded at them. I carefully
picked up the tray and watched myself walk to Mrs. Merriweather.
With my best company manners, I asked her if she would have some.
After all, if Aunty could be a lady at a time like this, so could I.
25
"Don't do that, Scout. Set him out on the back steps."
"Jem, are you crazy?...."
"I said set him out on the back steps."
Sighing, I scooped up the small creature, placed him on the bottom
step and went back to my cot. September had come, but not a trace of
cool weather with it, and we were still sleeping on the back screen
porch. Lightning bugs were still about, the night crawlers and
flying insects that beat against the screen the summer long had not
gone wherever they go when autumn comes.
A roly-poly had found his way inside the house; I reasoned that
the tiny varmint had crawled up the steps and under the door. I was
putting my book on the floor beside my cot when I saw him. The
creatures are no more than an inch long, and when you touch them
they roll themselves into a tight gray ball.
I lay on my stomach, reached down and poked him. He rolled up. Then,
feeling safe, I suppose, he slowly unrolled. He traveled a few
inches on his hundred legs and I touched him again. He rolled up.
Feeling sleepy, I decided to end things. My hand was going down on him
when Jem spoke.
Jem was scowling. It was probably a part of the stage he was going
through, and I wished he would hurry up and get through it. He was
certainly never cruel to animals, but I had never known his charity to
embrace the insect world.
"Why couldn't I mash him?" I asked.
"Because they don't bother you," Jem answered in the darkness. He
had turned out his reading light.
"Reckon you're at the stage now where you don't kill flies and
mosquitoes now, I reckon," I said. "Lemme know when you change your
mind. Tell you one thing, though, I ain't gonna sit around and not
scratch a redbug."
"Aw dry up," he answered drowsily.
Jem was the one who was getting more like a girl every day, not I.
Comfortable, I lay on my back and waited for sleep, and while
waiting I thought of Dill. He had left us the first of the month
with firm assurances that he would return the minute school was out-
he guessed his folks had got the general idea that he liked to spend
his summers in Maycomb. Miss Rachel took us with them in the taxi to
Maycomb Junction, and Dill waved to us from the train window until
he was out of sight. He was not out of mind: I missed him. The last
two days of his time with us, Jem had taught him to swim-
Taught him to swim. I was wide awake, remembering what Dill had told
me.
Barker's Eddy is at the end of a dirt road off the Meridian
highway about a mile from town. It is easy to catch a ride down the
highway on a cotton wagon or from a passing motorist, and the short
walk to the creek is easy, but the prospect of walking all the way
back home at dusk, when the traffic is light, is tiresome, and
swimmers are careful not to stay too late.
According to Dill, he and Jem had just come to the highway when they
saw Atticus driving toward them. He looked like he had not seen
them, so they both waved. Atticus finally slowed down; when they
caught up with him he said, "You'd better catch a ride back. I won't
be going home for a while." Calpurnia was in the back seat.
Jem protested, then pleaded, and Atticus said, "All right, you can
come with us if you stay in the car."
On the way to Tom Robinson's, Atticus told them what had happened.
They turned off the highway, rode slowly by the dump and past the
Ewell residence, down the narrow lane to the Negro cabins. Dill said a
crowd of black children were playing marbles in Tom's front yard.
Atticus parked the car and got out. Calpurnia followed him through the
front gate.
Dill heard him ask one of the children, "Where's your mother,
Sam?" and heard Sam say, "She down at Sis Stevens's, Mr. Finch. Want
me run fetch her?"
Dill said Atticus looked uncertain, then he said yes, and Sam
scampered off. "Go on with your game, boys," Atticus said to the
children.
A little girl came to the cabin door and stood looking at Atticus.
Dill said her hair was a wad of tiny stiff pigtails, each ending in
a bright bow. She grinned from ear to ear and walked toward our
father, but she was too small to navigate the steps. Dill said Atticus
went to her, took off his hat, and offered her his finger. She grabbed
it and he eased her down the steps. Then he gave her to Calpurnia.
Sam was trotting behind his mother when they came up. Dill said
Helen said, "'evenin', Mr. Finch, won't you have a seat?" But she
didn't say any more. Neither did Atticus.
"Scout," said Dill, "she just fell down in the dirt. Just fell
down in the dirt, like a giant with a big foot just came along and
stepped on her. Just ump-" Dill's fat foot hit the ground. "Like you'd
step on an ant."
Dill said Calpurnia and Atticus lifted Helen to her feet and half
carried, half walked her to the cabin. They stayed inside a long time,
and Atticus came out alone. When they drove back by the dump, some
of the Ewells hollered at them, but Dill didn't catch what they said.
Maycomb was interested by the news of Tom's death for perhaps two
days; two days was enough for the information to spread through the
county. "Did you hear about?.... No? Well, they say he was runnin' fit
to beat lightnin'..." To Maycomb, Tom's death was typical. Typical
