"I can see you, Scout," Jem said.
"How? I can't see you."
"Your fat streaks are showin'. Mrs. Crenshaw painted 'em with some
of that shiny stuff so they'd show up under the footlights. I can
see you pretty well, an' I expect Cecil can see you well enough to
keep his distance."
I would show Cecil that we knew he was behind us and we were ready
for him. "Cecil Jacobs is a big wet he-en!" I yelled suddenly, turning
around.
We stopped. There was no acknowledgement save he-en bouncing off the
distant schoolhouse wall.
"I'll get him," said Jem. "He-y!"
Hay-e-hay-e-hay-ey, answered the schoolhouse wall. It was unlike
Cecil to hold out for so long; once he pulled a joke he'd repeat it
time and again. We should have been leapt at already. Jem signaled for
me to stop again.
He said softly, "Scout, can you take that thing off?"
"I think so, but I ain't got anything on under it much."
"I've got your dress here."
"I can't get it on in the dark."
"Okay," he said, "never mind."
"Jem, are you afraid?"
"No. Think we're almost to the tree now. Few yards from that, an'
we'll be to the road. We can see the street light then." Jem was
talking in an unhurried, flat toneless voice. I wondered how long he
would try to keep the Cecil myth going.
"You reckon we oughta sing, Jem?"
"No. Be real quiet again, Scout."
We had not increased our pace. Jem knew as well as I that it was
difficult to walk fast without stumping a toe, tripping on stones, and
other inconveniences, and I was barefooted. Maybe it was the wind
rustling the trees. But there wasn't any wind and there weren't any
trees except the big oak.
Our company shuffled and dragged his feet, as if wearing heavy
shoes. Whoever it was wore thick cotton pants; what I thought were
trees rustling was the soft swish of cotton on cotton, wheek, wheek,
with every step.
I felt the sand go cold under my feet and I knew we were near the
big oak. Jem pressed my head. We stopped and listened.
Shuffle-foot had not stopped with us this time. His trousers swished
softly and steadily. Then they stopped. He was running, running toward
us with no child's steps.
"Run, Scout! Run! Run!" Jem screamed.
I took one giant step and found myself reeling: my arms useless,
in the dark, I could not keep my balance.
"Jem, Jem, help me, Jem!"
Something crushed the chicken wire around me. Metal ripped on
metal and I fell to the ground and rolled as far as I could,
floundering to escape my wire prison. From somewhere near by came
scuffling, kicking sounds, sounds of shoes and flesh scraping dirt and
roots. Someone rolled against me and I felt Jem. He was up like
lightning and pulling me with him but, though my head and shoulders
were free, I was so entangled we didn't get very far.
We were nearly to the road when I felt Jem's hand leave me, felt him
jerk backwards to the ground. More scuffling, and there came a dull
crunching sound and Jem screamed.
I ran in the direction of Jem's scream and sank into a flabby male
stomach. Its owner said, "Uff!" and tried to catch my arms, but they
were tightly pinioned. His stomach was soft but his arms were like
steel. He slowly squeezed the breath out of me. I could not move.
Suddenly he was jerked backwards and flung on the ground, almost
carrying me with him. I thought, Jem's up.
One's mind works very slowly at times. Stunned, I stood there
dumbly. The scuffling noises were dying; someone wheezed and the night
was still again.
Still but for a man breathing heavily, breathing heavily and
staggering. I thought he went to the tree and leaned against it. He
coughed violently, a sobbing, bone-shaking cough.
"Jem?"
There was no answer but the man's heavy breathing.
"Jem?"
Jem didn't answer.
The man began moving around, as if searching for something. I
heard him groan and pull something heavy along the ground. It was
slowly coming to me that there were now four people under the tree.
"Atticus...?"
The man was walking heavily and unsteadily toward the road.
I went to where I thought he had been and felt frantically along the
ground, reaching out with my toes. Presently I touched someone.
"Jem?"
My toes touched trousers, a belt buckle, buttons, something I
could not identify, a collar, and a face. A prickly stubble on the
face told me it was not Jem's. I smelled stale whiskey.
I made my way along in what I thought was the direction of the road.
I was not sure, because I had been turned around so many times. But
I found it and looked down to the street light. A man was passing
under it. The man was walking with the staccato steps of someone
carrying a load too heavy for him. He was going around the corner.
He was carrying Jem. Jem's arm was dangling crazily in front of him.
By the time I reached the corner the man was crossing our front
yard. Light from our front door framed Atticus for an instant; he
ran down the steps, and together, he and the man took Jem inside.
I was at the front door when they were going down the hall. Aunt
Alexandra was running to meet me. "Call Dr. Reynolds!" Atticus's voice
came sharply from Jem's room. "Where's Scout?"
"Here she is," Aunt Alexandra called, pulling me along with her to
the telephone. She tugged at me anxiously. "I'm all right, Aunty," I
said, "you better call."
She pulled the receiver from the hook and said, "Eula May, get Dr.
Reynolds, quick!"
"Agnes, is your father home? Oh God, where is he? Please tell him to
come over here as soon as he comes in. Please, it's urgent!"
There was no need for Aunt Alexandra to identify herself, people
in Maycomb knew each other's voices.
Atticus came out of Jem's room. The moment Aunt Alexandra broke
the connection, Atticus took the receiver from her. He rattled the
hook, then said, "Eula May, get me the sheriff, please."
"Heck? Atticus Finch. Someone's been after my children. Jem's
hurt. Between here and the schoolhouse. I can't leave my boy. Run
out there for me, please, and see if he's still around. Doubt if
you'll find him now, but I'd like to see him if you do. Got to go now.
Thanks, Heck."
"Atticus, is Jem dead?"
"No, Scout. Look after her, sister," he called, as he went down
the hall.
Aunt Alexandra's fingers trembled as she unwound the crushed
fabric and wire from around me. "Are you all right, darling?" she
asked over and over as she worked me free.
It was a relief to be out. My arms were beginning to tingle, and
they were red with small hexagonal marks. I rubbed them, and they felt
better.
"Aunty, is Jem dead?"
"No- no, darling, he's unconscious. We won't know how badly he's
hurt until Dr. Reynolds gets here. Jean Louise, what happened?"
"I don't know."
She left it at that. She brought me something to put on, and had I
thought about it then, I would have never let her forget it: in her
distraction, Aunty brought me my overalls. "Put these on, darling,"
she said, handing me the garments she most despised.
She rushed back to Jem's room, then came to me in the hall. She
patted me vaguely, and went back to Jem's room.
A car stopped in front of the house. I knew Dr. Reynolds's step
almost as well as my father's. He had brought Jem and me into the
world, had led us through every childhood disease known to man
including the time Jem fell out of the treehouse, and he had never
lost our friendship. Dr. Reynolds said if we had been boil-prone
things would have been different, but we doubted it.
He came in the door and said, "Good Lord." He walked toward me,
said, "You're still standing," and changed his course. He knew every
room in the house. He also knew that if I was in bad shape, so was
Jem.
After ten forevers Dr. Reynolds returned. "Is Jem dead?" I asked.
"Far from it," he said, squatting down to me. "He's got a bump on
the head just like yours, and a broken arm. Scout, look that way-
no, don't turn your head, roll your eyes. Now look over yonder. He's
got a bad break, so far as I can tell now it's in the elbow. Like
somebody tried to wring his arm off... Now look at me."
"Then he's not dead?"
"No-o!" Dr. Reynolds got to his feet. "We can't do much tonight," he
said, "except try to make him as comfortable as we can. We'll have
to X-ray his arm- looks like he'll be wearing his arm 'way out by
his side for a while. Don't worry, though, he'll be as good as new.
Boys his age bounce."
While he was talking, Dr. Reynolds had been looking keenly at me,
lightly fingering the bump that was coming on my forehead. "You
don't feel broke anywhere, do you?"
Dr. Reynolds's small joke made me smile. "Then you don't think
he's dead, then?"
He put on his hat. "Now I may be wrong, of course, but I think
he's very alive. Shows all the symptoms of it. Go have a look at
him, and when I come back we'll get together and decide."
Dr. Reynolds's step was young and brisk. Mr. Heck Tate's was not.
His heavy boots punished the porch and he opened the door awkwardly,
but he said the same thing Dr. Reynolds said when he came in. "You all
right, Scout?" he added.
"Yes sir, I'm goin' in to see Jem. Atticus'n'them's in there."
"I'll go with you," said Mr. Tate.
Aunt Alexandra had shaded Jem's reading light with a towel, and
his room was dim. Jem was lying on his back. There was an ugly mark
along one side of his face. His left arm lay out from his body; his
elbow was bent slightly, but in the wrong direction. Jem was frowning.
"Jem...?"
Atticus spoke. "He can't hear you, Scout, he's out like a light.
He was coming around, but Dr. Reynolds put him out again."
