Transcript for:
To Kill a Mockingbird in Two Hours Summary

Hi, I'm Tate Seberg and this is One Day Ahead. Welcome to One Day Ahead. This is To Kill a Mockingbird in Two Hours. Reading it for real is a six-hour adventure, so grab some popcorn and buckle up because this summary will give you everything you need to know in one-third the time. If you don't have two hours, which like, let's be real, I don't expect this video to do real well, well then check out To Kill a Mockingbird in five minutes. Link below. You're going to get all the major beats. and then you'll get on with your life. So what this video really is, is a stitching together of all the summary sections from my longer Mockingbird series that also includes analysis of key quotes and characters after these pithy summaries. So if somehow two hours isn't enough for you, or if you wanna go more in depth on themes or characters, check that out as well. Finally, I have a teaching unit for educators synced to all this stuff, link below, and a couple other books besides. All right, enough of that. Let's dive into Kill a Mockingbird, chapter one. Merryet Scout Finch, a precocious girl of five with a tale to tell. It's a complex story, which he kicks off with this line. When he was nearly 13, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. Jem Finch is four years Scout's senior and her only sibling. Scout and Jem argue on the first page as to where to start this little tale, which will end with that broken arm. After some initial disagreement, Scout elects to go back 119 years, which is maybe a little excessive. None of what happens on the next two pages is indispensable. We get some wide lens background on the Finch forefathers, find out that their ancestors owned slaves, and have been in the South long enough to have lost everything during the little disturbance between the North and the South. Most of my viewers, and there are not a lot of you, are from the States, but for my huge fans all over the globe, both of you, the South of the US was the cradle and eventual epicenter of the African slave trade, at least in the States, dating back to even before we kicked out the British and founded America. Yay us. The British part, not. the slavery. That sucked. That little disturbance Scout mentioned was our Civil War. Hee we say THE Civil War, but I recognize there have been others. So we are talking some real deep background here. It gives us the big picture, which is fine, but the real legacy of these first few pages is that they serve to drive legions of high school kids to quit right here. Because they never really wanted to read this book in the first place, these pages kind of suck, and so they turn to the internet for summaries. And to those viewers, many of which are my own students, allow me to say... Welcome! Don't forget to like and subscribe. From this wide lens, things do start to narrow. We quickly meet the stalwart hero and 1960s literary heartthrob Atticus Finch, the moral backbone of the text and Gemini and Scout's father. He is a lawyer in the quaint, sleepy little southern town of Mayellacomb, Alabama, the seat of Mayellacomb County. Before you go running to a map, Mayellacomb County is fictional and probably meant to represent all small southern towns of that era. What era? Glad you asked. On page 6 we get this, There was no hurry, for there was nowhere to go, nothing to buy and no money to buy it with, nothing to see outside the boundaries of Mayellacomb County. But it was a time of vague optimism for some of the people. Mayellacomb County had recently been told that it had nothing to fear but fear. itself. This slight misquote comes from the first inauguration of Francis Delano Roosevelt in 1933. Not to be confused with his second inauguration in 1937, third in 1941, or wait for it, fourth in 1945. Geez, that guy was president for a minute. So, 1931. That means we are in the grips of the Great Depression. Unemployment is skyrocketing. Stock markets and many stock traders are plummeting. Ugh, that's a dark joke. I'ma leave it in. We find out that when Atticus initially passed the bar, he set up his law office in the Mayellacomb County Courthouse, but he quickly developed a profound distaste for the practice of criminal law after he was unable to convince his first two clients who had committed murder to plead guilty in return for a lesser sentence. Instead, they insisted that the son of a bitch had it coming to him was a good enough defense for anybody. It wasn't. The hung. And Atticus switched to civil law. Up next, we meet Calpurniapurnia. the Finch family cook and caretaker of the children. Scout says Calpurniapurnia was something else again. She was all angles and bones. He hand was as wide as a bed slat and twice as hard. Our battles were epic and one-sided. Calpurniapurnia always won, mainly because Atticus always took her side. I had felt her tyrannical presence as long as I could remember. While those are some harsh words from Scout, you get the vibe that this situation is less like child abuse than the skewed perceptions of a strong-willed, hot-tempered five-year-old raging against what is probably some pretty reasonable boundaries. But that's just my take. Tom, it seems, is no longer in the picture. We learn from the text that she passed away from a sudden heart attack when Scout was two. She doesn't remember her, but Jem does. So that's sad. So enough of the background exposition. The narrative finally takes off one summer day when the Finch kids are playing in the backyard and they notice another kid watching them across their neighbor's fence. I'm Charles Baker Burris, he said. I can read. Charles Baker Burris goes by Dilll for reasons that remain a mystery, and he visits Mayellacomb in the summers. In the book, Dilll is seven. In the movie, he's either seven or... possibly in his late 40s. It's unclear, but really, look at this kid. He looks like he could help me with my taxes. Dilll has an overly active imagination, is a compulsive liar, and makes fast friends with Jem and Scout. The kids spend their summer in happy contentment, building their tree fort and acting out little three-person plays adapted from the stories they know. It seems like an idyllic childhood, but by the end of August, our repertoire was vapid from countless reproductions, and it was then that Dilll gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out. So Boo Boo has quite the story, and Scout spends the next six pages telling it. Boo is a recluse. In fact, Scout has never even seen him. The Radley house stands just down the street from the Finch, and Scout's description of it tells you enough for you to catch the vibe. The house was low, was once white with a deep front porch and green shutters, but had long ago darkened to the color of the slate-gray yard around it. Rain-rotted shingles drooped over the eaves of the veranda, oak trees kept the sun away. The remains of a picket drunkenly guarded the front yard. Much of what Scout tells you is true. tells us about Boo is nonsense. Stuff like Boo sneaks out at night and eats squirrels, or when flowers freeze, it's because he breathes on them. A lot of it is lighthearted kid stuff, but the real story is actually pretty dark and pretty tragic. Before Scout and Jem were born, the Radley kept to themselves, a predilection unforgivable in Mayellacomb. The didn't go to church, they didn't visit with their neighbors, and generally, they put off that don't talk to me vibe. The Radley had two sons, Nathan and Arthur. Arthur is Boo. When Arthur hit his teens, he got mixed up with the wrong sort of friends. His and his boys got up to some hijinks. The borrowed a car, resisted arrest, ended up in front of a probate judge on charges of disorderly conduct, disturbing the peace, assaulting battery, and using abusive and profane language in the presence and hearing of a female. I love this self. Your honor, I concede she was present, and yes, I did use some explicit language, but sir, let the record show, she is deaf. The judge released Arthur to his father, when he gave his word that Arthur would give no further trouble. Knowing that Mr. Radley's word was his bond, the judge released Arthur to his father. was glad to do so. If you're wondering where the tragedy is in all this, here it comes. After Boo returned home, the doors of the Radley house were closed on weekdays as well as Sundays, and Mr. Radley's boy was not seen again for 15 years. There is a word for that. It's child abuse. Oh, it's two words. There's two words for that. So why was he not seen again for 15 years? Because it is after 15 years inside that house that Boo quite unexpectedly drove a pair of scissors into his father's leg. withdrew them, and then went right back to cutting up the newspaper like nothing happened. And here's my take. Good. Sometime later, Mr. Radley passes away. Not from the leg wound. And Boo's older brother, Nathan, moves home, takes charge of the house, and things continued in much the same manner. Boo stayed inside, and life carried on. So after that little regression, we get back to the kids and the action. Dilll dares Jem to knock on Boo's door. It takes a couple of days of prodding, but the kids finally cross to the corner in front of the house. Jem mulls it over for so long that Boo's father, Nathan, and Boo's mother, Jem, are in the house. long that Dill makes a minor concession. I won't say you ran out on a dare if you just go up and touch the house. The move closer, this time stopping at the fence. Finally, he makes his move. Jem threw open the gate and sped to the side of the house, slapped it with his palm and ran back past us, not waiting to see if his foray was successful. Dill and I followed on his heels, safely on our porch, panting, and out of breath, we looked back. The old house was the same droopy and sick, but as we stared down the street we thought we saw an inside shutter move, flick, an almost invisible movement, and the house was still. And that is chapter one. When chapter two Open's fall has come, Dilll is gone, he's probably back doing people's taxes, and Scout is off to the first grade. Miss Caroline Fisher is her teacher, fresh from Winston County. She is living with a neighbor, Miss Maudie Robinson. We'll get to know her a little bit later. And when Miss Maudie introduced us to her, her, Jem was in a haze for days. So not only is she a stone-cold hottie, but she's also terrible at her job. After printing the alphabet on the board, she calls on Scout. As I read the alphabet, a faint line appeared between her eyebrows. And after making me read most of my first reader and the stock market quotations from the Mobile Register aloud, she discovered that I was literate and looked at me with more than a faint distaste. Ms. Caroline Fisher demands that Atticus stop teaching Scout to read at home, and pledges that she will do her best to to try to undo the damage. This encounter introduces a recurring theme within the text, the idea that organizations are fatally flawed, corrupted, and broken, but that virtuous individuals within those systems can still do good work. We are going to get that with education, most notably with the legal system, and with a missionary churchy thing later on. Miss Caroline's not done though. Around lunch time, she surveys the room. The kids from town go home from lunch, but the kids from the boonies are supposed to bring food with them. She calls out little Walter Cunningham when he isn't able to produce food. produce a lunchbox like the rest of the kids. Where's yours? Did you forget your lunch this morning? Asked Miss Caroline. Walter looks straight ahead. I saw a muscle jump in his skinny jaw. Did you forget it this morning? asked Miss Caroline. Walter's jaw twitched again. Lady, read the room. She offers to loan him a quarter. Now, Walter is dirt, dirt poor. He was poor and then the Great Depression happened. He cannot pay back this quarter, so he turns it down. Prodded on by the other cringing children, Scout tries to explain, saying, you're shaming him, Miss Caroline. Walter hasn't got a quarter at home to bring you. This is too much for Miss Rookie Teacher because she grabbed me by the collar and hauled me back to her desk. Jem Louise, I've had about enough of you this morning, she said. Hold out your hand. Miss Caroline picked up her ruler, gave me half a dozen quick little pats, then told me to stand in the corner. A storm of laughter broke loose when it finally occurred to the class that Miss Caroline had whipped me. So, not a great first day. Chapter 3 opens with Scout beating up Walter for getting her in trouble, which seems... That's misguided. Jem pulls Scout off him and then invites little Walter home for dinner. Quick note here, in the South, at this time, lunch is dinner and dinner is supper. Deal with it. The walk home together passing the Radley place and they talk pleasantly about how the pecans that fall out of the Radley tree are poisoned by boo. Pretty classic kid stuff. Then we get a line from Scout that shows just how entrenched classism is within Mayellacomb. By the time we reached our front steps, Walter had forgotten he was a Cunningham. Bummer. As the family eats dinner, lunch, Walter has a bit of a faux pas when he poured syrup on his vegetables and meat with a generous hand. He would probably have poured it into his milk glass had I not asked him what the Sarum Dill he was doing. This tactless and unkind remark gets Scout pulled by their cook slash nanny cow into the kitchen for her to get yelled at. There are some folks who don't eat like us, she whispered fiercely, but you ain't called on to contradict them at the table when they don't. That boy's your company, and if he wants to eat up the tablecloth, you let him. You hear? Scout responds with, he ain't company, Calpurnia. He's just a Cunningham. Calpurnia's response is cathartic. Hush your mouth. Angry with Calpurnia, Scout returns to school, where the fireworks resume. It's quite the first day. Miss Fisher is walking around the class, and she lets out a scream when she notices a cootie in a kid's hair. It's like a bug. The kid is Burris Ewell, and beyond this scene, we will actually not see him again. But his father, Boo, I don't ever seem to close my mouth, Ewell, is the villain of this book. We won't see dad until the latter half of the story, so let's spend a moment with this kid. Burris Ewell is every bit as squalidly poor as Walter Cunningham, but on the social ladder, the Ewell are a step below the Cunningham. We will get to know why in the deep dive. For now, just know that the Ewell live next to the town dump. And dad is such a mouth-breathing disaster that his kids forage for food in the garbage while he freeloads, hunts out a season, and drinks up his welfare money, leaving his children, like Burris here, in squalid, destitute conditions. The only thing the Ewell truly have left is their pride. Not dignity. Volatile pride. Which is why when Miss Fisher suggests Burris go home and wash his hair with lysol and kerosene, his reaction is quite the thing. The boy stood up. He was the filthiest human I had ever seen. scene. His neck was dark gray, the backs of his hands were rusty, and his fingernails were black deep into the quick. He peered at Miss Caroline from a fist-sized clean space on his face. The boy laughed rudely. You ain't sending me home, missus. I was on the verge of leaving. I'd done done my time for this year. So it turns out the Ewell only come to school on the first day to keep the law off their back. It's like a symbolic we tried thing from the county. So Burris is leaving, but he is not going quietly. His pride has been wounded in front of everyone. And that, for the Ewell, that requires a a response. Pay attention, because this is what we call foreshadowing. Turning at the door, he shouts, ain't no snot nose slut of a school teacher ever born can make me do nothing. He waited until he was sure she was crying. Then he shuffled out the building. Finally, that night at home, Scout is withdrawn and sad. She retreats to the porch, and in the cool of the evening, Atticus follows her. Bit by bit, I told him the day's misfortune. And she said you taught me all wrong, so we can't ever read anymore, ever. Please don't send me back, please, sir. Atticus is gentle, he is kind, he listens, and he imparts this wisdom regarding Miss Fisher. Scout, you never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view, sir, until you climb into his skin and walk around in it. He is teaching her empathy. Hee begins Scout's real education and the thing that will save her from being consumed and destroyed by the evil, bigotry, and hate she will encounter in this text. As the chapter closes, they reach an agreement. The will care- carry on reading at night if Scout will carry on going to school. But they have to keep it a secret because Atticus notes dryly, I'm afraid our activities would be received with considerable disapprobation by the more learned authorities. And that's chapters two and three. For young Scout Finch, school still sucks. And she can see the absurdity inherent in her public education quite clearly. The remainder of my school days were no more. ...despicious than the first. Indeed, they were an endless project that slowly evolved into a unit in which miles of construction paper and wax crayon were expended by the state of Alabama in its well-meaning but fruitless efforts to teach me group dynamics. So everything is a drag until one day, coming home from school, a glint of foil catches Scout's eye. It's coming from a knot in an oak tree on the Radley property. Scout examines closer and finds two pieces of Wrigley's Double Mint Bubblegum. Scout conducts a prudent poison check. She licks it. waits to die, doesn't, and then shoves the gum into her mouth. The kids don't put it together in this moment, but we know this gift came from Boo. Because we real smart. And on one level, this is kind of creepy. I didn't see it that way on my first read, and Lee definitely didn't intend for this to be predatory behavior. But adult eyes now, yeah, this is creepy. A 30-year-old recluse just leaving candy out for children. There are more tree gifts coming, and I'm not going to harp on this point anymore because I think it's not in the spirit of the book, but let's name it. It is weird. So actually, that's not totally true. I am going to bring this up one more time, but guys, it is earned. So the school year passes and summer begins. With tax season behind him, Dilll is back and the kids start arguing over what to play. The normally pass their day acting out stories and plays, but when they can't come to an agreement, they decide to roll in the tire, which is exactly what it sounds like. Scout goes first and goes too far. Ground, sky, and houses melted into a mad pallet. The tire bumped on gravel, skiddered across a road, crashed into a barrier, and popped me like a cork on top of my head. to the pavement. Dizzy and nauseated, I lay on the cement and shook my head still, and heard Jem's voice. Scout! Get away from there! Come on! I raised my head and stared at the Radley steps in front of me. I froze. Scout panics, runs away without the tire, and Jem has to go back to get it, saying, I swear, Scout, sometimes you act so much like a girl, it's mortifying. She continues, there was more to it than he knew, but I decided not to tell him. This little adventure breaks the what-should-we-play impasse, because Jem comes up with a banger of an idea. I know. what we're gonna play,"he announced. Something new. Something different. Boo Radley. Scout is assigned the role of Mrs. Radley. She sweeps the porch. Dill is Mr. Radley, which is fitting because he already looks like a 48-year-old accountant. And Jem is Boo. He crawls under the front porch and shrieks and howls from time to time. As the summer progresses, so does the play. It expands to encompass the whole Radley saga we covered in Chapter 1, including the climax of the play, where Boo unexpectedly, and in my opinion, quite awesomely, plunges a pair of scissors into the his crazy father's leg before extracting them and returning to calmly cutting up a newspaper. It's during this rather obvious scene that the kids are finally caught in their cruelty by Atticus. He guesses at the truth. The kids lie, but it's obvious that he knows. Scout says Atticus's arrival was the second reason I wanted to quit the game. The first reason happened the day I rolled into the Radley front yard. Through all the head shaking and Jem yelling, I had heard another sound. Someone inside the house was laughing. And that's chapter four. Chapter five is a welcome change of pace because we get to spend it with the neighbor Miss Maudie Robinson. Miss Maudie, we will come to discover, is awesome. She is one of the two female role models for Scout, but while the other Aunt Alexandra is rigid, vain, and generally sucks, Miss Maudie is like the female version of Atticus. Or perhaps Atticus is the male version of Miss Maudie. Feminism. Scout is sitting with Miss Maudie one evening and their conversation turns to Boo. She wants to know how Miss Maudie can be sure that Boo is still alive. Maudie answers, what a morbid question. But I suppose it's a morbid subject. I know he's alive, Jem Louise, because I haven't seen him carried out yet. Mayellabe he died and they stuffed him up the chimney. That's a solid point. The rest of this conversation goes some pretty interesting places, but we will hit that in the deep dive. This chapter ends with the latest in a series of brushes with Boo. First it was slapping the house, then it was the gifts in the tree, then Scout in the tire. The first half of this book really consists of successively closer contacts with Boo. Today the boys have a brilliant idea. The're going to invite him to come have ice cream, which is the next logical step. The attach a note to a fishing pole and are going to slip it through a side window, except instead they are caught by Atticus, who roundly rebukes the kids for tormenting that man. And that's chapter 5. In chapter 6, the kids take tormenting that man to the next level. It's the last day of summer, and here's the plan. The are going to use the cover of darkness to get a look at Boo through one of the windows. Game on. The waited until tonight because nobody could see them at night, because Atticus would be so deep in the book he wouldn't hear the kingdom coming, and because if Boo was there, they If Boo Radley killed them, they'd miss school instead of vacation. This is more very solid kid logic. The decide to sneak in through the garden behind the Radley house. And getting under the fence wire is a tight squeeze for Jem. The navigate the yard, avoid the chickens, check a side window, then Jem mounts the back porch while Scout and Dilll look on. Scout says, Then I saw the shadow. It was the shadow of a man with a hat on. The back porch was bathed in moonlight, and the shadow, crisp as toast, moved across the porch toward Jem. Jem. So I'm actually a little confused by this part. Is this Boo? Is this Nathan Radley? Is the shadow a silhouette of a man who's inside the house? Or is this someone who's outside who's like, behind the? I need a diagram here is what I'm saying. Anyway, it doesn't matter. The kids bolt. Jem leapt off the porch and galloped towards us. He flung open the gate, danced Delano me through it, and shooed us between two rows of swishing collards. Halfway through the collars, the roar of a shotgun shattered the neighborhood. Blind with panic and scrambling to get out, Jem gets his pants caught on the bottom wire of the fence. He kicks his way out of the pants, leaves them behind, and the kids tear home. Knowing the late-night shotgun blast would draw the neighborhood, and knowing their absence would be suspicious, the kids pull themselves together. and walk out all like, hey, what's going on? Standing in the street, they find Mr. Nathan Radley, shotgun in hand, next to Atticus, Miss Maudie, and the various neighbors. The parents explain that Mr. Radley shot in the air when he saw a black man lurking out back, and that if he comes back he won't aim high again. However, this conversation is derailed when they realize Jem is not wearing pants. Atticus spoke, Where are your pants, son? Dilll jumps in, I won em from em, he said vaguely. We were playing strip poker up yonder by the fish pool. This presents its own problems, because in Mayellacum, gambling is borderline worse than not having pants. Atticus challenges, Were you all playing cards? Now Jem steps up, No sir, just with matches. I admired my brother. Matches were dangerous. But cards? were fatal. So, gem means literal like matchsticks, and if you're wondering how you could play strip poker or really any game with lighting matches, that is a great question. I looked into it. This does not appear to be a thing. Luckily for the kids though, the Wi-Fi is down, so the parents can't google this nonsense. However, they still have the little dilemma of gem turning up in the morning with pants on. Pants! I cannot stress how important it is to wear them. So late that night, like two in the morning late, gem goes back for his pants, more worried about letting Atticus down than literally his own. own life. Scout waits with bated breath, terrified the shotgun blast is coming. When Jem returns, pants in hand, he doesn't speak a word. Trembling from head to toe, he crawls into bed. And we won't learn this until chapter 7, but when he got to the Radley place, he found the pants right where he left them, except they had been folded across the fence like they were expecting me. And that's chapter 6. So chapter 7 continues with a largely nostalgic tone established in the first six chapters. Merrylancholy, pessimism, true True disillusionment. Those are all still coming. But for right now, for these kids, the South is glossy, drifting, happy, and troubled by misfortune, sure, but not actual evil. Although again, stay tuned for that. Scout now in the second grade still hates school. Surprising no one. But at least the walks to and from school are again occasionally punctuated by gifts squirreled away in the knot of the Radley oak tree. Remember, this happened last year, back in chapter 4, when the kids found chewing gum and pennies. So, we know these gifts come from boo- boo, because we're like really smart. But the kids haven't quite put that together yet. Anyway, I told you back in chapter 4 that I wouldn't harp on the kind of general creepiness of this 31-year-old social recluse secretly leaving gifts for the neighborhood six-year-old. Lee did not mean this to be predatory behavior, so we are going to read this charitably. I let it go. But I also said I reserved the right to bring it up one more time in reference to one gift in particular that strains the limits of my charitable reading abilities. See if you can figure out which one it is. Over a few weeks, the kids will find a ball of twine, a packet of chewing gum, a tarnished metal, a broken pocket watch, an aluminum knife, and... I pulled out two small images carved in soap. One was the figure of a boy, the other wore a crude dress. The were almost perfect miniatures of two children. The boy had on shorts, and a shock of soapy hair fell to his eyebrows. I looked up at Jem. A point of straight brown hair kicked downward from his part. I had never noticed it before. Jem looked from the girl doll to me. to me. The girl doll wore bangs. So did I. Oh my good lord. It is time to find the nearest trusted adult. He carved realistic dolls of the children and he's like watching them through the… Spirit of the book. Okay, shake it off. As the gift giving continues, the kids try to figure this mystery out, and it's clear from the text that Jem starts to suspect it's Boo. A suspicion that is virtually confirmed when Mr. Nathan Radley, Boo's brother, suddenly and inexplicably fills the knothole with cement. Jem takes the severing of their connection rather hard. Scout sees him crying, and while she's disappointed because the cement means like no more toys, it's clear that Jem has a better grasp not only of the events, but also of the cruelty and injustice of Nathan Radley depriving Boo of this line of communication. Anyway, all of this completely misses Scout, so you have to do some reading. But it's in between the lines, but it is there. And that's chapter seven. When Scout wakes up in chapter eight, she looked out of the window and nearly died of fright. My screams brought Atticus from his bathroom, half-shaven. The world's end, and Atticus, please do something! I dragged him to the window and pointed. No, it's not, he said. It's snowing. Neither kid has ever seen snow. In fact, it hasn't snowed in Mayellacomb County. County since 1885. Thus, the learned authorities declare a snow day. We learn that Mayellacomb has seen two weeks of cold. Mr. Avery, a neighbor, said it was written on the Rosetta Stone that when children disobeyed their parents, smoked cigarettes, and made war on each other, the seasons would change. Geminiini were burdened with the guilt of contributing to the aberrations of nature. After the snowfall, they are again accosted by Mr. Avery. He had a pink face and a big stomach below his belt. See what you've done, he said. Hasn't snowed in Mayellacom since Appomattox. It's bad children like you makes the seasons change. Appomattox is the last-ish battle of the Civil War. It ended the war, but they kept fighting other places because Twitter was down. And the Rosetta Stone is something you can use to learn Spanish very, very quickly. So this thin layer of snow is precious and magical for the children, but Miss Motti, their neighbor, who is awesome, is less pleased. When Jem calls the snowfall beautiful, she replies, beautiful my hind foot. If it freezes tonight, it'll carry off all my azaleas. Setting aside the hind foot thing for a second, like are you a horse? We will discover her concern for her flowers will have unexpected and dire consequences in just a few pages. The kids set to work building a snowman. And even after carting over all of Miss Maudie's snow, they still don't have nearly enough. Not to worry. Geminis shapes the snowman out of dirt first, then top dresses the pile with a thin layer of snow. Scout is only allowed to do the back of the snowman because older brothers are mean. As revenge. In revenge for Mr. Avery's Appomattox Rosetta Stone thing, the kids craft the snowmen to resemble their overweight, cause-and-effect-challenged neighbor. Jem is so proud of his creation, his ears turn red when Atticus compliments it. But it seems Jem and Scout have done perhaps too good of a job. Atticus continues, So, I can't tell what you're gonna be. An engineer, a lawyer, or a portrait painter? You've perpetrated a near-libel here in the front yard. We've got to disguise this fellow. Jem solves the problem by topping him with Miss Maudie's sun hat and putting her hedge clippers in the car. crook of his arm. When Miss Maudie emerges and sees what they have done, her and Atticus get into a mostly mock, good-natured shouting argument about Atticus's parenting. Scout narrates, the only phrase of which I caught was, erected an absolute morphidite in that yard. Atticus, you'll never raise him. So why do I bring up this quote? Well, morphidite. It will show up four more times in this book, and it's supposed to be a joke for us because Scout doesn't understand what it means but then uses it anyway badly. Morphidite is a slang term. It comes from hermaphrodite, which is a a person or animal having both male and female sex organs or other sexual characteristics. So the snowman is both a man, Mr. Avery, but a woman because of Ms. Right's hat. So now you know. Scout doesn't, but you do. So with these shenanigans aside, it's time we get back to what we are really doing here in this chapter. Every few chapters for the first half of the book, we continue in our series of ever closer brushes with Boo. The last one was all the way back in chapter 6, this is chapter 8, and we have a book to properly pace, so let's do this. Scout is awoken a little after 1 a.m. the next morning by a worried Atticus in a groggy gem. After getting her bearings, Scout asks, whose is it? Miss Motti's, hun, said Atticus gently. At the front door, we saw fire spewing from Miss Motti's dining room windows. We learned later that she kept a fire in her kitchen to keep her potted plants from freezing, and that's likely where the blaze began. Atticus sends the kids a safe distance away across the street, and after some stern words to stay put, he joins the other men of Mayellacomb, who are darting inside to save what they can. Mr. Avery, who has already taken taken a few shots this chapter for being a bit on the heavy side, is seen pushing a mattress out of a window into the street. After he deems the stairs too dangerous to descend, he attempts to climb through the upstairs window. But his considerable girth gets him wedged in the window. It's a tense moment, but he does manage to push through. But maybe more salads, Mr. Avery. The house goes up in flames. Scout says, I watched our absolute morphidite go black and crumble. Miss Motti's sun hat settled on top of the heap. As the night drags on, Scout says, I became aware that I was slowly freezing where I stood. I clutched my shoulders. By dancing a little, I could feel my feet. It's dawn before the commotion is over. Miss Motti's house has collapsed, and the danger of spreading has passed. Atticus leads the kids home for Coco in a chat. As they sat at the table, I noticed Atticus looking at me, first with curiosity, then with sternness. I thought I told you and Jem to stay put, he said. Why, we did. We stayed. Then whose blanket is that? Blanket? I looked down and found myself clutching a brown, woolen blanket I was wearing around my shoulders. When Scout figures out where it came from, she nearly throws up. A few more things wrap up this chapter. The kids dig the hedge clippers and hat out of the melted snow-slash-dirt man. and bring them back to Miss Maudie. We're bringing back your things, Miss Maudie, said Jem. We're awful sorry. Miss Maudie looked around, and the shadow of her old grin crossed her face. Always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. Just think, I'll have more room for my azaleas now. Scout is surprised to find that she isn't grieving. Grieving, child? Why, I hated that old cow barn. Thought of setting fire to it a hundred times myself, except they'd lock me up. Why, I'll build me a little house and take me a couple of roomers, and gracious, I'll have the finest yard in Alabama. When Scout and Jem offered to help, clean up. She turns them down, saying, Thank you, sir, but you've got a job of your own over there. She pointed to our yard. You mean the morphidite? I asked. Shoot, we can rake him up in a jiffy. Miss Motti stared down at me, her lips moving silently. Suddenly she put her hands on her head and whooped. When we left her, she was still chuckling. And that's chapter seven and eight. Chapter 9 marks an inflection point in our story. These are the pages we transition from a glossy, innocent childhood recounted with pretty heavy nostalgia vibes and menaced by nothing worse than wild stories about Boo into much more adult themes. I've been telling you all along that at its heart, this is a story about a little girl who loses her innocence to evil, but is able to hold on to her goodness by practicing powerful, wholehearted empathy. Well, with Chapter 9, we start on the road toward that evil. We're approaching some difficult trials for Scout, one of which is a literal trial. Chapter nine opens with Scout nearly fighting a classmate because he is saying some pretty vile things about her father. Before I get to that, I need to do a thing, though. I made a whole video on how I'm going to treat the presence of the N-word in this web series. It's the last video in the playlist. I also linked it below. Check it out if you want. OK, back to our story. The classmate claims that Scout's daddy defends N-words and adds somewhat cryptically, my folks said your daddy was a disgrace and that N-word ought to. to hang from the water tank. Scout ultimately drops her fists because Atticus asked her not to fight. But that night she asks him about it by repeating the taunt. Atticus replies, of course I do. Don't say n-word, Scout. That's common. We learn through subsequent conversations that Atticus has been appointed to defend Tom Robinson, a black man who has been accused of raping a white woman. The white woman in question is Mayellaella Ewell, the older sister of Burris, the kid in chapter three who called his teacher a slut and the oldest daughter of Boo Ewell, the town drunkard noted mouth breather in all around not great guy. The live out behind the town garbage dump. And if you remember our social hierarchy education in chapter three, they are above only the black residents in the estimation of their neighbors. Furthermore, there is not much by way of evidence for this trial. It's pretty much Mayellaella and Boo's word and white skin against Tom's word and his black skin. Scout wonders, Atticus, are we going to win it? No honey, then why? Simply because we were licked 100 years before we started is no reason for us not to try to win. Scout connects this line of fatalistic thinking to aging confederate soldiers who still inhabit Mayellacomb. These guys are still alive and they're stubborn, claiming I mean, they'd fight the war all over again if they had to. Scout refers specifically to a relative who fought for the South, Cousin Ike Finch. He wore a general hood-type beard, of which he was inordinately vain. At least once a year, Atticus, Jem, and I called on him, and I would have to kiss him. It was horrible. Listen, this story teaches a lot of resounding moral lessons, but evidently consent isn't one of them. Anyway, Atticus makes Scout promise not to fight anymore, saying they are going to have some tough weeks ahead. The town at large thinks Atticus should not go far in his attempts to defend Tom, and when they realize he means to put all of his considerable intellect into fighting for his actual acquittal, the hateful talk begins, some of which trickles down to the kids. Scout promises that her fighting days are behind her, a pledge she holds to. for about a week. Next scene, it's Christmas. Highlights, Uncle Jack's here, and he bought the kids air rifles. Jack's great. Lowlights, they have to go to Aunt Alexandra's for Christmas dinner. Scout says, had I ever harbored the mystical notions about mountains that seem to obsess lawyers and judges, Aunt Alexandra would have been analogous to Mount Everest. Throughout my early life, she was cold. And there. So Alexandra will show some redeeming qualities later in the text, but now and overall on balance, she kind of sucks. But you know who definitely sucks? Alexandra's grandson, Francis Hancock. Scout narrates, I avoided him on principle. He enjoyed everything I disapproved of and disliked my ingenious diversions. When they meet on Christmas Day, Scout notes that he slicks back his hair, which if 90s movies have taught me anything, it means he's the bad guy. Scout continues, talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the ocean. He was the most boring child I ever met. What'd you get for Christmas? I asked politely. Just what I asked for, he said. Francis had requested a pair of knee pants, a red leather book sack, five shirts, and an untied bow tie. That's nice, I lied. Jem and me got air rifles. After dinner, Francis... and Scout sit out back alone, and Francis starts in with some dickish verbal attacks. After first calling her dumb and getting after Dilll, he says, If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that's Dilll, if you're wondering, that's his own business. I guess it ain't your fault if Uncle Atticus is an N-word lover besides. But I'm here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family. If you're thinking, hey, this kid sucks. I told you about the hair. Did you not believe me? Guys, you can trust movie stereotypes. Also, you can always win the championship with a trick play. Write that down. Scout doesn't fully understand this taunt, but she can't miss the tone. He says it again and again, and she makes a grab for him. But Francis runs into the house. Then things go all planet Earth for a second. When stalking one's prey, it is best to take one's time. Say nothing, and sure as eggs, he will become curious. and emerge. Sure enough, it works. Francis looked at me carefully, concluded that I had been sufficiently subdued, and crooned softly. N-word lover. I split my knuckle to the bone on his front teeth. Amazing. Listen, I don't condone violence of any sort, but... Francis's blood fills shrieking calls the adults, and when Uncle Jack gets a hold of Scout, he spanks her, which presumes kind of... Kind of a lot. You see this kid like once a year, maybe don't hit them. I'm just spitballing here. Parenting is hard. So they load up the car and they leave. Back home, Uncle Jack and Scout have it out. And when Jack learns the truth about why Scout unloaded on that little monster, Jack is irate with. Francis. Scout says, please, sir, just let it go. Please. I have no intention of letting it go. He said, I don't like Francis getting away with something like that. Scout holds up her still bleeding hand and responds with the unbelievable flex. He didn't. God, I like this kid. Late that night, sneaking out of bed, Scout overhears Atticus and Jack talking. Their conversation fills us with foreboding. Jack starts, Atticus, how bad is it going to be? It couldn't be worse, Jack. The only thing we've got is this black man's word against. the you-wills. The evidence boils down to you did, I didn't. You know, I'd hope to get through life without a case of this kind, but John Taylor pointed at me and said, you're it. Let this cup pass from you, huh? Right. Atticus continues with more of this fatalistic language about how this trial is already over. You know what's going to happen as well as I do, Jack, and I hope and pray I can get Jem and Scout through it without bitterness and most of all without catching Mayellacomb's usual disease. I just hope that Jem and Scout come to me for their answers instead of listening. to the town. I hope they trust me enough. Jem Louise? My scalp jumped. I stuck my head around the corner. Sir? Go to bed. I scurried to my room and went to bed. But I never figured out how Atticus knew I was listening, and it was not until many years later that I realized he wanted me to hear every word he said. And that's chapter nine. So before we get to 10 and 11, which we are going to tear through, we need to talk real quick about the differences between a work that is episodic and a work that is serialized. So this isn't something that we we would normally talk about with literature because nearly all books are serialized works. And what I mean by that is that to understand chapter four, you need to have read chapters one, two, and three. Jumping to TV for a second because it might get a little clearer there. This would be a show that you could not jump into midway through the run. I don't know how to make a TV reference on the internet that won't sound super dated in like 20 minutes, but here goes. Think like Game of Thrones or Breaking Bad or Lost or 24. You can't jump into the middle of those shows because they are serialized. works. It's how they're built. Understanding today is super dependent on having seen yesterday. Contrast those shows with like Friends from my youth or The Simpsons or 30 Rock or Arrested Development. Shows that you can start in season three, episode five, and you know what? You're gonna be fine. So why is that? Well, episodic shows are not trying to accomplish the same thing as serialized shows. This is generalizing because there's a lot of like middle ground gray here, but serialized works are telling one long story, exploring an ever-expanding world and the arcs of the characters are huge and nuanced. In episodic shows though, it's different. The're bottling their stories into like these 30 minute or one hour episodes. The're like these little bite-sized chunks. We get a problem in the first five minutes, false starts for the middle sections, and then they solve the crime or figure out the issue with four minutes to go every single time. And yes, in episodic shows, the characters do still have show-long arcs like Jim and Sarum. Will they ever get together? Will they? Won't they? Spoiler alert, it's TV. Of course they'd do. But the DNA of the show, how we get there, is just different. So who cares? That's fair. But if you read chapters 10 and 11, you might get a vibe off them that is kind of hard to place. Like, why do these chapters feel like we are suddenly watching a totally different TV show? Let me clear that up for you. 10 and 11 are episodic chapters dropped into the middle of an otherwise serialized work. And I can prove it too, because you could flip it like all the way. You could read chapter 11 first and then chapter 10, and you would be totally fine. And it's because they are designed to do something different than the rest of the book. These chapters step away from the Tom Robinson plot and instead serve to reveal something about the character of Atticus and his place in the town in chapter 10 and the power of empathy and the many forms that courage can take in chapter 11. Anyway, enough of that. Let's get back to the story. In chapter 10, Scout is all bummed out because her dad is old, calling him feeble because he's nearly 50. She wishes he was more like the other, more active fathers in Mayellacomb. He's not into fishing, football, or guns. The dude likes books. and wearing suits with like little side pockets. You might be like, wait, didn't they get guns for Christmas? Ah, yes, they did. But it was Uncle Jack that gave them the air rifles and taught them how to shoot. The only thing Atticus has to say on the subject is this, and see if you can spot why I bring it up. I'd rather you shot tin cans in the backyard, but I know you'll go after birds. Shoot all the blue jays you want if you can hit them. But remember, it's a sin to kill a mockingbird. Hey, it's the title of the book. Would you look at that? So we will come back to this in the deep dive as you. you probably imagine. Anyway, Atticus is old and boring and the kids have guns. Got it? Okay, good. Let's go. So one day the kids are playing like army or whatever when Jem spots something kind of weird. It's a dog twitching, gulping, shivering, hunching, and acting odd. When they tell Calpurnia, she freaks out because she knows the symptoms of rabies. The rabies virus, by the way, is a big deal and way more dangerous than you might think. Once bitten without vaccines, rabies is literally 100% fatal. Eat your heart out, COVID-19. If this episode wasn't already way too long, I'd tell you all about it because rabies is awful and fascinating. Calpurnia bolts to the phone and calls Atticus, who comes tearing in from town with Heckk Tate, the sheriff. The dog is around the corner, but he is heading their way. The men stand in the road and wait. When the poor little doggie twitches into view, they can see right away that he is very dangerous and has to be shot. Heckk has the rifle, but he absolutely floors Scout when he says, Take him, Mr. Finch. Mr. Tate handed the rifle to Atticus. Geminiini nearly f***ed. fainted. After some back and forth, Heckk nearly throws the rifle into Atticus's hand, saying, for God's sakes, Mr. Finch, look where he is. Miss and you'll go straight into the Radley house. I can't shoot that well and you know it. Grimly consenting, Atticus walks slowly to the center of the street. He drops his glasses. The shatter. Then, with movements so swift they seem simultaneous, Atticus's hand yanked a ball-tipped lever as he brought the gun to his shoulder. The rifle cracked. The dog leapt, flopped over, and crumpled on the sidewalk in a brown and white heap. He didn't know what hit him. And that's chapter 10. Chapter 11 is great. We meet Miss DuBose, a neighbor who is close to 100. The woman is vile, really awful, cantankerous, racist, vicious, mean. She represents all that is wrong with Mayellacomb, and like the rest of the town, she harbors some uncharitable opinions about Atticus representing Tom, the black man who has been accused of raping a white woman. Every day, Miss DuBose passes the time sitting on her front porch being, like, unpleasant. And unfortunately for Scout and Jem, her house sits between theirs and downtown, so anytime they pass, passed, they endure a barrage of insults. Scout says it was rumored she kept a CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps. CSA being the Confederate States of America. It's like this awful woman is literally still fighting for the Southern cause. However, even though she is berating his children, every time Atticus sees her, he's the very model of a Southern gentleman. Atticus would sweep off his hat, wave gallantly to her and say, good evening, Miss DuBose. You look like a picture this evening. I never heard Atticus say a picture. of what. For weeks, the kids successfully ignore her many attacks and barbs, until one day she strikes angry neighbor, get off my lawn, back in my day gold. After saying that Scout will grow up to wait tables, like, oh no, she keeps at it. Not only a finch waiting on tables, but one in the courthouse lawn for N-words. This hits home with Jem, and she can see it. So she presses on. Yes, indeed, what does the world come to when a finch goes against his raisin? I'll tell you, your father's no better than the N-words and trash he works for. Jem takes this badly. and it grates on him the whole time they are in town. By now, the kids are pretty well used to hearing insults toward their father, but this is the first one that came from an adult. Anyway, on his way back home, Jem just snaps. He takes a baton, like a twirly baton thing that Scout has just bought, charges into Miss Dubose's front yard, and decapitates every last one of her camellias. Hours later, when he gets home, Atticus is pissed, and he sends Jem down to apologize. Scout is pretty sure this is a death sentence, that he stood an excellent chance of being murdered. with a Confederate Army relic. But when he returns, we get a surprise. Atticus, he said, she wants me to read to her. Read to her? Yes, sir. She wants me to come every afternoon after school and Saturdays and read to her out loud for two hours. Atticus says he must go. So the next Monday with Ivanhoe in hand and Scout tagging along, he turns up. So you brought that dirty little sister of yours, did you? Was her greeting. Jem said quietly, my sister ain't dirty and I ain't scared of you. Although I notice his knees shaking. I was expecting a tirade, but all she said was, you may commence reading, Jem. The settled in, and Jem begins to read, but the surprises keep coming. Miss DuBose, despite being 100, is still razor sharp, and she would correct Jem's mistakes or make him spell out words he didn't know. But after perhaps 20 minutes, these corrections become less and less frequent until it becomes clear she's no longer listening. Something had happened to her. She lay on her back with the quilts up to her chin. Only her head and shoulders were visible. He head moved slowly from side to side. side to side. From time to time she would open her mouth wide and I could see her tongue undulate faintly. Cords of saliva would collect on her lips. She would draw them in, then open her mouth again. He mouth seemed to have a private existence of its own. It worked separate and apart from the rest of her out and in like a clam hole at low tide. Occasionally it would say like some viscous substance coming to a boil. Suddenly an alarm clock blares and the kids are shooed from the room without pretense. So that was weird and that's just day one and it just keeps happening. Every time they go, she's mean, razor sharp, then she fades, tongue thing, alarm clock, out the door. Next day, the same thing, and again, and again, and again. It takes Scout a while, but slowly she notices that the fits and the alarm clock, they're happening gradually later and later each day until one day it doesn't come at all. She dismisses them with simply, that'll do. And as suddenly as it began, it's over. So the kids go back to being kids and some amount of time later, Miss DuBose passes away. get this from Atticus. She's not suffering anymore, meaning she's dead. She was sick for a long time. So, didn't you know what her fits were? Jem shook his head. Miss DuBose was a morphine addict, said Atticus. She took it as a painkiller 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. Atticus reveals that months ago she came to him to make up her will. While her business affairs were in order, she said she wanted to leave this world beholden to nothing and nobody. He continues, when you're as sick as she was. 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. So it floors me. But then Atticus says, you know, she was a great lady. She had her own views about things, a lot different from mine, maybe. So, 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 You rarely win, but sometimes you do. Miss DuBose won, all 98 pounds of her. According to her views, she died beholden to nothing, nobody. She was the bravest person I ever knew. And that's chapter 11. Chapter 12 opens like this. Jem was 12. 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? Sorry Scout, not a tapeworm, puberty. His body's going through some changes. Poor Scout, she does not understand what is happening here and we get a couple pages of like, Jem is growing up and it's annoying before we learn that Atticus has been called the way to the state legislature to legislate. I don't know. The kids are left under the care of Calpurniapurnia, their cook slash nanny slash pseudo parent, and things are going fine until she gets worried about the kids going to church without their dad or Sunday school teacher to keep them in line. You see, Calpurniapurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both fatherless and teacherless. Left to its own devices, the class tied Eunice Aunt 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. sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth Eunice Aunt, saying she didn't want to play Shadrach anymore. Jem Finch said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot down there. Hee, Lee is referencing a sufficiently deep cut from the Book of Daniel. In the story, King Nebuchadnezzar of Babylonia, who's already destroyed Jerusalem and enslaved the Jews, sets up a golden image on the plain of Dura that was 60 cubits high and 6 cubits wide. is like 18 inches, so 60 cubits high is 90 feet. Big, but like, this picture's wrong. Anyway, the king commands everyone to bow before the statue. Eventually, word reaches him that three Jewish youths, whose Hebrew names are this, but whose Babylonian names are Shadrach, Merryshach, and Abednego, won't bow. He commands that they be thrown into a fiery furnace of death. So they are. But when the king peers into the flames, he sees four figures just walking around in there. And, quote, the form of the fourth is like the son of God. Anyway, they come back out unharmed, and the king has a full change of heart. Declares that anyone who speaks against this god, their god, in any nation or in any language, shall be cut into pieces and their houses reduced to a dunghill. King Nebuchadnezzar, not a chill dude, and not portrayed great in the Bible either. I guess that's what happens when you enslave the people who wrote the book. Anywho, Calpurnia isn't about to risk similar shenanigans on her watch, so she has an idea. How'd you and Mr. Jem like to come to church with me tomorrow? It should be said that this is not exactly a small thing, since churches in Mayellacomb are fully segregated, if not by law, then at least by tradition. The agree and go. Scout narrates and notes the poverty. The first purchase African M.E. Church was across the old sawmill tracks. It was an ancient paint-peeling frame building. First purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Pine benches served as pews. Behind Behind the rough oak pulpit, a faded pink silk banner proclaimed, God is love. It was dim inside, with a damp coolness slowly dispelled by the gathering congregation. The children are welcomed warmly by the pastor and the congregation. Things are going great. Until they're not. What you up to, Miss Calpurnia? Said a voice behind us. Calpurniapurnia's hands went to our shoulders and we stopped and looked around. Standing in the path behind us was a tall Negro woman. She seemed seven feet high. I felt Calpurniapurnia's hand dig into my shoulders. What you want, Lula? She asked in tones I knew. I had never heard her use. She spoke quietly, contemptuously. I wants to know why you bring a white chillin'into this n-word church. The's my company,"said Calpurniapurnia. Again I thought her voice strange. She was talking like the rest of them. Yeah, and I reckon youse company at the Finch house during the week. So it's a tense moment, but when Lula says Scout and Jem should go to their white church, Calpurnia stands her ground, saying, it's the same God, ain't it? The children want to leave, but then Lula steps away and the parishioners draw forward again, all smiles. One of them stepped from the crowd. It was Zeebo. the garbage collector. Mr. Jem, he said, we're mighty glad to have y'all here. Don't pay no attention to Lula. The routines and rhythms of the service are familiar to Scout and Jem. The pastor preaches, hymns are sung, prayers are said. Near the end of the service, the pastor says, you all know of brother Tom Robinson's trouble. He's been a faithful member of the first purchase since he was a boy. The collection taken up today and for the next three Sundays will go to He, his wife, to help her out at home. Hee we learn that Tom, who we still haven't met, has a wife and children and that they are struggling with Tom locked up. With the service concluded, the congregation and the pastor warmly say goodbye to the Finch children and the trio walk home. Scout reflects on the modest double life Calpurnia leads, noting that she even speaks differently around the black members of Mayellacomb. Calpurnia... Can I come to see you sometimes? She looked down at me. See me, honey. You see me every day. Out to your house, I said. Sometime after work, Atticus can get me. Anytime you want to, she said. We'd be glad to have you. This sweet exchange is interrupted by Jem and the very reason Scout is not going to be able to go see Calpurnia sometimes. Look on the porch yonder, Jem said. I looked down the street. Enarmored, upright, uncompromising. Aunt Alexandra was sitting in a rocking chair, exactly as if she had sat there every day of her life. And that's chapter 12. Chapter 13 has a lot of Aunt Alexandra, and I've been pretty clear on my eloquent and nuanced position regarding her. If you haven't seen those episodes yet, allow me to reiterate, she sucks. Alexandra doesn't appear in the movie. He character is instead folded into the much more awesome Miss Maudie, but I just use this picture and I carry on. So later in this chapter, we get this analysis from Scout. Aunt Alexandra was one of the last of her kind. She had riverboat boarding school manners. She was never bored. And given the slightest chance, she would exercise her royal prerogative. She would arrange, advise, caution, and warn. Compare her to Miss Maudie, whom I love. To welcome Alexandra to the neighborhood, Miss Maudie baked a lame cake so loaded with shinny. Shinny? Shinny? Probably shinny. It made me tight. Shinny is booze, in this case probably bourbon, and tight is 1930s for tipsy. I mean, compare and contrast, people. We come to discover that Aunt Alexandra has come for two reasons. One broad, one specific. Broadly speaking, she is here to take a greater hand in the raising of Scout. Jem's growing up now, and you are too, she said to me. We've decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence. It won't be many years, Jem Louise, before you become interested in clothes and boys. I could have made several answers to this. Calpurnia's a girl, it would be many years before I would be interested in boys, and I would never be interested in clothes. But I kept quiet. The other more immediate concern is the looming trial. Atticus defending Tom Robinson, a black man accused of raping a white woman. And this is sure to bring down the ire and condemnation of the town. Alexandra is here to help the family weather the storm. The rest of this chapter is full of the aphorisms and prejudices that typify Aunt Alexandra's rigid and predominantly unsympathetic worldview. She categorizes, characterizes, ranks, classifies sorts, and generally passes judgment. As the chapter progresses, it becomes clear Alexandra believes the Finch children are not fully appreciative of their family heritage. She believes Atticus has failed to instill in them the appropriate degree of pride in being a Finch child, which in practice means they don't look down enough on everyone else. The breaking point comes when she pulls down a gold-stamped book. Written by cousin Joshua, who's a Finch relative, and she hears Jem wonder aloud if that's the same Joshua who went to jail for trying to shoot the president with a flintlock pistol, which is wild. The children, who know little of their heritage, knowing this family story is too much for Aunt Alexandra. So that night, she dispatches Atticus to have a chat. Atticus comes in, woodenly says a bunch of stuff that is clearly coming from Alexandra, and it upsets the kids. Scout starts to cry. The hug and he relents, clearly angry with himself for compromising in this way. He says, forget it. He went to the door and out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He nearly slammed it, but caught himself at the last minute and closed it softly. And that's chapter 13. In these chapters, we draw nearer to the trial of Tom. Atticus is defending Tom. Scout says we would squirm our way through the sweating sidewalk crowds and sometimes hear yonder some finches. Turning to face our accusers we would see only a couple of farmers studying the enema bags in the Mako drugstore window or two dumpy country women in straw hats sitting in a Hoover cart. Enema bags are exactly what they sound like, but Hoover carts are interesting. Derisively named after President Hebert Hoover, who was at the helm of the country when the economy fell off the Great Depression cliff, a Hoover cart was slang for a car that had been stripped for a year. for parts and converted into this. Fun facts with Tate. Okay, much of chapter 14 features Atticus and Aunt Alexandra clashing, first over the raising of Scout and next over the employment of Calpurnia. I made my views on Aunt Alexandra quite clear last episode, and it's more of the same here. Scout needs to act like a proper, stuck-up, haughty, disdainful, contemptuous, sovereign belle, as God intended, and Calpurnia should be fired. Thanks for the last decade, you may go now. Atticus stands his ground, saying, Alexandra. Calpurniapurnia is not leaving this house until she wants to. She's a faithful member of this family, and you'll simply have to accept things the way they are. Hearing Atticus fight legitimately freaks out the kids. The retreat to Jem's room, but then they start fussing as well. Jem, who has been going through puberty for all of 11 minutes, condescends to Scout, telling her to be nicer to Aunt Alexandra instead of asking her. When she bristles, Jem doubles down in a big way. Now I mean it, Scout. You antagonize Aunt, and I'll spank you. Scout narrates, with that, I was done. You damn morphodite! I'll kill ya! He was sitting on the bed, and it was easy to grab his front hair and land one on his mouth. He slapped me, and I tried another left, but a punch to the stomach sent me sprawling to the floor. But it didn't matter, because I knew he was fighting. He was fighting me back. We were still equals. Scout is easy to like. Okay, Atticus breaks them up and then sends them to bed. But then something unexpected happens. Scout steps on an arm. She thinks it's a snake which crawled under her bed and is far too calm about that prospect, by the way. But then they discover it's Dill, who ran away from home last night. and has been hiding under Scout's bed since before dinner. It seems Dilll ran away because he was being neglected at home, which is something Scout has trouble understanding. As Dilll explained, I found myself wondering what I would do if Atticus did not feel the necessity of my presence, help, and advice. Why? Why he couldn't get along a day without me. Even Calpurniapurnia couldn't get along unless I was there. The needed me. First of all, folks, this is the hallmark of good parenting. Because as a parent myself, let me assure you, there is literally nothing for which you need the help of a seven-year-old. But don't miss what Scout is trying to do here. She is attempting to put herself in Dilll's place. Putting into practice, even in the small way, the advice that Atticus gave her back in Chapter 3. You never really understand a person until you consider things from his point of view. Until you climb into his place. skin and walk around in it. I tell you every episode that this is the story of a little girl who loses her innocence to evil but is able to hold onto her goodness through powerful, wholehearted empathy. And here with Dilll is another example of Scout building her capacity to empathize. What happens with Dilll doesn't actually matter to the story. The kids tell Atticus, he tells Dilll's aunt, they figure it out, fine. On to chapter 15, which is much more adult. One evening, an ominous-looking group of men come by the house to talk with Atticus on the lawn. The kids eavesdrop through the window. Their conversation comes in fragments, so let's take this slow. Moving 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. All right, him is Tom Robinson, who we haven't met yet, but he's the black man accused of raping Mayellaella Ewell, a white woman. He's being moved from wherever he's been locked up into the county jail tomorrow. Mr. Tate is Mayellacomb's sheriff, and the trouble he is worried about is a crowd descending on the jail to lynch Tom. For those of you who are unclear on that word, word, it means a mob pulling him outside, beating him savagely, and then hanging him until dead. This might sound so extreme that you'd think it's rare, but the truth is, it happened all the time. Google Jesus Washington Waco if you'd like, but for real, don't do that lightly. All right, back to the conversation. Atticus isn't worried. Heckk, we've gotten one postponement of this case just to make sure there's nothing to be uneasy about. This is Saturday, Atticus says. Trial will probably be Monday. You can keep him one night, can't you? I don't think anyone in Mayellacombe will. begrudge me a client with times this hard? By postponement, Atticus means that he already got the judge to kick the trial down the road a couple months just so everybody would chill out. That's why he believes there's nothing to be uneasy about. Then we get the timeline. Tonight is Saturday, Tom shows up Sunday, trial Monday. Heckk only needs to keep Tom that one night. That last line about Mayellacomb begrudging him a client is some morbid dark humor. If Tom is lynched, Atticus doesn't have a client and won't get paid. It's a joke. It's a dark joke, but it's a joke. All right, let's keep rolling. The men Merryn are worried about the old Sarum bunch. We learned in Chapter 1 that Sarum is a town or village or forest or something in the northern part of the county. It's where the Cunningham live. Remember little Walter and his syrup all over his food, Chapter 3? Atticus isn't worried about them, but as one of the men point out, if they have been drinking, all bets are off. You've got everything to lose from this, Atticus. I mean everything. Atticus responds, do you really think so? This was Atticus'dangerous question. Do you really think you want to move there, Scout? Bam, bam, bam, and the checkerboard was swept clean of my men. The next evening, the kids see Atticus leave with an extension cord and a light bulb. The sneak out, pick up Dilll, and then creep to the county jail. A long extension cord ran between the bars of a second floor window and down the side of the building. In the light from its bare bulb, Atticus was sitting propped against the front door. Satisfied that Atticus is okay, the kids are about to head home when four dusty cars came in from the Merryridian Highway. In ones and twos, they got out of the car. Shadows became substance as lights revealed the solid shapes moving toward the jail door. So here we go. A lynch mob has come for Tom. And the only thing stopping them is a 50-year-old Atticus armed with a newspaper. He in there, Mr. Finch? A man said. He is? We heard Atticus answer. And he's asleep. Don't wake him up. In obedience to my father, there followed what I later realized was a sickeningly comic aspect of an unfunny situation. The men talked in near whispers. I love that little detail. Like, they drive all this way to kill him, but waking him up would just be plain rude. You know what we want, another man said. Get aside from the door, Mr. Finch. You can turn around and go home again, Walter, Atticus said pleasantly. Heckk tates around somewhere. So this is a bluff, because he isn't. It turns out the mob put in a fake emergency call to draw Heckk off. Learning this, Atticus says, That changes things, doesn't it? It do, another deep voice said. Its owner was a shadow. Do you really think so? Upon hearing this phrase, Atticus's dangerous question, Scout does something patently ridiculous. This was the second time I heard Atticus ask that question in two days, and it meant somebody's man would get jumped. This was too good to miss. I broke away from Jem and ran as fast as I could to Atticus. Hey, Atticus! Scout has just burst into the middle of something that she is unequipped to understand. She is just too young. Jem, however, knows the score. He knows exactly what this is, and when he joins his sister, followed by Dill, Jem shows just how much he has matured. Atticus got up from his chair, but he was moving slowly, like an old man. He put the newspaper down very carefully, adjusting its creases with lingering fingers. The were trembling a little. Go home, Jem, he said. Take Scout and Dill home. Jem shook his head. Fisher and son have this standoff right there in front of the lynch. mob and it goes on for like a while. Finally one of the strangers grabs Jem roughly by the collar and nearly yanks him off his feet and then Scout acts don't you touch him. I kicked the man swiftly barefooted I was surprised to see him fall back in real pain. I intended to kick his shin but aimed too high. This surreal standoff continues with Jem steadfastly, staunchly refusing to leave. He never raises his voice, never bargains or justifies, just flatly, unapologetically refuses to go. Atticus threatens, requests, even begs, but it ain't happening. Jem is not moving. As this power struggle continues, Scout starts looking around the assembled and she spots a familiar face. Mr. Cunningham, young Walter's father. We haven't met him, but do you remember back in chapter 2 when Atticus talked about a client paying him in and stove wood and hickory nuts and stuff. That was him. All right, who cares? Plucky as ever, Scout just up and starts talking to him. Hey, Mr. Cunningham. The man did not hear me, it seems. Hey, Mr. Cunningham, how's your entailment getting along? What an entailment is isn't really important at all. It's a legal way to make property unsellable by your heirs. Walter's land is entailed, meaning he cannot sell it, and since he can't sell it, he also can't borrow against it, which he would very much like to do because this is the Great Depression. Like I said, it doesn't really matter. It's the thing. Scout is using to try to strike up a conversation, but it ain't working. So Scout presses on. The girl does not have breaks it seems. I began to sense the futility one feels when unacknowledged by a chance acquaintance. I go to school with Walter. I began again. He's your boy, ain't he? Ain't he, sir? He's a good boy. I added, a real nice boy. We brought him home for dinner one time. Mayellabe he told you about me. I beat him up one time, but he was real nice about it. Tell him hey for me, won't you? This one-sided barrage takes on a certain surreal quality, and it seems the entire group becomes transfixed by this little girl who just won't take the hint. The men were all looking at me. Some had their mouths half open. Their attention amounted to fascination. I was slowly drying up, wondering what idiocy I had committed. The motivation for what comes next is not explicitly on the page, but it is clear that Scout's relentless monologue of unfiltered childhood innocence is enough to shame the crowd. Mr. Cunningham did a peculiar thing. He squatted down and took me by both shoulders. I'll tell him you said, hey, little lady, he said. Then he He straightened up and waved a big paw. Let's clear out, he called. As they had come in ones and twos, the men shuffled back to their ramshackle cars. Doors slammed, engines coughed, and they were gone. With the immediate danger past, Atticus near collapses against the wall. Scout pulls on his sleeve, it's a very childlike gesture, and asks him if they can go home. Mr. Finch, a soft husky voice came from the darkness above. The gone? Atticus stepped back and looked up. The've gone, he said. Get some sleep, Tom. The won't bother you anymore. So in a final button to this chapter, we get this during the slow walk home. Atticus and Jem were well ahead of us, and I assumed that Atticus was giving him hell for not going home, but I was wrong. As they passed under a streetlight, Atticus reached out and massaged Jem's hair, his one gesture of affection. And that's chapter 15. So chapter 16 opens with some disorientation for the reader, kicked off by this cryptic line, Jem heard me. Over the next page, we we will piece together when we are, which is directly after the near lynching of Tom and the near beating of Atticus, where we are, which is Scout's bedroom, and what Jem heard, which was Scout crying. So it took our girl about an hour to put together what was really going on outside that jailhouse, but she did get there eventually. Dawn breaks, and it's finally the day of the trial. Breakfast is a somewhat tense affair, as Aunt Alexandra has heard about the previous night's events. Aunt Alexandra sipped coffee and radiated waves of disapproval. Everyone who slipped into the jail was out at night were a disgrace to the family. Atticus said he was right glad his disgraces had come along. The full import of the previous night with Atticus standing up to a lynch mob led by Mr. Cunningham has raised some questions in Scout. I thought Mr. Cunningham was a friend of ours. Atticus responds, he still is. But last night he wanted to hurt you. Hee Atticus shows his astounding ability to find the good in people, even in people who would have beaten him and killed Tom. Atticus sets down his fork and says, Mr. Cunningham Sarum's basically a good man,"he said. He just has his blind spots, along with the rest of us. Listen, far be it from me to question Atticus, but driving drunk across the county in the dead of night to drag a man from a jail cell and into the street to string him up by his neck until he asphyxiates is a hell of a blind spot. His breakfast finished, Atticus departs for town and the trial, and forbids Scout and Jem to come. The bide him for the morning, but promptly after lunch, they go. It was a gala occasion. There was no room at the public kitchen rail for another animal. The courthouse square was covered with picnic parties, sitting on newspapers, washing down biscuits and syrup with warm milk from fruit jars. Biscuits, syrup, warm milk, in the South, in the summer. That's really quite gross. The black citizens are there as well, but they sit apart from the rest. The one white face in the black crowd though stands out. It belongs to Mr. Dolphus Raymond. Dilll wonders why is he sitting with the color folks? Jem fills him in. Always does. He likes them better than he likes us, I reckon. Lives by himself way down near the county line. He's got a colored woman and all sorts of mixed chillin. We learn that old Dolphus is never seen without a paper sack, from which it is widely known he sips whiskey. The lunch hour over, they call it dinner, by the way, the crowd starts moving back inside the courthouse. So let me break this down for you. The kids are facing a real timing issue here. Going too soon, you'll end up near the front. and they'll be spotted by Atticus. Lloyd or too long, they might not get in at all. So they try their best and they blow it. No seats left. But then may comes black citizens enter. Because this is Jim Crow, they stayed outside until the whites all got in, and even then they can only sit in the balcony. As the kids are standing miserably by the wall, they are spotted by Reverend Skyess, the preacher of Calpurniapurnia's church. We met him in chapter 12. He says, there's not a seat downstairs. Do y'all reckon it'd be all right if y'all came up to the balcony with me? The kids dash upstairs at a run. Reverend Skyess came puffing behind us and steered us gently through the black people in the balcony. Four Negroes rose and gave us their front row seats. From their vantage point, Scout spends the rest of the chapter describing the room, spending the time methodically illustrating the people who populate this court. Jury, judge, the lawyers, the defendant, the people in the gallery. It's a neat little literary trick, actually, because Lee is making us wait as well. The time it takes to read all this stuff puts you next to Scout. We sit there, and the anticipation- Finally, in the closing lines of the chapter, Hecktate, the awesomely named sheriff of Mayellacomb County takes the stand. And that's chapter 16. Chapter 17 finally begins the trial of Mr. Tom Robinson, the centerpiece of this book and by far the most dramatic and cinematic stretch of the novel. Just catching everybody up here, Tom is a black man accused of raping a white woman, Mayellaella Ewell. Mayellaella is the oldest daughter of the Ewell clan, a family which is headed by inebriate and noted mouth breather Boo Ewell. The Ewell are beyond poor. The live beside the Ewell. aside and survive off of the town garbage dump. While the kids forage for their food, the dad, Boo, hunts and drinks away whatever welfare money they can collect. Not great, Boo. Atticus has been appointed to defend Tom. So Tom, Mayellaella, Boo. Three characters absolutely central to the plot, and yet we have not actually met any of them yet. So if you're like, who are these people? Like, you're alright. You didn't miss anything. Before we get into it, two more introductions. The first is Judge Taylor. White haired, slightly ready faced. He was a a man who ran his court with an alarming informality. What's interesting about Taylor is that he specifically selected Atticus to, like, lawyer this case. The second is Mr. Gilmer, the circuit solicitor. This is the prosecuting attorney, the lawyer opposite Atticus. He kicks things off by asking Heckk, in your own words, to describe the night of November 21st. Heckk's story is pretty straightforward. Last fall, Boo Ewell turned up in a tizzy to fetch Heckk out to his house. Heckk goes and he found Mayellaella lying on the floor in the middle of the front room. She was pretty well beat up, but I heaved her to her feet and she washed her face in a bucket in the corner and said she was alright. I asked her who hurt her and she said it was Tom Robinson."It's a bucket, presumably because they don't have running water. In Heckk's telling, Mayellaella goes on to say that Tom took advantage of her, which is a euphemism for rape. So Heckk drove out to the Robinson, picked up Tom, brought him to the house so Mayellaella could ID him, and then brought Tom up to the county jail. Pretty straightforward. I mean, it's some top-notch sheriffing. Nothing weird here. When Gilmer's done, it's Atticus's turn. Did you call a doctor, She? Did anybody call a doctor? The answer is no, but Atticus presses the point, getting him to say no three times and annoying Judge Taylor in the process, before finally moving on to Mayellaella's injuries. Heckk says, well, she was beaten around the head, there were already bruises coming on her arms, and she was pretty bruised up when I got there, and she had a black eye coming. Then something interesting transpires. Atticus spends a lot of time clearly establishing which eye. Mr. Tate blinked and ran his hands through his hair. Let's see, he said softly. Then we get a little bit of confusion, because at first he says the left, but he means the left when looking at her. So oh yes, that'd make it her right. It was her right eye, Mr. Finch, I remember now. She was bunged up on the right side of her face. Mr. Tate blinked again, as if something had suddenly been made plain to him. So Atticus is up to something here, but it's not immediately clear what that is. He keeps his momentum. though, coming to his feet and having Heckk repeat for clarity, bruises on her right eye. He goes on to note Mayellaola's other various injuries, including finger marks around her throat and bruises on her arm. With that all established and his job done, Heckk Tate steps down. Next up for the prosecution, famed mouth breather and all-around dirtbag Boo Ewell takes the stand. Except that ain't his name. The clerk announces him by his formal name, booming out Robert E. Lee Ewell. If a little like His figure alarm just went off in your head? Good on ya! More on Boo's namesake later. So Boo's not much to look at. A little bantam cock of a man rose and strutted to the stand, the back of his neck reddening at the sound of his name. When he turned around to take the oath, we saw a shock of wispy, new-washed hair stood up from his forehead. His nose was thin, pointed and shiny. He had no chin to speak of. It seemed to be part of his crepey neck. Crepey neck. So before he speaks, Lee spends the next page getting into to just how impoverished the Ewell are. Lee says that the varmints in the area go hungry because the Ewell gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry, those that were not eaten, made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child. The house is in shambles, and the yard is a mess of discarded items, except for this one corner of the yard, which bewildered may come. Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to the Ewell. belonged to Miss Maudie Robinson. People said they were Mayellaella Ewell. Poverty and squalor surrounding fragile, innocent flowers. In the English trade, we call this symbolism. Okay, back to Boo. Gilmer asks him to recount the events of November 21st. He says he was coming back from collecting kindling in the woods when he heard Mayellaella screaming. He runs to the window and sees Mr. Ewell's face grew scarlet. He stood up and pointed his finger at Tom Robinson. I see that black N-word yonder writing on my- RUTTING? Oh my god. This proclamation touches off utter pandemonium in the courthouse. Everyone is talking and shouting at once. The balcony full of black citizens give out an audible groan. Heckk, doubling as courtroom security now is in the aisle trying to quell the crowd. Judge Taylor is hammering away with his gavel trying to regain order. And Mr. Ewell, mouth breathing as ever, was sitting smugly in the witness chair surveying his handiwork. With one phrase, he had turned happy picnickers. into a sulky, tense, murmuring crowd. Gilmer finishes with Boo, and Atticus rises to question him. After asking again about why no one got a doctor, he returns to Mayellaella's injury and again establishes that her bruises were on the right side of her face. Boo confirms, saying, I hold with everything Tate said. Then we get the curveball. Mr. Ewell, can you read and write? Ewell answers, I most positively can. Will you write your name and show us? Leisurely, near ceremoniously, Atticus produces an envelope and a fountain pen and places them both before Boo. He takes up the pen. Mr. Ewell wrote on the back of the envelope and looked up complacently to see Judge Taylor staring at him. To see Mr. Gilmer half sitting, half standing at his table. The jury was watching him. One man was leaning forward with his hands over the railing. What's so interesting, he asked. You're left-handed, Mr. Ewell, said Judge Taylor. And that's chapter 17. In 18, we rejoin the trial already in action. Tom Robinson has been- accused by 19-year-old Mayellaella Ewell of rape. The kids, Scout, Jem, and Dilll, are sitting in the colored balcony by accident and have already seen Heckate testify that Mayellaella had bruises on the right side of her face. He mouth-breathing father, Boo Ewell, claims to have caught Tom in the act and run him off. Upon cross-examination, Atticus puzzled over why no one called a doctor and showed that Boo Ewell is left-handed. The implication is that Boo, not Tom, beat the hell out of Mayellaella and no one got a doctor because the rape never ended. occurred. However, even Scout can spot that this defense is pretty flimsy. Tom is a big guy and Scout believes he could easily have rubbed off Mayellaella with either hand. Furthermore, the Ewell are poor, like pick-over-the-town-dump poor. The don't got no money for a doctor. Alright, let's get back to it. We start with the calling of the next witness. Mayellaella Violet Ewell. Hey, remember when I made a big deal about how the Ewell house is a disaster yet against the fence in a line where six chipped enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, and I made the point that those innocent flowers trying to bloom amid all this chaos are like Mayellaella herself. Well, it turns out her middle name is Violet. Yay me! Mayellaella takes the stand, and makes it about 11 seconds before bursting into tears. You assume it's the pressure of this whole ordeal, but it's actually Atticus she's afraid of. She explains she don't want him doing me like he done papa, trying to make him out left-handed. Which, I mean, he didn't make him, he is left-handed. Judge Taylor gets her going, and Mayellaella starts talking to her. talking about a shiff-a-robe her dad brought home for her to bust up into kindling. I'll save you a Google Adventure here. A shiff-a-robe is like a dresser. She wasn't feeling up to it, but then along comes Tom, passing the house. I said, come here, N-word, and bust up this shiff-a-robe for me. I got a nickel for ya. In her telling, Mayellaella goes in the house to pay him. And afore I knew it, he was on me. Just run up behind me, he did. He got me around the neck, cussin'me and sayin'dirt. I fought and hollered, but he had me around the neck. He hit me again and again. again, and chucked me on the floor and choked me and took advantage of me. Where before there was a terrified girl, Mayellaella grows in confidence as she tells her story. There is strength here and focus and intent. Gilmer concludes his questioning with, that's all for the time being, he said pleasantly. But you stay there. I expect Big Bad Mr. Finch has some questions to ask you. Atticus got up grinning. Instead of getting right down to it, Atticus takes the long road, painting a picture of Mayellaella's circumstances. He calls her Miss Mayellaella and Ma'am, something that, heartbreakingly, Mayellaella cannot understand. She says, I won't answer a word you say as long as you keep on mocking me. Ma'am? Asks Atticus, startled. She appeals to Judge Taylor. Long as he keeps on calling me Ma'am and saying Miss Mayellaella, I don't have to take his sass. I ain't called upon to take it. This misunderstanding fits in really nicely with what Atticus illustrates for the jury over the next few pages, the tragic desperation of Mayellaella's home life. She is 19 with seven brothers and sisters, while she claims to read and write as good as her father, so not. Not well, I'd wager. She only attended school for two or three years. We learn that she lost her mother early, that they live in crushing poverty, and that the relief checks money from the state seldom makes it to the kids because dear old dad drinks them right up. Evidently Boo goes on benders and can be gone for days at a time, leaving Mayellaella to fend for the family. Hygiene is terrible, everyone's perpetually sick with colds and ground itch, which are parasitic worms, and basically everything sucks and there is no hope. Atticus moves on. Do you love your father, Miss Mayellaella? Is he good to you? Is he easy to get along with? He does tolerable, except when... Mayellaella looked at her father, who was sitting with his chair tipped against the railing. He sat up straight and waited for her to answer. Except when he's drinking? Asked Atticus so gently that Mayellaella nodded. Realizing her mistake, she comes back hotly. My paws never touched a hair on my head in my life, she declared firmly. He never touched me. Finally, Atticus brings the conversation back to the day. Atticus methodically focuses on the actual injuries. Do you remember him beating you about the face? The witness hesitated. Atticus continues to hammer away at this question, do you remember him hitting you? He asks it again, pushing for an answer. But Mayellaella has fallen silent. Something is starting to occur to her, something that's making her nervous. She glances around and finally says, no, I don't recollect if he hit me. I mean, yes, I do. He hit me. It's not real convincing. So after a bit more back and forth, establishing that he both choked and hit her in the face, Atticus says, I want you to be sure that you have the right man. Will you identify the man who raped you? I will. I will. That's him right yonder. Atticus turned to the defendant. Tom, stand up. Let Miss Mayellaella have a good long look at you. Is this the man, Miss Mayellaella? Tom Robinson's powerful shoulders rippled under his thin shirt. He rose to his feet and stood with his right hand on the back of his chair. He looked oddly off balance, but it was not from the way he was standing. His left arm was fully 12 inches shorter than his right and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand and from as far away as the balcony, I could see that it was no use to him. We learned that as a boy, Tom got his hand caught in a cotton gin and nearly bled to death after it ripped the muscles from his bones. The implication, of course, is that Tom would be hard-pressed to inflict these injuries upon her. And if he did, it would be very unlikely a man with only a right hand could blacken her right eye. So, the line of questioning that... that follows is ethically a little complicated because Atticus is going to push her very hard. And on one hand, she's lying and her lies are putting the life of an innocent man in jeopardy. But it is also a fraught thing for someone to question a woman's account of rape. Questions like, well, did you fight him? Why didn't you scream? Are just a few steps away from, well, what were you wearing? I don't have some stirring answer here. Getting to the truth and saving Tom obviously trumps everything else, but I just wanted to name that. It's kind of hard to read. Anyway, you testify. that you turned around and there he was? He choked you then? Yes. Then he released your throat and hit you? I said he did. He blackened your left eye with his right fist? I ducked it, it glanced off, that's what it did. I ducked it and it glanced off. Mayellaella had finally seen the light. Next, Atticus raises a new question. Summarizing, it's basically, if you were screaming, why didn't your seven brothers and sisters hear you? The dump is closer than the woods, and your dad heard you there. Finally, he goes right at it. Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father? No answer. What did your father see in the window? The crime of rape or the best defense to it? Why don't you tell the truth, child? Didn't Boo Ewell beat you up? When Atticus turned away from Mayellaella, he looked like his stomach hurt. He's not enjoying this, which is very true to form. However, Mayellaella does get the last word. I got something to say and then I ain't gonna say no more. That n-word yonder took advantage of me. And if you fine fancy gentlemen don't want to do nothing about it, then you're all yellow stinkin'cowards, stinkin'cowards, the lot of you. She bursts into uncontrollable sobbing. And that's all we get. I'm curious how you feel about her in this moment. She's a complicated figure. More on that in the deep dive. With her testimony, the prosecution rests. And now it's Atticus'turn. Judge Taylor asks, How many witnesses you got? One? Well, call them. And that's chapter 18. Tom Robinson is on the stand at the open of chapter 19. Atticus unpacks his life for a moment. We learned he has three children, a wife, and he once spent 30 days in jail for disorderly Fine. As the conversation circles closer to the events of November 21st, we start to get a very different picture from the one Mayellaella painted. Firstly, Tom testifies that he and Mayellaella actually already knew each other kinda well, and she was asking for his help often. Tom says, Tom testifies, seemed like every time I passed by yonder, she'd have some little something for me to do. Chopping kindling, toting water for her. She watered them red flowers every day. Were you paid for your services? No, sir. Not after she offered me a nickel the first time. I was glad to do it. Tom testifies that the other children were always playing and watching him work, and that he never set foot on the property without an express invitation. Finally, we get to November 21st, and the gallery of spectators draws a collective breath. Tom begins, saying he was passing by. the Yule House and noticed how quiet it was, but he couldn't place why. As usual, Mayellaella invites him in, this time to fix a door. Except when he gets inside, the door is fine. Then she shut the door in my face, Mr. Finch. I was wondering why it was so quiet-like, and it come to me that there weren't a child on the place, not a one of them. And I said, Miss Mayellaella, where's the children? Where indeed? We learned that she spent the last year saving seven nickels to send them all to town for ice cream. With her father gone, that left her alone. alone with Tom. Mayellaella asks Tom to get a box down from the top of a shiff rope. He climbs on a chair to get it, and that's when Mayellaella grabs him around the legs. Startled, he jumps down, and Tom Robinson had come to a dead stop. He glanced at Atticus, then at the jury. Tom, you're sworn to tell the whole truth. Will you tell it? Tom ran his hand nervously over his mouth. What happened after that? Mr. Finch, I got down off of that chair and turned around, and she sort of... sorta jumped on me. Tom continues visibly anxious. She reached up and kissed me side of the face. And she said she never kissed a grown man before and she might as well kiss an N-word. She says what her papa do to her don't count. She says kiss me back N-word. And I say Miss Mayellaella let me out of here. And tried to run but she got her back to the door and I'da had to push her. I didn't want to harm her Mr. Finch. And I said let me pass. But just when I say it Mr. Yule yonder hollered through the window. What did he say Tom? You must tell the jury what he said. Tom Robinson shut his eyes tight. He says, you goddamn whore, I'll kill ya! With Boo distracting Mayellaella, Tom makes his escape and runs for his literal life. Back in the courtroom, Atticus finishes with a flurry of simple, direct questions. Did you beat her? No. Did you rape her? No. Did you resist her advances? As best as I could without hurting her. And with that, Atticus is done. Mr. Gilmer's cross-examination of Tom is disgusting. He calls him Robinson. And boy, here's a fun selection. Had your eye on her a long time, hadn't you, boy? No, sir, I never looked at her. Then you were mighty polite to do all that choppin'and haulin'for her, weren't you, boy? So we're spared the rest of this awfulness because Gilmer's superiority and demeaning tone, so full of cruelty and vitriol, it drives Dilll to tears. He can't stop crying. Scout escorts him outside and the chapter ends right there, with the kids under an oak tree, Dilll trying to catch his breath. And that's chapter 19. So at the start of 20, we are outside the courthouse. The trial is still going. on inside, but Gilmer's cross-examination of Tom is so demeaning and dickish that Dilll started crying and so Scout had to take him outside and is trying to calm him down. It's here that they come across a character we met back in chapter 16, the always drunk Dolphus Raymond, the white man who chooses to live with the black citizens and constantly sips whiskey out of a paper bag. Except plot twist, the kids learn he isn't drunk, it's actually just soda, and the I'm always drunk persona is a put-on. A little ruse so that the white people have an explanation for his crazy life. lifestyle. Over the next two pages, Dolphus lays it all out, saying the town is infected, toxic, with prejudice and racism, and that they make life hell for the black folks in town. Though he is totally right. I don't actually love this scene. He's just so like on the nose with everything. He's forthright, direct, succinct. And this character we hardly know is sharing his secret life, his secret false persona with these two children whom he's never met before right now. It's not great, but it's fine because quick as all that, we are back inside. Scout and Dilll rejoin the unfolding. drama as Atticus is hitting his stride in his closing argument, and Jem is heartbreakingly confident that Tom will be acquitted. He's just gone over the evidence, Jem whispered, and we're gonna win, Scout. I don't see how we can't. Okay, I can see how you're going to lose this thing, and it doesn't actually have a damn thing to do with the evidence. Sorry, Jem. The rest of chapter 24 pages is Atticus's closing statement, and it's too much for me to take beat by beat, but suffice to say, like, it's good. He lays out the evidence, the left-handedness of of Boo the Right. ...onliness of Tom, the pity he feels for Mayellaella. He takes some fun and slightly random shots at public education. He hits gender norms by talking about how men make money while women make cakes. He cites Jefferson, mocks the Yankees, the North, not the baseball team, and he closes it all up by reminding the jury of the supposed equality of all men in the eyes of the court. Even black men. Even Tom. It's good. Like, it's not ultimately gonna matter at all, but it is really good. The chapter ends with the kids seeing Calpurniapurnia walk up the aisle with a note for Atticus. And that's chapter 20. Chapter 21 opens with Calpurniapurnia passing a note to Atticus saying the kids haven't been home all day. A member of the gallery outs the kids. He's all like, uh, they're right there. And then the kids meet Atticus outside the courtroom. Jem, poor Jem, is still pumped. Jem was jumping in excitement. We've won, haven't we? Since the kids have heard everything anyway, Atticus says they can return for the... verdict if they go home and eat dinner slowly, which is never going to happen. But I expect it'll be over before you get back. You think they'll acquit him that fast? asked Jem. Like I said, poor Jem. All the way home, Calpurniapurnia dresses down the kids. Mr. Jem, I thought you was getting some kind of head on your shoulders. The very idea. She's your little sister. You ought to be perfectly ashamed of yourself. Then we get Aunt Alexandra met us and nearly fainted when Calpurniapurnia told her where we were. It's also very Southern. I just love it. I do declare an hour. An hour later, after bolting their dinner, they are back in the courtroom. And little has changed except now the jury is gone. And now the waiting begins. All the predictions about the verdict returning in five minutes were wrong. Way wrong. The old courthouse clock suffered its preliminary strain and struck the hour. Eight deafening bongs that shook our bones. When it bonged eleven times, I was past feeling. Scout fights sleep, loses briefly, and plays games to stay awake. She counts the heads of the people below, categorizing them by hair color and baldness. She argues with Jem, and then she daydreams. The writing takes on a slightly surreal quality as she is transported back to that February morning when Atticus did what needed to be done, what no one else would do when he shouldered a rifle and shot the rabid dog. Except this time when Atticus steps forward to do what is necessary, the rifle he is holding is empty. He is lost even before he began, but not from lack of trying. Suddenly, the jury's back. And Lita does something interesting here. She does not allow for any suspense at all. She totally could have built up this moment, played with her expectations, before delivering the verdict in some nail-bitten crescendo. But no, the moment they walk in, before they've even made it to their seats, Lee outright tells us a jury never looks at a defendant it has convicted. And when this jury came in, not one of them looked at Tom Robinson. Tom is found guilty. Jem's innocence is shattered. And Scout is just taking it all in, numb from the day and the drama and the late hour. Someone was punching me. Miss Jem Louise? I looked around. The were standing. All around us and in the balcony. on the opposite wall, the Negroes were getting to their feet. Reverend Skyes's voice was as distant as Judge Taylor's. Miss Jem Louise, stand up. Your father's passing. Atticus walks from the room. And that's 21. 22 is all aftermath, and I'm gonna keep it short. Jem is devastated. This was a gut punch, or really the knockout punch for his childhood. Aunt Alexandra is sorry for Atticus, but does manage to get in, and I told you so, because she kinda sucks. The black folks in town drop off unbelievable amounts of food to express their gratitude to Adam. A gesture that moves Atticus to tears and brings forth a gentle admonishment. Tell them they must never do this again. Times are too hard. After breakfast, Atticus is off to work, already talking about appealing the verdict to a higher court. The kids end up at Ms. Motti's for some cake and perspective. In a nutshell, she says that things are not all bad. That good people like their father, Judge Taylor, heck Tate, are making progress. I was sitting there on the porch last night waiting. I waited and waited to see you all come down the sidewalk. And as I waited, I thought, Atticus Finch would be here. won't win. He can't win. But he's the only man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like that. And I thought to myself, well, we're making a step. It's just a baby step. But it's a stab. It's a nice-ish thought, probably cold comfort to the Robinson family, but okay then. And the chapter ends with the incurable gossip of Ms. Stephanie Crawford breathlessly telling the kids that Boo Ewell, father to Mayellaella, just stopped Atticus at the corner post office, spat in his face, and told him he'd get him if it took the rest of his life. Which, funny enough, it will. And that's chapter 22. 23 picks up right where 22 left off with the reveal that Boo, mouth breather Ewell, accosted Atticus at the post office, spitting in his face and vowing revenge. Which I don't totally understand, how do you spit? when you were physically incapable of ever closing your mouth. Atticus, dry and droll, says only,"'I wish Boo Ewell wouldn't chew tobacco.'"While that's funny, the kids are genuinely freaked out here. Atticus underplays it all, employing his trademark near superhuman empathy. Jem, see if you can stand in Boo Ewell's shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to have some kind of comeback. His kind always does. So if spitting in my face and threatening me saved Mayellaella Ewell one extra beating, that's something I'll gladly take. Atticus is sure this episode was the revenge, that Boo needed to save face, and that this was it. Atticus is an extraordinary character. He is our champion, but in his dismissal of these threats, we see his one serious serious shortcoming. In his unwavering insistence in empathizing heroically with everyone, he underestimates the depravity and depth of real, like, straight-up actual evil. The middle section of chapter 23 consists of Jem groping angrily for a way to fix the criminal justice system. He has been shattered by the trial, and the kid is taking some pretty big swings. It all goes back to the jury. We ought to do away with juries. Jem was adamant. That's one way to go. He talks about changing the sentencing laws in Alabama, and he questions why women don't serve on juries. During the conversation, Jem remarks bitterly, Tom's jury sure made up its mind in a hurry. Atticus'fingers went to his watch pocket. 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. He goes on to reveal that one of the jury members who took a long time to make up his mind is a Cunningham. The very same family. plan thing that turned up the night before the trial to lynch Tom. Golly Miss, Jem said reverently. One minute they're trying to kill him, and the next they're trying to turn him loose. After hearing this, Scout resolves to have young Walter Cunningham, the kid from Chapter 3 with the syrup, over for dinner when school resumes. Alexandra hears Scout's intention and responds with,"'We'll see about that.'"Which translates roughly to,"'Yeah, that's not happening.'"Scout is surprised."'Why not, Aunt?"'The're good folks.'"She looked at me over her sewing glasses."'Jem Louise, there's no doubt in my mind"'that they're good folks,"'but they're not our kind of folks.'"So this is more of Aunt Alexandra's classist BS."'Don't be silly, Jem 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 it'll never be.'" be like Jem. Finch women aren't interested in that sort of people. Scout thinks back to a similar conversation when Alexandra forbid her from visiting Calpurniapurnia and being her company. I might as well have wanted to see the other side of the moon. Scout, all innocence, simply cannot understand this. Can't understand why. But unlike last time, she resolves not to back down. This time, she would give her reasons. But I want to play with Walter, Aunt. Why can't I? Finally, Alexandra loses it. 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. Hearing this about her friend, Scout is livid. She physically lunges at Alexandra, but is intercepted by Jem, who drags her sobbing to his room. The kids retreat and talk things over. Jem shows Scout his newly growing chest hair for some reason. Scout can't actually see anything, but she compliments it nonetheless. And then they spend the next two pages trying to untangle the adult world, trying to puzzle out. prejudices into some sort of system that has coherent rules. The talk about the Yule, the Cunningham, and family age and literacy. Scout brings up the Chinese and the Cajuns, and Egypt even comes up for a hot second. It is a mess. What they end up with, though, is a house of cards that will not stand. It's so full of internal contradictions. Scout takes a step back. After considering everything they have seen and discussed, she speaks the truth as only a child can. Nathan, Jem. I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks. And that's chapter 23. Chapter 24 is a fun one. Scout has been compelled to attend a gathering of Aunt Alexandra's missionary circle in their home. Think southern women, dainty cakes, big hats, small talk, fundraising, and Jesus. Scout doesn't want to be there at all. She wears her overalls under her dress and hides out with Calpurniapurnia in the kitchen as much as is possible. When she is asked to sit down, she is happy to see Ms. Maudie also in attendance. She's not in the group, but it's customary to invite your neighbors, so that's why she's there. Rather nervous, I took a seat beside Ms. Maudie. Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere. Merry too. The party, and I use that word very loosely, is largely governed and conducted by Miss Grace Merryrriweather, a zealot and somewhat domineering woman who talks fervently about the impoverished and backward Mirnas people. Before you go googling, Lee made them up. The are a tribe purportedly living in squalid conditions in… wherever. It doesn't say. The jungle. Miss Merryrriweather's large brown eyes, always filled with tears when she considered the oppressed. The are living in that jungle with nobody but J Gilmer Everett, she said. Not a white person will go near him, but the saintly J Gilmer Everett. I think someone has a crush. She hits her stride. Miss Merryriwether played her voice like an organ. Every word she said received its full measure. The poverty, the darkness, the immorality. Nobody but J Gilmer Everett knows. You know, when the church gave me that trip to the campgrounds, J Gilmer Everett said to me, Miss Merryriwether, you have no conception, no conception of what we're fighting over there. As fun as it is to read her quotes, we really should move on. I'll just do one more. I said to him, Mr. Everett, I said, the ladies of Macomb, Alabama, Merrythodist Episcopal Church South are behind you 100%. That's what I said to him. And you know right then and there, I made a pledge in my heart. I said to myself, when I go home, I'm going to give a course on the Mirnas's and bring Jem Gilmer'Everett message to Macomb, and that's just what I'm doing. From there, Scout loses the thread, and who can blame her, really, but she keys back in suddenly when she thinks they are discussing the ramifications of the trial. What follows comes in fragments, and we are missing the other half of the conversation, but I'll knit it all together here. If it doesn't totally make sense, like, you are not miss- something. Scout starts, excuse me, Miss Merryriwether, are you all talking about Mayellaella Ewell? Mayella, no child, that darky's wife, Tom's wife. She means He Robinson. And also, I hate her. Now Merryriwether is back talking to someone else at the party. If we just let them know that we forgive them, that we've forgotten it, then this whole thing will blow over. The cooks in the field hands are just dissatisfied, but they're settling down now. The grumbled all the next day after the trial. Gertrude, I'll tell you, there's nothing more distracting than a sulky darky. This goes on for about a page, and it's infuriating. And the hypocrisy of ostensibly caring so deeply for this tribe of people on the other side of the world, all the while displaying such disdainful, arrogant, haughty superiority and general disregard for the black citizens in her own town. It couldn't be more stark. She finally wraps up this way. Miss Merryrriweather nodded wisely. He voice soared over the clink of coffee cups and the soft bovine sounds of the ladies munching their dainties. Gertrude, she said, I tell you there are some good but misguided people in this town. Good but misguided. Folks in this town who think they're doing right. I mean, now far be it from me to say who, but some of them in this town thought they were doing the right thing a while back, but all they did was stir them up. That's all they did. Miss Motti cuts in viciously. His food doesn't stick going down, does it? Okay, some good but misguided people, that's Atticus. Doing the right thing a while back, that's the trial. And Miss Motti is not going to stand for this slander. So when she asks if his food sticks going down, she is reminding Miss Merryrry Bitch that she is literally in his home eating his food and talking to his daughter. Miss Motti rules. From there, the conversation continues with Scout by turns following the thread and daydreaming some. But suddenly... The door slams and Atticus is home unexpectedly. Calpurnia, Alexandra, Maudie, and Scout meet in the kitchen. We learn that Tom is dead. He ran for it during an exercise period at the prison. The shouted warnings, fired in the air, then put 17 bullets in him. Atticus leaned against the refrigerator, pushed up his glasses, and rubbed his eyes. We had such a good chance. I guess Tom was tired of white men's chances and preferred to take his own. Calpurnia and Atticus leave to bring this terrible news to He and her children. Maudie, Alexandra, and Scout debrief in despair, but only for a moment. The must rejoin the party, and propriety dictates that they must hide this news and how they feel about it. Taking part in this charade is something of a rite of passage for Scout. It's kind of a sickening farce, really, but as you read it, you do feel proud that Scout steps up for her family in this way. She walks over to a platter of cookies. I carefully picked up the tray and watched myself walk to Miss Merryriwether. With my best company manners, I asked her if she would have some. After all, if Aunt could be a lady at a time like this, so could I. So I'm going to spend like one and a half breaths on chapter 25. Hee it goes. It opens with Scout about to kill a roly poly bug. Jem stops her, and we'll come back to that in the deep dive. Next, Scout hears Dill relate the story of Atticus telling He of Tom's death because Dill was there. It doesn't really matter why, but it is gut-wrenching. Then we learn that Mr. Underwood wrote an editorial contending Tom's death and comparing it to the senseless slaughter of songbirds, which is the title and a lot of alliteration. And the chapter ends ominously, with Boo Ewell declaring that Tom's death made one down and about two more to go. All right, that was two breaths, but that's chapter 25. So astute readers might have noticed that there is a suspicious amount of book left. Hold on. 26, 26, 26, 26. That's... That's a fair amount. I know when I read this for the first time, I thought the trial was going to be THE thing. I thought that's where we were going. A bunch of buildup to a courtroom showdown, complete with some good old-fashioned lawyer-y theatrics. Then Atticus would make a stirring speech, there'd be some 11th hour surprises, and miraculously, about chapter 28, Tom would walk free. Or not. Very much not. I thought it also probable that he would actually be found guilty, and that his conviction, while bitter and unjust, would leave an indelible mark upon the town and scout, and that the sacrifice of Tom's life would in some way spur the the town to a reckoning with its contradictions in the past. I thought that's the way we were going. I wanted those two. But as the courtroom events unfolded, I noticed two real big. problems here. Number one, there is flat too much book left. The climax I was expecting was completely in the wrong place. Tom's declared guilty in chapter 21. So that's not right. And two, and you might have noticed this as well, it's not climactic in the slightest. In fact, the verdict in this trial is a foregone conclusion. Not even Atticus believed they ever really had a chance. And he says so on a few occasions, starting way back in chapter nine. The talk, they deliberate, they find him guilty, then everyone just goes on their merry little racist way. What we have here then. is a false summit. Something that looks like it's the peak, but it ends up subverting our expectations. The real climax is still to come. And these chapters today, they are here to do three things. Number one, shift the mood by building suspense. Number two, remind us of the key characters who will play a part in the end game. And number three, set those peeshes, peeshes. Peeshes isn't a word. And number three, set those pieces in motion. So it's time for chapter 26, and Scout is in the third grade, and thus far too much. mature for Boo Radley and the Radley house to frighten her anymore. This doesn't totally track actually since Jem was in the fourth grade at the beginning of the book and he was definitely scared of Boo then but you know whatever. We spend a little time talking about Boo in this section because he has been largely absent from the whole second half of this book. Well I mean he's absent in general the dude hasn't been outside for 35 years but you know what I mean. Lee has to bring this character back into our consciousness because he is going to figure prominently in the end game. And a quick note on Boo I argued in the first episode and pretty much anytime he came up really that Boo this character we have never actually seen, he serves as a barometer of Scout's ability to empathize. How she is thinking about Boo, because he doesn't exist anywhere outside of her fantasies, is a really good proxy measurement for her maturity. Which is why the Boo stuff in this chapter is so interesting, because you'll notice a real tonal shift here. If you read it, and you should read it, the mood is totally different. When she talks about him, it's wistful. Boo is a component of her past that she thinks back upon fondly. We knew Boo was in there for the same old reason. Nobody had seen him carried out yet. I sometimes felt a twinge of remorse when passing by the old place at ever having taken part in what must have been sheer torment to Arthur Radley. Later, she continues, we had almost seen him a couple of times. A good enough score for anybody. So we are a long way from the stories that captivated Scout at the beginning of the book. That Boo snuck out at night and ate squirrels and stray pets. That he could freeze azaleas with his breath. And that's because Scout is a long way from them too. She has grown and matured. And in part, you have to assume that it's because of the trial. The got a hard look at something really int- And in the cold light of these past events, attended by the looming menace of Boo making good on his threats, their prior fears of Boo are exposed as cartoonish. So the summer ends and life goes on in Mayellacomb. The kids head back to school. Socially, some tendrils still linger from the trial, but by and large, the town and the kids are starting to move on. Scout, who still can't fully square what has happened here, sets it aside. I came to the conclusion that people were just peculiar. I withdrew from them and never thought about them until I was forced to. She is forced to, however. pretty quickly because in class they do current events. And Cecil Jack brings an article discussing Hitler's persecution of the Jews in Germany. It's heavy stuff, but Cecil is so hopelessly lost, it is also kind of funny, which makes me uncomfortable. Cecil gets the broad strokes right enough, however, and the teacher, Mrs. Tate, seizes this chance to do them all some real good learning, and she prints, we are a democracy on the board. After explaining that Germany is a dictatorship and defining persecution, she says, over here, we don't believe in persecuting anybody. Persecution comes from people who are prejudiced. There are no better people in the world than the Jews, and why Hitler doesn't think so is a mystery to me. Scout absorbs this all, but then she's perplexed because after the trial, she overheard this same Mrs. Tate saying, it's time somebody taught him a le- lesson. The were getting way above themselves. So here she is, hypocritical as can be, standing up for the persecuted on the other side of the world, yet applauding the persecution of her very own neighbors. And if you're thinking, wait, haven't we done this already? You're right, because we did just do this. Like 12 minutes ago, we had exactly the same thing with the Missionary T Circle group. These ladies, sanctimoniously, ostentatiously bemoan the plight of the distant Mirnas, these people from wherever, while simultaneously exploiting, mistreating, and bad-mouthing their very own neighbors. It's exactly the same beats here. I guess Lee thought we might like miss it or something. I don't know. Anyway, Scout asks Jem about it and Jem freaks out because he doesn't want to think about the trial. So now Scout is stuck. She truly cannot square these two contradictory ideas. Well, Scout, I'm a teacher and it is my duty to help. So how can Miss Tate claim to be without prejudice and stand for the oppressed, yet clearly hold very real and destructive prejudices about her own neighbors in her own town? It's because she's full of. That's how. You're welcome. And that's chapter 26. Chapter 27 brings Mr. Boo Mouth Breather Ewell back into the forefront by relating some stories about him. We find that he got and lost a job at the WPA in a matter of days. WPA, Works Progress Administration, it was one of those rows of New Deal programs. Anyway, Boo is fired for laziness, but he openly accused Atticus of getting his job. This confuses readers because it sounds like Atticus is out there like driving a bulldozer around, like he quit his job to be a lawyer just to screw with this guy. But what he really means is that Atticus pulled some strings. to get him fired. It's also not true. In the next story, Judge Taylor is reading late in the evening when he hears a scratching at his back screen door. He investigates, finds it open, and sees a shadow dart away. And finally, poor He is followed to work one day by Boo. He is Tom's now widow. Boo keeps his distance on the deserted road, but all the way to the house, He said, she heard soft voices behind her, crooning foul words. What a garbage human being. Anyway, taken together, these stories shift the mood and build suspense. Because Boo is in antagonizing anyone with a connection to the trial, yet he hasn't yet moved against Atticus, the character central to his humiliation on the stand. So September slips into October, and October passes without incident. With Halloween approaching, Scout is busy preparing for a play. Miss Grace Merryrriweather wrote a pageant that features the county's agricultural products. Scout is playing a ham. Scout's only job is to wait for Merryrriweather to call out, Pork! And then take the stage. Triumphantly. At home, she dons a costume, which is a little more more than a mesh of chicken wire pushed into a rough shape of a ham and covered with brown cloth. Jem said I looked exactly like a ham with legs. The practice her big entrance at home. Jem calls out, Pork! And she walks in. Everyone claps. It's adorable. Scout is delighted. But then the chapter takes a darker turn with its final lines. Jem consents to walk Scout to the pageant. And thus began our longest journey together. Uh oh. And that's chapter 27. So it's Halloween night, and with Jem carrying Scout's giant ham costume, the Finch children to part for the carnival. Pageant. The thing. As they walk, Lee drops some geography on us. The school is just past the Radley house, then across a field. That field is attended by a huge oak tree, which Lee pauses to describe to us for no reason. Obviously, this thing is going to matter in a hot second, otherwise, why bring it up? Check off this oak tree over here. The night is pitch black, like bump into things dark, and the lights blazing in the school serve only to blind them further. Suddenly, a figure leaps out, and we learn it's Cecil Jack playing a high- hilarious prank. The play at the school for a while, then it's pageant time. After the national anthem is played, because I guess that's what you do, the bass drum sounded. Miss Merryrriweather, stationed behind her lectern behind the band, said, Macomb County, as Astra per Aspera. Aspera? Probably Aspera. The bass drum boomed again. That means, said Miss Merryrriweather, translating for rustic elements, from the mud to the stars. She added, unnecessarily, it seemed to me, a pageant. Backstage, Scout is stuffed into her coffin. costume, where she is supposed to wait for her cue. She tucks her legs in and sits down to wait, but the repetitive boom of the bass drum between droning lines of Mrs. Merryrriweather soon lulls her to sleep. The said later that Mrs. Merryrriweather was putting her all into the grand finale. She accrued, PORK, with a confidence born of pine trees and butter beans entering on cue. She was a little bit nervous, but she was a little bit more confident. She was a little bit more confident, but Waited a few seconds, then called, Pork! When nothing materialized, she yelled, Pork! Jolted awake by the band playing Dixie, and realizing she'd missed her cue, Scout runs on, right as Miss Merryrriweather is mounting the stage with the state flag. The audience erupts in laughter. Mrs. Merryrriweather seemed to have a hit. Everyone was cheering so. But she caught me backstage and told me I had ruined her pageant. What a lovely woman. Scout is mortified, and though Jem tries to cheer her up, she refuses to leave backstage until the crowd has cleared out. To help better hide her shame, Scout elects to keep the ham costume on for her dark walk home. And it's here that this book pivots like super hard, because the next few pages veer our story into something verging on like a full-on thriller novel. The kids walk home, stepping out of the auditorium and back into that enveloping night. The set off across the pitch black yard and are near the end when Jem begins to hear faint noises trailing them. As the tension mounts, the kids try to convince themselves it's Cecil Jack again, more of his scary shenanigans, but when they When they call out, they get no response, and that silence is ominous. The set out again, in the pitch black, and their menacing pursuer does too. Each time they stop, so do the steps behind them. 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. Weak, weak, with every step. In agonizing silence, Jem and Scout finally make it across the yard. 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. Shufflefoot had not stopped with us this time. His trousers swished softly and steadily. Then they stopped. He was running, running towards us with no child steps. Run, Scout, run, run! Jem screamed. Scout makes a go for it, but in her costume she can only take these little waddling steps and she falls down almost immediately. Jem! Jem! Help me! Jem! Something crushed the chicken wire around me. Merrytal ripped on metal and I fell to the ground and rolled as far as I could, floundering to escape my wire prison. Someone rolled against me and I felt Jem. He was up like lightning and pulling me with him. We were nearly to the road when I felt Jem's hand leave me. I felt him jerk backwards to the ground. More scuffling and there came a dull crunching sound and Jem screamed. This section is all confusion, disorientation for Scout. Encased in her ham costume, she's interpreting events through sound and touch. She knows Jem is down and hurt, and when she regains her feet, she sets off running in his general direction. But instead of finding Jem, she runs headlong into a flabby male's stomach. Which, gah, that's gross. Its owner said, ugh, 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. In this moment, her and our confusion mounts because Flabby's stomach is suddenly and violently snatched and flung to the ground. There is a scuffle and a wheeze, and the night was still again. Still, but for a man breathing heavily, breathing heavily and staggering. It was slowly coming to me that there were now four people under the tree. Still disoriented, she moves again towards where Jem last screamed. She finds someone. My toes touch 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 gems. I smelled stale whiskey. She rises and, still encased in her cured meat costume, spies a figure. The man was walking with the staccato steps of someone carrying a knife. carrying a load too heavy for him. He was carrying Jem. Jem's arm was dangling crazily in front of him."So that was a hot mess, but we will soon piece it together. When Scout gets home, Atticus and Alexandra are behaving with barely controlled panic, anger, and confidence. The divide and conquer, with Alexandra seeing to Scout and Atticus to Jem. The place two urgent phone calls, first for the doctor, then for the sheriff, Heck Tate. Scout is unhurt, but she is in shock. She keeps repeating the same question. Atticus? Is Jem dead? Marcus says no, and Alexandra extracts her from the crushed chicken wire costume with trembling fingers. The doctor arrives first and looks to the children. He is in with Jem for ten forevers before he emerges to check out Scout. And after seriously three more is-Jem-deads, she is finally allowed in to go see for herself. Jem is sedated, with his arms splintered. Splinted. Both, really. Satisfied that Jem is, indeed, not dead, she surveys the room. It's then that she notices the man who brought Jem in was standing in the corner, leaning against the wall. He was some countryman I did not know. He must have heard our screams and come running. Heckate arrives, and he looks sharply at the stranger in the corner, nods, and gives his report. His findings are interesting. Out in the yard, under the tree, he found a dress belonging to an eight-year-old girl, some funny piece of clothing, and a piece of clothing. of muddy cloth and Boo Ewell lying on his back, dead with a kitchen knife sticking out of his chest. Which is quite the thing. Oh, a lot of plot to get to. Chapter 29 has Scout recounting the night for Heckk. We run through the events again, but we glean some new information along the way. Heckk reckons—so I'm not really a person who says reckons, but this is Heckk take and he probably does—he reckons that the costume probably saved her life. He said, look—he pointed with a long forefinger. I A shiny clean line stood out on the dull wire. Boo Ewell meant business, Mr. Tate muttered. That shiny clean line crossing multiple strands of the wire, that was made by a slashing knife. Scout tells her story up to the moment when help arrived. Heckk asks, who was it? Why, there he is, Mr. Tate. He can tell you his name. He was still leaning against the wall, his arms folded across his chest. As I pointed, he brought his arms down and pressed the palms of his hands against the wall. The were white hands, sickly white hands that had never seen the sun. The End When I pointed to him, his palms slipped slightly, leaving greasy sweat streaks on the wall. A strange, small spasm shook him, as if he heard fingernails scrape on slate. His lips parted into a timid smile, and our neighbor's image blurred with my sudden tears. Hey, Boo, I said. And that's chapter 29. In 30, Dr. Reynolds enters and promptly kicks everyone out. Thinking that Boo would prefer the dark porch over the bright living room, Atticus suggests they go outside. And, alright, it's entirely possible that you are going to think that I am making you feel better than you think you are. making way too big of a deal out of this next part. But listen, as the men file out of the room, Scout steps to Boo. Come along, Mr. Arthur, I heard myself saying. You don't know the house real well. I'll just take you to the porch, sir. He looked down at me and nodded. Feeling slightly unreal, I led him to the chair furthest from Atticus and Mr. Tate. It was deep in shadow. Boo would feel more comfortable in the dark. Guys, she's doing it. This thing that I've been talking about every freaking episode since the start of the book, she is empathizing. She's putting herself in someone else's shoes and then acting on that information. Boo has gone from a cartoonish specter that haunted her nightmares to someone she can understand enough that she can anticipate his needs. And her first instinct is not one of dull voyeuristic fascination or exploitation or like morbid sideshow gawking curiosity. It is to take care of him. She takes him by the hand, empathizes, and acts on what she finds. she brings him to the darkest part of the porch. What else do you want in a kid? Come on! All right, enough of that. We need to run through the conversation between Heck and Atticus on that porch. And if you've read this already and you got a little lost, you are not alone because it is easily the most confusing section of the book. But it's also really important. The thing that is not explained and is not immediately obvious is that Atticus and Heckk are not on the same page about what has transpired here. Atticus has made an assumption about what happened in that yard and he is wrong. But the thing is, Heckk can't come right out and explain it to him either. He is hinting. He is trying to help Atticus put something together, something really important. So stay with me because this is going to take me roughly forever. Atticus starts by talking about how Jem, who is 13, will need to stand trial for killing Boo. and that it's a clear-cut case of self-defense. Heckkazal, what are you talking about? Jem didn't kill him. So, heck really means that, but Atticus takes it as an offer to cover up and save Jem the trouble of the trial. Atticus is all, that's really nice of you, heck, but don't do that. Don't hush this up. That's not how we do things in our family. Mr. Finch, Mr. Tate said stolidly, Boo Ewell fell on his knife. He killed himself. Okay, but here's the thing, and it's what makes this even more confusing. Heckk doesn't actually believe that either, that Boo killed himself. He's lying. Atticus hasn't considered a third option, that it wasn't Boo falling on his own knife. or Jem killing him. It was something else. And Heckk really needs Atticus to figure this out. So the standoff continues. The go back and forth and back and forth. Then Heckk tries a new approach. He decides to act it out. And for a prop, Mr. Tate reached in his side pocket and withdrew a long switchblade knife. Which is a weird thing for him just to be carrying around. Okay, so he shows how he could have stumbled and fallen, his own weight like driving the knife into his chest. As he's acting this out, the doctor comes through on his way to examine Boo's body. Heckk points the way to the tree, and the doctor asks if that switchblade he's holding is the knife that killed him. No sir, that knife's still in him. It looks like a kitchen knife from the handle. Alright, we are almost there. Atticus still won't leave his corner. I won't have it, Atticus said softly. Heckk finally loses his cool. God damn it, I'm not thinking of Jem. Mr. Finch, I hate to fight you like this. You've been under a strain tonight no man should ever have to go through. For once you haven't been able to put two and two together, and we've got to settle this tonight, because tomorrow it'll be too late. Boo Ewell's got a kitchen knife in his craw. A kitchen knife, he says, while standing there casually holding a switchblade. Heckk, said Atticus abruptly, that switchblade, where'd you get it? Took it off a drunk man, Mr. Tate answered coolly. So there it is at last. When he saw the attack unfolding, Boo snatched up the first weapon he could find, a kitchen knife, and ran into the night. There, he called upon his past history of stabbing people and killed Boo Ewell by putting that knife through his chest. When Heckk saw the scene and understood what had happened, he popped the knife into his He's pocketed Boo's switchblade and is now making out like he fell on his own kitchen knife. He isn't trying to protect Jem, he's trying to protect Boo. He says, There's a black boy dead for no reason, and the man responsible for it's dead. Mayellabe you'll say it's my duty to tell the town all about it and not Hush it up. You know what happened then? All the ladies in Mayellacomb, including my wife, be knocking on his door bringing angel food cakes. To my way of thinking, Mr. Finch, taking the one man who's done you and this town a great service and dragging him with his shy ways into the limelight, to me that's a sin. I may not be much, Mr. Finch, but I'm still sheriff of Mayellacomb County, and Boo Ewell fell on his knife. Good night, sir. The guy's awesome. Atticus, defeated, exhausted, watches Heckk drive away before returning to Scout, asking if she can possibly understand why they're choosing to lie. Scout replies, yes, that Mr. Tate is right, that outing Boo, well, it'd be sort of like shooting a mockingbird, wouldn't it? Atticus buries his face in her hair, then turns to go in, but before he went inside the house, he stops in front of Boo Radley. Thank you for my children, Arthur, he said. And that's chapter 30. Goodness. Alright, 31. Last one. Scout finds herself alone on the porch with Boo. He indicates with a nod that he wants to say goodbye to Jem. After his hand tightened on mine and he indicated that he wants to say goodbye to me, he says, that he wanted to leave. I led him to the front porch where his uneasy steps halted. He was still holding my hand and he gave no sign of letting me go. Will you take me home? He almost whispered it in the voice of a child afraid of the dark. Scout walked. walks him home. When they arrive at the porch, Boo releases her arm, opens the door, and, without a word, passes inside. I never saw him again. Scout loiters on the porch for a moment and imagines things from his, this time, literal perspective. Daylight in my mind. It was summertime, and two children scampered down the sidewalk toward a man approaching in the distance. The man waved, and the children raced each other to him. Summertime, and the children played in the front yard with their friend, enacting a strange little drama of their own invention. Fall, and the children trotted to and fro around the corner, the day's woes and triumphs on their faces. Walter, and a man walked into the street, dropped his glasses, and shot a dog. Summer, and he watched his children's heart break. Aunt again, and Boo's children needed him. She leaves the porch and feels suddenly grown up on the walk home. She reflects on how far her and Jem have come. As I made my way home, I thought Jem and I would get grown, but there wasn't much else left for us to learn, except possibly algebra. It's after midnight, and she finds the house dark, but in Jem's room, reading something he picked up off of Jem's shelf. The gray ghost. She wants to sit up too, so Atticus reads aloud to her. Exhausted, she drops off. The next thing she knows, Atticus is leading her to bed. Sleepy, she claims to have heard every word you said. I muttered, wasn't sleep at all. She mumbles through some disconnected pieces of plot from the book. Some boys are looking for this other boy who they think ruined their clubhouse. And they chased him and never could catch him because they didn't know what he looked like. And Atticus, when they finally saw him, why he hadn't done any of those things. Atticus, he was really scared. real nice. His hands were under my chin, pulling up the covers, tucking it around me. Most people are, Scout, when you finally see them. In case it's not totally obvious, we're really talking about boo-heat. Okay, you know that. Atticus turns out the light, shuts the door, and sits with Jem through the night. And that is to kill a mockingbird.