4 Chapter 4 (1/2)

The remainder of my schooldays were no more auspicious than the first. Indeed, theywere an endless Project that slowly evolved into a Unit, in which miles of constructionpaper and wax crayon were expended by the State of Alabama in its well-meaning butfruitless efforts to teach me Group Dynamics. What Jem called the Dewey DecimalSystem was school-wide by the end of my first year, so I had no chance to compare itwith other teaching techniques. I could only look around me: Atticus and my uncle, whowent to school at home, knew everything—at least, what one didn't know the other did.

Furthermore, I couldn't help noticing that my father had served for years in the statelegislature, elected each time without opposition, innocent of the adjustments myteachers thought essential to the development of Good Citizenship. Jem, educated on ahalf-Decimal half-Duncecap basis, seemed to function effectively alone or in a group,but Jem was a poor example: no tutorial system devised by man could have stoppedhim from getting at books. As for me, I knew nothing except what I gathered from Timemagazine and reading everything I could lay hands on at home, but as I inchedsluggishly along the treadmill of the Maycomb County school system, I could not helpreceiving the impression that I was being cheated out of something. Out of what I knewnot, yet I did not believe that twelve years of unrelieved boredom was exactly what thestate had in mind for me.

As the year passed, released from school thirty minutes before Jem, who had to stayuntil three o'clock, I ran by the Radley Place as fast as I could, not stopping until Ireached the safety of our front porch. One afternoon as I raced by, something caughtmy eye and caught it in such a way that I took a deep breath, a long look around, andwent back.

Two live oaks stood at the edge of the Radley lot; their roots reached out into the side-road and made it bumpy. Something about one of the trees attracted my attention.

Some tinfoil was sticking in a knot-hole just above my eye level, winking at me in theafternoon sun. I stood on tiptoe, hastily looked around once more, reached into the hole,and withdrew two pieces of chewing gum minus their outer wrappers.

My first impulse was to get it into my mouth as quickly as possible, but I rememberedwhere I was. I ran home, and on our front porch I examined my loot. The gum lookedfresh. I sniffed it and it smelled all right. I licked it and waited for a while. When I did notdie I crammed it into my mouth: Wrigley's Double-Mint.

When Jem came home he asked me where I got such a wad. I told him I found it.

”Don't eat things you find, Scout.”

”This wasn't on the ground, it was in a tree.”

Jem growled.

”Well it was,” I said. ”It was sticking in that tree yonder, the one comin' from school.”

”Spit it out right now!”

I spat it out. The tang was fading, anyway. ”I've been chewin' it all afternoon and I ain'tdead yet, not even sick.”

Jem stamped his foot. ”Don't you know you're not supposed to even touch the treesover there? You'll get killed if you do!”

”You touched the house once!”

”That was different! You go gargle—right now, you hear me?”

”Ain't neither, it'll take the taste outa my mouth.”

”You don't 'n' I'll tell Calpurnia on you!”

Rather than risk a tangle with Calpurnia, I did as Jem told me. For some reason, myfirst year of school had wrought a great change in our relationship: Calpurnia's tyranny,unfairness, and meddling in my business had faded to gentle grumblings of generaldisapproval. On my part, I went to much trouble, sometimes, not to provoke her.

Summer was on the way; Jem and I awaited it with impatience. Summer was our bestseason: it was sleeping on the back screened porch in cots, or trying to sleep in thetreehouse; summer was everything good to eat; it was a thousand colors in a parchedlandscape; but most of all, summer was Dill.

The authorities released us early the last day of school, and Jem and I walked hometogether. ”Reckon old Dill'll be coming home tomorrow,” I said.

”Probably day after,” said Jem. ”Mis'sippi turns 'em loose a day later.”

As we came to the live oaks at the Radley Place I raised my finger to point for thehundredth time to the knot-hole where I had found the chewing gum, trying to make Jembelieve I had found it there, and found myself pointing at another piece of tinfoil.

”I see it, Scout! I see it-”

Jem looked around, reached up, and gingerly pocketed a tiny shiny package. We ranhome, and on the front porch we looked at a small box patchworked with bits of tinfoilcollected from chewing-gum wrappers. It was the kind of box wedding rings came in,purple velvet with a minute catch. Jem flicked open the tiny catch. Inside were twoscrubbed and polished pennies, one on top of the other. Jem examined them.

”Indian-heads,” he said. ”Nineteen-six and Scout, one of em's nineteen-hundred.

These are real old.”

”Nineteen-hundred,” I echoed. ”Say-”

”Hush a minute, I'm thinkin'.”

”Jem, you reckon that's somebody's hidin' place?”

”Naw, don't anybody much but us pass by there, unless it's some grown person's-”

”Grown folks don't have hidin' places. You reckon we ought to keep 'em, Jem?”

”I don't know what we could do, Scout. Who'd we give 'em back to? I know for a factdon't anybody go by there—Cecil goes by the back street an' all the way around by townto get home.”

Cecil Jacobs, who lived at the far end of our street next door to the post office, walkeda total of one mile per school day to avoid the Radley Place and old Mrs. HenryLafayette Dubose. Mrs. Dubose lived two doors up the street from us; neighborhoodopinion was unanimous that Mrs. Dubose was the meanest old woman who ever lived.

Jem wouldn't go by her place without Atticus beside him.

”What you reckon we oughta do, Jem?”

Finders were keepers unless title was proven. Plucking an occasional camellia, gettinga squirt of hot milk from Miss Maudie Atkinson's cow on a summer day, helpingourselves to someone's scuppernongs was part of our ethical culture, but money wasdifferent.

”Tell you what,” said Jem. ”We'll keep 'em till school starts, then go around and askeverybody if they're theirs. They're some bus child's, maybe—he was too taken up withgettin' outa school today an' forgot 'em. These are somebody's, I know that. See howthey've been slicked up? They've been saved.”

”Yeah, but why should somebody wanta put away chewing gum like that? You know itdoesn't last.”

”I don't know, Scout. But these are important to somebody…”

”How's that, Jem…?”

”Well, Indian-heads—well, they come from the Indians. They're real strong magic, theymake you have good luck. Not like fried chicken when you're not lookin' for it, but thingslike long life 'n' good health, 'n' passin' six-weeks tests… these are real valuable tosomebody. I'm gonna put em in my trunk.”

Before Jem went to his room, he looked for a long time at the Radley Place. Heseemed to be thinking again.

Two days later Dill arrived in a blaze of glory: he had ridden the train by himself fromMeridian to Maycomb Junction (a courtesy title—Maycomb Junction was in AbbottCounty) where he had been met by Miss Rachel in Maycomb's one taxi; he had eatendinner in the diner, he had seen two twins hitched together get off the train in Bay St.

Louis and stuck to his story regardless of threats. He had discarded the abominableblue shorts that were buttoned to his shirts and wore real short pants with a belt; he wassomewhat heavier, no taller, and said he had seen his father. Dill's father was taller thanours, he had a black beard (pointed), and was president of the L & N Railroad.

”I helped the engineer for a while,” said Dill, yawning.

”In a pig's ear you did, Dill. Hush,” said Jem. ”What'll we play today?”

”Tom and Sam and Dick,” said Dill. ”Let's go in the front yard.” Dill wanted the RoverBoys because there were three respectable parts. He was clearly tired of being ourcharacter man.

”I'm tired of those,” I said. I was tired of playing Tom Rover, who suddenly lost hismemory in the middle of a picture show and was out of the script until the end, when hewas found in Alaska.

”Make us up one, Jem,” I said.

”I'm tired of makin' 'em up.”

Our first days of freedom, and we were tired. I wondered what the summer wouldbring.

We had strolled to the front yard, where Dill stood looking down the street at thedreary face of the Radley Place. ”I—smell—death,” he said. ”I do, I mean it,” he said,when I told him to shut up.

”You mean when somebody's dyin' you can smell it?”

”No, I mean I can smell somebody an' tell if they're gonna die. An old lady taught mehow.” Dill leaned over and sniffed me. ”Jean—Louise—Finch, you are going to die inthree days.”

”Dill if you don't hush I'll knock you bowlegged. I mean it, now-”

”Yawl hush,” growled Jem, ”you act like you believe in Hot Steams.”

”You act like you don't,” I said.

”What's a Hot Steam?” asked Dill.

”Haven't you ever walked along a lonesome road at night and passed by a hot place?”

Jem asked Dill. ”A Hot Steam's somebody who can't get to heaven, just wallows aroundon lonesome roads an' if you walk through him, when you die you'll be one too, an' you'llgo around at night suckin' people's breath-”

”How can you keep from passing through one?”

”You can't,” said Jem. ”Sometimes they stretch all the way across the road, but if youhafta go through one you say, 'Angel-bright, life-in-death; get off the road, don't suck mybreath.' That keeps 'em from wrapping around you-”

”Don't you believe a word he says, Dill,” I said. ”Calpurnia says that's nigger-talk.”