16 Chapter 16 (1/2)

Jem heard me. He thrust his head around the connecting door. As he came to my bedAtticus's light flashed on. We stayed where we were until it went off; we heard him turnover, and we waited until he was still again.

Jem took me to his room and put me in bed beside him. ”Try to go to sleep,” he said,”It'll be all over after tomorrow, maybe.”

We had come in quietly, so as not to wake Aunty. Atticus killed the engine in thedriveway and coasted to the carhouse; we went in the back door and to our roomswithout a word. I was very tired, and was drifting into sleep when the memory of Atticuscalmly folding his newspaper and pushing back his hat became Atticus standing in themiddle of an empty waiting street, pushing up his glasses. The full meaning of thenight's events hit me and I began crying. Jem was awfully nice about it: for once hedidn't remind me that people nearly nine years old didn't do things like that.

Everybody's appetite was delicate this morning, except Jem's: he ate his way throughthree eggs. Atticus watched in frank admiration; Aunt Alexandra sipped coffee andradiated waves of disapproval. Children who slipped out at night were a disgrace to thefamily. Atticus said he was right glad his disgraces had come along, but Aunty said,”Nonsense, Mr. Underwood was there all the time.”

”You know, it's a funny thing about Braxton,” said Atticus. ”He despises Negroes,won't have one near him.”

Local opinion held Mr. Underwood to be an intense, profane little man, whose father ina fey fit of humor christened Braxton Bragg, a name Mr. Underwood had done his bestto live down. Atticus said naming people after Confederate generals made slow steadydrinkers.

Calpurnia was serving Aunt Alexandra more coffee, and she shook her head at what Ithought was a pleading winning look. ”You're still too little,” she said. ”I'll tell you whenyou ain't.” I said it might help my stomach. ”All right,” she said, and got a cup from thesideboard. She poured one tablespoonful of coffee into it and filled the cup to the brimwith milk. I thanked her by sticking out my tongue at it, and looked up to catch Aunty'swarning frown. But she was frowning at Atticus.

She waited until Calpurnia was in the kitchen, then she said, ”Don't talk like that infront of them.”

”Talk like what in front of whom?” he asked.

”Like that in front of Calpurnia. You said Braxton Underwood despises Negroes right infront of her.”

”Well, I'm sure Cal knows it. Everybody in Maycomb knows it.”

I was beginning to notice a subtle change in my father these days, that came out whenhe talked with Aunt Alexandra. It was a quiet digging in, never outright irritation. Therewas a faint starchiness in his voice when he said, ”Anything fit to say at the table's fit tosay in front of Calpurnia. She knows what she means to this family.”

”I don't think it's a good habit, Atticus. It encourages them. You know how they talkamong themselves. Every thing that happens in this town's out to the Quarters beforesundown.”

My father put down his knife. ”I don't know of any law that says they can't talk. Maybeif we didn't give them so much to talk about they'd be quiet. Why don't you drink yourcoffee, Scout?”

I was playing in it with the spoon. ”I thought Mr. Cunningham was a friend of ours. Youtold me a long time ago he was.”

”He still is.”

”But last night he wanted to hurt you.”

Atticus placed his fork beside his knife and pushed his plate aside. ”Mr. Cunningham'sbasically a good man,” he said, ”he just has his blind spots along with the rest of us.”

Jem spoke. ”Don't call that a blind spot. He'da killed you last night when he first wentthere.”

”He might have hurt me a little,” Atticus conceded, ”but son, you'll understand folks alittle better when you're older. A mob's always made up of people, no matter what. Mr.

Cunningham was part of a mob last night, but he was still a man. Every mob in everylittle Southern town is always made up of people you know—doesn't say much for them,does it?”

”I'll say not,” said Jem.

”So it took an eight-year-old child to bring 'em to their senses, didn't it?” said Atticus.

”That proves something—that a gang of wild animals can be stopped, simply becausethey're still human. Hmp, maybe we need a police force of children… you children lastnight made Walter Cunningham stand in my shoes for a minute. That was enough.”

Well, I hoped Jem would understand folks a little better when he was older; I wouldn't.

”First day Walter comes back to school'll be his last,” I affirmed.

”You will not touch him,” Atticus said flatly. ”I don't want either of you bearing a grudgeabout this thing, no matter what happens.”

”You see, don't you,” said Aunt Alexandra, ”what comes of things like this. Don't say Ihaven't told you.”

Atticus said he'd never say that, pushed out his chair and got up. ”There's a dayahead, so excuse me. Jem, I don't want you and Scout downtown today, please.”

As Atticus departed, Dill came bounding down the hall into the diningroom. ”It's allover town this morning,” he announced, ”all about how we held off a hundred folks withour bare hands…” Aunt Alexandra stared him to silence. ”It was not a hundred folks,”

she said, ”and nobody held anybody off. It was just a nest of those Cunninghams, drunkand disorderly.”

”Aw, Aunty, that's just Dill's way,” said Jem. He signaled us to follow him.

”You all stay in the yard today,” she said, as we made our way to the front porch.

It was like Saturday. People from the south end of the county passed our house in aleisurely but steady stream.

Mr. Dolphus Raymond lurched by on his thoroughbred. ”Don't see how he stays in thesaddle,” murmured Jem. ”How c'n you stand to get drunk 'fore eight in the morning?”

A wagonload of ladies rattled past us. They wore cotton sunbonnets and dresses withlong sleeves. A bearded man in a wool hat drove them. ”Yonder's some Mennonites,”

Jem said to Dill. ”They don't have buttons.” They lived deep in the woods, did most oftheir trading across the river, and rarely came to Maycomb. Dill was interested. ”They'veall got blue eyes,” Jem explained, ”and the men can't shave after they marry. Theirwives like for 'em to tickle 'em with their beards.”

Mr. X Billups rode by on a mule and waved to us. ”He's a funny man,” said Jem. ”X'shis name, not his initial. He was in court one time and they asked him his name. He saidX Billups. Clerk asked him to spell it and he said X. Asked him again and he said X.

They kept at it till he wrote X on a sheet of paper and held it up for everybody to see.

They asked him where he got his name and he said that's the way his folks signed himup when he was born.”

As the county went by us, Jem gave Dill the histories and general attitudes of themore prominent figures: Mr. Tensaw Jones voted the straight Prohibition ticket; MissEmily Davis dipped snuff in private; Mr. Byron Waller could play the violin; Mr. JakeSlade was cutting his third set of teeth.

A wagonload of unusually stern-faced citizens appeared. When they pointed to MissMaudie Atkinson's yard, ablaze with summer flowers, Miss Maudie herself came out onthe porch. There was an odd thing about Miss Maudie—on her porch she was too faraway for us to see her features clearly, but we could always catch her mood by the wayshe stood. She was now standing arms akimbo, her shoulders drooping a little, her headcocked to one side, her glasses winking in the sunlight. We knew she wore a grin of theuttermost wickedness.

The driver of the wagon slowed down his mules, and a shrill-voiced woman called out:

”He that cometh in vanity departeth in darkness!”

Miss Maudie answered: ”A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance!”

I guess that the foot-washers thought that the Devil was quoting Scripture for his ownpurposes, as the driver speeded his mules. Why they objected to Miss Maudie's yardwas a mystery, heightened in my mind because for someone who spent all the daylighthours outdoors, Miss Maudie's command of Scripture was formidable.

”You goin' to court this morning?” asked Jem. We had strolled over.

”I am not,” she said. ”I have no business with the court this morning.”

”Aren't you goin' down to watch?” asked Dill.

”I am not. 't's morbid, watching a poor devil on trial for his life. Look at all those folks,it's like a Roman carnival.”

”They hafta try him in public, Miss Maudie,” I said. ”Wouldn't be right if they didn't.”

”I'm quite aware of that,” she said. ”Just because it's public, I don't have to go, do I?”

Miss Stephanie Crawford came by. She wore a hat and gloves. ”Um, um, um,” shesaid. ”Look at all those folks—you'd think William Jennings Bryan was speakin'.”

”And where are you going, Stephanie?” inquired Miss Maudie.

”To the Jitney Jungle.”

Miss Maudie said she'd never seen Miss Stephanie go to the Jitney Jungle in a hat inher life.

”Well,” said Miss Stephanie, ”I thought I might just look in at the courthouse, to seewhat Atticus's up to.”

”Better be careful he doesn't hand you a subpoena.”

We asked Miss Maudie to elucidate: she said Miss Stephanie seemed to know somuch about the case she might as well be called on to testify.

We held off until noon, when Atticus came home to dinner and said they'd spent themorning picking the jury. After dinner, we stopped by for Dill and went to town.

It was a gala occasion. There was no room at the public hitching rail for anotheranimal, mules and wagons were parked under every available tree. The courthousesquare was covered with picnic parties sitting on newspapers, washing down biscuit andsyrup with warm milk from fruit jars. Some people were gnawing on cold chicken andcold fried pork chops. The more affluent chased their food with drugstore Coca-Cola inbulb-shaped soda glasses. Greasy-faced children popped-the-whip through the crowd,and babies lunched at their mothers' breasts.

In a far corner of the square, the Negroes sat quietly in the sun, dining on sardines,crackers, and the more vivid flavors of Nehi Cola. Mr. Dolphus Raymond sat with them.

”Jem,” said Dill, ”he's drinkin' out of a sack.”

Mr. Dolphus Raymond seemed to be so doing: two yellow drugstore straws ran fromhis mouth to the depths of a brown paper bag.