23 Chapter 23 (2/2)
”Golly Moses,” Jem said reverently. ”One minute they're tryin' to kill him and the nextthey're tryin' to turn him loose… I'll never understand those folks as long as I live.”
Atticus said you just had to know 'em. He said the Cunninghams hadn't taken anythingfrom or off of anybody since they migrated to the New World. He said the other thingabout them was, once you earned their respect they were for you tooth and nail. Atticussaid he had a feeling, nothing more than a suspicion, that they left the jail that night withconsiderable respect for the Finches. Then too, he said, it took a thunderbolt plusanother Cunningham to make one of them change his mind. ”If we'd had two of thatcrowd, we'd've had a hung jury.”
Jem said slowly, ”You mean you actually put on the jury a man who wanted to kill youthe night before? How could you take such a risk, Atticus, how could you?”
”When you analyze it, there was little risk. There's no difference between one manwho's going to convict and another man who's going to convict, is there? There's a faintdifference between a man who's going to convict and a man who's a little disturbed inhis mind, isn't there? He was the only uncertainty on the whole list.”
”What kin was that man to Mr. Walter Cunningham?” I asked.
Atticus rose, stretched and yawned. It was not even our bedtime, but we knew hewanted a chance to read his newspaper. He picked it up, folded it, and tapped my head.
”Let's see now,” he droned to himself. ”I've got it. Double first cousin.”
”How can that be?”
”Two sisters married two brothers. That's all I'll tell you—you figure it out.”
I tortured myself and decided that if I married Jem and Dill had a sister whom hemarried our children would be double first cousins. ”Gee minetti, Jem,” I said, whenAtticus had gone, ”they're funny folks. 'd you hear that, Aunty?”
Aunt Alexandra was hooking a rug and not watching us, but she was listening. She satin her chair with her workbasket beside it, her rug spread across her lap. Why ladieshooked woolen rugs on boiling nights never became clear to me.
”I heard it,” she said.
I remembered the distant disastrous occasion when I rushed to young WalterCunningham's defense. Now I was glad I'd done it. ”Soon's school starts I'm gonna askWalter home to dinner,” I planned, having forgotten my private resolve to beat him upthe next time I saw him. ”He can stay over sometimes after school, too. Atticus coulddrive him back to Old Sarum. Maybe he could spend the night with us sometime, okay,Jem?”
”We'll see about that,” Aunt Alexandra said, a declaration that with her was always athreat, never a promise. Surprised, I turned to her. ”Why not, Aunty? They're goodfolks.”
She looked at me over her sewing glasses. ”Jean Louise, there is no doubt in my mindthat they're good folks. But they're not our kind of folks.”
Jem says, ”She means they're yappy, Scout.”
”What's a yap?”
”Aw, tacky. They like fiddlin' and things like that.”
”Well I do too—”
”Don't be silly, Jean Louise,” said Aunt Alexandra. ”The thing is, you can scrub WalterCunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he'll never belike Jem. Besides, there's a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch womenaren't interested in that sort of people.”
”Aun-ty,” said Jem, ”she ain't nine yet.”
”She may as well learn it now.”
Aunt Alexandra had spoken. I was reminded vividly of the last time she had put herfoot down. I never knew why. It was when I was absorbed with plans to visit Calpurnia'shouse—I was curious, interested; I wanted to be her ”company,” to see how she lived,who her friends were. I might as well have wanted to see the other side of the moon.
This time the tactics were different, but Aunt Alexandra's aim was the same. Perhapsthis was why she had come to live with us—to help us choose our friends. I would holdher off as long as I could: ”If they're good folks, then why can't I be nice to Walter?”
”I didn't say not to be nice to him. You should be friendly and polite to him, you shouldbe gracious to everybody, dear. But you don't have to invite him home.”
”What if he was kin to us, Aunty?”
”The fact is that he is not kin to us, but if he were, my answer would be the same.”
”Aunty,” Jem spoke up, ”Atticus says you can choose your friends but you sho' can'tchoose your family, an' they're still kin to you no matter whether you acknowledge 'emor not, and it makes you look right silly when you don't.”
”That's your father all over again,” said Aunt Alexandra, ”and I still say that JeanLouise will not invite Walter Cunningham to this house. If he were her double first cousinonce removed he would still not be received in this house unless he comes to seeAtticus on business. Now that is that.”
She had said Indeed Not, but this time she would give her reasons: ”But I want to playwith Walter, Aunty, why can't I?”
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. I'll not have you around him, pickingup his habits and learning Lord-knows-what. You're enough of a problem to your fatheras it is.”
I don't know what I would have done, but Jem stopped me. He caught me by theshoulders, put his arm around me, and led me sobbing in fury to his bedroom. Atticusheard us and poked his head around the door. ”'s all right, sir,” Jem said gruffly, ”'s notanything.” Atticus went away.
”Have a chew, Scout.” Jem dug into his pocket and extracted a Tootsie Roll. It took afew minutes to work the candy into a comfortable wad inside my jaw.
Jem was rearranging the objects on his dresser. His hair stuck up behind and down infront, and I wondered if it would ever look like a man's—maybe if he shaved it off andstarted over, his hair would grow back neatly in place. His eyebrows were becomingheavier, and I noticed a new slimness about his body. He was growing taller. When helooked around, he must have thought I would start crying again, for he said, ”Show yousomething if you won't tell anybody.” I said what. He unbuttoned his shirt, grinning shyly.
”Well what?”
”Well can't you see it?”
”Well no.”
”Well it's hair.”
”Where?”
”There. Right there.”
He had been a comfort to me, so I said it looked lovely, but I didn't see anything. ”It'sreal nice, Jem.”
”Under my arms, too,” he said. ”Goin' out for football next year. Scout, don't let Auntyaggravate you.”
It seemed only yesterday that he was telling me not to aggravate Aunty.
”You know she's not used to girls,” said Jem, ”leastways, not girls like you. She'strying to make you a lady. Can't you take up sewin' or somethin'?”
”Hell no. She doesn't like me, that's all there is to it, and I don't care. It was her callin'Walter Cunningham trash that got me goin', Jem, not what she said about being aproblem to Atticus. We got that all straight one time, I asked him if I was a problem andhe said not much of one, at most one that he could always figure out, and not to worrymy head a second about botherin' him. Naw, it was Walter—that boy's not trash, Jem.
He ain't like the Ewells.”
Jem kicked off his shoes and swung his feet to the bed. He propped himself against apillow and switched on the reading light. ”You know something, Scout? I've got it allfigured out, now. I've thought about it a lot lately and I've got it figured out. There's fourkinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like us and the neighbors, there'sthe kind like the Cunninghams out in the woods, the kind like the Ewells down at thedump, and the Negroes.”
”What about the Chinese, and the Cajuns down yonder in Baldwin County?”
”I mean in Maycomb County. The thing about it is, our kind of folks don't like theCunninghams, the Cunninghams don't like the Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despisethe colored folks.”
I told Jem if that was so, then why didn't Tom's jury, made up of folks like theCunninghams, acquit Tom to spite the Ewells?”Jem waved my question away as being infantile.
”You know,” he said, ”I've seen Atticus pat his foot when there's fiddlin' on the radio,and he loves pot liquor better'n any man I ever saw—”
”Then that makes us like the Cunninghams,” I said. ”I can't see why Aunty—”
”No, lemme finish—it does, but we're still different somehow. Atticus said one time thereason Aunty's so hipped on the family is because all we've got's background and not adime to our names.”
”Well Jem, I don't know—Atticus told me one time that most of this Old Family stuff'sfoolishness because everybody's family's just as old as everybody else's. I said did thatinclude the colored folks and Englishmen and he said yes.”
”Background doesn't mean Old Family,” said Jem. ”I think it's how long your family'sbeen readin' and writin'. Scout, I've studied this real hard and that's the only reason Ican think of. Somewhere along when the Finches were in Egypt one of 'em must havelearned a hieroglyphic or two and he taught his boy.” Jem laughed. ”Imagine Auntybeing proud her great-grandaddy could read an' write—ladies pick funny things to beproud of.”
”Well I'm glad he could, or who'da taught Atticus and them, and if Atticus couldn'tread, you and me'd be in a fix. I don't think that's what background is, Jem.”
”Well then, how do you explain why the Cunninghams are different? Mr. Walter canhardly sign his name, I've seen him. We've just been readin' and writin' longer'n theyhave.”
”No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's as smart as he canbe, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy.
Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.”
Jem turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his face was cloudy.
He was going into one of his declines, and I grew wary. His brows came together; hismouth became a thin line. He was silent for a while.
”That's what I thought, too,” he said at last, ”when I was your age. If there's just onekind of folks, why can't they get along with each other? If they're all alike, why do theygo out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understandsomething. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed shut up in thehouse all this time… it's because he wants to stay inside.”