To Kill a Mockingbird (12 page)

“No, a real one. He’s gonna make me some invisible ink, and I’m gonna write to Dill in it.”

Francis asked what was the use of that.

“Well, can’t you just see his face when he gets a letter from me with nothing in it? It’ll drive him nuts.”

Talking to Francis gave me the sensation of settling slowly to the bottom of the ocean. He was the most boring child I ever met. As he lived in Mobile, he could not inform on me to school authorities, but he managed to tell everything he knew to Aunt Alexandra, who in turn unburdened herself to Atticus, who either forgot it or gave me hell, whichever struck his fancy. But the only time I ever heard Atticus speak sharply to anyone was when I once heard him say, “Sister, I do the best I can with them!” It had something to do with my going around in overalls.

Aunt Alexandra was fanatical on the subject of my attire. I could not possibly hope to be a lady if I wore breeches; when I said I could do nothing in a dress, she said I wasn’t supposed to be doing things that required pants. Aunt Alexandra’s vision of my deportment involved playing with small stoves, tea sets, and wearing the Add-A-Pearl necklace she gave me when I was born; furthermore, I should be a ray of sunshine in my father’s lonely life. I suggested that one could be a ray of sunshine in pants just as well, but Aunty said that one had to behave like a sunbeam, that I was born good but had grown progressively worse every year. She hurt my feelings and set my teeth permanently on edge, but when I asked Atticus about it, he said there were already enough sunbeams in the family and to go on about my business, he didn’t mind me much the way I was.

At Christmas dinner, I sat at the little table in the diningroom; Jem and Francis sat with the adults at the dining table. Aunty had continued to isolate me long after Jem and Francis graduated to the big table. I often wondered what she thought I’d do, get up and throw something? I sometimes thought of asking her if she would let me sit at the big table with the rest of them just once, I would prove to her how civilized I could be; after all, I ate at home every day with no major mishaps. When I begged Atticus to use his influence, he said he had none—we were guests, and we sat where she told us to sit. He also said Aunt Alexandra didn’t understand girls much, she’d never had one.

But her cooking made up for everything: three kinds of meat, summer vegetables from her pantry shelves; peach pickles, two kinds of cake and ambrosia constituted a modest Christmas dinner. Afterwards, the adults made for the livingroom and sat around in a dazed condition. Jem lay on the floor, and I went to the back yard. “Put on your coat,” said Atticus dreamily, so I didn’t hear him.

Francis sat beside me on the back steps. “That was the best yet,” I said.

“Grandma’s a wonderful cook,” said Francis. “She’s gonna teach me how.”

“Boys don’t cook.” I giggled at the thought of Jem in an apron.

“Grandma says all men should learn to cook, that men oughta be careful with their wives and wait on ‘em when they don’t feel good,” said my cousin.

“I don’t want Dill waitin‘ on me,” I said. “I’d rather wait on him.”

“Dill?”

“Yeah. Don’t say anything about it yet, but we’re gonna get married as soon as we’re big enough. He asked me last summer.”

Francis hooted.

“What’s the matter with him?” I asked. “Ain’t anything the matter with him.”

“You mean that little runt Grandma says stays with Miss Rachel every summer?”

“That’s exactly who I mean.”

“I know all about him,” said Francis.

“What about him?”

“Grandma says he hasn’t got a home—”

“Has too, he lives in Meridian.”

“—he just gets passed around from relative to relative, and Miss Rachel keeps him every summer.”

“Francis, that’s not so!”

Francis grinned at me. “You’re mighty dumb sometimes, Jean Louise. Guess you don’t know any better, though.”

“What do you mean?”

“If Uncle Atticus lets you run around with stray dogs, that’s his own business, like Grandma says, so it ain’t your fault. I guess it ain’t your fault if Uncle Atticus is a nigger-lover besides, but I’m here to tell you it certainly does mortify the rest of the family—”

“Francis, what the hell do you mean?”

“Just what I said. Grandma says it’s bad enough he lets you all run wild, but now he’s turned out a nigger-lover we’ll never be able to walk the streets of Maycomb agin. He’s ruinin‘ the family, that’s what he’s doin’.”

Francis rose and sprinted down the catwalk to the old kitchen. At a safe distance he called, “He’s nothin‘ but a nigger-lover!”

“He is not!” I roared. “I don’t know what you’re talkin‘ about, but you better cut it out this red hot minute!”

I leaped off the steps and ran down the catwalk. It was easy to collar Francis. I said take it back quick.

Francis jerked loose and sped into the old kitchen. “Nigger-lover!” he yelled.

When stalking one’s prey, it is best to take one’s time. Say nothing, and as sure as eggs he will become curious and emerge. Francis appeared at the kitchen door. “You still mad, Jean Louise?” he asked tentatively.

“Nothing to speak of,” I said.

Francis came out on the catwalk.

“You gonna take it back, Fra—ancis?” But I was too quick on the draw. Francis shot back into the kitchen, so I retired to the steps. I could wait patiently. I had sat there perhaps five minutes when I heard Aunt Alexandra speak: “Where’s Francis?”

“He’s out yonder in the kitchen.”

“He knows he’s not supposed to play in there.”

Francis came to the door and yelled, “Grandma, she’s got me in here and she won’t let me out!”

“What is all this, Jean Louise?”

I looked up at Aunt Alexandra. “I haven’t got him in there, Aunty, I ain’t holdin‘ him.”

“Yes she is,” shouted Francis, “she won’t let me out!”

“Have you all been fussing?”

“Jean Louise got mad at me, Grandma,” called Francis.

“Francis, come out of there! Jean Louise, if I hear another word out of you I’ll tell your father. Did I hear you say hell a while ago?”

“Nome.”

“I thought I did. I’d better not hear it again.”

Aunt Alexandra was a back-porch listener. The moment she was out of sight Francis came out head up and grinning. “Don’t you fool with me,” he said.

He jumped into the yard and kept his distance, kicking tufts of grass, turning around occasionally to smile at me. Jem appeared on the porch, looked at us, and went away. Francis climbed the mimosa tree, came down, put his hands in his pockets and strolled around the yard. “Hah!” he said. I asked him who he thought he was, Uncle Jack? Francis said he reckoned I got told, for me to just sit there and leave him alone.

“I ain’t botherin‘ you,” I said.

Francis looked at me carefully, concluded that I had been sufficiently subdued, and crooned softly, “Nigger-lover…”

This time, I split my knuckle to the bone on his front teeth. My left impaired, I sailed in with my right, but not for long. Uncle Jack pinned my arms to my sides and said, “Stand still!”

Aunt Alexandra ministered to Francis, wiping his tears away with her handkerchief, rubbing his hair, patting his cheek. Atticus, Jem, and Uncle Jimmy had come to the back porch when Francis started yelling.

“Who started this?” said Uncle Jack.

Francis and I pointed at each other. “Grandma,” he bawled, “she called me a whore-lady and jumped on me!”

“Is that true, Scout?” said Uncle Jack.

“I reckon so.”

When Uncle Jack looked down at me, his features were like Aunt Alexandra’s. “You know I told you you’d get in trouble if you used words like that? I told you, didn’t I?”

“Yes sir, but—”

“Well, you’re in trouble now. Stay there.”

I was debating whether to stand there or run, and tarried in indecision a moment too long: I turned to flee but Uncle Jack was quicker. I found myself suddenly looking at a tiny ant struggling with a bread crumb in the grass.

“I’ll never speak to you again as long as I live! I hate you an‘ despise you an’ hope you die tomorrow!” A statement that seemed to encourage Uncle Jack, more than anything. I ran to Atticus for comfort, but he said I had it coming and it was high time we went home. I climbed into the back seat of the car without saying good-bye to anyone, and at home I ran to my room and slammed the door. Jem tried to say something nice, but I wouldn’t let him.

When I surveyed the damage there were only seven or eight red marks, and I was reflecting upon relativity when someone knocked on the door. I asked who it was; Uncle Jack answered.

“Go away!”

Uncle Jack said if I talked like that he’d lick me again, so I was quiet. When he entered the room I retreated to a corner and turned my back on him. “Scout,” he said, “do you still hate me?”

“Go on, please sir.”

“Why, I didn’t think you’d hold it against me,” he said. “I’m disappointed in you—you had that coming and you know it.”

“Didn’t either.”

“Honey, you can’t go around calling people—”

“You ain’t fair,” I said, “you ain’t fair.”

Uncle Jack’s eyebrows went up. “Not fair? How not?”

“You’re real nice, Uncle Jack, an‘ I reckon I love you even after what you did, but you don’t understand children much.”

Uncle Jack put his hands on his hips and looked down at me. “And why do I not understand children, Miss Jean Louise? Such conduct as yours required little understanding. It was obstreperous, disorderly and abusive—”

“You gonna give me a chance to tell you? I don’t mean to sass you, I’m just tryin‘ to tell you.”

Uncle Jack sat down on the bed. His eyebrows came together, and he peered up at me from under them. “Proceed,” he said.

I took a deep breath. “Well, in the first place you never stopped to gimme a chance to tell you my side of it—you just lit right into me. When Jem an‘ I fuss Atticus doesn’t ever just listen to Jem’s side of it, he hears mine too, an’ in the second place you told me never to use words like that except in ex-extreme provocation, and Francis provocated me enough to knock his block off—”

Uncle Jack scratched his head. “What was your side of it, Scout?”

“Francis called Atticus somethin‘, an’ I wasn’t about to take it off him.”

“What did Francis call him?”

“A nigger-lover. I ain’t very sure what it means, but the way Francis said it—tell you one thing right now, Uncle Jack, I’ll be—I swear before God if I’ll sit there and let him say somethin‘ about Atticus.”

“He called Atticus that?”

“Yes sir, he did, an‘ a lot more. Said Atticus’d be the ruination of the family an’ he let Jem an me run wild…”

From the look on Uncle Jack’s face, I thought I was in for it again. When he said, “We’ll see about this,” I knew Francis was in for it. “I’ve a good mind to go out there tonight.”

“Please sir, just let it go. Please.”

“I’ve no intention of letting it go,” he said. “Alexandra should know about this. The idea of—wait’ll I get my hands on that boy…”

“Uncle Jack, please promise me somethin‘, please sir. Promise you won’t tell Atticus about this. He—he asked me one time not to let anything I heard about him make me mad, an’ I’d ruther him think we were fightin‘ about somethin’ else instead. Please promise…”

“But I don’t like Francis getting away with something like that—”

“He didn’t. You reckon you could tie up my hand? It’s still bleedin‘ some.”

“Of course I will, baby. I know of no hand I would be more delighted to tie up. Will you come this way?”

Uncle Jack gallantly bowed me to the bathroom. While he cleaned and bandaged my knuckles, he entertained me with a tale about a funny nearsighted old gentleman who had a cat named Hodge, and who counted all the cracks in the sidewalk when he went to town. “There now,” he said. “You’ll have a very unladylike scar on your wedding-ring finger.”

“Thank you sir. Uncle Jack?”

“Ma’am?”

“What’s a whore-lady?”

Uncle Jack plunged into another long tale about an old Prime Minister who sat in the House of Commons and blew feathers in the air and tried to keep them there when all about him men were losing their heads. I guess he was trying to answer my question, but he made no sense whatsoever.

Later, when I was supposed to be in bed, I went down the hall for a drink of water and heard Atticus and Uncle Jack in the livingroom:

“I shall never marry, Atticus.”

“Why?”

“I might have children.”

Atticus said, “You’ve a lot to learn, Jack.”

“I know. Your daughter gave me my first lessons this afternoon. She said I didn’t understand children much and told me why. She was quite right. Atticus, she told me how I should have treated her—oh dear, I’m so sorry I romped on her.”

Atticus chuckled. “She earned it, so don’t feel too remorseful.”

I waited, on tenterhooks, for Uncle Jack to tell Atticus my side of it. But he didn’t. He simply murmured, “Her use of bathroom invective leaves nothing to the imagination. But she doesn’t know the meaning of half she says—she asked me what a whore-lady was…”

“Did you tell her?”

“No, I told her about Lord Melbourne.”

“Jack! When a child asks you something, answer him, for goodness’ sake. But don’t make a production of it. Children are children, but they can spot an evasion quicker than adults, and evasion simply muddles ‘em. No,” my father mused, “you had the right answer this afternoon, but the wrong reasons. Bad language is a stage all children go through, and it dies with time when they learn they’re not attracting attention with it. Hotheadedness isn’t. Scout’s got to learn to keep her head and learn soon, with what’s in store for her these next few months. She’s coming along, though. Jem’s getting older and she follows his example a good bit now. All she needs is assistance sometimes.”

“Atticus, you’ve never laid a hand on her.”

“I admit that. So far I’ve been able to get by with threats. Jack, she minds me as well as she can. Doesn’t come up to scratch half the time, but she tries.”

“That’s not the answer,” said Uncle Jack.

“No, the answer is she knows I know she tries. That’s what makes the difference. What bothers me is that she and Jem will have to absorb some ugly things pretty soon. I’m not worried about Jem keeping his head, but Scout’d just as soon jump on someone as look at him if her pride’s at stake…”