Miss Maudie, I said one evening, do you think Boo Radleys still alive?

His names Arthur and hes alive, she said. She was rocking slowly in her big oak chair. Do you smell my mimosa? Its like angels breath this evening.

Yessum. How do you know?

Know what, child?

That BMr. Arthurs still alive?

What a morbid question. But I suppose its a morbid subject. I know hes alive, Jean Louise, because I havent seen him carried out yet.

Maybe he died and they stuffed him up the chimney.

Where did you get such a notion?

Thats what Jem said he thought they did.

S-ss-ss. He gets more like Jack Finch every day.

Miss Maudie had known Uncle Jack Finch, Atticuss brother, since they were children. Nearly the same age, they had grown up together at Finchs Landing. Miss Maudie was the daughter of a neighboring landowner, Dr. Frank Buford. Dr. Bufords profession was medicine and his obsession was anything that grew in the ground, so he stayed poor. Uncle Jack Finch confined his passion for digging to his window boxes in Nashville and stayed rich. We saw Uncle Jack every Christmas, and every Christmas he yelled across the street for Miss Maudie to come marry him. Miss Maudie would yell back, Call a little louder, Jack Finch, and theyll hear you at the post office, I havent heard you yet! Jem and I thought this a strange way to ask for a ladys hand in marriage, but then Uncle Jack was rather strange. He said he was trying to get Miss Maudies goat, that he had been trying unsuccessfully for forty years, that he was the last person in the world Miss Maudie would think about marrying but the first person she thought about teasing, and the best defense to her was spirited offense, all of which we understood clearly.

Arthur Radley just stays in the house, thats all, said Miss Maudie. Wouldnt you stay in the house if you didnt want to come out?

Yessum, but Id wanta come out. Why doesnt he?

Miss Maudies eyes narrowed. You know that story as well as I do.

I never heard why, though. Nobody ever told me why.

Miss Maudie settled her bridgework. You know old Mr. Radley was a foot-washing Baptist

Thats what you are, aint it?

My shells not that hard, child. Im just a Baptist.

Dont you all believe in foot-washing?

We do. At home in the bathtub.

But we cant have communion with you all

Apparently deciding that it was easier to define primitive baptistry than closed communion, Miss Maudie said: Foot-washers believe anything thats pleasure is a sin. Did you know some of em came out of the woods one Saturday and passed by this place and told me me and my flowers were going to hell?

Your flowers, too?

Yes maam. Theyd burn right with me. They thought I spent too much time in Gods outdoors and not enough time inside the house reading the Bible.

My confidence in pulpit Gospel lessened at the vision of Miss Maudie stewing forever in various Protestant hells. True enough, she had an acid tongue in her head, and she did not go about the neighborhood doing good, as did Miss Stephanie Crawford. But while no one with a grain of sense trusted Miss Stephanie, Jem and I had considerable faith in Miss Maudie. She had never told on us, had never played cat-and-mouse with us, she was not at all interested in our private lives. She was our friend. How so reasonable a creature could live in peril of everlasting torment was incomprehensible.

That aint right, Miss Maudie. Youre the best lady I know.

Miss Maudie grinned. Thank you maam. Thing is, foot-washers think women are a sin by definition. They take the Bible literally, you know.

Is that why Mr. Arthur stays in the house, to keep away from women?

Ive no idea.

It doesnt make sense to me. Looks like if Mr. Arthur was hankerin after heaven hed come out on the porch at least. Atticus says Gods loving folks like you love yourself

Miss Maudie stopped rocking, and her voice hardened. You are too young to understand it, she said, but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand ofoh, of your father.