Dont say anything about it, Scout, he said.

What? I certainly am. Aint everybodys daddy the deadest shot in Maycomb County.

Jem said, I reckon if hed wanted us to know it, heda told us. If he was proud of it, heda told us.

Maybe it just slipped his mind, I said.

Naw, Scout, its something you wouldnt understand. Atticus is real old, but I wouldnt care if he couldnt do anythingI wouldnt care if he couldnt do a blessed thing.

Jem picked up a rock and threw it jubilantly at the carhouse. Running after it, he called back: Atticus is a gentleman, just like me!

11

When we were small, Jem and I confined our activities to the southern neighborhood, but when I was well into the second grade at school and tormenting Boo Radley became pass, the business section of Maycomb drew us frequently up the street past the real property of Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose. It was impossible to go to town without passing her house unless we wished to walk a mile out of the way. Previous minor encounters with her left me with no desire for more, but Jem said I had to grow up some time.

Mrs. Dubose lived alone except for a Negro girl in constant attendance, two doors up the street from us in a house with steep front steps and a dog-trot hall. She was very old; she spent most of each day in bed and the rest of it in a wheelchair. It was rumored that she kept a CSA pistol concealed among her numerous shawls and wraps.

Jem and I hated her. If she was on the porch when we passed, we would be raked by her wrathful gaze, subjected to ruthless interrogation regarding our behavior, and given a melancholy prediction on what we would amount to when we grew up, which was always nothing. We had long ago given up the idea of walking past her house on the opposite side of the street; that only made her raise her voice and let the whole neighborhood in on it.

We could do nothing to please her. If I said as sunnily as I could, Hey, Mrs. Dubose, I would receive for an answer, Dont you say hey to me, you ugly girl! You say good afternoon, Mrs. Dubose!

She was vicious. Once she heard Jem refer to our father as Atticus and her reaction was apoplectic. Besides being the sassiest, most disrespectful mutts who ever passed her way, we were told that it was quite a pity our father had not remarried after our mothers death. A lovelier lady than our mother never lived, she said, and it was heartbreaking the way Atticus Finch let her children run wild. I did not remember our mother, but Jem didhe would tell me about her sometimesand he went livid when Mrs. Dubose shot us this message.

Jem, having survived Boo Radley, a mad dog and other terrors, and concluded that it was cowardly to stop at Miss Rachels front steps and wait, and had decreed that we must run as far as the post office corner each evening to meet Atticus coming from work. Countless evenings Atticus would find Jem furious at something Mrs. Dubose had said when we went by.

Easy does it, son, Atticus would say. Shes an old lady and shes ill. You just hold your head high and be a gentleman. Whatever she says to you, its your job not to let her make you mad.

Jem would say she must not be very sick, she hollered so. When the three of us came to her house, Atticus would sweep off his hat, wave gallantly to her and say, Good evening, Mrs. Dubose! You look like a picture this evening.

I never heard Atticus say like a picture of what. He would tell her the courthouse news, and would say he hoped with all his heart shed have a good day tomorrow. He would return his hat to his head, swing me to his shoulders in her very presence, and we would go home in the twilight. It was times like these when I thought my father, who hated guns and had never been to any wars, was the bravest man who ever lived.

The day after Jems twelfth birthday his money was burning up his pockets, so we headed for town in the early afternoon. Jem thought he had enough to buy a miniature steam engine for himself and a twirling baton for me.

I had long had my eye on that baton; it was at V. J. Elmores, it was bedecked with sequins and tinsel, it cost seventeen cents. It was then my burning ambition to grow up and twirl with the Maycomb County High School band. Having developed my talent to where I could throw up a stick and almost catch it coming down, I had caused Calpurnia to deny me entrance to the house every time she saw me with a stick in my hand. I felt that I could overcome this defect with a real baton, and I thought it generous of Jem to buy one for me.

Mrs. Dubose was stationed on her porch when we went by.