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.”
