Jem.”
“Well then, how do you explain why the Cunninghams are different? Mr. Walter can hardly sign his name, I’ve seen him. We’ve just been readin‘ and writin’
longer’n they have.”
“No, everybody’s gotta learn, nobody’s born knowin‘. That Walter’s as smart as he can be, 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; his mouth 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 one kind of folks, why can’t they get along with each other? If they’re all alike, why do they go out of their way to despise each other? Scout, I think I’m beginning to understand something. I think I’m beginning to understand why Boo Radley’s stayed shut up in the house all this time… it’s because he wants to stay inside.”
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Chapter 24
Calpurnia wore her stiffest starched apron. She carried a tray of charlotte. She backed up to the swinging door and pressed gently. I admired the ease and grace with which she handled heavy loads of dainty things. So did Aunt Alexandra, I guess, because she had let Calpurnia serve today.
August was on the brink of September. Dill would be leaving for Meridian tomorrow; today he was off with Jem at Barker’s Eddy. Jem had discovered with angry amazement that nobody had ever bothered to teach Dill how to swim, a
skill Jem considered necessary as walking. They had spent two afternoons at the creek, they said they were going in naked and I couldn’t come, so I divided the lonely hours between Calpurnia and Miss Maudie.
Today Aunt Alexandra and her missionary circle were fighting the good fight all over the house. From the kitchen, I heard Mrs. Grace Merriweather giving a report in the livingroom on the squalid lives of the Mrunas, it sounded like to me.
They put the women out in huts when their time came, whatever that was; they had no sense of family—I knew that’d distress Aunty—they subjected children to terrible ordeals when they were thirteen; they were crawling with yaws and earworms, they chewed up and spat out the bark of a tree into a communal pot and then got drunk on it.
Immediately thereafter, the ladies adjourned for refreshments.
I didn’t know whether to go into the diningroom or stay out. Aunt Alexandra told me to join them for refreshments; it was not necessary that I attend the business part of the meeting, she said it’d bore me. I was wearing my pink Sunday dress, shoes, and a petticoat, and reflected that if I spilled anything Calpurnia would have to wash my dress again for tomorrow. This had been a busy day for her. I decided to stay out.
“Can I help you, Cal?” I asked, wishing to be of some service.
Calpurnia paused in the doorway. “You be still as a mouse in that corner,” she said, “an‘ you can help me load up the trays when I come back.”
The gentle hum of ladies’ voices grew louder as she opened the door: “Why, Alexandra, I never saw such charlotte… just lovely… I never can get my crust like this, never can… who’d‘ve thought of little dewberry tarts… Calpurnia?…
who’da thought it… anybody tell you that the preacher’s wife’s… nooo, well she is, and that other one not walkin’ yet…”
They became quiet, and I knew they had all been served. Calpurnia returned and put my mother’s heavy silver pitcher on a tray. “This coffee pitcher’s a curiosity,”
she murmured, “they don’t make ‘em these days.”
“Can I carry it in?”
“If you be careful and don’t drop it. Set it down at the end of the table by Miss
Alexandra. Down there by the cups’n things. She’s gonna pour.”
I tried pressing my behind against the door as Calpurnia had done, but the door didn’t budge. Grinning, she held it open for me. “Careful now, it’s heavy. Don’t look at it and you won’t spill it.”
My journey was successful: Aunt Alexandra smiled brilliantly. “Stay with us, Jean Louise,” she said. This was a part of her campaign to teach me to be a lady.
It was customary for every circle hostess to invite her neighbors in for refreshments, be they Baptists or Presbyterians, which accounted for the presence of Miss Rachel (sober as a judge), Miss Maudie and Miss Stephanie Crawford.
Rather nervous, I took a seat beside Miss Maudie and wondered why ladies put on their hats to go across the street. Ladies in bunches always filled me with vague apprehension and a firm desire to be elsewhere, but this feeling was what Aunt Alexandra called being “spoiled.”
The ladies were cool in fragile pastel prints: most of them were heavily powdered but unrouged; the only lipstick in the room was Tangee Natural. Cutex Natural sparkled on their fingernails, but some of the younger ladies wore Rose. They smelled heavenly. I sat quietly, having conquered my hands by tightly gripping the arms of the chair, and waited for someone to speak to me.
Miss Maudie’s gold bridgework twinkled. “You’re mighty dressed up, Miss Jean Louise,” she said, “Where are your britches today?”
“Under my dress.”
I hadn’t meant to be funny, but the ladies laughed. My cheeks grew hot as I realized my mistake, but Miss Maudie looked gravely down at me. She never laughed at me unless I meant to be funny.
In the sudden silence that followed, Miss Stephanie Crawford called from across the room, “Whatcha going to be when you grow up, Jean Louise? A lawyer?”
“Nome, I hadn’t thought about it…” I answered, grateful that Miss Stephanie was kind enough to change the subject. Hurriedly I began choosing my vocation.
Nurse? Aviator? “Well…”
“Why shoot, I thought you wanted to be a lawyer, you’ve already commenced going to court.”
The ladies laughed again. “That Stephanie’s a card,” somebody said. Miss Stephanie was encouraged to pursue the subject: “Don’t you want to grow up to be a lawyer?”
Miss Maudie’s hand touched mine and I answered mildly enough, “Nome, just a lady.”
Miss Stephanie eyed me suspiciously, decided that I meant no impertinence, and contented herself with, “Well, you won’t get very far until you start wearing dresses more often.”
Miss Maudie’s hand closed tightly on mine, and I said nothing. Its warmth was enough.
