The Harper Lee Collection E-Bundle by Harper Lee
Author:Harper Lee
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: HarperCollins
Published: 2015-06-04T00:00:00+00:00
25
âDonât do that, Scout. Set him out on the back steps.â
âJem, are you crazy? . . .â
âI said set him out on the back steps.â
Sighing, I scooped up the small creature, placed him on the bottom step and went back to my cot. September had come, but not a trace of cool weather with it, and we were still sleeping on the back screen porch. Lightning bugs were still about, the night crawlers and flying insects that beat against the screen the summer long had not gone wherever they go when autumn comes.
A roly-poly had found his way inside the house; I reasoned that the tiny varmint had crawled up the steps and under the door. I was putting my book on the floor beside my cot when I saw him. The creatures are no more than an inch long, and when you touch them they roll themselves into a tight gray ball.
I lay on my stomach, reached down and poked him. He rolled up. Then, feeling safe, I suppose, he slowly unrolled. He traveled a few inches on his hundred legs and I touched him again. He rolled up. Feeling sleepy, I decided to end things. My hand was going down on him when Jem spoke.
Jem was scowling. It was probably a part of the stage he was going through, and I wished he would hurry up and get through it. He was certainly never cruel to animals, but I had never known his charity to embrace the insect world.
âWhy couldnât I mash him?â I asked.
âBecause they donât bother you,â Jem answered in the darkness. He had turned out his reading light.
âReckon youâre at the stage now where you donât kill flies and mosquitoes now, I reckon,â I said. âLemme know when you change your mind. Tell you one thing, though, I ainât gonna sit around and not scratch a redbug.â
âAw dry up,â he answered drowsily.
Jem was the one who was getting more like a girl every day, not I. Comfortable, I lay on my back and waited for sleep, and while waiting I thought of Dill. He had left us the first of the month with firm assurances that he would return the minute school was outâhe guessed his folks had got the general idea that he liked to spend his summers in Maycomb. Miss Rachel took us with them in the taxi to Maycomb Junction, and Dill waved to us from the train window until he was out of sight. He was not out of mind: I missed him. The last two days of his time with us, Jem had taught him to swimâ
Taught him to swim. I was wide awake, remembering what Dill had told me.
Barkerâs Eddy is at the end of a dirt road off the Meridian highway about a mile from town. It is easy to catch a ride down the highway on a cotton wagon or from a passing motorist, and the short walk to the creek is easy, but the prospect of
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