To Kill a Mockingbird (Harperperennial Modern Classics) by Harper Lee

Author:Harper Lee
Language: eng
Format: mobi
ISBN: 0061205699
Publisher: Harper
Published: 2014-07-07T23:00:00+00:00

Chapter 15

After many telephone calls, much pleading on behalf of the defendant, and a long

forgiving letter from his mother, it was decided that Dill could stay. We had a week of

peace together. After that, little, it seemed. A nightmare was upon us.

It began one evening after supper. Dill was over; Aunt Alexandra was in her chair in

the corner, Atticus was in his; Jem and I were on the floor reading. It had been a placid

week: I had minded Aunty; Jem had outgrown the treehouse, but helped Dill and me

construct a new rope ladder for it; Dill had hit upon a foolproof plan to make Boo Radley

come out at no cost to ourselves (place a trail of lemon drops from the back door to the

front yard and he'd follow it, like an ant). There was a knock on the front door, Jem

answered it and said it was Mr. Heck Tate.

"Well, ask him to come in," said Atticus.

"I already did. There's some men outside in the yard, they want you to come out."

In Maycomb, grown men stood outside in the front yard for only two reasons: death

and politics. I wondered who had died. Jem and I went to the front door, but Atticus

called, "Go back in the house."

Jem turned out the livingroom lights and pressed his nose to a window screen. Aunt

Alexandra protested. "Just for a second, Aunty, let's see who it is," he said.

Dill and I took another window. A crowd of men was standing around Atticus. They all

seemed to be talking at once.

"...movin` him to the county jail tomorrow," Mr. Tate was saying, "I don't look for any

trouble, but I can't guarantee there won't be any..."

"Don't be foolish, Heck," Atticus said. "This is Maycomb."

"...said I was just uneasy."

"Heck, we've gotten one postponement of this case just to make sure there's nothing

to be uneasy about. This is Saturday," Atticus said. "Trial'll probably be Monday. You

can keep him one night, can't you? I don't think anybody in Maycomb'll begrudge me a

client, with times this hard."

There was a murmur of glee that died suddenly when Mr. Link Deas said, "Nobody

around here's up to anything, it's that Old Sarum bunch I'm worried about... can't you

get a--what is it, Heck?"

"Change of venue," said Mr. Tate. "Not much point in that, now is it?"

Atticus said something inaudible. I turned to Jem, who waved me to silence.

"--besides," Atticus was saying, "you're not scared of that crowd, are you?"

"...know how they do when they get shinnied up."

"They don't usually drink on Sunday, they go to church most of the day..." Atticus said.

"This is a special occasion, though..." someone said.

They murmured and buzzed until Aunty said if Jem didn't turn on the livingroom lights

he would disgrace the family. Jem didn't hear her.

"--don't see why you touched it in the first place," Mr. Link Deas was saying. "You've

got everything to lose from this, Atticus. I mean everything."

"Do you really think so?"

This was Atticus's dangerous question. "Do you really think you want to move there,

Scout?" Bam, bam, bam, and the checkerboard was swept clean of my men.

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