Chapter 2 Chapter two

In early September Dill left us and went back to Meridian.We put him on the five o'clock coach.I'm a little morose without him, thankfully remembering that I'm going to school in a week.I had never looked forward to anything so eagerly.I used to stay in the treehouse for hours at a time in the winter, looking out over the school grounds, surreptitiously watching the large group of kids through the binoculars Jem gave me, stealing a game they were playing; I tracked Jem's red jacket in the twisting circles of a game of "touch man" and secretly shared their bad luck and small victories.I long to be among them.

On the first day of school, Jem condescended to take me to school--ordinarily that was a parent's job, but Atticus said Jem would be more than happy to send me to the classroom.I supposed that some money must have passed secretly between the two of them in this transaction, for as we trotted around the corner near the Radley house I heard a strange jingle in Jem's pocket.When we got to the campus, we slowed down, and Jem took the trouble to explain to me: During the school, I can't disturb him, I can't ask him to play a part of "Tarzan and Ant-Man" together, and I can't mention his private life Embarrassing him and not being able to tail him during recess and lunch break; I have to stay with the 1st graders and he has to stay with the 5th graders.All in all, I definitely can't go to him.

"You mean we can't play together anymore?" I asked. "At home we still play together as usual," he said, "but school is a whole other story—you'll see." as expected.Before the first morning was over, our teacher, Miss Caroline Fisher, took me to the front of the room, hit the palm of my hand with a ruler, and made me stand in a corner until noon. Miss Caroline was at most twenty-one.She had smooth auburn hair, rosy cheeks, and deep red nails.In high heels and a red-and-white striped dress, she looked and smelled like a mint.She lodged with Miss Maudie Atkinson, diagonally across from ours, in the main room upstairs.When Miss Maudie first introduced us to her, Jem was in the dark for days.

Miss Caroline printed her name on the blackboard and said, "This is my name: Caroline Fisher. I am from Winston County, North Alabama." The classroom immediately There was an uneasy muttering, as everyone worried that she would reveal her inherent regional characteristics in the future. (When Alabama seceded from the Union on January 11, 1861, Winston County seceded from Alabama—every kid in Maycomb knew that Fact.) North Alabamians are full of brewers, mules, steel mill owners, Republicans, professors, and others with little background. Miss Caroline first read us a story about cats.The cats in the story have long conversations with each other, wear small and delicate clothes, and live in a warm house under the kitchen stove.When she reads about Mrs. Cat calling the store to order a mouse made of chocolate and malt candy, the children in her class can't sit still, wriggling like a bucket full of worms.Miss Caroline doesn't seem to realize that this group of first-graders in the classroom, wearing tattered denim shirts or skirts made of flour sacks, who have been chopping cotton and feeding pigs since they can toddle, have a deep love for fantasy literature. have immunity.After reading the story, Miss Caroline sighed: "Oh, my God, how beautiful it is!"

Then she went to the blackboard, wrote all the letters squarely in capitals, turned around and asked the whole class, "Who recognizes these?" Everyone recognizes them all because the vast majority of first-year students are repeaters from last year. I guess she picked me to answer the question because she knew my name.A fine line appeared on her brow as I read the letters one by one; Literacy, looking at my eyes is not just a trace of looming disgust.Miss Caroline told me to go home and tell my father not to teach me to read anymore, it would interfere with my reading. "Teach me to read?" I said in amazement. "Miss Caroline, he didn't teach me anything. Atticus didn't have time to teach me anything." I found Miss Caroline smiling and shaking her head, so Added another sentence: "Because, at night, he is already very tired, and he always sits in the living room alone, reading and reading newspapers."

"If he didn't teach you, who did?" asked Miss Caroline mildly. "Certainly. You couldn't be born reading the Mobile Chronicle." "Jem said I could read from birth. He read a book where my name was Da Vinci, not Vinci. Jem said my name was actually Jean Louise Daffin Odd, I was swapped when I was born, in fact I was..." Miss Caroline obviously thought I was making something up. "Honey, don't let our imagination run wild," she said. "Go back and tell your father not to teach you any more. Reading is best started with a blank sheet of paper. You tell him, from now on From the beginning, I will be responsible for everything, and I will find a way to eliminate those bad influences..."

"teacher?" "Your father doesn't know how to teach. You can sit down now." I mumbled a "sorry" and sat down to reflect on my sin.I really never deliberately learned to read and write, but quietly indulged in the daily newspapers without knowing it.And the long church services—did I learn to read in those hours?I can never remember a time when I couldn't read a hymn.Now that I'm forced to reflect on the ins and outs of things, all I can think of is that reading comes naturally to me, like learning to button the bottom of a jumpsuit without looking back and forth, or untie the tangle. The laces that are together are untied like a double knot.I can't remember when Atticus began to form words with the strings of letters that Atticus ran his fingers underneath, but I remember that every night I stared at the lines of words and listened to them. The news of the day, the upcoming bills, the Reverend Lorenzo Dow's diary—these were just what Atticus happened to read each night as I curled up in his arms.Now I am worried that I will lose the time to read. Before that, I never liked reading, just like people breathe not because of liking, this is a truth.

I knew I irritated Miss Caroline, so I tried to be by myself, looking out of the window, until at recess Jem picked me up from a group of first-years on the playground and asked How I was doing, I told him everything that happened. "If I didn't have to stay here, I'd be gone. Jem, that damned teacher said Atticus had been teaching me to read, and told him not to..." "Don't worry, Scout," interrupted Jem, "our class teacher said that Miss Caroline was going to introduce a new teaching method, which she learned at college, and it would be introduced soon. to every grade level. This way we don't have to go through the textbooks like we used to - for example, it's like if you want to learn about cows, go find a cow and milk it, get it Bar?"

"I understand, Jem, but I don't want to know about cows..." "Of course you have to learn. You have to learn about cows, it's such a big part of people's lives in Maycomb County." I pissed Jim off on purpose, and asked him if he was crazy, just to make myself feel better. "Stubborn, I just wanted to explain to you the new teaching method they use in first grade. It's called the 'Dewey Decimal System.'" I had never questioned Jem's claims before, and I don't see any reason to refute him now.This so-called "Dewey Decimal Classification" is Miss Caroline waving to us cards with words such as "this", "that", "cat", "rat", "man" and "you" printed on them.It was part of the new pedagogy anyway, but she didn't seem to expect a reaction from us, and the class silently accepted the impressionist heuristic.I was so bored that I started writing to Dill.Miss Caroline caught me straight and made me tell my father not to teach me any more. "Also," she said, "we don't learn handwriting in first grade, we only learn print. You don't learn to write until third grade."

It's all Calpurnia's fault.I guess she made me write so she wouldn't be bored to death by me on a rainy day.She always wrote all the letters in strong and powerful fonts on the top of the clipboard, and copied a passage from the "Bible" at the bottom, and then assigned me the task of copying.If I could transcribe her handwriting, stroke by stroke, to her satisfaction, she would reward me with a double-sided sandwich with butter and sugar.Calpurnia almost never showed any emotion in her teaching: I rarely satisfied her, and she rarely rewarded me. "Hands up for lunch." Miss Caroline's voice interrupted my resentment of Calpurnia's new life.

All the kids in the town raised their hands, and she scanned us all over. "Anyone who brings lunch puts it on the table." Buckets of syrup popped out of nowhere, and the ceiling bounced with light reflected from metal.Miss Caroline walked up and down among the rows of tables and chairs, opened each lunch bucket and examined it carefully, nodding if the contents inside satisfied her, and frowning otherwise.She stopped at Walter Cunningham's desk. "What about yours?" she asked. Walter Cunningham's face, every first grader knew he had hookworm.He had no shoes on his feet, and from this we know how he got the disease.People can get hookworms if they go barefoot in yards or pig pens.Even if Walter had shoes, he would only put them on on the first day of school, then take them off and throw them away until the middle of winter.But he did wear a clean shirt that day, and the overalls were neatly mended. "Did you forget to bring your lunch this morning?" asked Miss Caroline. Walter stared straight ahead.I saw a muscle quivering in his pointed chin. "Did you forget to bring it this morning?" Miss Caroline asked again.Walter's jaw twitched again. "Yeah." He finally grunted. Miss Caroline walked to the podium and opened her purse. "Here's twenty-five cents," she said to Walter. "Take it to dinner in town. You can pay me back tomorrow." Walter shook his head. "No, thank you, teacher." He whispered slowly. Miss Caroline's voice became impatient: "Come here, Walter, and take the money." Walter shook his head again. When Walter shook his head for the third time, someone said to me in a low voice, "You tell her, Scout." When I turned around, I found that most of the classmates who lived in the town and all the classmates who took the school bus were looking at me eagerly.I've played against Miss Caroline twice today, and their eyes were full of innocent anticipation that this mutual familiarity would lead to some mutual understanding. It was my duty to stand up and speak for Walter: "Oh—Miss Caroline?" "Jean Louise, what can I do for you?" "Miss Caroline, he's a Cunningham." After speaking, I sat down. "What did you say, Jean Louise?" I think I've made things clear enough.To the rest of us, except Miss Caroline, it was obvious: Walter Cunningham was sitting there talking nonsense.It's not that he forgot to bring his lunch, it's that he didn't have any lunch at all.Not today, not tomorrow, and not the day after tomorrow.He'd probably never seen three quarters put together in his life. I tried again: "Miss Caroline, Walter is a Cunningham." "Jean Louise, I don't understand what you're talking about." "Never mind, sir, you'll get to know all the country folks in a while. The Cunninghams never take anything for nothing--whether it's a church charity basket or a government handout. They never take anybody's Anything, as much as they have. They don't have much on hand, but they can always get by." I know the Cunninghams, or a branch of them, very well, because of several events last winter.Walter's father was one of Atticus' clients.The two of them were talking about the Cunninghams' limited succession in our living room one evening.It was a dull conversation, and Mr. Cunningham left by saying, "Mr. Finch, I don't know when I'm going to pay you." "Don't worry about it, Walter," said Atticus. I asked Jem what "restricted succession" was, and he described the situation as a man with his tail caught.I asked Atticus again if Mr. Cunningham was really going to pay us. "Not in money," said Atticus, "but he'll pay off before the end of the year. You'll see." as expected.One morning Jem and I found a bundle of firewood in the back yard.Not long after, a bag of hickory nuts appeared on my back steps.As Christmas approached, another basket of sarsaparilla and holly arrived.When we found a sack full of turnip leaves the next spring, Atticus said Mr. Cunningham had overpaid. "Why is he paying you like this?" "Because that's the only way he can pay me. He has no money." "Atticus, are we poor?" Atticus nodded. "We are poor." Jem's nose wrinkled. "Are we as poor as the Cunninghams?" "Not exactly. The Cunninghams were country folk, farmers, and they were hit the hardest by this stock market crash." Atticus said that people in all occupations are poor because farmers are poor.Maycomb is an agricultural county, and doctors, dentists, and lawyers are not easy to make a little money.Mr. Cunningham has all sorts of troubles, of which limited succession is only one part.All his land that was not included in the limited heir inheritance was mortgaged, and the little cash he earned was also paid interest.Mr. Cunningham could have gotten a job with the WPA if he'd asked, but if he left, his land would go to waste.Mr. Cunningham would rather starve than keep his land, and vote as he pleases.Mr. Cunningham, Atticus said, was one of those stubborn old-school types. Since the Cunninghams had no money to pay for the lawyers, they substituted their own possessions. "Did you know?" said Atticus, "that's what Dr. Reynolds charges. He delivers a baby and he's given a bushel of potatoes. If you'll listen carefully, Scout, I can tell you about What about succession. Jem's explanations are pretty accurate sometimes." If I could explain all this to Miss Caroline, it would save me the trouble, and her later chagrin.But it was beyond my powers, and I couldn't explain it as well as Atticus did, so I said, "Miss Caroline, you're humiliating him. Walter's got no twenty-five cents." I'll pay you back, and besides, you don't need any firewood." Miss Caroline stood dumbfounded, and grabbed me by the collar and dragged me to the podium. "Jean Louise, I've had enough of you this morning," she said. "My dear, you've never been right anywhere from the start. Hold out your hand." I thought she was going to spit in the palm of my hand--in Maycomb, it's an old way of making a verbal agreement, and that's what people tend to reach out for.I couldn't think of a deal between me and Miss Caroline, so I turned to the others for an answer, but they all looked at me with puzzled faces.Miss Caroline took the ruler, gave me six brisk strokes on the palm of my hand, and ordered me to stand in a corner.The whole class finally realized that Miss Caroline had slapped me, and there was a storm of laughter in the classroom. Miss Caroline threatened everyone with the same fate again, and as a result, the group of first-grade pupils burst into laughter again, until Miss Blunt's figure overwhelmed them, and they held their breath and remained silent for a while.Miss Blount, a native of Maycomb, had not yet grasped the mystery of "decimal divisions."Standing in the doorway with her arms akimbo, she announced sharply, "If I hear another sound in this room, I'll burn you all in there. Miss Caroline, your class is too noisy for the sixth graders to get in." Concentrate on geometry class!" I didn't hang around the corner for too long.Miss Caroline was rescued by the bell, and she watched as the class, one by one, walked out of the classroom to eat lunch.I was the last to leave.I saw her slump down in the chair, with her head buried in her arms.If she had been nicer to me just now, I would definitely feel sorry for her.She is quite a pretty girl.