Chapter 3 third chapter

I snatched Walter Cunningham in the playground, which made me happy a little, but when I was about to rub his nose in the dirt, Jem came up and stopped I. "You're bigger than him," he said. "But he's about your age," I said, "and he got me in trouble." "Scout, let him go. What's the matter?" "He didn't have lunch," I began, recounting my involvement in Walter's lunch affair. Walter had risen from the ground, and stood by without saying a word, listening to Jem and me.He half-raised his fists, as if he was ready for an attack from the two of us at any time.I stomped at him to drive him away, but Jem held out his hand to stop me.He studied Walter thoughtfully. "Is your father Mr. Walter Cunningham of Old Sarum?" he asked.Walter nodded.

Walter looked like he had grown up on fish food: his eyes were the same blue as Dill Harris's, with reddened sockets.There was hardly a trace of blood on his face, only the tip of his nose was moist and slightly pink.He fiddled with the suspenders of his overalls with his fingers, nervously digging at the metal buckles on them. Jem suddenly grinned at him. "Come home with us for lunch, Walter," he said. "We'd be glad if you could come." Walter's face lit up for a moment, then darkened again. Jem said, "Our father and your father were friends. This Scout, she was crazy just now. She won't hit you again."

"I'm not so sure," I said.It annoyed me that Jem had made my promise, but the precious noon was ticking away, so I said, "Yeah, Walter. I won't beat you again. You like cream Beans? Our Calpurnia meals are fantastic." Walter stood still, biting his lip.Jem and I had to give up.We were nearly at the Radley house when Walter called out from behind, "Hey, I'm coming." Walter came after him, and Jem chatted merrily with him. "There's a ghost here," he said earnestly, pointing to the Radley house. "Walter, have you heard of it?"

"Never mind," said Walter, "I nearly died my first year at school eating some walnuts that fell off their tree--everyone said he poisoned the walnuts and deliberately Throw it over to the school." With Walter and me walking beside him now, Jem didn't seem to be in the least afraid of Boo Radley.In fact, he's starting to brag about himself. "I went all the way to that house once," he said to Walter. "Anyone who has been to that house should not trot every time they pass by it," I said to the clouds overhead. "Who ran away, Miss Jiao?"

"It's you, you always run away when no one is with you." By the time the three of us walked up to my front steps, Walter had forgotten that he was a Cunningham.Jem ran into the kitchen, told Calpurnia we had a visitor, and asked her to set an extra plate.Atticus said hello to Walter, and started talking to him about the crops, and Jem and I couldn't get in the way. "Mr. Finch, I always fail the first grade because I have to skip class every spring to help my dad hoe. Now that there is another person in the family, I have to grow a piece of land." "Did you pay him a bushel of potatoes?" I asked, but Atticus shook his head at me.

Jem and I were amazed that Walter was piling food on his plate and talking to Atticus like two big men.Atticus was talking about the fields with gusto when Walter interrupted him and asked if we had any syrup.Atticus called to Calpurnia to bring the syrup jar.Calpurnia stood behind Walter, waiting for him to scoop the syrup himself.Walter lavishly poured syrup over the vegetables and meat on his plate.If I hadn't asked him what the hell he was doing, he might still be pouring it into a milk glass. There was a clang of the silver tray as he put the jar back, and he put his hands on his lap hastily, and dropped his head quickly.

Atticus shook his head at me again. "But he soaked his food in syrup," I argued, "he poured it all over..." That's when Calpurnia called me into the kitchen. She was furious.Whenever Calpurnia gets angry, her grammar gets weird.As long as she spoke calmly, her grammar was as good as anyone in Maycomb.Atticus said Calpurnia was more educated than most people of color. She was condescending, staring at me with squinted eyes, and the crow's feet around her eyes deepened. "Some people have different eating habits from us," she said fiercely in a low voice, "but you can't bring it up at the dinner table because of this. That boy is a guest of your house, and even if he wants to eat the tablecloth, you can just eat it." His poop. Did you hear that?"

"He's not a guest, Calpurnia, he's just a Cunningham..." "Shut up! Whoever he is, he's your guest if he steps into this house. Don't let me catch you judging other people as if you're superior! Your family may be better than the Cunningham's." Nice guy, but you're worth nothing for embarrassing people like this-if you can't get on the table, just come here and sit in the kitchen and eat!" Calpurnia gave me a hot slap, shoved me through the swing doors, and sent me back into the dining room.I picked up my plate and finished my lunch in the kitchen.That's fine, I'm thankful that I don't have to embarrass myself in front of them.I told Calpurnia, let her wait and see, I'll give her some color: sooner or later, I'll sneak out while she's not looking, jump into Buck's Bay and drown myself, and make her regret going Bar.Besides, I go on and on, she's got me in trouble today because she taught me to write and it's all her fault. "Shut up and don't make a fuss," she said.

Jem and Walter went back to school first, and I stayed to report to Atticus that Calpurnia was partial, and even if I had to sprint past the Radley house by myself later because of the delay, then It's worth it too. "Anyway, she likes Jem better than me." I concluded, and advised Atticus to pack her up right away. "Did it ever occur to you that Jem gave her half as much trouble as you did?" Atticus said firmly. "I'm not going to fire her, not now, nor ever. Leave Calpurnia for a day." You can't go on, have you thought about this? You think about how much Calpurnia has done for you, and you still have to listen to her, do you hear me?"

I went back to school with a grudge against Calpurnia still in my heart, when suddenly a scream broke my resentment.I looked up and saw Miss Caroline standing in the middle of the classroom, her face full of horror.Evidently, she had shaken off her morning gloom and was back at her post. "It's alive!" she screamed. All the boys in the class rushed to help her at the same time.God, I thought to myself, she's afraid of mice.Little Chuck Little, who had amazing patience with any animal, said, "Miss Caroline, which way did it go? Tell us where it went, quick!" He turned back again One of the boys said, "Close the door quickly, and we'll catch it. Tell me, sir, where did it go?"

Miss Caroline's trembling fingers pointed not at the ground, or at the table, but at a large figure whose name I cannot name.Little Chuck's face shrunk into a ball, and he asked softly, "Teacher, are you talking about him? That's right, he's alive. Why did he scare you?" Miss Caroline said in a panic: "I walked past him just in time to see a... crawling out of his hair..." Little Chuck grinned and broke into a big grin. "Teacher, don't be afraid of a louse. Have you never seen a louse? Don't be afraid, now you go back to the podium and give us your lesson." Little Chuck Little was one of those people who didn't know where the next one was after their last meal, but he was a born gentleman.He took Miss Caroline's arm and escorted her to the front of the room. "Don't worry, sir," he said, "you don't have to be afraid of a louse. I'll bring you a glass of cold water." Uninterested in the uproar he had caused, the owner of the louse groped the scalp above his forehead to find his intruder, and with a twist of his thumb and forefinger, the little thing died. Miss Caroline watched the whole thing with horror.Little Chuck brought a paper cup of water, which she drank gratefully.Finally, she was able to speak with a normal voice. "What's your name, kid?" she asked softly. The boy blinked his eyes. "Who? Are you asking me?" Miss Caroline nodded. "Barris Ewell." Miss Caroline checked her roster. "There's a Ewell here, but no name...Can you spell yours?" "I don't know how to spell it. They call me Barris at home." "Well, Parris," said Miss Caroline, "I think you'd better not go to class this afternoon. I want you to go home and wash your hair." She took out a stack of thick files from under the podium and flipped through them for a while. "Household Remedies--Parris, I want you to go home and wash your hair with lye soap. After you've washed your scalp with kerosene." "Why, miss?" "To get rid of--oh, lice. Listen, Parris, other kids might get infected, and you don't want that, do you?" The boy stood up.He's the nastiest man I've ever met.His neck was gray and black, the backs of his hands were covered with chapped skin, his nails were black, and the dirt was embedded in the flesh underneath.He looked at Miss Caroline through a clean spot the size of a fist in her face.None of us had noticed him before, probably because Miss Caroline and I were entertaining the class for most of the morning. "And, Barris," said Miss Caroline, "before you come to school tomorrow, please be sure to take a bath." The boy laughed rudely. "You're not going to drive me home, miss. I'm leaving now—this year's school is over." Miss Caroline looked puzzled. "what do you mean?" The boy didn't answer, just snorted contemptuously. One of the older children in the class answered her question: "Master, he's from the Ewells." I don't know if this explanation would be as futile as my last effort, but Miss Caroline seemed Would love to hear. "There are a lot of people from their family in the school. Every year, they come to report on the first day of school, and then they don't show up. It was the attendance teacher who got them here. She threatened to go if they didn't come. Get the sheriff; but she'll be out of it later on. She thinks it's the order to put their names on the roster and drive them here on the first day of school. The rest of the year , you just mark them as absenteeism." "But, don't their parents care?" The answer was: "They don't have a mother, and their father is a difficult person." This account pleased Barris Ewell. "I'm in first grade every year on the first day of school, and now it's my third year," he boasted, "If I've been smarter this year, maybe they'll let me go into second grade...  " Miss Caroline interrupted him: "Sit down, please, Parris." As soon as she said that, I knew she had made a grave mistake.The boy went from nonchalant to irritated in an instant. "Try it, miss." Little Chuck stood up. "Master, let him go," he said. "He's a bad, very bad fellow. He can do anything, and there's a lot of kids here." Little Chuck was a little man himself, but when Barris Ewell turned to him, he put his right hand in his pocket. "Be careful, Parris," he said, "I'll kill you in a minute. You'd better go home." Barris seemed to be very afraid of this child who was only half his height. Miss Caroline gave the order to evict him while he was still hesitating: "Parrys, go home. If you don't go, I will call the principal. ’ she said, ‘I have to report it anyway. The boy snorted and walked lazily towards the door. When he felt he was in a safe place, he turned around and yelled, "Report, goddamn it! Don't mind my rotten whore teacher is not born yet! You can't tell me where to go, miss, you Remember it for me, you don't want to order me where to go!" He paused for a while, and waited until he saw that Miss Caroline had indeed begun to cry, before dragging himself out of the classroom. We huffed and flocked to the podium, trying to comfort Miss Caroline.He's such a bad fellow... a rotten punk... you ain't come here to teach his sort... Maycomb people ain't like them, Miss Caroline, it's true... Sir, Stop being angry.Why don't you read us a story, Miss Caroline?The story about cats this morning was really interesting... Miss Caroline smiled, blew her nose and said, "Thank you, dear children." She let us part, and then opened a book and read a long, long story, yes About a toad that lives in the hall, let our group of first graders hear it like a cloud. I passed the Radley house four times that day, twice at a gallop, and by the fourth time I was as gloomy as the house.It might have been fun if this school year had been as dramatic as the first day of school, but the thought of not being able to read or write for the next nine months made me want to run away. Towards dusk, when my day's hustle and bustle was more or less over, Jem and I raced up and down the sidewalk to meet Atticus when he came back from get off work, and I didn't fight him too much. .It had become our habit, every evening, to run to meet Atticus as soon as we saw him rounding the far post-office.Atticus seemed to forget my dishonorable behavior at noon that day, and asked me a lot about school; my answers were all one-word, and he stopped asking. Maybe Calpurnia sensed that I was having a bad day and let me watch her make dinner. "Close your eyes and open your mouth, I have a surprise for you," she said. She seldom makes oily tortillas, saying she can't find the time, and today we're both at school, so she's free.She knew I liked grits. "I missed you today," she said. "The house was empty, and I turned on the radio at about two o'clock." "How can it be? Jem and I never stay in the house unless it's raining." "I know," she said, "but there's always one of you I can hear if I just yell. I don't know how much time I spend a day chasing after you yelling. Come on," she got up from her kitchen chair , "I reckon, just shouting time is enough for me to make a pot of corn tortillas. You go play and I'll make dinner." Calpurnia leaned over and kissed me.I ran away, wondering what was wrong with her.She just wanted to please me, that's all.She had always been severe with me, and now she realized at last that she had been wrong in her rough manner, and she was remorseful, but still too stubborn to admit it.The unjust, false and wrongly decided cases that happened on this day have already annoyed me. After dinner, Atticus sat down with the newspaper and called to me, "Scout, are you ready to read the paper together?" God has put me through so much today, I just ran away without saying a word. to the front porch.Atticus followed. "What's the matter, Scout?" I told Atticus I didn't feel well and if he agreed I didn't want to go to school anymore. Atticus sat on the swing with his legs crossed and his fingers groping in the watch pocket—he said it was the only way he could think.His silence was gentle, and he waited for me to speak, so I took this opportunity to step up the offensive: "You never went to school, everything is fine, so I will stay at home. You can teach me, like Grandpa taught you the same as Uncle Jack." "No, I can't," Atticus said. "I've got to earn a living. And besides, if I keep you home from school, I'll be sent to jail—you take stomach medicine tonight." , go to school tomorrow." "I'm ready, really." "I think so. Now tell me, what happened?" I told him one by one the bad things that happened to me that day. "...She also said that you taught me all wrong, so we can never study and read newspapers together again, never. Please don't let me go to school again, please." Atticus got up, walked to the end of the porch, looked at the wisteria coiled there, and then walked slowly to me. "First," he said, "if you can learn one simple trick, Scout, you'll have a lot easier time dealing with all kinds of people. You'll never really know a person unless you're standing in front of him." Consider the problem from the perspective of..." "Is that right?" "...unless you get under his skin and walk around like him." Atticus said I had learned a great deal today, and so had Miss Caroline.For example, she knew by now not to give anything to a Cunningham, but if Walter and I looked at it from her point of view, it was an inadvertent mistake.We can't expect her to learn all about Maycomb in one day, and we can't blame her for her lack of it. "I don't care about that," I said. "I don't know I shouldn't read to her, but she blames me. Listen, Atticus, I really don't have to go to school!" , an idea flashed in my mind. "Barris Ewell, do you remember him? He just showed up at school on the first day of school. The attendance teacher thought it was all right to put his name on the roster..." "Scout, you can't do that," Atticus said. "In some special cases, sometimes it's better to get around the law, but in your case, the law is strictly enforced. So you have to go go to school." "I don't understand why I have to go to school and he can't." "Then just listen carefully." Atticus said that three generations of the Ewells had been risqué or something in Maycomb.As far as he could remember, the Ewells hadn't done a single day of serious work.He also said that when he went to throw the Christmas tree at Christmas, he would take me to see where the Ewells lived and see how they lived.They are human beings, but they live like pigs and dogs. "As long as they show the slightest desire to receive education, the door of the school is open to them at any time." Atticus said, "Although there are many coercive methods to force them to stay in school, forcing especially It's foolish for the Earles to enter a new environment..." "If I don't go to school tomorrow, you will force me." "Let's put it this way," Atticus declared bluntly, "you, Scout Finch, are a man. You must obey the law." The Ewells, as he put it, belonged to a separate A closed group, that circle is full of people like them.In some cases, it's wise for us normal folks to choose to turn a blind eye to what the Ewells are up to and allow them some privilege.For example, they don't have to go to school.What's more, Mr. Bob Ewell, Barris's father, could do nothing but trap and hunt during closed season. "Atticus, that sucks," I said.In Maycomb County, hunting during the closed season is legally a misdemeanor, but in the eyes of the public it is a heinous felony. "It's illegal, yes," said the father, "and it's bad. But if a man trades all his dole checks for cheap whiskey, the kids are starving." Crying, I really don’t know any forestry owners in this area who would have the heart not to let their father fight whatever he wants.” "Mr. Ewell shouldn't have done that..." "Of course not, but he'll never change his virtues. Do you blame his children, then?" "No more." I muttered in a low voice, making one last recalcitrant attempt, "but if I continue to go to school, I won't be able to read books and newspapers with you..." "That's what's really bothering you, isn't it?" "yes." When Atticus looked down at me, I saw that look on his face that I always expected. "Do you know what a compromise is?" he asked. "Bypassing the law?" "No. It's a mutual concession and agreement. It can be settled like this," he said. "If you admit that school is necessary, we will continue to read and read the newspaper every night as before. Deal?" "It's a deal!" "That's it, let's not go through the motions." Atticus said quickly when he saw that I was about to spit on my hand. I opened the screen door and was about to go in when Atticus said, "By the way, Scout, you better not talk about our agreement at school." "why?" "I worry that what we're doing may displease the more knowledgeable education experts." Jem and I were used to the testamentary language of our father, and if he went beyond our comprehension we were free to interrupt him to explain in plain language. "What did you say?" "I've never been to school," he said, "but I have a hunch that if you tell Miss Caroline that we read and read the papers together every night, she'll accuse me, and I don't want her to catch me. I won't let go." That night Atticus read us in a grave tone a story in the paper about a man who for no reason climbed up to sit on top of a flagpole, and we were taken aback.This story gave Jem a good reason to stay high in the treehouse the following Saturday and refuse to come down.He sat there after breakfast till sundown, and might have spent the night on it if Atticus hadn't cut his "supply lines."I spent almost the whole day climbing up and down, doing errands for him, picking up literature for a while, food and water for a while.I was about to bring him blankets for the night when Atticus said he would come down if I ignored him.Atticus was right.