Chapter 8 chapter eight

The transition from autumn to winter that year was so unexpected that even Maycomb's most experienced seers could not figure out why.Atticus said that for two weeks this winter were the coldest since 1885.Mr. Avery said the Rosetta Stone clearly states that if children disobey their parents, or smoke and fight, the seasons will be out of order.Jem and I must have had our part too, and we felt very guilty for doing our bit for the climate anomaly, because it upset our neighbors and made us uncomfortable. It was that winter that old Mrs. Radley died, but her death caused little stir—the neighbors rarely saw her except occasionally watering the cannas.Jem and I agreed that the Boo had finally killed her, but Atticus came back from the Radley's and said she died of natural causes, much to the disappointment of both of us.

"Ask him," whispered Jem. "Go and ask, you are older than me." "So it's your turn to ask." "Atticus," I began, "have you seen Mr. Arthur?" Atticus poked his head out from behind the paper, looking stern: "No." I was about to press on when Jem stopped me.He said Atticus was still too sensitive about our visits to the Radleys and it was useless to ask.Jem had an idea: Atticus didn't believe our activities that night last summer were limited to strip poker.Jem didn't have the exact proof either, he said it was just a vague feeling.

The next morning, when I woke up and looked out the window, I was almost scared to death.Atticus had just half-shaved in the bathroom when my screams brought him over. "Atticus, it's the end of the world! Figure it out!" I dragged him to the window and showed him. "It's not the end of the world," he said, "it's snowing." Jem asked him if the snow would keep falling.Jem had never seen snow either, but he knew what it was.Atticus said he knew no more about snow than Jem did. "But the way I see it, if it stays this wet it might turn to rain."

The phone rang, and Atticus left the table to answer it. "It's Ola May," he said, "and I'll paraphrase her words: 'As Maycomb hasn't had snow since 1885, schools are closed today.'" Ola May was Maycomb's main operator, delivering public announcements, sending wedding invitations, sounding fire alarms, and giving first aid instructions in Dr. Reynolds' absence. Atticus managed to get us to look away from the window to our plates and eat properly.Jem asked, "Do you know how to make a snowman?" "I don't know a thing," said Atticus. "I don't want to disappoint you, but I doubt there's enough snow out there to make a snowball."

Calpurnia came in and said the snow was slowly gathering.We ran to the backyard and saw that the ground was covered with a thin layer of wet snow. "Let's not step on it," said Jem. "See, you're wasting snow every time you step on it." I looked back at the muddy footprints I left behind.Jem said we'd have to scrape together and build a snowman when there was more snow.I stick out my tongue to catch a snowflake, and it feels hot on my tongue. "Jem, the snow is hot." "It's nothing like that. It's the cold snow that's making you hot. Stop eating, Scout, you're wasting snow again. Let it fall."

"But I want to walk on the snow." "I know what to do. We can go snowboarding in Miss Maudie's yard." Jem hopped across the front yard and I followed in his footsteps.We were just on the sidewalk in front of Miss Maudie's house when Mr. Avery stopped us.His face was powdered and he had a big belly protruding from under his belt. "Look at what you've done!" he said. "It hasn't snowed in Maycomb in decades since Appomattox. You bad boys messed up the seasons." I don't think Mr. Avery knows how closely we watched his every move last summer, waiting to see him do it again, and if that was a sin, maybe the snow was our reward.I didn't have to guess where Mr. Avery had collected these meteorological statistics: it must have been straight off the Rosetta Stone.

"Jem Finch, listen to me, Jem Finch!" "Jem, Miss Maudie is calling for you." "You all stay in the middle of the yard. There are carnations under the snow near the front porch, don't step on them!" "Yes, ma'am!" cried Jem. "What a beautiful snow day! Don't you, Miss Maudie?" "Beautiful you big-headed ghost! If it freezes tonight, my rhododendrons will all be gone!" Miss Maudie's old sun hat was shiny with snow crystals.She was bending over, wrapping clumps of bushes in sacks.Jem asked her what it was for. "Keep them warm," said Miss Maudie.

"How do flowers and trees keep warm? They don't have blood circulation." "I can't answer that question, Jem Finch. All I know is that if it freezes tonight, the plants will freeze to death, so wrap them up. Do you understand?" "Understood. Miss Maudie?" "What's the matter, sir?" "Can me and Scout lend you some snow?" "By God, you've all been transported! There's an old peach basket under the slab of the house. Use that basket." Miss Maudie narrowed her eyes. "Jem Finch, you What are you going to do with my snow?"

"You'll find out in a minute," said Jem.We slew the snow from Miss Maudie's yard to our own, and it got muddy. "What do we do next?" I asked. "You'll find out later," he said. "Now you take the basket and rake all the snow in the back yard together, collect as much as you can, and bring it to the front yard. Don't forget to step on your Follow your footprints." He reminded again. "Jem, are we going to make a snow doll?" "No, we're going to be a real snowman. Get to work." Jem ran to the back yard, got a hoe, and began digging quickly behind the woodpile, setting aside any worms he found in the soil.He ran into the house again, brought a laundry basket, filled it with soil, and carried it to the front yard.

When five baskets of earth and two baskets of snow had been brought in, Jem said everything was ready to do. "Don't you think it's a little messy?" I asked. "It looks messy now, but it will be fine in a while." He said. He scooped up handfuls of dirt, patted his hands into a mound, and added handful after handful of dirt until he had formed a torso. "Jem, I never heard of a black yeti," I said. "It won't be dark in a while." He muttered back. Jem got some peach branches from the back yard, wove them, bent them into a skeleton, and covered them with mud.

"Looks like Miss Stephanie with her hands on her hips," I said, "with a stout body and arms like fine hemp stalks." "I'll make it bolder." Jem poured water and soil on the clay figurine.He considered it thoughtfully for a moment, then fashioned a large belly under the figure's waistline.Jem glanced at me, eyes twinkling. "Mr. Avery is built like a snowman, isn't he?" Jem picked up the snow and started to shoot the portrait.He only allowed me to shoot the back, and he did all the parts that people can see. "Mr. Avery" faded away. Jem fitted the snowman with eyes, a nose, a mouth, and buttons out of wood chips, giving "Mr. Avery" the look of anger on his face, which was exactly what he wanted.Add a firewood, and the snowman is done.Jem stepped back, admiring his work. We couldn't wait to show Atticus and couldn't wait for him to get home for lunch so we called him and said we had a big surprise for him.He seemed taken aback when he saw that most of the back yard had been moved to the front yard, but he praised us for a job well done. "I didn't know what you were going to do," he said to Jem, "but I don't have to worry about you from now on. You'll figure it out." Jem's ears blushed at Atticus' compliment, but his eyes immediately became alert when he saw Atticus take a few steps back.Atticus looked at it for a moment with narrowed eyes, then grinned, then laughed. "Son, I can't tell what you'll be doing—engineer, lawyer, portrait painter. You almost committed a slander in our front yard. We've got to put this guy in disguise." Atticus suggested that Jem shave off the front of the piece, replace the stick with a broom, and tie an apron on it. Jem pleaded that if he had done what he said, he would have gotten filthy and muddy and wouldn't be a snowman any more. "I don't care what you do, you've got to change it," said Atticus. "You can't put up statues of your neighbors and make fun of them." "It's not a satirical statue," said Jem, "it's just like him." "Mr. Avery may not think so." "I know what to do!" said Jem, and galloped across the street, and disappeared into Miss Maudie's back yard, and returned with a full reward in no time.He put Miss Maudie's sun hat on the Yeti's head and tucked Miss Maudie's bush shears into the Yeti's arms.Atticus said it was all right. Miss Maudie came out from the front door, stood on the porch looking across the street, and suddenly grinned: "Jem Finch, you little rascal, give me back my hat!" Jem looked up at Atticus, who shook his head at him. "She's just making a fuss," he said, "but she really appreciates your -- great work." Atticus walked slowly across the street to the sidewalk in front of Miss Maudie's house. They stood there, gesticulating with each other, and chatted so lively that I only heard a few words when I pricked up my ears: "... There's a hermaphrodite erected in your yard! Atticus, you'll never get them right!" That afternoon, the snow stopped, the temperature began to drop, and by evening, Mr. Avery's worst prophecy had come true, Calpurnia had every fireplace in the house firing up, but we still felt like cold.Atticus came home in the evening and said it was better for us now, and asked Calpurnia if he would stay the night.Calpurnia glanced up at the high ceilings and long windows, replied that she still thought her house could be warmer, and Atticus drove her back. Before I went to bed, Atticus added some more coal to the fireplace in my room.He said the thermometer read minus nine degrees, the coldest night he could remember, and our snowman was frozen solid outside. I felt as if I had only been asleep for a few minutes before I was shaken awake to find that I was covered with Atticus' overcoat. "Is it morning already?" "Baby, get up quickly." Atticus handed me the bathrobe and coat and said, "Put on the robe first." Jem stood unsteadily beside Atticus, disheveled in his clothes.He wrapped his neck around the collar of his coat with one hand, and stuffed it in his pocket with the other, looking bloated. "Come on, honey," urged Atticus, "here are your socks and shoes." I mechanically put the clothes on my body one by one. "Is it morning?" "No. It's just one o'clock in the night. Hurry up." I finally realized something was wrong. "What happened?" There was no need for him to tell me now.Like a bird who knows where to hide from the rain, I instinctively sensed that there was trouble on our street.The rustling of clothes and the dull and hurried footsteps filled me with helplessness and fear. "Whose family?" "Miss Maudie's, honey," said Atticus mildly. We got to the front door and saw the fire going out of the windows of Miss Maudie's dining room.The fire alarm in the town suddenly sounded, three times louder than usual, and the screeching sound continued for a long time. "The house's gone, isn't it?" whimpered Jem. "I see so," replied Atticus. "Listen, you two, go over there and stand in front of the Radley house. Get out of the way, you hear? Watch where the wind blows. " "Well," answered Jem, "Atticus, don't you think we should get the furniture out." "Not yet, son. Do as I say. Run. Take care of Scout, hear? Don't let her out of your sight." Atticus gave us a push, and we both ran for the Radleys' front door.Standing still, we watched as the streets were filled with people and cars, and the fire silently engulfed Miss Maudie's house. "Why don't they hurry up? Why don't they hurry up--" murmured Jem. We soon see why.The old fire truck had stalled because of the cold and was being wheeled up from town by a gang.When they put the hose on the hydrant, the pipe burst and water spurted out and gurgled across the sidewalk. "Oh, my God, Jem..." Jem put his arms around me. "Shut up, Scout," he said. "It's not time to worry. I'll tell you." Maycomb men, all dressed and some scantily clad, were moving furniture from Miss Maudie's to the yard across the street.I saw Atticus bring out Miss Maudie's heavy oak rocking-chair, and thought he was wise enough to salvage Miss Maudie's dearest possession. Now and then we heard a shout, and then saw Mr. Avery's face appear in an upstairs window.He pushed a mattress out of the window into the street below, and started throwing furniture down, until the crowd couldn't help chanting, "Come down, Dick! The stairs are falling down! Come out, Mr. Avery!" Mr. Avery then climbed out of the window. "Scout, he's stuck..." Jem gasped. "Oh, my God..." Mr. Avery was stuck dead.I buried my head in Jem's arm, and didn't dare take another look, until Jem yelled, "He's free, Scout! He's safe!" I looked up and saw Mr. Avery stepping over the upstairs balcony.He swung his legs over the balcony railing, slid down a post, and fell, screaming, onto Miss Maudie's bushes. Suddenly I noticed the firemen backing away from Miss Maudie's house and coming down the street towards us.They don't move furniture anymore.The fire had already engulfed the second floor and was beginning to consume the roof: the window frames were burnt black, in stark contrast to the bright orange in the middle. "Jem, it looks like a pumpkin..." "Scout, look!" Smoke billowed from our house and from Miss Rachel's like fog over a river bank.People hurriedly pulled the water pipe over.A fire truck from Abbotsville screeched behind us, rounded the corner, and pulled up in front of our house. "The book..." I mumbled. "What?" Jem asked. "That 'Tom Swift', not mine, is Dill's..." "Don't worry, Scout, it's not time to worry yet," Jem said, showing me with his finger. "Look over there." Atticus was standing among a group of neighbors with his hands in his coat pockets as if he were watching a football game.Standing beside him was Miss Maudie. "He's not in a hurry, you see," said Jem. "Why isn't he on the roof?" "He's too old to break his neck." "Do you think we should let him move things out of the house?" "Let's not bother him, he knows when to worry." The fire trucks from Abbotsville started spraying water on our house, and there was a guy on the roof pointing out what to do first.I watched the hermaphrodites in the yard blacken and collapse, Miss Maudie's sun hat on the mud, her bush shears lost.The men were busy fighting fires at our house, Miss Rachel's house, and Miss Maudie's house. They had already taken off their coats and bathrobes and tucked their pajamas and shirts into their trousers to facilitate their work, but I stood by. , but felt that the whole person was frozen a little bit.Jem tried to keep me warm, but his arms around me were no good.I broke free, hugged my shoulders, and bounced around for a while before regaining feeling in my feet. Another fire engine came and stopped in front of Miss Stephanie's house.But there were no fire hydrants to supply water to the mains, so firefighters tried to wet her house with hand extinguishers. The tin roof of Miss Maudie's house suppressed the flames.There was a loud bang, the house collapsed, and the flames flew everywhere. The people standing on the nearby roof were waving blankets in a hurry, rushing to extinguish the sparks and burning wood. It was almost dawn when the people scattered in all directions.At first it was one or two, and later it was in groups of three or four, and people left one after another.They pushed the Maycomb truck back into town, and the one from Abbotsville was gone, except for a third that remained on the scene.We learned the next day that the fire engine came from Clark Ferry, sixty miles away. Jem and I slipped across the street and saw Miss Maudie staring blankly at the smoking black hole in the yard.Atticus shook her head, signaling to us that she didn't want to talk.He put his arms around both of us as he carried us across the icy streets and led us home.He said Miss Maudie would be staying with Miss Stephanie for the time being. "Who wants hot chocolate?" he asked.I couldn't help shivering while Atticus was lighting the fire in the kitchen. As I drank the hot chocolate, I caught Atticus staring at me, curious at first, then hard. "I remember I told you and Jem, stay there and don't run around." "Yeah, we didn't run around. We just stayed..." "Where did this blanket come from?" "blanket?" "Yes, ma'am. Blanket. It's not ours." I looked down and realized I was clutching a brown wool blanket wrapped around my shoulders like an Indian woman. "Atticus, I don't know, I..." I turned to Jem for an answer, but Jem was more puzzled than I was.He said he had no idea how the blankets got there, and we did exactly what Atticus told us, and we stood in front of the Radley yard door and didn't come near anyone—Jem stopped suddenly Stop talking. "Mr. Nathan was helping with the fire," he stammered. "I saw him, I saw him, and he was mopping the mattress—Atticus, I swear..." "Well, son," said Atticus, with a slow smile on his face, "it looks like everyone in Maycomb is out tonight, and everyone is helping in a different way. Jem, I Remember there's some wrapping paper in the pantry. You go get it, we'll..." "Atticus, don't interrupt me!" Jem looked like he was crazy.He poured out our secrets without thinking about the consequences for himself and me.He was like pouring beans out of a bamboo tube, there was nothing left, and he said everything, including the tree hole, his pants, everything. "...Mr. Nathan put cement in the tree hole, Atticus, he did it so we wouldn't find anything - I think he's a madman, as they say, but, Atticus I swear to God, he never hurt us. Actually, he could have cut my neck off that night, but he went to such lengths to sew my trousers together...he never hurt We, Atticus..." Atticus said, "Now, son." His tone was so gentle that it gave me courage again.He obviously didn't understand what Jem was saying, because he just said, "You're right. We'd better not say anything about it and save the blanket. Maybe someday, Scout will be able to He said 'thank you' and thanked him for wrapping himself in the blanket." "Thank you who?" I asked. "Weird Radley. You were so busy watching the fire that you didn't notice when he threw the blanket over you." Jem spread out the blanket and came softly. "He just slipped out of the house like this—turned around—sneaked up to us, and then put the blanket over you like this!" My stomach churned and I nearly threw up. Atticus said sternly, "Jeremy, don't you ever do anything glorious just because of this." Jem lowered his face. "I won't do anything to him." But I found that there was a spark of daring and adventure in his eyes. "Just think about it, Scout," he said, "when you could just turn around and see him." Calpurnia woke us up around noon.Atticus had already sent a message telling us that we didn't have to go to school today because we hadn't slept all night and hadn't been able to study.Calpurnia then let us try to clean up the front yard ourselves. Miss Maudie's sun hat was frozen in a thin layer of ice like a fly in amber.Her shrub shears were buried in the dirt and we had to dig it out.We found her in her backyard, staring blankly at a bush of rhododendrons that had froze and then smoky. "We sent your stuff back, Miss Maudie," said Jem. "We're sorry for you." Miss Maudie turned her head, with a familiar smile on her face. "I've always wanted a smaller house, Jem Finch. That way the yard would be bigger. Come to think of it, I'd have more open space for my rhododendrons that way." "Aren't you sad, Miss Maudie?" I asked in surprise.Atticus once said that her house was pretty much all she owned. "Sad? Boy, what do you say, I hate this old cowshed with all my heart, and a hundred times I'd like to set fire to it myself, but then they'd lock me up." "But……" "Don't worry about me, Jean Louise Finch, things will work out, you just don't know it. Well, I'm going to build a little house, take two tenants, and... well, I'll have the most beautiful yard in Alabama, and even the Bellingras garden will be eclipsed." Jem and I exchanged glances. "How did the fire start, Miss Maudie?" he asked. "I don't know, Jem. Maybe there's something wrong with the flue in the kitchen. I kept a fire running last night to keep the potted plants warm. I hear you had an unexpected friend last night, Jean Louie Miss Si?" "How do you know?" "Atticus told me this morning on the way to town. Honestly, I wish I had been with you guys. I'm sure I'll notice, and look back." Miss Maudie puzzled me greatly.With almost all her property destroyed and her beloved yard in dilapidation, she took such interest in me and Jem. She must have seen my confusion, and said to me: "The only thing that worried me last night was all the danger and chaos the fire would cause. Our whole street might burn down. Mr. Avery will be in bed." Lying down for a week--he's so tired. He's getting too old for these things, I've told him. When I'm free, and Miss Stephanie isn't staring at me, I'm going to Make him a layer cake. That Stephanie has been coming up with my idea for this cake recipe for 30 years, and if she thinks I'm going to give it away when I live in her house, she'll want to wrong." I secretly figured that even if Miss Maudie couldn't bear the pressure to hand over the recipe, Miss Stephanie couldn't follow through.Miss Maudie showed me the recipe, and what impressed me most was a large cup of sugar, but there were many other ingredients. It was a windless day.The air was so crisp that we could all hear the clock in the county hall beeping before it struck the hour—jingle, click, clatter.Miss Maudie had a strange colored nose, which I had never seen before, so I asked her what it was about. "I've been outside since six o'clock," she said, "and I'm freezing by now." She raised her hands, and saw that the palms were criss-crossed with tiny cracks and covered with brown dirt and dried blood. "You broke your hands," said Jem, "why don't you get a black person to do it?" He added, "And me and Scout, we can help you too." At that time, he didn't mean to be self-sacrificing and generous to help others in his tone. Miss Maudie said, "Thank you, sir, but you have work to do yourself." She pointed to our yard. "You mean the hermaphrodite?" I asked. "What's that? We can rake it in the blink of an eye." Miss Maudie stared at me for a moment with her head down, her lips moving soundlessly, and suddenly she put her head in her hands and laughed.She was still giggling when we left. Jem said he didn't know what happened to Miss Maudie--she was such an unpredictable person.