Chapter 12 Chapter Twelve

Jem is twelve years old.He became difficult to get along with, talked and acted incoherently, and was moody.He had a great appetite, and kept telling me to leave him alone, so I went to Atticus: "Has he got worms?" Atticus said no, Jem was growing; Try to disturb him as little as possible. Jem seemed a different person, all in the space of a few weeks.Mrs. Dubose had only been in the ground for a few days, and her bones were not cold—Jem seemed to be grateful that I went with him to study with Mrs. Dubose, but, as if overnight, he learned from nowhere. Values, and tried to impose on me. Several times, he actually taught me what to do.After an argument, Jem yelled at me, "You've got to be a girl, too! Be disciplined!" I burst into tears and ran to Calpurnia.

"Don't be too angry at Mr. Jem's words..." she began to persuade. "Mr. Jem?" "Yeah, he could almost be called 'Mr. Jem.'" "He's not that big at all," I protested. "He just needs a punch, but I'm not big enough." "Honey," said Calpurnia, "Mr. Jem's growing up, and I can't help it. He'd rather be alone now, and do what boys like to do. If you think it's too lonely, Just come to the kitchen. We've got a lot to do here." That summer started off well: Jem did what he liked, and I had Calpurnia for company until Dill came, and it was all right.Calpurnia seemed happy whenever I was in the kitchen.I watched her do this and that, and gradually realized that being a girl still needs to learn some skills.

But when the summer vacation came, Dill failed to come as promised.I got a letter from him, and a photo.He wrote he had a new daddy and showed me a picture and said he had to stay in Meridian this summer because they were going to build a fishing boat.His new father was a lawyer like Atticus, but much younger, with a pleasant face.I'm happy for Dill to have such a new dad, but I'm also doubly devastated by this news.Dill ends his letter by telling me not to worry that he will love me forever, and promises to marry me as soon as he saves enough money, so I implore me to write more. Although I have Dill as my long-term and stable fiancé, it can't make up for the fact that he can't come.My summer vacation was when Dill was smoking his homemade cigarettes by the fish pond, his eyes rolling around, thinking about all kinds of ghost ideas to lure the weirdo Radley out; it was when Dill took advantage of Jem to look elsewhere Standing on tiptoe, stretching my neck, giving me a quick kiss; that is, we sometimes really feel each other's longing and missing for ourselves-although I never realized it before, it's all real.With him, life is orderly; without him, life is simply unbearable.I spent two days in misery like this.

But as if all this wasn't enough for me, another emergency session of the state legislature was called, and Atticus was away for two weeks.Governors are eager to clean up stereotypes like barnacles clinging to ship hulls; there are several sit-down strikes in Birmingham; bread lines in cities are getting longer and people in the countryside are getting poorer.But these were miles and miles away from my world and Jem's. We were surprised to find, one morning, a cartoon in the Montgomery Gazette entitled "Mr. Finch of Maycomb."The cartoon shows Atticus, barefoot and in shorts, chained to a desk, scribbling away on a clipboard, while some frivolous girls yell at him: " Yo-ho!"

"It's a compliment," Jem explained to me, "that he's spending his time doing something that wouldn't work if no one else was doing it." "Oh?" Jem was not only good at temper these days, but also often put on a maddening self-righteous air. "Oh, Scout, for example, redacting the county tax system or something. That's pretty boring stuff for most people." "How did you know?" "Hey, go away and leave me alone. I'm reading the paper." I got up immediately and went to the kitchen, and Jem was satisfied. Calpurnia was peeling green beans when she said suddenly, "How are you two going to church this Sunday?"

"Nothing, I see. Atticus left us money to donate." Calpurnia narrowed her eyes, and I knew what was going on in her head. "Calpurnia," I said, "you know we're going to behave. We haven't gotten into trouble in church in years." Calpurnia clearly remembered that rainy Sunday when we had neither my father nor my teacher.The Sunday school children were so wild that a gang tied Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and locked her in the boiler room.Later, we all forgot about it and queued up to the church hall together to listen to the pastor's sermon in silence.Suddenly, the heating pipe issued a frightening "