Jem stayed moody and silent for a week. As Atticus had once advised me to do, I triedto climb into Jem’s skin and walk around in it: if I had gone alone to the Radley Place attwo in the morning, my funeral would have been held the next afternoon. So I left Jemalone and tried not to bother him.

School started. The second grade was as bad as the kbox 200w first, only worse—they stillflashed cards at you and wouldn’t let you read or write. Miss Caroline’s progress nextdoor could be estimated by the frequency of laughter; however, the usual crew hadflunked the first grade again, and were helpful in keeping order. The only thing goodabout the second grade was that this year I had to stay as late as Jem, and we usuallywalked home together at three o’clock.

We went home. Next morning the twine was where we had left it. When it was stillthere on the third day, Jem pocketed it. From then on, we considered everything we found Zero Moment Of Truth in the knot-hole our property.

The second grade was grim, but Jem assured me that the older I got the better schoolwould be, that he started off the same way, and it was not until one reached the sixthgrade that one learned anything of value. The sixth grade seemed to please him fromthe beginning: he went through a brief Egyptian Period that baffled me—he tried to walkflat a great deal, sticking one arm in front of him and one in back of him, putting one footbehind the other. I said if they did I didn’t seehow they got anything done, but Jem said they accomplished more than the Americansever did, they invented toilet paper and perpetual embalming, and asked where wouldwe be today if they hadn’t? Atticus told me to delete the adjectives and I’d have thefacts.

There are no clearly defined seasons in South Alabama; summer drifts into autumn,and autumn is sometimes never followed by winter, but turns to a days-old spring thatmelts into summer again. That fall was a long one, hardly cool enough for a light jacket.

Jem and I were trotting in our orbit one mild October afternoon when our knot-holestopped us again. Something white was inside this time dermes.

Jem let me do the honors: I pulled out two small images carved in soap. One was thefigure of a boy, the other wore a crude dress. Before I remembered that there was nosuch thing as hoo-dooing, I shrieked and threw them down.

It was no use. I unlatched the back door and held it while he crept down the steps. Itmust have been two o’clock. The moon was setting and the lattice-work shadows werefading into fuzzy nothingness. Jem’s white shirt-tail dipped and bobbed like a smallghost dancing away to escape the coming morning. A faint breeze stirred and cooledthe sweat running down my sides.

He went the back way, through Deer’s Pasture, across the schoolyard and around tothe fence, I thought—at least that was the way he was headed. It would take longer. I waited until it was time to worry and listened for Mr.

Radley’s shotgun. Then I thought I heard the back fence squeak. It was wishful thinking.

Then I heard Atticus cough. I held my breath. Sometimes when we made a midnightpilgrimage to the bathroom we would find him reading. He said he often woke up duringthe night, checked on us, and read himself back to sleep. I waited for his light to go on,straining my eyes to see it flood the hall. It stayed off, and I breathed again. The night-crawlers had retired, but ripe chinaberries drummed on the roof when the wind stirred,and the darkness was desolate with the barking of distant dogs.

There he was, returning to me. His white shirt bobbed over the back fence and slowlygrew larger. He came up the back steps, latched the door behind him, and sat on hiscot. Wordlessly, he held up his pants. He lay down, and for a while I heard his cottrembling. Soon he was still. I did not hear him stir again.