Chapters 4-7
Perspective: Jem
On the day before the last of school, I cam home and Scout had found gum in a knothole of the tree in front of the Radley's place. I told her to spit it out because it was found and was found in front of the Radley's place. The next day when walking home with her from our final day of school before summer, I saw something shiny in the knothole Scout was talking about. I looked around, pulled it out and we ran home. On the porch, I opened the small box patch worked with bits of tinfoil. Inside the small box I found two Indian Head pennies, one from 1906, and the other of the year 1900. I knew these were important to someone.
Two days later Dill came in to town for the summer. He came two days later because Mississippi gets out of school a day later than Maycomb, Alabama. As soon as Dill got there we started playing and getting into character for games. When we got bored of our usual games, I decided that we should play Boo Radley. In this game, we would act out different parts of the Radley life. We played this game for a long time until Atticus caught us playing. He didn't know we were playing this Radley game, but suspected it. We stopped playing for a bit so that Atticus would loose his suspicion. While not playing the Radley game, Dill and I kicked Scout out from our conversations. While Dill and I were together, Scout would talk with Ms. Maudie, our next door neighbor. She talked to her about Boo Radley because I had told her that Boo was stuffed in the chimney and that was why he didn’t ever come out. Ms. Maudie told her that that was a lie and that Boo, or Aurthur Radley was very alive, and that he chose not to come out. This helped give Dill and I get the great idea to write a letter to Boo and kindly ask him to come out. We simply said that we just wanted to talk to him and we would even buy him an ice cream. We planned to put the letter through a loose shudder with a bamboo stick. While doing so, Atticus caught us and took the letter. He told us to stop tormenting Boo Radley.
It was Dill’s last night, and Scout and I went over to talk to him. Although Atticus had strictly informed us to leave Boo Radley alone, we had to make him come out. After all, it was Dill’s last night before he went back home for the next school year. We saw Mr. Avery, who lives across the street pee off his porch while we were starting towards the Radley place. We went through the back gate and looked through the shudders, then went to the porch. While on the porch, a shadow hovered over us. When the shadow stopped about a foot from me, I jumped off the porch over to Dill and Scout. I threw the gate open and told Scout and Dill to run to the gate at the school yard. We hurried and Scout fell. Suddenly a shot from Mr. Radley’s shotgun shattered the whole town. We dropped to the ground then hurried to the fence. My pants got stuck on the barbed wire and I had to loose them in order to get out alive. We ran back to the house and saw a crowed formed in front of the Radley place. We hurried there so that the town didn’t suspect anything. We stood next to Miss Stephanie and she explained that Mr. Nathan Radley shot at a Negro. She asked where my pants had gone and Dill explained that he had won them, from a game of strip poker. We got in a bit of trouble for playing such a thing, but Atticus left us off with a warning sending us home ordering me to put on some pants. Dill goes to his Aunts house while Scout and I get some sleep. That night, I went back to get my pants. I had to get them so that Mr. Radley didn’t find them and showed them to Atticus. I ran there, and came back with my pants.
I didn’t talk much for the next week or so, and Scout didn’t bother me about it. School started again and I was starting the sixth grade, and Scout started second. I told Scout about the night I went back for my pants. They were folded on the gate, and sowed up like somebody was waiting for me to come. We walked past the tree and I saw a ball of grey twine. Scout told me not to take it, and that it was some kids hiding spot, we left it there for two days and no one took it back, so we claimed it as ours. In the sixth grade I learned a lot of fun things like the Egyptians which just baffled Scout. Next we spotted two figures sculpted from soap, a boy and a girl, me and Scout. A few days later, we got our best prize yet. It was a pocket watch that didn’t run on a chain with an aluminum knife. We showed Atticus, who had thought that I swapped it for the one that had been my grandfathers. Scout suggested that we wrote a letter to whoever was leaving these little trinkets. I agreed and we simply thanked this man, signed our names, put it in an envelope and waited for the next day. We went to leave the note to find that the knothole had been filled with cement. I asked Mr. Nathan about it, and he said that the tree was sick and when trees are sick you must fill them with cement. This was hard to come about, but we had to deal with it.
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