To Kill a Mockingbird

buried my head in it and listened to the small internal noises that went on behind the light blue cloth: his watch ticking, the faint crackle of his starched shirt, the soft sound of his breathing.
    “Your stomach’s growling,” I said.
    “I know it,” he said.
    “You better take some soda.”
    “I will,” he said.
    “Atticus, is all this behavin‘ an’ stuff gonna make things different? I mean are you—?”
    I felt his hand on the back of my head. “Don’t you worry about anything,” he said. “It’s not time to worry.” When I heard that, I knew he had come back to us. The blood in my legs began to flow again, and I raised my head. “You really want us to do all that? I can’t remember everything Finches are supposed to do…”
    “I don’t want you to remember it. Forget it.”
    He went to the door and out of the room, shutting the door behind him. He nearly slammed it, but caught himself at the last minute and closed it softly. As Jem and I stared, the door opened again and Atticus peered around. His eyebrows were raised, his glasses had slipped. “Get more like Cousin Joshua every day, don’t I? Do you think I’ll end up costing the family five hundred dollars?”
    I know now what he was trying to do, but Atticus was only a man. It takes a woman to do that kind of work.

Chapter 14

    Although we heard no more about the Finch family from Aunt Alexandra, we heard plenty from the town. On Saturdays, armed with our nickels, when Jem permitted me to accompany him (he was now positively allergic to my presence when in public), we would squirm our way through sweating sidewalk crowds and sometimes hear, “There’s his chillun,” or, “Yonder’s some Finches.” Turning to face our accusers, we would see only a couple of farmers studying the enema bags in the Mayco Drugstore window. Or two dumpy countrywomen in straw hats sitting in a Hoover cart.
    “They c’n go loose and rape up the countryside for all of ‘em who run this county care,” was one obscure observation we met head on from a skinny gentleman when he passed us. Which reminded me that I had a question to ask Atticus.
    “What’s rape?” I asked him that night.
    Atticus looked around from behind his paper. He was in his chair by the window. As we grew older, Jem and I thought it generous to allow Atticus thirty minutes to himself after supper.
    He sighed, and said rape was carnal knowledge of a female by force and without consent.
    “Well if that’s all it is why did Calpurnia dry me up when I asked her what it was?”
    Atticus looked pensive. “What’s that again?”
    “Well, I asked Calpurnia comin‘ from church that day what it was and she said ask you but I forgot to and now I’m askin’ you.”
    His paper was now in his lap. “Again, please,” he said.
    I told him in detail about our trip to church with Calpurnia. Atticus seemed to enjoy it, but Aunt Alexandra, who was sitting in a corner quietly sewing, put down her embroidery and stared at us.
    “You all were coming back from Calpurnia’s church that Sunday?”
    Jem said, “Yessum, she took us.”
    I remembered something. “Yessum, and she promised me I could come out to her house some afternoon. Atticus. I’ll go next Sunday if it’s all right, can I? Cal said she’d come get me if you were off in the car.”
    “You may not .”
    Aunt Alexandra said it. I wheeled around, startled, then turned back to Atticus in time to catch his swift glance at her, but it was too late. I said, “I didn’t ask you!”
    For a big man, Atticus could get up and down from a chair faster than anyone I ever knew. He was on his feet. “Apologize to your aunt,” he said.
    “I didn’t ask her, I asked you—”
    Atticus turned his head and pinned me to the wall with his good eye. His voice was deadly: “First, apologize to your aunt.”
    “I’m sorry, Aunty,” I muttered.
    “Now then,” he said. “Let’s get this clear: you do as Calpurnia tells you, you do as I tell you, and as long as your aunt’s in this house, you will do as she tells you. Understand?”
    I understood, pondered a while, and concluded that the only way I could retire with a shred of dignity was to go to the bathroom, where I stayed long enough to make them think I had to go. Returning, I lingered in the hall to hear a fierce discussion going on in the livingroom. Through the door I could see Jem on the sofa with a football magazine in front of his face, his head turning as if its pages