Scout Finch lives with her brother, Jem, and her widowed father, Atticus, in the sleepy Alabama town of Maycomb. Maycomb is suffering through the Great Depression.
One summer, Jem and Scout befriend a boy named Dill, who has come to live in their neighborhood for the summer, and the trio acts out stories together.Eventually, Dill becomes fascinated with the spooky house on their street called the Radley Place. The house is owned by Mr. Nathan Radley, whose brother, Boo, has lived there for years without venturing outside. Scout, Jem, and Dill decide to investigate Boo Radley, the “monster.” Jem wants to see Boo Radley, and Scout agrees.
Chapter 1
When he was nearly thirteen, my brother Jem got his arm badly broken at the elbow. When it healed, and Jem’s fears of never being able to play football were assuaged, he was seldom self-conscious about his injury. His left arm was somewhat shorter than his right; when he stood or walked, the back of his hand was at right angles to his body, his thumb parallel to his thigh. He couldn’t have cared less, so long as he could pass and punt.
When enough years had gone by to enable us to look back on them, we sometimes discussed the events leading to his accident. I maintain that the Ewells started it all, but Jem, who was four years my senior, said it started long before that. He said it began the summer Dill came to us, when Dill first gave us the idea of making Boo Radley come out.
They make plans to get Boo Radley to come out, such as running to his door, looking in his window, and sneaking in his garden. To the children’s surprise, Boo Radley responds by leaving them presents inside a hollow tree. Dill returns the following summer, and he, Scout, and Jem begin to act out the story of Boo Radley. Atticus puts a stop to their antics, urging the children to try to see life from another person’s perspective before making judgments.
Meanwhile, Atticus decides to be Tom Robinson’s defense lawyer at the trial. This is very unpopular with the townspeople, who think that white lawyers like Atticus should not protect black people like Tom. Also, Atticus knows that Tom will never win the case, even though he’s innocent, because the townspeople will never protect a black person against a white person.
Chapter 9
“You can just take that back, boy!”
This order, given by me to Cecil Jacobs, was the beginning of a rather thin time for Jem and me. My fists were clenched and I was ready to let fly. Atticus had promised me he would wear me out if he ever heard of me fighting any more; I was far too old and too big for such childish things, and the sooner I learned to hold in, the better off everybody would be. I soon forgot.
Cecil Jacobs made me forget. He had announced in the schoolyard the day before that Scout Finch’s daddy defended niggers. I denied it, but told Jem.
“Do you defend niggers, Atticus?” I asked him that evening.
“Of course I do. Don’t say nigger, Scout. That’s common.”
“It’s what everybody at school says.”
“From now on it’ll be everybody less one―”
“Do all lawyers defend n-Negroes, Atticus?”
“Of course they do, Scout.”
“Then why did Cecil say you defended niggers? He made it sound like you were running a still.”
Atticus sighed. “I’m simply defending a Negro ⸻ his name’s Tom Robinson. He lives in that little settlement beyond the town dump. He’s a member of Calpurnia’s church, and Cal knows his family well. She says they’re clean-living folks. Scout, you aren’t old enough to understand some things yet, but there’s been some high talk around town to the effect that I shouldn’t do much about defending this man. It’s a peculiar case — it won’t come to trial until summer session. John Taylor was kind enough to give us a postponement...”
“If you shouldn’t be defending him, then why are you doing it?”
“For a number of reasons,” said Atticus. “The main one is, if I didn’t I couldn’t hold up my head in town, I couldn’t represent this county in the legislature, I couldn’t even tell you or Jem not to do something again.”
“You mean if you didn’t defend that man, Jem and I wouldn’t have to mind you any more?”
“That’s about right.”
“Why?”
“Because I could never ask you to mind me again. Scout, simply by the nature of the work, every lawyer gets at least one case in his lifetime that affects him personally. This one’s mine, I guess. You might hear some ugly talk about it at school, but do one thing for me if you will: you just hold your head high and keep those fists down. No matter what anybody says to you, don’t you let ’em get your goat. Try fighting with your head for a change ... it’s a good one, even if it does resist learning.”
“Atticus, are we going to win it?”
“No, honey.”
“Then why—”
Chapter 10
Atticus was feeble: he was nearly fifty. When Jem and I asked him why he was so old, he said he got started late, which we felt reflected upon his abilities and manliness. He was much older than the parents of our school contemporaries, and there was nothing Jem or I could say about him when our classmates said, “My father—”
Jem was football crazy. Atticus was never too tired to play keep-away, but when Jem wanted to tackle him Atticus would say, “I’m too old for that, son.”
Our father didn’t do anything. He worked in an office, not in a drugstore. Atticus did not drive a dump-truck for the county, he was not the sheriff, he did not farm, work in a garage, or do anything that could possibly arouse the admiration of anyone.
Besides that, he wore glasses. He was nearly blind in his left eye, and said left eyes were the tribal curse of the Finches. Whenever he wanted to see something well, he turned his head and looked from his right eye.
He did not do the things our schoolmates’ fathers did: he never went hunting, he did not play poker or fish or drink or smoke. He sat in the livingroom and read.
When he gave us air-rifles Atticus wouldn’t teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; Jack said Atticus wasn’t interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, “I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it.
“Your father ’s right,” she said. “Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us. That’s why it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird.”
Scout and Jem continue exchanging gifts with Boo Radley, and they learn from Miss Maudie that Boo was never a monster, but that he was a kind and intelligent boy. His father was too strict, and punished him severely for making a small mistake. Boo never leaves the house now, she said, because his father’s abuse made him shy and awkward. Unfortunately, when Boo’s brother learns about the gifts in the hollow tree, he fills the tree with cement. The children and Boo can no longer communicate, and Jem becomes very frustrated.
Chapter 11
“Scout,” said Atticus, “when summer comes you’ll have to keep your head about far worse things... it’s not fair for you and Jem, I know that, but sometimes we have to make the best of things, and the way we conduct ourselves when the chips are down — well, all I can say is, when you and Jem are grown, maybe you’ll look back on this with some compassion and some feeling that I didn’t let you down. This case, Tom Robinson’s case, is something that goes to the essence of a man’s conscience — Scout, I couldn’t go to church and worship God if I didn’t try to help that man.”
“Atticus, you must be wrong...”
“How’s that?”
“Well, most folks seem to think they’re right and you’re wrong...”
“They’re certainly entitled to think that, and they’re entitled to full respect for their opinions,” said Atticus, “but before I can live with other folks I’ve got to live with myself. The one thing that doesn’t abide by majority rule is a person’s conscience.”