Podcast: To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 4

Summary of To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapters 6-7

Chapters 6-7

Jem and Dill followed the orders of Atticus, who orders them to stop bothering the Radley property and that poor man. Although this good attitude only lasts till the last day of Dill in Maycomb, in the moment when Jem and he plan to sneak over to the Radley Place and finds their way in through a loose entrance. Finally Scout gets involved too, and they crawl around the house. While crawling, the three of them see the shadow of a man with a hat on and run away, and they heard a shotgun being shot off behind them. They got away by passing under the fence, but suddenly Jem’s pants get stuck on the fence, so if he wants to get free he would kick them. The kids return home and encounter all the adults on the neighborhood: Miss Maudie, Atticus, and Miss Stephanie Crawford; known as the “neighborhood gossip”. Miss Maudie in his speech declares that Mr. Nathan Radley shot at a Negro in his yard. After that, Atticus asks Jem where his pants are; and Dill interrupts and says that he won Jem’s pants in a poker game. Worried about this, Atticus asks them if they were actually using cards. Jem answers that they were playing with matches. That night, Jem makes his way to the Radley Place, and manages to get back his pants.  School began few days later, and Jem tells Scout that he found the pants hanging neatly over the fence, like him someone had found them and just hung them. After school that same day, they found another object hidden in the middle of the knothole: a ball of gray twine. They left it there for a few days, but no one claimed it, so they took it for their own. Among this, Scout declares that he does not feel happy in second grade, so as he did in first, and Jem promises her that school gets more entertaining the farther along one stays. Late that season, another present appears in the knothole: now they were two figures carved in soap to represent Scout and Jem. The three figures are followed by the next objects: chewing gum, a spelling bee medal, and an old pocket watch. The next day, Jem and Scout find that the knothole has been fulfilled with cement, so no more presents are supposed to be delivered.