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
contained a live tennis match.
“…you’ve got to do something about her,” Aunty was saying. “You’ve let things
go on too long, Atticus, too long.”
“I don’t see any harm in letting her go out there. Cal’d look after her there as well
as she does here.”
Who was the “her” they were talking about? My heart sank: me. I felt the starched
walls of a pink cotton penitentiary closing in on me, and for the second time in
my life I thought of running away. Immediately.
“Atticus, it’s all right to be soft-hearted, you’re an easy man, but you have a
daughter to think of. A daughter who’s growing up.”
“That’s what I am thinking of.”
“And don’t try to get around it. You’ve got to face it sooner or later and it might
as well be tonight. We don’t need her now.”
Atticus’s voice was even: “Alexandra, Calpurnia’s not leaving this house until she
wants to. You may think otherwise, but I couldn’t have got along without her all
these years. She’s a faithful member of this family and you’ll simply have to
accept things the way they are. Besides, sister, I don’t want you working your
head off for us—you’ve no reason to do that. We still need Cal as much as we
ever did.”
“But Atticus—”
“Besides, I don’t think the children’ve suffered one bit from her having brought
them up. If anything, she’s been harder on them in some ways than a mother
would have been… she’s never let them get away with anything, she’s never
indulged them the way most colored nurses do. She tried to bring them up
according to her lights, and Cal’s lights are pretty good—and another thing, the
children love her.”
I breathed again. It wasn’t me, it was only Calpurnia they were talking about.
Revived, I entered the livingroom. Atticus had retreated behind his newspaper and
Aunt Alexandra was worrying her embroidery. Punk, punk, punk, her needle
broke the taut circle. She stopped, and pulled the cloth tighter: punk-punk-punk.
She was furious.
Jem got up and padded across the rug. He motioned me to follo