September has begun and Jem and Scout are on the back porch when Scout notices a roly-poly bug. She is
about to mash it with her hand when Jem tells her not to. She dutifully places the bug outside. When she asks
Jem why she shouldn’t have mashed it, he replies that the bug didn’t do anything to harm her. Scout observes
that it is Jem, not she, who is becoming more and more like a girl. Her thoughts turn to Dill, and she remem-
bers him telling her that he and Jem ran into Atticus as they started home from swimming during the last two
days of August. Jem had convinced Atticus to let them accompany him to Helen Robinson’s house, where
they saw her collapse even before Atticus could say that her husband, Tom, was dead. Meanwhile, the news
occupies Maycomb’s attention for about two days, and everyone agrees that it is typical for a black man to do
something irrational like try to escape. Mr. Underwood writes a long editorial condemning Tom’s death as
the murder of an innocent man. The only other significant reaction comes when Bob Ewell is overheard say-
ing that Tom’s death makes “one down and about two more to go.” Summer ends and Dill leaves.