To Kill a Mockingbird - Chapter 12
Harper Lee
Part Two Chapter 12

To Kill a Mockingbird



Jem was twelve. He was difficult to live with, inconsistent,

moody. His appetite was appalling, and he told me so many times to

stop pestering him I consulted Atticus: "Reckon he's got a

tapeworm?" Atticus said no, Jem was growing. I must be patient with

him and disturb him as little as possible.

This change in Jem had come about in a matter of weeks. Mrs.

Dubose was not cold in her grave- Jem had seemed grateful enough for

my company when he went to read to her. Overnight, it seemed, Jem
had acquired an alien set of values and was trying to impose them on

me: several times he went so far as to tell me what to do. After one

altercation when Jem hollered, "It's time you started bein' a girl and

acting right!" I burst into tears and fled to Calpurnia.

"Don't you fret too much over Mister Jem-" she began.

"Mister Jem?"



"Yeah, he's just about Mister Jem now."

"He ain't that old," I said. "All he needs is somebody to beat him

up, and I ain't big enough."

"Baby," said Calpurnia, "I just can't help it if Mister Jem's

growin' up. He's gonna want to be off to himself a lot now, doin'

whatever boys do, so you just come right on in the kitchen when you
feel lonesome. We'll find lots of things to do in here."

The beginning of that summer boded well: Jem could do as he pleased;

Calpurnia would do until Dill came. She seemed glad to see me when I

appeared in the kitchen, and by watching her I began to think there

was some skill involved in being a girl.

But summer came and Dill was not there. I received a letter and a

snapshot from him. The letter said he had a new father whose picture

was enclosed, and he would have to stay in Meridian because they

planned to build a fishing boat. His father was a lawyer like Atticus,

only much younger. Dill's new father had a pleasant face, which made

me glad Dill had captured him, but I was crushed. Dill concluded by

saying he would love me forever and not to worry, he would come get me

and marry me as soon as he got enough money together, so please write.


The fact that I had a permanent fiance was little compensation for

his absence: I had never thought about it, but summer was Dill by

the fishpool smoking string, Dill's eyes alive with complicated

plans to make Boo Radley emerge; summer was the swiftness with which

Dill would reach up and kiss me when Jem was not looking, the longings

we sometimes felt each other feel. With him, life was routine; without

him, life was unbearable. I stayed miserable for two days.

As if that were not enough, the state legislature was called into

emergency session and Atticus left us for two weeks. The Governor

was eager to scrape a few barnacles off the ship of state; there

were sit-down strikes in Birmingham; bread lines in the cities grew

longer, people in the country grew poorer. But these were events

remote from the world of Jem and me.

We were surprised one morning to see a cartoon in the Montgomery

Advertiser¯ above the caption, "Maycomb's Finch." It showed Atticus

barefooted and in short pants, chained to a desk: he was diligently

writing on a slate while some frivolous-looking girls yelled,

Yoo-hoo! at him.

"That's a compliment," explained Jem. "He spends his time doin'

things that wouldn't get done if nobody did 'em."

"Huh?"



In addition to Jem's newly developed characteristics, he had

acquired a maddening air of wisdom.

"Oh, Scout, it's like reorganizing the tax systems of the counties

and things. That kind of thing's pretty dry to most men."

"How do you know?"

"Oh, go on and leave me alone. I'm readin' the paper."

Jem got his wish. I departed for the kitchen.



While she was shelling peas, Calpurnia suddenly said, "What am I

gonna do about you all's church this Sunday?"

"Nothing, I reckon. Atticus left us collection."

Calpurnia's eyes narrowed and I could tell what was going through

her mind. "Cal," I said, "you know we'll behave. We haven't done

anything in church in years."

Calpurnia evidently remembered a rainy Sunday when we were both

fatherless and teacherless. Left to its own devices, the class tied

Eunice Ann Simpson to a chair and placed her in the furnace room. We

forgot her, trooped upstairs to church, and were listening quietly

to the sermon when a dreadful banging issued from the radiator

pipes, persisting until someone investigated and brought forth

Eunice Ann saying she didn't want to play Shadrach any more- Jem Finch

said she wouldn't get burnt if she had enough faith, but it was hot

down there.

"Besides, Cal, this isn't the first time Atticus has left us," I

protested.



"Yeah, but he makes certain your teacher's gonna be there. I

didn't hear him say this time- reckon he forgot it." Calpurnia

scratched her head. Suddenly she smiled. "How'd you and Mister Jem

like to come to church with me tomorrow?"

"Really?"

"How 'bout it?" grinned Calpurnia.

If Calpurnia had ever bathed me roughly before, it was nothing

compared to her supervision of that Saturday night's routine. She made

me soap all over twice, drew fresh water in the tub for each rinse;

she stuck my head in the basin and washed it with Octagon soap and

castile. She had trusted Jem for years, but that night she invaded his

privacy and provoked an outburst: "Can't anybody take a bath in this

house without the whole family lookin'?"

Next morning she began earlier than usual, to "go over our clothes."

When Calpurnia stayed overnight with us she slept on a folding cot

in the kitchen; that morning it was covered with our Sunday

habiliments. She had put so much starch in my dress it came up like

a tent when I sat down. She made me wear a petticoat and she wrapped a

pink sash tightly around my waist. She went over my patent-leather

shoes with a cold biscuit until she saw her face in them.



"It's like we were goin' to Mardi Gras," said Jem. "What's all

this for, Cal?"

"I don't want anybody sayin' I don't look after my children," she

muttered. "Mister Jem, you absolutely can't wear that tie with that

suit. It's green."

"'smatter with that?"

"Suit's blue. Can't you tell?"

"Hee hee," I howled, "Jem's color blind."



His face flushed angrily, but Calpurnia said, "Now you all quit

that. You're gonna go to First Purchase with smiles on your faces."

First Purchase African M.E. Church was in the Quarters outside the

southern town limits, across the old sawmill tracks. It was an ancient

paint-peeled frame building, the only church in Maycomb with a steeple

and bell, called First Purchase because it was paid for from the first

earnings of freed slaves. Negroes worshiped in it on Sundays and white

men gambled in it on weekdays.

The churchyard was brick-hard clay, as was the cemetery beside it.

If someone died during a dry spell, the body was covered with chunks

of ice until rain softened the earth. A few graves in the cemetery

were marked with crumbling tombstones; newer ones were outlined with

brightly colored glass and broken Coca-Cola bottles. Lightning rods

guarding some graves denoted dead who rested uneasily; stumps of

burned-out candles stood at the heads of infant graves. It was a happy

cemetery.

The warm bittersweet smell of clean Negro welcomed us as we

entered the churchyard- Hearts of Love hairdressing mingled with

asafoetida, snuff, Hoyt's Cologne, Brown's Mule, peppermint, and lilac

talcum.

When they saw Jem and me with Calpurnia, the men stepped back and

took off their hats; the women crossed their arms at their waists,

weekday gestures of respectful attention. They parted and made a small

pathway to the church door for us. Calpurnia walked between Jem and

me, responding to the greetings of her brightly clad neighbors.



"What you up to, Miss Cal?" said a voice behind us.

Calpurnia's hands went to our shoulders and we stopped and looked

around: standing in the path behind us was a tall Negro woman. Her

weight was on one leg; she rested her left elbow in the curve of her

hip, pointing at us with upturned palm. She was bullet-headed with

strange almond-shaped eyes, straight nose, and an Indian-bow mouth.

She seemed seven feet high.

I felt Calpurnia's hand dig into my shoulder. "What you want, Lula?"

she asked, in tones I had never heard her use. She spoke quietly,

contemptuously.

"I wants to know why you bringin' white chillun to nigger church."

"They's my comp'ny," said Calpurnia. Again I thought her voice

strange: she was talking like the rest of them.



"Yeah, an' I reckon you's comp'ny at the Finch house durin' the

week."

A murmur ran through the crowd. "Don't you fret," Calpurnia

whispered to me, but the roses on her hat trembled indignantly.

When Lula came up the pathway toward us Calpurnia said, "Stop

right there, nigger."

Lula stopped, but she said, "You ain't got no business bringin'

white chillun here- they got their church, we got our'n. It is our

church, ain't it, Miss Cal?"

Calpurnia said, "It's the same God, ain't it?"



Jem said, "Let's go home, Cal, they don't want us here-"

I agreed: they did not want us here. I sensed, rather than saw, that

we were being advanced upon. They seemed to be drawing closer to us,

but when I looked up at Calpurnia there was amusement in her eyes.

When I looked down the pathway again, Lula was gone. In her place

was a solid mass of colored people.

One of them stepped from the crowd. It was Zeebo, the garbage

collector. "Mister Jem," he said, "we're mighty glad to have you all

here. Don't pay no 'tention to Lula, she's contentious because

Reverend Sykes threatened to church her. She's a troublemaker from way

back, got fancy ideas an' haughty ways- we're mighty glad to have

you all."

With that, Calpurnia led us to the church door where we were greeted

by Reverend Sykes, who led us to the front pew.

First Purchase was unceiled and unpainted within. Along its walls
unlighted kerosene lamps hung on brass brackets; pine benches served as pews. Behind the rough oak pulpit a faded pink silk banner proclaimed God Is Love, the church's only decoration except a rotogravure print of Hunt's The Light of the World.¯ There was no

sign of piano, organ, hymn-books, church programs- the familiar

ecclesiastical impedimenta we saw every Sunday. It was dim inside,

with a damp coolness slowly dispelled by the gathering congregation.

At each seat was a cheap cardboard fan bearing a garish Garden of

Gethsemane, courtesy Tyndal's Hardware Co. (You-Name-It-We-Sell-It).



Calpurnia motioned Jem and me to the end of the row and placed

herself between us. She fished in her purse, drew out her

handkerchief, and untied the hard wad of change in its corner. She

gave a dime to me and a dime to Jem. "We've got ours," he whispered.

You keep it, Calpurnia said, "you're my company." Jem's face

showed brief indecision on the ethics of withholding his own dime, but

his innate courtesy won and he shifted his dime to his pocket. I did

likewise with no qualms.

"Cal," I whispered, "where are the hymn-books?"

"We don't have any," she said.

"Well how-?"

"Sh-h," she said. Reverend Sykes was standing behind the pulpit

staring the congregation to silence. He was a short, stocky man in a

black suit, black tie, white shirt, and a gold watch-chain that

glinted in the light from the frosted windows.



He said, "Brethren and sisters, we are particularly glad to have

company with us this morning. Mister and Miss Finch. You all know

their father. Before I begin I will read some announcements."

Reverend Sykes shuffled some papers, chose one and held it at

arm's length. "The Missionary Society meets in the home of Sister

Annette Reeves next Tuesday. Bring your sewing."

He read from another paper. "You all know of Brother Tom

Robinson's trouble. He has been a faithful member of First Purchase

since he was a boy. The collection taken up today and for the next

three Sundays will go to Helen- his wife, to help her out at home."

I punched Jem. "That's the Tom Atticus's de-"

"Sh-h!"



I turned to Calpurnia but was hushed before I opened my mouth.

Subdued, I fixed my attention upon Reverend Sykes, who seemed to be

waiting for me to settle down. "Will the music superintendent lead

us in the first hymn," he said.

Zeebo rose from his pew and walked down the center aisle, stopping

in front of us and facing the congregation. He was carrying a battered

hymn-book. He opened it and said, "We'll sing number two

seventy-three."

This was too much for me. "How're we gonna sing it if there ain't

any hymn-books?"

Calpurnia smiled. "Hush baby," she whispered, "you'll see in a

minute."

Zeebo cleared his throat and read in a voice like the rumble of

distant artillery:



"There's a land beyond the river."

Miraculously on pitch, a hundred voices sang out Zeebo's words.

The last syllable, held to a husky hum, was followed by Zeebo saying,

"That we call the sweet forever."

Music again swelled around us; the last note lingered and Zeebo

met it with the next line: "And we only reach that shore by faith's

decree."

The congregation hesitated, Zeebo repeated the line carefully, and

it was sung. At the chorus Zeebo closed the book, a signal for the

congregation to proceed without his help.



On the dying notes of "Jubilee," Zeebo said, "In that far-off

sweet forever, just beyond the shining river."

Line for line, voices followed in simple harmony until the hymn

ended in a melancholy murmur.

I looked at Jem, who was looking at Zeebo from the corners of his

eyes. I didn't believe it either, but we had both heard it.

Reverend Sykes then called on the Lord to bless the sick and the

suffering, a procedure no different from our church practice, except

Reverend Sykes directed the Deity's attention to several specific

cases.

His sermon was a forthright denunciation of sin, an austere

declaration of the motto on the wall behind him: he warned his flock

against the evils of heady brews, gambling, and strange women.

Bootleggers caused enough trouble in the Quarters, but women were

worse. Again, as I had often met it in my own church, I was confronted

with the Impurity of Women doctrine that seemed to preoccupy all

clergymen.



Jem and I had heard the same sermon Sunday after Sunday, with only

one exception. Reverend Sykes used his pulpit more freely to express

his views on individual lapses from grace: Jim Hardy had been absent

from church for five Sundays and he wasn't sick; Constance Jackson had

better watch her ways- she was in grave danger for quarreling with her

neighbors; she had erected the only spite fence in the history of

the Quarters.

Reverend Sykes closed his sermon. He stood beside a table in front

of the pulpit and requested the morning offering, a proceeding that

was strange to Jem and me. One by one, the congregation came forward

and dropped nickels and dimes into a black enameled coffee can. Jem

and I followed suit, and received a soft, "Thank you, thank you," as

our dimes clinked.

To our amazement, Reverend Sykes emptied the can onto the table

and raked the coins into his hand. He straightened up and said,

This is not enough, we must have ten dollars.

The congregation stirred. "You all know what it's for- Helen can't

leave those children to work while Tom's in jail. If everybody gives

one more dime, we'll have it-" Reverend Sykes waved his hand and

called to someone in the back of the church. "Alec, shut the doors.

Nobody leaves here till we have ten dollars."

Calpurnia scratched in her handbag and brought forth a battered

leather coin purse. "Naw Cal," Jem whispered, when she handed him a

shiny quarter, "we can put ours in. Gimme your dime, Scout."



The church was becoming stuffy, and it occurred to me that

Reverend Sykes intended to sweat the amount due out of his flock. Fans

crackled, feet shuffled, tobacco-chewers were in agony.

Reverend Sykes startled me by saying sternly, "Carlow Richardson,

I haven't seen you up this aisle yet."

A thin man in khaki pants came up the aisle and deposited a coin.

The congregation murmured approval.

Reverend Sykes then said, "I want all of you with no children to

make a sacrifice and give one more dime apiece. Then we'll have it."

Slowly, painfully, the ten dollars was collected. The door was

opened, and the gust of warm air revived us. Zeebo lined On

Jordan's Stormy Banks,¯ and church was over.



I wanted to stay and explore, but Calpurnia propelled me up the

aisle ahead of her. At the church door, while she paused to talk

with Zeebo and his family, Jem and I chatted with Reverend Sykes. I

was bursting with questions, but decided I would wait and let

Calpurnia answer them.

"We were 'specially glad to have you all here," said Reverend Sykes.

This church has no better friend than your daddy.

My curiosity burst: "Why were you all takin' up collection for Tom

Robinson's wife?"

"Didn't you hear why?" asked Reverend Sykes. "Helen's got three

little'uns and she can't go out to work-"

"Why can't she take 'em with her, Reverend?" I asked. It was

customary for field Negroes with tiny children to deposit them in

whatever shade there was while their parents worked- usually the

babies sat in the shade between two rows of cotton. Those unable to

sit were strapped papoose-style on their mothers' backs, or resided in

extra cotton bags.



Reverend Sykes hesitated. "To tell you the truth, Miss Jean

Louise, Helen's finding it hard to get work these days... when it's

picking time, I think Mr. Link Deas'll take her."

"Why not, Reverend?"

Before he could answer, I felt Calpurnia's hand on my shoulder. At

its pressure I said, "We thank you for lettin' us come." Jem echoed

me, and we made our way homeward.

"Cal, I know Tom Robinson's in jail an' he's done somethin' awful,

but why won't folks hire Helen?" I asked.

Calpurnia, in her navy voile dress and tub of a hat, walked

between Jem and me. "It's because of what folks say Tom's done," she

said. "Folks aren't anxious to- to have anything to do with any of his

family."



"Just what did he do, Cal?"

Calpurnia sighed. "Old Mr. Bob Ewell accused him of rapin' his

girl an' had him arrested an' put in jail-"

"Mr. Ewell?" My memory stirred. "Does he have anything to do with

those Ewells that come every first day of school an' then go home?

Why, Atticus said they were absolute trash- I never heard Atticus talk

about folks the way he talked about the Ewells. He said-"

"Yeah, those are the ones."

"Well, if everybody in Maycomb knows what kind of folks the Ewells

are they'd be glad to hire Helen... what's rape, Cal?"



"It's somethin' you'll have to ask Mr. Finch about," she said. "He

can explain it better than I can. You all hungry? The Reverend took

a long time unwindin' this morning, he's not usually so tedious."

"He's just like our preacher," said Jem, "but why do you all sing

hymns that way?"

"Linin'?" she asked.

"Is that what it is?"

"Yeah, it's called linin'. They've done it that way as long as I can

remember."



Jem said it looked like they could save the collection money for a

year and get some hymn-books.

Calpurnia laughed. "Wouldn't do any good," she said. "They can't

read."

"Can't read?" I asked. "All those folks?"

"That's right," Calpurnia nodded. "Can't but about four folks in

First Purchase read... I'm one of 'em."

"Where'd you go to school, Cal?" asked Jem.



"Nowhere. Let's see now, who taught me my letters? It was Miss

Maudie Atkinson's aunt, old Miss Buford-"

"Are you that¯ old?"

"I'm older than Mr. Finch, even." Calpurnia grinned. "Not sure how

much, though. We started rememberin' one time, trying to figure out

how old I was- I can remember back just a few years more'n he can,

so I'm not much older, when you take off the fact that men can't

remember as well as women."

"What's your birthday, Cal?"

"I just have it on Christmas, it's easier to remember that way- I

don't have a real birthday."



"But Cal," Jem protested, "you don't look even near as old as

Atticus."

"Colored folks don't show their ages so fast," she said.

"Maybe because they can't read. Cal, did you teach Zeebo?"

"Yeah, Mister Jem. There wasn't a school even when he was a boy. I

made him learn, though."

Zeebo was Calpurnia's eldest son. If I had ever thought about it,

I would have known that Calpurnia was of mature years- Zeebo had

half-grown children- but then I had never thought about it.



"Did you teach him out of a primer, like us?" I asked.

"No, I made him get a page of the Bible every day, and there was a

book Miss Buford taught me out of- bet you don't know where I got it,"

she said.

We didn't know.

Calpurnia said, "Your Granddaddy Finch gave it to me."

"Were you from the Landing?" Jem asked. "You never told us that."



"I certainly am, Mister Jem. Grew up down there between the Buford

Place and the Landin'. I've spent all my days workin' for the

Finches or the Bufords, an' I moved to Maycomb when your daddy and

your mamma married."

"What was the book, Cal?" I asked.

"Blackstone's Commentaries."¯

Jem was thunderstruck. "You mean you taught Zeebo outa that?"¯

"Why yes sir, Mister Jem." Calpurnia timidly put her fingers to

her mouth. "They were the only books I had. Your grandaddy said Mr.

Blackstone wrote fine English-"



"That's why you don't talk like the rest of 'em," said Jem.

"The rest of who?"

"Rest of the colored folks. Cal, but you talked like they did in

church...."

That Calpurnia led a modest double life never dawned on me. The idea

that she had a separate existence outside our household was a novel

one, to say nothing of her having command of two languages.

"Cal," I asked, "why do you talk nigger-talk to the- to your folks

when you know it's not right?"



"Well, in the first place I'm black-"

"That doesn't mean you hafta talk that way when you know better,"

said Jem.

Calpurnia tilted her hat and scratched her head, then pressed her

hat down carefully over her ears. "It's right hard to say," she

said. "Suppose you and Scout talked colored-folks' talk at home it'd

be out of place, wouldn't it? Now what if I talked white-folks' talk

at church, and with my neighbors? They'd think I was puttin' on airs

to beat Moses."

"But Cal, you know better," I said.

"It's not necessary to tell all you know. It's not ladylike- in

the second place, folks don't like to have somebody around knowin'

more than they do. It aggravates 'em. You're not gonna change any of

them by talkin' right, they've got to want to learn themselves, and

when they don't want to learn there's nothing you can do but keep your

mouth shut or talk their language."



"Cal, can I come to see you sometimes?"

She looked down at me. "See me, honey? You see me every day."

"Out to your house," I said. "Sometimes after work? Atticus can

get me."

"Any time you want to," she said. "We'd be glad to have you."

We were on the sidewalk by the Radley Place.



"Look on the porch yonder," Jem said.

I looked over to the Radley Place, expecting to see its phantom

occupant sunning himself in the swing. The swing was empty.

"I mean our porch," said Jem.

I looked down the street. Enarmored, upright, uncompromising, Aunt

Alexandra was sitting in a rocking chair exactly as if she had sat

there every day of her life.
Write the lyrics for a misc song made in 1960, titled "To Kill a Mockingbird - Chapter 12", by artist "Harper Lee".