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you, didn’t they?”
Atticus lowered the paper and gazed at Jem. “What have you been reading?”
he asked. Then he said gently, “No son, those were our friends.”
“It wasn’t a—a gang?” Jem was looking from the corners of his eyes.
Atticus tried to stifle a smile but didn’t make it. “No, we don’t have mobs and
that nonsense in Maycomb. I’ve never heard of a gang in Maycomb.”
“Ku Klux got after some Catholics one time.”
“Never heard of any Catholics in Maycomb either,” said Atticus, “you’re
confusing that with something else. Way back about nineteen-twenty there was a
Klan, but it was a political organization more than anything. Besides, they
couldn’t find anybody to scare. They paraded by Mr. Sam Levy’s house one
night, but Sam just stood on his porch and told ‘em things had come to a pretty
pass, he’d sold ’em the very sheets on their backs. Sam made ‘em so ashamed of
themselves they went away.”
The Levy family met all criteria for being Fine Folks: they did the best they
could with the sense they had, and they had been living on the same plot of
ground in Maycomb for five generations.
“The Ku Klux’s gone,” said Atticus. “It’ll never come back.”
I walked home with Dill and returned in time to overhear Atticus saying to
Aunty, “. . . in favor of Southern womanhood as much as anybody, but not for
preserving polite fiction at the expense of human life,” a pronouncement that
made me suspect they had been fussing again.
I sought Jem and found him in his room, on the bed deep in thought. “Have
they been at it?” I asked.
“Sort of. She won’t let him alone about Tom Robinson. She almost said
Atticus was disgracin‘ the family. Scout . . . I’m scared.”
“Scared’a what?”
“Scared about Atticus. Somebody might hurt him.” Jem preferred to remain
mysterious; all he would say to my questions was go on and leave him alone.
Next day was Sunday. In the interval between Sunday School and Church
when the congregation stretched its legs, I saw Atticus standing in the yard with
another knot of men. Mr. Heck Tate was present, and I wondered if he had seen
the light. He never went to church. Even Mr. Underwood was there. Mr.
Underwood had no use for any organization but The Maycomb Tribune, of
which he was the sole owner, editor, and printer. His days were spent at his