The hunting club had kept the steps in decent repair, and used the jetty as a dock for their boats. They were lazy men; it was easier to drift downstream and row over to Winston Swamp than to thrash through underbrush and pine slashes. Farther downstream, beyond the bluff, were traces of the old cotton landing where Finch Negroes loaded bales and produce, and unloaded blocks of ice, flour and sugar, farm equipment, and ladies’ things. Finch’s Landing was used only by travelers: the steps gave the ladies an excellent excuse to swoon; their luggage was left at the cotton landing—to debark there in front of the Negroes was unthinkable.
“Think they’re safe?”
Henry said, “Sure. The club keeps ’em up. We’re trespassing, you know.”
“Trespassing, hell. I’d like to see the day when a Finch can’t walk over his own land.” She paused. “What do you mean?”
“They sold the last of it five months ago.”
Jean Louise said, “They didn’t say word one to me about it.”
The tone of her voice made Henry stop. “You don’t care, do you?”
“No, not really. I just wish they’d told me.”
Henry was not convinced. “For heaven’s sake, Jean Louise, what good was it to Mr. Finch and them?”
“None whatever, with taxes and things. I just wish they’d told me. I don’t like surprises.”
Henry laughed. He stooped down and brought up a handful of gray sand. “Going Southern on us? Want me to do a Gerald O’Hara?”
“Quit it, Hank.” Her voice was pleasant.
Henry said, “I believe you are the worst of the lot. Mr. Finch is seventy-two years young and you’re a hundred years old when it comes to something like this.”
“I just don’t like my world disturbed without some warning. Let’s go down to the landing.”
“You up to it?”
“I can beat you down any day.”
They raced to the steps. When Jean Louise started the swift descent her fingers brushed cold metal. She stopped. They had put an iron-pipe railing on the steps since last year. Hank was too far ahead to catch, but she tried.
When she reached the landing, out of breath, Henry was already sprawled out on the boards. “Careful of the tar, hon,” he said.
“I’m getting old,” she said.
They smoked in silence. Henry put his arm under her neck and occasionally turned and kissed her. She looked at the sky. “You can almost reach up and touch it, it’s so low.”
Henry said, “Were you serious a minute ago when you said you didn’t like your world disturbed?”
“Hm?” She did not know. She supposed she was. She tried to explain: “It’s just that every time I’ve come home for the past five years—before that, even. From college—something’s changed a little more …”
“—and you’re not sure you like it, eh?” Henry was grinning in the moonlight and she could see him.
She sat up. “I don’t know if I can tell you, honey. When you live in New York, you often have the feeling that New York’s not the world. I mean this: every time I come home, I feel like I’m coming back to the world, and when I leave Maycomb it’s like leaving the world. It’s silly. I can’t explain it, and what makes it sillier is that I’d go stark raving living in Maycomb.”
Henry said, “You wouldn’t, you know. I don’t mean to press you for an answer—don’t move—but you’ve got to make up your mind to one thing, Jean Louise. You’re gonna see change, you’re gonna see Maycomb change its face completely in our lifetime. Your trouble, now, you want to have your cake and eat it: you want to stop the clock, but you can’t. Sooner or later you’ll have to decide whether it’s Maycomb or New York.”
He so nearly understood. I’ll marry you, Hank, if you bring me to live here at the Landing. I’ll swap New York for this place but not for Maycomb.
She looked out at the river. The Maycomb County side was high bluffs; Abbott County was flat. When it rained the river overflowed and one could row a boat over cotton fields. She looked upstream. The Canoe Fight was up there, she thought. Sam Dale fit the Indians and Red Eagle jumped off the bluff.
And then he thinks he knows
The hills where his life rose,
And the Sea where it goes.
“Did you say something?” said Henry.
“Nothing. Just being romantic,” she said. “By the way, Aunty doesn’t approve of you.”
“I’ve known that all my life. Do you?”
“Yep.”
“Then marry me.”
“Make me an offer.”
Henry got up and sat beside her. They dangled their feet over the edge of the landing. “Where are my shoes?” she said suddenly.
“Back by the car where you kicked ’em off. Jean Louise, I can support us both now. I can keep us well in a few years if things keep on booming. The South’s the land of opportunity now. There’s enough money right here in Maycomb County to sink a—how would you like to have a husband in the legislature?”
Jean Louise was surprised. “You running?”
“I’m thinking about it.”
“Against the machine?”
“Yep. It’s about ready to fall of its own weight, and if I get in on the ground floor …”
“Decent government in Maycomb County’d be such a shock I don’t think the citizens could stand it,” she said. “What does Atticus think?”
“He thinks the time is ripe.”
“You won’t have it as easy as he did.” Her father, after making his initial campaign, served in the state legislature for as long as he wished, without opposition. He was unique in the history of the county: no machines opposed Atticus Finch, no machines supported him, and no one ran against him. After he retired, the machine gobbled up the one independent office left.
“No, but I can give ’em a run for their money. The Courthouse Crowd are pretty well asleep at the switch now, and a hard campaign might just beat ’em.”
“Baby, you won’t have a helpmate,” she said. “Politics bores me to distraction.”
“Anyway, you won’t campaign against me. That’s a relief in itself.”
“A rising young man, aren’t you? Why didn’t you tell me you were Man of the Year?”
“I was afraid you’d laugh,” Henry said.