Atticus pursued the case to its conclusion with every spark of his ability and with an instinctive distaste so bitter only his knowledge that he could live peacefully with himself was able to wash it away. After the verdict, he walked out of the courtroom in the middle of the day, walked home, and took a steaming bath. He never counted what it cost him; he never looked back. He never knew two pairs of eyes like his own were watching him from the balcony.
… not the question of whether snot-nosed niggers will go to school with your children or ride the front of the bus … it’s whether Christian civilization will continue to be or whether we will be slaves of the Communists … nigger lawyers … stomped on the Constitution … our Jewish friends … killed Jesus … voted the nigger … our granddaddies … nigger judges and sheriffs … separate is equal … ninety-five per cent of the tax money … for the nigger and the old hound dog … following the golden calf … preach the Gospel … old lady Roosevelt … nigger-lover … entertains forty-five niggers but not one fresh white Southern virgin … Huey Long, that Christian gentleman … black as burnt light’ud knots … bribed the Supreme Court … decent white Christians … was Jesus crucified for the nigger …
Jean Louise’s hand slipped. She removed it from the balcony railing and looked at it. It was dripping wet. A wet place on the railing mirrored thin light coming through the upper windows. She stared at her father sitting to the right of Mr. O’Hanlon, and she did not believe what she saw. She stared at Henry sitting to the left of Mr. O’Hanlon, and she did not believe what she saw …
… but they were sitting all over the courtroom. Men of substance and character, responsible men, good men. Men of all varieties and reputations … it seemed that the only man in the county not present was Uncle Jack. Uncle Jack—she was supposed to go see him sometime. When?
She knew little of the affairs of men, but she knew that her father’s presence at the table with a man who spewed filth from his mouth—did that make it less filthy? No. It condoned.
She felt sick. Her stomach shut, she began to tremble.
Hank.
Every nerve in her body shrieked, then died. She was numb.
She pulled herself to her feet clumsily, and stumbled from the balcony down the covered staircase. She did not hear her feet scraping down the broad stairs, or the courthouse clock laboriously strike two-thirty; she did not feel the dank air of the first floor.
The glaring sun pierced her eyes with pain, and she put her hands to her face. When she took them down slowly to adjust her eyes from dark to light, she saw Maycomb with no people in it, shimmering in the steaming afternoon.
She walked down the steps and into the shade of a live oak. She put her arm out and leaned against the trunk. She looked at Maycomb, and her throat tightened: Maycomb was looking back at her.
Go away, the old buildings said. There is no place for you here. You are not wanted. We have secrets.
In obedience to them, in the silent heat she walked down Maycomb’s main thoroughfare, a highway leading to Montgomery. She walked on, past houses with wide front yards in which moved green-thumbed ladies and slow large men. She thought she heard Mrs. Wheeler yelling to Miss Maudie Atkinson across the street, and if Miss Maudie saw her she would say come in and have some cake, I’ve just made a big one for the Doctor and a little one for you. She counted the cracks in the sidewalk, steeled herself for Mrs. Henry Lafayette Dubose’s onslaught—Don’t you say hey to me, Jean Louise Finch, you say good afternoon!—hurried by the old steep-roofed house, past Miss Rachel’s, and found herself home.
HOME-MADE ICE CREAM.
She blinked hard. I’m losing my mind, she thought.
She tried to walk on but it was too late. The square, squat, modern ice cream shop where her old home had been was open, and a man was peering out the window at her. She dug in the pockets of her slacks and came up with a quarter.
“Could I have a cone of vanilla, please?”
“Don’t come in cones no more. I can give you a—”
“That’s all right. Give me whatever it comes in,” she said to the man.
“Jean Louise Finch, ain’tcha?” he said.
“Yes.”
“Used to live right here, didn’tcha?”
“Yes.”
“Matter of fact, born here, weren’tcha?”
“Yes.”
“Been livin’ in New York, haven’tcha?”
“Yes.”
“Maycomb’s changed, ain’t it?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t remember who I am, do you?”
“No.”
“Well I ain’t gonna tell you. You can just sit there and eat your ice cream and try to figure out who I am, and if you can I’ll give you another helpin’ free of charge.”
“Thank you sir,” she said. “Do you mind if I go around in the back—”
“Sure. There’s tables and chairs out in the back. Folks set out there at night and eat their ice cream.”
The back yard was strewn over with white gravel. How small it looks with no house, no carhouse, no chinaberry trees, she thought. She sat down at a table and put the container of ice cream on it. I’ve got to think.
It happened so quickly that her stomach was still heaving. She breathed deeply to quieten it, but it would not stay still. She felt herself turning green with nausea, and she put her head down; try as she might she could not think, she only knew, and what she knew was this:
The one human being she had ever fully and wholeheartedly trusted had failed her; the only man she had ever known to whom she could point and say with expert knowledge, “He is a gentleman, in his heart he is a gentleman,” had betrayed her, publicly, grossly, and shamelessly.
9
INTEGRITY, HUMOR, AND patience were the three words for Atticus Finch. There was also a phrase for him: pick at random any citizen from Maycomb County and its environs, ask him what he thought of Atticus Finch, and the answer would most likely be, “I never had a better friend.”
Atticus Finch’s secret of living was so simple it was deeply complex: where most men had codes and tried to live up to them, Atticus lived his to the letter with no fuss, no fanfare, and no soul-searching. His private character was his public character. His code was simple New Testament ethic, its rewards were the respect and devotion of all who knew him. Even his enemies loved him, because Atticus never acknowledged that they were his enemies. He was never a rich man, but he was the richest man his children ever knew.