“Jean Louise,” she said, “I would like to remind you of a few facts of life. No”—Alexandra held out her hand for silence—“I’m quite sure you know those facts already, but there are a few things you in your wisecracking way don’t know, and bless goodness I’m going to tell you. You are as innocent as a new-laid egg for all your city living. Henry is not and never will be suitable for you. We Finches do not marry the children of rednecked white trash, which is exactly what Henry’s parents were when they were born and were all their lives. You can’t call them anything better. The only reason Henry’s like he is now is because your father took him in hand when he was a boy, and because the war came along and paid for his education. Fine a boy as he is, the trash won’t wash out of him.
“Have you ever noticed how he licks his fingers when he eats cake? Trash. Have you ever seen him cough without covering his mouth? Trash. Did you know he got a girl in trouble at the University? Trash. Have you ever watched him pick at his nose when he didn’t think anybody was looking? Trash—”
“That’s not the trash in him, that’s the man in him, Aunty,” she said mildly. Inwardly, she was seething. Give her a few more minutes and she’ll have worked herself into a good humor again. She can never be vulgar, as I am about to be. She can never be common, like Hank and me. I don’t know what she is, but she better lay off or I’ll give her something to think about—
“—and to top it all, he thinks he can make a place for himself in this town riding on your father’s coattails. The very idea, trying to take your father’s place in the Methodist Church, trying to take over his law practice, driving all around the country in his car. Why, he acts like this house was his own already, and what does Atticus do? He takes it, that’s what he does. Takes it and loves it. Why, all of Maycomb’s talking about Henry Clinton grabbing everything Atticus has—”
Jean Louise stopped running her fingers around the lip of a wet cup on the sink. She flicked a drop of water off her finger onto the floor and rubbed it into the linoleum with her shoe.
“Aunty,” she said, cordially, “why don’t you go pee in your hat?”
THE RITUAL ENACTED on Saturday nights between Jean Louise and her father was too old to be broken. Jean Louise walked into the livingroom and stood in front of his chair. She cleared her throat.
Atticus put down the Mobile Press and looked at her. She turned around slowly.
“Am I all zipped up? Stocking seams straight? Is my cowlick down?”
“Seven o’clock and all’s well,” said Atticus. “You’ve been swearing at your aunt.”
“I have not.”
“She told me you had.”
“I was crude, but I didn’t cuss her.” When Jean Louise and her brother were children, Atticus had occasionally drawn them a sharp distinction between mere scatology and blasphemy. The one he could abide; he hated dragging God into it. As a result, Jean Louise and her brother never swore in his presence.
“She got my goat, Atticus.”
“You shouldn’t have let her. What did you say to her?”
Jean Louise told him. Atticus winced. “Well, you’d better make peace with her. Sweet, she gets on a high horse sometimes, but she’s a good woman—”
“It was about Hank and she made me mad.”
Atticus was a wise man, so he dropped the subject.
The Finch doorbell was a mystical instrument; it was possible to tell the state of mind of whoever pushed it. When it said deeding! Jean Louise knew Henry was outside bearing down happily. She hurried to the door.
The pleasant, remotely masculine smell of him hit her when he walked into the hall, but shaving cream, tobacco, new car, and dusty books faded at the memory of the conversation in the kitchen. Suddenly she put her arms around his waist and nuzzled her head on his chest.
“What was that for?” said Henry delightedly.
“General Principles, who fought in the Peninsular War. Let’s get going.”
Henry peered around the corner at Atticus in the livingroom. “I’ll bring her home early, Mr. Finch.” Atticus jiggled the paper at him.
When they walked out into the night, Jean Louise wondered what Alexandra would do if she knew her niece was closer to marrying trash than she had ever been in her life.
PART II
4
THE TOWN OF Maycomb, Alabama, owed its location to the presence of mind of one Sinkfield, who in the early dawnings of the county operated an inn where two pig trails met, the only tavern in the territory. Governor William Wyatt Bibb, with a view to promoting the domestic tranquillity of the new county, sent out a team of surveyors to locate its exact center and there establish its seat of government: had not Sinkfield made a bold stroke to preserve his holdings, Maycomb would have sat in the middle of Winston Swamp, a place totally devoid of interest.
Instead, Maycomb grew and sprawled out from its hub, Sinkfield’s Tavern, because Sinkfield made the surveyors drunk one evening, induced them to bring forward their maps and charts, lop off a little here, add a bit there, and adjust the center of the county to meet his requirements. He sent them packing the next day armed with their charts and five quarts of shinny in their saddlebags—two apiece and one for the Governor.