The idea had been in the back of her mind for a long time, but she recoiled from it instinctively: the suggestion of a final separation was unbearable to her, but she knew that a day would come when there would be no putting off, no concealment. Although her relations with Atticus and Jem had reached their lowest ebb (“You’re downright addled these days, Jean Louise,” her father had said. “Can’t you concentrate on anything five minutes?”), the thought of any existence without them, no matter how nice heaven was, was untenable. But being sent to Mobile and causing her family to live thereafter with bowed heads was worse: she didn’t even wish that on Alexandra.
According to her calculations, the baby would come with October, and on the thirtieth day of September she would kill herself.
AUTUMN COMES LATE in Alabama. On Halloween, even, one may hide porch chairs unencumbered by one’s heavy coat. Twilights are long, but darkness comes suddenly; the sky turns from dull orange to blue-black before one can take five steps, and with the light goes the last ray of the day’s heat, leaving livingroom weather.
Autumn was her happiest season. There was an expectancy about its sounds and shapes: the distant thunk pomp of leather and young bodies on the practice field near her house made her think of bands and cold Coca-Colas, parched peanuts and the sight of people’s breath in the air. There was even something to look forward to when school started—renewals of old feuds and friendships, weeks of learning again what one half forgot in the long summer. Fall was hot-supper time with everything to eat one missed in the morning when too sleepy to enjoy it. Her world was at its best when her time came to leave it.
She was now twelve and in the seventh grade. Her capacity to savor the change from grammar school was limited; she did not revel in going to different classrooms during the day and being taught by different teachers, nor in knowing that she had a hero for a brother somewhere in the remote senior school. Atticus was away in Montgomery in the legislature, Jem might as well have been with him for all she saw of him.
On the thirtieth of September she sat through school and learned nothing. After classes, she went to the library and stayed until the janitor came in and told her to leave. She walked to town slowly, to be with it as long as possible. Daylight was fading when she walked across the old sawmill tracks to the ice-house. Theodore the ice-man said hey to her as she passed, and she walked down the street and looked back at him until he went inside.
The town water-tank was in a field by the ice-house. It was the tallest thing she had ever seen. A tiny ladder ran from the ground to a small porch encircling the tank.
She threw down her books and began climbing. When she had climbed higher than the chinaberry trees in her back yard she looked down, was dizzy, and looked up the rest of the way.
All of Maycomb was beneath her. She thought she could see her house: Calpurnia would be making biscuits, before long Jem would be coming in from football practice. She looked across the square and was sure she saw Henry Clinton come out of the Jitney Jungle carrying an armload of groceries. He put them in the back seat of someone’s car. All the streetlights came on at once, and she smiled with sudden delight.
She sat on the narrow porch and dangled her feet over the side. She lost one shoe, then the other. She wondered what kind of funeral she would have: old Mrs. Duff would sit up all night and make people sign a book. Would Jem cry? If so, it would be the first time.
She wondered if she should do a swan dive or just slip off the edge. If she hit the ground on her back perhaps it would not hurt so much. She wondered if they would ever know how much she loved them.
Someone grabbed her. She stiffened when she felt hands pinning her arms to her sides. They were Henry’s, stained green from vegetables. Wordlessly he pulled her to her feet and propelled her down the steep ladder.
When they reached the bottom, Henry jerked her hair: “I swear to God if I don’t tell Mr. Finch on you this time!” he bawled. “I swear, Scout! Haven’t you got any sense playing on this tank? You might have killed yourself!”
He pulled her hair again, taking some with him: he shook her; he unwound his white apron, rolled it into a wad, and threw it viciously at the ground. “Don’t you know you could’ve killed yourself. Haven’t you got any sense?”
Jean Louise stared blankly at him.
“Theodore saw you up yonder and ran for Mr. Finch, and when he couldn’t find him he got me. God Almighty—!”
When he saw her trembling he knew she had not been playing. He took her lightly by the back of the neck; on the way home he tried to find out what was bothering her, but she would say nothing. He left her in the livingroom and went to the kitchen.
“Baby, what have you been doing?”
When speaking to her, Calpurnia’s voice was always a mixture of grudging affection and mild disapproval. “Mr. Hank,” she said. “You better go back to the store. Mr. Fred’ll be wondering what happened to you.”
Calpurnia, resolutely chewing on a sweetgum stick, looked down at Jean Louise. “What have you been up to?” she said. “What were you doing on that water-tank?”
Jean Louise was still.
“If you tell me I won’t tell Mr. Finch. What’s got you so upset, baby?”