Journal # 3- Chapters 8-9

Atticus

Poor Ms. Radley died this winter. I went over to see what had happened but it looked as if nothing had changed. I asked Mr. Radley how she died and he told me it was of natural causes. I came home that day and I could see that my kids had something to say. I could almost tell what they were thinking. I was almost sure they believed that Aurthur Radley had killed his own mother. Ever sense that night last summer when the gun went off at the Radley's I was suspicious about what had really gone on. I think that this town should just leave them alone and I am trying to teach my children that.

This has been the coldest winter we had had in a really long time. school was canceled and Scout and Jem decided to make a snowman. I was very busy with the case I was working on so I couldn't stay home and watch them, but they did show me once I got home. When I first looked at the snow man I didn't notice the resemblance but with the second look I could see that it was exactly like Mr. Avery. I was sure they did this on purpose and I must admit it did make me laugh some. I told them to get rid of some of the belly. That night was very cold. I had just checked on my children when I saw the sky outside turn reddish and cloudy, I looked outside and saw that Miss Maudie's beautiful garden was on fire and so was the first story of her house. I could see that the wind was blowing in our direction, so I knew we had to leave. I walked calmly into the hall accepting that there was a fire and I got Jem up. Then we walked into Scouts room. She looked so peaceful sleeping; I didn't want to wake her up. I did, and I could tell that she didn't realize it wasn't morning. We walked outside in the freezing cold, I told Scout and Jem to stand by the Radley's gate and wait for me while I helped. I felt bad about leaving them in the cold. We rescued some of Miss Maudie's furniture and the fire didn't quite reach our house. Miss Maudie didn't seem to shaken up so we went back to the house and made hot chocolate. We will be going to Finches landing soon...I hope Scout can get along with her cousin Francis.

I had recently told Scout to stop all of her fighting but I guess she just can't help it. It happened after Christmas dinner. Us adults were just sitting around talking when we heard Francis yelling that Scout had locked him in the old kitchen. We just left that be. But then about 5 minutes later we heard Francis yelling and crying. Then we all ran outside and Francis said that Scout called him a whore-lady then punched him in the face. This disappointed me very much, we just had a talk about all of her cussin'. I took her home after she shouted at uncle Jack that she hated him. Later Uncle Jack came to talk to her about it. I didn't know what they were talking about but Scout seemed like she felt better afterwards. Then me an' Jack had a talk about what had happened and about how people are going to start talking about me when the trail starts and how I wanted Scout to trust me and not listen to the folks in town. I knew that she was listening to us the whole time but I didn't let her know that.
"Jean Louise...go to bed" I hoped she understood everything that I had said.