Something in Dr. Finch’s eyes told Herbert that this was a joke. He laughed and said, “Don’t worry, sir.”
Dr. Finch walked his niece to the car, where Atticus and Alexandra were waiting. “Want a lift?” she said.
“Of course not,” said Dr. Finch. It was his habit to walk to and from church every Sunday, and this he did, undeterred by tempests, boiling sun, or freezing weather.
As he turned to go, Jean Louise called to him. “Uncle Jack,” she said. “What does D.V. mean?”
Dr. Finch sighed his you-have-no-education-young-woman sigh, raised his eyebrows, and said: “Deo volente. ‘God willin’,’ child. ‘God willin’.’ A reliable Catholic utterance.”
8
WITH THE SAME suddenness that a barbarous boy yanks the larva of an ant lion from its hole to leave it struggling in the sun, Jean Louise was snatched from her quiet realm and left alone to protect her sensitive epidermis as best she could, on a humid Sunday afternoon at precisely 2:28 P.M. The circumstances leading to the event were these:
After dinner, at which time Jean Louise regaled her household with Dr. Finch’s observations on stylish hymn-singing, Atticus sat in his corner of the livingroom reading the Sunday papers, and Jean Louise was looking forward to an afternoon’s hilarity with her uncle, complete with teacakes and the strongest coffee in Maycomb.
The doorbell rang. She heard Atticus call, “Come in!” and Henry’s voice answer him, “Ready, Mr. Finch?”
She threw down the dishtowel; before she could leave the kitchen Henry stuck his head in the door and said, “Hey.”
Alexandra pinned him to the wall in no time flat: “Henry Clinton, you ought to be ashamed of yourself.”
Henry, whose charms were not inconsiderable, turned them full force on Alexandra, who showed no signs of melting. “Now, Miss Alexandra,” he said. “You can’t stay mad with us long even if you try.”
Alexandra said, “I got you two out of it this time, but I may not be around next time.”
“Miss Alexandra, we appreciate that more than anything.” He turned to Jean Louise. “Seven-thirty tonight and no Landing. We’ll go to the show.”
“Okay. Where’re you all going?”
“Courthouse. Meeting.”
“On Sunday?”
“Yep.”
“That’s right, I keep forgetting all the politicking’s done on Sunday in these parts.”
Atticus called for Henry to come on. “Bye, baby,” he said.
Jean Louise followed him into the livingroom. When the front door slammed behind her father and Henry, she went to her father’s chair to tidy up the papers he had left on the floor beside it. She picked them up, arranged them in sectional order, and put them on the sofa in a neat pile. She crossed the room again to straighten the stack of books on his lamp table, and was doing so when a pamphlet the size of a business envelope caught her eye.
On its cover was a drawing of an anthropophagous Negro; above the drawing was printed The Black Plague. Its author was somebody with several academic degrees after his name. She opened the pamphlet, sat down in her father’s chair, and began reading. When she had finished, she took the pamphlet by one of its corners, held it like she would hold a dead rat by the tail, and walked into the kitchen. She held the pamphlet in front of her aunt.
“What is this thing?” she said.
Alexandra looked over her glasses at it. “Something of your father’s.”
Jean Louise stepped on the garbage can trigger and threw the pamphlet in.
“Don’t do that,” said Alexandra. “They’re hard to come by these days.”
Jean Louise opened her mouth, shut it, and opened it again. “Aunty, have you read that thing? Do you know what’s in it?”
“Certainly.”
If Alexandra had uttered an obscenity in her face, Jean Louise would have been less surprised.
“You—Aunty, do you know the stuff in that thing makes Dr. Goebbels look like a naive little country boy?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Jean Louise. There are a lot of truths in that book.”
“Yes indeedy,” said Jean Louise wryly. “I especially liked the part where the Negroes, bless their hearts, couldn’t help being inferior to the white race because their skulls are thicker and their brain-pans shallower—whatever that means—so we must all be very kind to them and not let them do anything to hurt themselves and keep them in their places. Good God, Aunty—”
Alexandra was ramrod straight. “Well?” she said.
Jean Louise said, “It’s just that I never knew you went in for salacious reading material, Aunty.”
Her aunt was silent, and Jean Louise continued: “I was real impressed with the parable where since the dawn of history the rulers of the world have always been white, except Genghis Khan or somebody—the author was real fair about that—and he made a killin’ point about even the Pharaohs were white and their subjects were either black or Jews—”
“That’s true, isn’t it?”
“Sure, but what’s that got to do with the case?”
When Jean Louise felt apprehensive, expectant, or on edge, especially when confronting her aunt, her brain clicked to the meter of Gilbertian tomfoolery. Three sprightly figures whirled madly in her head—hours filled with Uncle Jack and Dill dancing to preposterous measures blacked out the coming of tomorrow with tomorrow’s troubles.