To Kill A Mockingbird- Chapter 8

For some reason, instead of spending weeks under the sweltering heat; we had snow. Considering that Maycomb was a small town, this was something bizarre for the elders. They all saw the change in the weather as a calamity, and knew the kids were conspiring chaos with all their misbehaving.

Despite Mrs. Radley’s death, Scout and I wanted to have fun before time elapsed and the snow melted. When we interrogated Atticus and asked him about Boo Radley, his attitude shackled the spark of interest and curiosity that had settled in me. Miss Maudie agreed to give us all the snow from her backyard and continued to lionize her plants. She said if the cold weather continued, it was imminent that her flowers would soon die.

Scout and I started to build a snowman with a dirt base – Scout called it a nigger snowman– and then we covered it with snow. I was very meticulous because my goal was to create a snowman that would look like our neighbor Mr. Avery.  When we finished our sculpture, Atticus was in dissension about the similarities it had with Mr. Avery and he lectured me on how it could hurt his feelings.  We ended up by putting some of Miss Maudie’s clothes on our snowman but I am still confused.  Miss Maudie said it looked like a Morphodite – something that to this point I do not apprehend.

The day went by very quick and thanks to the cold weather, our snowman assimilated in Maycomb County. I woke up to Atticus’ voice, telling me to get up. I knew something had happened. We awoke Scout and headed outside. It was a fire at Miss Maudie’s place. Scout and I waited across the street and tried to keep warm while all our neighbors –including Mr. Nathan– helped move all the furniture from Miss Maudie’s burning house.

When we got back to our house, Atticus asked Scout where she had gotten that quilt from. I was scared. According to Atticus, Boo Radley probably covered Scout while we were watching the fire and the thought of Boo being so close to us really freaked me out.  Although I wanted to tell Scout how scared I was, I knew I had to keep my composure. I had to act like a man.

We slept until noon, cleaned up our yard and returned Miss Maudie’s things. I thought she was going to be depressed but she was as happy as any other day. Sometimes I really admire her –even though she is pretty crazy.