To Kill A Mockingbird Journal One

To Kill A Mockingbird

Journal #1

Chapters 1-3

Perspective of Calpurnia

I don't know what I am to do with that girl. Always shooting her mouth of and not caring what comes out. That poor child, Walter, probably hadn't eaten a full meal that year. He had been comfortable at that table until Scout condescended him to drenching his meal in syrup. I had to drag her into the kitchen and give her a lesson on courtesy. I told her Walter was our company and it wasn't her position to be intimidating him and remarking on his ways like she was to be determining what was right and wrong. I knew she thought malevolent thoughts of me then, but disgracin' and embarrassin' him like that was not acceptable. After that I made her go and get her plate from the table, sending her out with a smack, to prevent her to doing any more damage to that boy's esteem.

I had hoped that spending the summer with that proper boy, Dill, would have taught her a few manners. There for the summer he stayed with Ms. Rachel Haverford, his aunt. But the eccentric boy got Jem into running onto the Radley's property. Thank heavens he didn't get caught; those Radleys are a suspicious bunch, but what with all that gossip about them no one knows what to believe. Now that Dill has gone back to Mississippi I am hoping that Scout and Jem will mellow out as the school year progresses.

Unfortunately Scout's been having some trouble already. Smacked by the teacher and sent in the corner on the first day, I'm concerned for what she might get into the rest of the year. I overheard she and Mr. Atticus talking that evening. The teacher, Ms. Caroline, seems to be discouraging her from readin' and writin'. That irked me; the teacher has no right to be telling her not to read and write. Is it not the teacher who is to be teaching, not the one to be removing what children have learned? Here's to hopin' for that girl, and to hoping for the rest of that broken family.