Journal #2
Chapter 4-7
Perspective of Dill
It is one heck of a relief to be away from my parents back in Meridian. I’ve been anticipating this summer all year! This is because during the summers I get to stay with my ant Rachael in Maycomb. I wasn’t necessarily exited to see my ant Rachael, but because I finally get a chance to play with my friends, Scout and Jem. On my train ride to Maycomb, I had a mighty strange ride. This year I Rhode the train from my home town Meridian, all the way to Maycomb. Considering I was all alone on the train, it was an awkward ride. There were homeless people ridding on the train, and what bothered me about this was that they were always asking everyone around them for money. I thought is was very strange how they teetered back and forth. This was not a real unusual sight, I had seen them all the time on the side of the street and all, but I had never truly realized the disparity of their situation until I seen it from a different perspective. While on the train, I tried my best to evade any eye contact with them.
I had departed from the train station to meet Ms. Rachael. From the station we took the Mycomb town taxi cab. The only taxi in town. Nonetheless, we took the taxi to a dinner. From there we went home.
When I had gotten home to Ms. Rachael’s, I was greeted by Scout and Jem. Boy was I glade to see them. I had told them that I had seen a pair of conjoined twins on the train, but they refused to believe my lie. To impress them I said my father was the president of the L&N Railroad, and because of that fact, I got to help engineer the train. They really didn’t believe that. We then used an old tire Scout got from the backyard, and decided we‘d take turns rolling in it. Scout was the first to go into the tire. Scout signaled us the Ok to start pushing. We pushed with all our might and got the tire moving. We kept pushing it until it had picked up speed. It was not until Scout was about 100 feet away when we noticed where she was headed. The Radley House!
We ran and watched as she crashed into the gate. We ran towards the house and yelled for her to get the tire and get out of their. Soon after the tire incident, we had an idea for a mighty fun game. The game was called, “Boo Radley” In the game, we would pretend to be a member of the Radley family and reenact all of the events that have occurred in the house. As our summer progressed, our game grew more complex. Eventually, I came up with a great plan. The plan was to make Boo Radley come out of his house. We wrote a note politely asking him to come out, but we had to figure out a away to deliver it o him. We took a fishing pole, and attached the note to the tip of the hook, and then thought we could slip is through one of the shutter by the window. After we had our plan, we rushed over to the Radley house and put our plan into action. We tried countless time to try to place the note through the blinds by the window ceil but we didn’t have any luck. Atticus discovered what we were doing and said for us to stop. He wanted us to stop altogether “tormenting that man”. Our fun seemed over.
We obeyed Atticuses orders until my last day in Maycomb. It was then we decided we wanted to see Boo Radley for ourselves. The plan we had devised was to at night, sneak our of the house, cross over the Radley fence, and look through the window for Boo Radley. We snuck our late at night, and went over the fence. We crept silently through the garden, until we reached to porch. We were on the back porch of the house, almost to the window when we saw a long shadow of a man in a hat. We were scared stiff. Then, after what seemed like an eternity of waiting, we heard the shadow fire a shot. The shadow seemed to blend into the darkness, like a chameleon. That was it. As soon as we heard the shoot we bolted straight for the fence.
It wasn’t until later when we saw all of the adults in a group down the street. The grown-ups were talking about how Mr. Nathan Radley had shot a Negro. It was then we had realized what had happened. Mr.Radley saw us and thought we were Negros so he shot. Atticus noticed Jem wasn’t wearing any pants. They had been caught on the fence when we had rushed under it. We mad up a sad excuse about how I won them from him in a game of strip poker. Atticus and the rest of the adults barley believed the story, and at that they were a bit saddened by the very thought of children playing such a game. Jem latter was quibbling on about random subject while Atticus would dismissed them trying to get at the truth of the matter.
That was my last day in Maycomb that summer, after that, the next day I went on the train back to Meridian.