Journal #1- Chapters 4-(6)7 from the perspective of Dill

Summer comes back quickly and I came back to mayflower for another couple months. Me, Jem, and Scout begin to play our fun games again. One of the first games that we play, is where we roll one other inside this old tire. When it was Scout’s turn, she rolled right up to Boo’s front steps. Jem and Scout start to panic. Although, Jem seems to be thinking up a new game at this time. He calls this new game “Boo Radley”. As the summer goes on, our games became more and more complicated. Until we are acting out the whole Radley family melodrama. Eventually, Atticus catches up to us and asks us if the games we were playing had anything to do with the Radley’s. Jem evaded and lied by says no. And Atticus goes back into the house. It was a unanimous question, if it’s safe to play the games anymore.

Jem and I start to grow closer and I can tell that Scout starts to feel left out. In reaction she befriends one of her neighbors, Miss Maudie Atkinson. She is a chameleon widow with a talent for gardening and baking cakes. She was also a friend of Atticus’s brother, Jack. She tells scout that Boo Radley is still alive and that her theory is he is a victim of a tormented father (who is dead now), and also a “foot-washing” Baptist who believed that most people are going to hell. She adds that Boo was always polite and friendly as a child. She says that most of the rumors are false but if he wasn't crazy then, he is now. Meanwhile me and Jem plan to give Boo a note, inviting him to go get some ice-cream with us. We try to stick the note in the window of the house but Atticus catches us and tells us to stop bothering Boo, with the notes or the game that we play.

Me and Jem obey Atticus till the last day I stay in Maycomb. We plan to sneak over to the Radley place and peer through a window. Scout comes with us and we peer through different windows. Suddenly we see a shadow of a man with a hat on. We start to run and hear a shotgun go off behind us. Jem was unfortunate and gets his pants stuck in the fence. Scared for his life he just takes them off and keeps running. We return home and some of the adults are having gossip about what just happened. Apparently, Boo shot a “negro” outside his house. Then Atticus asks where Jem’s pants were and I quickly reply that he lost them to me in a game of strip poker. Then Ms. Rachel went off like a siren. She was screaming about how I was gambling by her fishpool. Atticus saved me by asking us again. Jem teetered a bit then had the guts to tell him we were just playing with matches. We slowly walked back to my house. We talked all the way back. When we got to the house, I went in stood there for a sec, and then remembered that scout and I were “engaged”. Went back and kissed her. Then I told them to write to me while I was away.