Journal #4- Chapters 10-12 from the perspective of Jem

Well the word around school is that Atticus can’t do anything that other fathers would do. Like when I would go out and try to play football with him, I want to tackle him but he just says that he is too old. Well anyway Scout must have had the same feeling because she went to go talk to Ms. Maudie. She surprised me with the fact that Atticus can actually play checkers well. I laughed when I responded, but we beat him all the time. Scout pointed that out to Ms. Maudie too. Ms. Maudie just says that he lets us beat him. Well still checkers and football are two different things to be good at. Well anyway me and scout were walking down the road one day when I notice that Tim Johnson, the town mascot dog, was walking in some weird way. I had a hunch that he was sick or something so I went to go get Cal. When we got back to the house Cal just told me that I was imagining things. But after about half a minute she got curious and ran back with us. After she saw Tim, sirens went off in her head. She went around calling everyone saying that there was a mad dog on the loose. When she tried to call the Radley place there was no answer so she pounded on their door repeating the message a couple times. Soon when Tim was close to our street, the Sherriff and Atticus arrived. The Sherriff was holding a rifle. By the time the dog got in shooting range he was up near the Radley house. Tim seemed he would walk right into the Radley fence. Well I saw Atticus and the Sherriff argue about something but eventually Atticus laid down his glasses and held the rifle. He held it to his shoulder and almost immediately shot the gun. He apparently hit Tim and killed him. I was in shock. Not just about his accuracy but his quickness. When we asked Miss Maudie about the shooting later she said that Atticus was the deadliest shot in all of Maycomb. Well eventually Zeebo showed up and cleaned up the mess.
Well this morning I woke up and the money that I got from my birthday was just telling me to spend it. So me and scout walked down to the district quarter of the town and we always have to pass this one house unless we want to go a mile out of the way. That house belongs to Ms. Dobose. She is a mean old lady who always insults me and scout, along with Atticus. She never says it to his face though. Atticus just tells me that to keep my head held high and don’t let her get to me. So we pass her house and she makes and extremely rude comment about Atticus and I stop. Then she just keeps the insults coming while I stand there. I want to just go up to her and punch her in the face to make her quiet. Scout urges me on and I eventually get going. I buy a steam engine and shove it in my pocket. I also bought a baton for Scout because she wanted it really bad. Well on the way back we pass Ms. Dobose house and she isn’t on her porch and it reminds me of earlier that day. I suddenly become enraged and grabs scouts baton and starts to chop Ms. Dobose’s flowers. When I'm all done Scout looks at me with a petrified face and I snap the baton in half on my knee. I storm home. Then when Atticus comes home he knows what I did. He tells me to go apologize. On my way back Ms. Dobose tells me to her for a month as punishment. Then when I go read to her she is in a weird state and has a clock that goes off. When it does her nurse shoos us out. Then one day Atticus comes home and tells us that Ms. Dobose passed away. She left me a candy box with a petal of one of her flowers. I throw the box in the fire and go to my room.
It is finally summer. Cal decides to make us go to church. I am not that exited. But she gives us a hard wash and puts a whole bunch of starch in our clothes. Then she gets mad at me when I wear a tie that doesn’t match my suit. When we get to church some lady comes up to us torments Cal about bringing us white folks to a colored church. But she is the only one with that opinion. The reverend there thanks us for coming and everyone there seems to know Atticus. Cal’s son starts off the hyms without any book for us to follow with. Well anyway after we get home from church Aunt Alexandra is there.