The kids don't really know what they're getting into when
they cross the street and join Atticus and the other men gathered in fron of the jail.
It's a mob--a very subtle mob, but a mob nonetheless. A very tense Atticus tries to
send them home, but they're not budging. Then Scout sees Mr. Cunningham, Walter's dad
and Atticus's client. Scout sees an opportunity to practice what Atticus has taught
her--to talk with people about things which are important to them. (Ironically, she
sees him do this very thing at the dinner table with Walter
Cunningham.) She strikes up a conversation with Walter's dad, talking to him
about his entailment, some hickory nuts, and his son.
The
entailment is the legal work Atticus did for him; the hickory nuts were partial payment
for his legal fees; and his son was a guest in their home. She talked about one thing,
then another, then back to the first, then settled on Walter--all with virtually no
response from Mr. Cunningham. (I'm confident he had no real clue what to say to this
outpouring of a precocious first-grader's conversation.) Finally, dead silence all
around. Scout finally asks, "'What's the matter?'" Eventually, Mr. Cunningham bends
down and says this:
"'I'll tell him [Walter] you said hey, little
lady.'"
And the crisis was
over.
Scout had no clue what she was doing, nor did she do
anything intentionally. What she managed to do was remind Mr. Cunningham that Atticus
is a family man with children; that Atticus is a man who did legal work with no
expectation of any payment other than a bag of hickory nuts; that Atticus graciously
shared a family meal with Walter; in short, that Atticus is a good man who's simply
doing the job he was given. Somehow Scout had figuratively put a real face on Atticus,
had personalized him, which diffused the mob mentality and shamed their ringleader, Mr.
Cunningham, into leaving.
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