To Kill a Mockingbird - Harper Lee [105]
Atticus said you just had to know 'em. He said the Cunninghams hadn't taken anything from or off of anybody since they migrated to the New World. He said the other thing about them was, once you earned their respect they were for you tooth and nail. Atticus said he had a feeling, nothing more than a suspicion, that they left the jail that night with considerable respect for the Finches. Then too, he said, it took a thunderbolt plus another Cunningham to make one of them change his mind. "If we'd had two of that crowd, we'd've had a hung jury."
Jem said slowly, "You mean you actually put on the jury a man who wanted to kill you the night before? How could you take such a risk, Atticus, how could you?"
"When you analyze it, there was little risk. There's no difference between one man who's going to convict and another man who's going to convict, is there? There's a faint difference between a man who's going to convict and a man who's a little disturbed in his mind, isn't there? He was the only uncertainty on the whole list."
"What kin was that man to Mr. Walter Cunningham?" I asked.
Atticus rose, stretched and yawned. It was not even our bedtime, but we knew he wanted a chance to read his newspaper. He picked it up, folded it, and tapped my head. "Let's see now," he droned to himself. "I've got it. Double first cousin."
"How can that be?"
"Two sisters married two brothers. That's all I'll tell you- you figure it out."
I tortured myself and decided that if I married Jem and Dill had a sister whom he married our children would be double first cousins.
"Gee minetti, Jem," I said, when Atticus had gone, "they're funny folks. 'd you hear that, Aunty?"
Aunt Alexandra was hooking a rug and not watching us, but she was listening. She sat in her chair with her workbasket beside it, her rug spread across her lap. Why ladies hooked woolen rugs on boiling nights never became clear to me.
"I heard it," she said.
I remembered the distant disastrous occasion when I rushed to young Walter Cunningham's defense. Now I was glad I'd done it. "Soon's school starts I'm gonna ask Walter home to dinner," I planned, having forgotten my private resolve to beat him up the next time I saw him. "He can stay over sometimes after school, too. Atticus could drive him back to Old Sarum. Maybe he could spend the night with us sometime, okay, Jem?"
"We'll see about that," Aunt Alexandra said, a declaration that with her was always a threat, never a promise. Surprised, I turned to her. "Why not, Aunty? They're good folks."
She looked at me over her sewing glasses. "Jean Louise, there is no doubt in my mind that they're good folks. But they're not our kind of folks."
Jem says, "She means they're yappy, Scout."
"What's a yap?"
"Aw, tacky. They like fiddlin' and things like that."
"Well I do too-"
"Don't be silly, Jean Louise," said Aunt Alexandra. "The thing is, you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in shoes and a new suit, but he'll never be like Jem. Besides, there's a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch women aren't interested in that sort of people."
"Aun-ty," said Jem, "she ain't nine yet."
"She may as well learn it now."
Aunt Alexandra had spoken. I was reminded vividly of the last time she had put her foot down. I never knew why. It was when I was absorbed with plans to visit Calpurnia's house- I was curious, interested; I wanted to be her "company," to see how she lived, who her friends were. I might as well have wanted to see the other side of the moon. This time the tactics were different, but Aunt Alexandra's aim was the same. Perhaps this was why she had come to live with us- to help us choose our friends. I would hold her off as long as I could: "If they're good folks, then why can't I be nice to Walter?"
"I didn't say not to be nice to him. You should be friendly and polite to him, you should be gracious to everybody, dear.