To Kill a Mockingbird
by Harper Lee
Table of Contents
Chapter 6 to Chapter 10
Chapter Six
The boys do their best to obey Atticus' orders, but on Dill's last summer day in Maycomb they decide that they will sneak over to the Radley house and look through a shutter that is loose. They want to find out if they can see Boo or not. Scout goes along with them, and they sneak around the house, trying to look in every window. They see a man's shadow. He has a hat on. They start running, and they hear a shotgun blast. When they try to escape, they squeeze under the schoolyard fence. Jem gets his pants caught, and he has to leave them there, caught in the fence, so he can get away with Scout and Dill. They get home, and there is a big collection of neighbors already there. The kids are told that Nathan Radley shot at a "Negro" who was in his yard. Atticus asks Jem where his parts are, and Dill says he won them playing strip poker. Atticus does not want them playing cards, but they say they were not using cards - they were only using matches. Much later that night, Jem sneaks out to the Radley place and retrieves his pants. They have been mended and hung on the fence, and Jem believes that it was Boo who mended them for him.
The children's adventure to the Radley place one more time shows how interested they really are in finding out if Boo Radley is real. When Jem loses his pants in their efforts to get away, he is highly embarrassed by having to explain himself. That is why the children lie and say that they were playing strip poker. When Jem sneaks back to get his pants later, and finds that they have been mended and hung up for him to retrieve, he is speechless. Scout waits for him to come back, and is very afraid that something will happen to him while he is out, or that Atticus will catch him and discover that he is not at home. It all ends well, but the children still do not get their wish of seeing Boo Radley, so it still hangs over their heads.
Chapter Seven
Shortly after the school year starts again, just a few days after Jem and Scout had their big adventure...
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