When he gave us our air-rifles Atticus wouldn’t teach us to shoot. Uncle Jack instructed us in the rudiments thereof; he said Atticus wasn’t interested in guns. Atticus said to Jem one day, I’d rather you shot at tin cans in the back yard, but I know you’ll go after birds. Shoot all the bluejays you want, if you can hit ’em, but remember it’s a sin to kill a mockingbird. That was the only time I ever heard Atticus say it was a sin to do something, and I asked Miss Maudie about it. Your father’s right, she said. Mockingbirds don’t do one thing but make music for us to enjoy. They don’t eat up people’s gardens, don’t nest in corncribs, they don’t do one thing but sing their hearts out for us.
Perhaps Calpurnia sensed that my day had been a grim one: she let me watch her fix supper. Shut your eyes and open your mouth and I’ll give you a surprise, she said. It was not often that she made crackling bread, she said she never had time, but with both of us at school today had been an easy one for her. She knew I loved crackling bread. I missed you today, she said. The house got so lonesome ’long about two o’clock I had to turn on the radio. Why? Jem’n me ain’t ever in the house unless it’s rainin’. I know, she said, but one of you’s always in callin’ distance. I wonder how much of the day I spend just callin’ after you. Well, she said, getting up from the kitchen chair, it’s enough time to make a pan of cracklin’ bread, I reckon. You run along now and let me get supper on the table. Calpurnia bent down and kissed me. I ran along, wondering what had come over her. She had wanted to make up with me, that was it. She had always been too hard on me, she had at last seen the error of her fractious ways, she was sorry and too stubborn to say so. I was weary from the day’s crimes. After supper, Atticus sat down with the paper and called, Scout, ready to read? The Lord sent me more than I could bear, and I went to the front porch. Atticus followed me. Something
to us. That was the one thing that made me think, well, this may be the shadow of a beginning. That jury took a few hours. An inevitable verdict, maybe, but usually it takes ’em just a few minutes. This time— he broke off and looked at us. You might like to know that there was one fellow who took considerable wearing down—in the beginning he was rarin’ for an outright acquittal.
Thomas Jefferson once said that all men are created equal, a phrase that the Yankees and the distaff side of the Executive branch in Washington are fond of hurling at us. There is a tendency in this year of grace, 1935, for certain people to use this phrase out of context, to satisfy all conditions. The most ridiculous example I can think of is that the people who run public education promote the stupid and idle along with the industrious—because all men are created equal, educators will gravely tell you, the children left behind suffer terrible feelings of inferiority. We know all men are not created equal in the sense some people would have us believe—some people are smarter than others, some people have more opportunity because they’re born with it, some men make more money than others, some ladies make better cakes than others—some people are born gifted beyond the normal scope of most men. But there is one way in this country in which all men are created equal—there is one human institution that makes a pauper the equal of a Rockefeller, the stupid man the equal of an Einstein, and the ignorant man the equal of any college president. That institution, gentlemen, is a court. It can be the Supreme Court of the United States or the humblest J.P. court in the land, or this honorable court which you serve. Our courts have their faults, as does any human institution, but in this country our courts are the great levelers, and in our courts all men are created equal. I’m
Naquela noite, quando saímos do tribunal, a srta. Gates estava descendo a escada na nossa frente [...] Ouvi quando ela disse que estava na hora de alguém dar uma lição neles, que estavam indo longe demais, daqui a pouco iam querer casar com os brancos. Jem, como uma pessoa pode detestar tanto Hitler e depois falar isso de alguém daqui mesmo?
It doesn’t make sense to me. Looks like if Mr. Arthur was hankerin’ after heaven he’d come out on the porch at least. Atticus says God’s loving folks like you love yourself— Miss Maudie stopped rocking, and her voice hardened. You are too young to understand it, she said, but sometimes the Bible in the hand of one man is worse than a whiskey bottle in the hand of—oh, of your father. I
Bir kibrit çakıp kaplumbağanın altına tutmanın iğrenç bir şey olduğunu söyledi Dill."İğren. falan değil, sırf dışarı çıkarmak için, ateşin içine atmak gibi bir şey değil," diye gürledi Jem."Kibritin ona zarar vermeyeceğini nereden biliyorsun?""Kaplumbağalar hissetmez, aptal," dedi Jem."Hiç kaplumbağa oldun mu?
Mr. Underwood didn’t talk about miscarriages of justice, he was writing so children could understand. Mr. Underwood simply figured it was a sin to kill cripples, be they standing, sitting, or escaping. He likened Tom’s death to the senseless slaughter of songbirds by hunters and children, and Maycomb thought he was trying to write an editorial poetical enough to be reprinted in The Montgomery Advertiser. How could this be so, I wondered, as I read Mr. Underwood’s editorial. Senseless killing—Tom had been given due process of law to the day of his death; he had been tried openly and convicted by twelve good men and true; my father had fought for him all the way. Then Mr. Underwood’s meaning became clear: Atticus had used every tool available to free men to save Tom Robinson, but in the secret courts of men’s hearts Atticus had no case. Tom was a dead man the minute Mayella Ewell opened her mouth and screamed.
Atticus had urged them to accept the state's generosity in allowing them to plead Guilty to second-degree murder and escape with their lives, but they were Haverfords, in Maycomb County a name synonymous with jackass. The Haverfords had dispatched Maycomb's leading blacksmith in a misunderstanding arising from the alleged wrongful detention of a mare, were imprudent enough to do it in the presence of three witnesses, and insisted that the son-of-a-bitch-had-it-coming-to-him was a good enough defence for anybody.
А не обязательно выставлять напоказ всё, что знаешь. Женщине это не к лицу. И во-вторых, людям вовсе не по вкусу, когда кто-то умней их. Они сердятся. Хоть и говори сам правильно, а их не переменишь, для этого им надо самим научиться, а уж если они не хотят, ничего не поделаешь - либо держи язык за зубами, либо говори, как они.(Кэлпурния - Глазастику Финч)