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HARPER LEE: To Kill a Mockingbird

Remember to support your ideas with details from the writing.

Either 9 Read this extract, and then answer the question that follows it:
That was the summer Dill came to us. in a Beautiful Child contest and won
Early one morning as we were five dollars. She gave the money to
beginning our day’s play in the back Dill, who went to the picture show
yard, Jem and I heard something twenty times on it.
next door in Miss Rachel ‘Don’t have any picture shows here, except
Haverford’s collard patch. We went Jesus ones in the court-
to the wire fence to see if there was house sometimes,’ said Jem. ‘Ever see anything
a puppy – Miss good?’
Rachel’s rat terrier was expecting – instead we Dill had seen Dracula, a
found someone sitting revelation that moved Jem to eye
looking at us. Sitting down, he wasn’t him with the beginning of respect.
much higher than the collards. We ‘Tell it to us,’ he said.
stared at him until he spoke: Dill was a curiosity. He wore blue linen shorts
‘Hey.’ that buttoned to his shirt,
‘Hey yourself,’ said Jem pleasantly. his hair was snow white and stuck to his head like
‘I’m Charles Baker Harris,’ he said. ‘I can duck-fluff; he was a year
read.’ my senior but I towered over him.
‘So what?’ I said. As he told us the old tale his blue
‘I just thought you’d like to know I eyes would lighten and darken; his
can read. You got anything needs laugh was sudden and happy; he
readin’ I can do it …’ habitually pulled at a cowlick in the
‘How old are you,’ asked Jem, ‘four-and-a- centre of his forehead.
half?’ When Dill reduced Dracula to dust, and Jem
‘Goin’ on seven.’ said the show sounded
‘Shoot no wonder, then,’ said better than the book, I asked Dill where his father
Jem, jerking his thumb at me. was: ‘You ain’t said
‘Scout yonder’s been readin’ ever anything about him.’
since she was born, and she ain’t ‘
even started to school yet. You look I
right puny for goin’ on seven.’
‘I’m little but I’m old,’ he said. h
Jem brushed his hair back to get a better a
look. ‘Why don’t you come v
over, Charles Baker Harris?’ he said. ‘Lord, what a e
name.’ n
‘ ’s not any funnier’n yours. ’
Aunt Rachel says your name’s t
Jeremy Atticus Finch.’
Jem scowled. ‘I’m big enough to fit mine,’ he g
said. ‘Your name’s longer’n o
you are. Bet it’s a foot longer.’ t
‘Folks call me Dill,’ said Dill, struggling under
the fence. o
‘Do better if you go over it instead n
of under it,’ I said. ‘Where’d you come e
from?’ .
Dill was from Meridian, Mississippi, was ’
spending the summer with his
aunt, Miss Rachel, and would be spending every ‘
summer in Maycomb from I
s
now on. His family was from
Maycomb County originally, his
h
mother worked for a photographer
e
in Meridian, had entered his picture
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e
a
d
?
’
‘No …’
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‘Then if he’s not dead you’ve got one, haven’t you?’ 50
Dill blushed and Jem told me to hush, a sure sign that Dill had been
studied and found acceptable. Thereafter the summer passed in routine
contentment. Routine contentment was: improving our treehouse that
rested between giant twin chinaberry trees in the back yard, fussing,
running through our list of dramas based on the works of Oliver Optic, Victor 55
Appleton, and Edgar Rice Burroughs. In this matter we were lucky to have
Dill. He played the character parts formerly thrust upon me – the ape in
Tarzan, Mr Crabtree in The Rover Boys, Mr Damon in Tom Swift. Thus we
came to know Dill as a pocket Merlin, whose head teemed with eccentric
plans, strange longings, and quaint fancies. 60
But by the end of August our repertoire was vapid from countless
reproductions, and it was then that Dill gave us the idea of making Boo
Radley come out.
The Radley Place fascinated Dill. In spite of our warnings and explanations it drew
him as the moon draws water, but drew him no nearer

65
than the light-pole on the corner, a safe distance from the Radley gate.
There he would stand, his arm around the fat pole, staring and wondering.

[from Chapter 1]

In what ways does Lee make this such an entertaining introduction to Dill?

Or 10 What does Lee’s writing make you feel about the way Atticus raises his children?

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