This autumn was not like any other; Atticus said that the weather hadn't been this bizarre since 1885. I kept rubbing my numb fingers together in the cold, thinking about the sweltering heat that usually surrounds Maycomb County
Mrs. Radley passed away that autumn—better said, that winter. It hadn’t resulted as a calamity to most of the people in Maycomb; the Radley family was never completely assimilated in the community—they were considered as a reclusive bunch.
Jem and I considered all the possibilities that might have taken place—that may have caused Mrs. Radley’s death. There was dissension over the topic, but we both agreed that Boo Radley was a major suspect. We weren’t usually meticulous about anything, but we filled up the unknown with striking details: the shackles, the bloody scene, the knives and all. We lionized Boo Radley.
When we interrogated Atticus, he didn’t provide much information; Jem told me that it would make it worse if we pushed him, so we kept silent after hearing his lackadaisical answer.
The peculiar snowflakes out the window made Jem and I eager to step outside just to get the feeling of it. When we rushed out the door, we realized that the thin layer of snow wouldn’t be enough for the snowman we wanted to build. It was imminent that it wouldn’t snow for long, so when I reached out my tongue to taste a flake—or when I walked in circles, sinking my feet into the ground—Jem told me that it would be better not to waste snow.
We went to Miss Maudie’s to ask for snow, and we met Mr. Avery on our way. He said that it was the conspiring chaos that the children made, that changed the seasons. After I apprehended what he was trying to say, I wondered if our government was in a state of anarchy—I wondered why people like Mr. Avery were not arrested and arraigned for saying such remarks to children—but of course, that was just my imagination running wild.
Miss Maudie agreed to us taking her snow—in fact, she didn’t want it inside her yard. Jem had a brilliant idea—although I didn’t think it was much of an idea at first—he scooped up mud and made the snowman and later he plastered the snow on top. The art piece looked familiar—the big stomach, the angry eyes, and the stick of stove wood that completed the picture. I thought that this was a worse punishment for Mr. Avery than to be brought before a court.
Atticus liked the idea of making the snowman out of mud, but he got a little uneasy when he realized that we were trying to portrait Mr. Avery; he told us to modify the snowman and disguise it so that it wouldn’t offend Mr. Avery. Jem grabbed Miss Maudie’s hat and put it on the snowman’s head and a couple of hedge clippers on his arm. Although Miss Maudie told Atticus that our snowman resulted to be a morphodite, she grinned when she saw our creation; Atticus said that she was impressed by it.
The following night was dreary, and the temperature crawled down to sixteen degrees. After several hours have elapsed, Atticus woke me up, and his voice told me that something was wrong. The fire was devouring Miss Maudie’s house when we got there. Men were sprinting in and out of the house, trying to save the little furniture that weren’t swallowed by the fire.
Atticus was accompanying Miss Maudie when Jem and I were trying to stay on a safe distance from the fire. My attention was on the fire, and I did not notice when someone put a blanket around me. I was confused when Atticus asked me where I got the blanket from; it scared me even more, when he conjectured that Boo Radley had stood behind me, and put a blanket around my shoulders. That was my first encounter with Boo Radley.
