The Night Raid — To Kill a Mockingbird

On Dill's last night the three children refuse an ordinary ending. Atticus has forbidden the Radley game, which only makes the house more interesting. They wait until his light is out, then sneak through the wire fence into the collard patch to look in a window. Scout is the most unwilling. She has heard laughter from that house and been told to leave Arthur alone. Dill leaves at dawn, though, and Jem will not waste the last hours on safety. They cross the garden on their bellies. The house is suddenly wood, smell, and a porch they were never meant to stand on.

A shadow crosses the porch, a man-shaped darkness that is not one of them. They run. A shotgun fires. Jem's trousers catch on the fence. He kicks free, leaves them hanging, and they flee. Neighbours fill the street in nightclothes. Miss Stephanie tells the gathering that Nathan shot at a Negro in his collard patch. Nathan confirms he fired at a figure in the garden. Nobody names the children. Atticus looks Jem over and asks where his trousers have gone. Dill invents strip poker. The lie is thin. Atticus presses just enough that they add they used matches, not cards. The neighbours lose interest.

Jem knows the trousers are still on the fence, and that Atticus will find them in the morning if someone else does not. Dill will be gone by daylight. Late that night Jem gets up and goes back. Scout begs him not to. She is sure Nathan is waiting with the gun. Jem goes anyway, because hanging trousers are proof they lied, and he cannot bear Atticus knowing that yet. He crosses the dark street and returns with the trousers in his arms. He does not describe what he found, or whether someone had touched the cloth. Scout only knows that he came back alive.