Journal #1- Chapters 1-3 (Calpurnia)

Dear Diary,

Those kids are a handful. I can barely keep track of them, let alone the constant irking. Ever since Jem started school five years ago, I’ve been bothered less and less, so I have more time to myself. I’ve always liked cooking, and when Jem’s at school, Scout usually spends most of her time up in that ratty, eccentric tree house, looking over at the kids playing in the schoolyard. She looks up to her brother, you can tell, just by the way they interact. When Jem gives his pronouncements, the ones he so boldly half remembers from something he read and half makes up as he goes along, Scout listens to every word.

I think Scout’s really excited for school. She keeps jabbing on about it, and she never seems to realize that it won’t be all that fabulous. I don’t like the idea of Scout being influenced by all these malevolent whites. They’ll put horrid ideas into her head, but I suppose all the magazines and newspapers and stock market quotes have already planted those seeds. I suppose I’m at fault for that, though. Every time I had to cook, or clean and Scout was getting in my way, I’d send her off with some good book or the Sunday morning paper to entertain her. We read most every night before bed, and I’d say I’m pretty proud of me, a black cook in a white house, teaching a little white girl to read and write. Most blacks can’t read or write, and my teaching a three year old is definitely something to be proud of.

There is a downside, however. Scout came home one day and told her father all about how her teacher, Ms. Caroline, was scolding her already being able to read and write (by the way Scout described her, Ms. Caroline sounded like an ignorant white woman to me). I couldn’t believe what I was overhearing. Scout said that Ms. Caroline wanted her to stop reading and writing so Ms. Caroline could “undo the damage done”? I was absolutely appalled. Shouldn’t a teacher be happy that one of their students were excelling? Wouldn’t they want them to be ahead in school? Ms. Caroline might have felt that her job was already done, but wouldn’t most people use that to their advantage? It just didn’t make any sense at all to me. But what does my thought on the event matter? I’m merely a cook eavesdropping on her employer’s conversations. Although, toward the end of Scout’s vent, she decided that she wasn’t going to stop reading at home. She would persevere through this whole ordeal. That made me very proud, as a teacher, and a friend.

About a week after that, a classmate of Scout’s, Walter Cunningham, came over for dinner. I’d heard a lot about the Cunninghams, mostly all from Atticus, Jem and Scout’s father. He always said they were the most humble and honest people he’d ever met. He talked about the time Atticus represented Mr. Walter Cunningham in court. I remembered opening the back door and discovering a bushel of potatoes here, and a sack of hickory nuts there. One morning, there was even a load of stove wood in the backyard. They paid Atticus in what they had. Anyway, when Walter came over for dinner, I was rather shocked at Scout’s little manners. The way she criticized the poor boy was absolutely humiliating. I thought I’d help raise her to be a well-mannered citizen, but apparently not. But of course I could understand where she was coming from; I mean, Walter nearly drown the table in molasses. Nonetheless, I dragged Scout into the kitchen and scolded her harshly for her misbehavior. The girl needs a little scolding now and then, without it, she’d go wild.

Calpurnia