To Kill a Mockingbird (To Kill a Mockingbird, #1)

by Harper Lee

“One of the Cunninghams?” Jem yelped. “One of—I didn’t recognize any of ’em . . . you’re jokin’.” He looked at Atticus from the corners of his eyes. “One of their connections. On a hunch, I didn’t strike him. Just on a hunch. Could’ve, but I didn’t.” “Golly Moses,” Jem said reverently. “One minute they’re tryin’ to kill him and the next they’re tryin’ to turn him loose . . . I’ll never understand those folks as long as I live.” Atticus said you just had to know ’em. He said the Cunninghams hadn’t taken anything from or off of anybody since they migrated to the New World. He said the other thing about them was, once you earned their respect they were for you tooth and nail. Atticus said he had a feeling, nothing more than a suspicion, that they left the jail that night with considerable respect for the Finches. Then too, he said, it took a thunderbolt plus another Cunningham to make one of them change his mind. “If we’d had two of that crowd, we’d’ve had a hung jury.” Jem said slowly, “You mean you actually put on the jury a man who wanted to kill you the night before? How could you take such a risk, Atticus, how could you?” “When you analyze it, there was little risk. There’s no difference between one man who’s going to convict and another man who’s going to convict, is there? There’s a faint difference between a man who’s going to convict and a man who’s a little disturbed in his mind, isn’t there? He was the only uncertainty on the whole list.”