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

by Harper Lee

“What are we gonna do, Jem?” I asked. “You’ll see,” he said. “Now get the basket and haul all the snow you can rake up from the back yard to the front. Walk back in your tracks, though,” he cautioned. “Are we gonna have a snow baby, Jem?” “No, a real snowman. Gotta work hard, now.” Jem ran to the back yard, produced the garden hoe and began digging quickly behind the woodpile, placing any worms he found to one side. He went in the house, returned with the laundry hamper, filled it with earth and carried it to the front yard. When we had five baskets of earth and two baskets of snow, Jem said we were ready to begin. “Don’t you think this is kind of a mess?” I asked. “Looks messy now, but it won’t later,” he said. Jem scooped up an armful of dirt, patted it into a mound on which he added another load, and another until he had constructed a torso. “Jem, I ain’t ever heard of a nigger snowman,” I said. “He won’t be black long,” he grunted.