"Harper Lee - To Kill A Mockingbird" - читать интересную книгу автора (Lee Harper)

elder son lived in Pensacola; he came home at Christmas, and he was
one of the few persons we ever saw enter or leave the place. From
the day Mr. Radley took Arthur home, people said the house died.
But there came a day when Atticus told us he'd wear us out if we
made any noise in the yard and commissioned Calpurnia to serve in
his absence if she heard a sound out of us. Mr. Radley was dying.
He took his time about it. Wooden sawhorses blocked the road at each
end of the Radley lot, straw was put down on the sidewalk, traffic was
diverted to the back street. Dr. Reynolds parked his car in front of
our house and walked to the Radley's every time he called. Jem and I
crept around the yard for days. At last the sawhorses were taken away,
and we stood watching from the front porch when Mr. Radley made his
final journey past our house.
"There goes the meanest man ever God blew breath into," murmured
Calpurnia, and she spat meditatively into the yard. We looked at her
in surprise, for Calpurnia rarely commented on the ways of white
people.
The neighborhood thought when Mr. Radley went under Boo would come
out, but it had another think coming: Boo's elder brother returned
from Pensacola and took Mr. Radley's place. The only difference
between him and his father was their ages. Jem said Mr. Nathan
Radley "bought cotton," too. Mr. Nathan would speak to us, however,
when we said good morning, and sometimes we saw him coming from town
with a magazine in his hand.
The more we told Dill about the Radleys, the more he wanted to know,
the longer he would stand hugging the light-pole on the corner, the
more he would wonder.
"Wonder what he does in there," he would murmur. "Looks like he'd
just stick his head out the door."
Jem said, "He goes out, all right, when it's pitch dark. Miss
Stephanie Crawford said she woke up in the middle of the night one
time and saw him looking straight through the window at her... said
his head was like a skull lookin' at her. Ain't you ever waked up at
night and heard him, Dill? He walks like this-" Jem slid his feet
through the gravel. "Why do you think Miss Rachel locks up so tight at
night? I've seen his tracks in our back yard many a mornin', and one
night I heard him scratching on the back screen, but he was gone
time Atticus got there."
"Wonder what he looks like?" said Dill.
Jem gave a reasonable description of Boo: Boo was about
six-and-a-half feet tall, judging from his tracks; he dined on raw
squirrels and any cats he could catch, that's why his hands were
bloodstained- if you ate an animal raw, you could never wash the blood
off. There was a long jagged scar that ran across his face; what teeth
he had were yellow and rotten; his eyes popped, and he drooled most of
the time.
"Let's try to make him come out," said Dill. "I'd like to see what
he looks like."
Jem said if Dill wanted to get himself killed, all he had to do
was go up and knock on the front door.