Scout has a vain hope that Atticus will teach her at home like Burris Ewell, who does not go to school, but this is soon shattered by Atticus' reference to the law on this subject. .
A famous quotation from the book is the climbing into someone's skin and walking around in it' as a way of trying to understand people. This is a recurring theme throughout the novel.
Chapters 4 and 5.
Summary.
The school year passes depressing slowly for Scout and her class is released half-an-hour before Jem's so she has to pass Boo Radley's house by herself every afternoon.
One day she notices a shiny object in a tree at the end of the Radley's yard. She goes to investigate and finds a stick of chewing gum. She wonders if it is poisoned, but she takes the risk and eats it.
On the last day of school, she and Jem find two old Indian head pennies hidden in the same knothole and they decide to keep them.
School ends and another summer approaches and Dill returns to spend the holidays with his aunt.
The three children begin their games again, and on one occasion they find an old tire and Scout curls up inside it and the other two push it down the street. She loses control and the tire rolls right into the Radley's yard and the children panic. However, this episode gives Dill another idea for a game.
They will play Boo Radley and they re-enact the Radley family melodrama until Atticus catches them and warns them not to play it anymore.
Jem and Dill grow closer together, and Scout feels left out so she starts to spend more time with one of their neighbors Miss Maudie Atkinson, a widow with a flair for gardening and baking. Miss Maudie was a childhood friend of Atticus and his brother Jack and she explains to Scout that Boo Radley is very much alive and not a ghost and is merely the victim of a very harsh father. Miss Maudie remembers Boo, as being always polite and friendly and that most of the rumors about him are false.
