Chapter 9

In this Chapter we learn about Mrs. Dubose an older lady who lives two doors up from Atticus house. She lives alone, except for a Negro girl in constant attendance. Jem and Scout hate her because if she is on her porch when they pass, she would always yell at them and tell them that they were badly behaved and tell them what they would amount to when they grow up. Which was always nothing, in her mind? Atticus always tells Jem to be a gentleman to her because she is older. But one day Jem has enough. The day after Jems twelfth birthday, Mrs. Dubose says a rude comment about Atticus to Jem and Scout. She said that Atticus was no better than the niggers and trash he works for. This time Jem had it. Soon there way back from the store where he bought a steam engine for himself and a baton for Scout, he snatched it back. He ran into Mrs. Duboses yard and cut off the tops of every camellia bush. Atticus finds out and Jem has to repay her somehow. So by doing this he ends up going there every afternoon to read to her. By doing this Jem and Scout lean that Mrs. Dubose isn't that bad after all, she just lonely. They also learn from Atticus, that she was a morphine addict because she took it as a pain killer all her life. Near the end of the chapter Atticus tells Jem that he wanted him to see what real courage was. That is instead of getting the idea that courage is a man with a gun in his hand. It's when you know you're licked before you begin but you begin anyway and you see it through no matter what. When Mrs. Dubose died she won all ninety-eight pounds of her because she beholded to nothing and nobody. For this she was the bravest person Atticus has ever known.
I thought that there was a very good lesson taught in this chapter. It was that even thou the outside cover of the book isn't ever good, there’s always is something more inside of it. It showed that for being children they were well behaved and understand more then what they should have at that age.