After their afternoon of talking about Jean, Scout attached herself to Louise more than she usually did. Even when Jem and Dill had offered for Scout to accompany them, she often declined and would instead spend her days hanging around with her aunt. One day, when Louise needed to go to town to run some errands for Maudie, she couldn't help but to wonder if her niece was growing bored of her company. While Dill had left Maycomb the day before, Louise was still surprised at the fact that Scout had not opted to stay at home with her brother. "Are you sure you don't want to catch up with Jem?" Louise asked as they strolled through the aisles of the Jitney Jungle.
"Nome, I like bein' with you."
"Well I enjoy your company too, sweet."
"What are ya gettin' for Miss Maudie?" Scout asked, and Louise couldn't help but to laugh at how both she and Jem referred to Maudie as 'miss.'
"You can just call her Maudie, you know. She is your cousin." Louise laughed.
"I know that," Scout said, giggling. "Atticus just says it's a nice thing to do."
"I reckon he knows all about that."
"Mm hmm," Scout said as she touched something on the shelf they were passing. "Is she makin' a lane cake?"
"She is," Louise said. "I think it's one of your neighbor's birthday or something."
"Did mama know how to make a lane cake?" Scout asked.
"She didn't. Edie tried to teach us all how to make 'em but the only person who could do it right was Maudie." Louise smirked back. "Your mama was better at cooking than baking."
"Did Atticus like her cooking?"
"I suppose he did, he ate it with no complaint." Louise smirked, making Scout giggle.
"I showed him the picture of her you gave me," Scout said pleasantly. "He liked it an awful lot."
"Did he?"
"Mm hmm, I showed Jem too. We're gonna share it so we both can look at her when we want to." She explained.
"That's awfully sweet."
"Jem told me that when he was real little and when I was a baby, mama used to act out stories for us and that's why he likes playin' pretend so much." Scout said, smiling. "It made me like playing pretend more, too."
"I think that would make your mama real happy. Did you ask your daddy 'bout her?" Louise enquired as she examined something before putting it in her shopping basket.
"I asked him what his favorite thing about mama was." She said.
"And what did he say?"
"He said everything and I told him that he had to pick somethin' specific."
"Then what did he say?"
"He said his favorite thing 'bout her was her brain 'cause she could have a serious conversation but could also get silly and had a wild imagination. That's almost exactly what he said!" Scout replied happily. "He told me an' Jem that mama made him well-rounded, but I didn't know what he meant by that."
"I think he meant that your mama helped him not be so serious and stiff all the time." Louise said, smiling down at Scout.
"Maybe that's why he's so borin' now, since she's not here to help him out." Louise almost snorted with laughter.
"I don't think your daddy's that bad. He's got you and Jem to keep him on his toes." She assured Scout.
"Yeah, but he doesn't do nothin'. He's not like my friend's daddies." Scout said, sighing softly to herself.
"I can assure you that your daddy is probably ten times smarter than all of those men combined," Louise said, for some reason feeling especially protective of her brother-in-law. "He's interesting in his own right, you'll see one day."
Perhaps she was so inclined to defend him because of the trial he had been assigned. He shared as much information as he could with Louise, and from the sound of it, it did not seem as though there was going to be a good outcome for Atticus or the man he was defending. Soon enough, Louise knew that the town would be talking bad about him, and she wanted to prevent his children from falling into whatever the people in Maycomb were saying. If she could build Atticus up now, maybe it'll be easier for them to sympathize with their father in the future.
Scout sighed again in response. "So," Louise asked, laughing to herself. "What possessed the three of you to play strip poker the other day?"
Scout's face turned red, and she fumbled a little bit. The night before Dill was set to leave Maycomb, the children had been in Miss Rachel's garden playing strip poker. Almost simultaneously, a gunshot came from the Radley house (Nathan had insisted that he suspected an intruder), so when the children came running back home Jem was pantless. It was quite the sight, Maudie and Louise sat in Maudie's room for nearly an hour afterwards laughing about it and they both decided that Jean would have also found it hilarious.
"Dill suggested it." Scout said embarrassedly, looking down at her feet. Louise chuckled and tousled her hair.
"Your mama and I played strip poker once," Louise winked, making Scout's head shoot up.
"No you didn't!" She exclaimed in disbelief.
"We sure did!"
"Was it with that boy you mentioned last summer?" Scout giggled.
"Nope, we played it when we were away at school one year." Louise said. "We played it with a group of girls at midnight! We were caught by the principal and I thought she was goin' to skin us alive."
Scout laughed. "Why'd y'all play it?"
Louise shrugged. "I suggested it. I was always bored there so I thought it'd make things more interestin'."
"Did you get mama in trouble a lot at school?" Scout asked, snickering to herself.
"Honey, she didn't do anything against her will. She was a troublemaker in her own right." Louise responded.
Once they had finally finished purchasing the items for Maudie, Louise and Scout went looking for Jem. Since he was basically abandoned by both Dill and Scout, he had taken to sitting in the treehouse with a tall glass of lemonade and a book. "He-ey, traitor." He said to Scout as she and Louise both stood by the opening of the treehouse with their hands on their hips, watching Jem.
"Aw, hell." Scout said in response. Louise probably should have told her not to say that, but she found it too amusing to even think of correcting her.
"Do y'all want to do somethin'?" Louise asked as Jem marked the page he was on in the book and shut it.
"I dunno." He said as Scout shrugged.
"Do y'all have bikes? We can go riding around town!" Louise suggested. She hadn't ridden a bike in forever, but it was her favorite thing to do with her sisters during the summer.
"We don't have any," Jem said, sitting up. "Anyway, we don't know how to ride 'em."
"How do you not know how to ride a bike? Didn't Atticus teach you?" Louise asked in disbelief.
"He doesn't ride bikes, Aunty." Scout said.
"Get out of that tree house," She said to Jem. "We're goin' to town. I'll get a bike and teach you both on it."
"I don't know about this," Scout said nervously as Jem climbed down from the treehouse.
"Honey, it's real fun. I promise." Louise said quickly. "I rode them all the time so I'll be a real good teacher."
Jem and Scout still both looked quite hesitant about the idea. "Did mama know how to ride a bike?" Scout asked slowly.
"She did, we used to ride 'em all the time with Hattie and kids in our neighborhood." Louise informed them. Jem and Scout both gave each other a look and then directed their gaze towards their aunt again.
"Well I reckon we could try," Jem said. "But we can't get a girly one."
"That's the spirit!" Louise laughed, clapping her hands together.
The closer they got to town, the more excited Jem and Scout seemed about the prospect of learning how to ride a bike. Now that she thought about it, Louise wasn't quite surprised at the fact that Atticus didn't know how to ride a bike either. She found herself wondering if Jack had ever learned how to ride one, and silently made it her mission to teach him if he didn't know how to already. Once they arrived to the small department store in town, Louise located a corner where a few bikes stood. "Aunt Lou, can we get this one?" Scout asked, touching the handles of a gray bike. "It's gray, like mama's favorite color!"
"I like that one," Jem said in agreement.
"It's settled then!" Louise said, thanking God that this had been much easier than she thought.
After purchasing the bike, Louise rode it home slow enough so that the children could walk on either side of her. They observed her, and after a few minutes Jem said: "this doesn't look too hard." Louise smiled to herself, this was coming along to be a pretty easy task.
However, when the time came for her to actually teach them how to ride, Louise found that the mission she assigned herself was much harder than she anticipated. "What are y'all afraid of?" She asked as both Jem and Scout refused to take a try. "One of you just sit on it and I'll help steady you. I won't let go until you're ready!"
Despite her copious amount of coaxing, Jem and Scout looked at the bike like it was evil. "You saw me ridin' it! It's easy once you try."
Jem and Scout glanced at each other. "I guess I'll go first." Jem said slowly.
"There we go," Louise said, smiling to herself. "I don't think you'll regret it!"
Unfortunately, Jem did come to regret it. When he first got on the bike with the assistance of his aunt, it seemed as though things would go smoothly. He rode up and down the street twice with Louise holding onto the bike to steady him, and he seemed to be really enjoying it. However, when both he and Louise agreed that it was time for her to let go, things took a disastrous turn. It started out alright enough, with Jem effortlessly gliding down the street. However, when he tried to turn the bike around, he turned on the handlebars too hard, breaking them off. From a distance, Louise and Scout watched as Jem (still holding onto the detached handlebars) lost his balance and tumbled onto the street. For a moment, Louise and Scout merely looked at each other with their mouths open before they went running in the direction of Jem.
"Jem! Jem!" Scout called as she ran. "Jem are you dead?"
"Scout I'm fine!" He replied, annoyed. As Louise and Scout got closer, Louise could see that his chin, palms, elbow and knees were scraped up. He was still holding onto the handlebars.
"Oh baby, that looks so awful." Louise said, putting her hands to her mouth. "Are you alright?"
"I'm fine," he grumbled as he stood up. Looking at the handlebars in his hand, he tossed it next to the mangled bike. "Sorry it got ruined."
Trying not to laugh, Louise shook her head. "I'm sorry it banged you up." She replied.
"I'm glad it's broken 'cause there's no way I was gettin' on that damn thing." Scout said with disgust. Then, Louise burst into laughter.
She tried to stop herself, but couldn't. Jem and Scout both watched her curiously as she looked at the bike and laughed away. She couldn't help but to find it funny, Jem had looked like Jean when the same thing happened to her. "What's funny, Aunty?" Scout asked. Wiping tears from her eyes, Louise chuckled again before picking up the mangled bike and dragging it towards their house. She told Jem and Scout to sit on the porch while she got a wet rag for Jem to wipe off his cuts with. Moments later, they all sat on the porch swing while Jem tended to his wounds.
"Why were you laughin', Aunty?" Scout asked again.
"When your mama and I were younger, we used to race our bikes all around our neighborhood with some of the kids." Louise began. "Your mama was exactly your age, Jem, when I decided I was sick of her beatin' me in the race so I decided to loosen the handlebars of her bike."
Jem and Scout both looked at her in amazement. "What happened?" Jem asked.
"Why, she went down just like you did." Louise laughed. "We used'ta race down this hill, and at the last minute I decided I wasn't going to race so I could see what happened. Jean was goin' so fast but then all of a sudden her hands were in the air and she was all tangled up in the bike. She ended up cutting her legs up real bad from it."
"Was she hurt worse than Jem?" Scout asked.
"Eh, she was fine." Louise shrugged. "She got up so quick and pushed me off of my bike as payback. Everyone stopped the race to watch us rollin' down the street pullin' each other's hair."
Scout gasped as Jem laughed. "Did y'all just stay there?" He asked, a grin on his face.
"We fought there for a little while and Aunt Hattie had watched it all happened and got so worried that she went runnin' to Aunt Bea," Louise said. "By the time Bea could calm her down to figure out what happened, your mama and I had stopped fighting and had gotten some ice cream and were eatin' it at the park."
"Y'all seem like you were a trip," Jem said, rubbing at the cut on his chin. "Maybe that's why nanny's so strict."
"I think she needed to be with four crazy daughters like us." Louise winked. Looking over at Scout, she noticed that her niece looked deep in thought. "Whatcha thinkin' 'bout, baby?"
"Did you call mama Jean?" She asked.
"That was her name," Jem informed her.
"Like me?"
"Well, your mama's full name was Eugenia, but she absolutely hated it. She thought it made her sound like a boring old lady." Louise said as both Scout and Jem chuckled. "She hated it so much that we used to call her completely different names, but Aunt Bea told us to stop with our nonsense and called her Jean. Your cousin's used'ta call her Jeannie, too."
"My name's Jean Louise, after mama and you?" Scout asked.
"Your daddy thought it was fittin'."
Jem laughed. "After hearin' your stories about mama, I agree with him." He decided, making Scout smile further.
-o-o-o-
When it became clear that Jem and Scout were going to have a harder time in school that year as a result of Atticus' upcoming trial, Louise made no immediate plans to return to Montgomery. Despite the fact that she was living at Maudie's house, rather than in a place of her own, she was always waiting for Jem and Scout on Maudie's porch with a slab of bread and butter waiting for them as an homage to her aunt. As they ate their bread, they would discuss the happenings of their days.
Jem, overall, seemed to be enjoying school far more than his sister was. He loved explaining what he was learning in his history and English lessons, and was always willing to tell his sister anything she wanted to hear about what they did in sixth grade. When asked if his classmates ever said anything distasteful at him, Jem merely replied that he minded his own business. Scout, on the other hand, hastily responded to her gossipy classmates with fists and insults. Louise could tell that Atticus was growing quite exhausted with his daughter's behavior and although he personally sat Scout down to explain that what she was doing wasn't right, Louise attempted to assist him by giving Scout some advice of her own. The words of both Atticus and her aunt seemed to have calmed Scout down to an extent. Though she still didn't enjoy school, she made a bigger effort to keep her fists to herself.
Maycomb during the school year wasn't too different than Maycomb during the summer. While Jem and Scout spent most of their day at school, everything else went along normally. Once the children returned home from school, Louise would sit with them and read while they did their assignments. On most evenings, she ate supper with them rather than with Maudie. Louise thoroughly enjoyed this time she had with Jem and Scout, and despite the fact that Edie kept pestering her about when she would return to Montgomery, Louise still made no immediate plans for going home.
One day, while Louise was waiting on Maudie's porch, she noticed Nathan Radley doing something with a tree on his property. Shortly after, she watched as Jem and Scout ran up to their neighbor and inquired about what he was doing. Even with the distance between them, Louise could tell that they seemed distressed. Later, when she asked them about what had been bugging them, they went silent and continued to sulk for the remainder of the afternoon. She tried to remember a time when she and her sisters would hide things from Edie or any of the aunts, but all of those women had been so pushy that hiding anything from them was nearly impossible. Deciding not to be like that, Louise had let them work their feelings out on their own.
Shortly after that strange incident, it seemed as though the children were fine. They went to school, played and did everything else they normally did so Louise found no reason to further worry about them. Soon enough, they were their same chipper selves and it almost seemed as though nothing had been bothering them in the first place.
Strangely enough, it seemed as though winter was actually going to come to Alabama that year. Usually summer would progress to fall, which would last for months before eventually progressing to spring. It usually never got too cold and it most certainly never snowed. Louise never complained about that, though. After going to school in the north for most of her childhood, she had gotten to know the cold and snow and absolutely hated it. However, when she woke up one morning to see a light sprinkling of snow on the ground, she couldn't help but to roll her eyes. She knew that the light dusting that was on the ground would be the only snow anyone in Maycomb would see that day, but she still detested it. She hated when it snowed and rained, it was too much of a hassle and made people act like fools.
She had hardly been surprised when Jem and Scout came knocking on Maudie's front door that morning. "Aunty!" They both called in unison as they knocked. Early that morning, Maudie had seen the weather and had immediately gone outside to tend to her flowers. As Louise quickly ate her breakfast, she could hear her cousin bantering back at Jem and Scout.
"Aunty it's snowin!" Scout called. "I thought that the world was endin'!"
"School was cancelled and we're goin' to try to build a snowman! Do ya wanna help?" Jem asked.
"If you two think you're going to build anything with that, you're poorly mistaken." Maudie laughed as Louise came out onto the porch. Looking around at her surroundings, she immediately knew her cousin was right.
"Honey, I don't think you're gonna get much with what's out here." Louise said, shrugging.
"I got an idea, though!" Jem said happily.
Once Jem and Scout began wheeling dirt to the backyard, Louise had politely opted to sit and watch them build their snowman. While Louise usually didn't mind getting dirty for the sake of Jem and Scout, mud mixed with the rain/snow was just something that she didn't want to deal with. Instead, Jean pulled one of the chairs off of the front porch and into the backyard so that she could sit and watch them. While she wasn't particularly fond of the fact that she was cold and wet, watching Jem and Scout make their snowman had actually been quite enjoyable.
By the time they were done, the children were dirty, tired but extremely proud of what they had done. After showing Atticus the messy creature, they made some adjustments to it, but Louise still found it quite impressive. Since Jem and Scout were so tired from their little adventure that day, Louise thought it best that she spent supper with Maudie and let the children go to bed early. When she came home, she found that Maudie was also tired from her day spent tending to her flowers. Tired from the cold, the two drank a cup of tea before Maudie lit a fire in the kitchen to keep her plants warm and the two of them went up to bed.
The next thing Louise recalled was Maudie shaking her awake. "Honey," Maudie hissed. "Honey grab anything you can and get outside."
"Hrmph?" Louise groaned groggily, wiping her eyes.
"Honey the house is on fire and you need to get out!" Louise immediately shot out of bed. Quickly looking around the room, she grabbed her robe, assessed her belongings and decided to grab the nearly empty trunk by her bedside. Before going outside, she assisted Maudie in grabbing some small belongings, but they were soon stopped by Maudie's neighbor Mr. Underwood. "You two get outta here already!" He called. "The house is burnin' down for Christ's sake!"
Still not quite awake, Louise and Maudie walked a safe distance before she put her trunk on the ground and sat on it. "What happened?" she asked her cousin tiredly.
"It must've been that damn fire in the kitchen." Maudie said, and this was the first time Louise had heard her cousin curse before. "Honey, I'm sorry."
"It's your house," Louise said. "I'm sorry."
Maudie sighed. "It's quite alright."
Neighbors quickly came out of their houses as the fire got more rampant. Down the street, Louise noticed Jem and Scout standing by the Radley house looking still and tired. Meanwhile, Atticus approached Maudie and Louise and the three of them watched as neighbors teamed together to save Maudie's belongings. She wasn't sure how long they had been out there, but by the time the fire had been extinguished the sun was coming up. The house had burned to the ground.
Louise apologized profusely, though she didn't know why she felt inclined to. She assumed it was because this had been the house that Maudie had lived in with Robert, and now it was entirely gone. "Honey!" Maudie exclaimed as she walked towards what used to be her front yard. "You know it's fine. I hated that house anyway, it was far too big for me."
Louise laughed, she had always appreciated how resilient Maudie had been. "What are you doin'?" She asked her cousin.
"Cleanin' up, of course."
"Want me to help?"
"No way, ma'am. I know you hate the dirt, you should go get some sleep." Maudie said as she began trying to salvage some of the plants in the yard.
"You're crazy, you should sleep yourself."
Maudie gave her cousin a look over her shoulder. "The longer I can stay away from Stephanie Crawford, the better."
During the night, Stephanie had extended an invitation to Maudie to stay with her until her new house was ready. Naturally, Louise had decided to stay with Atticus and the children until she was set to return to Montgomery for the holidays. Louise laughed and shook her head at Maudie before headed towards Atticus' house.
When she entered the house, the children called for her from the kitchen. Tiredly, she entered the room and saw them looking just as groggy drinking hot chocolate at the table. "Do you want some, Aunty? We have a mug for you." Scout asked sleepily.
"I'm just gonna go lie down, sweets." She replied.
"Atticus put your trunk in your room for you," Jem said as she left the kitchen. As soon as she entered the room she threw herself on the bed, though she found that she couldn't sleep. Instead, she laid there with her eyes closed.
She wasn't sure how much time had passed when she heard a faint knocking on her door. "Mm hmm?" she mumbled as the door creaked open and Jem and Scout peaked their heads through.
"We're not goin' to school today 'cause of the fire," Jem said softly. "D'you mind if we lay with you?"
"I don't mind," she replied as they slowly made their way to the bed, laying on either side of her.
"Were you scared, Aunty?" Scout asked as she nestled her head in Louise's side. "Of the fire?"
"I wasn't sure what was goin' on."
"Atticus said he saw Boo Radley, he gave me a blanket." Scout said, a hint of excitement in her voice.
"We missed him," Jem continued.
Louise stroked Scout's head. "He probably noticed you were cold, sweet."
"I don't think I like the snow." Scout said, making Louise chuckle.
"Me either." Jem said, his voice sounding thick from being so tired.
"I'm not the biggest fan of it." Louise replied.
"Did mama ever see the snow?" Scout asked.
"Mm hmm, we went to school in the north so it snowed a lot in the winter."
"Did she like it?"
"She loved it."
"I bet she would've liked our snowman, Jem." Scout told her brother, he mumbled something incoherent in response.
"She would, baby." Louise told them. Moments later, the three of them fell asleep.