Post 1

Character: Miss Caroline
Chapter 1-3

I have just gotten into the town of Maycomb to start my new job as a teacher for the school. This year I will be teaching first grade which is a great year because I get to be the person who teaches the kids the most important thing, to read. I walked into my classroom ready to teach and as the children started piling in i began to notice a lot of them had no shoes and were very dirty. Never the less I started my lesson by telling everyone my name and letting them know that I was not indigenous to Maycomb. I then began the day with writing the alphabet on the black board. I then called on a little girl, Ms. Jean Louise Finch, to try and read it, when came up to the board she started reading it perfectly. I was so surprised to hear this girl read the alphabet perfectly that I gave her another thing to read to see if she could read perfectly. She read everything perfectly and I couldn't believe it. I had then came to the conclusion that her father must have taught her, but when I confronted her about it she told me that her father had never taught her to read and that it just came naturally. I didn't believe her of course and I insisted that he stop reading with her. Then she said that she wanted to read and write in this class. I could not believe that a girl in the first grade would have such a eccentric plan. I then sat her down to begin my lesson.

After a while it was lunch time. I then asked who was going home and who had a lunch, everyone raised their hand except for one little boy, the one who didn't have any shoes, Walter Cunningham. She told me that he didn't have a lunch to eat, so I tried to give him a quarter just like any teacher would do, and I would have thought that this boy would have just taken it and then paid me back tomorrow, but this boy just sat in his seat. I told him to take the quarter but this boy shock his head and sat. I insisted that he take but then Ms. Jean Louise Finch stood up and started explaining to me that he was a “Cunningham” and that he would not take the quarter because she would not be able to go. She was quite a malevolent child and her different pronouncements began to irk me very much. I then got very angry with her and called her over and hit her 6 times with a ruler and then sent her to the corner.

After lunch I again started teaching like normal, when I turned my head to see a cootie crawl out of a boys hair. I screamed and all the kids turned to see my face is horror while I pointed my figure at this boy. Everyone then came to me and told me that I was not to fear and that it was only a cootie. I was then given a glass of cold water and I order the boy to tell me his name. He told me that his name was Burris Ewell. I told him to go home and take a bath before coming to school the next day. He stood up and he was the dirtiest little boy I had ever seen, I told him to go home again, but he refused. Then another boy stood up to tell me that he was an “Ewells” and that they were all over the school. He continued to explain that they only go to school for the first day and then they never come back. He also said that I was just supposed to mark him absent for the rest of the year and that they avoid trouble with the law by going the first day. I could not believe that what I just heard, a boy that only goes to school for one day. I then told him to sit back down but then Mr. Burris Ewell became very angry and started yelling at me, saying that no one could ever make him to things and then he started using such language and calling my such thing that I broke down into tears.