Chapter 11

Jem lost his temper today with an old lady we know. The old lady is Mrs. Dubose and she isn't a pleasant woman. Atticus always tells us to be polite and treat her nicely, but she's so rude it's impossible to. Today she yelled at us while we were passing her. She kept yelling at Jem and telling him how Atticus is a "nigger" and how he's "trash". Jem gets so mad at her that he destroys all of her camellia bushes. This represents Mrs. Dubose bushes, before they were destroyed from Jem. 

Jem was obviously punished for doing what he did to Mrs. Dubose bushes. Mrs. Dubose made him go to her house everyday and read to her for a month. Atticus forced Jem to do as he was told to, and I tagged along. Jem and I both noticed while Jem would read to her that she would have fits. We never understood why this would happen, but she'd always fall asleep. Jem would read to her for hours some days. One day, Atticus came home and told us Mrs. Dubose died. Mrs. Dubose gave Jem a camellia flower to show that she wasn't a horrible person. This is a picture of the flower she gave him. Atticus explained to us that she was a morphine addict and she was trying to recover before she passed away. He said that he never saw someone so brave and have so much courage.