Night in the Radley Yard

TL;DR: On Dill's last night before going home, the three children sneak into the Radley back yard to peek through a window. A shotgun blast in the dark sends them flying back under the wire fence — and Jem's overalls catch and tear free, leaving him to run home in his underwear.

Spoilers through Chapter 6.

Chapter in one sentence

Two boys squirm under a sagging wire fence in moonlight while a shotgun blast rips through the collard greens behind them.

What happens

On Dill's last night of the summer the children decide they will creep to the Radley yard and peek through a back window. They cross under the wire fence at the rear of the lot and pad through the collards. Scout sees a shadow on the back porch — a hatted figure crossing — and freezes. As Jem hauls himself onto the porch to look, the door creaks. A shotgun roars in the dark. The three children flee, panicked; Jem's overalls catch on the wire fence; he yanks himself free of them and runs home in his underwear. Neighbors gather on the street in pajamas; Mr. Nathan Radley claims he shot at a "Negro" prowler. To explain Jem's missing pants, Dill invents the strip-poker story. After midnight Jem creeps back to the Radley yard alone to retrieve them. He comes back trembling and refuses to tell Scout why.

Key moments

• The three children sliding under the back wire fence into the Radley collard patch
• The hatted shadow crossing the back porch
• The shotgun blast in the dark and Jem's pants snagging on wire
• The neighborhood gathering on the street in pajamas
• Jem's solitary return at midnight to fetch the pants

Character shifts

Jem chooses, at midnight, to go back alone. Scout begs him not to. He goes anyway. It is the first decision he makes in the book that he refuses to explain to her, and the first time the reader sees Atticus's son starting to act like a son who is afraid of his father's disappointment more than of a shotgun. The choice is small. The mood of the chapter changes around it.

Why it matters

The chapter is the book's funniest set piece and one of its most useful pieces of plot machinery. Underwear-running comedy carries it; the consequence the reader does not yet know — that Jem's pants will be folded and mended on the wire when he comes back — is being set up here. The chapter's structural job is to put Jem inside the Radley yard alone at midnight, scared, secret-keeping, and changed by the time he comes home. The next chapter pays it off.

Themes to notice

• Childhood fear of getting caught vs. the deeper fear of losing your father's regard
• The town's casual assumption that the shot was aimed at a "Negro prowler" — and the children's unquestioning acceptance of that explanation
• The Radley yard as the children's recurring boundary line

Book club questions

• The chapter is genuinely funny — pants-on-a-fence, pajama-clad neighbors — and the chapter that follows it is genuinely tender. What does Lee accomplish by playing the joke first and the tenderness second?
• Mr. Nathan Radley says he shot at a "Negro prowler." No one in the crowd questions it. What is the book quietly showing us about Maycomb's assumed enemies?
• Jem returns alone at midnight rather than telling Atticus the truth. Is the decision growing-up or hiding?
• The reader knows, by the end of Chapter 7, who folded Jem's pants. On a second read, what does the second half of this chapter — Jem trembling, refusing to say why — look like?

Visual memory hook

A wire fence at midnight, a pair of empty overalls hanging from it. Moonlight on a field of stamped-green collards. A muzzle flash on a dark back porch. Three small figures sprinting toward the front yard in pajamas.

What's next

Back at school, Jem finally tells Scout what he found when he went back for the pants. The knothole begins giving again — and this time the gifts are unmistakably for them.