To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter 26 Summary

School starts – third grade for Scout and seventh for Jem – so once again they’re passing the Radley Place every day; though it’s not as frightening as it used to be, it’s still dreary-looking.
Jem is excited about his place on the football team, even though they won’t let him do much beyond carrying buckets.
Scout feels a little sorry for all the annoyance they must have caused in the old days trying to get Boo to show his face.
But Scout still remembers the gifts he left for them in the tree, and keeps an eye out for him each time she goes by the house.
Scout mentions to Atticus that she’d still like to set eyes on Boo Radley sometime, and he tells her to cut it out, and mentions the time they almost got shot in the Radley yard – the first time he’s let on that he knows what really happened that night, which seems so long ago to Scout now.
Boo Radley seems positively tame after the events of the last year; Scout’s still worried about the blowback from the Robinson case, but Atticus thinks that time will bring forgetfulness.
Forgetfulness is long in coming, however, and Jem and Scout are practicing their gentleman and lady skills in the schoolyard, where most of their classmates share their parents’ prejudices.
Scout wonders why if everyone disagrees with Atticus they still re-elected him to represent them in the state government, and concludes that people are just plain weird.
Every week, Scout’s class has a Current Events assignment: kids are supposed to report on an article from a newspaper, except the poor kids don’t have access to newspapers, except one they call The Grit Paper which the teacher doesn’t deem acceptable for the assignment.
Even the town kids have problems with the assignment, though: one reports on an advertisement instead of an article, while another starts out calling Hitler “Old Adolf.”
Miss Gates, the teacher, seizes on the moment to teach her about the difference between democracy and dictatorship, and about the persecution of Jews.
When Miss Gates switches from Hitler to arithmetic, Scout thinks about her father’s dislike of Hitler.
Later she asks him why the people Hitler’s persecuting don’t just persecute him instead, since there’s lots of them and only one Hitler, and Atticus answers that he doesn’t know.
Scout asks Atticus if hating Hitler is okay, and he tells her that hating people is never okay, even if it’s Hitler.
Scout still can’t quite formulate the question that’s bugging her, so she goes to Jem, who’s eaten his way through several bunches of bananas in an attempt to bulk up so he can play on the football team.
Scout tries to explain what’s bothering her: it’s bad to persecute people, and Miss Gates seems really upset at the way Hitler’s persecuting the Jews, but she remembers Miss Gates coming down the courthouse steps after the trial saying “it’s time somebody taught them a lesson” (26.56).
Scout finally figures out her question: “how can you hate Hitler so bad an’ then turn around and be ugly about folks right at home[?]” (26.56).
Jem interrupts her before she can finish and tells her never to mention the courthouse to him again.
Scout goes back to Atticus and tries to climb in his lap, though she doesn’t really fit there any more.
Atticus says he heard her conversation with Jem, and that she shouldn’t let her brother’s crabbiness get her down – he’s still trying to process what happened with Tom Robinson, and once he gets through it he’ll be all right.

Chapter 27

Chapter 25