Charles Baker Harris, better known as Dill, spends his summers in Maycomb with the Finch kids. He is full of imagination and prone to creative storytelling. His curiosity pulls Scout and Jem into a number of small adventures.

Dill arrives for the second time in Maycomb in Chapter 14. We hear about how he got to Maycomb from Dill himself. Of course, since Dill is prone to imaginative and creative storytelling (fibbing), it is unclear exactly how much of his story is to be believed. In fact, Dill tells two different and contradictory versions.

In one (very dubious) version, he was chained in his basement by his mother's boyfriend. After he escapes, he joins a traveling circus where he works as a camel washer. He travels around Mississipi with the circus until it ends up just across the river from Maycomb. He then walks into town from there.

In another (somewhat more believable, but still dubious) version, Dill says that he took the train after stealing thirteen dollars from his mother. After getting off at Maycomb Junction, he walks about ten or eleven miles. Then, he says, he had ridden the rest of the way holding on to the back of a cotton wagon.