Study Questions
1. What secret does Jem share with Scout?

2. Describe the typical seasons in South Alabama.

3. What is the difference between carving and whittling?

4. What was unusual about Jem’s pants when he retrieved them from the fence?

5. What does Mr. Avery do with the stick of stovewood each week?

6. Why doesn’t Miss Maudie chew gum?

7. What do the children leave in the knothole in the tree?

8. What does Mr. Nathan Radley do to the tree where the gifts are placed?

9. Atticus says the tree is healthy. Mr. Nathan Radley says it is sick. When Atticus is told that Nathan had said the tree was sick, what does Atticus say?

10. How does Jem respond to the tree being plugged with cement?

Answers
1. He says that when he returned for his pants, he found them patched and folded on the fence.

2. There is little change in the seasons. Winters are more like autumn than in other parts of the country.

3. Carving is to shape by cutting; whittling is just cutting without trying to make a shape.

4. When Jem retrieved the pants, they had been mended and folded.

5. Mr. Avery whittles the stick of stovewood down to a toothpick.

6. Miss Maudie does not chew gum because it stuck (cleaved) to her palate (the roof of her mouth).

7. Scout and Jem leave a thank-you note in the knothole in the tree.

8. Mr. Nathan fills the hole with cement.

9. He says that Nathan probably knows more about trees than he does.

10. Jem tells Scout not to cry, questions Mr. Nathan, goes to Atticus, and finally cries himself.