In chapter two, Dill leaves and Scout prepares for school. Scout meets her teacher Miss Caroline and finds out she is not very good with children. Walter Cunningham forgets his lunch and Scout offers him some money for food and says he can pay her back later but Walter does not take the quarter. Miss Caroline does not understand Scouts actions and punishes her.

    In the third chapter, Scout beats up Walter for getting her into trouble. Jem intervenes and invites him over for dinner. Walter pours syrup over his food and Scout criticizes Walter for that. Calpurnia scolds her for criticizing him.

    In chapter four, Scout notices a piece of tin foil sticking out of a knothole in a tree at the Radley's place. There is chewing gum in the tin foil. It is now summer and Dill comes back. As a game, Scout is rolled in a tire and hits the front door of the Radley's and she hears laughter from inside. 

    In the fifth chapter, Scout starts spending time with Miss Maudie. They talk about Boo. Meanwhile, the boys slip a note through Boo's window saying if he comes out they will have ice cream.

    In chapter six, the kids go to the Radley's and peer through their window. They see someone inside and they run away. They hear a shotgun from the Radley's house. Jem looses his pants while he is running. Later he sneaks out to retrieve his pants. They are sitting folded and mended.

    In the next chapter, the kids find a ball of yarn in the knot-hole but they do not take it. It is still there three days later so they take it. They later find many more things in the knot-hole. They soon find that it is filled with cement and Mr. Radley says the tree was dying. 

    In the eighth chapter, it snows. This does not happen very often in Maycomb. Later that night, Scout goes outside to find that Miss Maudie's house is on fire. While she is outside, someone puts a blanket on her. Jem thinks that Boo put it on her. The next day Miss Maudie is happy and says that she didn't even like her old house.

    In chapter nine, Scout learns that Atticus is defending a black man accused of rape named Tom Robinson. Atticus' brother Jack comes to stay with the Finches over Christmas. On Christmas, they all go to Finches Landing. At Finches Landing, a kid named Francis calls Atticus a "Nigger lover" and Scout beats him up.

    In the following chapter, there is a mad dog roaming about Maycomb. Atticus helps hunt it down and he shoots it after he drops his glasses. The children learn he used to be known as "One-Shot Finch"

    In the last chapter, of part 1 chapter eleven, the children pass by the house of Mrs. Dubose. She yells something about Atticus and Jem gets angry at her. She does this for many days. Jem cannot control his anger and he destroys her flower garden. As punishment, Jem must read to Mrs. Dubose. Mrs. Dubose dies and Jem receives a box from her which contains a white camellia.

"… We have decided that it would be best for you to have some feminine influence…"

She is welcomed by the neighbours and soon becomes a part of the community. It is soon revealed that Aunt Alexandra is a gossip, and already has fully-formed opinions on the families in Maycomb, claiming they all have a 'streak' in their bloodlines and anything someone does can be explained by said streak. She also believes that some families are better than others (typically the rich being better than the poor). 

 

In this chapter we also learn about Maycomb's founding and history; that it is inland because of a man called Sinkfield, who owned a tavern many generations ago (he did this by getting his patrons drunk and adjusting everyone's maps). If it had not been for him, Maycomb county would have been places in the middle of Winston Swam when a Governor called William Wyatt Bibb wanted to organise a seat of government.

We learn that due to Maycomb being so far inland, it was difficult to get supplies from boats that frequented rivers back then, leading to the town staying small and the people that lived there marrying each other until everyone was somehow related.

 

Back to Aunt Alexandra, she begins asking Scout into lunches with the ladies of Maycomb, when she comes in from outside. She concludes that Jem and Scout don't know enough about the Finch Family when Scout cannot identify her cousin, Lily Brooke, and tries to teach them about their cousin Joshua, who wrote poetry, but it backfires when it is revealed Jem knows too much about him.

"Is this the Cousin Joshua that was locked up for so long?... Why, Atticus said he went round the bend at University…"

 

After this, Atticus talks to Jem and Scout at Aunt Alexandra's request about their behaviour, and how "… you must try to behave like the little lady and gentleman that you are…" 

This upsets them both, since it is so out of character for Atticus, and he ends up having to comfort them. When Scout asks if they really have to behave how Finches are supposed to behave according to Aunt Alexander, and that she can't remember everything she's supposed to do, Atticus expresses his own thoughts on the matter.

"I don’t want you to remember it. Forget it."

 

From this chapter, we can conclude that Atticus and Aunt Alexandra have very different ideas on what being a good person, or moreover a 'good Finch', is, and that Jem and Scout are being pressured by Aunt Alexandra to be people they're not, of which Atticus doesn't want but feels he must let happen to appease his sister and the townsfolk as a whole.

"Mr Ewell was a veteran of an obscure war; that plus Atticus's peaceful reaction probably prompted him to inquire, 'Too proud to fight, you nigger-lovin' bastard?' Miss Stephanie said Atticus said, 'No, too old,' put his hands in his pockets and strolled on."

Despite Atticus's relative indifference to Bob Ewell's threats, Jem and Scout worry that Atticus will really be killed, or at least hurt, and become distant until Atticus asks what the matter is. He abates their fears, and when summer rolls around they are again happy, but Aunt Alexandra isn't convinced they've heard the last from the Ewells.

 

Jem and Scout are assured nothing bad will become Tom Robinson until a higher court reviews his case, but still lament the fact he was ever found guilty in the first place when, in their minds, it was so obvious he was innocent. And so, Atticus reveals to them the hard truths of light, how, despite the fact that court should be an equaliser amongst people, a black man's word is still less than a white man's.

He also explains that thought Tom was found guilty, the trial was a baby step forward.

"'That was the one thing that made me think, well, this may be the shadow of a beginning. That jury took a few hours. An inevitable verdict, maybe, but usually it takes 'em just a few minutes.'"

Atticus also says that one man in particular took a lot of wearing down - a Cunningham. This leads to Jem and Scout realising that people aren't so black and white, and Scout goes so far as to declare that she will invite Walter Cunningham, a boy from school, back to their house for dinner come school time. Aunt Alexandra shoots down the idea, saying he and his family aren't their type of folks. After much questioning and pushing from Jem and Scout, the following exchange takes place.

"She had said Indeed Not, but this time she would give her reasons: 'But I want to play with Walter, Aunty, why can't I?'

She took off her glasses and stared at me. 'I'll tell you why,' she said. 'Because - he - is - trash, that's why you can't play with him. I'll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning Lord-knows-what. You're enough of a problem to your father as it is.'"

 

After this, Jem and Scout head up to their room, and Jem tries to cheer Scout up by showing her his chest hair, signs he's growing up. Soon, she comes to the conclusion that Walter isn't trash, and that instead the Ewells are. Jem, meanwhile, says his own piece, that there are four kinds of folks in Maycomb County; the ordinary kind, like the Finches, the farmers, like the Cunninghams, trash, like the Ewells, and the Negroes.

Scout and Jem discuss this in detail, about how people are different and why. But then Scout says she recons that separating everyone like that is dumb.

"'No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I think there's just one kind of folks. Folks.'"

This leas Jem to get upset, and he's silent for a long time before Jem says that he used to think there were only folks too, but then he wondered why they can't get along if they're all the same, and that he decided they had to be different. The chapter ends with Jem saying he's beginning to understand why Boo Radley stays shut up in his house - which is because he wants to be.