I'm going to try to depict a scene from a novel. I chose this because in this short scene, it shows one of the themes of To Kill A Mockingbird—courage. This scene is on page 205 to 208.
{Scout and Dill sit on the left side under the fattest oak. Spotlight focuses on them}
Dill:(sad whine) It was just him I couldn't stand.
Scout:(curious, tinge of concern) Who? Tom?
Dill:(angry)That old Mr Gilmer doin' him thataway, talking so hateful to him—
Scout:(consoling, explaining)Dill, that's his job. (exclaim) Why, if we didn't have prosecutors-(finishes rather lamely) we couldn't have defence attorneys, I reckon.
Dill:(exhales impatiently)I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me (emphasize)sick, plain sick.
Scout:(consoling, explaining)He's supposed to act that way, Dill, he was cross—
Dill:(protesting)He didn’t act that way when—
Scout:(explaining)Dill, those were (emphasize) his own witnesses.
Dill:(protesting)Well, Mr Finch didn’t act that way to Mayella and old man Ewell when he cross-examined them. The way that man called him “boy” all the time and sneered at him, an’ looked around at the jury every time he answered—
Scout:(matter-of-factly)Well, Dill, after all he’s just a Negro.
Dill:(angry)Well I don’t care one speck. It ain’t right, somehow it ain’t right to do ‘em that way. Hasn’t anybody got any business talkin’ like that—it just makes me sick.
Scout:(consoling, explaining)That’s just Mr Gilmer’s way, Dill, he does ‘em all that way. You’ve never seen him get good’n down on one yet. Why, when—well, today Mr Gilmer seemed to me like he wasn’t half trying. They do ‘em all that way, most lawyers, I mean.
Dill:(snap) Mr Finch doesn’t.
Scout:(explaining) He’s not an example, Dill, he’s—(pauses, think hard, then suddenly continues)He’s the same in the courtroom as he is on the public streets.
Dill:(confused look) That’s not what I mean.
[Unknown voice from comes from the right side of the tree trunk.]
Unknown voice: I know what you mean, boy.
[Scout and Dill turn around to look. Dolphus Raymond peers from around the tree trunk to look at the two children.]
Dolphus:(knowing) You aren’t thin-hided, it just makes you sick, doesn’t it? (kind)Come on round here, son, I got something that’ll settle your stomach.
[Dill and Scout walk to the other side of the tree trunk to find Dolphus Raymond lying on the ground.]
Dolphus:(kind)Here, take a good sip, it’ll quieten you.
[Dolphus offers a paper sack with straws. Dill accepts it, takes a deep suck from the straws and smiles.]
Dolphus:(sinister)Hee hee!
Scout:(warning)Dill, you watch out, now…
Dill:(releases the straws, grins) Scout, it’s nothing but Coca-Cola!
[Dolphus Raymond sits up against the tree trunk.]
Dolphus:(smiles)You little folks won’t tell on me now, will you? It’d ruin my reputation if you did.
Scout:(shocked) You mean all you drink in that sack’s Coca-Cola? Just plain Coca-Cola?
Dolphus:(smiling)Yes ma’am.(matter-of-factly) That’s all I drink, most of the time.
Scout:(shocked, confused) Then you just pretend you’re half—?(flustered)I beg your pardon, sir, I didn’t mean to be—
[Dolphus Raymond chuckles]
Scout:(meekly) Why do you do like you do?
Dolphus:(smiling) Wh—oh yes, you mean why do I pretend?(matter-of-factly) Well, it’s very simple, somefolks don’t—like the way I live. Now I could say the hell with ‘em, , I don’t care if they don’t like it. I do say I don’t care if they don’t like it, right enough—but I don’t say the hell with ‘em, see?
Dill, Scout:(very confused):No sir.
Dolphus:(explaining)I try to give ‘em a reason, see. It helps folks if they can latch onto a reason. When I come to town, which is seldom, if I weave a little and drink from this sack, folks can say Dolphus Raymond’s in the clutches of whiskey—that’s why he won’t change his ways. He can’t help himself, that’s why he lives the way he does.
Scout:(protesting) That ain’t honest, Mr Raymond, making yourself out badder’n you are already.
Dolphus:(explaining) It ain’t honest but it’s mighty helpful to folks. Secretly, Miss Finch, I’m not much of a drinker, but you see they could never, never understand that I live like I do because that’s they way I want to live.
Scout:(puzzled) But why did you tell us your secret?
Dolphus:(explaining) Because you’re children and you can understand it, and because I hear that one—
[Dolphus Raymond jerks his head at Dill.]
Dolphus:--Things haven’t caught up with that one’s instinct yet. Let him get a little older. And he won’t get sick and cry. Maybe things’ll strike him as being being—not quite right, say, but he won’t cry, not when he gets a few years on him.
Dill:(bluntly) Cry about what, Mr Raymond?
Dolphus:(explaining) Cry about the simple hell people give other people—without even thinking. Cry about the hell white people give coloured people, without even stopping to think that they’re people, too.
Scout:(quietly) Atticus says cheatin’ a coloured man is ten times worse than cheatin’ a white man. Says it’s the worse thing you can do.
Dolphus:(trying to find explanation) I don’t reckon it’s—Miss Jean Louise, you don’t know your pa’s not a run-of-the-mill man, it’ll take a few years for that to sink in,-- you haven’t seen enough of the world yet. You haven’t even seen this town, but all you gotta do is step back inside the courthouse.
[Scout looks surprised and realises that she is missing almost all of Mr Gilmer’s cross-examination.]
Scout:(anxious) C’mon, Dill, you all right now?
Dill:(relieved) Yeah. Glad to’ve metcha, Mr Raymond, and thanks for the drink, it was mighty settlin’.
{Dill and Scout run off the stage as Dolphus Raymond lies back down on the grass. Lights are turned off.}
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