To Kill a Mockingbird Reading Questions

To Kill a Mockingbird by Harper Lee (1960)

I asked Atticus if Mr. Cunningham would ever pay us.

“Not in money,” Atticus said, “but before the year’s out I’ll have been paid. You watch.”

We watched. One morning Jem and I found a load of stovewood in the back yard. Later, a sack of hickory nuts appeared on the back steps. With Christmas came a crate of smilax and holly. That spring when we found a crokersack full of turnip greens, Atticus said Mr. Cunningham had more than paid him.

“Why does he pay you like that?” I asked.

“Because that’s the only way he can pay me. He has no money.”

“Are we poor, Atticus?”

Atticus nodded. “We are indeed.”

Jem’s nose wrinkled. “Are we as poor as the Cunninghams?”

“Not exactly. The Cunninghams are country folks, farmers, and the crash hit them hardest.”

Atticus said professional people were poor because the farmers were poor. As Maycomb County was farm country, nickels and dimes were hard to come by for doctors and dentists and lawyers. Entailment was only part of Mr. Cunningham’s vexations. The acres not entailed were mortgaged to the hilt, and the little cash he made went to interest. If he held his mouth right, Mr. Cunningham could get a WPA job, but his land would go to ruin if he left it, and he was willing to go hungry to keep his land and vote as he pleased. Mr. Cunningham, said Atticus, came from a set breed of men.

As the Cunninghams had no money to pay a lawyer, they simply paid us with what they had. “Did you know,” said Atticus, “that Dr. Reynolds works the same way? He charges some folk a bushel of potatoes for delivery of a baby.”

Reading Questions

1) Why does Mr. Cunningham pay the Finches with agricultural produce? Explain. (3 points)

2) Why are lawyers and doctors in Maycomb County poor? (5 points)

3) Why does Mr. Cunningham refuse to get a job with the WPA? (2 points)