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Chapter 4 Summary School continues; the year goes by. Scout doubts that the new educational system is really doing her any good - she finds school boring and wishes the teacher would allow her to read and write, rather than ask the children to do silly activities geared toward "Group Dynamics" and "Good Citizenship." One afternoon as she runs past the Radley house she notices something in the knot-hole of one of the oak trees in the Radleys' front yard. It turns out to be two pieces of chewing gum. Scout is careful but she eventually decides to chew them. Jem makes her spit it out. Later, toward the end of the school year, they find in the same place a little box with two polished Indian-head pennies inside - these are good luck tokens. They aren't sure whether these have been left for them, but decide to take them anyway. Dill comes to Maycomb for the summer again, full of stories about train rides and his father, whom he claims to have finally laid eyes upon. The three try to start a few games, but they quickly get bored. Jem pushes Scout inside an old tire, but it ends up in the Radleys' yard. Terrified, Scout runs back, but Jem has to run into the yard and retrieve the tire. Dill thinks Boo Radley died and Jem says they stuffed his body up the chimney. Scout thinks maybe he's still alive. They invent a new game about Boo Radley. Jem plays Boo, Dill plays Mr. Radley, and Scout plays Mrs. Radley. They polish it up over the summer into a little dramatic reenactment of all the gossip they've heard about Boo and his family, including a scene using Calpurnia's scissors as a prop. One day Atticus catches them playing the game and asks them if it has anything to do with the Radleys. They say it doesn't, and Atticus replies, "I hope it doesn't." Atticus's sternness forces them to stop playing, and Scout is relieved because she's worried for another reason: she thought she heard the sound of someone laughing inside the Radley house when her tire rolled into their yard. Chapter 5 Summary Jem and Dill have become closer friends, and Scout, being a girl, finds herself often excluded from her play. Dill has in childish fashion decided to get engaged to Scout, but now he and Jem play together often and Scout finds herself unwelcome. She often sits with their neighbor, the avid gardener Miss Maudie Atkinson, and watches the sun set on her front steps or partakes of Miss Maudie's fine cake.
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