Jem and Dill start excluding Scout, who begins to spend more time with Miss Maudie Atkinson, a neighbor who grew up with Atticus. One evening, Scout asks Miss Maudie why Boo Radley never comes out. Miss Maudie says it’s because Boo doesn’t want to. She says Boo was always polite as a boy, and that Boo’s father was a Baptist so religious he thought all pleasure was a sin.

The next day, Dill and Jem get Scout to help them try to slip a note through a window of the Radley house with a fishing rod. Atticus catches them and tells them to stop bothering Boo Radley.