Jem and Dill grow closer together, and Scout begins to feel left out of their friendship. As a result, she starts spending much of her time with one of their neighbors, Miss Maudie Atkinson, a widow with a passion for gardening and cake baking. She tells Scout that Boo Radley is still alive and it is her theory Boo is the victim of a harsh father, a foot-washing Baptist who believed that most people are going to hell. Miss Maudie adds that Boo was always polite and friendly as a child. She says that most of the rumors about him are false, but that if he wasn’t crazy as a boy, he probably is by now.

Meanwhile, Jem and Dill plan to give a note to Boo inviting him out to get ice cream with them. They try to stick the note in a window of the Radley Place with a fishing pole, but Atticus catches them and orders them to “stop tormenting that man” with either notes or the “Boo Radley” game.