— How old were you when you got your first gun, Atticus?
— Thirteen or fourteen.
— I remember when my daddy gave me that gun. He told me that I should never point at anything in the house. And that he'd rather I'd shoot at tin cans in the backyard. But he said that sooner or later he'd suppose the temptation to go after birds would be too much. That I could shoot all the blue jays I wanted if I could hit them. But to remember it was a sin to kill a mockingbird.
— Why?
— I reckon because mockingbirds don't do anything but make music for us to enjoy. They don't eat people's gardens, don't nest in the corncribs. They don't do one thing, but just sing their hearts out for us.
