- After his adventures at the Radley Place, Jem is in a bad mood for a week.
- Scout starts second grade. It's just as bad as first grade.
- Jem finally tells Scout what happened when he went back to the Radley House: his pants were folded up on top of the fence, and the tear in them had been sloppily mended.
- CREEPY.
- Passing by the knothole tree, they see a ball of twine resting inside it.
- Scout wants to take it, but Jem thinks it might be someone's hiding spot.
- When the twine is still there after a few days, Jem takes it, and from then on there are no more qualms about taking things found in the knothole.
- A few months later, the knothole holds their best find yet: two figures carved out of soap that bear a striking resemblance to Scout and Jem.
- Scout throws them on the ground, thinking about voodoo dolls, but Jem rescues them.
- Who could have made them?
- The knothole haul keeps getting better and better: a whole pack of chewing gum, a spelling bee medal, and a broken pocket watch (which Jem tries, but fails, to fix).
- Scout and Jem decide to write a letter to their secret benefactor.
- But the next day, they find that the knothole has been filled with cement.
- Jem stakes out Mr. Nathan and asks why.
- Mr. Nathan says that the tree's sick and the cement is an attempt to cure it.
- Jem asks Atticus if that's true. Atticus says it looks healthy to him, but Mr. Radley should know his own trees.