When Courage Has a Name

In Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird, there is a scene that stops the neighborhood cold. A rabid dog staggers down a quiet Alabama street, and the town sheriff — the man whose job it is to handle such things — hands his rifle to Atticus Finch. The children, Scout and Jem, are stunned. Their father never talked about guns. He never bragged about anything. But old Miss Maudie leans over and whispers what she knows: Atticus was once the deadliest shot in Maycomb County.

He walks into the middle of the street, kneels in the dirt, and — with one shot — ends the threat.

What moves Scout most is not her father's accuracy. It's his quietness about it. Atticus had a gift he never used to make himself feel important. He stepped forward only when the moment demanded it.

Later in the novel, Atticus gives Scout a definition of courage she never forgets: "It's when you know you're licked before you begin, but you begin anyway and see it through no matter what."