According to what Miss Maudie said, Atticus was the best checker-player in Maycomb, and Atticus could also play a Jew’s Harp. Jem and Scout were surprised because whenever they played checker with Atticus, Atticus always let them win. So Jem and Scout never had a chance to discover Atticus’s true ability. However, since Miss Maudie told Jem and Scout about what Atticus were good at, Jem and Scout were in a great shock. But, that was not all…
One Saturday, Jem and Scout decided to go exploring with their air rifles to see if they could find a rabbit or squirrel, but unfortunately they have found themselves a mad dog slowly coming towards the main resident street. The dog was scary; it acted like a beast that didn’t eat for days, and it’s going to hunt down whoever stood on its way. Scout and Jem didn’t know why Mr. Tate gave the heavy rifle to Atticus and told Atticus to shoot the dog. It was then Jem and Scout knew that their father was called “One-shot Finch” because Atticus shot the dog dead in a flash with just one single bullet. Miss Maudie said that when Atticus was still young, if Atticus shot fifteen times and hit fourteen doves he’d complain about wasting ammunition. Atticus was civilized in his heart. Marksmanship was a gift of God, a talent. Atticus put his gun down when he realized that God had given him an unfair advantage over most living things. So, Atticus decided he wouldn’t shoot until he had to. In this case, Atticus had to shoot the dog because he had to protect the town folks. Jem and Scout was totally astounded by their special-gifted father, Jem and Scout never knew that their father could do such things other than reading books. Atticus was a highly skilled gunman.
And there was another time when Tom Robinson’s incident with Mayella Ewell occurred and Atticus had to help Tom to win the trial because Atticus believed that Tom didn’t rape Mayella, and he was determined to prove it to everyone in the town.
This time, Jem and Scout clearly saw how their father does his job in the court. With Atticus’s critical thinking skills, he managed to show that Mayella’s story was a bag of lies. Atticus was never a nigger-lover or anything like that, he used the same kind of way he did to Mayella to Tom Robinson, and Tom’s story was definitely the truth. When Atticus questioned Mayella for a few times over the same questions and Mayella couldn’t remember what she said at the beginning. However, Tom Robinson was different, he showed no hesitation at all when Atticus questioned him over and over again on the same questions. And Tom’s answers to Atticus’s questions remained the same as always. Atticus clearly showed why Mayella was telling the lies and Tom did not, because the state had not produced one iota of medical evidence to the effect that the crime Tom Robinson was charged with ever took place. People thought that Atticus had won the trial, nevertheless the judge didn’t make the right verdict.
Based on all this story told by her daughter Scout Finch on her father Atticus Finch, she learned that Atticus has incredible talents that normal people could not dream to have, Atticus was able to hide all his “unfair” talents to himself because Atticus Finch was a real gentleman.