Treasures in the tree

I watched Scout enter the house chewing on a piece of gum. I told her to spit it out instantly, she shouldn’t eat things she finds on the ground. “This wasn’t on the ground, it was in a tree.” i growled at her and told her again to spit it out. She claimed that it was alright because she had been chewing it all afternoon and she wasn’t dead yet. I stomped my foot. “Don’t you know you’re not suppose to even touch the trees over there? You’ll get killed if you do!”

Scout and i were walking to the live oaks at the Radley place and she raised a finger, pointing at the knot-hole where she had found the chewing gum for the hundredth time, except this time i saw something myself. I reached up to grab the shining box and we ran back to our front porch. It looked like a box rings would come in, purple velvet covering it. I opened the box to reveal two scrubbed and polished pennies, one on top of the other. “Indian-heads. Nineteen-six and Scout, one of em’s nineteen-hundred. These are real old,” i spoke to Scout. 
“Jem, you reckon that’s somebody’s hidin’ place?” she asked. I told her it wasn’t, nobody ever walked by there. I said we would keep them until school starts, then ask everyone if it belonged to them. 


Scout and i were walking past the Radley house one afternoon when something white in the knot-hole caught my eye. Scout reached up and pulled out two small objects which were carved out of soap. One of them a boy, the other a girl. She screamed and threw them to the ground. I quickly picked them up. “What’s the matter with you?” i yelled. I had never seen anything like them, they were very well made. I held them out, staring at the two close to perfect miniature figures. The boy had on shorts and hair which fell to his eyebrows. I looked over at the girl doll, then over to Scout. “These are us.” 

The following week we went back to the tree and inside sat a tarnished medal. I showed Atticus and he told me it was a medal from a spelling contest that used to be held before we were born. 
The greatest treasure we found in the knot-hole was what we found four days later. It was a pocket watch that hung from a chain with an aluminium knife. Atticus said it could be worth ten dollars. 
Scout came up with the idea to write a letter to whoever was leaving these items in the tree for us. I thought they would appreciate us thanking them. She handed me a pen and some paper. The letter read, “Dear Sir, We appreciate everything you have put into the tree for us. Yours very truly, Jem Finch and Jean Louise Finch (Scout).”The next morning on the way to school I ran past Scout and stopped in front of the tree. “Scout!” i called out. She ran over to me and looked towards where my eyes had landed. Someone had filled the knot-hole with cement. Why would anyone do such a thing?