Provide textual evidence that portrays Scout Finch as an honest individual in the novel To Kill a Mockingbird.

There are several scenes throughout the novel that depict Scout Finch as being an honest individual. In Chapter 2, Scout is asked to read most of My First Reader and stock-market quotations from The Mobile Register on her first day of school. Miss Caroline tells Scout to tell her father that he is no longer allowed to teach Scout anymore because it would interfere with her reading. Scout says, "He hasn't taught me anything, Miss Caroline. Atticus ain't got time to teach me anything" (Lee 12). When Miss Caroline comments that Scout wasn't born reading, Scout says,

"Jem says I was. He read in a book where I was a Bullfinch instead of a Finch. Jem says my name's really Jean Louise Bullfinch, that I got swapped when I was born and I'm really a---" (Lee 12).

Scout then mentions that Miss Caroline thought she was lying when Miss Caroline told her not to let her imagination run away with her.

Despite the fact that Scout was not a "Bullfinch" who was switched at birth, she naively believes Jem's story. Scout is a typical innocent child who believes anything that her older brother tells her. Scout actually believed that she was born reading and that Atticus didn't teach her. In Scout's mind, she is being completely honest which is why she is confused at Miss Caroline's response.

Another scene that depicts Scout being honest takes place in Chapter 4 when Jem is explaining to Dill what a Hot-Steam is. Scout interrupts Jem and tells Dill, "Don't you believe a word he says, Dill...Calpurnia says that's nigger-talk" (Lee 24). Scout knows that her brother is lying about the existence of Hot-Steams and tells Dill the truth about them.