Dill recited this narrative: having been bound in chains and left to die in the basement…by his new father, who disliked him, and secretly kept alive on raw field peas by a passing farmer who heard his cries for help…Dill worked himself free.
– Harper Lee
To Kill a Mockingbird, Chapter 14. When Dill’s mother remarries, he hopes he will at last get a real father. But it doesn’t work out so he runs away from family – and he makes up this incredible story about being chained in a basement and escaping and then joining a traveling animal show. Dill’s family is very different than the Finches, he feels is parents don’t pay enough attention to him.