Walter Cunningham is a boy in Scout’s class who is very poor.  His family is a farming family; therefore the Great Depression hurt them greatly.  At the beginning of the story, Scout tries to explain to her first grade teacher Miss Caroline why Walter cannot accept a quarter from her to go buy himself lunch.  Walter does not have a lunch and would not be able to pay Miss Caroline back.  Scout understands the Cunningham family because Atticus has helped Mr. Cunningham, Walter’s father, with his entailments in the past.  Miss Caroline whips Scout (pats her on the hand with a ruler) because of what she says about Walter.  That day at lunch Scout catches Walter Cunningham in the schoolyard and beats him up because he got her in trouble.  Jem sees them fighting and invites Walter home for dinner with them, to make peace between them.  Walter has some rude eating habits, such as drowning his dinner in molasses, but when Scout openly criticizes him, Calpurnia gets angry with her.  Calpurnia tells her to stop acting like she is better than him.  Later in the novel Scout stops a mob led my Mr. Cunningham by talking about Walter, among other things.

Dr. Reynolds is the Maycomb doctor. "Had brought Jem and me into the world, had led us through every childhood disease known to man including the time Jem fell out of the tree house, and he had never lost our friendship. Dr. Reynolds said that if we were boil-prone things would have been different...” He is well known to Jem and Scout. He has a strong bond with the Finches.