February 12, 2014 - Analyzing To Kill A Mockingbird for Appeals and Rhetorical Devices

I can read and make inferences about the rhetorical devices used in To Kill A Mockingbird (TKAM)

To do this I must use a variety of reading strategies and discussions to help me make inferences about ethos, pathos, and logos.

To demonstrate this I will hang up sticky notes with lines that contain ethos, pathos, or logos, and I will work on filling out a graphic organizer that challenges me to look at both sides of an argument. 

Directions: Below you will find the text of TKAM for the chapter we will be reading. You will also find the graphic organizer we will be working on as we read the trial scene. 

Is Tom Robinson Innocent or Guilty?  How Do You Know?

Character	Page #	What is the character’s testimony?  (Quote from the text.)	How would Gilmer use this to show Tom’s guilt?	How would Atticus Finch use this to show Tom’s innocence?

 Chapter 17

“Jem,” I said, “are those the Ewells sittin‘ down yonder?” “Hush,” said Jem, “Mr. Heck Tate’s testifyin‘.” Mr. Tate had dressed for the occasion. He wore an ordinary business suit, which made him look somehow like every other man: gone were his high boots, lumber jacket, and bullet-studded belt. From that moment he ceased to terrify me. He was sitting forward in the witness chair, his hands clasped between his knees, listening attentively to the circuit solicitor. The solicitor, a Mr. Gilmer, was not well known to us. He was from Abbottsville; we saw him only when court convened, and that rarely, for court was of no special interest to Jem and me. A balding, smooth-faced man, he could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. Although his back was to us, we knew he had a slight cast in one of his eyes which he used to his advantage: he seemed to be looking at a person when he was actually doing nothing of the kind, thus he was hell on juries and witnesses. The jury, thinking themselves under close scrutiny, paid attention; so did the witnesses, thinking likewise. “…in your own words, Mr. Tate,” Mr. Gilmer was saying. “Well,” said Mr. Tate, touching his glasses and speaking to his knees, “I was called—” “Could you say it to the jury, Mr. Tate? Thank you. Who called you?” Mr. Tate said, “I was fetched by Bob—by Mr. Bob Ewell yonder, one night—” “What night, sir?” Mr. Tate said, “It was the night of November twenty-first. I was just leaving my office to go home when B—Mr. Ewell came in, very excited he was, and said get out to his house quick, some nigger’d raped his girl.” “Did you go?” “Certainly. Got in the car and went out as fast as I could.” “And what did you find?” “Found her lying on the floor in the middle of the front room, one on the right as you go in. She was pretty well beat up, but I heaved her to her feet and she washed her face in a bucket in the corner and said she was all right. I asked her who hurt her and she said it was Tom Robinson—” Judge Taylor, who had been concentrating on his fingernails, looked up as if he were expecting an objection, but Atticus was quiet.

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“—asked her if he beat her like that, she said yes he had. Asked her if he took advantage of her and she said yes he did. So I went down to Robinson’s house and brought him back. She identified him as the one, so I took him in. That’s all there was to it.” “Thank you,” said Mr. Gilmer. Judge Taylor said, “Any questions, Atticus?” “Yes,” said my father. He was sitting behind his table; his chair was skewed to one side, his legs were crossed and one arm was resting on the back of his chair. “Did you call a doctor, Sheriff? Did anybody call a doctor?” asked Atticus. “No sir,” said Mr. Tate. “Didn’t call a doctor?” “No sir,” repeated Mr. Tate. “Why not?” There was an edge to Atticus’s voice. “Well I can tell you why I didn’t. It wasn’t necessary, Mr. Finch. She was mighty banged up. Something sho‘ happened, it was obvious.” “But you didn’t call a doctor? While you were there did anyone send for one, fetch one, carry her to one?” “No sir—” Judge Taylor broke in. “He’s answered the question three times, Atticus. He didn’t call a doctor.” Atticus said, “I just wanted to make sure, Judge,” and the judge smiled. Jem’s hand, which was resting on the balcony rail, tightened around it. He drew in his breath suddenly. Glancing below, I saw no corresponding reaction, and wondered if Jem was trying to be dramatic. Dill was watching peacefully, and so was Reverend Sykes beside him. “What is it?” I whispered, and got a terse, “Sh-h!” “Sheriff,” Atticus was saying, “you say she was mighty banged up. In what way?” “Well—” “Just describe her injuries, Heck.” “Well, she was beaten around the head. There was already bruises comin‘ on her arms, and it happened about thirty minutes before—” “How do you know?” Mr. Tate grinned. “Sorry, that’s what they said. Anyway, she was pretty bruised up when I got there, and she had a black eye comin‘.” “Which eye?” Mr. Tate blinked and ran his hands through his hair. “Let’s see,” he said softly, then he looked at Atticus as if he considered the question childish. “Can’t you remember?” Atticus asked. Mr. Tate pointed to an invisible person five inches in front of him and said, “Her left.” “Wait a minute, Sheriff,” said Atticus. “Was it her left facing you or her left looking the same way you were?” Mr. Tate said, “Oh yes, that’d make it her right. It was her right eye, Mr. Finch. I remember now, she was bunged up on that side of her face…” Mr. Tate blinked again, as if something had suddenly been made plain to him. Then he turned his head and looked around at Tom Robinson. As if by instinct, Tom Robinson raised his head. Something had been made plain to Atticus also, and it brought him to his feet. “Sheriff, please repeat what you said.” “It was her right eye, I said.” “No…” Atticus walked to the court reporter’s desk and bent down to the furiously scribbling hand. It stopped, flipped back the shorthand pad, and the court reporter said, “‘Mr. Finch. I remember now she was bunged up on that side of the face.’” Atticus looked up at Mr. Tate. “Which side again, Heck?” “The right side, Mr. Finch, but she had more bruises—you wanta hear about ‘em?” Atticus seemed to be bordering on another question, but he thought better of it and

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said, “Yes, what were her other injuries?” As Mr. Tate answered, Atticus turned and looked at Tom Robinson as if to say this was something they hadn’t bargained for. “…her arms were bruised, and she showed me her neck. There were definite finger marks on her gullet—” “All around her throat? At the back of her neck?” “I’d say they were all around, Mr. Finch.” “You would?” “Yes sir, she had a small throat, anybody could’a reached around it with—” “Just answer the question yes or no, please, Sheriff,” said Atticus dryly, and Mr. Tate fell silent. Atticus sat down and nodded to the circuit solicitor, who shook his head at the judge, who nodded to Mr. Tate, who rose stiffly and stepped down from the witness stand. Below us, heads turned, feet scraped the floor, babies were shifted to shoulders, and a few children scampered out of the courtroom. The Negroes behind us whispered softly among themselves; Dill was asking Reverend Sykes what it was all about, but Reverend Sykes said he didn’t know. So far, things were utterly dull: nobody had thundered, there were no arguments between opposing counsel, there was no drama; a grave disappointment to all present, it seemed. Atticus was proceeding amiably, as if he were involved in a title dispute. With his infinite capacity for calming turbulent seas, he could make a rape case as dry as a sermon. Gone was the terror in my mind of stale whiskey and barnyard smells, of sleepy-eyed sullen men, of a husky voice calling in the night, “Mr. Finch? They gone?” Our nightmare had gone with daylight, everything would come out all right. All the spectators were as relaxed as Judge Taylor, except Jem. His mouth was twisted into a purposeful half-grin, and his eyes happy about, and he said something about corroborating evidence, which made me sure he was showing off. “…Robert E. Lee Ewell!” In answer to the clerk’s booming voice, a little bantam cock of a man rose and strutted to the stand, the back of his neck reddening at the sound of his name. When he turned around to take the oath, we saw that his face was as red as his neck. We also saw no resemblance to his namesake. A shock of wispy new-washed hair stood up from his forehead; his nose was thin, pointed, and shiny; he had no chin to speak of—it seemed to be part of his crepey neck. “—so help me God,” he crowed. Every town the size of Maycomb had families like the Ewells. No economic fluctuations changed their status—people like the Ewells lived as guests of the county in prosperity as well as in the depths of a depression. No truant officers could keep their numerous offspring in school; no public health officer could free them from congenital defects, various worms, and the diseases indigenous to filthy surroundings. Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. The cabin’s plank walls were supplemented with sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with tin cans hammered flat, so only its general shape suggested its original design: square, with four tiny rooms opening onto a shotgun hall, the cabin rested uneasily upon four irregular lumps of limestone. Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls, which in the summertime were covered with greasy strips of cheesecloth to keep out the varmints that feasted on Maycomb’s refuse. The varmints had a lean time of it, for the Ewells gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry (those that were not eaten) made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child: what passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts, all tipped with rusty hammer-heads, snaggle-toothed rake heads, shovels, axes and grubbing hoes, held on with pieces of barbed wire. Enclosed by this barricade was a dirty yard containing the remains of a Model-T Ford (on blocks), a discarded dentist’s chair, an ancient icebox, plus lesser items: old shoes, worn-out table radios, picture frames, and fruit jars, under which scrawny orange chickens pecked hopefully.

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One corner of the yard, though, bewildered Maycomb. Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson, had Miss Maudie deigned to permit a geranium on her premises. People said they were Mayella Ewell’s. Nobody was quite sure how many children were on the place. Some people said six, others said nine; there were always several dirty-faced ones at the windows when anyone passed by. Nobody had occasion to pass by except at Christmas, when the churches delivered baskets, and when the mayor of Maycomb asked us to please help the garbage collector by dumping our own trees and trash. Atticus took us with him last Christmas when he complied with the mayor’s request. A dirt road ran from the highway past the dump, down to a small Negro settlement some five hundred yards beyond the Ewells‘. It was necessary either to back out to the highway or go the full length of the road and turn around; most people turned around in the Negroes’ front yards. In the frosty December dusk, their cabins looked neat and snug with pale blue smoke rising from the chimneys and doorways glowing amber from the fires inside. There were delicious smells about: chicken, bacon frying crisp as the twilight air. Jem and I detected squirrel cooking, but it took an old countryman like Atticus to identify possum and rabbit, aromas that vanished when we rode back past the Ewell residence. All the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his nearest neighbors was, that if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white. “Mr. Robert Ewell?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “That’s m’name, cap’n,” said the witness. Mr. Gilmer’s back stiffened a little, and I felt sorry for him. Perhaps I’d better explain something now. I’ve heard that lawyers’ children, on seeing their parents in court in the heat of argument, get the wrong idea: they think opposing counsel to be the personal enemies of their parents, they suffer agonies, and are surprised to see them often go out arm-in-arm with their tormenters during the first recess. This was not true of Jem and me. We acquired no traumas from watching our father win or lose. I’m sorry that I can’t provide any drama in this respect; if I did, it would not be true. We could tell, however, when debate became more acrimonious than professional, but this was from watching lawyers other than our father. I never heard Atticus raise his voice in my life, except to a deaf witness. Mr. Gilmer was doing his job, as Atticus was doing his. Besides, Mr. Ewell was Mr. Gilmer’s witness, and he had no business being rude to him of all people. “Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?” was the next question. “Well, if I ain’t I can’t do nothing about it now, her ma’s dead,” was the answer. Judge Taylor stirred. He turned slowly in his swivel chair and looked benignly at the witness. “Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?” he asked, in a way that made the laughter below us stop suddenly. “Yes sir,” Mr. Ewell said meekly. Judge Taylor went on in tones of good will: “This the first time you’ve ever been in court? I don’t recall ever seeing you here.” At the witness’s affirmative nod he continued, “Well, let’s get something straight. There will be no more audibly obscene speculations on any subject from anybody in this courtroom as long as I’m sitting here. Do you understand?” Mr. Ewell nodded, but I don’t think he did. Judge Taylor sighed and said, “All right, Mr. Gilmer?” “Thank you, sir. Mr. Ewell, would you tell us in your own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first, please?” Jem grinned and pushed his hair back. Just-in-your-own words was Mr. Gilmer’s trademark. We often wondered who else’s words Mr. Gilmer was afraid his witness might employ. “Well, the night of November twenty-one I was comin‘ in from the woods with a load o’kindlin’ and just as I got to the fence I heard Mayella screamin‘ like a stuck hog inside

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the house—” Here Judge Taylor glanced sharply at the witness and must have decided his speculations devoid of evil intent, for he subsided sleepily. “What time was it, Mr. Ewell?” “Just ‘fore sundown. Well, I was sayin’ Mayella was screamin‘ fit to beat Jesus—” another glance from the bench silenced Mr. Ewell. “Yes? She was screaming?” said Mr. Gilmer. Mr. Ewell looked confusedly at the judge. “Well, Mayella was raisin‘ this holy racket so I dropped m’load and run as fast as I could but I run into th’ fence, but when I got distangled I run up to th‘ window and I seen—” Mr. Ewell’s face grew scarlet. He stood up and pointed his finger at Tom Robinson. “—I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!” So serene was Judge Taylor’s court, that he had few occasions to use his gavel, but he hammered fully five minutes. Atticus was on his feet at the bench saying something to him, Mr. Heck Tate as first officer of the county stood in the middle aisle quelling the packed courtroom. Behind us, there was an angry muffled groan from the colored people. Reverend Sykes leaned across Dill and me, pulling at Jem’s elbow. “Mr. Jem,” he said, “you better take Miss Jean Louise home. Mr. Jem, you hear me?” Jem turned his head. “Scout, go home. Dill, you’n‘Scout go home.” “You gotta make me first,” I said, remembering Atticus’s blessed dictum. Jem scowled furiously at me, then said to Reverend Sykes, “I think it’s okay, Reverend, she doesn’t understand it.” I was mortally offended. “I most certainly do, I c’n understand anything you can.” “Aw hush. She doesn’t understand it, Reverend, she ain’t nine yet.” Reverend Sykes’s black eyes were anxious. “Mr. Finch know you all are here? This ain’t fit for Miss Jean Louise or you boys either.” Jem shook his head. “He can’t see us this far away. It’s all right, Reverend.” I knew Jem would win, because I knew nothing could make him leave now. Dill and I were safe, for a while: Atticus could see us from where he was, if he looked. As Judge Taylor banged his gavel, Mr. Ewell was sitting smugly in the witness chair, surveying his handiwork. With one phrase he had turned happy picknickers into a sulky, tense, murmuring crowd, being slowly hypnotized by gavel taps lessening in intensity until the only sound in the courtroom was a dim pink-pink-pink: the judge might have been rapping the bench with a pencil. In possession of his court once more, Judge Taylor leaned back in his chair. He looked suddenly weary; his age was showing, and I thought about what Atticus had said—he and Mrs. Taylor didn’t kiss much—he must have been nearly seventy. “There has been a request,” Judge Taylor said, “that this courtroom be cleared of spectators, or at least of women and children, a request that will be denied for the time being. People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for, and they have the right to subject their children to it, but I can assure you of one thing: you will receive what you see and hear in silence or you will leave this courtroom, but you won’t leave it until the whole boiling of you come before me on contempt charges. Mr. Ewell, you will keep your testimony within the confines of Christian English usage, if that is possible. Proceed, Mr. Gilmer.” Mr. Ewell reminded me of a deaf-mute. I was sure he had never heard the words Judge Taylor directed at him—his mouth struggled silently with them—but their import registered on his face. Smugness faded from it, replaced by a dogged earnestness that fooled Judge Taylor not at all: as long as Mr. Ewell was on the stand, the judge kept his eyes on him, as if daring him to make a false move. Mr. Gilmer and Atticus exchanged glances. Atticus was sitting down again, his fist rested on his cheek and we could not see his face. Mr. Gilmer looked rather desperate. A question from Judge Taylor made him relax: “Mr. Ewell, did you see the defendant having sexual intercourse with your daughter?”

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“Yes, I did.” The spectators were quiet, but the defendant said something. Atticus whispered to him, and Tom Robinson was silent. “You say you were at the window?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “Yes sir.” “How far is it from the ground?” “‘bout three foot.” “Did you have a clear view of the room?” “Yes sir.” “How did the room look?” “Well, it was all slung about, like there was a fight.” “What did you do when you saw the defendant?” “Well, I run around the house to get in, but he run out the front door just ahead of me. I sawed who he was, all right. I was too distracted about Mayella to run after’im. I run in the house and she was lyin‘ on the floor squallin’—” “Then what did you do?” “Why, I run for Tate quick as I could. I knowed who it was, all right, lived down yonder in that nigger-nest, passed the house every day. Jedge, I’ve asked this county for fifteen years to clean out that nest down yonder, they’re dangerous to live around ‘sides devaluin’ my property—” “Thank you, Mr. Ewell,” said Mr. Gilmer hurriedly. The witness made a hasty descent from the stand and ran smack into Atticus, who had risen to question him. Judge Taylor permitted the court to laugh. “Just a minute, sir,” said Atticus genially. “Could I ask you a question or two?” Mr. Ewell backed up into the witness chair, settled himself, and regarded Atticus with haughty suspicion, an expression common to Maycomb County witnesses when confronted by opposing counsel. “Mr. Ewell,” Atticus began, “folks were doing a lot of running that night. Let’s see, you say you ran to the house, you ran to the window, you ran inside, you ran to Mayella, you ran for Mr. Tate. Did you, during all this running, run for a doctor?” “Wadn’t no need to. I seen what happened.” “But there’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Atticus. “Weren’t you concerned with Mayella’s condition?” “I most positively was,” said Mr. Ewell. “I seen who done it.” “No, I mean her physical condition. Did you not think the nature of her injuries warranted immediate medical attention?” “What?” “Didn’t you think she should have had a doctor, immediately?” The witness said he never thought of it, he had never called a doctor to any of his’n in his life, and if he had it would have cost him five dollars. “That all?” he asked. “Not quite,” said Atticus casually. “Mr. Ewell, you heard the sheriff’s testimony, didn’t you?” “How’s that?” “You were in the courtroom when Mr. Heck Tate was on the stand, weren’t you? You heard everything he said, didn’t you?” Mr. Ewell considered the matter carefully, and seemed to decide that the question was safe. “Yes,” he said. “Do you agree with his description of Mayella’s injuries?” “How’s that?” Atticus looked around at Mr. Gilmer and smiled. Mr. Ewell seemed determined not to give the defense the time of day. “Mr. Tate testified that her right eye was blackened, that she was beaten around the—” “Oh yeah,” said the witness. “I hold with everything Tate said.”

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“You do?” asked Atticus mildly. “I just want to make sure.” He went to the court reporter, said something, and the reporter entertained us for some minutes by reading Mr. Tate’s testimony as if it were stock-market quotations: “…which eye her left oh yes that’d make it her right it was her right eye Mr. Finch I remember now she was bunged.” He flipped the page. “Up on that side of the face Sheriff please repeat what you said it was her right eye I said—” “Thank you, Bert,” said Atticus. “You heard it again, Mr. Ewell. Do you have anything to add to it? Do you agree with the sheriff?” “I holds with Tate. Her eye was blacked and she was mighty beat up.” The little man seemed to have forgotten his previous humiliation from the bench. It was becoming evident that he thought Atticus an easy match. He seemed to grow ruddy again; his chest swelled, and once more he was a red little rooster. I thought he’d burst his shirt at Atticus’s next question: “Mr. Ewell, can you read and write?” Mr. Gilmer interrupted. “Objection,” he said. “Can’t see what witness’s literacy has to do with the case, irrelevant’n‘immaterial.” Judge Taylor was about to speak but Atticus said, “Judge, if you’ll allow the question plus another one you’ll soon see.” “All right, let’s see,” said Judge Taylor, “but make sure we see, Atticus. Overruled.” Mr. Gilmer seemed as curious as the rest of us as to what bearing the state of Mr. Ewell’s education had on the case. “I’ll repeat the question,” said Atticus. “Can you read and write?” “I most positively can.” “Will you write your name and show us?” “I most positively will. How do you think I sign my relief checks?” Mr. Ewell was endearing himself to his fellow citizens. The whispers and chuckles below us probably had to do with what a card he was. I was becoming nervous. Atticus seemed to know what he was doing—but it seemed to me that he’d gone frog-sticking without a light. Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby-food. Do it, and you’ll often get an answer you don’t want, an answer that might wreck your case. Atticus was reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. He drew out an envelope, then reached into his vest pocket and unclipped his fountain pen. He moved leisurely, and had turned so that he was in full view of the jury. He unscrewed the fountain-pen cap and placed it gently on his table. He shook the pen a little, then handed it with the envelope to the witness. “Would you write your name for us?” he asked. “Clearly now, so the jury can see you do it.” Mr. Ewell wrote on the back of the envelope and looked up complacently to see Judge Taylor staring at him as if he were some fragrant gardenia in full bloom on the witness stand, to see Mr. Gilmer half-sitting, half-standing at his table. The jury was watching him, one man was leaning forward with his hands over the railing. “What’s so interestin‘?” he asked. “You’re left-handed, Mr. Ewell,” said Judge Taylor. Mr. Ewell turned angrily to the judge and said he didn’t see what his being left-handed had to do with it, that he was a Christ-fearing man and Atticus Finch was taking advantage of him. Tricking lawyers like Atticus Finch took advantage of him all the time with their tricking ways. He had told them what happened, he’d say it again and again—which he did. Nothing Atticus asked him after that shook his story, that he’d looked through the window, then ran the nigger off, then ran for the sheriff. Atticus finally dismissed him. Mr. Gilmer asked him one more question. “About your writing with your left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?” “I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other. One hand good as the other,” he added, glaring at the defense table. Jem seemed to be having a quiet fit. He was pounding the balcony rail softly, and

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once he whispered, “We’ve got him.” I didn’t think so: Atticus was trying to show, it seemed to me, that Mr. Ewell could have beaten up Mayella. That much I could follow. If her right eye was blacked and she was beaten mostly on the right side of the face, it would tend to show that a left-handed person did it. Sherlock Holmes and Jem Finch would agree. But Tom Robinson could easily be left-handed, too. Like Mr. Heck Tate, I imagined a person facing me, went through a swift mental pantomime, and concluded that he might have held her with his right hand and pounded her with his left. I looked down at him. His back was to us, but I could see his broad shoulders and bull-thick neck. He could easily have done it. I thought Jem was counting his chickens.

Chapter 18

But someone was booming again. “Mayella Violet Ewell—!” A young girl walked to the witness stand. As she raised her hand and swore that the evidence she gave would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help her God, she seemed somehow fragile-looking, but when she sat facing us in the witness chair she became what she was, a thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor. In Maycomb County, it was easy to tell when someone bathed regularly, as opposed to yearly lavations: Mr. Ewell had a scalded look; as if an overnight soaking had deprived him of protective layers of dirt, his skin appeared to be sensitive to the elements. Mayella looked as if she tried to keep clean, and I was reminded of the row of red geraniums in the Ewell yard. Mr. Gilmer asked Mayella to tell the jury in her own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first of last year, just in her own words, please. Mayella sat silently. “Where were you at dusk on that evening?” began Mr. Gilmer patiently. “On the porch.” “Which porch?” “Ain’t but one, the front porch.” “What were you doing on the porch?” “Nothin‘.” Judge Taylor said, “Just tell us what happened. You can do that, can’t you?” Mayella stared at him and burst into tears. She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed. Judge Taylor let her cry for a while, then he said, “That’s enough now. Don’t be ‘fraid of anybody here, as long as you tell the truth. All this is strange to you, I know, but you’ve nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear. What are you scared of?” Mayella said something behind her hands. “What was that?” asked the judge. “Him,” she sobbed, pointing at Atticus. “Mr. Finch?” She nodded vigorously, saying, “Don’t want him doin‘ me like he done Papa, tryin’ to make him out lefthanded…” Judge Taylor scratched his thick white hair. It was plain that he had never been confronted with a problem of this kind. “How old are you?” he asked. “Nineteen-and-a-half,” Mayella said. Judge Taylor cleared his throat and tried unsuccessfully to speak in soothing tones. “Mr. Finch has no idea of scaring you,” he growled, “and if he did, I’m here to stop him. That’s one thing I’m sitting up here for. Now you’re a big girl, so you just sit up straight and tell the—tell us what happened to you. You can do that, can’t you?” I whispered to Jem, “Has she got good sense?” Jem was squinting down at the witness stand. “Can’t tell yet,” he said. “She’s got enough sense to get the judge sorry for her, but she might be just—oh, I don’t know.” Mollified, Mayella gave Atticus a final terrified glance and said to Mr. Gilmer, “Well sir,

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I was on the porch and—and he came along and, you see, there was this old chiffarobe in the yard Papa’d brought in to chop up for kindlin‘—Papa told me to do it while he was off in the woods but I wadn’t feelin’ strong enough then, so he came by-” “Who is ‘he’?” Mayella pointed to Tom Robinson. “I’ll have to ask you to be more specific, please,” said Mr. Gilmer. “The reporter can’t put down gestures very well.” “That’n yonder,” she said. “Robinson.” “Then what happened?” “I said come here, nigger, and bust up this chiffarobe for me, I gotta nickel for you. He coulda done it easy enough, he could. So he come in the yard an‘ I went in the house to get him the nickel and I turned around an ’fore I knew it he was on me. Just run up behind me, he did. He got me round the neck, cussin‘ me an’ sayin‘ dirt—I fought’n’hollered, but he had me round the neck. He hit me agin an‘ agin—” Mr. Gilmer waited for Mayella to collect herself: she had twisted her handkerchief into a sweaty rope; when she opened it to wipe her face it was a mass of creases from her hot hands. She waited for Mr. Gilmer to ask another question, but when he didn’t, she said, “-he chunked me on the floor an‘ choked me’n took advantage of me.” “Did you scream?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “Did you scream and fight back?” “Reckon I did, hollered for all I was worth, kicked and hollered loud as I could.” “Then what happened?” “I don’t remember too good, but next thing I knew Papa was in the room a’standing over me hollerin‘ who done it, who done it? Then I sorta fainted an’ the next thing I knew Mr. Tate was pullin‘ me up offa the floor and leadin’ me to the water bucket.” Apparently Mayella’s recital had given her confidence, but it was not her father’s brash kind: there was something stealthy about hers, like a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tail. “You say you fought him off as hard as you could? Fought him tooth and nail?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “I positively did,” Mayella echoed her father. “You are positive that he took full advantage of you?” Mayella’s face contorted, and I was afraid that she would cry again. Instead, she said, “He done what he was after.” Mr. Gilmer called attention to the hot day by wiping his head with his hand. “That’s all for the time being,” he said pleasantly, “but you stay there. I expect big bad Mr. Finch has some questions to ask you.” “State will not prejudice the witness against counsel for the defense,” murmured Judge Taylor primly, “at least not at this time.” Atticus got up grinning but instead of walking to the witness stand, he opened his coat and hooked his thumbs in his vest, then he walked slowly across the room to the windows. He looked out, but didn’t seem especially interested in what he saw, then he turned and strolled back to the witness stand. From long years of experience, I could tell he was trying to come to a decision about something. “Miss Mayella,” he said, smiling, “I won’t try to scare you for a while, not yet. Let’s just get acquainted. How old are you?” “Said I was nineteen, said it to the judge yonder.” Mayella jerked her head resentfully at the bench. “So you did, so you did, ma’am. You’ll have to bear with me, Miss Mayella, I’m getting along and can’t remember as well as I used to. I might ask you things you’ve already said before, but you’ll give me an answer, won’t you? Good.” I could see nothing in Mayella’s expression to justify Atticus’s assumption that he had secured her wholehearted cooperation. She was looking at him furiously. “Won’t answer a word you say long as you keep on mockin‘ me,” she said. “Ma’am?” asked Atticus, startled. “Long’s you keep on makin‘ fun o’me.” Judge Taylor said, “Mr. Finch is not making fun of you. What’s the matter with you?” Mayella looked from under lowered eyelids at Atticus, but she said to the judge:

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“Long’s he keeps on callin‘ me ma’am an sayin’ Miss Mayella. I don’t hafta take his sass, I ain’t called upon to take it.” Atticus resumed his stroll to the windows and let Judge Taylor handle this one. Judge Taylor was not the kind of figure that ever evoked pity, but I did feel a pang for him as he tried to explain. “That’s just Mr. Finch’s way,” he told Mayella. “We’ve done business in this court for years and years, and Mr. Finch is always courteous to everybody. He’s not trying to mock you, he’s trying to be polite. That’s just his way.” The judge leaned back. “Atticus, let’s get on with these proceedings, and let the record show that the witness has not been sassed, her views to the contrary.” I wondered if anybody had ever called her “ma’am,” or “Miss Mayella” in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like? I soon found out. “You say you’re nineteen,” Atticus resumed. “How many sisters and brothers have you?” He walked from the windows back to the stand. “Seb’m,” she said, and I wondered if they were all like the specimen I had seen the first day I started to school. “You the eldest? The oldest?” “Yes.” “How long has your mother been dead?” “Don’t know—long time.” “Did you ever go to school?” “Read’n‘write good as Papa yonder.” Mayella sounded like a Mr. Jingle in a book I had been reading. “How long did you go to school?” “Two year—three year—dunno.” Slowly but surely I began to see the pattern of Atticus’s questions: from questions that Mr. Gilmer did not deem sufficiently irrelevant or immaterial to object to, Atticus was quietly building up before the jury a picture of the Ewells’ home life. The jury learned the following things: their relief check was far from enough to feed the family, and there was strong suspicion that Papa drank it up anyway—he sometimes went off in the swamp for days and came home sick; the weather was seldom cold enough to require shoes, but when it was, you could make dandy ones from strips of old tires; the family hauled its water in buckets from a spring that ran out at one end of the dump—they kept the surrounding area clear of trash—and it was everybody for himself as far as keeping clean went: if you wanted to wash you hauled your own water; the younger children had perpetual colds and suffered from chronic ground-itch; there was a lady who came around sometimes and asked Mayella why she didn’t stay in school—she wrote down the answer; with two members of the family reading and writing, there was no need for the rest of them to learn—Papa needed them at home. “Miss Mayella,” said Atticus, in spite of himself, “a nineteen-year-old girl like you must have friends. Who are your friends?” The witness frowned as if puzzled. “Friends?” “Yes, don’t you know anyone near your age, or older, or younger? Boys and girls? Just ordinary friends?” Mayella’s hostility, which had subsided to grudging neutrality, flared again. “You makin‘ fun o’me agin, Mr. Finch?” Atticus let her question answer his. “Do you love your father, Miss Mayella?” was his next. “Love him, whatcha mean?” “I mean, is he good to you, is he easy to get along with?” “He does tollable, ‘cept when—” “Except when?” Mayella looked at her father, who was sitting with his chair tipped against the railing. He sat up straight and waited for her to answer. “Except when nothin‘,” said Mayella. “I said he does tollable.”

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Mr. Ewell leaned back again. “Except when he’s drinking?” asked Atticus so gently that Mayella nodded. “Does he ever go after you?” “How you mean?” “When he’s—riled, has he ever beaten you?” Mayella looked around, down at the court reporter, up at the judge. “Answer the question, Miss Mayella,” said Judge Taylor. “My paw’s never touched a hair o’my head in my life,” she declared firmly. “He never touched me.” Atticus’s glasses had slipped a little, and he pushed them up on his nose. “We’ve had a good visit, Miss Mayella, and now I guess we’d better get to the case. You say you asked Tom Robinson to come chop up a—what was it?” “A chiffarobe, a old dresser full of drawers on one side.” “Was Tom Robinson well known to you?” “Whaddya mean?” “I mean did you know who he was, where he lived?” Mayella nodded. “I knowed who he was, he passed the house every day.” “Was this the first time you asked him to come inside the fence?” Mayella jumped slightly at the question. Atticus was making his slow pilgrimage to the windows, as he had been doing: he would ask a question, then look out, waiting for an answer. He did not see her involuntary jump, but it seemed to me that he knew she had moved. He turned around and raised his eyebrows. “Was—” he began again. “Yes it was.” “Didn’t you ever ask him to come inside the fence before?” She was prepared now. “I did not, I certainly did not.” “One did not’s enough,” said Atticus serenely. “You never asked him to do odd jobs for you before?” “I mighta,” conceded Mayella. “There was several niggers around.” “Can you remember any other occasions?” “No.” “All right, now to what happened. You said Tom Robinson was behind you in the room when you turned around, that right?” “Yes.” “You said he ‘got you around the neck cussing and saying dirt’—is that right?” “‘t’s right.” Atticus’s memory had suddenly become accurate. “You say ‘he caught me and choked me and took advantage of me’—is that right?” “That’s what I said.” “Do you remember him beating you about the face?” The witness hesitated. “You seem sure enough that he choked you. All this time you were fighting back, remember? You ‘kicked and hollered as loud as you could.’ Do you remember him beating you about the face?” Mayella was silent. She seemed to be trying to get something clear to herself. I thought for a moment she was doing Mr. Heck Tate’s and my trick of pretending there was a person in front of us. She glanced at Mr. Gilmer. “It’s an easy question, Miss Mayella, so I’ll try again. Do you remember him beating you about the face?” Atticus’s voice had lost its comfortableness; he was speaking in his arid, detached professional voice. “Do you remember him beating you about the face?” “No, I don’t recollect if he hit me. I mean yes I do, he hit me.” “Was your last sentence your answer?” “Huh? Yes, he hit—I just don’t remember, I just don’t remember… it all happened so quick.” Judge Taylor looked sternly at Mayella. “Don’t you cry, young woman—” he began, but Atticus said, “Let her cry if she wants to, Judge. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

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Mayella sniffed wrathfully and looked at Atticus. “I’ll answer any question you got—get me up here an‘ mock me, will you? I’ll answer any question you got—” “That’s fine,” said Atticus. “There’re only a few more. Miss Mayella, not to be tedious, you’ve testified that the defendant hit you, grabbed you around the neck, choked you, and took advantage of you. I want you to be sure you have the right man. Will you identify the man who raped you?” “I will, that’s him right yonder.” Atticus turned to the defendant. “Tom, stand up. Let Miss Mayella have a good long look at you. Is this the man, Miss Mayella?” Tom Robinson’s powerful shoulders rippled under his thin shirt. He rose to his feet and stood with his right hand on the back of his chair. He looked oddly off balance, but it was not from the way he was standing. His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand, and from as far away as the balcony I could see that it was no use to him. “Scout,” breathed Jem. “Scout, look! Reverend, he’s crippled!” Reverend Sykes leaned across me and whispered to Jem. “He got it caught in a cotton gin, caught it in Mr. Dolphus Raymond’s cotton gin when he was a boy… like to bled to death… tore all the muscles loose from his bones—” Atticus said, “Is this the man who raped you?” “It most certainly is.” Atticus’s next question was one word long. “How?” Mayella was raging. “I don’t know how he done it, but he done it—I said it all happened so fast I—” “Now let’s consider this calmly—” began Atticus, but Mr. Gilmer interrupted with an objection: he was not irrelevant or immaterial, but Atticus was browbeating the witness. Judge Taylor laughed outright. “Oh sit down, Horace, he’s doing nothing of the sort. If anything, the witness’s browbeating Atticus.” Judge Taylor was the only person in the courtroom who laughed. Even the babies were still, and I suddenly wondered if they had been smothered at their mothers’ breasts. “Now,” said Atticus, “Miss Mayella, you’ve testified that the defendant choked and beat you—you didn’t say that he sneaked up behind you and knocked you cold, but you turned around and there he was—” Atticus was back behind his table, and he emphasized his words by tapping his knuckles on it. “—do you wish to reconsider any of your testimony?” “You want me to say something that didn’t happen?” “No ma’am, I want you to say something that did happen. Tell us once more, please, what happened?” “I told’ja what happened.” “You testified that you turned around and there he was. He choked you then?” “Yes.” “Then he released your throat and hit you?” “I said he did.” “He blacked your left eye with his right fist?” “I ducked and it—it glanced, that’s what it did. I ducked and it glanced off.” Mayella had finally seen the light. “You’re becoming suddenly clear on this point. A while ago you couldn’t remember too well, could you?” “I said he hit me.” “All right. He choked you, he hit you, then he raped you, that right?” “It most certainly is.” “You’re a strong girl, what were you doing all the time, just standing there?” “I told’ja I hollered’n‘kicked’n’fought—” Atticus reached up and took off his glasses, turned his good right eye to the witness, and rained questions on her. Judge Taylor said, “One question at a time, Atticus. Give

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the witness a chance to answer.” “All right, why didn’t you run?” “I tried…” “Tried to? What kept you from it?” “I—he slung me down. That’s what he did, he slung me down’n got on top of me.” “You were screaming all this time?” “I certainly was.” “Then why didn’t the other children hear you? Where were they? At the dump?” “Where were they?” No answer. “Why didn’t your screams make them come running? The dump’s closer than the woods, isn’t it?” No answer. “Or didn’t you scream until you saw your father in the window? You didn’t think to scream until then, did you?” No answer. “Did you scream first at your father instead of at Tom Robinson? Was that it?” No answer. “Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father?” No answer. “What did your father see in the window, the crime of rape or the best defense to it? Why don’t you tell the truth, child, didn’t Bob Ewell beat you up?” When Atticus turned away from Mayella he looked like his stomach hurt, but Mayella’s face was a mixture of terror and fury. Atticus sat down wearily and polished his glasses with his handkerchief. Suddenly Mayella became articulate. “I got somethin‘ to say,” she said. Atticus raised his head. “Do you want to tell us what happened?” But she did not hear the compassion in his invitation. “I got somethin‘ to say an’ then I ain’t gonna say no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an‘ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanta do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin‘ cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don’t come to nothin‘—your ma’amin’ and Miss Mayellerin‘ don’t come to nothin’, Mr. Finch—” Then she burst into real tears. Her shoulders shook with angry sobs. She was as good as her word. She answered no more questions, even when Mr. Gilmer tried to get her back on the track. I guess if she hadn’t been so poor and ignorant, Judge Taylor would have put her under the jail for the contempt she had shown everybody in the courtroom. Somehow, Atticus had hit her hard in a way that was not clear to me, but it gave him no pleasure to do so. He sat with his head down, and I never saw anybody glare at anyone with the hatred Mayella showed when she left the stand and walked by Atticus’s table. When Mr. Gilmer told Judge Taylor that the state rested, Judge Taylor said, “It’s time we all did. We’ll take ten minutes.” Atticus and Mr. Gilmer met in front of the bench and whispered, then they left the courtroom by a door behind the witness stand, which was a signal for us all to stretch. I discovered that I had been sitting on the edge of the long bench, and I was somewhat numb. Jem got up and yawned, Dill did likewise, and Reverend Sykes wiped his face on his hat. The temperature was an easy ninety, he said. Mr. Braxton Underwood, who had been sitting quietly in a chair reserved for the Press, soaking up testimony with his sponge of a brain, allowed his bitter eyes to rove over the colored balcony, and they met mine. He gave a snort and looked away. “Jem,” I said, “Mr. Underwood’s seen us.” “That’s okay. He won’t tell Atticus, he’ll just put it on the social side of the Tribune.” Jem turned back to Dill, explaining, I suppose, the finer points of the trial to him, but I wondered what they were. There had been no lengthy debates between Atticus and Mr. Gilmer on any points; Mr. Gilmer seemed to be prosecuting almost reluctantly; witnesses had been led by the nose as asses are, with few objections. But Atticus had

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once told us that in Judge Taylor’s court any lawyer who was a strict constructionist on evidence usually wound up receiving strict instructions from the bench. He distilled this for me to mean that Judge Taylor might look lazy and operate in his sleep, but he was seldom reversed, and that was the proof of the pudding. Atticus said he was a good judge. Presently Judge Taylor returned and climbed into his swivel chair. He took a cigar from his vest pocket and examined it thoughtfully. I punched Dill. Having passed the judge’s inspection, the cigar suffered a vicious bite. “We come down sometimes to watch him,” I explained. “It’s gonna take him the rest of the afternoon, now. You watch.” Unaware of public scrutiny from above, Judge Taylor disposed of the severed end by propelling it expertly to his lips and saying, “Fhluck!” He hit a spittoon so squarely we could hear it slosh. “Bet he was hell with a spitball,” murmured Dill. As a rule, a recess meant a general exodus, but today people weren’t moving. Even the Idlers who had failed to shame younger men from their seats had remained standing along the walls. I guess Mr. Heck Tate had reserved the county toilet for court officials. Atticus and Mr. Gilmer returned, and Judge Taylor looked at his watch. “It’s gettin‘ on to four,” he said, which was intriguing, as the courthouse clock must have struck the hour at least twice. I had not heard it or felt its vibrations. “Shall we try to wind up this afternoon?” asked Judge Taylor. “How ‘bout it, Atticus?” “I think we can,” said Atticus. “How many witnesses you got?” “One.” “Well, call him.”

Chapter 19

Thomas Robinson reached around, ran his fingers under his left arm and lifted it. He guided his arm to the Bible and his rubber-like left hand sought contact with the black binding. As he raised his right hand, the useless one slipped off the Bible and hit the clerk’s table. He was trying again when Judge Taylor growled, “That’ll do, Tom.” Tom took the oath and stepped into the witness chair. Atticus very quickly induced him to tell us: Tom was twenty-five years of age; he was married with three children; he had been in trouble with the law before: he once received thirty days for disorderly conduct. “It must have been disorderly,” said Atticus. “What did it consist of?” “Got in a fight with another man, he tried to cut me.” “Did he succeed?” “Yes suh, a little, not enough to hurt. You see, I—” Tom moved his left shoulder. “Yes,” said Atticus. “You were both convicted?” “Yes suh, I had to serve ‘cause I couldn’t pay the fine. Other fellow paid his’n.” Dill leaned across me and asked Jem what Atticus was doing. Jem said Atticus was showing the jury that Tom had nothing to hide. “Were you acquainted with Mayella Violet Ewell?” asked Atticus. “Yes suh, I had to pass her place goin‘ to and from the field every day.” “Whose field?” “I picks for Mr. Link Deas.” “Were you picking cotton in November?” “No suh, I works in his yard fall an‘ wintertime. I works pretty steady for him all year round, he’s got a lot of pecan trees’n things.” “You say you had to pass the Ewell place to get to and from work. Is there any other way to go?” “No suh, none’s I know of.” “Tom, did she ever speak to you?” “Why, yes suh, I’d tip m’hat when I’d go by, and one day she asked me to come inside the fence and bust up a chiffarobe for her.”

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“When did she ask you to chop up the—the chiffarobe?” “Mr. Finch, it was way last spring. I remember it because it was choppin‘ time and I had my hoe with me. I said I didn’t have nothin’ but this hoe, but she said she had a hatchet. She give me the hatchet and I broke up the chiffarobe. She said, ‘I reckon I’ll hafta give you a nickel, won’t I?’ an‘ I said, ’No ma’am, there ain’t no charge.‘ Then I went home. Mr. Finch, that was way last spring, way over a year ago.” “Did you ever go on the place again?” “Yes suh.” “When?” “Well, I went lots of times.” Judge Taylor instinctively reached for his gavel, but let his hand fall. The murmur below us died without his help. “Under what circumstances?” “Please, suh?” “Why did you go inside the fence lots of times?” Tom Robinson’s forehead relaxed. “She’d call me in, suh. Seemed like every time I passed by yonder she’d have some little somethin‘ for me to do—choppin’ kindlin‘, totin’ water for her. She watered them red flowers every day—” “Were you paid for your services?” “No suh, not after she offered me a nickel the first time. I was glad to do it, Mr. Ewell didn’t seem to help her none, and neither did the chillun, and I knowed she didn’t have no nickels to spare.” “Where were the other children?” “They was always around, all over the place. They’d watch me work, some of ‘em, some of ’em’d set in the window.” “Would Miss Mayella talk to you?” “Yes sir, she talked to me.” As Tom Robinson gave his testimony, it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. When Atticus asked had she any friends, she seemed not to know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was white. She couldn’t live like Mr. Dolphus Raymond, who preferred the company of Negroes, because she didn’t own a riverbank and she wasn’t from a fine old family. Nobody said, “That’s just their way,” about the Ewells. Maycomb gave them Christmas baskets, welfare money, and the back of its hand. Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet. “Did you ever,” Atticus interrupted my meditations, “at any time, go on the Ewell property—did you ever set foot on the Ewell property without an express invitation from one of them?” “No suh, Mr. Finch, I never did. I wouldn’t do that, suh.” Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch: I applied his test—Tom denied it three times in one breath, but quietly, with no hint of whining in his voice, and I found myself believing him in spite of his protesting too much. He seemed to be a respectable Negro, and a respectable Negro would never go up into somebody’s yard of his own volition. “Tom, what happened to you on the evening of November twenty-first of last year?” Below us, the spectators drew a collective breath and leaned forward. Behind us, the Negroes did the same. Tom was a black-velvet Negro, not shiny, but soft black velvet. The whites of his eyes shone in his face, and when he spoke we saw flashes of his teeth. If he had been whole, he would have been a fine specimen of a man.

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“Mr. Finch,” he said, “I was goin‘ home as usual that evenin’, an‘ when I passed the Ewell place Miss Mayella were on the porch, like she said she were. It seemed real quiet like, an’ I didn’t quite know why. I was studyin‘ why, just passin’ by, when she says for me to come there and help her a minute. Well, I went inside the fence an‘ looked around for some kindlin’ to work on, but I didn’t see none, and she says, ‘Naw, I got somethin’ for you to do in the house. Th‘ old door’s off its hinges an’ fall’s comin‘ on pretty fast.’ I said you got a screwdriver, Miss Mayella? She said she sho‘ had. Well, I went up the steps an’ she motioned me to come inside, and I went in the front room an‘ looked at the door. I said Miss Mayella, this door look all right. I pulled it back’n forth and those hinges was all right. Then she shet the door in my face. Mr. Finch, I was wonderin’ why it was so quiet like, an‘ it come to me that there weren’t a chile on the place, not a one of ’em, and I said Miss Mayella, where the chillun?” Tom’s black velvet skin had begun to shine, and he ran his hand over his face. “I say where the chillun?” he continued, “an‘ she says—she was laughin’, sort of—she says they all gone to town to get ice creams. She says, ‘took me a slap year to save seb’m nickels, but I done it. They all gone to town.’” Tom’s discomfort was not from the humidity. “What did you say then, Tom?” asked Atticus. “I said somethin‘ like, why Miss Mayella, that’s right smart o’you to treat ’em. An‘ she said, ’You think so?‘ I don’t think she understood what I was thinkin’—I meant it was smart of her to save like that, an‘ nice of her to treat em.” “I understand you, Tom. Go on,” said Atticus. “Well, I said I best be goin‘, I couldn’t do nothin’ for her, an‘ she says oh yes I could, an’ I ask her what, and she says to just step on that chair yonder an‘ git that box down from on top of the chiffarobe.” “Not the same chiffarobe you busted up?” asked Atticus. The witness smiled. “Naw suh, another one. Most as tall as the room. So I done what she told me, an‘ I was just reachin’ when the next thing I knows she—she’d grabbed me round the legs, grabbed me round th‘ legs, Mr. Finch. She scared me so bad I hopped down an’ turned the chair over—that was the only thing, only furniture, ‘sturbed in that room, Mr. Finch, when I left it. I swear ’fore God.” “What happened after you turned the chair over?” Tom Robinson had come to a dead stop. He glanced at Atticus, then at the jury, then at Mr. Underwood sitting across the room. “Tom, you’re sworn to tell the whole truth. Will you tell it?” Tom ran his hand nervously over his mouth. “What happened after that?” “Answer the question,” said Judge Taylor. One-third of his cigar had vanished. “Mr. Finch, I got down offa that chair an‘ turned around an’ she sorta jumped on me.” “Jumped on you? Violently?” “No suh, she—she hugged me. She hugged me round the waist.” This time Judge Taylor’s gavel came down with a bang, and as it did the overhead lights went on in the courtroom. Darkness had not come, but the afternoon sun had left the windows. Judge Taylor quickly restored order. “Then what did she do?” The witness swallowed hard. “She reached up an‘ kissed me ’side of th‘ face. She says she never kissed a grown man before an’ she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don’t count. She says, ‘Kiss me back, nigger.’ I say Miss Mayella lemme outa here an‘ tried to run but she got her back to the door an’ I’da had to push her. I didn’t wanta harm her, Mr. Finch, an‘ I say lemme pass, but just when I say it Mr. Ewell yonder hollered through th’ window.” “What did he say?” Tom Robinson swallowed again, and his eyes widened. “Somethin‘ not fittin’ to say—not fittin‘ for these folks’n chillun to hear—” “What did he say, Tom? You must tell the jury what he said.”

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Tom Robinson shut his eyes tight. “He says you goddamn whore, I’ll kill ya.” “Then what happened?” “Mr. Finch, I was runnin‘ so fast I didn’t know what happened.” “Tom, did you rape Mayella Ewell?” “I did not, suh.” “Did you harm her in any way?” “I did not, suh.” “Did you resist her advances?” “Mr. Finch, I tried. I tried to ‘thout bein’ ugly to her. I didn’t wanta be ugly, I didn’t wanta push her or nothin‘.” It occurred to me that in their own way, Tom Robinson’s manners were as good as Atticus’s. Until my father explained it to me later, I did not understand the subtlety of Tom’s predicament: he would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstances and expect to live long, so he took the first opportunity to run—a sure sign of guilt. “Tom, go back once more to Mr. Ewell,” said Atticus. “Did he say anything to you?” “Not anything, suh. He mighta said somethin‘, but I weren’t there—” “That’ll do,” Atticus cut in sharply. “What you did hear, who was he talking to?” “Mr. Finch, he were talkin‘ and lookin’ at Miss Mayella.” “Then you ran?” “I sho‘ did, suh.” “Why did you run?” “I was scared, suh.” “Why were you scared?” “Mr. Finch, if you was a nigger like me, you’d be scared, too.” Atticus sat down. Mr. Gilmer was making his way to the witness stand, but before he got there Mr. Link Deas rose from the audience and announced: “I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy’s worked for me eight years an‘ I ain’t had a speck o’trouble outa him. Not a speck.” “Shut your mouth, sir!” Judge Taylor was wide awake and roaring. He was also pink in the face. His speech was miraculously unimpaired by his cigar. “Link Deas,” he yelled, “if you have anything you want to say you can say it under oath and at the proper time, but until then you get out of this room, you hear me? Get out of this room, sir, you hear me? I’ll be damned if I’ll listen to this case again!” Judge Taylor looked daggers at Atticus, as if daring him to speak, but Atticus had ducked his head and was laughing into his lap. I remembered something he had said about Judge Taylor’s ex cathedra remarks sometimes exceeding his duty, but that few lawyers ever did anything about them. I looked at Jem, but Jem shook his head. “It ain’t like one of the jurymen got up and started talking,” he said. “I think it’d be different then. Mr. Link was just disturbin‘ the peace or something.” Judge Taylor told the reporter to expunge anything he happened to have written down after Mr. Finch if you were a nigger like me you’d be scared too, and told the jury to disregard the interruption. He looked suspiciously down the middle aisle and waited, I suppose, for Mr. Link Deas to effect total departure. Then he said, “Go ahead, Mr. Gilmer.” “You were given thirty days once for disorderly conduct, Robinson?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “Yes suh.” “What’d the nigger look like when you got through with him?” “He beat me, Mr. Gilmer.” “Yes, but you were convicted, weren’t you?” Atticus raised his head. “It was a misdemeanor and it’s in the record, Judge.” I thought he sounded tired. “Witness’ll answer, though,” said Judge Taylor, just as wearily. “Yes suh, I got thirty days.” I knew that Mr. Gilmer would sincerely tell the jury that anyone who was convicted of

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disorderly conduct could easily have had it in his heart to take advantage of Mayella Ewell, that was the only reason he cared. Reasons like that helped. “Robinson, you’re pretty good at busting up chiffarobes and kindling with one hand, aren’t you?” “Yes, suh, I reckon so.” “Strong enough to choke the breath out of a woman and sling her to the floor?” “I never done that, suh.” “But you are strong enough to?” “I reckon so, suh.” “Had your eye on her a long time, hadn’t you, boy?” “No suh, I never looked at her.” “Then you were mighty polite to do all that chopping and hauling for her, weren’t you, boy?” “I was just tryin‘ to help her out, suh.” “That was mighty generous of you, you had chores at home after your regular work, didn’t you?” “Yes suh.” “Why didn’t you do them instead of Miss Ewell’s?” “I done ‘em both, suh.” “You must have been pretty busy. Why?” “Why what, suh?” “Why were you so anxious to do that woman’s chores?” Tom Robinson hesitated, searching for an answer. “Looked like she didn’t have nobody to help her, like I says—” “With Mr. Ewell and seven children on the place, boy?” “Well, I says it looked like they never help her none—” “You did all this chopping and work from sheer goodness, boy?” “Tried to help her, I says.” Mr. Gilmer smiled grimly at the jury. “You’re a mighty good fellow, it seems—did all this for not one penny?” “Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more’n the rest of ‘em—” “You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for he?” Mr. Gilmer seemed ready to rise to the ceiling. The witness realized his mistake and shifted uncomfortably in the chair. But the damage was done. Below us, nobody liked Tom Robinson’s answer. Mr. Gilmer paused a long time to let it sink in. “Now you went by the house as usual, last November twenty-first,” he said, “and she asked you to come in and bust up a chiffarobe?” “No suh.” “Do you deny that you went by the house?” “No suh—she said she had somethin‘ for me to do inside the house—” “She says she asked you to bust up a chiffarobe, is that right?” “No suh, it ain’t.” “Then you say she’s lying, boy?” Atticus was on his feet, but Tom Robinson didn’t need him. “I don’t say she’s lyin‘, Mr. Gilmer, I say she’s mistaken in her mind.” To the next ten questions, as Mr. Gilmer reviewed Mayella’s version of events, the witness’s steady answer was that she was mistaken in her mind. “Didn’t Mr. Ewell run you off the place, boy?” “No suh, I don’t think he did.” “Don’t think, what do you mean?” “I mean I didn’t stay long enough for him to run me off.” “You’re very candid about this, why did you run so fast?” “I says I was scared, suh.” “If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?”

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“Like I says before, it weren’t safe for any nigger to be in a—fix like that.” “But you weren’t in a fix—you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she’d hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?” “No suh, I’s scared I’d be in court, just like I am now.” “Scared of arrest, scared you’d have to face up to what you did?” “No suh, scared I’d hafta face up to what I didn’t do.” “Are you being impudent to me, boy?” “No suh, I didn’t go to be.” This was as much as I heard of Mr. Gilmer’s cross-examination, because Jem made me take Dill out. For some reason Dill had started crying and couldn’t stop; quietly at first, then his sobs were heard by several people in the balcony. Jem said if I didn’t go with him he’d make me, and Reverend Sykes said I’d better go, so I went. Dill had seemed to be all right that day, nothing wrong with him, but I guessed he hadn’t fully recovered from running away. “Ain’t you feeling good?” I asked, when we reached the bottom of the stairs. Dill tried to pull himself together as we ran down the south steps. Mr. Link Deas was a lonely figure on the top step. “Anything happenin‘, Scout?” he asked as we went by. “No sir,” I answered over my shoulder. “Dill here, he’s sick.” “Come on out under the trees,” I said. “Heat got you, I expect.” We chose the fattest live oak and we sat under it. “It was just him I couldn’t stand,” Dill said. “Who, Tom?” “That old Mr. Gilmer doin‘ him thataway, talking so hateful to him—” “Dill, that’s his job. Why, if we didn’t have prosecutors—well, we couldn’t have defense attorneys, I reckon.” Dill exhaled patiently. “I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me sick, plain sick.” “He’s supposed to act that way, Dill, he was cross—” “He didn’t act that way when—” “Dill, those were his own witnesses.” “Well, Mr. Finch didn’t act that way to Mayella and old man Ewell when he cross-examined them. The way that man called him ‘boy’ all the time an‘ sneered at him, an’ looked around at the jury every time he answered—” “Well, Dill, after all he’s just a Negro.” “I don’t care one speck. It ain’t right, somehow it ain’t right to do ‘em that way. Hasn’t anybody got any business talkin’ like that—it just makes me sick.” “That’s just Mr. Gilmer’s way, Dill, he does ‘em all that way. You’ve never seen him get good’n down on one yet. Why, when—well, today Mr. Gilmer seemed to me like he wasn’t half trying. They do ’em all that way, most lawyers, I mean.” “Mr. Finch doesn’t.” “He’s not an example, Dill, he’s—” I was trying to grope in my memory for a sharp phrase of Miss Maudie Atkinson’s. I had it: “He’s the same in the courtroom as he is on the public streets.” “That’s not what I mean,” said Dill. “I know what you mean, boy,” said a voice behind us. We thought it came from the tree-trunk, but it belonged to Mr. Dolphus Raymond. He peered around the trunk at us. “You aren’t thin-hided, it just makes you sick, doesn’t it?”Chapter 17

“Jem,” I said, “are those the Ewells sittin‘ down yonder?” “Hush,” said Jem, “Mr. Heck Tate’s testifyin‘.” Mr. Tate had dressed for the occasion. He wore an ordinary business suit, which made him look somehow like every other man: gone were his high boots, lumber jacket, and bullet-studded belt. From that moment he ceased to terrify me. He was sitting forward in the witness chair, his hands clasped between his knees, listening attentively to the circuit solicitor. The solicitor, a Mr. Gilmer, was not well known to us. He was from Abbottsville; we saw him only when court convened, and that rarely, for court was of no special interest to Jem and me. A balding, smooth-faced man, he could have been anywhere between forty and sixty. Although his back was to us, we knew he had a slight cast in one of his eyes which he used to his advantage: he seemed to be looking at a person when he was actually doing nothing of the kind, thus he was hell on juries and witnesses. The jury, thinking themselves under close scrutiny, paid attention; so did the witnesses, thinking likewise. “…in your own words, Mr. Tate,” Mr. Gilmer was saying. “Well,” said Mr. Tate, touching his glasses and speaking to his knees, “I was called—” “Could you say it to the jury, Mr. Tate? Thank you. Who called you?” Mr. Tate said, “I was fetched by Bob—by Mr. Bob Ewell yonder, one night—” “What night, sir?” Mr. Tate said, “It was the night of November twenty-first. I was just leaving my office to go home when B—Mr. Ewell came in, very excited he was, and said get out to his house quick, some nigger’d raped his girl.” “Did you go?” “Certainly. Got in the car and went out as fast as I could.” “And what did you find?” “Found her lying on the floor in the middle of the front room, one on the right as you go in. She was pretty well beat up, but I heaved her to her feet and she washed her face in a bucket in the corner and said she was all right. I asked her who hurt her and she said it was Tom Robinson—” Judge Taylor, who had been concentrating on his fingernails, looked up as if he were expecting an objection, but Atticus was quiet.

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“—asked her if he beat her like that, she said yes he had. Asked her if he took advantage of her and she said yes he did. So I went down to Robinson’s house and brought him back. She identified him as the one, so I took him in. That’s all there was to it.” “Thank you,” said Mr. Gilmer. Judge Taylor said, “Any questions, Atticus?” “Yes,” said my father. He was sitting behind his table; his chair was skewed to one side, his legs were crossed and one arm was resting on the back of his chair. “Did you call a doctor, Sheriff? Did anybody call a doctor?” asked Atticus. “No sir,” said Mr. Tate. “Didn’t call a doctor?” “No sir,” repeated Mr. Tate. “Why not?” There was an edge to Atticus’s voice. “Well I can tell you why I didn’t. It wasn’t necessary, Mr. Finch. She was mighty banged up. Something sho‘ happened, it was obvious.” “But you didn’t call a doctor? While you were there did anyone send for one, fetch one, carry her to one?” “No sir—” Judge Taylor broke in. “He’s answered the question three times, Atticus. He didn’t call a doctor.” Atticus said, “I just wanted to make sure, Judge,” and the judge smiled. Jem’s hand, which was resting on the balcony rail, tightened around it. He drew in his breath suddenly. Glancing below, I saw no corresponding reaction, and wondered if Jem was trying to be dramatic. Dill was watching peacefully, and so was Reverend Sykes beside him. “What is it?” I whispered, and got a terse, “Sh-h!” “Sheriff,” Atticus was saying, “you say she was mighty banged up. In what way?” “Well—” “Just describe her injuries, Heck.” “Well, she was beaten around the head. There was already bruises comin‘ on her arms, and it happened about thirty minutes before—” “How do you know?” Mr. Tate grinned. “Sorry, that’s what they said. Anyway, she was pretty bruised up when I got there, and she had a black eye comin‘.” “Which eye?” Mr. Tate blinked and ran his hands through his hair. “Let’s see,” he said softly, then he looked at Atticus as if he considered the question childish. “Can’t you remember?” Atticus asked. Mr. Tate pointed to an invisible person five inches in front of him and said, “Her left.” “Wait a minute, Sheriff,” said Atticus. “Was it her left facing you or her left looking the same way you were?” Mr. Tate said, “Oh yes, that’d make it her right. It was her right eye, Mr. Finch. I remember now, she was bunged up on that side of her face…” Mr. Tate blinked again, as if something had suddenly been made plain to him. Then he turned his head and looked around at Tom Robinson. As if by instinct, Tom Robinson raised his head. Something had been made plain to Atticus also, and it brought him to his feet. “Sheriff, please repeat what you said.” “It was her right eye, I said.” “No…” Atticus walked to the court reporter’s desk and bent down to the furiously scribbling hand. It stopped, flipped back the shorthand pad, and the court reporter said, “‘Mr. Finch. I remember now she was bunged up on that side of the face.’” Atticus looked up at Mr. Tate. “Which side again, Heck?” “The right side, Mr. Finch, but she had more bruises—you wanta hear about ‘em?” Atticus seemed to be bordering on another question, but he thought better of it and

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said, “Yes, what were her other injuries?” As Mr. Tate answered, Atticus turned and looked at Tom Robinson as if to say this was something they hadn’t bargained for. “…her arms were bruised, and she showed me her neck. There were definite finger marks on her gullet—” “All around her throat? At the back of her neck?” “I’d say they were all around, Mr. Finch.” “You would?” “Yes sir, she had a small throat, anybody could’a reached around it with—” “Just answer the question yes or no, please, Sheriff,” said Atticus dryly, and Mr. Tate fell silent. Atticus sat down and nodded to the circuit solicitor, who shook his head at the judge, who nodded to Mr. Tate, who rose stiffly and stepped down from the witness stand. Below us, heads turned, feet scraped the floor, babies were shifted to shoulders, and a few children scampered out of the courtroom. The Negroes behind us whispered softly among themselves; Dill was asking Reverend Sykes what it was all about, but Reverend Sykes said he didn’t know. So far, things were utterly dull: nobody had thundered, there were no arguments between opposing counsel, there was no drama; a grave disappointment to all present, it seemed. Atticus was proceeding amiably, as if he were involved in a title dispute. With his infinite capacity for calming turbulent seas, he could make a rape case as dry as a sermon. Gone was the terror in my mind of stale whiskey and barnyard smells, of sleepy-eyed sullen men, of a husky voice calling in the night, “Mr. Finch? They gone?” Our nightmare had gone with daylight, everything would come out all right. All the spectators were as relaxed as Judge Taylor, except Jem. His mouth was twisted into a purposeful half-grin, and his eyes happy about, and he said something about corroborating evidence, which made me sure he was showing off. “…Robert E. Lee Ewell!” In answer to the clerk’s booming voice, a little bantam cock of a man rose and strutted to the stand, the back of his neck reddening at the sound of his name. When he turned around to take the oath, we saw that his face was as red as his neck. We also saw no resemblance to his namesake. A shock of wispy new-washed hair stood up from his forehead; his nose was thin, pointed, and shiny; he had no chin to speak of—it seemed to be part of his crepey neck. “—so help me God,” he crowed. Every town the size of Maycomb had families like the Ewells. No economic fluctuations changed their status—people like the Ewells lived as guests of the county in prosperity as well as in the depths of a depression. No truant officers could keep their numerous offspring in school; no public health officer could free them from congenital defects, various worms, and the diseases indigenous to filthy surroundings. Maycomb’s Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. The cabin’s plank walls were supplemented with sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with tin cans hammered flat, so only its general shape suggested its original design: square, with four tiny rooms opening onto a shotgun hall, the cabin rested uneasily upon four irregular lumps of limestone. Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls, which in the summertime were covered with greasy strips of cheesecloth to keep out the varmints that feasted on Maycomb’s refuse. The varmints had a lean time of it, for the Ewells gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry (those that were not eaten) made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child: what passed for a fence was bits of tree-limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts, all tipped with rusty hammer-heads, snaggle-toothed rake heads, shovels, axes and grubbing hoes, held on with pieces of barbed wire. Enclosed by this barricade was a dirty yard containing the remains of a Model-T Ford (on blocks), a discarded dentist’s chair, an ancient icebox, plus lesser items: old shoes, worn-out table radios, picture frames, and fruit jars, under which scrawny orange chickens pecked hopefully.

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One corner of the yard, though, bewildered Maycomb. Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson, had Miss Maudie deigned to permit a geranium on her premises. People said they were Mayella Ewell’s. Nobody was quite sure how many children were on the place. Some people said six, others said nine; there were always several dirty-faced ones at the windows when anyone passed by. Nobody had occasion to pass by except at Christmas, when the churches delivered baskets, and when the mayor of Maycomb asked us to please help the garbage collector by dumping our own trees and trash. Atticus took us with him last Christmas when he complied with the mayor’s request. A dirt road ran from the highway past the dump, down to a small Negro settlement some five hundred yards beyond the Ewells‘. It was necessary either to back out to the highway or go the full length of the road and turn around; most people turned around in the Negroes’ front yards. In the frosty December dusk, their cabins looked neat and snug with pale blue smoke rising from the chimneys and doorways glowing amber from the fires inside. There were delicious smells about: chicken, bacon frying crisp as the twilight air. Jem and I detected squirrel cooking, but it took an old countryman like Atticus to identify possum and rabbit, aromas that vanished when we rode back past the Ewell residence. All the little man on the witness stand had that made him any better than his nearest neighbors was, that if scrubbed with lye soap in very hot water, his skin was white. “Mr. Robert Ewell?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “That’s m’name, cap’n,” said the witness. Mr. Gilmer’s back stiffened a little, and I felt sorry for him. Perhaps I’d better explain something now. I’ve heard that lawyers’ children, on seeing their parents in court in the heat of argument, get the wrong idea: they think opposing counsel to be the personal enemies of their parents, they suffer agonies, and are surprised to see them often go out arm-in-arm with their tormenters during the first recess. This was not true of Jem and me. We acquired no traumas from watching our father win or lose. I’m sorry that I can’t provide any drama in this respect; if I did, it would not be true. We could tell, however, when debate became more acrimonious than professional, but this was from watching lawyers other than our father. I never heard Atticus raise his voice in my life, except to a deaf witness. Mr. Gilmer was doing his job, as Atticus was doing his. Besides, Mr. Ewell was Mr. Gilmer’s witness, and he had no business being rude to him of all people. “Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?” was the next question. “Well, if I ain’t I can’t do nothing about it now, her ma’s dead,” was the answer. Judge Taylor stirred. He turned slowly in his swivel chair and looked benignly at the witness. “Are you the father of Mayella Ewell?” he asked, in a way that made the laughter below us stop suddenly. “Yes sir,” Mr. Ewell said meekly. Judge Taylor went on in tones of good will: “This the first time you’ve ever been in court? I don’t recall ever seeing you here.” At the witness’s affirmative nod he continued, “Well, let’s get something straight. There will be no more audibly obscene speculations on any subject from anybody in this courtroom as long as I’m sitting here. Do you understand?” Mr. Ewell nodded, but I don’t think he did. Judge Taylor sighed and said, “All right, Mr. Gilmer?” “Thank you, sir. Mr. Ewell, would you tell us in your own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first, please?” Jem grinned and pushed his hair back. Just-in-your-own words was Mr. Gilmer’s trademark. We often wondered who else’s words Mr. Gilmer was afraid his witness might employ. “Well, the night of November twenty-one I was comin‘ in from the woods with a load o’kindlin’ and just as I got to the fence I heard Mayella screamin‘ like a stuck hog inside

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the house—” Here Judge Taylor glanced sharply at the witness and must have decided his speculations devoid of evil intent, for he subsided sleepily. “What time was it, Mr. Ewell?” “Just ‘fore sundown. Well, I was sayin’ Mayella was screamin‘ fit to beat Jesus—” another glance from the bench silenced Mr. Ewell. “Yes? She was screaming?” said Mr. Gilmer. Mr. Ewell looked confusedly at the judge. “Well, Mayella was raisin‘ this holy racket so I dropped m’load and run as fast as I could but I run into th’ fence, but when I got distangled I run up to th‘ window and I seen—” Mr. Ewell’s face grew scarlet. He stood up and pointed his finger at Tom Robinson. “—I seen that black nigger yonder ruttin’ on my Mayella!” So serene was Judge Taylor’s court, that he had few occasions to use his gavel, but he hammered fully five minutes. Atticus was on his feet at the bench saying something to him, Mr. Heck Tate as first officer of the county stood in the middle aisle quelling the packed courtroom. Behind us, there was an angry muffled groan from the colored people. Reverend Sykes leaned across Dill and me, pulling at Jem’s elbow. “Mr. Jem,” he said, “you better take Miss Jean Louise home. Mr. Jem, you hear me?” Jem turned his head. “Scout, go home. Dill, you’n‘Scout go home.” “You gotta make me first,” I said, remembering Atticus’s blessed dictum. Jem scowled furiously at me, then said to Reverend Sykes, “I think it’s okay, Reverend, she doesn’t understand it.” I was mortally offended. “I most certainly do, I c’n understand anything you can.” “Aw hush. She doesn’t understand it, Reverend, she ain’t nine yet.” Reverend Sykes’s black eyes were anxious. “Mr. Finch know you all are here? This ain’t fit for Miss Jean Louise or you boys either.” Jem shook his head. “He can’t see us this far away. It’s all right, Reverend.” I knew Jem would win, because I knew nothing could make him leave now. Dill and I were safe, for a while: Atticus could see us from where he was, if he looked. As Judge Taylor banged his gavel, Mr. Ewell was sitting smugly in the witness chair, surveying his handiwork. With one phrase he had turned happy picknickers into a sulky, tense, murmuring crowd, being slowly hypnotized by gavel taps lessening in intensity until the only sound in the courtroom was a dim pink-pink-pink: the judge might have been rapping the bench with a pencil. In possession of his court once more, Judge Taylor leaned back in his chair. He looked suddenly weary; his age was showing, and I thought about what Atticus had said—he and Mrs. Taylor didn’t kiss much—he must have been nearly seventy. “There has been a request,” Judge Taylor said, “that this courtroom be cleared of spectators, or at least of women and children, a request that will be denied for the time being. People generally see what they look for, and hear what they listen for, and they have the right to subject their children to it, but I can assure you of one thing: you will receive what you see and hear in silence or you will leave this courtroom, but you won’t leave it until the whole boiling of you come before me on contempt charges. Mr. Ewell, you will keep your testimony within the confines of Christian English usage, if that is possible. Proceed, Mr. Gilmer.” Mr. Ewell reminded me of a deaf-mute. I was sure he had never heard the words Judge Taylor directed at him—his mouth struggled silently with them—but their import registered on his face. Smugness faded from it, replaced by a dogged earnestness that fooled Judge Taylor not at all: as long as Mr. Ewell was on the stand, the judge kept his eyes on him, as if daring him to make a false move. Mr. Gilmer and Atticus exchanged glances. Atticus was sitting down again, his fist rested on his cheek and we could not see his face. Mr. Gilmer looked rather desperate. A question from Judge Taylor made him relax: “Mr. Ewell, did you see the defendant having sexual intercourse with your daughter?”

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“Yes, I did.” The spectators were quiet, but the defendant said something. Atticus whispered to him, and Tom Robinson was silent. “You say you were at the window?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “Yes sir.” “How far is it from the ground?” “‘bout three foot.” “Did you have a clear view of the room?” “Yes sir.” “How did the room look?” “Well, it was all slung about, like there was a fight.” “What did you do when you saw the defendant?” “Well, I run around the house to get in, but he run out the front door just ahead of me. I sawed who he was, all right. I was too distracted about Mayella to run after’im. I run in the house and she was lyin‘ on the floor squallin’—” “Then what did you do?” “Why, I run for Tate quick as I could. I knowed who it was, all right, lived down yonder in that nigger-nest, passed the house every day. Jedge, I’ve asked this county for fifteen years to clean out that nest down yonder, they’re dangerous to live around ‘sides devaluin’ my property—” “Thank you, Mr. Ewell,” said Mr. Gilmer hurriedly. The witness made a hasty descent from the stand and ran smack into Atticus, who had risen to question him. Judge Taylor permitted the court to laugh. “Just a minute, sir,” said Atticus genially. “Could I ask you a question or two?” Mr. Ewell backed up into the witness chair, settled himself, and regarded Atticus with haughty suspicion, an expression common to Maycomb County witnesses when confronted by opposing counsel. “Mr. Ewell,” Atticus began, “folks were doing a lot of running that night. Let’s see, you say you ran to the house, you ran to the window, you ran inside, you ran to Mayella, you ran for Mr. Tate. Did you, during all this running, run for a doctor?” “Wadn’t no need to. I seen what happened.” “But there’s one thing I don’t understand,” said Atticus. “Weren’t you concerned with Mayella’s condition?” “I most positively was,” said Mr. Ewell. “I seen who done it.” “No, I mean her physical condition. Did you not think the nature of her injuries warranted immediate medical attention?” “What?” “Didn’t you think she should have had a doctor, immediately?” The witness said he never thought of it, he had never called a doctor to any of his’n in his life, and if he had it would have cost him five dollars. “That all?” he asked. “Not quite,” said Atticus casually. “Mr. Ewell, you heard the sheriff’s testimony, didn’t you?” “How’s that?” “You were in the courtroom when Mr. Heck Tate was on the stand, weren’t you? You heard everything he said, didn’t you?” Mr. Ewell considered the matter carefully, and seemed to decide that the question was safe. “Yes,” he said. “Do you agree with his description of Mayella’s injuries?” “How’s that?” Atticus looked around at Mr. Gilmer and smiled. Mr. Ewell seemed determined not to give the defense the time of day. “Mr. Tate testified that her right eye was blackened, that she was beaten around the—” “Oh yeah,” said the witness. “I hold with everything Tate said.”

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“You do?” asked Atticus mildly. “I just want to make sure.” He went to the court reporter, said something, and the reporter entertained us for some minutes by reading Mr. Tate’s testimony as if it were stock-market quotations: “…which eye her left oh yes that’d make it her right it was her right eye Mr. Finch I remember now she was bunged.” He flipped the page. “Up on that side of the face Sheriff please repeat what you said it was her right eye I said—” “Thank you, Bert,” said Atticus. “You heard it again, Mr. Ewell. Do you have anything to add to it? Do you agree with the sheriff?” “I holds with Tate. Her eye was blacked and she was mighty beat up.” The little man seemed to have forgotten his previous humiliation from the bench. It was becoming evident that he thought Atticus an easy match. He seemed to grow ruddy again; his chest swelled, and once more he was a red little rooster. I thought he’d burst his shirt at Atticus’s next question: “Mr. Ewell, can you read and write?” Mr. Gilmer interrupted. “Objection,” he said. “Can’t see what witness’s literacy has to do with the case, irrelevant’n‘immaterial.” Judge Taylor was about to speak but Atticus said, “Judge, if you’ll allow the question plus another one you’ll soon see.” “All right, let’s see,” said Judge Taylor, “but make sure we see, Atticus. Overruled.” Mr. Gilmer seemed as curious as the rest of us as to what bearing the state of Mr. Ewell’s education had on the case. “I’ll repeat the question,” said Atticus. “Can you read and write?” “I most positively can.” “Will you write your name and show us?” “I most positively will. How do you think I sign my relief checks?” Mr. Ewell was endearing himself to his fellow citizens. The whispers and chuckles below us probably had to do with what a card he was. I was becoming nervous. Atticus seemed to know what he was doing—but it seemed to me that he’d gone frog-sticking without a light. Never, never, never, on cross-examination ask a witness a question you don’t already know the answer to, was a tenet I absorbed with my baby-food. Do it, and you’ll often get an answer you don’t want, an answer that might wreck your case. Atticus was reaching into the inside pocket of his coat. He drew out an envelope, then reached into his vest pocket and unclipped his fountain pen. He moved leisurely, and had turned so that he was in full view of the jury. He unscrewed the fountain-pen cap and placed it gently on his table. He shook the pen a little, then handed it with the envelope to the witness. “Would you write your name for us?” he asked. “Clearly now, so the jury can see you do it.” Mr. Ewell wrote on the back of the envelope and looked up complacently to see Judge Taylor staring at him as if he were some fragrant gardenia in full bloom on the witness stand, to see Mr. Gilmer half-sitting, half-standing at his table. The jury was watching him, one man was leaning forward with his hands over the railing. “What’s so interestin‘?” he asked. “You’re left-handed, Mr. Ewell,” said Judge Taylor. Mr. Ewell turned angrily to the judge and said he didn’t see what his being left-handed had to do with it, that he was a Christ-fearing man and Atticus Finch was taking advantage of him. Tricking lawyers like Atticus Finch took advantage of him all the time with their tricking ways. He had told them what happened, he’d say it again and again—which he did. Nothing Atticus asked him after that shook his story, that he’d looked through the window, then ran the nigger off, then ran for the sheriff. Atticus finally dismissed him. Mr. Gilmer asked him one more question. “About your writing with your left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?” “I most positively am not, I can use one hand good as the other. One hand good as the other,” he added, glaring at the defense table. Jem seemed to be having a quiet fit. He was pounding the balcony rail softly, and

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once he whispered, “We’ve got him.” I didn’t think so: Atticus was trying to show, it seemed to me, that Mr. Ewell could have beaten up Mayella. That much I could follow. If her right eye was blacked and she was beaten mostly on the right side of the face, it would tend to show that a left-handed person did it. Sherlock Holmes and Jem Finch would agree. But Tom Robinson could easily be left-handed, too. Like Mr. Heck Tate, I imagined a person facing me, went through a swift mental pantomime, and concluded that he might have held her with his right hand and pounded her with his left. I looked down at him. His back was to us, but I could see his broad shoulders and bull-thick neck. He could easily have done it. I thought Jem was counting his chickens.

Chapter 18

But someone was booming again. “Mayella Violet Ewell—!” A young girl walked to the witness stand. As she raised her hand and swore that the evidence she gave would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help her God, she seemed somehow fragile-looking, but when she sat facing us in the witness chair she became what she was, a thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor. In Maycomb County, it was easy to tell when someone bathed regularly, as opposed to yearly lavations: Mr. Ewell had a scalded look; as if an overnight soaking had deprived him of protective layers of dirt, his skin appeared to be sensitive to the elements. Mayella looked as if she tried to keep clean, and I was reminded of the row of red geraniums in the Ewell yard. Mr. Gilmer asked Mayella to tell the jury in her own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first of last year, just in her own words, please. Mayella sat silently. “Where were you at dusk on that evening?” began Mr. Gilmer patiently. “On the porch.” “Which porch?” “Ain’t but one, the front porch.” “What were you doing on the porch?” “Nothin‘.” Judge Taylor said, “Just tell us what happened. You can do that, can’t you?” Mayella stared at him and burst into tears. She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed. Judge Taylor let her cry for a while, then he said, “That’s enough now. Don’t be ‘fraid of anybody here, as long as you tell the truth. All this is strange to you, I know, but you’ve nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear. What are you scared of?” Mayella said something behind her hands. “What was that?” asked the judge. “Him,” she sobbed, pointing at Atticus. “Mr. Finch?” She nodded vigorously, saying, “Don’t want him doin‘ me like he done Papa, tryin’ to make him out lefthanded…” Judge Taylor scratched his thick white hair. It was plain that he had never been confronted with a problem of this kind. “How old are you?” he asked. “Nineteen-and-a-half,” Mayella said. Judge Taylor cleared his throat and tried unsuccessfully to speak in soothing tones. “Mr. Finch has no idea of scaring you,” he growled, “and if he did, I’m here to stop him. That’s one thing I’m sitting up here for. Now you’re a big girl, so you just sit up straight and tell the—tell us what happened to you. You can do that, can’t you?” I whispered to Jem, “Has she got good sense?” Jem was squinting down at the witness stand. “Can’t tell yet,” he said. “She’s got enough sense to get the judge sorry for her, but she might be just—oh, I don’t know.” Mollified, Mayella gave Atticus a final terrified glance and said to Mr. Gilmer, “Well sir,

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I was on the porch and—and he came along and, you see, there was this old chiffarobe in the yard Papa’d brought in to chop up for kindlin‘—Papa told me to do it while he was off in the woods but I wadn’t feelin’ strong enough then, so he came by-” “Who is ‘he’?” Mayella pointed to Tom Robinson. “I’ll have to ask you to be more specific, please,” said Mr. Gilmer. “The reporter can’t put down gestures very well.” “That’n yonder,” she said. “Robinson.” “Then what happened?” “I said come here, nigger, and bust up this chiffarobe for me, I gotta nickel for you. He coulda done it easy enough, he could. So he come in the yard an‘ I went in the house to get him the nickel and I turned around an ’fore I knew it he was on me. Just run up behind me, he did. He got me round the neck, cussin‘ me an’ sayin‘ dirt—I fought’n’hollered, but he had me round the neck. He hit me agin an‘ agin—” Mr. Gilmer waited for Mayella to collect herself: she had twisted her handkerchief into a sweaty rope; when she opened it to wipe her face it was a mass of creases from her hot hands. She waited for Mr. Gilmer to ask another question, but when he didn’t, she said, “-he chunked me on the floor an‘ choked me’n took advantage of me.” “Did you scream?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “Did you scream and fight back?” “Reckon I did, hollered for all I was worth, kicked and hollered loud as I could.” “Then what happened?” “I don’t remember too good, but next thing I knew Papa was in the room a’standing over me hollerin‘ who done it, who done it? Then I sorta fainted an’ the next thing I knew Mr. Tate was pullin‘ me up offa the floor and leadin’ me to the water bucket.” Apparently Mayella’s recital had given her confidence, but it was not her father’s brash kind: there was something stealthy about hers, like a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tail. “You say you fought him off as hard as you could? Fought him tooth and nail?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “I positively did,” Mayella echoed her father. “You are positive that he took full advantage of you?” Mayella’s face contorted, and I was afraid that she would cry again. Instead, she said, “He done what he was after.” Mr. Gilmer called attention to the hot day by wiping his head with his hand. “That’s all for the time being,” he said pleasantly, “but you stay there. I expect big bad Mr. Finch has some questions to ask you.” “State will not prejudice the witness against counsel for the defense,” murmured Judge Taylor primly, “at least not at this time.” Atticus got up grinning but instead of walking to the witness stand, he opened his coat and hooked his thumbs in his vest, then he walked slowly across the room to the windows. He looked out, but didn’t seem especially interested in what he saw, then he turned and strolled back to the witness stand. From long years of experience, I could tell he was trying to come to a decision about something. “Miss Mayella,” he said, smiling, “I won’t try to scare you for a while, not yet. Let’s just get acquainted. How old are you?” “Said I was nineteen, said it to the judge yonder.” Mayella jerked her head resentfully at the bench. “So you did, so you did, ma’am. You’ll have to bear with me, Miss Mayella, I’m getting along and can’t remember as well as I used to. I might ask you things you’ve already said before, but you’ll give me an answer, won’t you? Good.” I could see nothing in Mayella’s expression to justify Atticus’s assumption that he had secured her wholehearted cooperation. She was looking at him furiously. “Won’t answer a word you say long as you keep on mockin‘ me,” she said. “Ma’am?” asked Atticus, startled. “Long’s you keep on makin‘ fun o’me.” Judge Taylor said, “Mr. Finch is not making fun of you. What’s the matter with you?” Mayella looked from under lowered eyelids at Atticus, but she said to the judge:

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“Long’s he keeps on callin‘ me ma’am an sayin’ Miss Mayella. I don’t hafta take his sass, I ain’t called upon to take it.” Atticus resumed his stroll to the windows and let Judge Taylor handle this one. Judge Taylor was not the kind of figure that ever evoked pity, but I did feel a pang for him as he tried to explain. “That’s just Mr. Finch’s way,” he told Mayella. “We’ve done business in this court for years and years, and Mr. Finch is always courteous to everybody. He’s not trying to mock you, he’s trying to be polite. That’s just his way.” The judge leaned back. “Atticus, let’s get on with these proceedings, and let the record show that the witness has not been sassed, her views to the contrary.” I wondered if anybody had ever called her “ma’am,” or “Miss Mayella” in her life; probably not, as she took offense to routine courtesy. What on earth was her life like? I soon found out. “You say you’re nineteen,” Atticus resumed. “How many sisters and brothers have you?” He walked from the windows back to the stand. “Seb’m,” she said, and I wondered if they were all like the specimen I had seen the first day I started to school. “You the eldest? The oldest?” “Yes.” “How long has your mother been dead?” “Don’t know—long time.” “Did you ever go to school?” “Read’n‘write good as Papa yonder.” Mayella sounded like a Mr. Jingle in a book I had been reading. “How long did you go to school?” “Two year—three year—dunno.” Slowly but surely I began to see the pattern of Atticus’s questions: from questions that Mr. Gilmer did not deem sufficiently irrelevant or immaterial to object to, Atticus was quietly building up before the jury a picture of the Ewells’ home life. The jury learned the following things: their relief check was far from enough to feed the family, and there was strong suspicion that Papa drank it up anyway—he sometimes went off in the swamp for days and came home sick; the weather was seldom cold enough to require shoes, but when it was, you could make dandy ones from strips of old tires; the family hauled its water in buckets from a spring that ran out at one end of the dump—they kept the surrounding area clear of trash—and it was everybody for himself as far as keeping clean went: if you wanted to wash you hauled your own water; the younger children had perpetual colds and suffered from chronic ground-itch; there was a lady who came around sometimes and asked Mayella why she didn’t stay in school—she wrote down the answer; with two members of the family reading and writing, there was no need for the rest of them to learn—Papa needed them at home. “Miss Mayella,” said Atticus, in spite of himself, “a nineteen-year-old girl like you must have friends. Who are your friends?” The witness frowned as if puzzled. “Friends?” “Yes, don’t you know anyone near your age, or older, or younger? Boys and girls? Just ordinary friends?” Mayella’s hostility, which had subsided to grudging neutrality, flared again. “You makin‘ fun o’me agin, Mr. Finch?” Atticus let her question answer his. “Do you love your father, Miss Mayella?” was his next. “Love him, whatcha mean?” “I mean, is he good to you, is he easy to get along with?” “He does tollable, ‘cept when—” “Except when?” Mayella looked at her father, who was sitting with his chair tipped against the railing. He sat up straight and waited for her to answer. “Except when nothin‘,” said Mayella. “I said he does tollable.”

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Mr. Ewell leaned back again. “Except when he’s drinking?” asked Atticus so gently that Mayella nodded. “Does he ever go after you?” “How you mean?” “When he’s—riled, has he ever beaten you?” Mayella looked around, down at the court reporter, up at the judge. “Answer the question, Miss Mayella,” said Judge Taylor. “My paw’s never touched a hair o’my head in my life,” she declared firmly. “He never touched me.” Atticus’s glasses had slipped a little, and he pushed them up on his nose. “We’ve had a good visit, Miss Mayella, and now I guess we’d better get to the case. You say you asked Tom Robinson to come chop up a—what was it?” “A chiffarobe, a old dresser full of drawers on one side.” “Was Tom Robinson well known to you?” “Whaddya mean?” “I mean did you know who he was, where he lived?” Mayella nodded. “I knowed who he was, he passed the house every day.” “Was this the first time you asked him to come inside the fence?” Mayella jumped slightly at the question. Atticus was making his slow pilgrimage to the windows, as he had been doing: he would ask a question, then look out, waiting for an answer. He did not see her involuntary jump, but it seemed to me that he knew she had moved. He turned around and raised his eyebrows. “Was—” he began again. “Yes it was.” “Didn’t you ever ask him to come inside the fence before?” She was prepared now. “I did not, I certainly did not.” “One did not’s enough,” said Atticus serenely. “You never asked him to do odd jobs for you before?” “I mighta,” conceded Mayella. “There was several niggers around.” “Can you remember any other occasions?” “No.” “All right, now to what happened. You said Tom Robinson was behind you in the room when you turned around, that right?” “Yes.” “You said he ‘got you around the neck cussing and saying dirt’—is that right?” “‘t’s right.” Atticus’s memory had suddenly become accurate. “You say ‘he caught me and choked me and took advantage of me’—is that right?” “That’s what I said.” “Do you remember him beating you about the face?” The witness hesitated. “You seem sure enough that he choked you. All this time you were fighting back, remember? You ‘kicked and hollered as loud as you could.’ Do you remember him beating you about the face?” Mayella was silent. She seemed to be trying to get something clear to herself. I thought for a moment she was doing Mr. Heck Tate’s and my trick of pretending there was a person in front of us. She glanced at Mr. Gilmer. “It’s an easy question, Miss Mayella, so I’ll try again. Do you remember him beating you about the face?” Atticus’s voice had lost its comfortableness; he was speaking in his arid, detached professional voice. “Do you remember him beating you about the face?” “No, I don’t recollect if he hit me. I mean yes I do, he hit me.” “Was your last sentence your answer?” “Huh? Yes, he hit—I just don’t remember, I just don’t remember… it all happened so quick.” Judge Taylor looked sternly at Mayella. “Don’t you cry, young woman—” he began, but Atticus said, “Let her cry if she wants to, Judge. We’ve got all the time in the world.”

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Mayella sniffed wrathfully and looked at Atticus. “I’ll answer any question you got—get me up here an‘ mock me, will you? I’ll answer any question you got—” “That’s fine,” said Atticus. “There’re only a few more. Miss Mayella, not to be tedious, you’ve testified that the defendant hit you, grabbed you around the neck, choked you, and took advantage of you. I want you to be sure you have the right man. Will you identify the man who raped you?” “I will, that’s him right yonder.” Atticus turned to the defendant. “Tom, stand up. Let Miss Mayella have a good long look at you. Is this the man, Miss Mayella?” Tom Robinson’s powerful shoulders rippled under his thin shirt. He rose to his feet and stood with his right hand on the back of his chair. He looked oddly off balance, but it was not from the way he was standing. His left arm was fully twelve inches shorter than his right, and hung dead at his side. It ended in a small shriveled hand, and from as far away as the balcony I could see that it was no use to him. “Scout,” breathed Jem. “Scout, look! Reverend, he’s crippled!” Reverend Sykes leaned across me and whispered to Jem. “He got it caught in a cotton gin, caught it in Mr. Dolphus Raymond’s cotton gin when he was a boy… like to bled to death… tore all the muscles loose from his bones—” Atticus said, “Is this the man who raped you?” “It most certainly is.” Atticus’s next question was one word long. “How?” Mayella was raging. “I don’t know how he done it, but he done it—I said it all happened so fast I—” “Now let’s consider this calmly—” began Atticus, but Mr. Gilmer interrupted with an objection: he was not irrelevant or immaterial, but Atticus was browbeating the witness. Judge Taylor laughed outright. “Oh sit down, Horace, he’s doing nothing of the sort. If anything, the witness’s browbeating Atticus.” Judge Taylor was the only person in the courtroom who laughed. Even the babies were still, and I suddenly wondered if they had been smothered at their mothers’ breasts. “Now,” said Atticus, “Miss Mayella, you’ve testified that the defendant choked and beat you—you didn’t say that he sneaked up behind you and knocked you cold, but you turned around and there he was—” Atticus was back behind his table, and he emphasized his words by tapping his knuckles on it. “—do you wish to reconsider any of your testimony?” “You want me to say something that didn’t happen?” “No ma’am, I want you to say something that did happen. Tell us once more, please, what happened?” “I told’ja what happened.” “You testified that you turned around and there he was. He choked you then?” “Yes.” “Then he released your throat and hit you?” “I said he did.” “He blacked your left eye with his right fist?” “I ducked and it—it glanced, that’s what it did. I ducked and it glanced off.” Mayella had finally seen the light. “You’re becoming suddenly clear on this point. A while ago you couldn’t remember too well, could you?” “I said he hit me.” “All right. He choked you, he hit you, then he raped you, that right?” “It most certainly is.” “You’re a strong girl, what were you doing all the time, just standing there?” “I told’ja I hollered’n‘kicked’n’fought—” Atticus reached up and took off his glasses, turned his good right eye to the witness, and rained questions on her. Judge Taylor said, “One question at a time, Atticus. Give

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the witness a chance to answer.” “All right, why didn’t you run?” “I tried…” “Tried to? What kept you from it?” “I—he slung me down. That’s what he did, he slung me down’n got on top of me.” “You were screaming all this time?” “I certainly was.” “Then why didn’t the other children hear you? Where were they? At the dump?” “Where were they?” No answer. “Why didn’t your screams make them come running? The dump’s closer than the woods, isn’t it?” No answer. “Or didn’t you scream until you saw your father in the window? You didn’t think to scream until then, did you?” No answer. “Did you scream first at your father instead of at Tom Robinson? Was that it?” No answer. “Who beat you up? Tom Robinson or your father?” No answer. “What did your father see in the window, the crime of rape or the best defense to it? Why don’t you tell the truth, child, didn’t Bob Ewell beat you up?” When Atticus turned away from Mayella he looked like his stomach hurt, but Mayella’s face was a mixture of terror and fury. Atticus sat down wearily and polished his glasses with his handkerchief. Suddenly Mayella became articulate. “I got somethin‘ to say,” she said. Atticus raised his head. “Do you want to tell us what happened?” But she did not hear the compassion in his invitation. “I got somethin‘ to say an’ then I ain’t gonna say no more. That nigger yonder took advantage of me an‘ if you fine fancy gentlemen don’t wanta do nothin’ about it then you’re all yellow stinkin‘ cowards, stinkin’ cowards, the lot of you. Your fancy airs don’t come to nothin‘—your ma’amin’ and Miss Mayellerin‘ don’t come to nothin’, Mr. Finch—” Then she burst into real tears. Her shoulders shook with angry sobs. She was as good as her word. She answered no more questions, even when Mr. Gilmer tried to get her back on the track. I guess if she hadn’t been so poor and ignorant, Judge Taylor would have put her under the jail for the contempt she had shown everybody in the courtroom. Somehow, Atticus had hit her hard in a way that was not clear to me, but it gave him no pleasure to do so. He sat with his head down, and I never saw anybody glare at anyone with the hatred Mayella showed when she left the stand and walked by Atticus’s table. When Mr. Gilmer told Judge Taylor that the state rested, Judge Taylor said, “It’s time we all did. We’ll take ten minutes.” Atticus and Mr. Gilmer met in front of the bench and whispered, then they left the courtroom by a door behind the witness stand, which was a signal for us all to stretch. I discovered that I had been sitting on the edge of the long bench, and I was somewhat numb. Jem got up and yawned, Dill did likewise, and Reverend Sykes wiped his face on his hat. The temperature was an easy ninety, he said. Mr. Braxton Underwood, who had been sitting quietly in a chair reserved for the Press, soaking up testimony with his sponge of a brain, allowed his bitter eyes to rove over the colored balcony, and they met mine. He gave a snort and looked away. “Jem,” I said, “Mr. Underwood’s seen us.” “That’s okay. He won’t tell Atticus, he’ll just put it on the social side of the Tribune.” Jem turned back to Dill, explaining, I suppose, the finer points of the trial to him, but I wondered what they were. There had been no lengthy debates between Atticus and Mr. Gilmer on any points; Mr. Gilmer seemed to be prosecuting almost reluctantly; witnesses had been led by the nose as asses are, with few objections. But Atticus had

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once told us that in Judge Taylor’s court any lawyer who was a strict constructionist on evidence usually wound up receiving strict instructions from the bench. He distilled this for me to mean that Judge Taylor might look lazy and operate in his sleep, but he was seldom reversed, and that was the proof of the pudding. Atticus said he was a good judge. Presently Judge Taylor returned and climbed into his swivel chair. He took a cigar from his vest pocket and examined it thoughtfully. I punched Dill. Having passed the judge’s inspection, the cigar suffered a vicious bite. “We come down sometimes to watch him,” I explained. “It’s gonna take him the rest of the afternoon, now. You watch.” Unaware of public scrutiny from above, Judge Taylor disposed of the severed end by propelling it expertly to his lips and saying, “Fhluck!” He hit a spittoon so squarely we could hear it slosh. “Bet he was hell with a spitball,” murmured Dill. As a rule, a recess meant a general exodus, but today people weren’t moving. Even the Idlers who had failed to shame younger men from their seats had remained standing along the walls. I guess Mr. Heck Tate had reserved the county toilet for court officials. Atticus and Mr. Gilmer returned, and Judge Taylor looked at his watch. “It’s gettin‘ on to four,” he said, which was intriguing, as the courthouse clock must have struck the hour at least twice. I had not heard it or felt its vibrations. “Shall we try to wind up this afternoon?” asked Judge Taylor. “How ‘bout it, Atticus?” “I think we can,” said Atticus. “How many witnesses you got?” “One.” “Well, call him.”

Chapter 19

Thomas Robinson reached around, ran his fingers under his left arm and lifted it. He guided his arm to the Bible and his rubber-like left hand sought contact with the black binding. As he raised his right hand, the useless one slipped off the Bible and hit the clerk’s table. He was trying again when Judge Taylor growled, “That’ll do, Tom.” Tom took the oath and stepped into the witness chair. Atticus very quickly induced him to tell us: Tom was twenty-five years of age; he was married with three children; he had been in trouble with the law before: he once received thirty days for disorderly conduct. “It must have been disorderly,” said Atticus. “What did it consist of?” “Got in a fight with another man, he tried to cut me.” “Did he succeed?” “Yes suh, a little, not enough to hurt. You see, I—” Tom moved his left shoulder. “Yes,” said Atticus. “You were both convicted?” “Yes suh, I had to serve ‘cause I couldn’t pay the fine. Other fellow paid his’n.” Dill leaned across me and asked Jem what Atticus was doing. Jem said Atticus was showing the jury that Tom had nothing to hide. “Were you acquainted with Mayella Violet Ewell?” asked Atticus. “Yes suh, I had to pass her place goin‘ to and from the field every day.” “Whose field?” “I picks for Mr. Link Deas.” “Were you picking cotton in November?” “No suh, I works in his yard fall an‘ wintertime. I works pretty steady for him all year round, he’s got a lot of pecan trees’n things.” “You say you had to pass the Ewell place to get to and from work. Is there any other way to go?” “No suh, none’s I know of.” “Tom, did she ever speak to you?” “Why, yes suh, I’d tip m’hat when I’d go by, and one day she asked me to come inside the fence and bust up a chiffarobe for her.”

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“When did she ask you to chop up the—the chiffarobe?” “Mr. Finch, it was way last spring. I remember it because it was choppin‘ time and I had my hoe with me. I said I didn’t have nothin’ but this hoe, but she said she had a hatchet. She give me the hatchet and I broke up the chiffarobe. She said, ‘I reckon I’ll hafta give you a nickel, won’t I?’ an‘ I said, ’No ma’am, there ain’t no charge.‘ Then I went home. Mr. Finch, that was way last spring, way over a year ago.” “Did you ever go on the place again?” “Yes suh.” “When?” “Well, I went lots of times.” Judge Taylor instinctively reached for his gavel, but let his hand fall. The murmur below us died without his help. “Under what circumstances?” “Please, suh?” “Why did you go inside the fence lots of times?” Tom Robinson’s forehead relaxed. “She’d call me in, suh. Seemed like every time I passed by yonder she’d have some little somethin‘ for me to do—choppin’ kindlin‘, totin’ water for her. She watered them red flowers every day—” “Were you paid for your services?” “No suh, not after she offered me a nickel the first time. I was glad to do it, Mr. Ewell didn’t seem to help her none, and neither did the chillun, and I knowed she didn’t have no nickels to spare.” “Where were the other children?” “They was always around, all over the place. They’d watch me work, some of ‘em, some of ’em’d set in the window.” “Would Miss Mayella talk to you?” “Yes sir, she talked to me.” As Tom Robinson gave his testimony, it came to me that Mayella Ewell must have been the loneliest person in the world. She was even lonelier than Boo Radley, who had not been out of the house in twenty-five years. When Atticus asked had she any friends, she seemed not to know what he meant, then she thought he was making fun of her. She was as sad, I thought, as what Jem called a mixed child: white people wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she lived among pigs; Negroes wouldn’t have anything to do with her because she was white. She couldn’t live like Mr. Dolphus Raymond, who preferred the company of Negroes, because she didn’t own a riverbank and she wasn’t from a fine old family. Nobody said, “That’s just their way,” about the Ewells. Maycomb gave them Christmas baskets, welfare money, and the back of its hand. Tom Robinson was probably the only person who was ever decent to her. But she said he took advantage of her, and when she stood up she looked at him as if he were dirt beneath her feet. “Did you ever,” Atticus interrupted my meditations, “at any time, go on the Ewell property—did you ever set foot on the Ewell property without an express invitation from one of them?” “No suh, Mr. Finch, I never did. I wouldn’t do that, suh.” Atticus sometimes said that one way to tell whether a witness was lying or telling the truth was to listen rather than watch: I applied his test—Tom denied it three times in one breath, but quietly, with no hint of whining in his voice, and I found myself believing him in spite of his protesting too much. He seemed to be a respectable Negro, and a respectable Negro would never go up into somebody’s yard of his own volition. “Tom, what happened to you on the evening of November twenty-first of last year?” Below us, the spectators drew a collective breath and leaned forward. Behind us, the Negroes did the same. Tom was a black-velvet Negro, not shiny, but soft black velvet. The whites of his eyes shone in his face, and when he spoke we saw flashes of his teeth. If he had been whole, he would have been a fine specimen of a man.

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“Mr. Finch,” he said, “I was goin‘ home as usual that evenin’, an‘ when I passed the Ewell place Miss Mayella were on the porch, like she said she were. It seemed real quiet like, an’ I didn’t quite know why. I was studyin‘ why, just passin’ by, when she says for me to come there and help her a minute. Well, I went inside the fence an‘ looked around for some kindlin’ to work on, but I didn’t see none, and she says, ‘Naw, I got somethin’ for you to do in the house. Th‘ old door’s off its hinges an’ fall’s comin‘ on pretty fast.’ I said you got a screwdriver, Miss Mayella? She said she sho‘ had. Well, I went up the steps an’ she motioned me to come inside, and I went in the front room an‘ looked at the door. I said Miss Mayella, this door look all right. I pulled it back’n forth and those hinges was all right. Then she shet the door in my face. Mr. Finch, I was wonderin’ why it was so quiet like, an‘ it come to me that there weren’t a chile on the place, not a one of ’em, and I said Miss Mayella, where the chillun?” Tom’s black velvet skin had begun to shine, and he ran his hand over his face. “I say where the chillun?” he continued, “an‘ she says—she was laughin’, sort of—she says they all gone to town to get ice creams. She says, ‘took me a slap year to save seb’m nickels, but I done it. They all gone to town.’” Tom’s discomfort was not from the humidity. “What did you say then, Tom?” asked Atticus. “I said somethin‘ like, why Miss Mayella, that’s right smart o’you to treat ’em. An‘ she said, ’You think so?‘ I don’t think she understood what I was thinkin’—I meant it was smart of her to save like that, an‘ nice of her to treat em.” “I understand you, Tom. Go on,” said Atticus. “Well, I said I best be goin‘, I couldn’t do nothin’ for her, an‘ she says oh yes I could, an’ I ask her what, and she says to just step on that chair yonder an‘ git that box down from on top of the chiffarobe.” “Not the same chiffarobe you busted up?” asked Atticus. The witness smiled. “Naw suh, another one. Most as tall as the room. So I done what she told me, an‘ I was just reachin’ when the next thing I knows she—she’d grabbed me round the legs, grabbed me round th‘ legs, Mr. Finch. She scared me so bad I hopped down an’ turned the chair over—that was the only thing, only furniture, ‘sturbed in that room, Mr. Finch, when I left it. I swear ’fore God.” “What happened after you turned the chair over?” Tom Robinson had come to a dead stop. He glanced at Atticus, then at the jury, then at Mr. Underwood sitting across the room. “Tom, you’re sworn to tell the whole truth. Will you tell it?” Tom ran his hand nervously over his mouth. “What happened after that?” “Answer the question,” said Judge Taylor. One-third of his cigar had vanished. “Mr. Finch, I got down offa that chair an‘ turned around an’ she sorta jumped on me.” “Jumped on you? Violently?” “No suh, she—she hugged me. She hugged me round the waist.” This time Judge Taylor’s gavel came down with a bang, and as it did the overhead lights went on in the courtroom. Darkness had not come, but the afternoon sun had left the windows. Judge Taylor quickly restored order. “Then what did she do?” The witness swallowed hard. “She reached up an‘ kissed me ’side of th‘ face. She says she never kissed a grown man before an’ she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don’t count. She says, ‘Kiss me back, nigger.’ I say Miss Mayella lemme outa here an‘ tried to run but she got her back to the door an’ I’da had to push her. I didn’t wanta harm her, Mr. Finch, an‘ I say lemme pass, but just when I say it Mr. Ewell yonder hollered through th’ window.” “What did he say?” Tom Robinson swallowed again, and his eyes widened. “Somethin‘ not fittin’ to say—not fittin‘ for these folks’n chillun to hear—” “What did he say, Tom? You must tell the jury what he said.”

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Tom Robinson shut his eyes tight. “He says you goddamn whore, I’ll kill ya.” “Then what happened?” “Mr. Finch, I was runnin‘ so fast I didn’t know what happened.” “Tom, did you rape Mayella Ewell?” “I did not, suh.” “Did you harm her in any way?” “I did not, suh.” “Did you resist her advances?” “Mr. Finch, I tried. I tried to ‘thout bein’ ugly to her. I didn’t wanta be ugly, I didn’t wanta push her or nothin‘.” It occurred to me that in their own way, Tom Robinson’s manners were as good as Atticus’s. Until my father explained it to me later, I did not understand the subtlety of Tom’s predicament: he would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstances and expect to live long, so he took the first opportunity to run—a sure sign of guilt. “Tom, go back once more to Mr. Ewell,” said Atticus. “Did he say anything to you?” “Not anything, suh. He mighta said somethin‘, but I weren’t there—” “That’ll do,” Atticus cut in sharply. “What you did hear, who was he talking to?” “Mr. Finch, he were talkin‘ and lookin’ at Miss Mayella.” “Then you ran?” “I sho‘ did, suh.” “Why did you run?” “I was scared, suh.” “Why were you scared?” “Mr. Finch, if you was a nigger like me, you’d be scared, too.” Atticus sat down. Mr. Gilmer was making his way to the witness stand, but before he got there Mr. Link Deas rose from the audience and announced: “I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy’s worked for me eight years an‘ I ain’t had a speck o’trouble outa him. Not a speck.” “Shut your mouth, sir!” Judge Taylor was wide awake and roaring. He was also pink in the face. His speech was miraculously unimpaired by his cigar. “Link Deas,” he yelled, “if you have anything you want to say you can say it under oath and at the proper time, but until then you get out of this room, you hear me? Get out of this room, sir, you hear me? I’ll be damned if I’ll listen to this case again!” Judge Taylor looked daggers at Atticus, as if daring him to speak, but Atticus had ducked his head and was laughing into his lap. I remembered something he had said about Judge Taylor’s ex cathedra remarks sometimes exceeding his duty, but that few lawyers ever did anything about them. I looked at Jem, but Jem shook his head. “It ain’t like one of the jurymen got up and started talking,” he said. “I think it’d be different then. Mr. Link was just disturbin‘ the peace or something.” Judge Taylor told the reporter to expunge anything he happened to have written down after Mr. Finch if you were a nigger like me you’d be scared too, and told the jury to disregard the interruption. He looked suspiciously down the middle aisle and waited, I suppose, for Mr. Link Deas to effect total departure. Then he said, “Go ahead, Mr. Gilmer.” “You were given thirty days once for disorderly conduct, Robinson?” asked Mr. Gilmer. “Yes suh.” “What’d the nigger look like when you got through with him?” “He beat me, Mr. Gilmer.” “Yes, but you were convicted, weren’t you?” Atticus raised his head. “It was a misdemeanor and it’s in the record, Judge.” I thought he sounded tired. “Witness’ll answer, though,” said Judge Taylor, just as wearily. “Yes suh, I got thirty days.” I knew that Mr. Gilmer would sincerely tell the jury that anyone who was convicted of

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disorderly conduct could easily have had it in his heart to take advantage of Mayella Ewell, that was the only reason he cared. Reasons like that helped. “Robinson, you’re pretty good at busting up chiffarobes and kindling with one hand, aren’t you?” “Yes, suh, I reckon so.” “Strong enough to choke the breath out of a woman and sling her to the floor?” “I never done that, suh.” “But you are strong enough to?” “I reckon so, suh.” “Had your eye on her a long time, hadn’t you, boy?” “No suh, I never looked at her.” “Then you were mighty polite to do all that chopping and hauling for her, weren’t you, boy?” “I was just tryin‘ to help her out, suh.” “That was mighty generous of you, you had chores at home after your regular work, didn’t you?” “Yes suh.” “Why didn’t you do them instead of Miss Ewell’s?” “I done ‘em both, suh.” “You must have been pretty busy. Why?” “Why what, suh?” “Why were you so anxious to do that woman’s chores?” Tom Robinson hesitated, searching for an answer. “Looked like she didn’t have nobody to help her, like I says—” “With Mr. Ewell and seven children on the place, boy?” “Well, I says it looked like they never help her none—” “You did all this chopping and work from sheer goodness, boy?” “Tried to help her, I says.” Mr. Gilmer smiled grimly at the jury. “You’re a mighty good fellow, it seems—did all this for not one penny?” “Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more’n the rest of ‘em—” “You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for he?” Mr. Gilmer seemed ready to rise to the ceiling. The witness realized his mistake and shifted uncomfortably in the chair. But the damage was done. Below us, nobody liked Tom Robinson’s answer. Mr. Gilmer paused a long time to let it sink in. “Now you went by the house as usual, last November twenty-first,” he said, “and she asked you to come in and bust up a chiffarobe?” “No suh.” “Do you deny that you went by the house?” “No suh—she said she had somethin‘ for me to do inside the house—” “She says she asked you to bust up a chiffarobe, is that right?” “No suh, it ain’t.” “Then you say she’s lying, boy?” Atticus was on his feet, but Tom Robinson didn’t need him. “I don’t say she’s lyin‘, Mr. Gilmer, I say she’s mistaken in her mind.” To the next ten questions, as Mr. Gilmer reviewed Mayella’s version of events, the witness’s steady answer was that she was mistaken in her mind. “Didn’t Mr. Ewell run you off the place, boy?” “No suh, I don’t think he did.” “Don’t think, what do you mean?” “I mean I didn’t stay long enough for him to run me off.” “You’re very candid about this, why did you run so fast?” “I says I was scared, suh.” “If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?”

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“Like I says before, it weren’t safe for any nigger to be in a—fix like that.” “But you weren’t in a fix—you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you so scared that she’d hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?” “No suh, I’s scared I’d be in court, just like I am now.” “Scared of arrest, scared you’d have to face up to what you did?” “No suh, scared I’d hafta face up to what I didn’t do.” “Are you being impudent to me, boy?” “No suh, I didn’t go to be.” This was as much as I heard of Mr. Gilmer’s cross-examination, because Jem made me take Dill out. For some reason Dill had started crying and couldn’t stop; quietly at first, then his sobs were heard by several people in the balcony. Jem said if I didn’t go with him he’d make me, and Reverend Sykes said I’d better go, so I went. Dill had seemed to be all right that day, nothing wrong with him, but I guessed he hadn’t fully recovered from running away. “Ain’t you feeling good?” I asked, when we reached the bottom of the stairs. Dill tried to pull himself together as we ran down the south steps. Mr. Link Deas was a lonely figure on the top step. “Anything happenin‘, Scout?” he asked as we went by. “No sir,” I answered over my shoulder. “Dill here, he’s sick.” “Come on out under the trees,” I said. “Heat got you, I expect.” We chose the fattest live oak and we sat under it. “It was just him I couldn’t stand,” Dill said. “Who, Tom?” “That old Mr. Gilmer doin‘ him thataway, talking so hateful to him—” “Dill, that’s his job. Why, if we didn’t have prosecutors—well, we couldn’t have defense attorneys, I reckon.” Dill exhaled patiently. “I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me sick, plain sick.” “He’s supposed to act that way, Dill, he was cross—” “He didn’t act that way when—” “Dill, those were his own witnesses.” “Well, Mr. Finch didn’t act that way to Mayella and old man Ewell when he cross-examined them. The way that man called him ‘boy’ all the time an‘ sneered at him, an’ looked around at the jury every time he answered—” “Well, Dill, after all he’s just a Negro.” “I don’t care one speck. It ain’t right, somehow it ain’t right to do ‘em that way. Hasn’t anybody got any business talkin’ like that—it just makes me sick.” “That’s just Mr. Gilmer’s way, Dill, he does ‘em all that way. You’ve never seen him get good’n down on one yet. Why, when—well, today Mr. Gilmer seemed to me like he wasn’t half trying. They do ’em all that way, most lawyers, I mean.” “Mr. Finch doesn’t.” “He’s not an example, Dill, he’s—” I was trying to grope in my memory for a sharp phrase of Miss Maudie Atkinson’s. I had it: “He’s the same in the courtroom as he is on the public streets.” “That’s not what I mean,” said Dill. “I know what you mean, boy,” said a voice behind us. We thought it came from the tree-trunk, but it belonged to Mr. Dolphus Raymond. He peered around the trunk at us. “You aren’t thin-hided, it just makes you sick, doesn’t it?”