“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.
“—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 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.
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 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?”
“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.”
“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
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.
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