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.
"—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 sleepyeyed
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 newwashed 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-pinkpink: 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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