Part Two Chapter 23
To Kill a Mockingbird
"I wish Bob Ewell wouldn't chew tobacco," was all Atticus said about
it.
According to Miss Stephanie Crawford, however, Atticus was leaving
the post office when Mr. Ewell approached him, cursed him, spat on
him, and threatened to kill him. Miss Stephanie (who, by the time
she had told it twice was there and had seen it all- passing by from
the Jitney Jungle, she was)- Miss Stephanie said Atticus didn't bat an
eye, just took out his handkerchief and wiped his face and stood there
and let Mr. Ewell call him names wild horses could not bring her to
repeat. Mr. Ewell was a veteran of an obscure war; that plus Atticus's
peaceful reaction probably prompted him to inquire, "Too proud to
fight, you n*gger-lovin' bast*rd?" Miss Stephanie said Atticus said,
No, too old, put his hands in his pockets and strolled on. Miss
Stephanie said you had to hand it to Atticus Finch, he could be
right dry sometimes.
Jem and I didn't think it entertaining.
"After all, though," I said, "he was the deadest shot in the
county one time. He could-"
"You know he wouldn't carry a gun, Scout. He ain't even got one-"
said Jem. "You know he didn't even have one down at the jail that
night. He told me havin' a gun around's an invitation to somebody to
shoot you."
"This is different," I said. "We can ask him to borrow one."
We did, and he said, "Nonsense."
Dill was of the opinion that an appeal to Atticus's better nature
might work: after all, we would starve if Mr. Ewell killed him,
besides be raised exclusively by Aunt Alexandra, and we all knew the
first thing she'd do before Atticus was under the ground good would be
to fire Calpurnia. Jem said it might work if I cried and flung a
fit, being young and a girl. That didn't work either.
But when he noticed us dragging around the neighborhood, not eating,
taking little interest in our normal pursuits, Atticus discovered
how deeply frightened we were. He tempted Jem with a new football
magazine one night; when he saw Jem flip the pages and toss it
aside, he said, "What's bothering you, son?"
Jem came to the point: "Mr. Ewell."
"What has happened?"
"Nothing's happened. We're scared for you, and we think you oughta
do something about him."
Atticus smiled wryly. "Do what? Put him under a peace bond?"
"When a man says he's gonna get you, looks like he means it."
"He meant it when he said it," said Atticus. "Jem, see if you can
stand in Bob Ewell's shoes a minute. I destroyed his last shred of
credibility at that trial, if he had any to begin with. The man had to
have some kind of comeback, his kind always does. So if spitting in my
face and threatening me saved Mayella Ewell one extra beating,
that's something I'll gladly take. He had to take it out on somebody
and I'd rather it be me than that houseful of children out there.
You understand?"
Jem nodded.
Aunt Alexandra entered the room as Atticus was saying, "We don't
have anything to fear from Bob Ewell, he got it all out of his
system that morning."
"I wouldn't be so sure of that, Atticus," she said. "His kind'd do
anything to pay off a grudge. You know how those people are."
"What on earth could Ewell do to me, sister?"
"Something furtive," Aunt Alexandra said. "You may count on that."
"Nobody has much chance to be furtive in Maycomb," Atticus answered.
After that, we were not afraid. Summer was melting away, and we made
the most of it. Atticus assured us that nothing would happen to Tom
Robinson until the higher court reviewed his case, and that Tom had
a good chance of going free, or at least of having a new trial. He was
at Enfield Prison Farm, seventy miles away in Chester County. I
asked Atticus if Tom's wife and children were allowed to visit him,
but Atticus said no.
"If he loses his appeal," I asked one evening, "what'll happen to
him?"
"He'll go to the chair," said Atticus, "unless the Governor commutes
his sentence. Not time to worry yet, Scout. We've got a good chance."
Jem was sprawled on the sofa reading Popular Mechanics.¯ He
looked up. "It ain't right. He didn't kill anybody even if he was
guilty. He didn't take anybody's life."
"You know rape's a capital offense in Alabama," said Atticus.
"Yessir, but the jury didn't have to give him death- if they
wanted to they could've gave him twenty years."
"Given," said Atticus. "Tom Robinson's a colored man, Jem. No jury
in this part of the world's going to say, 'We think you're guilty, but
not very,' on a charge like that. It was either a straight acquittal
or nothing."
Jem was shaking his head. "I know it's not right, but I can't figure
out what's wrong- maybe rape shouldn't be a capital offense...."
Atticus dropped his newspaper beside his chair. He said he didn't
have any quarrel with the rape statute, none what ever, but he did
have deep misgivings when the state asked for and the jury gave a
death penalty on purely circ*mstantial evidence. He glanced at me, saw
I was listening, and made it easier. "-I mean, before a man is
sentenced to death for murder, say, there should be one or two
eye-witnesses. Some one should be able to say, 'Yes, I was there and
saw him pull the trigger.'"
"But lots of folks have been hung- hanged- on circ*mstantial
evidence," said Jem.
"I know, and lots of 'em probably deserved it, too- but in the
absence of eye-witnesses there's always a doubt, some times only the
shadow of a doubt. The law says 'reasonable doubt,' but I think a
defendant's entitled to the shadow of a doubt. There's always the
possibility, no matter how improbable, that he's innocent."
"Then it all goes back to the jury, then. We oughta do away with
juries." Jem was adamant.
Atticus tried hard not to smile but couldn't help it. "You're rather
hard on us, son. I think maybe there might be a better way. Change the
law. Change it so that only judges have the power of fixing the
penalty in capital cases."
"Then go up to Montgomery and change the law."
"You'd be surprised how hard that'd be. I won't live to see the
law changed, and if you live to see it you'll be an old man."
This was not good enough for Jem. "No sir, they oughta do away
with juries. He wasn't guilty in the first place and they said he
was."
"If you had been on that jury, son, and eleven other boys like
you, Tom would be a free man," said Atticus. "So far nothing in your
life has interfered with your reasoning process. Those are twelve
reasonable men in everyday life, Tom's jury, but you saw something
come between them and reason. You saw the same thing that night in
front of the jail. When that crew went away, they didn't go as
reasonable men, they went because we were there. There's something
in our world that makes men lose their heads- they couldn't be fair if
they tried. In our courts, when it's a white man's word against a
black man's, the white man always wins. They're ugly, but those are
the facts of life."
"Doesn't make it right," said Jem stolidly. He beat his fist
softly on his knee. "You just can't convict a man on evidence like
that- you can't."
"You couldn't, but they could and did. The older you grow the more
of it you'll see. The one place where a man ought to get a square deal
is in a courtroom, be he any color of the rainbow, but people have a
way of carrying their resentments right into a jury box. As you grow
older, you'll see white men cheat black men every day of your life,
but let me tell you something and don't you forget it- whenever a
white man does that to a black man, no matter who he is, how rich he
is, or how fine a family he comes from, that white man is trash."
Atticus was speaking so quietly his last word crashed on our ears. I
looked up, and his face was vehement. "There's nothing more
sickening to me than a low-grade white man who'll take advantage of
a Negro's ignorance. Don't fool yourselves- it's all adding up and one
of these days we're going to pay the bill for it. I hope it's not in
you children's time."
Jem was scratching his head. Suddenly his eyes widened. "Atticus,"
he said, "why don't people like us and Miss Maudie ever sit on juries?
You never see anybody from Maycomb on a jury- they all come from out
in the woods."
Atticus leaned back in his rocking-chair. For some reason he
looked pleased with Jem. "I was wondering when that'd occur to you,"
he said. "There are lots of reasons. For one thing, Miss Maudie
can't serve on a jury because she's a woman-"
"You mean women in Alabama can't-?" I was indignant.
"I do. I guess it's to protect our frail ladies from sordid cases
like Tom's. Besides," Atticus grinned, "I doubt if we'd ever get a
complete case tried- the ladies'd be interrupting to ask questions."
Jem and I laughed. Miss Maudie on a jury would be impressive. I
thought of old Mrs. Dubose in her wheelchair- "Stop that rapping, John
Taylor, I want to ask this man something." Perhaps our forefathers
were wise.
Atticus was saying, "With people like us- that's our share of the
bill. We generally get the juries we deserve. Our stout Maycomb
citizens aren't interested, in the first place. In the second place,
they're afraid. Then, they're-"
"Afraid, why?" asked Jem.
"Well, what if- say, Mr. Link Deas had to decide the amount of
damages to award, say, Miss Maudie, when Miss Rachel ran over her with
a car. Link wouldn't like the thought of losing either lady's business
at his store, would he? So he tells Judge Taylor that he can't serve
on the jury because he doesn't have anybody to keep store for him
while he's gone. So Judge Taylor excuses him. Sometimes he excuses him
wrathfully."
"What'd make him think either one of 'em'd stop trading with him?" I
asked.
Jem said, "Miss Rachel would, Miss Maudie wouldn't. But a jury's
vote's secret, Atticus."
Our father chuckled. "You've many more miles to go, son. A jury's
vote's supposed to be secret. Serving on a jury forces a man to make
up his mind and declare himself about something. Men don't like to
do that. Sometimes it's unpleasant."
"Tom's jury sho' made up its mind in a hurry," Jem muttered.
Atticus's fingers went to his watchpocket. "No it didn't," he
said, more to himself than to us. "That was the one thing that made me
think, well, this may be the shadow of a beginning. That jury took a
few hours. An inevitable verdict, maybe, but usually it takes 'em just
a few minutes. This time-" he broke off and looked at us. "You might
like to know that there was one fellow who took considerable wearing
down- in the beginning he was rarin' for an outright acquittal."
"Who?" Jem was astonished.
Atticus's eyes twinkled. "It's not for me to say, but I'll tell
you this much. He was one of your Old Sarum friends..."
"One of the Cunninghams?" Jem yelped. "One of- I didn't recognize
any of 'em... you're jokin'." He looked at Atticus from the corners of
his eyes.
"One of their connections. On a hunch, I didn't strike him. Just
on a hunch. Could've, but I didn't."
"Golly Moses," Jem said reverently. "One minute they're tryin' to
kill him and the next they're tryin' to turn him loose... I'll never
understand those folks as long as I live."
Atticus said you just had to know 'em. He said the Cunninghams
hadn't taken anything from or off of anybody since they migrated to
the New World. He said the other thing about them was, once you earned
their respect they were for you tooth and nail. Atticus said he had
a feeling, nothing more than a suspicion, that they left the jail that
night with considerable respect for the Finches. Then too, he said, it
took a thunderbolt plus another Cunningham to make one of them
change his mind. "If we'd had two of that crowd, we'd've had a hung
jury."
Jem said slowly, "You mean you actually put on the jury a man who
wanted to kill you the night before? How could you take such a risk,
Atticus, how could you?"
"When you analyze it, there was little risk. There's no difference
between one man who's going to convict and another man who's going
to convict, is there? There's a faint difference between a man who's
going to convict and a man who's a little disturbed in his mind, isn't
there? He was the only uncertainty on the whole list."
"What kin was that man to Mr. Walter Cunningham?" I asked.
Atticus rose, stretched and yawned. It was not even our bedtime, but
we knew he wanted a chance to read his newspaper. He picked it up,
folded it, and tapped my head. "Let's see now," he droned to
himself. "I've got it. Double first cousin."
"How can that be?"
"Two sisters married two brothers. That's all I'll tell you- you
figure it out."
I tortured myself and decided that if I married Jem and Dill had a
sister whom he married our children would be double first cousins.
Gee minetti, Jem, I said, when Atticus had gone, "they're funny
folks. 'd you hear that, Aunty?"
Aunt Alexandra was hooking a rug and not watching us, but she was
listening. She sat in her chair with her workbasket beside it, her rug
spread across her lap. Why ladies hooked woolen rugs on boiling nights
never became clear to me.
"I heard it," she said.
I remembered the distant disastrous occasion when I rushed to
young Walter Cunningham's defense. Now I was glad I'd done it. "Soon's
school starts I'm gonna ask Walter home to dinner," I planned,
having forgotten my private resolve to beat him up the next time I saw
him. "He can stay over sometimes after school, too. Atticus could
drive him back to Old Sarum. Maybe he could spend the night with us
sometime, okay, Jem?"
"We'll see about that," Aunt Alexandra said, a declaration that with
her was always a threat, never a promise. Surprised, I turned to
her. "Why not, Aunty? They're good folks."
She looked at me over her sewing glasses. "Jean Louise, there is
no doubt in my mind that they're good folks. But they're not our
kind of folks."
Jem says, "She means they're yappy, Scout."
"What's a yap?"
"Aw, tacky. They like fiddlin' and things like that."
"Well I do too-"
"Don't be silly, Jean Louise," said Aunt Alexandra. "The thing is,
you can scrub Walter Cunningham till he shines, you can put him in
shoes and a new suit, but he'll never be like Jem. Besides, there's
a drinking streak in that family a mile wide. Finch women aren't
interested in that sort of people."
"Aun-ty," said Jem, "she ain't nine yet."
"She may as well learn it now."
Aunt Alexandra had spoken. I was reminded vividly of the last time
she had put her foot down. I never knew why. It was when I was
absorbed with plans to visit Calpurnia's house- I was curious,
interested; I wanted to be her "company," to see how she lived, who
her friends were. I might as well have wanted to see the other side of
the moon. This time the tactics were different, but Aunt Alexandra's
aim was the same. Perhaps this was why she had come to live with us-
to help us choose our friends. I would hold her off as long as I
could: "If they're good folks, then why can't I be nice to Walter?"
"I didn't say not to be nice to him. You should be friendly and
polite to him, you should be gracious to everybody, dear. But you
don't have to invite him home."
"What if he was kin to us, Aunty?"
"The fact is that he is not kin to us, but if he were, my answer
would be the same."
"Aunty," Jem spoke up, "Atticus says you can choose your friends but
you sho' can't choose your family, an' they're still kin to you no
matter whether you acknowledge 'em or not, and it makes you look right
silly when you don't."
"That's your father all over again," said Aunt Alexandra, "and I
still say that Jean Louise will not invite Walter Cunningham to this
house. If he were her double first cousin once removed he would
still not be received in this house unless he comes to see Atticus
on business. Now that is that."
She had said Indeed Not, but this time she would give her reasons:
But I want to play with Walter, Aunty, why can't I?
She took off her glasses and stared at me. "I'll tell you why,"
she said. "Because- he- is- trash, that's why you can't play with him.
I'll not have you around him, picking up his habits and learning
Lord-knows-what. You're enough of a problem to your father as it is."
I don't know what I would have done, but Jem stopped me. He caught
me by the shoulders, put his arm around me, and led me sobbing in fury
to his bedroom. Atticus heard us and poked his head around the door.
's all right, sir, Jem said gruffly, "'s not anything." Atticus went
away.
"Have a chew, Scout." Jem dug into his pocket and extracted a
Tootsie Roll. It took a few minutes to work the candy into a
comfortable wad inside my jaw.
Jem was rearranging the objects on his dresser. His hair stuck up
behind and down in front, and I wondered if it would ever look like
a man's- maybe if he shaved it off and started over, his hair would
grow back neatly in place. His eyebrows were becoming heavier, and I
noticed a new slimness about his body. He was growing taller.
When he looked around, he must have thought I would start crying
again, for he said, "Show you something if you won't tell anybody."
I said what. He unbuttoned his shirt, grinning shyly.
"Well what?"
"Well can't you see it?"
"Well no."
"Well it's hair."
"Where?"
"There. Right there."
He had been a comfort to me, so I said it looked lovely, but I
didn't see anything. "It's real nice, Jem."
"Under my arms, too," he said. "Goin' out for football next year.
Scout, don't let Aunty aggravate you."
It seemed only yesterday that he was telling me not to aggravate
Aunty.
"You know she's not used to girls," said Jem, "leastways, not
girls like you. She's trying to make you a lady. Can't you take up
sewin' or somethin'?"
"Hell no. She doesn't like me, that's all there is to it, and I
don't care. It was her callin' Walter Cunningham trash that got me
goin', Jem, not what she said about being a problem to Atticus. We got
that all straight one time, I asked him if I was a problem and he said
not much of one, at most one that he could always figure out, and
not to worry my head a second about botherin' him. Naw, it was Walter-
that boy's not trash, Jem. He ain't like the Ewells."
Jem kicked off his shoes and swung his feet to the bed. He propped
himself against a pillow and switched on the reading light. "You
know something, Scout? I've got it all figured out, now. I've
thought about it a lot lately and I've got it figured out. There's
four kinds of folks in the world. There's the ordinary kind like us
and the neighbors, there's the kind like the Cunninghams out in the
woods, the kind like the Ewells down at the dump, and the Negroes."
"What about the Chinese, and the Cajuns down yonder in Baldwin
County?"
"I mean in Maycomb County. The thing about it is, our kind of
folks don't like the Cunninghams, the Cunninghams don't like the
Ewells, and the Ewells hate and despise the colored folks."
I told Jem if that was so, then why didn't Tom's jury, made up of
folks like the Cunninghams, acquit Tom to spite the Ewells?"
Jem waved my question away as being infantile.
"You know," he said, "I've seen Atticus pat his foot when there's
fiddlin' on the radio, and he loves pot liquor better'n any man I ever
saw-"
"Then that makes us like the Cunninghams," I said. "I can't see
why Aunty-"
"No, lemme finish- it does, but we're still different somehow.
Atticus said one time the reason Aunty's so hipped on the family is
because all we've got's background and not a dime to our names."
"Well Jem, I don't know- Atticus told me one time that most of
this Old Family stuff's foolishness because everybody's family's
just as old as everybody else's. I said did that include the colored
folks and Englishmen and he said yes."
"Background doesn't mean Old Family," said Jem. "I think it's how
long your family's been readin' and writin'. Scout, I've studied
this real hard and that's the only reason I can think of. Somewhere
along when the Finches were in Egypt one of 'em must have learned a
hieroglyphic or two and he taught his boy." Jem laughed. "Imagine
Aunty being proud her great-grandaddy could read an' write- ladies
pick funny things to be proud of."
"Well I'm glad he could, or who'da taught Atticus and them, and if
Atticus couldn't read, you and me'd be in a fix. I don't think
that's what background is, Jem."
"Well then, how do you explain why the Cunninghams are different?
Mr. Walter can hardly sign his name, I've seen him. We've just been
readin' and writin' longer'n they have."
"No, everybody's gotta learn, nobody's born knowin'. That Walter's
as smart as he can be, he just gets held back sometimes because he has
to stay out and help his daddy. Nothin's wrong with him. Naw, Jem, I
think there's just one kind of folks. Folks."
Jem turned around and punched his pillow. When he settled back his
face was cloudy. He was going into one of his declines, and I grew
wary. His brows came together; his mouth became a thin line. He was
silent for a while.
"That's what I thought, too," he said at last, "when I was your age.
If there's just one kind of folks, why can't they get along with
each other? If they're all alike, why do they go out of their way to
despise each other? Scout, I think I'm beginning to understand
something. I think I'm beginning to understand why Boo Radley's stayed
shut up in the house all this time... it's because he wants¯ to
stay inside."