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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, 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: "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."
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."
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 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 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."
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