No More Learning

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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Chapter 18
But someone was booming again. “Mayella Violet Ewell—! ”
A young girl walked to the witness stand. As she raised her hand and swore that the evidence she gave would be the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth so help her God, she seemed somehow fragile-looking, but when she sat facing us in the witness chair she became what she was, a thick-bodied girl accustomed to strenuous labor.
In Maycomb County, it was easy to tell when someone bathed regularly, as opposed to yearly lavations: Mr. Ewell had a scalded look; as if an overnight soaking had deprived him of protective layers of dirt, his skin appeared to be sensitive to the elements. Mayella looked as if she tried to keep clean, and I was reminded of the row of red geraniums in the Ewell yard.
Mr. Gilmer asked Mayella to tell the jury in her own words what happened on the evening of November twenty-first of last year, just in her own words, please.
Mayella sat silently.
“Where were you at dusk on that evening? ” began Mr. Gilmer patiently. “On the porch. ”
“Which porch? ”
“Ain’t but one, the front porch. ”
“What were you doing on the porch? ”
“Nothin‘. ”
Judge Taylor said, “Just tell us what happened. You can do that, can’t you? ”
Mayella stared at him and burst into tears. She covered her mouth with her hands and sobbed. Judge Taylor let her cry for a while, then he said, “That’s enough now. Don’t be ‘fraid of anybody here, as long as you tell the truth. All this is strange to you, I know, but you’ve nothing to be ashamed of and nothing to fear.
What are you scared of? ”
Mayella said something behind her hands. “What was that? ” asked the judge.
“Him,” she sobbed, pointing at Atticus.
“Mr. Finch? ”
She nodded vigorously, saying, “Don’t want him doin‘ me like he done Papa, tryin’ to make him out lefthanded. . . ”
Judge Taylor scratched his thick white hair. It was plain that he had never been confronted with a problem of this kind. “How old are you? ” he asked.
“Nineteen-and-a-half,” Mayella said.
Judge Taylor cleared his throat and tried unsuccessfully to speak in soothing tones. “Mr. Finch has no idea of scaring you,” he growled, “and if he did, I’m here to stop him. That’s one thing I’m sitting up here for. Now you’re a big girl, so you just sit up straight and tell the—tell us what happened to you. You can do that, can’t you? ”
I whispered to Jem, “Has she got good sense? ”
Jem was squinting down at the witness stand. “Can’t tell yet,” he said. “She’s got enough sense to get the judge sorry for her, but she might be just—oh, I don’t know. ”
Mollified, Mayella gave Atticus a final terrified glance and said to Mr. Gilmer, “Well sir, 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?