children among them, which seemed to dispel the holiday mood. They
waited patiently at the doors behind the white families.
"Let's go in," said Dill.
"Naw, we better wait till they get in, Atticus might not like it
if he sees us," said Jem.
The Maycomb County courthouse was faintly reminiscent of Arlington
in one respect: the concrete pillars supporting its south roof were
too heavy for their light burden. The pillars were all that remained
standing when the original courthouse burned in 1856. Another
courthouse was built around them. It is better to say, built in
spite of them. But for the south porch, the Maycomb County
courthouse was early Victorian, presenting an unoffensive vista when
seen from the north. From the other side, however, Greek revival
columns clashed with a big nineteenth-century clock tower housing a
rusty unreliable instrument, a view indicating a people determined
to preserve every physical scrap of the past.
To reach the courtroom, on the second floor, one passed sundry
sunless county cubbyholes: the tax assessor, the tax collector, the
county clerk, the county solicitor, the circuit clerk, the judge of
probate lived in cool dim hutches that smelled of decaying record
books mingled with old damp cement and stale urine. It was necessary
to turn on the lights in the daytime; there was always a film of
dust on the rough floorboards. The inhabitants of these offices were
creatures of their environment: little gray-faced men, they seemed
untouched by wind or sun.
We knew there was a crowd, but we had not bargained for the
multitudes in the first-floor hallway. I got separated from Jem and
Dill, but made my way toward the wall by the stairwell, knowing Jem
would come for me eventually. I found myself in the middle of the
Idlers' Club and made myself as unobtrusive as possible. This was a
group of white-shirted, khaki-trousered, suspendered old men who had
spent their lives doing nothing and passed their twilight days doing
same on pine benches under the live oaks on the square. Attentive
critics of courthouse business, Atticus said they knew as much law
as the Chief Justice, from long years of observation. Normally, they
were the court's only spectators, and today they seemed resentful of
the interruption of their comfortable routine. When they spoke,
their voices sounded casually important. The conversation was about my
father.
"...thinks he knows what he's doing," one said.
"Oh-h now, I wouldn't say that," said another. "Atticus Finch's a
deep reader, a mighty deep reader."
"He reads all right, that's all he does." The club snickered.
"Lemme tell you somethin' now, Billy," a third said, "you know the
court appointed him to defend this nigger."
"Yeah, but Atticus aims to defend him. That's what I don't like
about it."
This was news, news that put a different light on things: Atticus
had to, whether he wanted to or not. I thought it odd that he hadn't
said anything to us about it- we could have used it many times in
defending him and ourselves. He had to, that's why he was doing it,
equaled fewer fights and less fussing. But did that explain the town's
attitude? The court appointed Atticus to defend him. Atticus aimed
to defend him. That's what they didn't like about it. It was
confusing.
The Negroes, having waited for the white people to go upstairs,
began to come in. "Whoa now, just a minute," said a club member,
holding up his walking stick. "Just don't start up them there stairs
yet awhile."
The club began its stiff-jointed climb and ran into Dill and Jem
on their way down looking for me. They squeezed past and Jem called,
"Scout, come on, there ain't a seat left. We'll hafta stand up."
"Looka there, now." he said irritably, as the black people surged
upstairs. The old men ahead of them would take most of the standing
room. We were out of luck and it was my fault, Jem informed me. We
stood miserably by the wall.
"Can't you all get in?"
Reverend Sykes was looking down at us, black hat in hand.
"Hey, Reverend," said Jem. "Naw, Scout here messed us up."
"Well, let's see what we can do."
Reverend Sykes edged his way upstairs. In a few moments he was back.
"There's not a seat downstairs. Do you all reckon it'll be all right
if you all came to the balcony with me?"
"Gosh yes," said Jem. Happily, we sped ahead of Reverend Sykes to
the courtroom floor. There, we went up a covered staircase and
waited at the door. Reverend Sykes came puffing behind us, and steered
us gently through the black people in the balcony. Four Negroes rose
and gave us their front-row seats.
The Colored balcony ran along three walls of the courtroom like a
second-story veranda, and from it we could see everything.
The jury sat to the left, under long windows. Sunburned, lanky, they
seemed to be all farmers, but this was natural: townfolk rarely sat on
juries, they were either struck or excused. One or two of the jury
looked vaguely like dressed-up Cunninghams. At this stage they sat
straight and alert.
The circuit solicitor and another man, Atticus and Tom Robinson
sat at tables with their backs to us. There was a brown book and
some yellow tablets on the solicitor's table; Atticus's was bare.
Just inside the railing that divided the spectators from the
court, the witnesses sat on cowhide-bottomed chairs. Their backs
were to us.
Judge Taylor was on the bench, looking like a sleepy old shark,
his pilot fish writing rapidly below in front of him. Judge Taylor
looked like most judges I had ever seen: amiable, white-haired,
slightly ruddy-faced, he was a man who ran his court with an
alarming informality- he sometimes propped his feet up, he often
cleaned his fingernails with his pocket knife. In long equity
hearings, especially after dinner, he gave the impression of dozing,
an impression dispelled forever when a lawyer once deliberately pushed
a pile of books to the floor in a desperate effort to wake him up.
Without opening his eyes, Judge Taylor murmured, "Mr. Whitley, do that
again and it'll cost you one hundred dollars."
He was a man learned in the law, and although he seemed to take
his job casually, in reality he kept a firm grip on any proceedings
that came before him. Only once was Judge Taylor ever seen at a dead
standstill in open court, and the Cunninghams stopped him. Old
Sarum, their stamping grounds, was populated by two families
separate and apart in the beginning, but unfortunately bearing the
same name. The Cunninghams married the Coninghams until the spelling
of the names was academic- academic until a Cunningham disputed a
Coningham over land titles and took to the law. During a controversy
of this character, Jeems Cunningham testified that his mother
spelled it Cunningham on deeds and things, but she was really a
Coningham, she was an uncertain speller, a seldom reader, and was
given to looking far away sometimes when she sat on the front
gallery in the evening. After nine hours of listening to the
eccentricities of Old Sarum's inhabitants, Judge Taylor threw the case
out of court. When asked upon what grounds, Judge Taylor said,
"Champertous connivance," and declared he hoped to God the litigants
were satisfied by each having had their public say. They were. That
was all they had wanted in the first place.
Judge Taylor had one interesting habit. He permitted smoking in
his courtroom but did not himself indulge: sometimes, if one was
lucky, one had the privilege of watching him put a long dry cigar into
his mouth and munch it slowly up. Bit by bit the dead cigar would
disappear, to reappear some hours later as a flat slick mess, its
essence extracted and mingling with Judge Taylor's digestive juices. I
once asked Atticus how Mrs. Taylor stood to kiss him, but Atticus said
they didn't kiss much.
The witness stand was to the right of Judge Taylor, and when we
got to our seats Mr. Heck Tate was already on it.
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
