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."
