man in these parts who can keep a jury out so long in a case like
that. And I thought to myself, well, we're making a step- it's just
a baby-step, but it's a step."
"'t's all right to talk like that- can't any Christian judges an'
lawyers make up for heathen juries," Jem muttered. "Soon's I get
grown-"
"That's something you'll have to take up with your father," Miss
Maudie said.
We went down Miss Maudie's cool new steps into the sunshine and
found Mr. Avery and Miss Stephanie Crawford still at it. They had
moved down the sidewalk and were standing in front of Miss Stephanie's
house. Miss Rachel was walking toward them.
"I think I'll be a clown when I get grown," said Dill.
Jem and I stopped in our tracks.
"Yes sir, a clown," he said. "There ain't one thing in this world
I can do about folks except laugh, so I'm gonna join the circus and
laugh my head off."
"You got it backwards, Dill," said Jem. "Clowns are sad, it's
folks that laugh at them."
"Well I'm gonna be a new kind of clown. I'm gonna stand in the
middle of the ring and laugh at the folks. Just looka yonder," he
pointed. "Every one of 'em oughta be ridin' broomsticks. Aunt Rachel
already does."
Miss Stephanie and Miss Rachel were waving wildly at us, in a way
that did not give the lie to Dill's observation.
"Oh gosh," breathed Jem. "I reckon it'd be ugly not to see 'em."
Something was wrong. Mr. Avery was red in the face from a sneezing
spell and nearly blew us off the sidewalk when we came up. Miss
Stephanie was trembling with excitement, and Miss Rachel caught Dill's
shoulder. "You get on in the back yard and stay there," she said.
"There's danger a'comin'."
"'s matter?" I asked.
"Ain't you heard yet? It's all over town-"
At that moment Aunt Alexandra came to the door and called us, but
she was too late. It was Miss Stephanie's pleasure to tell us: this
morning Mr. Bob Ewell stopped Atticus on the post office corner,
spat in his face, and told him he'd get him if it took the rest of his
life.
23
"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 nigger-lovin' bastard?" 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 circumstantial 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 circumstantial
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
