Part Two Chapter 27

To Kill a Mockingbird



Things did settle down, after a fashion, as Atticus said they would.

By the middle of October, only two small things out of the ordinary

happened to two Maycomb citizens. No, there were three things, and

they did not directly concern us- the Finches- but in a way they did.

The first thing was that Mr. Bob Ewell acquired and lost a job in

a matter of days and probably made himself unique in the annals of the

nineteen-thirties: he was the only man I ever heard of who was fired

from the WPA for laziness. I suppose his brief burst of fame brought

on a briefer burst of industry, but his job lasted only as long as his

notoriety: Mr. Ewell found himself as forgotten as Tom Robinson.
Thereafter, he resumed his regular weekly appearances at the welfare

office for his check, and received it with no grace amid obscure

mutterings that the bastards who thought they ran this town wouldn't

permit an honest man to make a living. Ruth Jones, the welfare lady,

said Mr. Ewell openly accused Atticus of getting his job. She was

upset enough to walk down to Atticus's office and tell him about it.

Atticus told Miss Ruth not to fret, that if Bob Ewell wanted to

discuss Atticus's "getting" his job, he knew the way to the office.

The second thing happened to Judge Taylor. Judge Taylor was not a

Sunday-night churchgoer: Mrs. Taylor was. Judge Taylor savored his

Sunday night hour alone in his big house, and churchtime found him

holed up in his study reading the writings of Bob Taylor (no kin,

but the judge would have been proud to claim it). One Sunday night,
lost in fruity metaphors and florid diction, Judge Taylor's

attention was wrenched from the page by an irritating scratching

noise. "Hush," he said to Ann Taylor, his fat nondescript dog. Then he

realized he was speaking to an empty room; the scratching noise was

coming from the rear of the house. Judge Taylor clumped to the back

porch to let Ann out and found the screen door swinging open. A shadow

on the corner of the house caught his eye, and that was all he saw

of his visitor. Mrs. Taylor came home from church to find her

husband in his chair, lost in the writings of Bob Taylor, with a

shotgun across his lap.

The third thing happened to Helen Robinson, Tom's widow. If Mr.

Ewell was as forgotten as Tom Robinson, Tom Robinson was as

forgotten as Boo Radley. But Tom was not forgotten by his employer,
Mr. Link Deas. Mr. Link Deas made a job for Helen. He didn't really

need her, but he said he felt right bad about the way things turned

out. I never knew who took care of her children while Helen was

away. Calpurnia said it was hard on Helen, because she had to walk

nearly a mile out of her way to avoid the Ewells, who, according to

Helen, "chunked at her" the first time she tried to use the public

road. Mr. Link Deas eventually received the impression that Helen

was coming to work each morning from the wrong direction, and

dragged the reason out of her. "Just let it be, Mr. Link, please suh,"

Helen begged. "The hell I will," said Mr. Link. He told her to come by

his store that afternoon before she left. She did, and Mr. Link closed

his store, put his hat firmly on his head, and walked Helen home. He

walked her the short way, by the Ewells'. On his way back, Mr. Link

stopped at the crazy gate.

"Ewell?" he called. "I say Ewell!"



The windows, normally packed with children, were empty.

"I know every last one of you's in there a-layin' on the floor!

Now hear me, Bob Ewell: if I hear one more peep outa my girl Helen

about not bein' able to walk this road I'll have you in jail before

sundown!" Mr. Link spat in the dust and walked home.

Helen went to work next morning and used the public road. Nobody

chunked at her, but when she was a few yards beyond the Ewell house,

she looked around and saw Mr. Ewell walking behind her. She turned and

walked on, and Mr. Ewell kept the same distance behind her until she

reached Mr. Link Deas's house. All the way to the house, Helen said,

she heard a soft voice behind her, crooning foul words. Thoroughly

frightened, she telephoned Mr. Link at his store, which was not too

far from his house. As Mr. Link came out of his store he saw Mr. Ewell

leaning on the fence. Mr. Ewell said, "Don't you look at me, Link

Deas, like I was dirt. I ain't jumped your-"

"First thing you can do, Ewell, is get your stinkin' carcass off

my property. You're leanin' on it an' I can't afford fresh paint for

it. Second thing you can do is stay away from my cook or I'll have you

up for assault-"

"I ain't touched her, Link Deas, and ain't about to go with no

nigger!"



"You don't have to touch her, all you have to do is make her afraid,

an' if assault ain't enough to keep you locked up awhile, I'll get you

in on the Ladies' Law, so get outa my sight! If you don't think I mean

it, just bother that girl again!"

Mr. Ewell evidently thought he meant it, for Helen reported no

further trouble.

"I don't like it, Atticus, I don't like it at all," was Aunt

Alexandra's assessment of these events. "That man seems to have a

permanent running grudge against everybody connected with that case. I

know how that kind are about paying off grudges, but I don't

understand why he should harbor one- he had his way in court, didn't

he?"

"I think I understand," said Atticus. "It might be because he

knows in his heart that very few people in Maycomb really believed his

and Mayella's yarns. He thought he'd be a hero, but all he got for his

pain was... was, okay, we'll convict this Negro but get back to your

dump. He's had his fling with about everybody now, so he ought to be

satisfied. He'll settle down when the weather changes."

"But why should he try to burgle John Taylor's house? He obviously

didn't know John was home or he wouldn't've tried. Only lights John

shows on Sunday nights are on the front porch and back in his den..."



"You don't know if Bob Ewell cut that screen, you don't know who did

it," said Atticus. "But I can guess. I proved him a liar but John made

him look like a fool. All the time Ewell was on the stand I couldn't

dare look at John and keep a straight face. John looked at him as if

he were a three-legged chicken or a square egg. Don't tell me judges

don't try to prejudice juries," Atticus chuckled.

By the end of October, our lives had become the familiar routine

of school, play, study. Jem seemed to have put out of his mind

whatever it was he wanted to forget, and our classmates mercifully let

us forget our father's eccentricities. Cecil Jacobs asked me one

time if Atticus was a Radical. When I asked Atticus, Atticus was so

amused I was rather annoyed, but he said he wasn't laughing at me.

He said, "You tell Cecil I'm about as radical as Cotton Tom Heflin."

Aunt Alexandra was thriving. Miss Maudie must have silenced the

whole missionary society at one blow, for Aunty again ruled that

roost. Her refreshments grew even more delicious. I learned more about

the poor Mrunas' social life from listening to Mrs. Merriweather: they

had so little sense of family that the whole tribe was one big family.

A child had as many fathers as there were men in the community, as

many mothers as there were women. J. Grimes Everett was doing his

utmost to change this state of affairs, and desperately needed our

prayers.

Maycomb was itself again. Precisely the same as last year and the

year before that, with only two minor changes. Firstly, people had

removed from their store windows and automobiles the stickers that

said NRA- WE DO OUR PART. I asked Atticus why, and he said it was

because the National Recovery Act was dead. I asked who killed it:

he said nine old men.

The second change in Maycomb since last year was not one of national

significance. Until then, Halloween in Maycomb was a completely

unorganized affair. Each child did what he wanted to do, with

assistance from other children if there was anything to be moved, such

as placing a light buggy on top of the livery stable. But parents

thought things went too far last year, when the peace of Miss Tutti

and Miss Frutti was shattered.



Misses Tutti and Frutti Barber were maiden ladies, sisters, who

lived together in the only Maycomb residence boasting a cellar. The

Barber ladies were rumored to be Republicans, having migrated from

Clanton, Alabama, in 1911. Their ways were strange to us, and why they

wanted a cellar nobody knew, but they wanted one and they dug one, and

they spent the rest of their lives chasing generations of children out

of it.

Misses Tutti and Frutti (their names were Sarah and Frances),

aside from their Yankee ways, were both deaf. Miss Tutti denied it and

lived in a world of silence, but Miss Frutti, not about to miss

anything, employed an ear trumpet so enormous that Jem declared it was

a loudspeaker from one of those dog Victrolas.

With these facts in mind and Halloween at hand, some wicked children

had waited until the Misses Barber were thoroughly asleep, slipped

into their livingroom (nobody but the Radleys locked up at night),

stealthily made away with every stick of furniture therein, and hid it

in the cellar. I deny having taken part in such a thing.

"I heard 'em!" was the cry that awoke the Misses Barber's

neighbors at dawn next morning. "Heard 'em drive a truck up to the

door! Stomped around like horses. They're in New Orleans by now!"

Miss Tutti was sure those traveling fur sellers who came through

town two days ago had purloined their furniture. "Da-rk they were,"

she said. "Syrians."



Mr. Heck Tate was summoned. He surveyed the area and said he thought

it was a local job. Miss Frutti said she'd know a Maycomb voice

anywhere, and there were no Maycomb voices in that parlor last

night- rolling their r's all over her premises, they were. Nothing

less than the bloodhounds must be used to locate their furniture, Miss

Tutti insisted, so Mr. Tate was obliged to go ten miles out the

road, round up the county hounds, and put them on the trail.

Mr. Tate started them off at the Misses Barber's front steps, but

all they did was run around to the back of the house and howl at the

cellar door. When Mr. Tate set them in motion three times, he

finally guessed the truth. By noontime that day, there was not a

barefooted child to be seen in Maycomb and nobody took off his shoes

until the hounds were returned.

So the Maycomb ladies said things would be different this year.

The high-school auditorium would be open, there would be a pageant for

the grown-ups; apple-bobbing, taffy-pulling, pinning the tail on the

donkey for the children. There would also be a prize of twenty-five

cents for the best Halloween costume, created by the wearer.

Jem and I both groaned. Not that we'd ever done anything, it was the

principle of the thing. Jem considered himself too old for Halloween

anyway; he said he wouldn't be caught anywhere near the high school at

something like that. Oh well, I thought, Atticus would take me.

I soon learned, however, that my services would be required on stage

that evening. Mrs. Grace Merriweather had composed an original pageant

entitled Maycomb County: Ad Astra Per Aspera,¯ and I was to be a ham.

She thought it would be adorable if some of the children were costumed

to represent the county's agricultural products: Cecil Jacobs would be

dressed up to look like a cow; Agnes Boone would make a lovely

butterbean, another child would be a peanut, and on down the line

until Mrs. Merriweather's imagination and the supply of children

were exhausted.



Our only duties, as far as I could gather from our two rehearsals,

were to enter from stage left as Mrs. Merriweather (not only the

author, but the narrator) identified us. When she called out,

Pork, that was my cue. Then the assembled company would sing,

Maycomb County, Maycomb County, we will aye be true to thee, as

the grand finale, and Mrs. Merriweather would mount the stage with the

state flag.

My costume was not much of a problem. Mrs. Crenshaw, the local

seamstress, had as much imagination as Mrs. Merriweather. Mrs.

Crenshaw took some chicken wire and bent it into the shape of a

cured ham. This she covered with brown cloth, and painted it to

resemble the original. I could duck under and someone would pull the

contraption down over my head. It came almost to my knees. Mrs.

Crenshaw thoughtfully left two peepholes for me. She did a fine job.

Jem said I looked exactly like a ham with legs. There were several

discomforts, though: it was hot, it was a close fit; if my nose itched

I couldn't scratch, and once inside I could not get out of it alone.

When Halloween came, I assumed that the whole family would be

present to watch me perform, but I was disappointed. Atticus said as

tactfully as he could that he just didn't think he could stand a

pageant tonight, he was all in. He had been in Montgomery for a week

and had come home late that afternoon. He thought Jem might escort

me if I asked him.

Aunt Alexandra said she just had to get to bed early, she'd been

decorating the stage all afternoon and was worn out- she stopped short

in the middle of her sentence. She closed her mouth, then opened it to

say something, but no words came.

"'s matter, Aunty?" I asked.



"Oh nothing, nothing," she said, "somebody just walked over my

grave." She put away from her whatever it was that gave her a pinprick

of apprehension, and suggested that I give the family a preview in the

livingroom. So Jem squeezed me into my costume, stood at the

livingroom door, called out "Po-ork," exactly as Mrs. Merriweather

would have done, and I marched in. Atticus and Aunt Alexandra were

delighted.

I repeated my part for Calpurnia in the kitchen and she said I was

wonderful. I wanted to go across the street to show Miss Maudie, but

Jem said she'd probably be at the pageant anyway.

After that, it didn't matter whether they went or not. Jem said he

would take me. Thus began our longest journey together.