The trial begins the next day. People from all over the county flood the town. Everyone makes an appearance in the courtroom, from Miss Stephanie Crawford to Mr. Dolphus Raymond, a wealthy eccentric who owns land on a river bank, lives near the county line, is involved with a Black woman, and has mulatto children. Only Miss Maudie refuses to go, saying that watching someone on trial for his life is like attending a Roman carnival.
The vast crowd camps in the town square to eat lunch. Afterward, Jem , Scout , and Dill wait for most of the crowd to enter the courthouse so that they can slip in at the back and thus prevent Atticus from noticing them. However, because they wait too long, they succeed in getting seats only when Reverend Sykes lets them sit in the balcony where Black people are required to sit in order to watch the trial. From these seats, they can see the whole courtroom.
Judge Taylor, a white-haired old man with a reputation for running his court in an informal fashion, presides over the case. The prosecutor, Mr. Gilmer, questions Heck Tate, who recounts how, on the night of November 21, Bob Ewell urged him to go to the Ewell house and told him that his daughter Mayella had been raped. When Tate got there, he found Mayella bruised and beaten, and she told him that Tom Robinson had raped her. Tate leaves the stand, and Bob Ewell is called.
Bob Ewell and his children live behind the town garbage dump in a tin-roofed cabin with a yard full of trash. No one is sure how many children Ewell has, and the only orderly corner of the yard is planted with well-tended geraniums rumored to belong to Mayella.
An extremely rude little man, Ewell testifies that on the evening in question he was coming out of the woods with a load of kindling when he heard his daughter yelling. When he reached the house, he looked in the window and saw Tom Robinson raping her. Parents Home Homeschool College Resources. Study Guide. By Harper Lee. Previous Next. Walter Cunningham Jr. Tired of ads? Uh, ask Atticus, Cal says. Now it's Jem's turn to ask questions.
Why does the congregation sings their hymns the way they do, instead of saving up for hymn-books? Well, hymn-books wouldn't do them much good—hardly any people in the church can read. Cal only can because Miss Maudie's aunt, Miss Buford, taught her to read. Some other facts about Cal, which Jem and Scout only now think to ask her: She's older than Atticus though she doesn't know her age exactly, or even her birthday—she just celebrates it on Christmas to make it easy to remember.
She grew up near Finch's Landing, and moved to Maycomb with Atticus when he married. She taught her oldest son Zeebo to read, too but not using anything like "This is Spot. See Spot run. Nope, she brought out the big guns : the Bible and a book Miss Buford used to teach her—Blackstone's Commentaries , a gift from the Finch kids' grandfather. Jem's blow away that she learned and taught English out of such a difficult book as the Commentaries. That must be why she doesn't talk like the other African-Americans he knows.
Scout is blown away to think that Calpurnia has a whole other life besides being their cook, much like a child realizing that teachers don't sleep at school. One last question. Why does Cal talk differently at the African-American church than she does with white people?
She says that it makes more sense to fit in. Okay, this is actually the last question: can Scout visit Calpurnia at her home some time?
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