"To Kill a Mockingbird" by Harper Lee, Chapters 16–19

Miss Maudie answered: "A merry heart maketh a cheerful countenance.”

Why they objected to Miss Maudie's yard was a mystery, heightened in my mind because for someone who spent all the daylight hours outdoors, Miss Maudie's command of Scripture was formidable.

We asked Miss Maudie to elucidate: she said Miss Stephanie seemed to know so much about the case she might as well be called on to testify.

The more affluent chased their food with drugstore Coca-Cola in bulb-shaped soda glasses.

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.

I found myself in the middle of the Idlers' Club and made myself as unobtrusive as possible.

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.

"What is it?" I whispered, and got a terse, "Sh-h!"

His mouth was twisted into a purposeful half-grin, and his eyes happy about, and he said something about corroborating evidence, which made me sure he was showing off.

The varmints had a lean time of it, for the Ewells gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry (those that were not eaten) made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child: what passed for a fence was bits of tree limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts, all tipped with rusty hammer-heads, snaggle-toothed rake heads, shovels, axes and grubbing hoes, held on with pieces of barbed wire.

Against the fence, in a line, were six chipped-enamel slop jars holding brilliant red geraniums, cared for as tenderly as if they belonged to Miss Maudie Atkinson, had Miss Maudie deigned to permit a geranium on her premises.

We could tell, however, when debate became more acrimonious than professional, but this was from watching lawyers other than our father.

Smugness faded from it, replaced by a dogged earnestness that fooled Judge Taylor not at all: as long as Mr. Ewell was on the stand, the judge kept his eyes on him, as if daring him to make a false move.

Smugness faded from it, replaced by a dogged earnestness that fooled Judge Taylor not at all: as long as Mr. Ewell was on the stand, the judge kept his eyes on him, as if daring him to make a false move.

"Just a minute, sir," said Atticus genially. "Could I ask you a question or two?"

He seemed to grow ruddy again; his chest swelled, and once more he was a red little rooster.

Mr. Ewell wrote on the back of the envelope and looked up complacently to see Judge Taylor staring at him as if he were some fragrant gardenia in full bloom on the witness stand, to see Mr. Gilmer half-sitting, half-standing at his table.

"About your writing with your left hand, are you ambidextrous, Mr. Ewell?"

In Maycomb County, it was easy to tell when someone bathed regularly, as opposed to yearly lavations: Mr. Ewell had a scalded look; as if an overnight soaking had deprived him of protective layers of dirt, his skin appeared to be sensitive to the elements.

Apparently Mayella's recital had given her confidence but it was not her father's brash kind: there was something stealthy about hers, like a steady-eyed cat with a twitchy tail.

Mayella's hostility, which had subsided to grudging neutrality, flared again.

"When he's riled, has he ever beaten you?"

"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.

Mr. Braxton Underwood, who had been sitting quietly in a chair reserved for the Press, soaking up testimony with his sponge of a brain, allowed his bitter eyes to rove over the Colored balcony, and they met mine.

He seemed to be a respectable Negro, and a respectable Negro would never go up into somebody's yard of his own volition.

Until my father explained it to me later, I did not understand the subtlety of Tom's predicament: he would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstances and expect to live long, so he took the first opportunity to run—a sure sign of guilt.

Judge Taylor told the reporter to expunge anything he happened to have written down...

"You're very candid about this, why did you run so fast?"

"Are you being impudent to, me, boy?"