19 Chapter 19 (2/2)
”Mr. Finch, if you was a nigger like me, you'd be scared, too.”
Atticus sat down. Mr. Gilmer was making his way to the witness stand, but before hegot there Mr. Link Deas rose from the audience and announced:
”I just want the whole lot of you to know one thing right now. That boy's worked for meeight years an' I ain't had a speck o'trouble outa him. Not a speck.”
”Shut your mouth, sir!” Judge Taylor was wide awake and roaring. He was also pink inthe face. His speech was miraculously unimpaired by his cigar. ”Link Deas,” he yelled,”if you have anything you want to say you can say it under oath and at the proper time,but until then you get out of this room, you hear me? Get out of this room, sir, you hearme? I'll be damned if I'll listen to this case again!”
Judge Taylor looked daggers at Atticus, as if daring him to speak, but Atticus hadducked his head and was laughing into his lap. I remembered something he had saidabout Judge Taylor's ex cathedra remarks sometimes exceeding his duty, but that fewlawyers ever did anything about them. I looked at Jem, but Jem shook his head. ”It ain'tlike one of the jurymen got up and started talking,” he said. ”I think it'd be different then.
Mr. Link was just disturbin' the peace or something.”
Judge Taylor told the reporter to expunge anything he happened to have written downafter Mr. Finch if you were a nigger like me you'd be scared too, and told the jury todisregard the interruption. He looked suspiciously down the middle aisle and waited, Isuppose, for Mr. Link Deas to effect total departure. Then he said, ”Go ahead, Mr.
Gilmer.”
”You were given thirty days once for disorderly conduct, Robinson?” asked Mr. Gilmer.
”Yes suh.”
”What'd the nigger look like when you got through with him?”
”He beat me, Mr. Gilmer.”
”Yes, but you were convicted, weren't you?”
Atticus raised his head. ”It was a misdemeanor and it's in the record, Judge.” I thoughthe sounded tired.
”Witness'll answer, though,” said Judge Taylor, just as wearily.
”Yes suh, I got thirty days.”
I knew that Mr. Gilmer would sincerely tell the jury that anyone who was convicted ofdisorderly conduct could easily have had it in his heart to take advantage of MayellaEwell, that was the only reason he cared. Reasons like that helped.
”Robinson, you're pretty good at busting up chiffarobes and kindling with one hand,aren't you?”
”Yes, suh, I reckon so.”
”Strong enough to choke the breath out of a woman and sling her to the floor?”
”I never done that, suh.”
”But you are strong enough to?”
”I reckon so, suh.”
”Had your eye on her a long time, hadn't you, boy?”
”No suh, I never looked at her.”
”Then you were mighty polite to do all that chopping and hauling for her, weren't you,boy?”
”I was just tryin' to help her out, suh.”
”That was mighty generous of you, you had chores at home after your regular work,didn't you?”
”Yes suh.”
”Why didn't you do them instead of Miss Ewell's?”
”I done 'em both, suh.”
”You must have been pretty busy. Why?”
”Why what, suh?”
”Why were you so anxious to do that woman's chores?”
Tom Robinson hesitated, searching for an answer. ”Looked like she didn't havenobody to help her, like I says—”
”With Mr. Ewell and seven children on the place, boy?”
”Well, I says it looked like they never help her none—”
”You did all this chopping and work from sheer goodness, boy?”
”Tried to help her, I says.”
Mr. Gilmer smiled grimly at the jury. ”You're a mighty good fellow, it seems—did allthis for not one penny?”
”Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more'n the rest of 'em—”
”You felt sorry for her, you felt sorry for he?” Mr. Gilmer seemed ready to rise to theceiling.
The witness realized his mistake and shifted uncomfortably in the chair. But thedamage was done. Below us, nobody liked Tom Robinson's answer. Mr. Gilmer pauseda long time to let it sink in.
”Now you went by the house as usual, last November twenty-first,” he said, ”and sheasked you to come in and bust up a chiffarobe?”
”No suh.”
”Do you deny that you went by the house?”
”No suh—she said she had somethin' for me to do inside the house—”
”She says she asked you to bust up a chiffarobe, is that right?”
”No suh, it ain't.”
”Then you say she's lying, boy?”
Atticus was on his feet, but Tom Robinson didn't need him. ”I don't say she's lyin', Mr.
Gilmer, I say she's mistaken in her mind.”
To the next ten questions, as Mr. Gilmer reviewed Mayella's version of events, thewitness's steady answer was that she was mistaken in her mind.
”Didn't Mr. Ewell run you off the place, boy?”
”No suh, I don't think he did.”
”Don't think, what do you mean?”
”I mean I didn't stay long enough for him to run me off.”
”You're very candid about this, why did you run so fast?”
”I says I was scared, suh.”
”If you had a clear conscience, why were you scared?”
”Like I says before, it weren't safe for any nigger to be in a—fix like that.”
”But you weren't in a fix—you testified that you were resisting Miss Ewell. Were you soscared that she'd hurt you, you ran, a big buck like you?”
”No suh, I's scared I'd be in court, just like I am now.”
”Scared of arrest, scared you'd have to face up to what you did?”
”No suh, scared I'd hafta face up to what I didn't do.”
”Are you being impudent to me, boy?”
”No suh, I didn't go to be.”
This was as much as I heard of Mr. Gilmer's cross-examination, because Jem mademe take Dill out. For some reason Dill had started crying and couldn't stop; quietly atfirst, then his sobs were heard by several people in the balcony. Jem said if I didn't gowith him he'd make me, and Reverend Sykes said I'd better go, so I went. Dill hadseemed to be all right that day, nothing wrong with him, but I guessed he hadn't fullyrecovered from running away.
”Ain't you feeling good?” I asked, when we reached the bottom of the stairs.
Dill tried to pull himself together as we ran down the south steps. Mr. Link Deas was alonely figure on the top step. ”Anything happenin', Scout?” he asked as we went by. ”Nosir,” I answered over my shoulder. ”Dill here, he's sick.”
”Come on out under the trees,” I said. ”Heat got you, I expect.” We chose the fattestlive oak and we sat under it.
”It was just him I couldn't stand,” Dill said.
”Who, Tom?”
”That old Mr. Gilmer doin' him thataway, talking so hateful to him—”
”Dill, that's his job. Why, if we didn't have prosecutors—well, we couldn't have defenseattorneys, I reckon.”
Dill exhaled patiently. ”I know all that, Scout. It was the way he said it made me sick,plain sick.”
”He's supposed to act that way, Dill, he was cross—”
”He didn't act that way when—”
”Dill, those were his own witnesses.”
”Well, Mr. Finch didn't act that way to Mayella and old man Ewell when he cross-examined them. The way that man called him 'boy' all the time an' sneered at him, an'
looked around at the jury every time he answered—”
”Well, Dill, after all he's just a Negro.”
”I don't care one speck. It ain't right, somehow it ain't right to do 'em that way. Hasn'tanybody got any business talkin' like that—it just makes me sick.”
”That's just Mr. Gilmer's way, Dill, he does 'em all that way. You've never seen him getgood'n down on one yet. Why, when—well, today Mr. Gilmer seemed to me like hewasn't half trying. They do 'em all that way, most lawyers, I mean.”
”Mr. Finch doesn't.”
”He's not an example, Dill, he's—” I was trying to grope in my memory for a sharpphrase of Miss Maudie Atkinson's. I had it: ”He's the same in the courtroom as he is onthe public streets.”
”That's not what I mean,” said Dill.
”I know what you mean, boy,” said a voice behind us. We thought it came from thetree-trunk, but it belonged to Mr. Dolphus Raymond. He peered around the trunk at us.
”You aren't thin-hided, it just makes you sick, doesn't it?”