TO KILL A MOCKINGBIRD Chapter 19
Chapter 19
The fourth person to speak is Tom Robinson, the man accused of the crime. He is a tall, strong black man. He comes to the witness chair. He is nervous, but he tries to look at the people on the jury.
Atticus Finch asks him simple questions. “Tom,” Atticus asks, “you have heard the stories from Mr. Ewell and Mayella Ewell? Are their stories true?” “No, sir, not completely true,” Tom says. “I know the Ewell house well. I pass their field almost every day on my way to work.”
Tom tells the court about Mayella. He says she often asks him to help her. She has nobody else to help her with small jobs, like carrying water or chopping wood. She often offers him money for his work, but he never takes the money. He says she has done small, kind things for his family, too, like giving old clothes to his wife.
“Tell the court what happened on that day, November twenty-first,” Atticus says. Tom explains that he was walking home when Mayella called him from her house. “She said, ‘Come here, nigger, and chop up this chiffarobe for me.’ I said, ‘I’ll be glad to, Miss Mayella.” Tom says he quickly broke the old cupboard. When he finished, he went to the well for a drink.
“When I came back from the well, she said, ‘Give me a hand, nigger. Help me fix this door.’” So I went into the house. But the door was not broken.” Tom says that when he got close to her, Mayella quickly closed the door. She tried to hug him and hold him around the waist.
“She reached around and kissed me, and I jumped. I jumped so bad I nearly dropped the water bucket. She said, ‘I’ve never kissed a grown man. I might as well kiss a nigger.’ She said what her father does to her doesn’t count. I said, ‘Miss Mayella, you listen to me, you got to be nice to everybody here.’ I tried to go, and she grabbed me and she started yelling, ‘Kiss me back, nigger.’”
Tom says he ran out of the house as fast as he could. He says he saw Bob Ewell looking through the window as he ran out of the house. He heard Bob Ewell yell at Mayella. He said he was going to kill her. “Why did you run away, Tom?” “I was scared, sir. I knew what they were going to say about me.”
Mr. Gilmer, the state lawyer, begins his questions. He is angry and speaks loudly. “You are a married man with three children. Why did you help Mayella for nothing?” Mr. Gilmer asks. Tom answers, “I felt very sorry for her, she seemed like she didn’t have anyone to help her.”
Many white people in the court are upset by Tom’s answer. A black man should not say he feels sorry for a white woman. Mr. Gilmer presses Tom again.
“You are a powerful man. Weren’t you strong enough to push her away without running?” “I did not want to hurt her, and I could not push a white woman. I just wanted to get away,” Tom says. “You ran, didn’t you, Tom? You ran. Why did you run?” Mr. Gilmer asks one last time. Tom can only repeat the truth: “I was scared, sir.”
Atticus asks his final question. “Tom, how long have you been without the use of your left hand?” “Since I was a boy, about twelve years old, sir.” Tom lifts his left arm slightly. The people see that his left arm is useless. It is much shorter than his right arm. It is clear that Tom Robinson could never have used his left hand to hit Mayella with great force and make her right eye black. The jury has heard both sides.
