Chapters 25-31

"Old Adolf Hitler has been prosecutin' the--"
"Persecuting Cecil...."

I got rid of my ham costume and departed in a hurry, for Mrs. Merriweather was standing at a lectern in front of the first row of seats making last-minute, frenzied changes in the script.

From somewhere near by came scuffling, kicking sounds, sounds of shoes and flesh scraping dirt and roots.

"I wondered why he had those marks on him, His sleeves were perforated with little holes.

The name Ewell gave me a queasy feeling.

Prejudice," she enunciated carefully.

Dill said Atticus looked uncertain, then he said yes, and Sam scampered off.

A boy trudged down the sidewalk dragging a fishingpole behind him.

The man was walking with the staccato steps of someone carrying a load too heavy for him.

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

High above us in the darkness a solitary mocker poured out his repertoire in blissful unawareness of whose tree he sat in, plunging from the shrill kee, kee of the sunflower bird to the irascible qua-ack of a bluejay, to the sad lament of Poor Will, Poor Will, Poor Will.

Just shows you, that Robinson boy was legally married, they say he kept himself clean, went to church and all that, but when it comes down to the line the veneer's mighty thin.

Honed it down and bided his time... just bided his time."

Maycomb had lost no time in getting Mr. Ewell's views on Tom's demise and passing them along through that English Channel of gossip, Miss Stephanie Crawford.

I sometimes felt a twinge of remorse, when passing by the old place, at ever having taken part in what must have been sheer torment to Arthur Radley--what reasonable recluse wants children peeping through his shutters, delivering greetings on the end of a fishing-pole, wandering in his collards at night?

The rural children who could, usually brought clippings from what they called The Grit Paper, a publication spurious in the eyes of Miss Gates, our teacher.

Haints, Hot Steams, incantations, secret signs, had vanished with our years as mist with sunrise.

Its owner said, "Uff!" and tried to catch my arms, but they were tightly pinioned.

One Sunday night, lost in fruity metaphors and florid diction, Judge Taylor's attention was wrenched from the page by an irritating scratching noise.

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.

As I said it, I half pointed to the man in the corner, but brought my arm down quickly lest Atticus reprimand me for pointing.

After consulting a tree to ascertain from its lichen which way was south, and taking no lip from the subordinates who ventured to correct him, Colonel Maycomb set out on a purposeful journey to rout the enemy and entangled his troops so far northwest in the forest primeval that they were eventually rescued by settlers moving inland.

I got rid of my ham costume and departed in a hurry, for Mrs. Merriweather was standing at a lectern in front of the first row of seats making last-minute, frenzied changes in the script.

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.

I can't conceive of anyone low-down enough to do a thing like this, but I hope you found him."

Dr. Reynolds's voice was as breezy as his step, as though he had said it every evening of his life, an announcement that astounded me even more than being in the same room with Boo Radley.

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.

"Don't like to contradict you, Mr. Finch--wasn't crazy, mean as hell.