Tom Robinson's trial

I sat on the balcony in the courtroom. I was able to see Mr. Gilmer and my father, Atticus, questioning witnesses.

First person was Heck Tate, who recounts how he saw Mayella bruised and beaten, and she told him that Tom Robinson had raped her.

Ewell testified that he was coming out of the forest with kindling when he heard his daughter scream. When he reached his house, he looked in the window and saw Tom Robinson raping her. Robinson ran away, and Ewell went into the house to help his daughter and ran to get the sheriff.

Mayella, testifies next, she called Tom Robinson to help her with a chore and when he got inside the house he grabbed her and raped her.

Tom testifies fourth, that he always passed the Ewell house on the way to work and that Mayella asked him to do chores for her. She asked him to come inside the house to help her. Then she asked him to lift a box down from a dresser. When Tom climbed on a chair, she screamed, scaring him so much that he jumped down. She then asked him to kiss her. As she struggled, her father appeared at the window, calling Mayella a whore and threatening to kill her. Tom was able to run away.

The evidence my dad found was something I never thought about, how Tom bruised the right side of her face with his left hand, which was torn apart by a cotton gin when he was a boy. There was no way he could punch her. He finished going over the evidence and made his concluding statement to the jury. His evidence suggested that Bob Ewell beat Mayella. I'm so confident in my father, I believe the jury will convict him innocent.