fellow townspeople as well as expose theirbigotry. Scout and Jem find themselves whispered at and taunted, and theyhave trouble keeping their tempers. At a family Christmas gathering,Scout beats up her cloying relative Francis when he accuses Atticus ofruining the family name. Jem cuts off the tops of an old neighbor’sflower brushes after she derides Atticus, and then as punishment he hasto read out loud to her every day while she breaks her morphineaddiction. Atticus holds this old woman up as an example of truecourage: the will to keep fighting even when you know you can’t win. The time for the trial draws closer, and Atticus’s sister Alexandracomes to stay with the family. She is proper and old-fashioned andwants to shape Scout into the model of the Southern feminine ideal,much to Scout’s resentment. Dill runs away from his home, where hismother and new father don’t seem interested in him, and stays inMaycomb for the summer of Tom’s trial. The night before the trial, Tomis moved into the county jail, and Atticus, fearing a possible lynching,stands guard outside the jail door all night. Jem is concerned about him,and the three children sneak into town to find him. A group of menarrive ready to cause some violence to Tom, but Scout runs out andbegins to speak to one of the men, the father of one of her classmatesin school. Her innocence brings them out of their mob mentality, andthey leave.The trial pits the evidence of the white Ewell’s against Tom’sevidence. According to the Ewell’s, Mayella asked Tom to do some workfor her while her father was out, and Tom came into their house andforcibly beat and raped Mayella until her father appeared and scaredhim away. Tom says that Mayella invited him inside, then threw herarms around him and began to kiss him. When her father arrived, heflew into a rage and beat her, while Tom ran away in fright. According tothe sheriff’s testimony,...
