“You heard what Scout said, there’s no doubt about it. She said Jem got up and yanked him off her—he probably got hold of Ewell’s knife somehow in the dark… we’ll find out tomorrow.”
“Mis-ter Finch, hold on,” said Mr. Tate. “Jem never stabbed Bob Ewell.”
Atticus was silent for a moment. He looked at Mr. Tate as if he appreciated what he said. But Atticus shook his head.
“Heck, it’s mighty kind of you and I know you’re doing it from that good heart of yours, but don’t start anything like that.”
Mr. Tate got up and went to the edge of the porch. He spat into the shrubbery, then thrust his hands into his hip pockets and faced Atticus. “Like what?” he said.
“I’m sorry if I spoke sharply, Heck,” Atticus said simply, “but nobody’s hushing this up. I don’t live that way.”
“Nobody’s gonna hush anything up, Mr. Finch.”
Mr. Tate’s voice was quiet, but his boots were planted so solidly on the porch floorboards it seemed that they grew there. A curious contest, the nature of which eluded me, was developing between my father and the sheriff.
It was Atticus’s turn to get up and go to the edge of the porch. He said, “H’rm,” and spat dryly into the yard. He put his hands in his pockets and faced Mr. Tate.
“Heck, you haven’t said it, but I know what you’re thinking. Thank you for it. Jean Louise—” he turned to me. “You said Jem yanked Mr. Ewell off you?”
“Yes sir, that’s what I thought… I—”
“See there, Heck? Thank you from the bottom of my heart, but I don’t want my boy starting out with something like this over his head. Best way to clear the air is to have it all out in the open. Let the county come and bring sandwiches. I don’t want him growing up with a whisper about him, I don’t want anybody saying, ‘Jem Finch… his daddy paid a mint to get him out of that.’ Sooner we get this over with the better.”
“Mr. Finch,” Mr. Tate said stolidly, “Bob Ewell fell on his knife. He killed himself.”
Atticus walked to the corner of the porch. He looked at the wisteria vine. In his own way, I thought, each was as stubborn as the other. I wondered who would give in first. Atticus’s stubbornness was quiet and rarely evident, but in some ways he was as set as the Cunninghams. Mr. Tate’s was unschooled and blunt, but it was equal to my father’s.
“Heck,” Atticus’s back was turned. “If this thing’s hushed up it’ll be a simple denial to Jem of the way I’ve tried to raise him. Sometimes I think I’m a total failure as a parent, but I’m all they’ve got. Before Jem looks at anyone else he looks at me, and I’ve tried to live so I can look squarely back at him… if I connived at something like this, frankly I couldn’t meet his eye, and the day I can’t do that I’ll know I’ve lost him. I don’t want to lose him and Scout, because they’re all I’ve got.”
“Mr. Finch.” Mr. Tate was still planted to the floorboards. “Bob Ewell fell on his knife. I can prove it.”
Atticus wheeled around. His hands dug into his pockets. “Heck, can’t you even try to see it my way? You’ve got children of your own, but I’m older than you. When mine are grown I’ll be an old man if I’m still around, but right now I’m—if they don’t trust me they won’t trust anybody. Jem and Scout know what happened. If they hear of me saying downtown something different happened—Heck, I won’t have them any more. I can’t live one way in town and another way in my home.”
Mr. Tate rocked on his heels and said patiently, “He’d flung Jem down, he stumbled over a root under that tree and—look, I can show you.”
Mr. Tate reached in his side pocket and withdrew a long switchblade knife. As he did so, Dr. Reynolds came to the door. “The son—deceased’s under that tree, doctor, just inside the schoolyard. Got a flashlight? Better have this one.”
“I can ease around and turn my car lights on,” said Dr. Reynolds, but he took Mr. Tate’s flashlight. “Jem’s all right. He won’t wake up tonight, I hope, so don’t worry. That the knife that killed him, Heck?”
“No sir, still in him. Looked like a kitchen knife from the handle. Ken oughta be there with the hearse by now, doctor, ‘night.”
Mr. Tate flicked open the knife. “It was like this,” he said. He held the knife and pretended to stumble; as he leaned forward his left arm went down in front of him. “See there? Stabbed himself through that soft stuff between his ribs. His whole weight drove it in.”
Mr. Tate closed the knife and jammed it back in his pocket. “Scout is eight years old,” he said. “She was too scared to know exactly what went on.”
“You’d be surprised,” Atticus said grimly.
“I’m not sayin‘ she made it up, I’m sayin’ she was too scared to know exactly what happened. It was mighty dark out there, black as ink. ‘d take somebody mighty used to the dark to make a competent witness…”
“I won’t have it,” Atticus said softly.
“God damn it, I’m not thinking of Jem!”