Monday July 9, 5:30pm

Hey it’s Jem again.  Wow, such an insane day today.  So remember this guy Tom that Atticus is defending?  Well, his trial was today and Scout, Dill and I went to the court house to watch.  Tom’s being accused of raping this girl Mayella Ewell.  The Ewells are a really strange family, their dirt poor and live in this broken down house next to the dump.  I guess every town has a family like them, especially in this depression were in.  We’re doing alright but the Ewells have always been poor and likely always will be.  So we head into town and that’s when we started to realize just how big a deal this is.  People who live out in the woods that we never see were coming to watch.  This one fellow, Mr. Ramon, is quite a site; all he does is sit there with the Negro’s getting drunk – he’s even got a black wife and these mixed children.  I’m all for treating the Negro’s decently but this guy’s kind of taking it to the extreme.  Anyways, we get into the court house but the entire viewing floor is full – thank you very much Scout!  She can be such a nuisance sometimes, we used to be so much closer but then she started turning into a “proper young lady.”  We ended up being invited to sit in the coloured balcony by the reverend at the local Negro church, which actually played to our advantage because Atticus would have a hard time seeing us and I don’t think he’d take too kindly to Scout hearing about rape.  So the first witness was the sheriff, followed by Mayella’s father Bob – an arrogant jerk with no respect for anyone – and then by Mayella herself.  Atticus managed to form this really strong argument about Mayella being all bunged up on the right side of her face, meaning that it was likely done by a left-handed person.  Now get this, not only does Tom have a crippled left arm but Mayella’s father is, in fact, left handed.  Isn’t it obvious who beat her up?!  Then Tome gets up and tells his side of the story, which was wholly unnecessary at this point because Atticus had already convinced everyone that it must have been Bob that hit Mayella, not Tom.  So eventually we were caught by Atticus and he sent us home to eat, but since we’d already heard everything he promised we could come back to hear the verdict (the jury had left to deliberate – as if they need to!).  Cal, our housekeeper, chewed us out all the way home but it doesn’t matter to me – we’ve won and there’s no doubt about it.  As soon as Scout’s done eating dinner we’ll head back to hear the verdict, not that we need to!  I wish that girl would stop slowing me down, she needs to grow up a bit.  With all the evidence in favour of Tom, the jury’s probably already come back and acquitted him –   Good, Scouts finally done so we can head back, I’ll make sure to post the verdict afterwards!