A good few months had passed since our little incident with Bob Ewell, and the gossip of his death had almost passed out of existence. Miss Stephanie Crawford had been describing to everyone how he was supposedly carried away with a pitchfork and a garbage truck, just like long dead Tim Johnson, and most people responded with the usual interest that only Miss Stephanie Crawford could arouse.
Jem had been in a sling, and he was none too happy about that. His old twelve year old stubbornness kept him in sheer defiance of help, so, instead, he complained about it a bit, until he got better at least.
As was usual in Maycomb, all calmed down and stayed quiet, waiting for something new to happen. Dill came back in the summer, and with him, a world of adventure followed.
We were all headed off for a bit of summer fun in Maycomb. The coolest part, with Jem thirteen, Cal let us venture further than we could the previous summer, but only, of course, if Jem was there as an escort. We joyously used this privilege to explore and have fun elsewhere throughout the county.
"C'mon Jem!" I urged at my slow brother, Dill and I strode together ahead of him.
"Hold on Scout, I'm comin', I'm comin'." Jem grumbled behind us.
Dill and I were very quick, and very eager. We'd never been on this side of town by ourselves before. Possibly, we'd never seen this area of Maycomb at all. Quite humbly, yet none of us were brave enough to admit it, we had lost our bearings. Piles of strange things, discarded things, began to form around us. And soon, we found our place in Maycomb again. Our guts and our newly found mentalities of class and rank told us to stay away from a place like this, but deep down, we knew that wasn't really going to happen.
It wasn't before long that Jem and Dill were picking up pieces of scrap metal and pretending to be knights in the olden times. For a while, they entertained me. However, as there roughhousing continued, I became bored, and, for the time being, wandered off to explore a little.
Mountains of trash, that is, in essence, all there was in the Maycomb dump. Mostly dirt colored, with specs of bright baubles and trinkets and other strange oddments that would be interesting things to play around with. The mountains seemed to have been formed in such a way that you could walk through them like a grocery store, and, ironically enough, that's how I viewed it, walking up and down the aisles, just looking for something to make me curious.
"JEAN LOUISE FINCH!? Where are you?" I heard my brother yell.
"Aw quit your yelling, I'm here." I called back to him with a slight edge, making him know I didn't like being treated like a girl, even though I was one.
"Don't you go running off again, ya hear? Dill an' I were worried sick about you."
"Jem, I was only gone for a minute."
"But what if you got hurt? R. Ewell had me down in like-"
"Je-em." I warned, looking frightened. It wasn't a fond memory of mine, being thrown around by that old drunkard.
"Yeah Jem, let's let it go," then he corrected himself, "for now, at least, and find something else cool to play with."
"Jem, can I go wandering off if I stay near you? I promise I'll call if I'm getting hurt." I made my plea as presentable as I could.
"Aw sure, just stay close, ok?" Jem was a good big brother, and a protective one too. It was nice, on a normal occasion, but in this situation, it was more bothersome than anything.
"Ok!" I chirped, and walked off, Jem and Dill secretly following me.
It wasn't long until Jem and Dill began to get distracted, and I could hear evidence of this from their low conversations behind me, in another aisle.
"Hey! Look at that thing!" Or "Wow! Cool!" Or "Sick, gross!" All kinds of statements of fascination. I began to think how lucky I was then, that I wasn't a boy, and wasn't forced to lose attention like that.
But then something took my focus off. A small shack, surrounded by an old, rusty gate, with a variety of red geraniums, all in beautiful condition, stood in the midst of the trash, all but the flowers blending in to the filth around it. This was the home, former home, of Robert E. Lee Ewell, the man that tried to kill me and my brother.
Mr. Ewell was dead, but this place filled me with fear, a gut clenching feeling that made me want to turn around and heave. It was a lonely house now, and no one seemed to be around it. But I treated it like it was haunted for some reason.
No one seemed to be around, but, I was proven otherwise when Ms. Mayella Violet Ewell came out of the poor excuse of a shack and began to tend to her flowers. I'd never seen this side of this woman before. She was smiling at her flowers. I tried very hard how this could be, as she was one of the filthiest women in the town.
No, hold that. What would it be like in her skin, I wondered? I tried very hard to imagine it. I was Mayella Ewell, as I closed my eyes. I had no money. I had no food. What little food I did have was probably stolen or obtained illegally. I had a multitude of siblings swarming me daily, all malnourished and crying for food. I had a father who was abusive who hit me for wanting to kiss a black man. But I had gotten rid of that father. Why would a small set of flowers make me happy?
Because they were something I did have. I could take care of them, make them flourish amongst trash. I could make them grow. I could make something in this world pretty. Now, as I thought of that, I too began smiling, it was a nice thought, and something indeed to smile about.
By the time I opened my eyes, Mayella had stopped, probably due to my lack of stealth in my imaginative world of others. She just looked at me, her eyes wide, kind of how I remembered them. Jem and Dill were behind me, in another aisle, with me and Mayella out of their sight.
"Hey Ms. Mayella." My breath shook. I wasn't sure if I could trust her, but, with a girl smiling as much as she was before, she couldn't have been so horrible.
"I told your daddy to stop calling me that!" Mayella looked cross.
"I'm sorry Mayella. I just said hello."
"Well hello, and goodbye." She snapped back, reminded me a bit of the late Mrs. Dubose.
I hesitated, and questions filled my mind that I was suddenly curious about.
"Um, Mayella… can," I looked at her surprised, soft face, wondering what she was thinking at that moment, "can I ask you, what really happened between you and Mr. Robinson?"
Mayella's being shrunk away, and hung her head low at the name of that man.
"I was just curious is all." I said calmly.
"I said I wasn't goin' to say no more."
"But that only applied to the trial. Now your daddy's dead, and Mr. Robinson's dead, so no one is going to get mad at you, are they?"
"I was raped by- it isn't right for a younglin' like you to know this." Mayella stated.
"Please?" I begged, more than eager to know. "I won't gloat if Atticus was right." I promised.
"Look at that Jem!" Dill exclaimed excitedly above the silence.
"It is so shiny! And it looks like a man!"
"But with pointy ears. Man it sure beats a snowman."
"I wonder who built it… it looks so cool…"
"Look! It has wings too!" Dill whooped in delight.
"Cool!" The two boys could be heard chucking stones at, or making some sort of clinking onto the new toy they'd found.
"Tom's story, that was right."
"Tom was right?"
"Yeah." Mayella was quieter than Boo Radley. "But there were a few parts he left out…"
"Do you hate me?" I asked sincerely, ladylike.
"I wish I could." Mayella rubbed her forehead.
"Did your daddy beat you?" I was more interested in information than being polite, and not prying.
Mayella was silent, unknowingly building up an aura of suspense. She made a face, one I'd never seen before. Upon it, misery, fear, painful recollection, and maybe a hint of regret, appeared.
"Yes. Yes Jean Louise, he'd beaten me up before."
"What did he do? Was it frequent?"
"He did things that I ain't gonna say in front of a little girl, and he gone and done 'em a lot. 'Bout everytime he got drunk he'd hit me… or…" Mayella gulped, and I figured my questioning was getting bothersome.
"Sorry." I felt it was sufficient enough.
Mayella trembled slightly under the warm sun beating down on both of us.
"And yeah, before you ask. I am glad he's gone. Life is easier. Those relief checks he used I am now allowed to get, and I use it on food and the chillun and the flowers." Mayella made a cursory glance at her flowers, letting her face smile briefly, and then she looked back at me. "I'm really sorry about him… I heard he broke your brother's arm, and tried to kill you."
"Atticus was telling me that everyone has a good side in them, but… I don't think your daddy had one. Mr. Ewell scared me a lot."
"Just be thankful he's gone now. Now if you don't mind… I have a life to live now." Mayella smiled at me once more, and then began to tend to her flowers.
I retrieved my brother and fiancé on my way out, leaving Mayella to her peace. Letting Jem lead the way, I held Dill's hand and shared Mayella's warm smile as we left the junkyard, probably for good.
Jem and Dill wouldn't shut up about how cool the shiny objects in the piles of trash were, but I stayed silent. The talk with Mayella would no doubt add a sense of understanding other people, and I was very glad I had that experience, however short.