Chapter 28

On a moonless, windy Halloween night, Scout and Jem walk to the school. Cecil Jacobs startles them in the dark, then Scout leaves her ham costume backstage as they tour the crowded booths. During the pageant, Scout falls asleep and misses her cue, earning Mrs. Merriweather’s scolding. Jem comforts Scout and waits with her until the crowd thins.

Refusing a ride, Jem leads Scout home through the pitch-black schoolyard. Scout realizes she left her shoes, but the lights go out, and they continue. Jem repeatedly thinks he hears someone following. Expecting another prank from Cecil, they call out, but no one answers. The follower’s heavy, adult steps close in.

Near the big oak, the pursuer runs at them. Jem yells for Scout to run. The attacker crushes Scout’s chicken-wire costume as a struggle erupts. Jem is pulled away; there is a dull crunch and Jem screams. Scout collides with a man who tries to pin her, but he is suddenly jerked off her and thrown down as the scuffling subsides.

Disoriented, Scout hears a man coughing and staggering. She smells whiskey on a prone stranger near the tree, then reaches the road and sees a man carrying the limp Jem toward their house. Atticus and the man bring Jem inside; Aunt Alexandra calls Dr. Reynolds, and Atticus alerts Sheriff Heck Tate.

Dr. Reynolds reports Jem has a severe elbow break and a head bump but will recover. In Jem’s room, an unidentified countryman—the one who carried Jem—stands quietly in a corner. Heck Tate arrives, gathers items from the scene, and finally tells Atticus that Bob Ewell lies dead under the oak with a kitchen knife stuck under his ribs.