We learn what happened under the tree from Scout but because
it was dark and she was in costume from the pageant, little of what happened
under the tree is clear. When Scout and Jem were on the road on the night after
the pageant, she says she heard Jem yell “run.” Because she was in costume and
couldn’t see where she was going, she tripped when running and then heard Jem
scream because his arm was broken. Next thing Scout notices is that someone was
on top of her, grabbing her costume and then that person was yanked away. After
a time when she doesn’t hear anything, she gets up to try to find Jem and heard
a bone rattling cough and a heavy man breathing. She knows it’s not Jem
because, “my toes touched trousers, a belt buckle, buttons, something I could
not identify, a collar and a face. A prickly stubble on the face told me it was
not Jem’s” (Lee 352). The person she was touching could only be one of two
people, Boo Radley or Bob Ewell. Because she was looking around on the ground
with her foot, the person must be on the ground and the thing she could not
identify may have been the knife handle in Bob Ewell’s ribcage.
The knife could have come from one of two places. It might
have come from the dump according to Heck Tate’s description of what happened
under the tree, or it could have come from the Radley’s kitchen. We know that
the knife slashed Scout’s costume and ended up killing Bob Ewell. The knife
must have been sharp enough to cut chicken wire with maybe one blow. A kitchen
knife could be sharp enough to do these things but a dull knife, which would
have been thrown away, and end up in the dump, would have to be sharpened.
What happened under the tree remains controversial, but a
few things are for sure. Bob Ewell is dead. Jem was injured. Scout was attacked
but she was saved by her costume and by someone, maybe even Boo Radley.
