Aftermath and Bob Ewell's Spit

TL;DR: Jem cries on the walk home. Atticus tells the children a single Cunningham juror was holding out for acquittal — "a baby step, but a step." The next morning the Finch back porch is piled with food brought before sunrise by Black neighbors. Miss Maudie serves pound cake. That afternoon, on a sidewalk in front of the post office, Bob Ewell spits in Atticus's face and threatens to get him.

Spoilers through Chapter 22.

Chapter in one sentence

A small girl finds her family's kitchen table stacked with food brought before sunrise by Black neighbors, while in the square a ginger-haired man spits in her father's face.

What happens

Jem cries openly on the walk home — his first real lesson in injustice. Atticus tells the children, gently, that the jury was out as long as it was because of a Cunningham — a relative of Walter Cunningham Sr. — who held out for acquittal. Atticus calls it "a baby step, but a step."

The next morning the Finch kitchen is filled with food: pound cakes, fried chicken, rolls, syrup buckets, salt pork — gifts from the Black community of Maycomb left on the back porch in the dark. Atticus is moved and tells Calpurnia to tell them not to do it again — they cannot afford it. Miss Maudie's pound cake is the only consolation for Jem; on her porch, Maudie explains that there were people in Maycomb working for Atticus, that the jury sat out for an unprecedented length of time, that they are "making a step. It's just a baby step, but it's a step."

That same afternoon, in front of the post office, Bob Ewell spits in Atticus's face, calls him names, and threatens to "get him." Atticus wipes his face with a folded handkerchief and walks on.

Key moments

• Jem on the walk home, weeping in disbelief
• Atticus telling the kids about the Cunningham juror holding out for acquittal
• The Finch back porch at dawn, table groaning with food
• Miss Maudie's "baby step" porch conversation with the pound cake
• Bob Ewell stepping in close, spitting, threatening
• Atticus calmly wiping his face with a folded handkerchief

Character shifts

Jem walks into Chapter 22 still crying and walks out of it differently — Miss Maudie's pound cake and the baby-step framing have not fixed him, but they have given him something the verdict did not: the news that there are people inside Maycomb who agree with his father. Bob Ewell, on the other hand, is doing the worst possible thing for himself in this chapter without realizing it — he is converting his court victory into a personal vendetta in public, on a sidewalk, in front of witnesses. The book is setting up the rest of the plot through Bob's failure to know how to be a winner.

Why it matters

The chapter is the book's first explicit argument that the verdict, however unjust, has nonetheless moved Maycomb. A Cunningham juror is on the jury and held out for acquittal. The Black community of Maycomb organized at midnight to bring food to the Finch back porch before sunrise. Miss Maudie has been on Atticus's side, quietly, for the whole trial. The chapter does not redeem the verdict. It does insist that the verdict's effect is not nothing. Then the chapter delivers Bob Ewell's spit — and the next half of the book begins.

Themes to notice

• The Cunningham juror as the first concrete proof that Maycomb is not monolithic
• The Black community's mutual aid, this time in the other direction (Helen Robinson collection in Chapter 12; the Finch porch in Chapter 22)
• Atticus's calm in the face of being spat on — the book's most direct test of what his stated principles look like under public insult
• Maudie's "baby step" — courage measured in inches

Book club questions

• Atticus tells the children the jury was out as long as it was because of a Cunningham holdout. He calls it "a baby step, but a step." Is the book asking us to believe him?
• The Black community brings food to the Finch back porch before sunrise. Atticus's response is to tell Calpurnia to tell them not to do it again — they cannot afford it. What does that response tell us about him, and about the household economy of post-trial Maycomb?
• Bob Ewell spits in Atticus's face. Atticus wipes it off and walks on. Is the calm courage, restraint, indifference, or something Lee has not given a name to?
• Where does the chapter's quiet hope (Cunningham juror, baby step, pound cake) end and the chapter's fresh menace (Bob Ewell, sidewalk, spit) begin? Is the book asking us to weigh them, or to hold them at the same time?

Visual memory hook

A kitchen table piled with covered dishes — a tall pound cake on a glass plate, fried chicken under a napkin, a syrup tin, a basket of rolls. A boy crying into a plate of cake on a neighbor's porch. A folded white handkerchief in a hand at a face on a brick sidewalk. A bantam-rooster figure in dirty denim stepping in close.

What's next

Atticus refuses to take Bob Ewell's threat seriously. Aunt Alexandra is afraid. Jem works out, on the bedroom floor, that there are four kinds of folks in the world — and Scout disagrees.