“Reverend Sykes leaned across me and whispered to Jem. ‘He got it caught in a cotton gin, caught it in Mr. Dolphus Raymond’s cotton gin when he was a boy… like to bled to death… tore all the muscles loose from his bones—’”

“Until my father explained it to me later, I did not understand the subtlety of Tom’s predicament: he would not have dared strike a white woman under any circumstances and expect to live long, so he took the first opportunity to run—a sure sign of guilt.”

  

 

 

 

“‘Yes, suh. I felt right sorry for her, she seemed to try more’n the rest of ’em—’ ‘ You felt sorry for her , you felt sorry for her?’ Mr. Gilmer seemed ready to rise to the ceiling.”