My Father and Atticus Finch by Joseph Madison Beck Page B

sitting. When I got over there he pulled up my dress and took some kind of salve and put it on me right down there . . .”
    â€œIndicating,” the transcript recorded.
    â€œOn my private parts.”
    â€œDid he do anything else to you that Tuesday?”
    â€œHe told me to get on the bed, he was going to fix me up, and I told him no he wasn’t going to fix me up there on the bed, and he got on top of me then. He pulled up my clothes and pulled off one part of my shorts. I cried but it didn’t do any good. I could feel something stinging down there—a stinging, and a funny and burning feeling down there, and I asked him to get off me but he would not do it, and every time I cried he put his hand over my mouth and he said, ‘If you tell anybody I am going to kill you.’ He was lying on top of me and he was just so big and fat he hurt me when he lay down on me.”
    The State then asked the following question: “Did you see him undo his clothes?”
    The defendant objected to this question as leading, the transcript recorded, but there was no ruling by the court.
    â€œYes, I saw and know what a man’s private parts are. Yes, I saw him do something about that. He got it out and then stuck it in mine. I couldn’t tell how far because you see I was looking the other way when he got on top of me. All I could tell was just when he was putting it down there was it would sting and it would feel funny and burn. I wasn’t in that position only about two or three minutes. That was about as long as I was on the bed. When I was on the bed his right arm was back of my neck. I think it was about that far . . .”
    â€œIndicating,” the transcript recorded.
    â€œAround my neck if I am not mistaked.
    â€œWhenever I asked him to get off, he wouldn’t do it and he said he wanted to stay on there a little longer, that he wanted to get off. When he got off I got up. I put my shorts back on. I started to open the door. I didn’t know it was locked and I couldn’t get out and he pulled me back and he felt of my breasts and he said, ‘When this boy meets you he is going to feel your breasts like that.’ ”
    â€œIndicating,” the reporter noted in shorthand.
    â€œHe said, when the right one comes to meet me this is what he will do. That he would feel my breasts, and he said that would make them big. And then he unlocked the door and he opened it and let me out. I started home then. I saw Mary Etta and her girl in the house. Mary Etta was in the kitchen, I think, fixing dinner. I told her about what he was doing to me. She said, ‘He wasn’t going to hurt you,’ that ‘he was as good as gold.’ ”
    The defendant moved to strike what was said about Mary Etta. The court ruled that what had happened could be shown, but not the details of the conversation.
    The witness continued: “I went on home from down there. When I got home I saw Mr. Scarbrough down at the store. I told Mr. Scarbrough when I went to the store.”
    â€œNothing further,” Solicitor Orme said, and returned to his seat.

   Chapter 19
    â€œM ISS E LIZABETH ,” Foster Beck said on cross-examination, speaking softly. “I have just a few questions, if you please.” He had thought long and hard about whether to cross-examine Elizabeth Liger at all, and if so how, but he had decided there was no choice. Something apparently had gone on between his client and the young white woman, but he did not think for one minute that it was rape. And he was curious about her mention of salve.
    â€œYou first went to see Charles White on a Monday, the day before what you just described, not on Tuesday, isn’t that right, Miss Elizabeth?”
    After some confusion about the days, Elizabeth Liger agreed that Monday was the first day she went to see Charles White. “He came to the store, he and that negro woman, Mary Etta. She called me out