To Kill a Mockingbird Chapter 29 Summary

Aunt Alexandra and Atticus are shocked to hear that Mr. Ewell is dead.
Aunt Alexandra leaves the room, and Mr. Tate asks Scout if she can tell them what happened.
Scout climbs into Atticus’s lap and tells the story: how she had forgotten her shoes, how they thought it was Cecil so they shouted at him (the sheriff interrupts here to ask if Atticus heard anything: he didn’t, but he had the radio on); how she heard the footsteps behind them; how she was still wearing the ham costume.
Mr. Tate says the costume explains the strange marks he found on the body, and Atticus goes to get the now squashed ham.
They look at the costume, and it’s more than squashed – there’s a cut where Mr. Ewell had slashed at Scout with a knife.
Atticus says he never thought Ewell would go after the kids, and Tate says that there are some men who are just bad.
They go back to Scout’s story: they were under the oak tree when something grabbed her, and then she heard fighting noises; Jem pulled her towards the road, then got pulled back; there was more fighting, and the sound of Jem’s arm breaking, and his scream, and then silence; Scout went back to try to find Jem and nearly got suffocated by Mr. Ewell, when the man was suddenly pulled away from her, she thinks by Jem.
Scout continues: she heard a man wheezing and coughing, but it wasn’t Jem, so she started feeling around for Jem on the ground.
Tate asks who the other man was, and Scout gestures towards the stranger in the corner.
Scout finally looks at the man properly and sees his paleness, his thinness, his colorless eyes, and realizes – she’s looking at Boo Radley.
He smiles shyly at her, and tears come to Scout’s eyes as she says “Hey, Boo” (29.50).

Chapter 30

Chapter 28