The varmints had a lean time of it
 

The Negroes behind us whispered softly among themselves; Dill was asking Reverend Sykes what it was all about, but Reverend Sykes said he didn’t know. So far, things were utterly dull nobody had thundered, there were no diamond blade arguments between opposing counsel, there was no drama; a grave disappointment to all present, it seemed. Atticus was proceeding amiably, as if he were involved in a title dispute. With his infinite capacity for calming turbulent seas, he could make a rape case as dry as a sermon. <br>
Gone was the terror in my mind of stale whiskey and barnyard smells, of sleepy eyed sullen men, of a husky voice calling in the night, Mr. Finch? They gone? Our nightmare had gone with daylight, everything would come out all right. All the spectators were as relaxed as Judge Taylor, except Jem. His mouth was twisted into a purposeful half grin, and his eyes happy about, and he said something about corroborating evidence, which made me sure he was showing off. Robert E. Lee Ewell! In answer to the clerk booming voice, a little bantam cock of a man rose and strutted to the stand, the back of his neck reddening at the sound of his name. When he turned around to take the oath, we saw that his face was TCT Saw Blade as red as his neck. We also saw no resemblance to his namesake. A shock of wispy new washed hair stood up from his forehead; his nose was thin, pointed, and shiny; he had no chin to speak of it seemed to be part of his crepey neck. so help me God, he crowed. Every town the size of Maycomb had families like the Ewells. No economic fluctuations changed their status people like the Ewells lived as guests of the county in prosperity as well as in the depths of a depression. No truant officers could keep their numerous offspring in school; no public health officer could free them from congenital defects, various worms, and the diseases indigenous to filthy surroundings. Maycomb Ewells lived behind the town garbage dump in what was once a Negro cabin. <br>
The cabin plank walls were supplemented with sheets of corrugated iron, its roof shingled with tin cans hammered flat, so only its general shape suggested its original design square, with four tiny rooms opening onto a shotgun hall, the cabin rested uneasily upon four irregular lumps of limestone. Its windows were merely open spaces in the walls, which in the summertime were covered with greasy <a href="diamond grinding wheel strips of cheesecloth to keep out the varmints that feasted on Maycomb refuse. The varmints had a lean time of it, for the Ewells gave the dump a thorough gleaning every day, and the fruits of their industry (those that were not eaten) made the plot of ground around the cabin look like the playhouse of an insane child what passed for a fence was bits of tree limbs, broomsticks and tool shafts, all tipped with rusty hammer heads, snaggle toothed rake heads, shovels, axes and grubbing hoes, held on with pieces of barbed wire. <br>