By mid-October things had settled down in Maycomb County with the exception of three small things that indirectly involved the Finches. The first thing was that in the span of a few days Bob Ewell acquired and lost a job. He blamed losing his job on Atticus, but Atticus was uninvolved and unconcerned at the accusation. The second peculiarity was that Judge Taylor had been at home reading one evening when he heard some scratching on the back porch. When he went to see what it was, the screen door was swinging open and a shadow at the corner of his house was all he saw of whatever had been there. The third thing was that Tom Robinson's death, his wife had taken a job with Mr. Link Deas, Tom's employer. The Ewell family harassed her until Mr. Deas set Bob Ewell straight with a threat to have him thrown in jail. Alexandra was worried about the incidents, but Atticus insisted that there was no reason to be alarmed.
Bob Ewell had had his revenge on everyone involved in the case, and it was all over now.
Maycomb went back to normal and seemed just as it had in years. The only difference in Maycomb at the time was the introduction of a Halloween carnival at the high school to prevent children from pranks. Mrs. Merriweather had written a pageant about the history of Maycomb and other ladies prepared a carnival in the high school auditorium. Mrs. Merriweather wanted some children to dress as the agricultural products of Maycomb County in the pageant, and Scout was given the role of a ham. Scout's costume was chicken wire molded into the shape of a cured ham and covered with brown fabric and painted to resemble a ham. There were two eyeholes in the hock of the ham so that Scout could see, but she couldn't put on or take off the costume on her own because it kept her arms pinned at her sides.
The night of the pageant came and Atticus had just returned from Montgomery and was too tired to attend. Alexandra also refused, so Scout had to perform her part for them at home. Scout gave her performance and Jem agreed to take her to the carnival that night, and so began the longest journey Jem and Scout would make together.
