Things do start to settle down in Maycomb by October. The 1st thing that happened is that Mr. Ewell obtained and lost a job with the WPA due to laziness but blamed Atticus (of course). 2nd, Judge Taylor began to get suspicious visitors to his home and kept his shotgun handy, and finally, Tom's former employer found/created a job for Helen, Tom's wife. Since Helen had to pass the Ewells to her job, she started using a longer route around them until Mr. Link confronted the Ewells. The next day, she passed by the Ewells and Mr. Ewell followed her menacingly but Mr. Link confronted Ewell again and threatened to prosecute him. Aunt Alexander was getting uncomfortable and voiced her concerns to Atticus that Ewell seemed to still hold a grudge about the trial. Atticus thinks he'll settle down in a while. Judge Taylor suspects Ewell disturbing his house.

But life started returning to normal for Scout's family. Since there had been some trouble the previous year at Halloween, the town decided to organize activities for the children this year at the school. The children were organized to do a play and Scout was fitted with a Pork costume. Atticus begged off and so did Aunt Alexandra but then she had a sudden bad feeling. "somebody just walked over my grave." Scout decided to give everyone a preview of the play and Jem said that he would take her over to the school.

Thus began our longest journey together, thought Scout.

I separated this chapter because it sets up the final scenes of the book. We have to understand that while the town is getting back to some semblance of order, the Ewells have not moved on. People know the truth whether they voice it or not and this sense of community is getting through to Ewell. He won the battle but not the war.

It was so frustrating to read about how much Mr. Ewell tried to hold on to his "Five minutes of fame". Reading about his comeuppance at the hand (or end of the rifle) of some of the townspeople should have given him the hint that he should give up the ship.

Ewell is a louse, who just won't go away. It is not enough that he won the case, he has to make everyone else's life miserable instead of justing owning up to his faults.
Maybe Aunt Alexandra is right in thinking Atticus is too lenient with the kids. I don't think I would have let them out of my sight for quite some time (maybe college) given Ewell's nasty reputation.