What was the funniest part in the nighttime drama of To Kill a Mockingbird, by Harper Lee?

The humor found in the nighttime drama of Harper Lee's
To Kill a Mockingbird, has to be the issue surrounding Jem's
pants.

As with many things we experience in life, some
things are humorous only after the event is over. In the novel, when the kids sneak out
in their tireless pursuit of knowledge of Boo Radley, they camouflage their presence by
crawling through the underbrush in an attempt to sneak closer to the Radley
house.

The humor, for me, comes from the classic nature of
children on an adventure. There is subterfuge, fear, and common sense in the planning
and execution. Their plan is clear; along with their fear is the thrill of the danger of
being caught. The reader also witnesses Jem's common sense when he tells the others to
spit on the hinges of the gate so that it will move
noiselessly.

Harper Lee does an excellent job of
transporting the reader to the damp underbrush, to the explosion of discovery (the
gunshot), and even the sheer terror the children experience, particularly when Jem falls
behind because his pants are caught on the bottom of the fence. He is only able to
escape because he kicks them off.

The last piece of humor
is the appearance of the children in the midst of the adults who come out to investigate
the firing of the gun...as Jem stands there in his boxers. Dill's wonderful imagination
steps in to explain the absence of Jem's pants, but fear arrives once again as Jem is
told to get the pants back. He knows he cannot leave them on the fence to be discovered
in the morning, and so he must return to face his fears all over again. (It is not until
the following chapter that the reader learns about the condition in which Jem discovers
his pants.)

However, the comedy presented in the form of a
childhood prank takes on more serious implications when the gun goes off; it then
becomes humorous again when Jem and friends appear without Jem's
pants and with an unlikely excuse; but terror returns when Jem must
go back for his missing clothing.

In the moment, it may not
seem to be funny, but in hindsight, it does provide the reader with a chuckle; and for
those who might actually find themselves in a similar situation, humor
might be present long after the fact, when the
fear is gone and time has softened the sharp edges of the
experience.