According to Tom, she asked him to come on in and help her get something off the top of a chiffarobe on the day in question. She couldn't reach it and claimed she needed his tall reach. However, she had asked him to do many of the chores around the place and she regularly didn't pay him. He claimed he was happy to do these.
Mayella claims on the day in question he was there to bust up a chiffarobe for her. Tom says that he did indeed do this but it was on an entirely different day.
I assume that you are asking about the time that he went to the house and Mayella claimed that he raped her. You can find his version of these events in Chapter 19.
According to Tom Robinson, Mayella called him inside the fence and up to the house to...
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help her out. She said that a screen door was falling off its hinges and she wanted him to fix it.
She had often, he said, called him in to help with various things. He always had to pass by the Ewell home to get to the places where he worked for Linc Deas.
The Ewells live on the outskirts of town next to the town dump and close to the black section of town. Tom Robinson must pass their house every day going to and from his work for Link Deas. Tom has helped Mayella several times do chores around the house, and he claims on the witness stand that the kids were always around and that he never took money for helping her. The incident of breaking up the chiffarobe happens months before Mayella testifies it did, and Tom tells the jury that the day he helped Mayella get a box off a cabinet was when she grabbed him and tried to kiss him. He also tells the jury that Mayella had given her brothers and sisters money for ice cream that she saved for over a year so they would be gone when he walked by the Ewell house. When Bob Ewell witnesses Mayella's advances towards Tom, he yells that he will kill her for being a whore. Tom runs out of the Ewell house but is later arrested for rape.
On the witness stand, Tom says that he helped Mayella because she is so poor, and he felt sorry for her. This statement by Tom seals his fate as he is acting too “uppity” by the racist standards in the South by feeling sorry for a white woman. Tom was only trying to help Mayella who he knew was in a desperate situation; unfortunately, his actions were considered taboo in the racist community of Maycomb.
Tom reveals to the courtroom that he had regularly assisted at the Ewell place as he ‘felt sorry’ for Mayella being left with all the chores and all the children by her father. He explains that she had asked him on that particular day to ‘bust up a chiffarobe’ for her. Mayella had saved up enough money to send the children off to buy ice cream – implying that she planned her encounter with Tom to be unobserved. She tried to hug Tom and went to kiss him. Her father did observe the encounter, however, as Tom tried to flee.
“She says she never kissed a grown man before an’ she might as well kiss a nigger. She says what her papa do to her don’t count.”
Tom was open and honest in his testimony, but he had uncomfortably revealed the depth of prejudice that existed in Maycomb. No one from the white community ever helped or acknowledged Mayella and she was starved of affection and company. Tom Robinson, however, according to the ‘rules’ of Maycomb, should never have seen himself as superior to this (or any) white person. His admission that he felt sorry for her was interpreted by the court as arrogance and assisted in the guilty verdict.
What made Tom visit the Ewells' house in To Kill a Mockingbird?
Tom was at the Ewell’s house because Mayella asked him over to help her do chores.
Tom Robinson is on trial for raping Mayella Ewell. He was seen at her house, and she was attacked. At her trial, the reason for his being at her house is revealed. Mayella Ewell had a habit of asking Tom Robinson to come over to help her do chores.
During their testimony at the Tom’s trial, both Mayella and Tom confirm one another’s testimony that Mayella asked Tom to come over that day to break up a large piece of furniture called a chiffarobe for her.
“… I'd tip m'hat when I'd go by, and one day she asked me to come inside the fence and bust up a chiffarobe for her." (Ch. 19)
The testimony at the trial confirms that Mayella is lonely, and Tom was good-looking. While Tom was married and loyal to his wife, Mayella still wanted to come up with excuses to get him to cover over. On this particular occasion she also gave all of her younger brothers and sisters money for ice cream to get rid of them so she could be alone with Tom.
Mayella kissed Tom, and this was what her father saw. He beat her up and Tom ran, and Mayella accused Tom of rape to cover up the fact that she instigated the whole thing. She was just a lonely young woman who got in over her head and dragged Tom in with her.
Tom’s biggest mistake, as he admitted at the trial, was feeling sorry for Mayella. The jury (and onlookers) were furious that he could feel sorry for a white woman. By doing so, he was putting himself above her. They could never tolerate that. Unfortunately, Tom was just a nice guy and Mayella was lonely. It changed their lives forever.