on't know who killed the bird.

MRS HALE: I knew John Wright.

MRS PETERS: It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs
Hale. Killing a man while he slept, slipping a rope around his neck that
choked the life out of him.

MRS HALE: His neck. Choked the life out of him.

(_Her hand goes out and rests on the bird-cage_.)

MRS PETERS: (_with rising voice_) We don't know who killed him. We don't
_know_.

MRS HALE: (_her own feeling not interrupted_) If there'd been years and
years of nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be awful--still,
after the bird was still.

MRS PETERS: (_something within her speaking_) I know what stillness is.
When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby died--after he was two
years old, and me with no other then--

MRS HALE: (_moving_) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking
for the evidence?

MRS PETERS: I know what stillness is. (_pulling herself back_) The law
has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale.

MRS HALE: (_not as if answering that_) I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster
when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons and stood up there in the
choir and sang. (_a look around the room_) Oh, I _wish_ I'd come over
here once in a while! That was a crime! That was a crime! Who's going to
punish that?

MRS PETERS: (_looking upstairs_) We mustn't--take on.

MRS HALE: I might have known she needed help! I know how things can
be--for women. I tell you, it's queer, Mrs Peters. We live close
together and we live far apart. We all go through the same things--it's
all just a different kind of the same thing, (_brushes her eyes,
noticing the bottle of fruit, reaches out for it_) If I was you, I
wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone. Tell her it _ain't_. Tell her it's
all right. Take this in to prove it to her. She--she may never know
whether it was broke or not.

MRS PETERS: (_takes the bottle, looks about for something to wrap it in;
takes petticoat from the clothes brought from the other room, very
nervously begins winding this around the bottle. In a false voice_) My,
it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us. Wouldn't they just laugh!
Getting all stirred up over a little thing like a--dead canary. As if
that could have anything to do with--with--wouldn't they _laugh_!

(_The men are heard coming down stairs_.)

MRS HALE: (_under her breath_) Maybe they would--maybe they wouldn't.

COUNTY ATTORNEY: No, Peters, it's all perfectly clear except a reason
fo