| |A Jury of Her Peers |
| |by Susan Glaspell |
| |When Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen scarf. As she |
| |hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that |
| |called her away--it was probably further from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But what |
| |her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted |
| |and half unsifted. |
| |She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then |
| |the sheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too--adding, with a grin, that he guessed she |
| |was getting scary and wanted another woman along. So she had dropped everything right where it was. |
| |"Martha!" now came her husband's impatient voice. "Don't keep folks waiting out here in the cold." |
| |She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined the three men and the one woman waiting for her in the big |
| |two-seated buggy. |
| |After she had the robes tucked around her she took another look at the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She |
| |had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the county fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn't seem |
| |like a sheriff's wife. She was small and thin and didn't have a strong voice. Mrs. Gorman, sheriff's wife before Gorman |
| |went out and Peters came in, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the law with every word. But if Mrs. |
| |Peters didn't look like a sheriff's wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man |
| |who could get himself elected sheriff--a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, |
| |as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into |
| |Mrs. Hale's mind, with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of them was going to the Wrights' |
| |now as a sheriff. |
| |"The country's not very pleasant this time of year," Mrs. Peters at last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be |
| |talking as well as the men. |
| |Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up a little hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing|
| |it did not make her feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a |
| |lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees. The men |
| |were looking at it and talking about what had happened. The county attorney was bending to one side of the buggy, and |
| |kept looking steadily at the place as they drew up to it. |
| |"I'm glad you came with me," Mrs. Peters said nervously, as the two women were about to follow the men in through the |
| |kitchen door. |
| |Even after she had her foot on the door-step, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not |
| |cross that threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn't cross it now was simply because she hadn't crossed it |
| |before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, "I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster"--she still thought of |
| |her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright. And then there was always something to do and |
| |Minnie Foster would go from her mind. But now she could come. |
| |The men went over to the stove. The women stood close together by the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney, turned|
| |around and said, "Come up to the fire, ladies." |
| |Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped. "I'm not--cold," she said. |
| |And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even so much as looking around the kitchen. |
| |The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it was the sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a |
| |fire for them, and then Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove, unbuttoned his outer coat, and leaned his hands on |
| |the kitchen table in a way that seemed to mark the beginning of official business. "Now, Mr. Hale," he said in a sort of|
| |semi-official voice, "before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here |
| |yesterday morning." |
| |The county attorney was looking around the kitchen. |
| |"By the way," he said, "has anything been moved?" He turned to the sheriff. "Are things just as you left them |
| |yesterday?" |
| |Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn rocker a little to one side of the kitchen table. |
| |"It's just the same." |
| |"Somebody should have been left here yesterday," said the county attorney. |
| |"Oh--yesterday," returned the sheriff, with a little gesture as of yesterday having been more than he could bear to |
| |think of. "When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy--let me tell you. I had my hands full |
| |yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today, George, and as long as I went over everything here myself--" |
| |"Well, Mr. Hale," said the county attorney, in a way of letting what was past and gone go, "tell just what happened when|
| |you came here yesterday morning." |
| |Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece.|
| |Lewis often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this straight and plain, and not |
| |say unnecessary things that would just make things harder for Minnie Foster. He didn't begin at once, and she noticed |
| |that he looked queer--as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made |
| |him almost sick. |
| |"Yes, Mr. Hale?" the county attorney reminded. |
| |"Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes," Mrs. Hale's husband began. |
| |Harry was Mrs. Hale's oldest boy. He wasn't with them now, for the very good reason that those potatoes never got to |
| |town yesterday and he was taking them this morning, so he hadn't been home when the sheriff stopped to say he wanted Mr.|
| |Hale to come over to the Wright place and tell the county attorney his story there, where he could point it all out. |
| |With all Mrs. Hale's other emotions came the fear now that maybe Harry wasn't dressed warm enough--they hadn't any of |
| |them realized how that north wind did bite. |
| |"We come along this road," Hale was going on, with a motion of his hand to the road over which they had just come, "and |
| |as we got in sight of the house I says to Harry, 'I'm goin' to see if I can't get John Wright to take a telephone.' You |
| |see," he explained to Henderson, "unless I can get somebody to go in with me they won't come out this branch road except|
| |for a price I can't pay. I'd spoke to Wright about it once before; but he put me off, saying folks talked too much |
| |anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet--guess you know about how much he talked himself. But I thought maybe if I |
| |went to the house and talked about it before his wife, and said all the women-folks liked the telephones, and that in |
| |this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing--well, I said to Harry that that was what I was going to |
| |say--though I said at the same time that I didn't know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John--" |
| |Now there he was!--saying things he didn't need to say. Mrs. Hale tried to catch her husband's eye, but fortunately the |
| |county attorney interrupted with: |
| |"Let's talk about that a little later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that but, I'm anxious now to get along to just |
| |what happened when you got here." |
| |When he began this time, it was very deliberately and carefully: |
| |"I didn't see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was all quiet inside. I knew they must be up--it was|
| |past eight o'clock. So I knocked again, louder, and I thought I heard somebody say, 'Come in.' I wasn't sure--I'm not |
| |sure yet. But I opened the door--this door," jerking a hand toward the door by which the two women stood. "and there, in|
| |that rocker"--pointing to it--"sat Mrs. Wright." |
| |Everyone in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs. Hale's mind that that rocker didn't look in the least |
| |like Minnie Foster--the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the|
| |middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side. |
| |"How did she--look?" the county attorney was inquiring. |
| |"Well," said Hale, "she looked--queer." |
| |"How do you mean--queer?" |
| |As he asked it he took out a note-book and pencil. Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye |
| |fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that note-book and make |
| |trouble. |
| |Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too. |
| |"Well, as if she didn't know what she was going to do next. And kind of--done up." |
| |"How did she seem to feel about your coming?" |
| |"Why, I don't think she minded--one way or other. She didn't pay much attention. I said, 'Ho' do, Mrs. Wright? It's |
| |cold, ain't it?' And she said. 'Is it?'--and went on pleatin' at her apron. |
| |"Well, I was surprised. She didn't ask me to come up to the stove, or to sit down, but just set there, not even lookin' |
| |at me. And so I said: 'I want to see John.' |
| |"And then she--laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh. |
| |"I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little sharp, 'Can I see John?' 'No,' says she--kind of dull |
| |like. 'Ain't he home?' says I. Then she looked at me. 'Yes,' says she, 'he's home.' 'Then why can't I see him?' I asked |
| |her, out of patience with her now. 'Cause he's dead' says she, just as quiet and dull--and fell to pleatin' her apron. |
| |'Dead?' says, I, like you do when you can't take in what you've heard. |
| |"She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin' back and forth. |
| |"'Why--where is he?' says I, not knowing what to say. |
| |"She just pointed upstairs--like this"--pointing to the room above. |
| |"I got up, with the idea of going up there myself. By this time I--didn't know what to do. I walked from there to here; |
| |then I says: 'Why, what did he die of?' |
| |"'He died of a rope around his neck,' says she; and just went on pleatin' at her apron." |
| |Hale stopped speaking, and stood staring at the rocker, as if he were still seeing the woman who had sat there the |
| |morning before. Nobody spoke; it was as if every one were seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before. |
| |"And what did you do then?" the county attorney at last broke the silence. |
| |"I went out and called Harry. I thought I might--need help. I got Harry in, and we went upstairs." His voice fell almost|
| |to a whisper. "There he was--lying over the--" |
| |"I think I'd rather have you go into that upstairs," the county attorney interrupted, "where you can point it all out. |
| |Just go on now with the rest of the story." |
| |"Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked--" |
| |He stopped, his face twitching. |
| |"But Harry, he went up to him, and he said. 'No, he's dead all right, and we'd better not touch anything.' So we went |
| |downstairs. |
| |"She was still sitting that same way. 'Has anybody been notified?' I asked. 'No, says she, unconcerned. |
| |"'Who did this, Mrs. Wright?' said Harry. He said it businesslike, and she stopped pleatin' at her apron. 'I don't |
| |know,' she says. 'You don't know?' says Harry. 'Weren't you sleepin' in the bed with him?' 'Yes,' says she, 'but I was |
| |on the inside. 'Somebody slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn't wake up?' says Harry. 'I didn't|
| |wake up,' she said after him. |
| |"We may have looked as if we didn't see how that could be, for after a minute she said, 'I sleep sound.' |
| |"Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe that weren't our business; maybe we ought to let her tell |
| |her story first to the coroner or the sheriff. So Harry went fast as he could over to High Road--the Rivers' place, |
| |where there's a telephone." |
| |"And what did she do when she knew you had gone for the coroner?" The attorney got his pencil in his hand all ready for |
| |writing. |
| |"She moved from that chair to this one over here"--Hale pointed to a small chair in the corner--"and just sat there with|
| |her hands held together and lookin down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in|
| |to see if John wanted to put in a telephone; and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at |
| |me--scared." |
| |At the sound of a moving pencil the man who was telling the story looked up. |
| |"I dunno--maybe it wasn't scared," he hastened: "I wouldn't like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd |
| |came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that's all I know that you don't." |
| |He said that last with relief, and moved a little, as if relaxing. Everyone moved a little. The county attorney walked |
| |toward the stair door. |
| |"I guess we'll go upstairs first--then out to the barn and around there." |
| |He paused and looked around the kitchen. |
| |"You're convinced there was nothing important here?" he asked the sheriff. "Nothing that would--point to any motive?" |
| |The sheriff too looked all around, as if to re-convince himself. |
| |"Nothing here but kitchen things," he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things. |
| |The county attorney was looking at the cupboard--a peculiar, ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the |
| |upper part of it being built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard. As if its |
| |queerness attracted him, he got a chair and opened the upper part and looked in. After a moment he drew his hand away |
| |sticky. |
| |"Here's a nice mess," he said resentfully. |
| |The two women had drawn nearer, and now the sheriff's wife spoke. |
| |"Oh--her fruit," she said, looking to Mrs. Hale for sympathetic understanding. |
| |She turned back to the county attorney and explained: "She worried about that when it turned so cold last night. She |
| |said the fire would go out and her jars might burst." |
| |Mrs. Peters' husband broke into a laugh. |
| |"Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder, and worrying about her preserves!" |
| |The young attorney set his lips. |
| |"I guess before we're through with her she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about." |
| |"Oh, well," said Mrs. Hale's husband, with good-natured superiority, "women are used to worrying over trifles." |
| |The two women moved a little closer together. Neither of them spoke. The county attorney seemed suddenly to remember his|
| |manners--and think of his future. |
| |"And yet," said he, with the gallantry of a young politician. "for all their worries, what would we do without the |
| |ladies?" |
| |The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the |
| |roller towel--whirled it for a cleaner place. |
| |"Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?" |
| |He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink. |
| |"There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm," said Mrs. Hale stiffly. |
| |"To be sure. And yet"--with a little bow to her--'I know there are some Dickson County farm-houses that do not have such|
| |roller towels." He gave it a pull to expose its full length again. |
| |"Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be. |
| |"Ah, loyal to your sex, I see," he laughed. He stopped and gave her a keen look, "But you and Mrs. Wright were |
| |neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too." |
| |Martha Hale shook her head. |
| |"I've seen little enough of her of late years. I've not been in this house--it's more than a year." |
| |"And why was that? You didn't like her?" |
| |"I liked her well enough," she replied with spirit. "Farmers' wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then--" |
| |She looked around the kitchen. |
| |"Yes?" he encouraged. |
| |"It never seemed a very cheerful place," said she, more to herself than to him. |
| |"No," he agreed; "I don't think anyone would call it cheerful. I shouldn't say she had the home-making instinct." |
| |"Well, I don't know as Wright had, either," she muttered. |
| |"You mean they didn't get on very well?" he was quick to ask. |
| |"No; I don't mean anything," she answered, with decision. As she turned a lit- tle away from him, she added: "But I |
| |don't think a place would be any the cheerfuller for John Wright's bein' in it." |
| |"I'd like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs. Hale," he said. "I'm anxious to get the lay of things upstairs |
| |now." |
| |He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men. |
| |"I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does'll be all right?" the sheriff inquired. "She was to take in some clothes for her, |
| |you know--and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday." |
| |The county attorney looked at the two women they were leaving alone there among the kitchen things. |
| |"Yes--Mrs. Peters," he said, his glance resting on the woman who was not Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood |
| |behind the sheriff's wife. "Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us," he said, in a manner of entrusting responsibility. "And|
| |keep your eye out, Mrs. Peters, for anything that might be of use. No telling; you women might come upon a clue to the |
| |motive--and that's the thing we need." |
| |Mr. Hale rubbed his face after the fashion of a showman getting ready for a pleasantry. |
| |"But would the women know a clue if they did come upon it?" he said; and, having delivered himself of this, he followed |
| |the others through the stair door. |
| |The women stood motionless and silent, listening to the footsteps, first upon the stairs, then in the room above them. |
| |Then, as if releasing herself from something strange. Mrs. Hale began to arrange the dirty pans under the sink, which |
| |the county attorney's disdainful push of the foot had deranged. |
| |"I'd hate to have men comin' into my kitchen," she said testily--"snoopin' round and criticizin'." |
| |"Of course it's no more than their duty," said the sheriff's wife, in her manner of timid acquiescence. |
| |"Duty's all right," replied Mrs. Hale bluffly; "but I guess that deputy sheriff that come out to make the fire might |
| |have got a little of this on." She gave the roller towel a pull. 'Wish I'd thought of that sooner! Seems mean to talk |
| |about her for not having things slicked up, when she had to come away in such a hurry." |
| |She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not "slicked up." Her eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. |
| |The cover was off the wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag--half full. |
| |Mrs. HaIe moved toward it. |
| |"She was putting this in there," she said to herself--slowly. |
| |She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home--half sifted, half not sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left |
| |things half done. What had interrupted Minnie Foster? Why had that work been left half done? She made a move as if to |
| |finish it,--unfinished things always bothered her,--and then she glanced around and saw that Mrs. Peters was watching |
| |her--and she didn't want Mrs. Peters to get that feeling she had got of work begun and then--for some reason--not |
| |finished. |
| |"It's a shame about her fruit," she said, and walked toward the cupboard that the county attorney had opened, and got on|
| |the chair, murmuring: "I wonder if it's all gone." |
| |It was a sorry enough looking sight, but "Here's one that's all right," she said at last. She held it toward the light. |
| |"This is cherries, too." She looked again. "I declare I believe that's the only one." |
| |With a sigh, she got down from the chair, went to the sink, and wiped off the bottle. |
| |"She'Il feel awful bad, after all her hard work in the hot weather. I remember the afternoon I put up my cherries last |
| |summer. |
| |She set the bottle on the table, and, with another sigh, started to sit down in the rocker. But she did not sit down. |
| |Something kept her from sitting down in that chair. She straightened--stepped back, and, half turned away, stood looking|
| |at it, seeing the woman who had sat there "pleatin' at her apron." |
| |The thin voice of the sheriff's wife broke in upon her: "I must be getting those things from the front-room closet." She|
| |opened the door into the other room, started in, stepped back. "You coming with me, Mrs. Hale?" she asked nervously. |
| |"You--you could help me get them." |
| |They were soon back--the stark coldness of that shut-up room was not a thing to linger in. |
| |"My!" said Mrs. Peters, dropping the things on the table and hurrying to the stove. |
| |Mrs. Hale stood examining the clothes the woman who was being detained in town had said she wanted. |
| |"Wright was close!" she exclaimed, holding up a shabby black skirt that bore the marks of much making over. "I think |
| |maybe that's why she kept so much to herself. I s'pose she felt she couldn't do her part; and then, you don't enjoy |
| |things when you feel shabby. She used to wear pretty clothes and be lively--when she was Minnie Foster, one of the town |
| |girls, singing in the choir. But that--oh, that was twenty years ago." |
| |With a carefulness in which there was something tender, she folded the shabby clothes and piled them at one corner of |
| |the table. She looked up at Mrs. Peters, and there was something in the other woman's look that irritated her. |
| |"She don't care," she said to herself. "Much difference it makes to her whether Minnie Foster had pretty clothes when |
| |she was a girl." |
| |Then she looked again, and she wasn't so sure; in fact, she hadn't at any time been perfectly sure about Mrs. Peters. |
| |She had that shrinking manner, and yet her eyes looked as if they could see a long way into things. |
| |"This all you was to take in?" asked Mrs. Hale. |
| |"No," said the sheriffs wife; "she said she wanted an apron. Funny thing to want, " she ventured in her nervous little |
| |way, "for there's not much to get you dirty in jail, goodness knows. But I suppose just to make her feel more natural. |
| |If you're used to wearing an apron--. She said they were in the bottom drawer of this cupboard. Yes--here they are. And |
| |then her little shawl that always hung on the stair door." |
| |She took the small gray shawl from behind the door leading upstairs, and stood a minute looking at it. |
| |Suddenly Mrs. Hale took a quick step toward the other woman, "Mrs. Peters!" |
| |"Yes, Mrs. Hale?" |
| |"Do you think she--did it?' |
| |A frightened look blurred the other thing in Mrs. Peters' eyes. |
| |"Oh, I don't know," she said, in a voice that seemed to shink away from the subject. |
| |"Well, I don't think she did," affirmed Mrs. Hale stoutly. "Asking for an apron, and her little shawl. Worryin' about |
| |her fruit." |
| |"Mr. Peters says--." Footsteps were heard in the room above; she stopped, looked up, then went on in a lowered voice: |
| |"Mr. Peters says--it looks bad for her. Mr. Henderson is awful sarcastic in a speech, and he's going to make fun of her |
| |saying she didn't--wake up." |
| |For a moment Mrs. Hale had no answer. Then, "Well, I guess John Wright didn't wake up--when they was slippin' that rope |
| |under his neck," she muttered. |
| |"No, it's strange," breathed Mrs. Peters. "They think it was such a--funny way to kill a man." |
| |She began to laugh; at sound of the laugh, abruptly stopped. |
| |"That's just what Mr. Hale said," said Mrs. Hale, in a resolutely natural voice. "There was a gun in the house. He says |
| |that's what he can't understand." |
| |"Mr. Henderson said, coming out, that what was needed for the case was a motive. Something to show anger--or sudden |
| |feeling." |
| |'Well, I don't see any signs of anger around here," said Mrs. Hale, "I don't--" She stopped. It was as if her mind |
| |tripped on something. Her eye was caught by a dish-towel in the middle of the kitchen table. Slowly she moved toward the|
| |table. One half of it was wiped clean, the other half messy. Her eyes made a slow, almost unwilling turn to the bucket |
| |of sugar and the half empty bag beside it. Things begun--and not finished. |
| |After a moment she stepped back, and said, in that manner of releasing herself: |
| |"Wonder how they're finding things upstairs? I hope she had it a little more red up up there. You know,"--she paused, |
| |and feeling gathered,--"it seems kind of sneaking: locking her up in town and coming out here to get her own house to |
| |turn against her!" |
| |"But, Mrs. Hale," said the sheriff's wife, "the law is the law." |
| |"I s'pose 'tis," answered Mrs. Hale shortly. |
| |She turned to the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and |
| |when she straightened up she said aggressively: |
| |"The law is the law--and a bad stove is a bad stove. How'd you like to cook on this?"--pointing with the poker to the |
| |broken lining. She opened the oven door and started to express her opinion of the oven; but she was swept into her own |
| |thoughts, thinking of what it would mean, year after year, to have that stove to wrestle with. The thought of Minnie |
| |Foster trying to bake in that oven--and the thought of her never going over to see Minnie Foster--. |
| |She was startled by hearing Mrs. Peters say: "A person gets discouraged--and loses heart." |
| |The sheriff's wife had looked from the stove to the sink--to the pail of water which had been carried in from outside. |
| |The two women stood there silent, above them the footsteps of the men who were looking for evidence against the woman |
| |who had worked in that kitchen. That look of seeing into things, of seeing through a thing to something else, was in the|
| |eyes of the sheriff's wife now. When Mrs. Hale next spoke to her, it was gently: |
| |"Better loosen up your things, Mrs. Peters. We'll not feel them when we go out." |
| |Mrs. Peters went to the back of the room to hang up the fur tippet she was wearing. A moment later she exclaimed, "Why, |
| |she was piecing a quilt," and held up a large sewing basket piled high with quilt pieces. |
| |Mrs. Hale spread some of the blocks on the table. |
| |"It's log-cabin pattern," she said, putting several of them together, "Pretty, isn't it?" |
| |They were so engaged with the quilt that they did not hear the footsteps on the stairs. Just as the stair door opened |
| |Mrs. Hale was saying: |
| |"Do you suppose she was going to quilt it or just knot it?" |
| |The sheriff threw up his hands. |
| |"They wonder whether she was going to quilt it or just knot it!" |
| |There was a laugh for the ways of women, a warming of hands over the stove, and then the county attorney said briskly: |
| |"Well, let's go right out to the barn and get that cleared up." |
| |"I don't see as there's anything so strange," Mrs. Hale said resentfully, after the outside door had closed on the three|
| |men--"our taking up our time with little things while we're waiting for them to get the evidence. I don't see as it's |
| |anything to laugh about." |
| |"Of course they've got awful important things on their minds," said the sheriff's wife apologetically. |
| |They returned to an inspection of the block for the quilt. Mrs. Hale was looking at the fine, even sewing, and |
| |preoccupied with thoughts of the woman who had done that sewing, when she heard the sheriff's wife say, in a queer tone:|
| |"Why, look at this one." |
| |She turned to take the block held out to her. |
| |"The sewing," said Mrs. Peters, in a troubled way, "All the rest of them have been so nice and even--but--this one. Why,|
| |it looks as if she didn't know what she was about!" |
| |Their eyes met--something flashed to life, passed between them; then, as if with an effort, they seemed to pull away |
| |from each other. A moment Mrs. Hale sat there, her hands folded over that sewing which was so unlike all the rest of the|
| |sewing. Then she had pulled a knot and drawn the threads. |
| |"Oh, what are you doing, Mrs. Hale?" asked the sheriff's wife, startled. |
| |"Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good," said Mrs. Hale mildly. |
| |"I don't think we ought to touch things," Mrs. Peters said, a little helplessly. |
| |"I'll just finish up this end," answered Mrs. Hale, still in that mild, matter-of-fact fashion. |
| |She threaded a needle and started to replace bad sewing with good. For a little while she sewed in silence. Then, in |
| |that thin, timid voice, she heard: |
| |"Mrs. Hale!" |
| |"Yes, Mrs. Peters?" |
| |'What do you suppose she was so--nervous about?" |
| |"Oh, I don't know," said Mrs. Hale, as if dismissing a thing not important enough to spend much time on. "I don't know |
| |as she was--nervous. I sew awful queer sometimes when I'm just tired." |
| |She cut a thread, and out of the corner of her eye looked up at Mrs. Peters. The small, lean face of the sheriff's wife |
| |seemed to have tightened up. Her eyes had that look of peering into something. But next moment she moved, and said in |
| |her thin, indecisive way: |
| |'Well, I must get those clothes wrapped. They may be through sooner than we think. I wonder where I could find a piece |
| |of paper--and string." |
| |"In that cupboard, maybe," suggested to Mrs. Hale, after a glance around. |
| |One piece of the crazy sewing remained unripped. Mrs. Peter's back turned, Martha Hale now scrutinized that piece, |
| |compared it with the dainty, accurate sewing of the other blocks. The difference was startling. Holding this block made |
| |her feel queer, as if the distracted thoughts of the woman who had perhaps turned to it to try and quiet herself were |
| |communicating themselves to her. |
| |Mrs. Peters' voice roused her. |
| |"Here's a bird-cage," she said. "Did she have a bird, Mrs. Hale?" |
| |'Why, I don't know whether she did or not." She turned to look at the cage Mrs. Peters was holding up. "I've not been |
| |here in so long." She sighed. "There was a man round last year selling canaries cheap--but I don't know as she took one.|
| |Maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself." |
| |Mrs. Peters looked around the kitchen. |
| |"Seems kind of funny to think of a bird here." She half laughed--an attempt to put up a barrier. "But she must have had |
| |one--or why would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it." |
| |"I suppose maybe the cat got it," suggested Mrs. Hale, resuming her sewing. |
| |"No; she didn't have a cat. She's got that feeling some people have about cats--being afraid of them. When they brought |
| |her to our house yesterday, my cat got in the room, and she was real upset and asked me to take it out." |
| |"My sister Bessie was like that," laughed Mrs. Hale. |
| |The sheriff's wife did not reply. The silence made Mrs. Hale turn round. Mrs. Peters was examining the bird-cage. |
| |"Look at this door," she said slowly. "It's broke. One hinge has been pulled apart." |
| |Mrs. Hale came nearer. |
| |"Looks as if someone must have been--rough with it." |
| |Again their eyes met--startled, questioning, apprehensive. For a moment neither spoke nor stirred. Then Mrs. Hale, |
| |turning away, said brusquely: |
| |"If they're going to find any evidence, I wish they'd be about it. I don't like this place." |
| |"But I'm awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale." Mrs. Peters put the bird-cage on the table and sat down. "It would be |
| |lonesome for me--sitting here alone." |
| |"Yes, it would, wouldn't it?" agreed Mrs. Hale, a certain determined naturalness in her voice. She had picked up the |
| |sewing, but now it dropped in her lap, and she murmured in a different voice: "But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. |
| |Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when she was here. I wish--I had." |
| |"But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale. Your house--and your children." |
| |"I could've come," retorted Mrs. Hale shortly. "I stayed away because it weren't cheerful--and that's why I ought to |
| |have come. I"--she looked around--"I've never liked this place. Maybe because it's down in a hollow and you don't see |
| |the road. I don't know what it is, but it's a lonesome place, and always was. I wish I had come over to see Minnie |
| |Foster sometimes. I can see now--" She did not put it into words. |
| |"Well, you mustn't reproach yourself," counseled Mrs. Peters. "Somehow, we just don't see how it is with other folks |
| |till--something comes up." |
| |"Not having children makes less work," mused Mrs. Hale, after a silence, "but it makes a quiet house--and Wright out to |
| |work all day--and no company when he did come in. Did you know John Wright, Mrs. Peters?" |
| |"Not to know him. I've seen him in town. They say he was a good man." |
| |"Yes--good," conceded John Wright's neighbor grimly. "He didn't drink, and kept his word as well as most, I guess, and |
| |paid his debts. But he was a hard man, Mrs. Peters. Just to pass the time of day with him--." She stopped, shivered a |
| |little. "Like a raw wind that gets to the bone." Her eye fell upon the cage on the table before her, and she added, |
| |almost bitterly: "I should think she would've wanted a bird!" |
| |Suddenly she leaned forward, looking intently at the cage. "But what do you s'pose went wrong with it?" |
| |"I don't know," returned Mrs. Peters; "unless it got sick and died." |
| |But after she said it she reached over and swung the broken door. Both women watched it as if somehow held by it. |
| |"You didn't know--her?" Mrs. Hale asked, a gentler note in her voice. |
| |"Not till they brought her yesterday," said the sheriff's wife. |
| |"She--come to think of it, she was kind of like a bird herself. Real sweet and pretty, but kind of timid and--fluttery. |
| |How--she--did--change." |
| |That held her for a long time. Finally, as if struck with a happy thought and relieved to get back to everyday things, |
| |she exclaimed: |
| |"Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don't you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind." |
| |"Why, I think that's a real nice idea, Mrs. Hale," agreed the sheriff's wife, as if she too were glad to come into the |
| |atmosphere of a simple kindness. "There couldn't possibly be any objection to that, could there? Now, just what will I |
| |take? I wonder if her patches are in here--and her things?" |
| |They turned to the sewing basket. |
| |"Here's some red," said Mrs. Hale, bringing out a roll of cloth. Underneath that was a box. "Here, maybe her scissors |
| |are in here--and her things." She held it up. "What a pretty box! I'll warrant that was something she had a long time |
| |ago--when she was a girl." |
| |She held it in her hand a moment; then, with a little sigh, opened it. |
| |Instantly her hand went to her nose. |
| |"Why--!" |
| |Mrs. Peters drew nearer--then turned away. |
| |"There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk," faltered Mrs. Hale. |
| |"This isn't her scissors," said Mrs. Peters, in a shrinking voice. |
| |Her hand not steady, Mrs. Hale raised the piece of silk. "Oh, Mrs. Peters!" she cried. "It's--" |
| |Mrs. Peters bent closer. |
| |"It's the bird," she whispered. |
| |"But, Mrs. Peters!" cried Mrs. Hale. "Look at it! Its neck--look at its neck! It's all--other side to." |
| |She held the box away from her. |
| |The sheriff's wife again bent closer. |
| |"Somebody wrung its neck," said she, in a voice that was slow and deep. |
| |And then again the eyes of the two women met--this time clung together in a look of dawning comprehension, of growing |
| |horror. Mrs. Peters looked from the dead bird to the broken door of the cage. Again their eyes met. And just then there |
| |was a sound at the outside door. Mrs. Hale slipped the box under the quilt pieces in the basket, and sank into the chair|
| |before it. Mrs. Peters stood holding to the table. The county attorney and the sheriff came in from outside. |
| |"Well, ladies," said the county attorney, as one turning from serious things to little pleasantries, "have you decided |
| |whether she was going to quilt it or knot it?" |
| |"We think," began the sheriff's wife in a flurried voice, "that she was going to--knot it." |
| |He was too preoccupied to notice the change that came in her voice on that last. |
| |"Well, that's very interesting, I'm sure," he said tolerantly. He caught sight of the bird-cage. |
| |"Has the bird flown?" |
| |"We think the cat got it," said Mrs. Hale in a voice curiously even. |
| |He was walking up and down, as if thinking something out. |
| |"Is there a cat?" he asked absently. |
| |Mrs. Hale shot a look up at the sheriff's wife. |
| |"Well, not now," said Mrs. Peters. "They're superstitious, you know; they Ieave." |
| |She sank into her chair. |
| |The county attorney did not heed her. "No sign at all of anyone having come in from the outside," he said to Peters, in |
| |the manner of continuing an interrupted conversation. "Their own rope. Now let's go upstairs again and go over it, picee|
| |by piece. It would have to have been someone who knew just the--" |
| |The stair door closed behind them and their voices were lost. |
| |The two women sat motionless, not looking at each other, but as if peering into something and at the same time holding |
| |back. When they spoke now it was as if they were afraid of what they were saying, but as if they could not help saying |
| |it. |
| |"She liked the bird," said Martha Hale, low and slowly. "She was going to bury it in that pretty box." |
| |When I was a girl," said Mrs. Peters, under her breath, "my kitten--there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my |
| |eyes--before I could get there--" She covered her face an instant. "If they hadn't held me back I would have"--she |
| |caught herself, looked upstairs where footsteps were heard, and finished weakly--"hurt him." |
| |Then they sat without speaking or moving. |
| |"I wonder how it would seem," Mrs. Hale at last began, as if feeling her way over strange ground--"never to have had any|
| |children around?" Her eyes made a slow sweep of the kitchen, as if seeing what that kitchen had meant through all the |
| |years "No, Wright wouldn't like the bird," she said after that--"a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that |
| |too." Her voice tightened. |
| |Mrs. Peters moved uneasily. |
| |"Of course we don't know who killed the bird." |
| |"I knew John Wright," was Mrs. Hale's answer. |
| |"It was an awful thing was done in this house that night, Mrs. Hale," said the sheriff's wife. "Killing a man while he |
| |slept--slipping a thing round his neck that choked the life out of him." |
| |Mrs. Hale's hand went out to the bird cage. |
| |"We don't know who killed him," whispered Mrs. Peters wildly. "We don'tknow." |
| |Mrs. Hale had not moved. "If there had been years and years of--nothing, then a bird to sing to you, it would be |
| |awful--still--after the bird was still." |
| |It was as if something within her not herself had spoken, and it found in Mrs. Peters something she did not know as |
| |herself. |
| |"I know what stillness is," she said, in a queer, monotonous voice. "When we homesteaded in Dakota, and my first baby |
| |died--after he was two years old--and me with no other then--" |
| |Mrs. Hale stirred. |
| |"How soon do you suppose they'll be through looking for the evidence?" |
| |"I know what stillness is," repeated Mrs. Peters, in just that same way. Then she too pulled back. "The law has got to |
| |punish crime, Mrs. Hale," she said in her tight little way. |
| |"I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster," was the answer, "when she wore a white dress with blue ribbons, and stood up there in|
| |the choir and sang." |
| |The picture of that girl, the fact that she had lived neighbor to that girl for twenty years, and had let her die for |
| |lack of life, was suddenly more than she could bear. |
| |"Oh, I wish I'd come over here once in a while!" she cried. "That was a crime! Who's going to punish that?" |
| |"We mustn't take on," said Mrs. Peters, with a frightened look toward the stairs. |
| |"I might 'a' known she needed help! 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! If it weren't--why do you and |
| |Iunderstand? Why do we know--what we know this minute?" |
| |She dashed her hand across her eyes. Then, seeing the jar of fruit on the table she reached for it and choked out: |
| |"If I was you I wouldn't tell her her fruit was gone! Tell her it ain't. Tell her it's all right--all of it. Here--take |
| |this in to prove it to her! She--she may never know whether it was broke or not." |
| |She turned away. |
| |Mrs. Peters reached out for the bottle of fruit as if she were glad to take it--as if touching a familiar thing, having |
| |something to do, could keep her from something else. She got up, looked about for something to wrap the fruit in, took a|
| |petticoat from the pile of clothes she had brought from the front room, and nervously started winding that round the |
| |bottle. |
| |"My!" she began, in a high, false voice, "it's a good thing the men couldn't hear us! Getting all stirred up over a |
| |little thing like a--dead canary." She hurried over that. "As if that could have anything to do with--with--My, wouldn't|
| |they laugh?" |
| |Footsteps were heard on the stairs. |
| |"Maybe they would," muttered Mrs. Hale--"maybe they wouldn't." |
| |"No, Peters," said the county attorney incisively; "it's all perfectly clear, except the reason for doing it. But you |
| |know juries when it comes to women. If there was some definite thing--something to show. Something to make a story |
| |about. A thing that would connect up with this clumsy way of doing it." |
| |In a covert way Mrs. Hale looked at Mrs. Peters. Mrs. Peters was looking at her. Quickly they looked away from each |
| |other. The outer door opened and Mr. Hale came in. |
| |"I've got the team round now," he said. "Pretty cold out there." |
| |"I'm going to stay here awhile by myself," the county attorney suddenly announced. "You can send Frank out for me, can't|
| |you?" he asked the sheriff. "I want to go over everything. I'm not satisfied we can't do better." |
| |Again, for one brief moment, the two women's eyes found one another. |
| |The sheriff came up to the table. |
| |"Did you want to see what Mrs. Peters was going to take in?" |
| |The county attorney picked up the apron. He laughed. |
| |"Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous things the ladies have picked out." |
| |Mrs. Hale's hand was on the sewing basket in which the box was concealed. She felt that she ought to take her hand off |
| |the basket. She did not seem able to. He picked up one of the quilt blocks which she had piled on to cover the box. Her |
| |eyes felt like fire. She had a feeling that if he took up the basket she would snatch it from him. |
| |But he did not take it up. With another little laugh, he turned away, saying: |
| |"No; Mrs. Peters doesn't need supervising. For that matter, a sheriff's wife is married to the law. Ever think of it |
| |that way, Mrs. Peters?" |
| |Mrs. Peters was standing beside the table. Mrs. Hale shot a look up at her; but she could not see her face. Mrs. Peters |
| |had turned away. When she spoke, her voice was muffled. |
| |"Not--just that way," she said. |
| |"Married to the law!" chuckled Mrs. Peters' husband. He moved toward the door into the front room, and said to the |
| |county attorney: |
| |"I just want you to come in here a minute, George. We ought to take a look at these windows." |
| |"Oh--windows," said the county attorney scoffingly. |
| |"We'll be right out, Mr. Hale," said the sheriff to the farmer, who was still waiting by the door. |
| |Hale went to look after the horses. The sheriff followed the county attorney into the other room. Again--for one final |
| |moment--the two women were alone in that kitchen. |
| |Martha Hale sprang up, her hands tight together, looking at that other woman, with whom it rested. At first she could |
| |not see her eyes, for the sheriff's wife had not turned back since she turned away at that suggestion of being married |
| |to the law. But now Mrs. Hale made her turn back. Her eyes made her turn back. Slowly, unwillingly, Mrs. Peters turned |
| |her head until her eyes met the eyes of the other woman. There was a moment when they held each other in a steady, |
| |burning look in which there was no evasion or flinching. Then Martha Hale's eyes pointed the way to the basket in which |
| |was hidden the thing that would make certain the conviction of the other woman--that woman who was not there and yet who|
| |had been there with them all through that hour. |
| |For a moment Mrs. Peters did not move. And then she did it. With a rush forward, she threw back the quilt pieces, got |
| |the box, tried to put it in her handbag. It was too big. Desperately she opened it, started to take the bird out. But |
| |there she broke--she could not touch the bird. She stood there helpless, foolish. |
| |There was the sound of a knob turning in the inner door. Martha Hale snatched the box from the sheriff's wife, and got |
| |it in the pocket of her big coat just as the sheriff and the county attorney came back into the kitchen. |
| |"Well, Henry," said the county attorney facetiously, "at least we found out that she was not going to quilt it. She was |
| |going to--what is it you call it, ladies?" |
| |Mrs. Hale's hand was against the pocket of her coat. |
| |"We call it--knot it, Mr. Henderson." |