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 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 strange way of doing it-- [_The women’s eyes meet for an instant. Enter HALE from outer door._ HALE Well, I’ve got the team around. Pretty cold out there. COUNTY ATTORNEY I’m going to stay here a while by myself. [_To the SHERIFF._] You can send Frank out for me, can’t you? I want to go over everything. I’m not satisfied that we can’t do better. SHERIFF