[_Glancing around._] Seems funny to think of a bird here. But she must have had one, or why would she have a cage? I wonder what happened to it. MRS. HALE I s’pose maybe the cat got it. MRS. PETERS No, she didn’t have a cat. She’s got that feeling some people have about cats--being afraid of them. My cat got in her room and she was real upset and asked me to take it out. MRS. HALE My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain’t it? MRS. PETERS [_Examining the cage._] Why, look at this door. It’s broke. One hinge is pulled apart. MRS. HALE [_Looking too._] Looks as if someone must have been rough with it. MRS. PETERS Why, yes. [_She brings the cage forward and puts it on the table._ MRS. HALE I wish if they’re going to find any evidence they’d be about it. I don’t like this place. MRS. PETERS But I’m awful glad you came with me, Mrs. Hale. It would be lonesome for me sitting here alone. MRS. HALE It would, wouldn’t it? [_Dropping her sewing._] But I tell you what I do wish, Mrs. Peters. I wish I had come over sometimes when _she_ was here. I--[_Looking around the room_]--wish I had. MRS. PETERS But of course you were awful busy, Mrs. Hale--your house and your children. MRS. HALE I could’ve come. I stayed away because it weren’t cheerful--and that’s why I ought to have come. I--I’ve never liked this place. Maybe because it’s down in a hollow and you don’t see the road. I dunno 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-- [_Shakes her head._ MRS. PETERS Well, you mustn’t reproach yourself, Mrs. Hale. Somehow we just don’t see how it is with other folks until--something comes up. MRS. HALE Not having children makes less work--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? MRS. PETERS Not to know him; I’ve seen him in town. They say he was a good man. MRS. HALE Yes--good; 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--[_Shivers._] Like a raw wind that gets to the bone. [_Pauses, her eye falling on the cage._] I should think she would ’a wanted a bird. But what do you suppose went with it? MRS. PETERS I don’t know, unless it got sick and died. [_She reaches over and swings the broken door, swings it again, both women watch it._ MRS. HALE You weren’t raised round here, were you? [_MRS. PETERS shakes her head._] You didn’t know--her? MRS. PETERS Not till they brought her yesterday. MRS. HALE 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. [_Silence; then as if struck by a happy thought and relieved to get back to every day things._] Tell you what, Mrs. Peters, why don’t you take the quilt in with you? It might take up her mind.