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Trifles Lines
| Question | Answer |
|---|---|
| Oh, what are you doing, Mrs Hale? | (mildly) Just pulling out a stitch or two that's not sewed very good. (threading a needle) Bad sewing always made me fidgety. |
| (nervously) I don't think we ought to touch things. | I'll just finish up this end. (suddenly stopping and leaning forward) Mrs Peters? |
| Yes, Mrs Hale? | What do you suppose she was so nervous about? |
| Oh—I don't know. I don't know as she was nervous. I sometimes sew awful queer when I'm just tired. Well I must get these things wrapped up. They may be through sooner than we think, I wonder where I can find a piece of paper, and string. | In that cupboard, maybe. |
| (looking in cupboard) Why, here's a bird-cage, (holds it up) Did she have a bird, Mrs Hale? | Why, I don't know whether she did or not—I've not been here for so long. There was a man around last year selling canaries cheap, but I don't know as she took one; maybe she did. She used to sing real pretty herself. |
| (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. | I s'pose maybe the cat got it. |
| 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. | My sister Bessie was like that. Queer, ain't it? |
| (examining the cage) Why, look at this door. It's broke. One hinge is pulled apart. | (looking too) Looks as if someone must have been rough with it. |
| Why, yes | I wish I had come over to see Minnie Foster sometimes. I can see now—(shakes her head) |
| Well, you mustn't reproach yourself, Mrs Hale. Somehow we just don't see how it is with other folks until—something comes up. | 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? |
| Not to know him; I've seen him in town. They say he was a good man. | 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—Like a raw wind that gets to the bone, I should think she would 'a wanted a bird. |
| I don't know, unless it got sick and died. | You weren't raised round here, were you? (MRS PETERS shakes her head) You didn't know—her? |
| Not till they brought her yesterday. | 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. 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. There couldn't possibly be any objection to it, could there? Now, just what would I take? I wonder if her patches are in here—and her things. | Here's some red. I expect this has got sewing things in it. What a pretty box. Looks like something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. Why—There's something wrapped up in this piece of silk. |
| Why, this isn't her scissors. | (lifting the silk) Oh, Mrs Peters—it's— |
| It's the bird. | (jumping up) But, Mrs Peters—look at it! It's neck! Look at its neck! It's all—other side to. |
| Somebody—wrung—its—neck. | She liked the bird. She was going to bury it in that pretty box. |
| When I was a girl—my kitten—there was a boy took a hatchet, and before my eyes—and before I could get there— If they hadn't held me back I would have—(catches herself, looks upstairs where steps are heard, falters weakly)—hurt him. | (with a slow look around her) I wonder how it would seem never to have had any children around, (pause) No, Wright wouldn't like the bird—a thing that sang. She used to sing. He killed that, too. |
| (moving uneasily) We don't know who killed the bird. | I knew John Wright. |
| 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. | His neck. Choked the life out of him. |
| (with rising voice) We don't know who killed him. We don't know. | (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. |
| (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— | (moving) How soon do you suppose they'll be through, looking for the evidence? |
| I know what stillness is. (pulling herself back) The law has got to punish crime, Mrs Hale. | 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? |
| (looking upstairs) We mustn't—take on. | 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, if I was... |
| 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! | (under her breath) Maybe they would—maybe they wouldn't. |
Created by:
mcquillanalia