She used to sing. He killed that, too.
MRS PETERS: (_moving uneasily_) We don'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.
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