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[ Scene 4: Unspoken ]
COUNTY ATTORNEY HENDERSON: Well, ladies,
have you decided if she was going to quilt it or just knot it?
MRS. HALE: Knot it, we think.
Well, that's interesting, I'm sure--
Has the bird flown?
MRS. PETERS: We think the cat got it.
Is there a cat?
Well, not now.
They're superstitious, you know.
They leave when--
No sign at all of anyone coming from outside.
Now, let's go up again and go over it piece by piece.
When I was a girl--
my kitten--
there was a boy took a hatchet--
but before I could get there--
if they hadn't held me back--
I--
She was going to bury the bird in that pretty box.
Wright wouldn't like a thing that sang.
She used to sing.
He killed that too.
We don't know who killed the bird.
I knew John Wright!
It was an awful thing
that was done in this house that night,
Mrs. Hale!
Killing a man while he slept,
slipping a rope round his neck,
choking the life out of him.
We don't know who killed him!
We don't know!
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.
I know what stillness is.
When we homesteaded in Dakota
and my first baby died,
and the only sound was the wind in the sky.
Oh, Charlotte.
I know what stillness is
that fills the room when there's no more weeping.
I wish you'd seen Minnie Foster
in her white dress with blue ribbons
singing in the choir.
I wish I'd come over here once in a while.
I could have found the time.
Not coming over,
who's going to punish that?
I tell you it's ***, Mrs. Peters.
We live close together
and we live far apart.
We all go through the same things
it's just a different kind of the same thing.
I might have known she needed help.
I know how things can be for women.
I know what stillness is,
no breath, no heartbeat,
fading into stillness.
We mustn't take on.
How soon do you suppose
they'll be through looking for evidence?
The law has to punish crime, Mrs. Hale!
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?
Wouldn't they laugh?
Maybe they would,
maybe they wouldn't.
No, Peters,
it's all perfectly clear
except a reason for doing it.
You know juries when it comes to women.
If there was some definite thing,
something to show,
something to make a story about,
to connect up with this strange way of doing it.
MR. HALE: I've brought the team around.
Pretty cold out there.
I'm going to stay here awhile.
Can you send the deputy out for me?
I want to go over everything again.
I'm not satisfied we can't do better.
SHERIFF PETERS: Do you want to see what Mrs. Peters is taking?
Oh, I guess they're not very dangerous.
No, Mrs. Peters doesn't need supervising.
A sheriff's wife is married to the law.
Ever think of it that way, Mrs. Peters?
Well, not just that way.
Married to the law!
Come into the front room a minute, George,
to look at the windows.
Ah, windows!
We'll be right out, Mr. Hale.
Well, Henry,
at least we found out she wasn't going to quilt it--
she was going to--
what do you ladies call it?
We call it, knot it, Mr. Henderson!