Trifles
...there is a hand pump at the sink for water, and a wood-burning stove for warmth and for cooking. From the kitchen, there are three doors: one to the parlor, one to the upstairs, and one to the shed and then on to the outdoors. In the middle of the room is a rustic dining table and chairs. The room has not been cleaned up and looks as if someone was interrupted in the midst of cooking a meal. Dirty pans are stacked under the sink, a loaf of bread is sitting outside the breadbox and a dishtowel is sitting on the table.
The door to the shed opens and Sheriff Peters, County Attorney Henderson and Lewis Hale, a neighboring farmer, enter the kitchen followed by the sheriff's wife and the neighbor's wife.
The sheriff and the county attorney begin questioning Mr. Hale about events that occurred on the previous day. Mr. Hale told them he was on his way into town and decided to stop and ask John Wright to go together with him for the cost of a party telephone line. He had asked him in the past but he said no, so Mr. Hale wanted to talk to him about it in front of his wife with the hope that she might have some influence.
When Mr. Hale knocked on the Wrights' door, there was no answer. It was after eight o'clock, so he knew they were up. When he knocked a second time, he thought he heard an answer, so he went in. He found Mrs. Wright rocking in a rocking chair and pleating her apron in her hands. He asked to speak to her husband, but she told him no because he was dead. She indicated that he was upstairs and that he had been strangled with a rope. When he asked her who had done that to her husband, she said she did not know because she had slept through it.
At the end of Hale's story, the men prepare to investigate upstairs. The county attorney opened a kitchen cupboard and noticed that a jar of preserves was broken and spilled on the shelf. Mrs. Peters explained...
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