A Moment on the Edge:100 Years of Crime Stories by women by Elizabeth George
After early stories that were popular romances of the local-color school, Glaspell was influenced to adopt a more naturalistic approach, along with socialist political attitudes, by her husband and Floyd Dell. The rebellion of women against the domination of simpleminded males was a continuing subject. One of her plays, the one-act Trifles (1916), became the basis for her most famous story, “A Jury of Her Peers” (1917). There’s no denying this is a detective story—indeed, in the fashion of the time, one in which amateur sleuths are more perceptive than professionals—but it is a highly unconventional, one-of-a-kind detective story in which the detection is used to make a serious thematic point.
When Martha Hale opened the storm-door and got a cut of the north wind, she ran back for her big woolen scarf. As she hurriedly wound that round her head her eye made a scandalized sweep of her kitchen. It was no ordinary thing that called her away—it was probably further from ordinary than anything that had ever happened in Dickson County. But what her eye took in was that her kitchen was in no shape for leaving: her bread all ready for mixing, half the flour sifted and half unsifted. She hated to see things half done; but she had been at that when the team from town stopped to get Mr. Hale, and then the sheriff came running in to say his wife wished Mrs. Hale would come too—adding, with a grin, that he guessed she was getting scary and wanted another woman along. So she had dropped everything right where it was. “Martha!” now came her husband’s impatient voice. “Don’t keep folks waiting out here in the cold.” She again opened the storm-door, and this time joined the three men and the one woman waiting for her in the big two-seated buggy. After she had the robes tucked around her she took another look at the woman who sat beside her on the back seat. She had met Mrs. Peters the year before at the county fair, and the thing she remembered about her was that she didn’t seem like a sheriff’s wife. She was small and thin and didn’t have a strong voice. Mrs. Gorman, sheriff’s wife before Gorman went out and Peters came in, had a voice that somehow seemed to be backing up the law with every word. But if Mrs. Peters didn’t look like a sheriff’s wife, Peters made it up in looking like a sheriff. He was to a dot the kind of man who could get himself elected sheriff—a heavy man with a big voice, who was particularly genial with the law-abiding, as if to make it plain that he knew the difference between criminals and non-criminals. And right there it came into Mrs. Hale’s mind with a stab, that this man who was so pleasant and lively with all of them was going to the Wrights’ now as a sheriff.
“The country’s not very pleasant this time of year,” Mrs. Peters at last ventured, as if she felt they ought to be talking as well as the men.
Mrs. Hale scarcely finished her reply, for they had gone up a little hill and could see the Wright place now, and seeing it did not make her feel like talking. It looked very lonesome this cold March morning. It had always been a lonesome-looking place. It was down in a hollow, and the poplar trees around it were lonesome-looking trees. The men were looking at it and talking about what had happened. The county attorney was bending to one side of the buggy, and kept looking steadily at the place as they drew up to it.
“I’m glad you came with me,” Mrs. Peters said nervously, as the two women were about to follow the men in through the kitchen door.
Even after she had her foot on the doorstep, her hand on the knob, Martha Hale had a moment of feeling she could not cross the threshold. And the reason it seemed she couldn’t cross it now was simply because she hadn’t crossed it before. Time and time again it had been in her mind, “I ought to go over and see Minnie Foster”—she still thought of her as Minnie Foster, though for twenty years she had been Mrs. Wright. And then there was always something to do and Minnie Foster would go from her mind. But now she could come.
The men went over to the stove. The women stood close together by the door. Young Henderson, the county attorney, turned around and said, “Come up to the fire, ladies.”
Mrs. Peters took a step forward, then stopped. “I’m not—cold,” she said.
And so the two women stood by the door, at first not even so much as looking around the kitchen.
The men talked for a minute about what a good thing it was the sheriff had sent his deputy out that morning to make a fire for them, and then Sheriff Peters stepped back from the stove, unbuttoned his outer coat, and leaned his hands on the kitchen table in a way that seemed to mark the beginning of official business. “Now, Mr. Hale,” he said in a sort of semi-official voice, “before we move things about, you tell Mr. Henderson just what it was you saw when you came here yesterday morning.”
The county attorney was looking around the kitchen.
“By the way,” he said, “has anything been moved?” He turned to the sheriff. “Are things just as you left them yesterday?”
Peters looked from cupboard to sink; from that to a small worn rocker a little to one side of the kitchen table.
“It’s just the same.”
“Somebody should have been left here yesterday,” said the county attorney.
“Oh—yesterday,” returned the sheriff, with a little gesture as of yesterday having been more than he could bear to think of. “When I had to send Frank to Morris Center for that man who went crazy—let me tell you, I had my hands full yesterday. I knew you could get back from Omaha by today, George, and as long as I went over everything here myself—”
“Well, Mr. Hale,” said the county attorney, in a way of letting what was past and gone go, “tell just what happened when you came here yesterday morning.”
Mrs. Hale, still leaning against the door, had that sinking feeling of the mother whose child is about to speak a piece. Lewis often wandered along and got things mixed up in a story. She hoped he would tell this straight and plain, and not say unnecessary things that would just make things harder for Minnie Foster. He didn’t begin at once, and she noticed that he looked queer—as if standing in that kitchen and having to tell what he had seen there yesterday morning made him almost sick.
“Yes, Mr. Hale?” the county attorney reminded.
“Harry and I had started to town with a load of potatoes,” Mrs. Hale’s husband began.
Harry was Mrs. Hale’s oldest boy. He wasn’t with them now, for the very good reason that those potatoes never got to town yesterday and he was taking them this morning, so he hadn’t been home when the sheriff stopped to say he wanted Mr. Hale to come over to the Wright place and tell the county attorney his story there, where he could point it all out. With all Mrs. Hale’s other emotions came the fear that maybe Harry wasn’t dressed warm enough—they hadn’t any of them realized how that north wind did bite.
“We come along this road,” Hale was going on, with a motion of his hand to the road over which they had just come, “and as we got in sight of the house I says to Harry, ‘I’m goin’ to see if I can’t get John Wright to take a telephone.’ You see,” he explained to Henderson, “unless I can get somebody to go in with me they won’t come out this branch road except for a price I can’t pay. I’d spoke to Wright about it once before; but he put me off, saying folks talked too much anyway, and all he asked was peace and quiet—guess you know about how much he talked himself. But I thought maybe if I went to the house and talked about it before his wife, and said all the womenfolks liked the telephones, and that in this lonesome stretch of road it would be a good thing—well, I said to Harry that that was what I was going to say—though I said at the same time that I didn’t know as what his wife wanted made much difference to John—”
Now, there he was!—saying things he didn’t need to say. Mrs. Hale tried to catch her husband’s eye, but fortunately the county attorney interrupted with:
“Let’s talk about that a little later, Mr. Hale. I do want to talk about that, but I’m anxious now to get along to just what happened when you got here.”
When he began this time, it was very deliberately and carefully:
“I didn’t see or hear anything. I knocked at the door. And still it was all
Everyone in the kitchen looked at the rocker. It came into Mrs. Hale’s mind that that rocker didn’t look in the least like Minnie Foster—the Minnie Foster of twenty years before. It was a dingy red, with wooden rungs up the back, and the middle rung was gone, and the chair sagged to one side,
“How did she—look?” the county attorney was inquiring.
“Well,” said Hale, “she looked—queer.”
“How do you mean—queer?”
As he asked it he took out a notebook and pencil. Mrs. Hale did not like the sight of that pencil. She kept her eye fixed on her husband, as if to keep him from saying unnecessary things that would go into that notebook and make trouble.
Hale did speak guardedly, as if the pencil had affected him too.
“Well, as if she didn’t know what she was going to do next. And kind of—done up.”
“How did she seem to feel about your coming?”
“Why, I don’t think she minded—one way or other. She didn’t pay much attention. I said, ‘Ho’ do, Mrs. Wright? It’s cold, ain’t it?’ And she said, ‘Is it?’—and went on pleatin’ at her apron.
“Well, I was surprised. She didn’t ask me to come up to the stove, or to sit down, but just set there, not even lookin’ at me. And so I said: ‘I want to see John.’
“And then she—laughed. I guess you would call it a laugh.
“I thought of Harry and the team outside, so I said, a little sharp, ‘Can I see John?’ ‘No,’ says she—kind of dull like. ’Ain’t he home?’ says I. Then she looked at me. ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘he’s home.’ Then why can’t I see him?’ I asked her, out of patience with her now. ‘’Cause he’s dead.’ says she, just as quiet and dull—and fell
to pleatin’ her apron. ‘Dead?’ says I, like you do when you can’t take in what you’ve heard.
“She just nodded her head, not getting a bit excited, but rockin’ back and forth.
“‘Why—where is he?’ says I, not knowing what to say.
“She just pointed upstairs—like this”—pointing to the room above.
“I got up, with the idea of going up there myself. By this time I—didn’t know what to do. I walked from there to here; then I says: ‘Why, what did he die of?’
“‘He died of a rope around his neck,’ says she; and just went on pleatin’ at her apron.”
Hale stopped speaking, and stood staring at the rocker, as if he were still seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before. Nobody spoke; it was as if everyone were seeing the woman who had sat there the morning before.
“And what did you do then?” the county attorney at last broke the silence.
“I went out and called Harry. I thought I might—need help. I got Harry in, and we went upstairs.” His voice fell almost to a whisper. “There he was—lying over the—”
“I think I’d rather have you go into that upstairs,” the county attorney interrupted, “where you can point it all out. Just go on now with the rest of the story.”
“Well, my first thought was to get that rope off. It looked—” He stopped, his face twitching.
“But Harry, he went up to him, and he said, ‘No, he’s dead all right, and we’d better not touch anything.’ So we went downstairs.
“She was still sitting that same way. ‘Has anybody been notified?’ I asked. ‘No,’ says she, unconcerned.
“‘Who did this, Mrs. Wright?’ said Harry. He said it business-like, and she stopped pleatin’ at her apron. ‘I don’t know,’ she says. ‘You don’t know?’ says Harry. ‘Weren’t you sleepin’ in the bed with him?’ ‘Yes,’ says she, ‘but I was on the inside.’ ‘Somebody
slipped a rope round his neck and strangled him, and you didn’t wake up?’ says Harry. ‘I didn’t wake up,’ she said after him.
“We may have looked as if we didn’t see how that could be, for after a minute she said, ‘I sleep sound.’
“Harry was going to ask her more questions, but I said maybe that weren’t our business; maybe we ought to let her tell her story first to the coroner or the sheriff. So Harry went fast as he could over to High Road—the Rivers’ place, where there’s a telephone.”
“And what did she do when she knew you had gone for the coroner?” The attorney got his pencil in his hand all ready for writing.
“She moved from that chair to this one over here”—Hale pointed to a small chair in the corner—“and just sat there with her hands held together and looking down. I got a feeling that I ought to make some conversation, so I said I had come in to see if John wanted to put in a telephone: and at that she started to laugh, and then she stopped and looked at me—scared.”
At the sound of a moving pencil the man who was telling the story looked up.
“I dunno—maybe it wasn’t scared,” he hastened; “I wouldn’t like to say it was. Soon Harry got back, and then Dr. Lloyd came, and you, Mr. Peters, and so I guess that’s all I know that you don’t.”
He said that last with relief, and moved a little, as if relaxing. Everyone moved a little. The county attorney walked toward the stair door.
“I guess we’ll go upstairs first—then out to the barn and around there.”
He paused and looked around the kitchen.
“You’re convinced there was nothing important here?” he asked the sheriff. “Nothing that would—point to any motive?”
The sheriff too looked all around, as if to reconvince himself.
“Nothing here but kitchen things,” he said, with a little laugh for the insignificance of kitchen things.
The county attorney was looking at the cupboard—a peculiar, ungainly structure, half closet and half cupboard, the upper part of it being built in the wall, and the lower part just the old-fashioned kitchen cupboard. As if its queerness attracted him, he got a chair and opened the upper part and looked in. After a moment he drew his hand away sticky.
“Here’s a nice mess,” he said resentfully.
The two women had drawn nearer, and now the sheriff’s wife spoke.
“Oh—her fruit,” she said, looking to Mrs. Hale for sympathetic understanding. She turned back to the county attorney and explained: “She worried about that when it turned to cold last night. She said the fire would go out and her jars might burst.”
Mrs. Peters’s husband broke into a laugh.
“Well, can you beat the woman! Held for murder, and worrying about her preserves!”
The young attorney set his lips.
“I guess before we’re through with her she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.”
“Oh, well,” said Mrs. Hale’s husband, with good-natured superiority, “women are used to worrying over trifles.”
The two women moved a little closer together. Neither of them spoke. The county attorney seemed suddenly to remember his manners—and think of his future.
“And yet,” said he, with the gallantry of a young politician, “for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies?”
The women did not speak, did not unbend. He went to the sink and began washing his hands. He turned to wipe them on the roller towel—whirled it for a cleaner place.
“Dirty towels! Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?”
He kicked his foot against some dirty pans under the sink.
“There’s a great deal of work to be done on a farm,” said Mrs. Hale stiffly.
“To be sure. And yet”—with a little bow to her—“I know there are some Dickson County farmhouses that do not have such roller towels.” He gave it a pull to expose its full length again.
“Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men’s hands aren’t always as clean
“Ah, loyal to your sex, I see,” he laughed. He stopped and gave her a keen look. “But you and Mrs. Wright were neighbors. I suppose you were friends, too.”
Martha Hale shook her head.
“I’ve seen little enough of her of late years. I’ve not been in this house—it’s more than a year.”
“And why was that? You didn’t like her?”
“I liked her well enough,” she replied with spirit. “Farmers’ wives have their hands full, Mr. Henderson. And then”—She looked around the kitchen.
“Yes?” he encouraged.
“It never seemed a very cheerful place,” said she, more to herself than to him.
“No,” he agreed; “I don’t think anyone could call it cheerful. I shouldn’t say she had the homemaking instinct.”
“Well, I don’t know as Wright had, either,” she muttered.
“You mean they didn’t get on very well?” he was quick to ask.
“No; I don’t mean anything,” she answered, with decision. As she turned a little away from him, she added: “But I don’t think a place would be any the cheerfuler for John Wright’s bein’ in it.”
“I’d like to talk to you about that a little later, Mrs. Hale,” he said. “I’m anxious to get the lay of things upstairs now.”
He moved toward the stair door, followed by the two men.
“I suppose anything Mrs. Peters does’ll be all right?” the sheriff inquired. “She was to take in some clothes for her, you know—and a few little things. We left in such a hurry yesterday.”
The county attorney looked at the two women whom they were leaving alone there among the kitchen things.
“Yes—Mrs. Peters,” he said, his glance resting on the woman who was not Mrs. Peters, the big farmer woman who stood behind the sheriff’s wife. “Of course Mrs. Peters is one of us,” he