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Mrs. Peters is a small, timid woman who, for most of the story, is very much in her husband’s shadow. While Minnie Foster Wright is the only female character whose maiden name readers know, Mrs. Peters is the only character of either gender whose first name is never mentioned, even in passing, in the story. She seems at first to be only an appendage of her husband. When Mr. Henderson jokes that a sheriff’s wife is “married to the law,” his assumption irks Mrs. Peters, yet she is hesitant to criticize her husband or his work. She strikes Mrs. Hale as frail, and she often speaks in conciliatory or self-effacing ways, as if to deflect criticism. Yet Mrs. Hale senses that Mrs. Peters sees “a long way into things” but keeps what she sees to herself.
However, Mrs. Peters changes as she and Mrs. Hale piece together the story of what happened between Minnie and her husband. Her opinions get stronger, though she wavers and has to persuade herself to speak her mind. Her “timid acquiescence,” nervous laughter, and half-whispered statements give way gradually to a more confident voice, at least when the men are not present. When she sees the dead bird, her voice becomes “slow and deep,” suggesting that the high, “flurried” voice she often uses is not her natural way of speaking. Two recollections, so painful that Mrs. Peters must tell the first “under her breath” and the second in a “queer, monotonous voice,” enable her to empathize with Minnie. The first is the slaughter of her kitten by a boy with a hatchet, and the second is the death of her first child. These empathetic connections enable her to step out of her husband’s shadow and collaborate with Mrs. Hale to conceal the critical evidence against Minnie.
