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She looked around the kitchen. Certainly it was not “slicked up.” Her eye was held by a bucket of sugar on a low shelf. The cover was off the wooden bucket, and beside it was a paper bag—half full.
Mrs. Hale moved toward it.“She was putting this in there,” she said to herself—slowly.
She thought of the flour in her kitchen at home—half sifted, half not sifted. She had been interrupted, and had left things half done. What had interrupted Minnie Foster? Why had that work been left half done? She made a move as if to finish it,—unfinished things always bothered her,—and then she glanced around and saw that Mrs. Peters was watching her—and she didn't want Mrs. Peters to get that feeling she had got of work begun and then—for some reason—not finished.
These lines occur after the men, having mocked Minnie for not having “the home-making instinct,” first go upstairs to see the crime scene, leaving the women alone in the kitchen. They reveal Martha Hale’s character, especially her competence and thoughtfulness. Already aware that Minnie’s life was lonely, and already regretting that she let her friendship with Minnie lapse, Mrs. Hale wants to tidy up the kitchen, helping her belatedly. But these lines also pose a question: is Mrs. Peters an ally of Minnie, or is she “one of us,” as the county attorney declares her to be? Mrs. Hale’s intuitions have already suggested to her that whatever interrupted Minnie’s housework was not a minor occurrence. She hesitates because she does not want Mrs. Peter’s thoughts to follow the path hers have begun to follow. In short, she doesn’t know whether she can trust the sheriff’s wife.
“I might ’a’ known she needed help! I tell you, it’s queer, Mrs. Peters. We live close together, and we live far apart. We all go through the same things—it’s all just a different kind of the same thing! If it weren’t—why do you and I understand? Why do we know—what we know this minute?”
She dashed her hand across her eyes. Then, seeing the jar of fruit on the table, she reached for it and choked out:
“If I was you I wouldn’t tell her her fruit was gone! Tell her it ain’t. Tell her it’s all right—all of it. Here—take this in to prove it to her! She—she may never know whether it was broke or not.”
These lines occur after the women discover the dead bird and begin to understand that it is the clue Mr. Henderson is seeking. As she has done before, Mrs. Hale expresses regret that she got so busy with her own life that she fell out of touch with Minnie, her girlhood friend. Her words express the idea that women share experiences generally, if not in the detail, and thus understand each other and should support each other in difficulties. This is sisterhood, and if it were not valid, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters would not have so quickly connected the dead bird with John Wright’s murder. So strong is Mrs. Hale’s empathy that she cries and must wipe her eyes. Out of this empathy, she suggests a kindness: a lie about the fruit, told so that Minnie won’t feel the loss of her hard work. Her suggestion must resonate with Mrs. Peters because she takes the jar and wraps it in cloth to take with her to the jail.
