Reading Segment #1

COUNTY ATTORNEY

[Looking around.] I guess we'll go upstairs first -- and then out to the barn and around there. [To the SHERIFF.] You're convinced that there was nothing important here -- nothing that would point to any motive.

SHERIFF

Nothing here but kitchen things. [The COUNTY ATTORNEY, after again looking around the kitchen, opens the door of a cupboard closet. He gets up on a chair and looks on a shelf. Pulls his hand away, sticky.]

COUNTY ATTORNEY

Here's a nice mess. [The women draw nearer.]

MRS. PETERS

[To the other woman.] Oh, her fruit; it did freeze. [To the LAWYER.]
She worried about that when it turned so cold. She said the fire'd go out and her jars would break.

SHERIFF

Well, can you beat the women! Held for murder and worryin' about her preserves.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

I guess before we're through she may have something more serious than preserves to worry about.

HALE

Well, women are used to worrying over trifles.
[The two women move a little closer together.]
 

COUNTY ATTORNEY

[With the gallantry of a young politician.]
And yet, for all their worries, what would we do without the ladies? [The women do not unbend. He goes to the sink, takes a dipperful of water from the pail and pouring it into a basin, washes his hands. Starts to wipe them on the roller-towel, tur ns it for a cleaner place.]
Dirty towels! [Kicks his foot against the pans under the sink.]
Not much of a housekeeper, would you say, ladies?

MRS. HALE

[Stiffly.] There's a great deal of work to be done on a farm.

COUNTY ATTORNEY

To be sure. And yet [With a little bow to her] I know there are some Dickson county farmhouses which do not have such roller towels.
[He gives it a pull to expose its full length again.]

MRS. HALE

Those towels get dirty awful quick. Men's hands aren't always as clean as they might be.