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“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 so cold last night. She said the fire would go out and her jars might burst.”
Mrs. Peters’ husband broke into a laugh.
“Well, can you beat the women! 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.”
This exchange occurs after Mr. Henderson, investigating the cobbled-together cabinets in Minnie’s kitchen, touches the jars of preserved fruit that froze and cracked during the night. Minnie would not have let the fire go out, but the attorney “resentfully” declares her cabinet a “fine mess.” Mrs. Peters and Mrs. Hale understand what the broken jars represent: many hours of tending fruit trees, harvesting and preparing fruit, and preserving it over a hot stove, during the summer, for use during the winter. This task is part of providing the family’s food, hardly a “trifle.” Minnie’s concern for her fruit is valid and demonstrates her competence and care, yet the men laugh at her concern. For the men, the broken jars become another mark against Minnie, another reason to accuse her of lacking “the home-making instinct.” Because the men and the women interpret the significance of the ruined fruit so differently, the men dismiss the mess and move on to the crime scene in the bedroom. Ironically, the shattered jars and the general state of the kitchen are the first of the clues that will lead the women to the motive for Wright’s murder.
She turned to the stove, saying something about that fire not being much to brag of. She worked with it a minute, and when she straightened up she said aggressively:
“The law is the law—and a bad stove is a bad stove. How’d you like to cook on this?”—pointing with the poker to the broken lining. She opened the oven door and started to express her opinion of the oven; but she was swept into her own thoughts, thinking of what it would mean, year after year, to have that stove to wrestle with. The thought of Minnie Foster trying to bake in that oven—and the thought of her never going over to see Minnie Foster—.
She was startled by hearing Mrs. Peters say: “A person gets discouraged—and loses heart.”
Mrs. Hale’s complaint about the stove occurs after Mrs. Peters defends the sheriff and attorney, who Mrs. Hale says are “kind of sneaking” as they go through Minnie’s house looking for clues. She echoes Mrs. Peter’s defense that “the law is the law” and immediately undermines it by assessing the stove’s condition. Mrs. Peters has already noted that Wright was a “close,” or cheap, man, and the state of Minnie’s kitchen, cabinets, stove, the rocking chair in which she sewed, and her mended clothes prove that she is correct. Her sympathy for Minnie increases as she muses about trying to keep house well, “year after year,” under these conditions. Mrs. Peters’ understanding assessment of what Minnie likely experienced surprises Mrs. Hale, coming so soon after the sheriff’s wife defends the men’s actions, and demonstrates that she, too, grasps the significance of the state of the kitchen. The murder was committed upstairs in the bedroom, where the men search for clues. But the crime began in that kitchen, and the motive had been years in the making.
