In Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles, Mrs. Hale and Mrs. Peters hide the box with the bird’s body in it. Why?

In Susan Glaspell's play, Trifles,
Mrs. Minnie Wright has been accused of murdering her husband as he slept. A group of men
and a pair of women arrive at the beginning of the play, entering the Wrights' cold and
gloomy home. The men are intent upon finding evidence with which to condemn Mrs. Wright.
The women are there to collect clothing and personal items to take to Minnie while she
is in jail.

As the women search for things Mrs. Wright can
use, they come across a battered bird cage in a cabinet. The door has been half ripped
off its hinge. This is puzzling as there is no bird about. As the women continue, they
find Mrs. Wright's sewing box, and inside, wrapped in a piece of silk (to show its worth
to Mrs. Wright) is the dead bird.

readability="24">

MRS. HALE. …I expect this has got sewing things
in it (Brings out a fancy box.) What a pretty box. Looks like
something somebody would give you. Maybe her scissors are in here. (Opens box.
Suddenly puts her hand to her nose.) Why-- (Mrs. Peters bend
nearer, then turns her face away.) There's something wrapped up in this piece
of silk.

MRS. PETERS. Why, this isn't her
scissors.

MRS. HALE (lifting the
silk.) Oh, Mrs. Peters--it's-- (Mrs. Peters bends
closer.)

MRS. PETERS. It's the
bird.

MRS. HALE (jumping up.) But,
Mrs. Peters--look at it. Its neck! Look at its neck! It's all--other side
to.

MRS. PETERS. Somebody--wrung--its neck.

(Their eyes meet. A look of growing comprehension of
horror.)

Clearly
the women understand that Mr. Wright murdered the bird; it would have been one bright
spot in this dark home in which Mrs. Wright lived. And the women remember that when she
was younger and single, she was lovely, and she sang in the church choir. The bird would
have meant a great deal to Mrs. Wright. Mr. Wright's brutality and total disregard for
his wife is apparent. In face of this emotional and mental abuse of the woman, Mrs. Hale
and Mrs. Peters believe that the death of the bird was Mrs. Wright's motive for killing
her husband. He destroyed the one beautiful thing in her unhappy, lonely, childless
home: and she snapped.

As the women perceive how little the
men truly understand the difficult life of a woman, particularly a wife, a division
rises between the women and the men, and the ladies choose not to
share their discovery, so as to prevent the men from finding the evidence they are
searching for to convict Mrs. Wright of murder.