The Help - By Kathryn Stockett Page 0,43

that makes me kind a sad, memoring.

After while, Mae Mobley come over and press her cheek up to mine and just hold it there, like she know I be hurting. I hold her tight, whisper, “You a smart girl. You a kind girl, Mae Mobley. You hear me?” And I keep saying it till she repeat it back to me.

THE NEXT FEW WEEKS is real important for Mae Mobley. You think on it, you probably don’t remember the first time you went to the bathroom in the toilet bowl stead of a diaper. Probably don’t give no credit to who taught you, neither. Never had a single baby I raise come up to me and say, Aibileen, why I sure do thank you for showing me how to go in the pot.

It’s a tricky thing. You try and get a baby to go in the toilet before its time, it’ll make em crazy. They can’t get the hang of it and get to thinking low a theyselves. Baby Girl, though, I know she ready. And she know she ready. But, Law, if she ain’t running my fool legs off. I set her on her wooden baby seat so her little hiney don’t fall in and soon as I turn my back, she off that pot running.

“You got to go, Mae Mobley?”

“No.”

“You drunk up two glasses a grape juice, I know you got to go.”

“Nooo.”

“I give you a cookie if you go for me.”

We look at each other awhile. She start eyeing the door. I don’t hear nothing happening in the bowl. Usually, I can get them going after about two weeks. But that’s if I got they mamas helping me. Little boys got to see they daddy doing it standing-up style, little girls got to see they mama setting down. Miss Leefolt won’t let that girl come near her when she going, and that’s the trouble.

“Go just a little for me, Baby Girl.”

She stick her lip out, shake her head.

Miss Leefolt gone to get her hair done, else I ask her again will she set the example even though that woman’s already said no five times. Last time Miss Leefolt say no, I was fixing to tell her how many kids I raised in my lifetime and ask her what number she on, but I ended up saying alright like I always do.

“I give you two cookies,” I say even though her mama always getting on me about making her fat.

Mae Mobley, she shake her head and say, “You go.”

Now, I ain’t saying I ain’t heard this before, but usually I can get around it. I know, though, she got to see how it’s done fore she gone get to business. I say, “I don’t got to go.”

We look at each other. She point again and say, “You go.”

Then she get to crying and fidgeting cause that seat making a little indent on her behind and I know what I’m on have to do. I just don’t know how to go about it. Should I take her out to the garage to mine or go here in this bathroom? What if Miss Leefolt come home and I’m setting up on this toilet? She have a fit.

I put her diaper back on and we go out to the garage. Rain make it smell a little swampy. Even with the light on it’s dark, and they ain’t no fancy wallpaper like inside the house. Fact, they really ain’t no proper walls at all, just plyboard hammered together. I wonder if she gone be scared.

“Alright, Baby Girl, here tis. Aibileen’s bathroom.”

She stick her head in and her mouth make the shape of a Cheerio. She say, “Oooooo.”

I take down my underthings and I tee-tee real fast, use the paper, and get it all back on before she can really see anything. Then I flush.

“And that’s how you go in the toilet,” I say.

Well, don’t she look surprise. Got her mouth hanging open like she done seen a miracle. I step out and fore I know it, she got her diaper off and that little monkey done climbed on that toilet, holding herself up so she don’t fall in, going tee-tee for herself.

“Mae Mobley! You going! That’s real good!” She smile and I catches her fore she dip down in it. We run back inside and she get her two cookies.

Later on, I get her on her pot and she go for me again. That’s the hardest part, those first couple a times. By

readonlinefreenovel.com Copyright 2016 - 2024