Sunday Saying from “The Help”

The Help by Kathryn Stockett … is a current bestseller. It is described as a “timeless and universal story about the lines we abide by, and the ones we don’t.”

I had a little hard time getting into the book at first, but after the first few chapters, I was hooked and couldn’t put it down until I finished it. There is no way I can do justice to this book with one quote. But here’s a short segment from Chapter 12 to whet your appetite. Then go buy or borrow the book and read it.

The book is set in the 1960s. This is a conversation between Abilileen, a black maid and Miss Skeeter, a white woman, who recently graduated college. The two are just becoming friends.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Abilileen: “I’s thinking I ought to do some reading. Might help me with my own writing.”

Miss Skeeter: “Go down to the State Street Library. They have a whole room full of Southern writers. Faulkner, Eudora Welty—”

Aibileen gives me a dry cough. “You know colored folks ain’t allowed in that library.”

I (Miss Skeeter) sit there a second, feeling stupid. “I can’t believe I forgot that.” The colored library must be pretty bad. There was a sit-in at the white library a few years ago and it made the papers. When the colored crowd showed up for the sit-in trail, the police department simply stepped back and turned the German shepherds loose. I look at Aibileen and am reminded, once again, the risk she’s taking talking to me. “I’ll be glad to pick the books up for you, ” I say.

Aibileen hurries to the bedroom and comes back with a list. “I better mark the ones I want first. I been on the waiting list for To Kill a Mockingbird at the Carver Library near about three months now. Less see …”

I watch as she puts checkmarks next to the books: The souls of Black Folks by W.E.B. Du Bois, poems by Emily Dickinson (any), The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. “I read some of that back in school, but I didn’t get to finish.” She keeps marking, stopping to think which one she wants next …

On her twelfth title, I have to know. “Aibileen, how long have you been waiting to ask me this? If I’d check these books out for you?”

“A while.” She shrugs. “I guess I’s afraid to mention it.”

“Did you … think I’d say no?”

“These is white rules. I don’t know which ones you following and which ones you ain’t.”

We look at each other a second. “I’m tired of the rules,” I say.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

What ‘rules’ do you, I or the world in general live by today? Are you tired of any of these ‘rules’?