The Help

"Mister Raleigh Leefolt still at home this morning, which is rare. Whenever he here, he look like he just counting the minutes till he get to go back to his accounting job. Even on Saturday. But today he carrying on bout something. "This is my damn house and I pay for what goddamn goes in it!"Mister Leefolt yell. Miss Leefolt trying to keep up behind him with that smile that mean she ain't happy. I hide out in the washroom. It's been two days since the bathroom talk come up and I was hoping it was over. Mister Leefolt opens the back door to look at the truck setting there, slam it back closed again. "I put up with the new clothes, all the damn trips to New Orleans with your sorority sisters, but this takes the goddamn cake." "But it'll increase the value of the house. Hilly said so!" I'm still in the washroom, but I can almost hear Miss Leefolt trying to keep that smile on her face. "We can't afford it! And we do not take orders from the Holbrooks!" Everthing get real quite for a minute. Then I hear the pap-pap of little feetum pajamas. "Da-dee?" I come out the washroom and into the kitchen then cause Mae Mobley's my business. Mister Leefolt's already kneeling down to her. He's wearing a smile look like it's made out a rubber. "Guess what, honey?" She smile back. She waiting for a good surprise. "You're not going to college so your mama's friends don't have to use the same bathroom as the maid." He stomp off and slam the door so hard it make Baby Girl blink."

"You is kind. You is smart. You is important."

Aibileen, the narrator in this paragraph, quietly observes a scene between her two white employers and their daughter, Mae Mobley. The author bitterly emphasizes Mae Mobley's parents' social insecurity and how Mr. and Ms. Leefolt raise Mae Mobley is heartbreakingly indifferent- Aibileen sadly notes that Ms. Leefolt is often too concerned about her friends and social image that she rarely takes time to spend with her daughter, something that Aibileen tries to make up for by giving Mae Mobley her own positive influence. Later in the book, when her parents discover Mae Mobley teaching her brother how to play "Back-O-The-Bus" and "Drugstore Counter" (games that Aibileen have invented that cleverly instill antiracist beliefs), Mae Mobley shows the character that "Aibee" has taught her.