Ellen Foster

Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons Page A

Book: Ellen Foster by Kaye Gibbons Read Free Book Online
Authors: Kaye Gibbons
Tags: Fiction, Classics
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stay too dressed.
    When I had to live with them a while we would come tothis church even before I learned the name of my new mama. Of all the ladies in the church that could make into a new mama she of all people was the one for me. Even when I got back to Dora’s house I thought about her and all that she looked like to me.
    I watched her in the churchyard when she would walk straight and square down the steps like she might be a Queen or a lady going to be executed with dignity. Down the steps she would go by the gossipy ladies quiet and I always tried to catch her eyes. Lord eyes that would flush all the ugly out of your system and leave in you too much air to breathe.
    She certainly was a oddity and I had to step back when I saw her and was not looking for anything in particular but knew her time was what all that I needed to grab. I would think when I went to the house and write down ways and tricks of how to have her.
    Now it is done. It worked and I pat myself on the back each Sunday I walk down the steps close as I can be up next to her.
    When or if you come to my house now after church you will smell all the things that have been simmering on low. It has been waiting for me and me for it.
    If I am very hungry my dress comes off of me in a heartbeat. Sometimes I hurry too fast and I forget to unzip my back. It is helpless to smell lunch through a dress that is hung on your face. I have busted a zipper and ripped two neck collars trying to strip and my new mama told me some things about patience.
    I stay starved though.
    Everything we do almost on Sundays has to do with food.When we finish the meal on hand it is time to prepare chicken salad, ham salad, bread, three bean soup, or what have you for that week’s lunch boxes. That way my new mama says she has a head start and will not need to go crazy in the morning times when there is already breakfast to get in you and coats to get on you.
    I know that ten years from now I will be a member of the food industry. Or I might read or do art. I have seen many pictures drawed or painted of food. They always appeal to me.
    Everybody like me, Stella, Francis, my new mama, Jo Jo, but not the baby are involved in this Sunday cooking. Only Stella and me came with useful experience so we get to work the stove. My new mama says I fry a mean egg.
    Today it is bread and soup. It does not sound like much but it is hardy and I like to show it off in the lunchroom when all the other people have a measly tray of this or that.
    When we are in the kitchen we are a regular factory. It is just on Sundays we all get to cook supervised. The rest of the week we learn one at a time.
    Jo Jo gets time off from the kitchen to practice dancing to her records. Not rock and roll but slow and no singing music. Some of the records I cannot tell apart but some of them I get in my head and use them for background music for my old stories.
    I myself am dying to put on the froufrou skirt and slick top Jo Jo dances around in. Not for somebody to see me but to stand in the hall mirror and observe myself private and practice my style of posing.
    She has been taking lessons at the lady’s school all year anddoes she evermore love it. You can see her dancing even when she is only in one place or eating supper.
    I myself can dance like I already said but not like Jo Jo. I had rather shake a leg.
    My new mama says for me to wash the flour off my arms and do my homework. If you are like me you will put it off until the last minute and then Wild Kingdom comes on but that is just too bad.
    I have a donated desk and chair in my room.
    If the door is not shut good the baby Roger will crawl in here by mistake. That low it is hard to tell where you are at.
    If I do not feel like company I turn him back toward the door and motion for him to leave. If he stays he is always hot to find something of mine to break or gnaw on. I keep my old microscope and art supply out of reach.
    I usually hand him my gloves because they

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