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Of course, I was still like someone poling in the canal for the first time. I was excited and anxious to do well, but I didn't know what was around the next bend.
8
Mine for a Moment
.
In anticipation of my arrival, Gladys Tate had
Octavious move a second bed into her room and place it beside her bed. Mama said she heard Gladys tell Octavious to tell the servants it was for Mama because she would have to be at Gladys Tate's side continually now. Neither Mama nor I understood why Gladys didn't just move to another room for the time being or put me into one of the guest rooms, but the bed had been prepared and was waiting. After I entered the room, the door was kept locked and only Octavious and Mama were to be permitted into the room. Gladys insisted the curtains be kept closed, and of course, she ordered us to keep our voices down.
Gladys was impressed with how difficult it was for me to come down the stairs to her room and the effort it took to get me comfortably situated in the bed.
"How soon could it be?" she asked Mama, and Mama told her it could be hours or could be days. "There's a strong possibility it's false labor and
it'll take the remaining weeks it was meant to take.
We'll have to wait and see," Mama said.
Nevertheless, Gladys told Octavious to go out
and forbid the servants to come up the stairs. "In fact," she decided after a moment's thought,
"discharge them, all of them, immediately;"
"Discharge them?"
"Give them all a week's holiday," she insisted. "But what am I to say is the reason?"
"You don't have to give them a reason,
Octavious," she replied haughtily., "They work for us.
We give the orders. Just do it," she snapped, and
waved her hand at him as if he were one of her
servants, too. If there were any doubts as to which of
them ran the house and their lives,, those doubts. died. "But . ." Octavious looked to Mama.
"I told you the bleeding doesn't always, mean
the birthing's coming shortly,' Mama explained.. "A
week, two weeks, who knows?"
"I don't care," she told Mama, and turned back
to, Octavious. "Just have everyone out of the house. I
don't want anyone to suspect anything. I've come all
this way convincing people it is I who is giving birth.
I don't want to risk any mistakes, any accidental
discoveries," Gladys insisted.
