A Virtuous Ruby

by Piper Huguley

  In the hot summer sunshine, a chill froze her limbs. Coming here was wrong. Poor Solomon should not have to deal with this. If she could only move, she would take the baby back to the car, or better yet, walk with him on down the road. Why were people staring and judging them? Why had she listened to Lona?

  Adam turned the baby outward again. “I believe, Mr. Dodge, God said, ‘suffer the little children to come unto me.’ Surely you know life is a blessing. Perhaps you didn’t hear Solomon has been sick recently. He’s much better now, but this illness alarmed his mother. She wants to have her child blessed.”

  Dodge had the nerve to look shaken. “Dr. Morson.”

  “Glad to see you. We didn’t get to meet at the funeral last week.”

  Ruby took a measure of pleasured delight. Adam didn’t call him Reverend. He extended his hand to Dodge while still keeping a firm arm on Solomon.

  Dodge didn’t approach his handshake. “So you’re still here? I believe the Winslows know you.”

  Adam took back his rejected hand and placed it more firmly on the baby. She could see Adam was fully aware Dodge was judging him, the same way he condemned Solomon, and Adam’s narrowed lips showed his displeasure. “Of course. I’m a child of God too.”

  Dodge shot a glance at Doris Bomead. With her approval, Dodge said, “And welcome. Bring the baby in and we’ll begin church.”

  “Come on, Ruby.” Adam extended the crook of his arm out to her, still holding Solomon with steady hands. She slipped her hand into it, and taking comfort in the firmness of his arm, climbed up the stairs into the church building, which had provided her so much comfort over the years. She was glad to be home.

  Adam despised the man the moment he saw him. Dodge’s gaze at Ruby was full of unseemly lust, as if Ruby were a pastry in a shop window. Dodge’s behavior was not appropriate for a man in his position. He had judged and practically condemned Ruby.

  How many of these people truly understood Ruby’s trials? He doubted any had. In his position, he had been witness to ugly behavior in the world. Because Ruby and David had known one another, people probably blamed her—thinking she had seduced him in some way—just as those who’d condemned him for his mother’s low standing. It wasn’t true. And Ruby wasn’t a woman of low character either.

  Despite Dodge, the service was beautiful and filled with welcoming words. His soul stirred as he looked into Solomon’s innocent face and down at Ruby’s hopeful countenance. She deserved hope. She deserved better. Lona clearly thought he was worthy, but she didn’t know him.

  As he sat there in the church, listening to the beautiful words of welcome, he understood there was something larger at work here. His palms slid off each other, slick with sweat. He pulled out a handkerchief, leaving the cloth wet. Ruby’s newfound role in his life made him better. He was no longer lonely and there was the thrill of joy in his heart for the first time in a long time.

  After church was over, the women went outside and spread the beautiful quilts Lona had made on the ground. The artistry in the quilts stunned him. The spread of food amazed him as well. Clearly, this Sunday picnic the church had once a month was an opportunity for many of these women to show off, and they did. The table nearly sagged, overwhelmed with all kinds of chicken and sandwiches, beautiful pound cakes and pies, and rainbows of jars filled with pickled vegetables.

  Adam ate his fill and then went around and met the congregation. There were the Bledsoes, of course, but other families came forward, and he met them as well. He resolved to come to their homes to gain knowledge about their healthcare, something that had never been done, apparently. The only care they had before was Ruby and her predecessor, an old midwife clearly with very unsafe practices.

  He pushed a fork into a triangle of peach pie and savored the buttery goodness of its crunchy crust mixed with the tangy sweetness of the succulent peaches. Such joy came to him in knowing he could be of purpose to these people, even at the behest of Paul Winslow.

  “Having a good time?” Dodge’s oily tone made him cringe. “Had enough to eat?” Dodge smirked at Adam’s plate that held remains of his uneaten peach pie. Adam faced Dodge. The animosity coming from this man added to the heat of the June day.

  “Everything here was delicious. A wonderful repast. Still eating.” Adam held up the peach pie in hopes he would go away.

  No luck.

  Dodge spread his arms, trying to look like a prophet, but came across as something more like a charlatan. “These are my people.”

  Antipathy radiated off of Dodge. Adam threatened him, so he stood down, but just a tad. “They’re in need of quality care. It was good I was sent for.”

  Dodge fixed him with another judgmental look, “Yes, I heard about how you came to our town. Take care you don’t use the dictates of the white man to keep these people sick and unwell.”

  “The first time someone takes an oath to be a doctor, the first words you learn are ‘Do No Harm.’ I like the words because they remind us, as doctors, we cannot intervene in God’s will by making the situation worse. I think these people, the Negroes of Winslow, will be better with more care.” Adam put more pie into his mouth so Dodge could see he was finished with their talk.

  “A man of God I see,” Dodge’s words came on the back of a turtle. He must not be able to process very fast. “And where do you stand, Doctor? With the Negroes of Winslow or the whites? In your situation, I suppose it would be hard to decide.”

  This man might know his entire history, but he didn’t care. He didn’t like the insinuation in this man’s voice. He swallowed. “I’m here at the invitation of Paul Winslow. I had other offers, but I came here. I knew I was needed.”

  “Really? Or was it to pay your school money back? I hear it is very expensive to educate a doctor.”

  Adam didn’t let any flicker of surprise register on his features. “I wanted to know my family as well.”

  “As long as you aren’t here to make one, you’re welcome.” Dodge eyed Ruby who sat on a blanket and played with Solomon. His inappropriate behavior made Adam lose his appetite. He would have put down his pie but had no place to put it.

  “Reverend, I’m a grown man and I’ll do as I please, without anyone’s approval. Excuse me.” He smoothed out his waistcoat and walked away from the Reverend as quickly as possible. No wonder Ruby hesitated to return to this flock. Adam didn’t think himself worthy of Ruby’s goodness, but he was a much better man than Dodge. He had to do whatever he could to protect Ruby from him.

  Walking toward Ruby, he smiled as she waved him over, smiling. He waved back, marveling at the warmth her smile made him feel.

  If only he could be certain of its continuity.

  Could he ask God for it? He might, but the sun seemed too large and too big a thing to ask an unlistening and unknowing God for.

  Chapter Nine

  The picture of Adam in his crisp summer suit provided some nice flights of fancy for Ruby over the next several days. She remembered how he had waved at her as he approached her and Solomon on the picnic blanket at church.

  Could he possibly like her?

  More than as a teacher?

  A mentor?

  Solomon’s doctor?

  Can’t afford to be distracted by folly. And it would be folly to believe someone like her would be a fit woman for a doctor.

  Delie came running in, looking as if she had rolled around in dirt. Ruby looked up from her task, readying some hand-decorated signs to give to some of the patients.

  “What’re you doing?” Delie poked at the artwork with a red-mud crusted finger.

  “Don’t touch. I’m making signs for my recitation of Frederick Douglass’s ‘What to the Slave is the Fourth of July?’”

  Delie sat down on the bench across for her and scratched her nose. Ruby reached in her skirt pocket and handed her a handkerchief. “When you going to do that?�
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  “At the town celebration.”

  “But what about Archibald Melvin?” Delie blew her nose into Ruby’s clean handkerchief. Delie was the sister most like her, a grubby little tomboy. Even though Ruby was not happy at having to launder what was inside the dirtied handkerchief, she loved Delie with a fierce protectiveness. “You start talking, we’ll miss the music and the fireworks and the ice cream. No more trouble making, Ruby.”

  “No one wants to hear the Declaration of Independence. Not the way Archibald Melvin reads it.”

  “What does Douglass say?”

  Ruby put her brush down. “He says the Fourth of July is not for Negroes. We can’t be happy on that day, because we have been in shackles.”

  “But slavery is over.” Delie put down the handkerchief and started to fiddle around Ruby’s beautiful creations.

  “To a point, yes. But in other ways, no. Stop touching.”

  “I ain’t no slave,” Delie insisted. “And I got to have ice cream.”

  “You’re too young to understand.” Usually, Paul Winslow had big celebrations for the Fourth of July for his namesake town. He hired a band to play music for the recently built bandshell in the town square. There would be ice cream, a rare treat, followed by the annual reading of the Declaration of Independence. And he did all of that so little people like Delie would believe everything was just grand. And would want to work for him in the next few years.

  Ruby grimaced. The music was fine, and the ice cream delicious, but she hated they were forced to endure the reading of the document. She loved the soaring poetry of the Declaration, but Paul Winslow asked Dr. Archibald Melvin, minister of the First Presbyterian church, to read it. The man was older than Methuselah and the way he read the words made Ruby want to fall asleep. She usually did. The reading was only worth enduring to get to the fireworks Winslow would have in the cool of the evening.

  Douglass’s oration made much more sense. Ruby shivered at remembering some of Douglass’s words. She had been in love with a dead man. Douglass had died a few years before she was born. Still, he was such a great man for her people.

  What if Adam were as proud to be Negro as Frederick Douglass?

  She shivered. Good thing he was not. She would not be able to resist him then. Better Adam continue on with his two-faced ways and his embrace of falsity. A man who looked like Adam, with those grey eyes and spoke like Douglass, would be too much distraction from her task to make Winslow better.

  As she added some more color to a border with paint, a sharp knocking at the door startled them. Delie ran to the door to open it and was surprised to see Mary Winslow standing there. Despite the impossible Georgia heat of early July, Mary Winslow was dressed in a very ornate gown of pearl grey and had a matching hat perched on top of her head. As Ruby went to the door, Mary fixed her with a gaze of contempt. Dirty little Delie was far beneath her notice and Delie ran out the back door in response.

  “Is your mother at home?” No polite preamble for her.

  Mary Winslow clutched one of her beautifully designed reminders about her oration in her gray glove. Ruby opened her mouth to say something about it, without getting Lona dragged into whatever Mary Winslow wanted. She decided not to. “Why, yes, ma’am.” Ruby went submissive on her. “Let me get her for you. You can make yourself comfortable on the porch if you like. The heat is something fierce isn’t it? Lemonade?”

  “This isn’t a social call, girl. I want to speak to Lona, now.”

  Ruby turned on her heel and a little hand popped up in the air out of the cradle. Miss Mary’s sharp tone made Solomon stir in his nap. Tempted to go and pat him back down to sleep, she stopped. An idea came to her mind. She went to the kitchen and told Lona that Mary Winslow was on the porch.

  Instantly, Lona’s face became a mass of worry lines. “What could she want from me?”

  Ruby assumed all innocence. “I have no idea.” Ruby followed her mother to the porch where Mary Winslow waited.

  “Mrs. Winslow,” Lona’s voice floated back to her. She went submissive too. “Fine day, ain’t it? Can I help you with something?”

  Mary Winslow sat on the courting porch right under the window to the front room where Solomon napped. Her sharp upset tones were going to further wake the baby. Good. That was just what Ruby wanted. Mrs. Winslow popped up, confronting Lona, “What’s your girl up to now? She’s trying to ruin my husband’s Fourth of July celebration.”

  “No, ma’am.”

  Mary Winslow waved the flyer under Lona’s nose. “What’s this all about? She’s to give an oration? No one wants to hear her speak!”

  Ruby skipped down the three front stairs to the car parked out in the front yard. The Winslow chauffer, Bob, tapped his hands on the wheel of the car, waiting for Mary Winslow to be done with her visit. Ruby waved as she approached him. “How’s Willie? I come to check on him soon. You want a lemonade?”

  The sharp taps stopped. “Baby’s fine. Right healthy. No lemonade, thank you, Ruby Jean. I’m right fine here in this car.”

  Ruby stood next to the car, and whispered. “Who gave her my flyer?”

  Bob’s long chin froze. “I needs this job, Ruby. You can’t get that out of me today, no way.”

  “But you’ll let me know when you can?”

  Bob just nodded. Good, he understood why she needed to know the information. Ruby went back up the red clay path to the house, waving and shouting as she went. “Ok then, Bob!”

  Her mother gripped at her apron corners and Mary Winslow stood over her, shouting at Lona, saying she would have her laundering done elsewhere and Lona would not have her business or her friends’ business anymore. “It’ll be all over for you, Lona, unless you get that girl in line, you hear me?”

  Ruby and her mother clashed often, but it still twisted her up inside to see her mother, a pious if not mistaken woman, as Lona twisted the corner of her apron in worry at the loss of this income. She had to find a way to help her mother, to do better for them all. Ruby went past the little scene on the front porch, back inside the house and picked up Solomon.

  He squirmed in her hold, wet and smelly in a bad way, but she picked him up and held him on her shoulder. Nowadays, Solomon didn’t like this position as much, because he couldn’t see anything, but Ruby rubbed his back to get him to be quiet. Patting him, she wandered toward the front courting porch to hear Mary Winslow. “You have been good and faithful and your laundering skills are wonderful, but I mean…”

  Ruby stood in the open doorway and turned Solomon around so his little face was toward Mary Winslow.

  The woman gave a sharp intake of breath.

  So, that was it. Mary Winslow came down here to get a glimpse of her first grandchild. She didn’t really care what Ruby did. Ruby stared down at her hands and arms filled with her child.

  God’s teachings had taught her to feel compassion for a fellow human being and she let the compassion for Mary Winslow sweep over her. The poor woman was in a cage of her own, in her house, in her hot, heavy and ornate clothing, and in her skin. She couldn’t even come down to say hello and marvel at the beauty of her first grandchild without harassing Lona, who was innocent. Christian pity for Mary Winslow was only appropriate for her as a poor person who could not know the beauty and wonder of Solomon.

  “Ma’am, I know Ruby will not offend. I think she just thought the young people would like to hear something a little different after Reverend. Marvin. I think all of the young people, even the white ones, wonder if something a little different couldn’t happen on the Fourth, sometimes. That’s all she was trying to do, not offend.”

  With the placating note of her mother’s voice, Ruby knew Lona had also noticed how Mary Winslow’s stern countenance had softened on sight of Solomon, who squirmed in his mother’s firm hold. “Well, see she doesn’t.”

  “I won’t, ma’am.” Ruby took a step on
to the courting porch and turned Solomon back over her shoulder, gripping him more firmly as he squirmed. Mary Winslow couldn’t see Solomon’s face anymore, but his soggy bottom faced her instead. “I gots this boy to take care of and I can’t let nothing happen to me like it happened before. Ma’am.”

  Then, Mary Winslow remembered herself, and her backbone straightened again. “See you don’t.” As she turned away, Adam Morson came up the walkway toward the front of the house. “Adam. Dr. Morson. What are you doing here?”

  “The Bledsoes are patients who are part of my community, Mrs. Winslow. And I live here in this house now.”

  “Oh. Well. I can only caution you on the company you keep. I can speak highly of Lona, but the oldest girl of hers is trouble. Stay away from her.”

  “I’ll treat anyone who is in need of my services, ma’am. I’m a doctor.” Adam’s voice was firm.

  Mary Winslow paused at the bottom of the stairs and turned to look at her again. Ruby should have cast her gaze downward, but she couldn’t do it. Not anymore. She stared right into Miss Mary’s blue eyes.

  “Yes. Of course you are a steward of their health, certainly, just as my husband intended. I mean in another way. She is temptation personified. She seduced my son. Don’t think you are invulnerable to her charms.”

  Adam stiffened at Mary Winslow’s accusations. “Ma’am. I’m sure you’re suffering in this heat. Let me escort you to the car.”

  Adam led Mary Winslow to her car and opened the door for her, all without touching her. Ruby sniffed and a sharp odor entered her nostrils and she knew now her son was more than wet. She hurried him back into the front sleeping room and changed his diaper.

  No one was going to malign her or tell her not to give an oration. As much as she loved the words of Frederick Douglass, she got another idea instead.

  Yes.

  Instantly, her spirits perked up at the way Adam had just defended her in front of a powerful woman and all but threw her off of their property. The good doctor was not meek about anything. Why did that surprise her? Would he help her with her plan?