A Virtuous Ruby (8 page)

Ruby bowed her head and covered her face in her hands. “I’ve failed. I meant to save you all.”

“You can’t do everything alone, Ruby. You got Solomon now. What about him? He got to be taken care of. You got to get him out of the mill.”

Ruby’s head snapped up at Mags’s words. She had not even thought of that. In a few years’ time, Solomon could end up in his grandfather’s cotton mill, dodging between the machines to pick up bobbins.

Unless she did something but what?

She would figure it out. It would take some time.

And that doctor better stay out of her way. Or she would kick him again. The warm blood rose high in her veins at recalling her earlier behavior to him. She hoped to become a better person.

When Adam came around the corner, the sight of Ruby murmuring words of comfort to Mags and wiping her sister’s salty tears away with her bare hand struck a deep chord in him. He was a full-fledged intruder and turned away to the corner. Then, Ruby opened her eyes and glared at him. Her gaze made him want to shrink away, but then he stopped himself. He had come upon an intimate moment between sisters for sure, but he had done nothing wrong.

“I’m sorry,” he offered by way of apology.

“Thank you,” Mags took up a sodden handkerchief. “I know you done what you could, Doctor.”

“Did.” Ruby corrected.

“Did. Travis was just a soldier in this cruel world. I tell—told—Ruby I’m going to that mill to start working and then Travis would be proud of me.”

“I’m not sure that’s the right thing to do.” Adam didn’t attempt to stop the frown from crossing his face, making his brow crease.

“Well, that’s one thing we can agree on.” Ruby sat up a little straighter next to her taller sister and squeezed her sister’s hands.

Mags held her head high and stared at both of them. “I need to get inside to the guests. Make sure Mama has help.” She drew her long legs up under her from the edge of the porch and stood, steadying herself before going into the house to the embrace of the community.

Ruby shook her head. “Mags can be mighty quiet, but stubborn when she wants.”

Adam ventured closer and the very faint traces of some of the salt on Ruby’s face came into view. His heart thudded at the sight of her pain, and he wanted to reach out and wipe them away for her. “But I appreciate you coming in and saying that to her. Maybe, you being an educated doctor man, you can get her to see that mill isn’t for her.”

“I can do my best.”

“I need to finish high school. If I can get to finish, I can help my sisters.”

“It must be nice to have sisters. A family. People you can count on.”

“You don’t have any?” Ruby lowered her head. “I’m sorry. I forgot.”

“It’s fine. I sometimes don’t remember that I have a brother either.”

“He hasn’t tried to be your brother.”

“Certainly not.” Adam stood next to one of the strong beams that held up the house and the solid nature of the wood that John Bledsoe used to protect his family struck him. What a good man he was, and still, despite his protections of building this big porch for his daughters, they were still terribly vulnerable.

“That’s something. David always wanted a brother growing up.”

“Really?”

Ruby nodded. “Yes. So I told him I would be his younger brother.”

“You look far away from being a brother.” Adam tried to keep the admiration from his voice, but he couldn’t help it. Her rounded womanly figure with her white dress and tiny roses was very pleasant to watch in the cooling heat of the summer day.

Ruby laughed. “Not when I was younger. I wanted to be a boy. David played along with me for a good long while, and let me believe it. My family helped too. Always letting me do boy stuff in helping Daddy with the farm work, until Mama forced me to help her with her laundry work. I can push a plow better than any of my sisters.”

Was that anything to brag about? “Can’t push a plow forever.”

“Truly. Can’t be a boy forever too, especially when you are a girl. Things started happening, changing when I was about fourteen. Life ain’t never been the same since.”

“Ruby, those changes are a natural part of life,” Adam cleared his throat and hesitated. How to comfort her? “They make us who we are.”

He had upset her. And he didn’t mean to. His fingers tingled with uncertainty. He had never known how to talk to women. Or maybe it was this one. This one very singular woman who was different from anyone he had ever known.

“It was me changing that set everything off. I changed up to a woman and then David changed and he wasn’t my friend anymore.” She held her neck high and proud. “I talk to my sisters all the time. And we’re close. But David. I told him all my dreams. And he took everything I said, and used it for himself. I can’t ever forgive him.”

How could he blame her? But standing there in the twilight of the day, watching the sun go down and the people of the town make their way into the Bledsoe home to pay their respects to poor dead Travis, he palmed his chin with a thoughtful hand. Somehow, someway, all of that shouldn’t have to matter for Ruby. There was a whole world out there and he had to introduce her to it.

Chapter Seven

At breakfast a few days later, Adam used his most convincing words and his logical arguments to appeal to Ruby to forward his proposition for her future.

“No,” she said. Immediately.

“Excuse me?” He swallowed some of the good strong coffee to wash down the remnants of his biscuit, covered with some of Lona’s excellent peach jam. He’d get corpulent on Lona’s food if he ended up staying in Georgia for any length of time, perhaps another reason to keep going. But those deep brown eyes of Ruby’s and the wonderful, independent toss of her head compelled him like a siren’s call, telling him to convince her, even though she didn’t like him and this was the first time in days they had spoken.

“I don’t want to go up north. I have my work to do here. I have my family here. Why would I go up north to some cold place?”

“So you can stay alive.” Lona slapped a plate of fried salt pork on the table. “And I ain’t taking Solomon on. I’m done raising babies.”

Ruby glared at her mother. Adam was glad that her glare wasn’t at him—this time. “Of course I won’t. Why would I have gone to all this trouble to have him then? To keep him alive?”

“I don’t know, child. Tell us. Here this man. He got an opportunity for you so you don’t end up shot like a deer like my baby brother. Go on and go to nursing school.”

“I can’t believe you are willing to sell me off to the highest bidder, Mama. Just some man who comes into your door, says he’s a doctor so you let him carry off your first born. I would never do that to Solomon.”

Delie swung her bare feet as she sat next to Adam and her short braids stuck out on her head. “I think Ruby’s afraid to go up north. She don’t talk right. None of us do. You talk nice.”

Delie gazed at him with all the love a five-year-old heart could muster. The sparks in her eyes made him want to chuckle, if he weren’t so concerned about Ruby’s welfare. Life could turn around so fast. He had no ties last week and was all alone in the world, an outcast. Now, he was surrounded by this wonderful family, whose prized jewel, the oldest daughter, refused him because she had work to do in this town. And she didn’t like him.

Ruby had different sparks in her eyes, looking at her little sister, as if she wanted to kill her. “I’m not afraid of anything.”

“Then you a fool, as we always knew you were,” Lona called in from the kitchen. “Everybody got to be afraid of something.”

“Is it true, Ruby?” Adam swallowed the last bite of delicious biscuit, savoring the tang of the bright peach sweetness.

“I’m a southern woman. I belong here.” She shifted and her bare feet peeped out from under her day dress, and the sight made him uncomfortable. Why? He was a doctor. Why did it matter, and why now? The sight of her bare feet made something in his heart surge and he clenched his fists. The sight was so intimate it was as if he were seeing her naked somehow. “I don’t belong with fancy talkers there.”

Adam wanted to encourage her away from Winslow. “You could do more raising money for your anti-lynching crusade there. Ida Wells-Barnett lives up north.”

Ruby’s eyes lit up. “In Chicago.”

“And she assists her husband in his legal work. She works within the law to see about helping people from the threats of being lynched.”

“I thought you didn’t know about Mrs. Barnett’s work.”

Adam spread his hands wide. “You never let me say what I knew. You just presumed. You could go on to nursing school and help that way as well.”

“They have nursing schools for Negroes up there?” Ruby’s eyes were wide with wonder. The rest of the table was very interested in his answer.

“Yes, of course. They have them everywhere, and in Pittsburgh where I’m going. Where else would they train?”

“I don’t know. I never even thought about it before.” Solomon gurgled with appreciation, but Ruby tossed her head again. “I don’t have a high school diploma.”

“You been trying,” Lona said, in defense of her daughter. “It ain’t your fault there aren’t any high schools around here. All my children, once they leave the eighth grade school down in the Bottoms that ain’t worth anything, they all study and read and talk.”

Their hunger to educate themselves was admirable, surely. “You do need a high school diploma to get into nursing school, although some programs have it combined. You could go to nursing school and high school at the same time. The need for Negro nurses, as well as doctors, is very great.”

“Is this school in Pittsburgh one of them?” John pulled Solomon in a little closer to him.

Adam’s face fell, knowing he had to tell this wonderful family the truth. “I am afraid not. Ruby would have to get that some other way.” Then Adam remembered something in his schooling. “Where I went to school at Michigan, they had a correspondence program where bright people would be able to take exams for their high school diploma by mail. I could proctor these things for Ruby so she could meet the standards. She could also get some beginnings to her nursing school education by working with me.”

“It sounds like a lot of money.”

Lona might not have been educated, but she understood a few things.

“They do cost money, ma’am.” Adam addressed her, respectfully. “But there’s such a shortage of nurses, it may be possible to have some fees waived. I would like to help however I can.” He could even say to Paul Winslow he needed help training a nurse and get money for it from him. His father didn’t need to know who the nurse was.

“And I can stay here?” Ruby spoke up.

“For now. The correspondence part means writing in and submitting something regularly, but you would be here, or anywhere.”

“That might be the answer, John.” Lona’s eyes shone bright. “Ruby could get a high school diploma. It would help the others.”

“I always wanted a high school diploma too.” Mags put in.

“Baby birthing isn’t regular enough. Being a nurse would give me the perfect excuse to see people in their homes, stead of going to the mills. When can I start?”

Ruby’s family regarded her as if she were insane, but he just marveled. What a spirit she had. She would let nothing stop her. “Right away. We can work whenever I am free.”

Lona nodded her agreement. “It’s the answer I been praying to Jesus for. You a gift from the Lord, Dr. Morson.”

“He surely is.” Delie nodded in agreement.

“Let’s stop talking. I want to get started.”

“It’s a good thing I kept my textbooks, then. I’ll unload them and we can start after I return from the Winslows.”

“What you have to go back up there for?” Lona’s voice lowered to a whisper. “They don’t need to know about none of this, do they?”

“It’s none of their business what I do,” Ruby insisted.

“No. That’s not why. I’m not staying in the house with them. I have to speak with Paul Winslow about how much he’s going to pay me.”

The Bledsoes were relieved. “Good. Only I don’t know about the pay part. He’s mighty cheap,” Ruby warned.

“You’ve said that before, Miss Ruby. I’m well prepared,” Adam put in.

Though he realized his mistake later that day as he sat with Paul Winslow. “It was mighty expensive to send you to school,” Paul said, sitting in his parlor surrounded by fine furnishings. “Although I’ll give you some start up money for a place to treat them.”

Adam cleared his throat. “I’ll also need some funds for nurse training.”

“Of course.” Paul waved his hands. “I expected you would need some assistance.”

By the time Adam figured in the cost for nurse training and an office space, which he was not going to have since he would use the Bledsoe’s back room, his salary was more in line with what he had thought it should be. He prepared to send off a telegram postponing his appointment in the steel mills for an indefinite period of time.

Now with money, he could help Ruby get ready for her exams and see to the health of the community Ruby loved so much. Could Ruby feel a spark between them?

Maybe not. He would stay and help her. He wanted her to have everything his mother did not. Ruby deserved to be happy.

Thank God for all reading and writing she had done while she had kept herself at home. It had served her well. If high school should ever come to her, she wanted to be ready. In some subjects, she found she could take the exams now. She had a great skill set in writing, reasoning, science and math. However, she was less than adequate in foreign languages. She did not like them. “I don’t see why I have to know all of this,” Ruby grumbled as she reviewed her Latin primer.

“Do you see how many words have to do with these ancient languages?” Adam pointed out something on a page.

“Yes, but still.”

“There are even more medical words that have to do with ancient languages.”

Ruby nodded her head and continued studying. She had Solomon on her lap as she read Latin verbs aloud to him. No giving up. Just knowing what her own education had been, and knowing the poor education which awaited Solomon in a few years, made her want to study these horrid, difficult Latin verbs. It would be harder to watch her beautiful little boy be educated for only eight years and then work in the cotton fields all day. Or even worse, work in the mill where his own family would make sure Solomon led a limited life. She couldn’t imagine her Solomon working in the mill, breathing in the fetid mill air full of lint. No. That was no life for her child. He would do better. And so would she.

Exhausted from a long night of visiting patients, Adam helped John Bledsoe work on the small back room to convert it for visitation. Adam knew a few things, but he was not the most proficient carpenter, so he was glad to have an additional set of hands to help him. The past week he had been in Winslow looking for one father. John Bledsoe was a pleasant surprise. He enjoyed being with this man, so at peace with his life and his choices. How did he manage it?

“They is all jewels,” John kept repeating as they worked together. “Every one of them. And they going to be someone. Even Ruby. Folks round here think she’s done. But she got something special. She always have.”

He couldn’t agree more.

Later, having displaced Mags out of the small back room and into the big bedroom with her sisters, he fell into a heavy dreamless sleep sensing something special which stirred him awake now. There were small grunting sounds that sounded vaguely human.

Ruby.

Adam sat up in the bed and looked out of the small window into the backyard. She was digging in the soil and she kept putting things into an old tobacco box that she must have gotten from her father since John had a few like it. Ruby’s feet were bare and folded under her as she worked. Her jet black hair had been swept back into one thick plait which swung down her back. She wore men’s work overalls and a white shirt underneath, and instead of covering her feminine shape, the masculine clothing enhanced it.

As he watched her, his lungs were on fire. There was something special about Ruby all right, and it almost threatened to capture him and pull him over into the abyss. He had to remember why he became a doctor, and to do his best to assist Ruby through her situation with Solomon, so she and the boy didn’t have to struggle. He dressed quietly and stepped out onto the back porch.

“Are you trying to get out of lessons, Miss Bledsoe?” He tried to fold his arms and look sternly at her, but it didn’t work. She was very captivating. She seemed to call a truce on her hatred of him since he had explained about a high school education and he was glad for it. He didn’t want to think of a time where she didn’t like him.

Ruby brushed the red dirt on her hands on the front of her overalls. Even dirty, her tapered fingers held a grace and elegance to them. “This is good fishing time. Before Solomon gets up, before anybody gets up. That’s where I am going. Come along if you want, but be quiet.”

She enjoyed telling him a thing or two. “You aren’t afraid to go out by yourself now?”

Ruby shook her head and offered him a pole to carry as she gathered her own by the barn door. “None of the troublemakers are up now. They stay up late, they don’t get up early like me. You got to get up early to catch Ruby Bledsoe.”

“They sure do,” Adam echoed and they walked along in the darkness, finally comfortable with one another. The comfort surprised him. He usually saw women as patients, an ailment to be treated, a puzzle to be figured out. Thinking of talking with a woman as a friend, and being with one—that was something else. She startled him when she asked him a question.

“Do you ever take your tie off?”

Adam cleared his throat and looked over at her. Her brown eyes shone at him in the darkness and were wide with innocence. “Didn’t your parents ever teach you it was improper to speak with a man about his apparel?”

“How am I going to find out things if I don’t bother asking?” Ruby shook her head. “And you say you teach me.”

“That’s it, Ruby. I’m just guiding your learning process. You’re very smart. You’ve taken in a lot on your own. Just like Lincoln and Douglass, great men who didn’t have an official education.”

“So you saying I’m a great woman then?”

Adam stopped mid-stride. How did she keep doing that? Putting him off of his mark? “Ruby, I…”

Ruby threw her head back and laughed. “It’s okay, Doctor. I get what you were saying. Nothing inappropriate from you, that’s why the tie stays on.”

“It stays on so people can see that people of our race can be proper.”

“That’s nice, but it’s not just what we wear,” Ruby insisted. “It’s who we are. That’s why I’m starting a chapter of the NAACP here. I want everyone to know they can have dignity and not be at the mercy of the mill. We can do it ourselves.”

“It’ll be hard for some who have families.”

“We can start small, like with those who don’t have families. What about you?”

“Me?”

“Yeah. You can be the first one to sign up.” Ruby bent over and pushed some branches to the side, going onward to a small creek bed, and got some of her worms out of the box. She fixed the pole for him, presuming he didn’t know how, which was sweet of her. “Here, Doctor. Throw it in like this. I’ll keep an eye on it for you.”

“Thanks.”

“Like I said, you can be one of the first ones. Then the membership is bound to explode.”