A Virtuous Ruby (18 page)

“No, sir.”

“Is he married?” Sister Jane fixed her a look over her spectacles.

“No, ma’am.”

“It’s done. He’s all the daddy your little one need. I don’t know how or where you got him, and why the real one don’t want the baby, but this is why he’s here. I done prayed it to God already and he done answered. Claim on it, Ruby Jean.”

Ruby laid a finger to her lips as Adam came back around to get in the car next to Brother Carver in the front and Ruby sat in the back with Sister Jane. “You all had better behave,” Ruby admonished her.

Sister Jane gave a high-pitched squeal. “We is about the Lord’s work, child. There ain’t no better work than seeing a family being made, Amen.”

“Amen.” Brother folded his hands together. “It all going to be all right.”

The rumblings of the car shook underneath her body, warm and reassuring, and she believed what Brother and Sister had said for the first time in a year, could be true. “Mama got dinner hot for you all, she was mighty worried about you.”

“And we was mighty worried we wouldn’t get here in time for some of Lona’s cooking.” Brother patted her hand, and Ruby was comforted in the love of these two older people.

“She got fresh pork, mashed potatoes, green beans and peach pie.”

“I’m sure glad we is traveling by car, so we get there faster,” Brother said, and Ruby smiled.

“Don’t get too excited, Carver. Remember what the doctor man said about your pressure and things.”

“A man got to eat to live, Jane.”

“I knows. But I’m saying, you better watch, now.”

“I am, honey lamb. I wants to be around to bug you up some for a good long while.”

A small smile tugged at Adam’s lips, and Ruby could tell he liked the older couple too. “Is the baby at home?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Ruby answered Sister Jane.

“What is the child?” Brother said to her.

“A boy, sir. Solomon David.”

He slapped her hand some more. “A boy. Oh my. I can’t wait to see this little one and bless him in the name of the Lord.”

Ruby smiled. “Thank you, sir. I was so hoping you would do it. We had him christened a few weeks ago, but Dodge did it.”

“Who we? Who stood up at the holy fount with you?” Sister Jane said.

“Dr. Morson did.”

Sister Jane touched Adam on the arm. “You his God papa?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Adam said.

Sister Jane clasped her hands together and her eyes heavenward. “It done already happened, praise him.”

Sister Jane leaned forward, but the sharp old lady turned to face Ruby again, “I know Solomon is after the wise king, but David, the wicked one?”

“Ma’am.” Ruby’s response was more of a confirmation. Sister Jane covered her mouth.

“Is the daddy the Winslow boy?” Sister Jane spoke through her fingers.

Ruby could only nod. “Yes, ma’am. But not how you think.”

Sister Jane fixed her with wise eyes. “I see, child. My word. It’s more than a notion being a colored woman, isn’t it?”

In the past, Ruby might have had tears prick the corners of her eyes at Sister’s words. Now, Ruby nodded again, and a warm blanket of protection surrounded her. “In any case, I am glad, so glad you all are here.”

Sister patted her other hand. “Me too, child. Me too. God never fails to put us where we are needed. You must have faith.”

Ruby could believe her, even as Bob’s strange reactions pierced her heart, washing away any hope that the town would feel better to her one day. It would never go away. Solomon would have to grow up in it and the feeling hurt even more. Could Adam be an answer to all of that?

Something began to sprout in her heart that had not been there for a long time. Hope.

Chapter Seventeen

Adam recoiled.

He couldn’t help himself.

Paul Winslow seemed to appear to his mill workers as the great benefactor. Mags couldn’t stop talking about how he allowed them time off to come to the revival tent, which was, handily enough, pitched high up on Winslow land and could be seen from the Bledsoe’s front porch.

Mags’s young brown face was full of excitement as she cleared away the dinner dishes from Brother Carver and Sister Jane after they ate. “We get to leave at five for the revivals all week long. So when Mama said she was worried about where you all were, I started to get worried too.”

Sister Jane pulled her piece of pie closer to her. “We’s here now, honey, and are doing real fine, looking at this piece of pie here.”

Solomon gurgled and she squeezed his bony knee. “It’s mighty good to see this young one here,” Sister Jane continued. “Knowing the spirit of our dear Ruby will go on.”

Lona snorted. “Please, God, I hope he isn’t the kind of trouble maker his mama is. Do you know this girl was in the jailhouse just last week?”

Sister fixed Ruby with keen eyes. “I’m sure she had a good reason.”

Lona waved a hand. “Sister Jane, you always had a soft place for Ruby. We all know you got to keep quiet as a Negro woman. You can’t start no whole lot of trouble. If she hadn’t started trouble—”

“Solomon would not be here.” Sister Jane raised a hand. “And out of terrible trouble, came a blessing.”

As if on cue, Solomon smiled, revealing a small white tooth in the front of his mouth. With his mouth open, he produced a long trail of drool, which ended up on his grandfather’s pants leg. They all laughed.

All but Ruby.

Her light was dimmed, just a bit and Adam smiled at her, to give her heart. Her half-hearted smile in return showed the goodness radiating inside of her. He had not known it, but he had traveled in a long, broad, endless desert and he finally happened on a refreshing pool of water.

Ruby.

He could feel the blessing Ruby, and her son had brought into his life—and he had genuine sorrow in his heart for Lona who didn’t agree with this view. “Amen,” Adam’s face warmed a bit as he adjusted his gold-rimmed spectacles.

Brother dug into his pie and gave Adam an amiable glance. “You never said how you was brought up in the Lord, Dr. Adam.”

“I went to revivals with my aunt in the summertime starting when I was nine. I was first brought up by my cousin, Lucas, and he wasn’t a church goer. But when he died and I went to my Aunt Lizzie I would go with her every night, faithfully.” A flash of memory of the revivals came to his mind. They were an outlet for people who were looking for excitement in their lives. They came to see the spectacle.

“I’m sorry for your losses, son, but thank God Aunt Lizzie came on the scene,” Brother Carver intoned.

“Yes, well, she was much better for me in a lot of ways. Lucas wasn’t the kindest person, but I think people in the family thought it would be better if I was brought up with a male influence. Sometimes that can help an orphan, but Lucas had no business raising children. He had a fondness for the drink.”

Ruby’s spark came back a little bit and she regarded him with something resembling pity. “You never said. I’m sorry.”

Adam was touched that she cared. “It made me who I am today. Seeing so much, at such a young age, kind of steeled me for life. I’ve been glad to be here at the Bledsoes. It has been the first time in a long time to see what a real family looks like.”

Sister smacked her lips over the peach pie. “Amen. It’s a blessing a lot don’t have.” She reached over and patted Ruby’s knee. “And it’s clear, at least to me, Lona, you has done a wonderful job bringing up these girls in God’s light. They will make wonderful wives and mothers for some lucky men.”

Lona lowered her head over some quilting piecework she worked on. “I appreciates you, Sister, but some of them still have a ways to go.”

“And the Lord will bless them with every single step.”

“Amen.” Ruby’s brown eyes had the light back in them again. Clearly, the words uplifted her. “We look forward to when you come, it helps us get through the trouble times.”

Ruby brightened quite a bit, but he still longed to take her worry from her. She deserved better. Better than a vagabond existence going from place to place.

She deserved a home, stability and care. Things he didn’t know he could provide to anyone, and he didn’t want to promise them to Ruby, and by extension, Solomon and have everything end up in sadness. No, he could better prepare her to be able to stand on her own two feet as her own woman. He could do that much for her before he moved out of her life.

Adam agreed to vacate the little room in the back for a cot in the barn while the Carvers were in town. The Carvers insisted they take the barn, but he was used to sleeping outside. For he had slept in the barn with the animals before. Lucas kept him out in the barn while he drank away the generous money Paul Winslow sent for Adam’s support. And he had to, somehow, find food to feed both of them. It was all a difficult proposition for a young boy.. Now, with his scientist’s sensibility, he could see he had been malnourished. Fortunately, within a short space of time of drink and women, Lucas drank himself to death and he was handed off to Aunt Lizzie who provided him with a home. The memories still lingered, though.

After he had set up the cot in the corner of the barn, he sat down on it. As he did, a figure hovered in the door. Brother Carver approached him. “I just want to thank you, Dr. Adam, for giving up the bed. Sister Jane is getting kind of old, and she need a bed to sleep in at night.”

Adam rose from the cot to talk to him. “I think, if she were to come out here, she would say something similar.”

Brother chewed on the stem of a pipe. “We got to look out for one another. I come out here to you to ask you about it. I think, with my sugar sometimes, my fingers and feet feel kind of numb sometimes.”

Adam nodded. “Sugar can cause a dead kind of feeling of necrosis in the limbs.”

Brother Carver’s eyebrows met together in the middle of his face. “Yeah, you got it. What’s to be done?”

“I think what Sister is saying is right. You got to limit the sweets. Get more exercise. Maybe walk back and forth to the tents this week. It isn’t far.”

“Dr. Adam, what is wrong with you? You can’t never tell no woman she right, even if she’s as special as Sister Jane. She’ll never let me live it down.”

Adam couldn’t help a chuckle. “She’s looking out for you. One piece of peach pie—that’s it. When it is time to leave, maybe you can have another piece.”

Brother Carver groaned and rubbed his belly. “Whenever you come to a place like Winslow for the revival, the ladies make all kinds of special things for us.”

Adam made his voice firm so Brother could understand the gravity of his situation. “You have to tell them about your sugar. They’ll understand.”

“You’re sure making it hard for a man, Doctor. I’ma say goodnight.” Brother Carver pocketed the cooled pipe. “Unless you got something to say to me. I see something good in you. I know that’s why you are a doctor. But there’s a pain there too, some hurt inside what don’t have anything to do with the body. It’s about the spirit. I just want to tell you, God sees. He’s ready to heal you.”

Adam nodded, not sure what to say to this quiet man who radiated contentment with his life, even though his life as a Negro could not have been easy.

Brother continued, “God gives us marriage to love one another. It’s how Jesus was joined to the church. It’s the center of our life, and it’s the safe place for children to come. Ruby has suffered a great deal. I see you and your pain. Maybe when you comes together, you can heal one another. Think on it. Good night.”

Adam secured the barn door as Brother Carver left. What if the pain was too big for one person to heal? He could never put all of his pain on Ruby, not after all she had been through. It wouldn’t be fair to her. Not at all.

Ruby had to shade her eyes to see, because the glare of the white revival tent could blind her. So many happy memories had taken place in the white tent. She nearly danced with excitement because it had been almost two whole years since she had been last time. She didn’t go last year everyone was just learning about her shame.
God, give me strength to go there and see for myself, I’m whole in myself. I have to do this. I have to do it for Solomon.

She smoothed down her dark skirt and donned her high top shoes. “Every time I feel the spirit, moving in my heart, I will pray,” she sang. Her father’s deep bass voice joined hers and she smiled as he boomed out the words of the old spiritual over and over. She picked up Solomon and straightened out his little dress.

She would survive. John and Lona’s people weren’t from here, but the old slaves who worked this land, who had cleared Winslow out of the heavy pine forest had survived. With God’s help, she would survive too.

The Bledsoes all gathered on the front porch, wearing their second best to attend the revival. Adam pulled the car forward, but John waved him off. “We walk to the revival. We be okay.”

“I can park the car if you think it is a good idea,”

Ruby leaned in carrying Solomon, who was getting heavier and heavier by the day now that he was eating solid food. “No, I think maybe Sister Jane and Mama should ride with you. Take them on ahead and they can get some things straightened out.”

“I’ma get in my exercise going up, praise God,” Brother Carver proclaimed out loud. “I probably ride back later on.”

“Give me Solomon,” Lona directed Ruby reaching for the baby.

“I don’t want him to be a trouble to you, Mama.”

“He ain’t no trouble child, he can be our escort.” Sister helped to hand the baby to Lona and started to play with his toes. She loved little Solomon and Ruby was glad. She wanted the Carvers to bless her child so he would not have to carry the sin of his creation with him.

Adam’s car pulled off with the women and Solomon inside and something did lighten in her heart. She could have felt terribly about going to the revival, especially where it was located, the scene of the attack, but it was revival time. Her heart was light and free and as the family walked up the red dust road, they sang and laughed all along the way. She wished her mother could have taken part in the good times, but even more, she hoped her mother could receive some peace from the revival tonight. They both deserved it.

As they arrived, several families sat in chairs and on blankets already under the airy tent, setting up chairs. Lona sat in one of the chairs with Solomon on her lap. Sister Jane played a tune on a mouth organ, and people began to sing. The start of the revival was always very informal, and as they entered the tent, Brother Carver moved into place, taking up Jane’s song, “What a Friend we have in Jesus.”

Ruby went into the aisle and slid next to Adam, enjoying the spectacle of Sister Jane playing on her mouth organ. Sister Jane, a very talented musician, could take up anything and play and sing. She was very enthusiastic in her playing and moved her elbows up and down as she blew into the holes, producing the melodious sound. Solomon, sitting placidly on her mother’s lap, was also fascinated by the way Sister was playing the music. Music, at the start of the revival, drew the folks in, and Ruby could see there were about fifty people, mostly Negro, but some other white families who worked in the mill, came to sing, clap and to enjoy the music.

After five songs or so, Brother began his appeals. Ruby went to her mother and took Solomon in her arms. She stepped forward to Brother Carver and he laid his hand on the baby. “Where is the child’s godfather?” Ruby gestured to Adam, who seemed a little shy, but came forward. They began to say a prayer over the child.

“I done already blessed this boy.” Dodge. He stood at the edge of the tent leaning sideways. Would this never end? Why did he have to come and ruin things?

Suddenly, the revival got quiet. How strange, because the revival was never quiet. There was always clapping, shouting or singing. The noise was the point of revival time, a special time of release. “Well, now, Charlie. It is okay to bless him another time,” Brother Carver reassured him.

Dodge nodded his head and Ruby was shocked. From the wobbling way he had come into the revival, he had been drinking. A minister who wasn’t temperance? Who dared to drink?

If she had agreed to be his wife, he would have shown her his power over her all of the time. Maybe he would have beat on her. With a chill, she realized that was the point of why Paul Winslow wanted her to marry Dodge.

“Yeah, but she,” Dodge pointed to her, “she thought it wasn’t good enough. My blessing wouldn’t take on her precious little white child. So she come to you to do it again, since it wasn’t good enough.”

Ruby’s feet filled with heat and she sprang up to speak, even though Dodge believed women should be silent. “When you bless him, you say he was born of sin. So I bring him to Brother. Brother don’t put no sin on Solomon. He’s an innocent baby and how he got here ain’t his fault. I want God and everyone to know it.”

“Listen to her,” his voice raged and his eyes were red. More church wasn’t meant to make folk angry, but to compliment. God couldn’t be praised enough, truly, but Dodge did not agree. “She thinks she can tell me, a man of God, about scripture. How to run my church. How to be. She thinks she got it all in control, even me.”

He pointed at Ruby and Adam. “She ain’t nothing but a whore. She was a whore for David Winslow, and now she whoring for this one. She only want to whore for white men. I be just a little too dark for her.”

Adam stepped forward, and grasped Dodge by the arm. “
Enough
. This way.”

Dodge shook free of Adam’s hold, but Adam put his body firmly before Ruby to protect her. “Reverend. Just like you a fine, upstanding Doctor. Do not forget it.”

“Just come this way,” Adam escorted Dodge out the side of the tent, and the revival went stone silent. Sister Jane took up a tune on her mouth organ and played it low and sweet, “Amazing Grace.” Everyone joined the singing in halting voices, but there was a lot of tension in the room.