A Virtuous Ruby by Piper Huguley Page A

paying such hard court to her sister in the past year, when he thought Mags might marry him. Would Mags have married him? Ruby looked over at Mags being surrounded by family, as she sobbed.
    Mags was too young to get married, she had insisted. She needed to finish high school by correspondence, just like she was trying to do.
    But had she any right to interfere in Mags’s life? She made her come with her to tell the mill workers about the meetings, just so Mags would get a glimpse of Travis, or was it the other way around?
    A cold feeling came over Ruby.
    Had she engineered Travis’s death so he wouldn’t or couldn’t marry Mags?
    Since no one was ever going to marry her. Ever.
    Ruby folded her hands and went down on her knees in front of Travis’s freshly washed body. The heavy blows of her father’s hammer rang out as he constructed a quick casket for poor Travis, after Lona had washed him. In Winslow, these tasks fell to certain ones in the Negro community, since the undertaker in town was for the whites. They would hold a small funeral for him tomorrow as the sun set, with wake and funeral all in one day. A body wouldn’t hold long in hot, humid June Georgia weather.
    The doctor was out with her father, helping him to build the casket. What kind of purpose would he be able to serve? Did he know anything about carpentry? As Ruby shifted from Travis, she looked out the back door to the barn. She could see that Adam was helping. Amazing.
    Who was this man who knew so much about doctoring and didn’t want to help out his fellow Negroes? A Moses and didn’t know it.
    Moses had his own troubles too. Maybe it was the same for the doctor.
    Soon, her father came out of the barn carrying the casket and the men laid Travis in the hastily-constructed casket with care. Lona had put a white cloth on the dining room table and they lifted the casket onto some sawhorses. People started to come and lay their food offerings on the table, which had been pushed into another corner with the davenport and the chairs.
    And the moment came that Ruby dreaded the most.
    She had no reason to encounter the pastor of First Water Christian Church ever since it had become known in the community that she was going to have a baby. She had not been to church. Now he was going to have to come here.
    And here he was. Reverend Charles Dodge big as well as tall, but not as tall as the doctor. Where had that come from? He used his imposing figure to make it known and understood that he was a very important somebody in this small community. Ruby wouldn’t have minded that so much if only he didn’t use his power to make her feel worse.
    Her mother was all too keen to help the minister in. She had not been able to see to her duties as the church superintendent because of Ruby’s shame. “Come on in, Reverend. Some folks brought a parson bird and I know you’re fond of chicken.”
    Ruby stood next to the door where Solomon slept in her parents’ room so that no one should disturb him. He wasn’t anyone’s business anyway.
    “Thank you, Sister Bledsoe. It was a shame to hear from Bob about poor Travis.” He stood next to where Mags sat in a chair, staring off into space with hot tears streaming down, leaving white tracks of salt on her brown face. “He was a good man.”
    “He was. Good to the church, the community and for God.”
    “A shame.” Reverend Dodge intoned, so that the family and the arriving families could hear, “If he would have been in the mind to stay at home and not cause trouble here in the town, he would still be alive with us today.”
    The room fell silent.
    Was everyone looking at her?
    Yes.
    Where was the doctor?
    She would look for him. Solomon would be fine.
    Keeping her eyes and countenance downcast, she walked out of the front door around the side of the house and stood under the window to hear Solomon if he cried. Maybe it would be better to hide from people as they arrived to give their condolences. Maybe that was