The Badger Riot by J.A. Ricketts Read Free Book Online

knows you should mix with your friends more. Bill Hatcher and them goes to the hockey games down to Grand Falls and up to Buchans. Why don’t you go along with them sometime?”
    So Rod did. He went up to Buchans with a group of Badger boys. They caught the train to Millertown Junction and then took the branch into Buchans. The Grand Falls team was on the same train. It was mid-winter, but snow and cold didn’t bother hot-blooded young men. As the rum bottle was passed around, it didn’t take long for Rod to enter into the spirit of the trip and have a good time.
    That was the night he met Ruth Ricketts. It was the foolishest thing, but fate can be like that.
    The Buchans hockey rink was a converted ore shed with balconies built around for people to sit on. All of Buchans seemed to be there, plus many Grand Falls, Millertown and Badger fans. That night Buchans beat Grand Falls. The Buchans fans went wild. The Badger boys were naturally rooting for Buchans as there was always a certain animosity between Grand Falls and Badger. Many Badger people thought that the mill workers of Grand Falls considered themselves a cut above the loggers of Badger who cut the pulpwood that gave the mill workers their jobs.
    After the game, two young men got into a scrap. Rod never found out what it was about, but next thing he knew, guys were punching guys. Women were squealing. The Badger boys were in the thick of it, loving a good fight. Rod was holding his own untilsomeone hit him in the head and knocked him down. Other bodies piled up on top of him and Rod was almost squashed.
    Just then, the police came. They broke up the fight and sent everyone in different directions. A Buchans fellow helped Rod up on his feet. “Jeez, b’y, you don’t look too good!”
    Rod had a cut over his eye and blood was running down the side of his face.
    â€œCome on over with me. I’ll get someone to put a bandage on it for you.” He headed off out on the road with Rod in tow. Bill Hatcher and the Badger boys were nowhere to be seen.
    â€œSo, you’re from Badger are you? Do you know the Sullivans? Yeah? Well, Ned Sullivan is my father’s cousin. I’m Will Ricketts.”
    â€œOh, pleased to meet you,” Rod answered. “I’m Rod Anderson.”
    Will took Rod home and introduced him to his family. “Well folks, look what I found under a heap of Grand Falls fighters – a feller from Badger. Rod, meet my Mom, Dad and my sister Ruth.”

    During the year of 1934, the trains between Buchans and Badger became old friends to Rod and Ruth as they courted. Being male and thus having more freedom, Rod could grab a freight train whenever he chose and get dropped off at Millertown Junction, where he was guaranteed to hitch a ride to Buchans. But Ruth, being female, could only come down to Badger on the passenger train. While there, she would stay with the Sullivans, who promised to see that she was properly chaperoned.
    Eli Anderson was somewhat bothered that the Ricketts were Catholics, but Rod, hot-to-trot for this young woman, didn’t let religion get in his way. Ruth, in love and starry-eyed for Rod, didn’t care either. Her parents said that as long as she got married in her own church they would allow the marriage.
    They were married in 1935 at the Catholic Church in Buchans. Bill Hatcher was Rod’s best man. They all trundled up on the train: Eli, a couple of his contractor friends and their wives, the Sullivansand the Elliotts. Rod had invited the Drum family with their accordions, guitars and fiddles. The Crawfords came along as well. They were originally from Buchans Junction, and dropped off their son, six-year-old Vern, to stay the night with relatives.
    The newlyweds settled down in the old Anderson house that soon took on a brighter air as Ruth began to set the stamp of her laughing, cheerful personality on it. Her father’s house in Buchans had a proper bathroom, so Rod