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

away?” Jennie felt her stomach knot and Tom saw her eyes open wide with alarm.
    â€œOh, don’t worry,” Tom repeated. “I got a job up in the woods camps. Rod Anderson has hired me on. He says I have to start as a helper to the cook, but if I work hard – and I will – he’ll promote me to cutter. I’m leaving first thing tomorrow morning to go across the River.”
    Jennie told him she wished he’d stay in school, but, before she had a chance to say much more, Ralph and Vern came in. Tom disappeared out the door with his Protestant buddies. Jennie sighed as she sat in a booth with Ralph and Vern, who were both talking excitedly about all the men that were being hired. It wasn’t long before she excused herself, saying she had to be getting home. In truth, she was feeling more than a little depressed. As she dashed home in the rain she realized she wasn’t as upset over Tom’s quitting school as she was over the fact that she wouldn’t see him as often. He was stepping from the world of a schoolboy into a man’s world up in the lumberwoods, away from Badger.
    Next week at school there were more than a few empty desks as she looked around the room. This was a familiar scene in Badger. Every spring, when the camps started hiring, a lot of the boys got itchy feet. Among the empty seats were Ralph’s and Vern’s. That evening at home, Phonse was onto Mam and Pap to let him go too, but Pap told him to wait for another year or so and he’d get him a job on the drive. Phonse was somewhat pacified, especially when Pap started talking about how the men who were trained to be river drivers were a notch above the cutters. They spent the whole evening, and many after that, talking about how Phonse would start off as an oarsman. Pap emphasized all the time the importance of working hard, just as he had done himself. Especially in the beginning, when you wanted to get promoted.
    Jennie kept on and wrote her Council of Higher Education exams in grade eleven. She matriculated, and could have gone on to higher learning but her thoughts were not on education. They were on seeing Tom Hillier when he came down off Sandy, as he was sure to do every Saturday evening.
    Because she was so focused on Tom, Jennie told her parents that she loved Badger and didn’t want to go away to find work. Pap went to Mr. Plotsky to see about a job for her in The American Bargain Store. Selling goods from a wagon, Mr. Plotsky’s father had come to Badger in 1904, when it was still called Badger Brook. Jennie always wondered why Polish Jews would come all the way to thisremote spot, buried in the interior of Newfoundland. She thought they must have been brave people.
    She liked the store. It had high ceilings with big lazy fans that stirred the air, keeping the shop cool and the goods fresh. One side was for dry goods and the other for groceries. The place smelled of new clothes, leather, tobacco and spices. People were in and out all day long and she was never bored. Her quick mind and her neat penmanship were especially good for the bills and receipts that had to be handwritten and added up.
    Tom would always come into the store when he came down off Sandy. The two would chat and make eyes at each other when Mrs. Plotsky wasn’t looking. One evening, he waited for her to get off work and walked her home, up the track, holding her hand all the way. Jennie was scared that someone would see them, but Tom said what odds. So Jennie said, right, what odds, too.
    Mam was looking through the window as he said goodbye to her at the gate and gently kissed her cheek.

    Ralph never had much patience for schooling. He felt too confined in a classroom. The nuns gave him the heebie-jeebies. All those clothes: they wore long black dresses and black veils with white things on their foreheads. Looking at them made him sweat and long to be outside in the cool clean air. He was pretty sure that God