The Badger Riot by J.A. Ricketts Page B

comfortably by the kitchen stove, Jennie got up nerve enough to talk to her mother about her own marriage. “Mam, I think that the reason I never had a baby is because I left the Catholic Church and went with the Pentecostals. Do you think that God is punishing me maybe?”
    Mam finished knitting her round on the sock. “Perhaps you’re like me, Jennie,” she said. “I was married to your father for a good spell before I had you. Then, once I got started, there was no stopping the children from coming.”
    â€œIs there a secret, Mam? Is there something I can do? I mean, is there something I can do to have a baby if I get back together with Tom?”
    â€œNo, my dear. We’re just slow to take, that’s all. Don’t you worry about it. You’ll have a baby one of those days. First, though, you have to get your husband back and your lives straightened out.”
    Ralph Drum came to visit every now and then. He was cheerful and uncomplicated and just what she needed. Jennie would ask him to sit and play Auction Forty-Fives with her. Jennie always loved the game and she was good at it too, winning more than her fair share of hands. Ralph would play cards for as long as she wanted.
    Auction Forty-Fives wasn’t like Auction Hundred and Twenties. Two people could play Auction Forty-Fives and have fun. With Hundred and Twenties, you needed four or more people to get the trumps out on the table. Pap had the most unusual story about Forty-Fives. He said his grandmother, who had been born and grew up in Ireland, had told him that they played the game there too. However, she said it was called
Forte
-Fives and was based on a card game played in the 1500s by King James I.
Forte
, his grandmother allowed, also meant strong and, in the game, the five was the strong trump card. It all made sense to Jennie when she heard Pap tell the story.
    Catholics loved playing cards, but the Pentecostals frowned upon it. Jennie had missed the card games while she lived with the Hilliers. If the day ever came when they had a home of their own, there’d be fun and good times and music. They’d all play cards too.
    During these times, Ralph would tell her stories about his grandfather, about the Beothuk and the Mi’kmaq legends and his efforts to find himself a wife. One day he told her about a treasure up on Hodges Hill – two beautiful pearls, alone in a small cave. Jennie said she wished she could see them. She knew where Hodges Hill was. It was visible from anywhere in Badger and Grand Falls. People had an expression, “as old as Hodges Hill,” meaning that it had been part of the landscape forever. Why was it, Jennie mused, that menwere free to roam and women were not? Why couldn’t she climb Hodges Hill if she wanted? Jennie told herself that one day she would try it.
    Another time, Jennie asked Ralph about the blackflies story, back when he and Tom and Vern had first gone in the woods as young men in their teens. Tom had told her about Vern’s obsession with getting Ralph to tell him the secret of why the flies didn’t bother him and they had laughed about it. She missed the laughter. She missed everything about Tom.
    â€œSo, Ralph, the boys say you can make magic with yourself and the flies.”
    â€œJennie, give it up! It comes to me on the wind, that’s all I can tell you. But if I’d told the boys that, they’d have laughed and called me nuts! I dare say you think I’m nuts too. And perhaps I am, maid.” He laughed.
    But Jennie knew he wasn’t nuts. She thought that Indians had a special relationship with the elements that white people had no clue about.
    Up to that point, Ralph had never mentioned the split between her and Tom, no matter how often he visited. He thought Jennie would bring it up herself, but she didn’t. He decided to ask her.
    â€œJennie, I knows ’tis none of my business, but what are you going to do about