The Badger Riot by J.A. Ricketts Page B

River. “You deserves someone better, Jennie,” he said softly.
    Just then she caught sight of the cable boat. And there was Tom’s red cap. Perhaps they’d walk up the road together. “Excuse me Ralph, I see Tom’s getting off the boat.”
    Ralph didn’t reply. He smiled at her and walked down to the cable boat to help the men ashore. As Jennie followed, she thought,
Sometimes I just can’t understand Ralph.

    When Tom and Jennie made it known they were a steady couple, both sets of parents were dead set against it.
    Mam was firm. “You’m not marrying no Protestant. No you’re not! What about poor little Vern? Why can’t you marry him?” And on and on she went. “What will the priest say? I’ll never hold me head up at Mass again.”
    Tom told Jennie that his mother, Suze, wasn’t about to let her only child marry no black Catholic. Jennie had heard others say that Suze was a crousty woman. They said that she had no good words to say about anyone, that she never laughed, and that she hated music and dancing. “Carryin’ on with foolishness” was what she called it. Tom’s father, Albert, was different; he seemed to be a more tolerant man.
    Tom didn’t tell Jennie everything that his mother said to him after she learned the news. All he would say was, “Mother is very upset, Jennie, maid. Her religion is important to her. She got up in church the other night and told the whole congregation about us during her testimony. She said that the Devil was leading her son down a wicked path to leave his true Christian religion and worship idols. Then the pastor had me up to the altar and prayed over me.”
    Good God Almighty
, Jennie thought.
Suze is worse than Mam, and I thought that Mam was bad
!
    After weeks of fighting with his parents, Tom hit upon a plan. He told Jennie about it one evening as he was walking her up the track. “Jennie, I got it all figured out. We’ll get you pregnant. Then the families will have to let us marry.”
    Jennie stopped walking and looked up at him in open-mouthed astonishment.
    Taking her hands in his, Tom said, “I know, I know Jennie that you wants to wait until we’re married before you loses your cherry. But it’s the easiest way. When everyone knows you’re going to have a baby we will have to get married, and then they won’t be so mad at us.”
    Looking up into Tom’s strong handsome face, Jennie tried to think things through. Ever since she was a young girl Mam had always told her what a precious gift her virginity would be to her husband. But when Tom put his strong arms around her and kissed her eager lips it took every ounce of strength for her not to lie down and let him have his way with her. But she wanted Tom to respect her, for the townspeople to respect her, and most of all, she didn’t want to disappoint her parents.
    Turning away from him, she continued to walk up the track. “No Tom, that’s not the way. We’ll have to think of something else.”
    But Tom was insistent. “Come on. Let’s plan for tomorrow night. Come on, Jennie. You knows I loves you and there’ll never be anyone else for me. At least think it over.”
    So Jennie did think it over all the next day at Plotsky’s. As she wrote out a bill of sale for a pair of logans and a washboard, she thought,
I won’t give in to Tom unless we’re married and that’s that.
But as she wrote out another receipt for a pound of bologna and a plug of tobacco, her mind tipped the other way.
Tom’s right. We love each other, so there’s no need for us to wait.
By closing time, she still hadn’t made up her mind.

    Jennie met Tom down by Coleman’s Restaurant and they walked over to the Highroad Bridge that spanned the Badger River. Farther down, as they meandered along, there were A.N.D. Company sheds. There was no one around when Tom