Creagh: The Not-So-Ordinary Life of Benjamin Allen Farley, Iii

By Dorothy Drulman

Ben and Creaghs ski trip takes a turn for the worse when they are hopelessly lost in the mountains of Colorado in a blinding snowstorm. They count their blessings when they stumble upon a stark and cold cabin. However, once they open its door, the real struggle to survive begins.

• Language: English
• Publisher: WestBow Press
• Release date: May 6, 2014
• ISBN: 9781490835013

Dorothy Drulman

Dorothy Drulman may be called the Grandma Moses of novels for juveniles. She began writing after retiring from teaching. Her first novels, Wago and Norman, are set in southern forests, which she considers to be the best places for education and recreation. She is a graduate of the University of Alabama, UAB, Samford University, and Freed-Hardeman Junior College. She and her husband live in Texas.

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Copyright © 2014 Dorothy Drulman.

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ISBN: 978-1-4908-3502-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3503-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4908-3501-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2014907287

WestBow Press rev. date: 5/5/2014

Contents

Belated Acknowledgment

Chapter 1:   At the Station

Chapter 2:   Getting There

Chapter 3:   Learning to Ski

Chapter 4:   A Big Mistake

Chapter 5:   The Cabin

Chapter 6:   Getting Warm

Chapter 7:   Taking Care of Business

Chapter 8:   Dodging Mice

Chapter 9:   Antlers?

Chapter 10:   Looking for Supper

Chapter 11:   Dressing a Deer

Chapter 12:   Wolves

Chapter 13:   Frostbite

Chapter 14:   Planning Rescue

Chapter 15:   Boy and Creagh

Chapter 16:   Rescue

Chapter 17:   Good-bye, Colorado

For Gene, My Pilot in Life

Belated Acknowledgment

One of my regrets in life, and I have a few, is that I did not give appropriate praise to my English teacher, Vivian Brown, during her lifetime. She was persistent in seeing that her students understood language and used it correctly. Our modest rural school received no special state or federal funds or expensive equipment. It had chalk, a green board, and a state-issued textbook. Mrs. Brown used those meager tools to give us a superior education. Today, she would be cringing at the common, incorrect usage, for instance, of the pronoun I as in the sentence: The book was read by John and I. Thank you, Mrs. Brown. Because of you, I know that using me instead of I is correct, although your preference would have been using active voice, not passive, here.

Chapter 1

At the Station

It was the first time Ben had traveled on a big bus or an airplane. He was about to do both. He was shaking inside, but he projected a cool, unconcerned attitude on the outside. He did not talk much so as not to give himself away to others. Little did he know that nobody was paying him a lick of attention. He just had to let the inexperience of travel wear off, and then he would feel comfortable around all these new people.

Ben did not know how he had gotten both lucky and unlucky on the same day. What a favorable turn of events in the middle of the wintertime for a group of kids of forest employees to get to go on a ski trip. It was no problem for Ben to miss school since his mother was his teacher. So he could enjoy this perk of homeschooling.

Colorado, of all places! He had been to see Granny Farley several times in Kansas, but he had never journeyed so far west or traveled in as mountainous a place as Colorado. And he was going without his parents. He thought that was a good thing.

When Ben considered it, chills went through his body. He wanted that Colorado Rocky Mountain high that John Denver sang about. He was a singer of his dad’s time, but Ben had heard Rocky Mountain High more times than he could count. He was actually going to be on one of those mountains, breathing in the clean, cold air.

This ski trip was a great opportunity. Never mind that he could not ski. None of the kids going on this trip could ski. Where could they ski on the flat land of southern Mississippi?

Living in the forest left few opportunities for Ben to earn money for this once-in-a-lifetime trip. Yet he became resourceful at offering his help to older campers in the forest. The forest campground was his home, and his house was a travel trailer.

He frequently got a tip of a few dollars when he stacked wood around someone’s travel trailer or motor home. Other times, he offered to clean the top of a motor home or climb a ladder to clean the windshields of bugs, dust, or mud. Before it was time to leave for the trip, Ben had a nice little stack of money in his box of keepsakes.

Granny Farley had found a warm ski bib and jacket in a thrift shop in Kansas where people feel the winter a little more deeply than kids from warmer climates. Mama found some woolen socks and warm gloves at a Mississippi garage sale put on by an Alaskan who had moved south and realized those items were unnecessary. Ben and his travel companions would rent the skis and other necessities. They were ready.

That pretty much ends the favorable part of the story.

The unfavorable thing happened when the day came to board the bus for the Jackson airport. It was not his friend Jason who was standing in line, but Creagh, Jason’s eleven-year-old sister.

Jason’s sick. He can’t go, so Mama said if I sort of stayed with you, so you could look after me a little, I could go, she explained.

What’s wrong with him? Ben asked.

Fever and nausea. He’s in bed.

Ben was disappointed that Jason had to cancel. Who wants to take a ski trip to Colorado alone? And going with Creagh was going alone, according to Ben.

Jason was Ben’s age, thirteen, and they considered Creagh unequal to them. Yet it was only right and natural that Creagh should fill Jason’s spot on this trip. It also would be her first-ever glimpse of a ski slope.

Ben’s lips were drawn tight. Selfishness reared itself in his heart. Instead of welcoming Creagh and being delighted for her, Ben’s attitude was going south, so to speak.

Creagh mistook Ben’s pressed lips as a smile. She was innocent of his dark attitude. We’ll have so much fun, she said.

Benjamin looked down and kicked at a piece of uncollected trash.

Guess what? she asked.

What?

I am going to wear Jason’s ski clothes, she said with a radiant smile.

Oh.

You know, ski clothes are a little generic, and it won’t matter if they were Jason’s clothes.

No, he said, still looking down at nothing. He wondered who would be his roommate now. In addition to a new roommate, or maybe no roommate, would he have Creagh attached at the hip for the whole trip? Too bad. I’m very disappointed for Jason, he finally dragged out of his mouth.

Me, too, but I am really glad to get to go.

What’s wrong with me? He could not say to