Ebenezer Sackett’S Christmas Carol: A Novella About Christmas

By Bernie Keating

My story is similar to Charles Dickenss, A Christmas Story, and profiles a Scrooge I knew in the Cheyenne River country east of Buffalo Gap. He was a cantankerous old cowboy who spent seven days a week in the saddle, and took a day off only on rare occasions and come to town to do business with my dad at the bank and throw down a couple beers at Frenchies saloon.

• Language: English
• Publisher: AuthorHouse
• Release date: Mar 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781504900201

Bernie Keating

Bernie Keating’s was raised in Buffalo Gap, South Dakota, served as a naval officer during the Korean War, completed graduate school at U.C. Berkeley, and then began a fifty-year career as executive, becoming Manager of Quality Assurance for the world’s largest packaging company. As an avocation during his long working career, he also wrote books and the current one is his twenty-second. He and his wife live on a ranch in the Sierra Mountains near Sonora, California.

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© 2015 Bernie Keating. All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted by any means without the written permission of the author.

Published by AuthorHouse 03/09/2015

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0021-8 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0022-5 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-5049-0020-1 (e)

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Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Contents

Prologue

I The Buffalo Gap Prairie Nurtures a Scrooge

2 Ebenezer Arrives in Purgatory

3 Indictment of Ebenezer Sackett by a Falcon

4 A Squandered Lifetime: Out-with-the-Cows

5 The Welcoming Dinner

6 Grace’s Paradise Gone Astray

7 Lessons from a Llama

8 The Lonely Workaholic

9 Donkey Wisdom

10 Julius Caesar Preaches

11 A Merry Christmas

Prologue

I express appreciation to Charles Dickens for utilizing some of the prose from his novella , A Christmas Carol , written in 1843; and to William Shakespeare for quotes from his play, Julius Caesar , written over 400 years ago.

My story is similar to Dickens’ and profiles a rancher I knew in the Cheyenne River country east of Buffalo Gap. He was a cantankerous old cowboy who spent seven days a week in the saddle and only took a day off on rare occasions to come to town to do business with my dad at the bank and throw down a couple beers at Frenchie’s saloon.

Whether or not he ever suffered from delusions I don’t know, but he may have, because during his life he encountered everything else.

I

The Buffalo Gap Prairie Nurtures a Scrooge

C hristmas morning: Ebenezer Sackett hated the day. Twenty years ago – a morning like today - his angry son disowned him and rode away: all affection dead as a door nail.

Mind! I don’t mean to say that I know, of my own knowledge, there is anything particularly dead about a door-nail. I might have been inclined to regard a coffin-nail as far more dead. But the wisdom of word mongers is in creating the simile: and my undisciplined hands shall not amend it, for something might be lost in the telling. You will permit me to repeat, emphatically, all affection was dead as a door nail.

Ebenezer had never been much aware of friendliness. He lived in a solitary world of his own where there was no need for such superfluous things as esteem, either that incoming from others or that bestowed on outsiders. He was his sole perpetrator, his sole executive, his sole obligation, his sole beneficiary, his sole friend, his sole mourner. Even his spouse, Grace, seldom entered the inner sanctum of his conscience.

Oh! But Ebenezer was a tight-fisted hand at the cattle auction – a squeezing, grasping, clutching, covetous old reprobate! Hard and abrasive as a flint stone, from which no match had ever struck generous fire; secret and self-absorbed, and solitary as an oyster lying on the bottom of the sea.

It was a frigid day, but external heat and cold had little influence on Ebenezer Sackett. No warmth could warm; no wintry weather could chill. Winds that blew across the Dakota prairie were never more bitter than he; no blizzard more intent upon its drifting snow, no pelting rain less open to entreaty. Foul weather did not know how to test him. The heaviest rain, snow, and hail, and sleet, could boast of advantage only that they came down copiously, and Ebenezer never did anything generously.

Nobody ever stopped him on the street to say, with a friendly look, My dear Ebenezer, how are you. When will you come to see me? No solicitors implored him to bestow a donation; no children asked him what time it was, no man or woman ever once in all his life inquired the way to some destination. Even dogs appeared to know him; and when they saw him coming, would crawl away and wag their tails as if to say, Please pass me by, I will not bite.

But what did Ebenezer Sackett care! It was the thing he liked. To edge his way along the crowded paths of life, warning other humans to keep their distance, was his forte. Least of all, did he want to hear that greeting that chafed his ears: Merry Christmas.

That morning, the barn was dark when he walked into the stall where Smoke stood, patting the horse on the rump to avoid surprise.

Hello, Smoke, he muttered under his breath, I hope you’re ready for a hard ride. We’ve got to move cattle from my Norman place to the McCormick ranch across the Cheyenne River I acquired last year. After placing