Category Archives: Children’s Stories

A Small Adjustment at the Fairy Ball

7 Replies

A Small Adjustment at the Fairy Ball

Her gold tiara, finely pearled,
came undone as she danced and whirled
and across the room was often hurled
as the hair that held it came unfurled.
Then her attendant tightly furled
her fairy hair as they fussed and girled.
For the rest of the night, she bowed and twirled,
for now that her hair was tightly curled,
all was right in the fairy world.

The Prompt: Easy Fix—Write a post about any topic you wish, but make sure it ends with “And all was right in the world.”

The Children’s Hour

6 Replies

Okay, I am writing this down by heart, as I remember it.  Then I’ll find a copy and check how well I remember it, putting corrections in parentheses.  Why do I remember this poem that was unfashionable even when I memorized it?  One of her favorites, it was chosen by my mother for me to recite in a contest.  I won with it at school, county and district level and then went to state level where I did not win.  Probably my wrong choice to pronounce “lower” in a manner so as to rhyme with “hour!”

Okay, by heart, mind you, here is the poem:

The Children’s Hour
by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

Between the dark and the daylight,
when the night is beginning to lower,
comes a pause in the day’s occupations
that is known as the children’s hour.

I hear in the chamber above me,
the patter of little feet,
the sound of a door that is opened
and voices, soft and sweet.

By my lamplight, I see in the darkness (from my study I see in the lamplight)
descending the broad hall stair
grave Alice and laughing Allegra,
and Edith with golden hair.

A whisper and then a silence,
yet I know by their laughing (merry)  eyes
they are plotting and planning together
to take me by surprise.

A sudden rush from the stairway,
a sudden raid from the hall,
by three doors left unguarded,
they enter my chamber wall.

They climb up into my turret,
o’er the arms and back of my chair.
When I try to escape, they surround me.
They seem to be everywhere.

They almost devour me with kisses,
their arms about me entwine,
till I feel like the Bishop of Bingen
in his round tower (mouse-tower) by the Rhine.

Do you think, oh blue-eyed banditos, (banditti)
because you have scaled the wall,
such an old mustache as I am
is not a match for you all?

I have you fast in my fortress
and will not let you depart
but keep you captive forever (But put you down into the dungeon)
in the round-tower of my heart.

And there  will I keep you forever,
yes forever and a day
till the walls have crumbled to ruin
and mouldered, in dust, away.

My mother told me her mother used to read this poem to her and her five sisters.  (Her two brothers were probably off pulling pranks somewhere.)  Whenever her mother would recite the line, “And Edith with golden hair” my mom would cry, because she had a sister named Edith, and my mom wanted golden hair as well.

Although I only met her once, when I was three, I believe my Grandmother was a kind soul and I can’t remember whether my mother told me or I imagined that my Grandmother then altered the line to read, “and Eunice with golden hair” as well.

Now, as to the lines or words I got wrong (after fifty-two years, as I believe I recited this when I was eleven) I am fairly sure that my mother changed that entire line I got wrong, thinking it wasn’t appropriate for a girl of 11 to say the words, “But put you down into the dungeon.” Mother knew best, even over such an illustrious poet as Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, a fact that probably stunned the judges and led to my eventual upset as South Dakota  poetry champion of outmoded rhyme.

Now, please recite your biggest feat of memory for me in comments!!!

HALLOW E’EN

4 Replies

1913688_1136038127859_5133796_n
The Prompt: Trick or Trick—It’s Halloween, & you just ran out of candy. If the neighborhood kids (or anyone else, really) were to truly scare you, what trick would they have to subject you to?

Hallow E’en

They pound upon my door and wait outside my wall.
One climbs a tree to peer within. I hope he doesn’t fall.
I cower here within my house. Perhaps they’ll go away.
Though I am not religious, eventually I pray.

Their little voices raise a pitch. They start to bay and howl.
There’s a flutter in my heart region, a clutching in my bowel.
I purchased Reese’s Pieces and miniature Kit Kats
just for all these masked and costumed little brats.

My motives were unselfish. The candy was for them,
for I don’t eat much candy in efforts to grow slim.
And yet that bag of Reese’s, those small Kit Kats and such
called to me from where they were sequestered in my hutch.

It started with a whisper, hissing out their wish:
“We would look so pretty laid out on a dish!”
I knew that they were evil. I knew it was a trap.
I tried hard to resist them, my hands clenched in my lap.

I turned up my computer, listening to “The Voice.”
Those candy bars would not be seen till Halloween—my choice!
My willpower was solid. No candy ruled me.
(If that were true, no kids would now be climbing up my tree.)

Yes, it is true I weakened. I listened to their nags.
I took the candy from the shelf and opened up the bags.
Their wrappers looked so pretty put out for display
in one big bowl so colorful, lying this-a-way

and that-a-way, all mixed and jumbled up together.
No danger of their melting in this cooler weather.
I put them on the table, then put them on a shelf,
so I would not be tempted to have one for myself.

When people came to visit, I put them by my bed.
Lest they misunderstand and eat them all instead.
Then when I was sleeping, one tumbled off the top.
I heard it landing with a rustle and a little “plop.”

I opened up one eye and saw it lying there
just one inch from where I lay, tangled in my hair.
Its wrapper was so pretty—foiled and multi-hued.
Some evil force took over as I opened it and chewed!

This started a small avalanche of wrappers on the floor
as I ripped & stuffed & chewed & swallowed more & more & more!
This story is not pretty but has to be confessed.
My only explanation is that I was possessed.

They pound upon my door and wait outside my wall,
but I have no candy for them. No treat for them at all.
Surrounded by the wrappers, bare bowl upon my lap,
I think I’ll just ignore them and take a little nap.

I hear them spilling o’er my wall and dropping down inside.
I try to think of what to do. Consider suicide.
They’re coming in to get me. Beating down my door.
They are intent on blood-letting—the Devil’s evil spore.

I guess it’s not the worst death a gal could ever get.
I’ve heard of much worse endings than death by chocolate!

1913688_1136038527869_395578_n1913688_1136038367865_7037617_n1913688_1136038287863_5588685_n1913688_1136038207861_6603987_n1913688_1136038167860_1696102_n1913688_1136038087858_6027993_n1913688_1136038007856_1648819_n1913688_1136037847852_2468748_n1913688_1136037767850_5683525_n1913688_1136037727849_5594428_n1913688_1136037567845_630735_n

A Message for Henry Selick

1 Reply

The Prompt: Make It Count—You’ve been given the opportunity to send one message to one person you wouldn’t normally have access to (for example: the President. Kim Kardashian. A coffee grower in Ethiopia). Who’s the person you choose, and what’s the message?

A Message for Henry Selick

In our age of information—
and also instant confirmation
of every little truth and fact,
it’s necessary to react
with some protection, I understand.
The famous of us take a hand
to protect themselves from the clamoring band
of those who call for their attention
to win a conference or audition,
an interview or invitation
to meet for food or a libation
as a means to talk about
ideas that we have need to flout.
And so I see why I could not
reach the person whom I sought
to pitch my Christmas storybook.
The plot is good. I have a hook.
The characters are funny and
the artist has an expert hand.
I even know the person who
I wish to do my pitching to.
But he’s grown famous through the years
and our acquaintance is in arrears—
his movies scarier by far
than any of my stories are.
But readers tell me that in a pinch,
my Christmas story beats the Grinch!
A Christmas classic the film would be
if only Hollywood could see
the book that no one yet has seen
because my Facebook notes have been
seen by no one and I have not
a way to advertise my lot.
So here I make a heartfelt plea
for Henry Selick to contact me!

(To further jog your memory:
Your wife Heather had a job
teaching with my husband Bob.)

The book is Sock Talk: A Christmas Story, and you can see more about it here.


Blog Sock Talk

Sleuthing

6 Replies

case 1.indd

Sleuthing

There’s a Clue in the Leaning Chimney and a Password to Larkspur Lane,
and no one will ever discover them without me, that is plain.
I’d love to go a-sleuthing, my sidekicks at my side—
George Fayne, who is so boyish and Bess Marvin who’s so wide.

Together we’d read diaries and find each hidden clue,
‘cause no one else but us has ever known quite what to do
with broken lockets, attics, tolling bells or hollow oaks;
for non-teenage detectives seem to come off like bad jokes.

They may have had the clues but never seemed to solve the crime—
these matters just too difficult for searchers in their prime.
I’d hop in my blue roadster with a picnic box from Hannah
and somehow I would wind up in Wyoming or Montana.

Interviewing cowboys is the way I’d have my fun,
returning to Ned Nickerson when all of this was done.
I don’t have other fantasies of being Peter Pan
or Goldilocks, Rapunzel, Cathy or Superman.

Those fairy tales and comic books and novels are unreal.
I’d have to be like Nancy—a character who’s real!
The only mystery I can’t solve of all her mysteries seen
is how I’ve gotten so damn old while she remains sixteen!

The Prompt: Fictional Intruder—Go down the rabbit hole with Alice; play quidditch with Harry Potter; float down the river with Huck Fin. . .If you coud choose three fictional events or adventures to experience yourself, what would they be?

The Daily Post Snapshot Stories: Hair Washing Day

7 Replies

The Prompt: Open the first photo album you can find — real or virtual, your call — and stop at the first picture of yourself you see there. Tell us the story of that photo. (Note: Although I’ve posted this picture on my blog before, this was the first photo in my album, and since I’ve never told the story, I’ll do so now.)

Image

Hair Washing Day

The phone was on a party line.
The leg, the robe, the hair was mine.
The chair was from our dining table.
I’d called as soon as I was able
with all the news that had occurred
since last we shared a private word.
Though my friend lived just two houses away,
my mom had had to break our play
so she could wash my dirty hair.
Take 15 minutes (how did she dare)
from “Cops and Robbers” or playing store?
Washing hair was such a bore.
First to take my clothing off,
barrettes and rubber bands to doff,
a chenille robe to cover all
my nakedness, and then the crawl
up on the chair to lie upon
the kitchen counter. My efforts done,
it was my mother’s turn to work—
to wash my hair without a jerk
or pull to create whines and tears,
avoiding water in the ears
and soap in eyes and water squirts
on ceiling, counters, shoes or shirts
of family who might gather there
to watch my mother wash my hair.
Then, trials done, my friend to phone
for all this time I’d been alone.
Without her fine complicity,
life had too much simplicity.
No imaginings or plots.
No hide-and-seek on empty lots.
No bike rides up to Mowell’s drug.
No comics on the bedroom rug.
No love letters to steal and read
from older sisters—that evil deed
we both adored and did most often.
No trumpet vine pods to peel and soften
in the sink to make our boats
for potential rainy season floats
down ditches swollen with summer rains
No paper dolls or paper chains.
I’d been away from my friend Lynn
for fifteen minutes! It was a sin.
So I’d called to say I’d be right over
to search with her for four-leaf-clover.
And tell her all I had to tell
since mother rang the “come home” bell.

In the Motel Breakfast Room: Poetry by Prescription

7 Replies

Image

In the Motel Breakfast Room

That little boy
is screaming and mad.
At eight in the morning,
he’s already bad!

He tasted his waffle
and doesn’t want more.
He just dumped his Fruit Loops
all over the floor.

His mom didn’t see
from her side of the room.
The attendant was swift
with her dustpan and broom.

She removed all the cereal
dumped at my feet
by the brattiest child
I ever did meet.

I came to this place
for some coffee and quiet.
I didn’t expect
to encounter a riot.

He’s having a tantrum.
He will not sit down.
His voice at screech level,
his mouth set on frown.

Does he want to go back
to the room? asks his mother
as she struggles to feed
both his sister and brother.

At this breakfast bar set up
for all of the guests,
regrettably, no sign says,
“We don’t serve pests.”

Last night when my friend
went to get us some ice,
“Excuse me, Excuse me,”
the desk clerk said twice

as he ran down the hall
in a manner uncool
heading straight for the door
that leads into the pool.

Now I can imagine this
terrible kid
pushing some button.
(I bet that he did!)

that signaled “Emergency
Call 911!”
watching the panic
and calling it fun.

The manager thinking
“perhaps a cracked head!”
but encountering only
this bad boy instead.

Now this morning my coffee
was ruined by his cries.
This early-day tantrum
a rite I despise.

I started to gather
my coffee and fruit,
then grabbed a few
creamers and sweeteners to boot.

When from my eye’s corner
before I could stand,
at the edge of my table
I saw a small hand.

I looked up to encounter
a smile ear-to-ear.
That horrible child
looked ever so dear!

He flashed me the smile,
for a moment stood near,
then departed the room
nevermore to appear.

When I looked at the table,
an astonishing sight.
He’d left me one Fruit Loop
right there in plain sight.

That child’s behavior
now leaves me in doubt
whether I should remember
the smile or pout.

Was my disapproval
so plain to see
that this tiny child
could see right through me?

And had he the wisdom
to do what he did
simply to remind me
a kid is a kid?

 

Note: The event described in this poem actually happened on May 24 at a motel in Des Moines, IA, where I was attending my nephew’s h.s. graduation party. And yes, this is “the” Fruit Loop, which I still have.  The subject was prescribed by Duckie, who, when I told him what had just happened, said, “You gotta write about this.”  Poetry by Prescription. You suggest the topic.  I will write about it.