Happy Father’s Day! In honor of my dad and this day, here is the story I wrote for A Very Bookish Celebration based on the poem “The Children’s Hour” by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow. 😉
Engedi sighed and dropped her pencil, flexing her left hand against the cramp in it. She had four more poems to copy before her book for Dad was finished.
Sliding off her bed, she skipped out her bedroom door and downstairs to see how the other project was coming along. Langley, Erin, and Will lay in a circle on the living room floor staring up at the ceiling fan.
“Maybe cookies?”
“We always do cookies.”
Engedi joined them on the floor and in their brainstorming session. “No ideas yet?”
Langley sat up and put his hands behind his head. “None that we like.”
“I’m almost done with my poems. When I finish, I’ll come help you with whatever you decide.”
“Sounds good.”
“Thanks,” Erin said, rolling over onto her stomach and bugging out her eyes. “If we get an idea.”
Engedi laughed and ruffled her little sister’s hair as she stood up. “I’m counting on you guys.”
Back upstairs, she settled into the rose-pink comforter and selected the next book of poems to copy from. Mom had tabbed which ones were Dad’s favorites, and it had given Engedi the idea to make him a book of all of them. She opened up the printer paper book she’d carefully stapled together and flipped to an empty page.
In her best cursive, she began to write. “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.”
She tapped her chin with the eraser of her pencil and mused on the poem. Dad always made time for them in the evenings when he came home from work—either reading aloud or watching a movie or playing one of the games Will had invented. She supposed that was his way of giving them a “Children’s Hour”, time just for him and them.
Engedi continued copying until she reached the line about a “castle wall”. That was it!
She raced down the stairs and announced her arrival by making a trumpet sound. “I got it! Let’s make Dad a castle. It’s in his favorite poem, and we can watch our movie from it.”
“Perfect idea!” Langley gave her a high five.
After much discussion, they pushed the dining room chairs together and stretched a sheet over the top, securing it with hair ties and books and anything else they could think of. The others shooed Engedi back upstairs while they prepared the ubiquitous cookies and a batch of popcorn for movie night.
Engedi glanced at the clock. Only an hour until Dad came home. She returned to copying the poem with swift, delicate strokes of the pencil then decorated the edges of the page with a colored-pencil vine and blue flowers.
As she turned to the last few poems, a line from “The Children’s Hour” stuck in her brain and made her wonder what it meant. “But put you down into the dungeon, in the round-tower of my heart.” She knew it had something to do with the castle metaphor, but she wondered more what it meant to Dad.
She could ask him in just ten minutes. Wrapping the book in tissue paper, she scampered down the stairs to the “castle” the others had built. Mom rested a bowl of popcorn on her pregnant belly and slid it through the sheet opening to the kids inside. She smiled at Engedi and held back the opening for her.
“Okay, when I say hi to Dad, you all pop out and say ‘Surprise!’, okay?” Mom whispered.
Four curly heads nodded, and Engedi tucked her gift behind her. Mom let the castle wall fall shut again and they waited in the dark, holding back giggles.
The sound of the front door unlocking quieted them, and they held hands in anticipation.
“Hi, welcome home!” Mom’s voice said, and they burst out of the castle.
“Surprise!”
“Happy Father’s Day!”
“Hi, Dad!”
Dad laughed as he gathered them up in his arms and gave them hugs. “What’s this?” he asked, nodding toward the castle.
“We made a castle because it’s in your favorite poem,” Langley said.
“And Engedi made you a—”
“Shhhh,” everyone cut off Erin, and Engedi held out the present before it could be spoiled.
Dad sniffed the package. “Not cookies,” he teased.
Will and Erin giggled.
“Open it!” Langley ushered, and Engedi felt like joining him.
Dad opened the present and smiled down at the cover of the book. “Dad’s Favorite Poems,” he read aloud. “Thank you, Engedi. I’ll cherish this.”
Engedi smiled and felt happiness well up in her.
Later as she leaned against Mom while they finished up their movie, she turned to Dad who was holding sleeping Erin. “Dad,” she whispered, “what does it mean in the poem when it says he’ll lock someone up in his heart?”
Dad turned to her and smiled. “It means that he wishes that moment could last forever. Just like I wish this one would.”
“Me too,” Engedi said with a happy sigh. “Me too.”
Copyright 2024 Kate Willis
Once Upon An Ordinary 