Ellery Queen’s Mystery Magazine. Vol. 126, No. 1. Whole No. 767, July 2005

The Witching Hour by Katherine H. Brooks

(with apologies to Longfellow and “The Children’s Hour”)

Between the dawn and the darkness

And into the midnight gloom,

He’d stalled the promised repair job

On the wall of a run-down room.

The barn-board was piled in the kitchen

By the hole, as yet unfixed,

And the wall was waiting and open,

With the plaster freshly mixed.

As he grumbled he heard on the stairway

The clatter of someone’s heel—

His daughter with veiled expression—

His wife with a jaw of steel.

A whisper, and then a silence

And he knew from an instinct wise

They were plotting and planning together

To tackle him by surprise.

A sudden rush from the hallway,

A sneak assault from the side—

He’d made the mistake of forgetting

That both were so sorely tried.

They shackled his legs with a clothesline

And fastened his arms to the chair.

He tried to escape, but he couldn’t—

The seemed to be everywhere!

A tap on the head with a hammer,

While they hoisted him up the wall,

And he sensed, as they started to plaster,

That their plan wasn’t funny at all!

Did they think — those silly females—

That though he was dizzy and sore,

An inveterate toper like he was

Had never been plastered before?

But they had him secure in their fortress,

And the barn-board was nailed in place,

And his rambling chatter subsided

As the plaster climbed his face.

And there they will keep him forever,

Yes — forever and a day,

Till the wall shall crumble to powder,

And the barn-board rots away.