“One day he heard two of the neighbors talking about him, saying it was a pity that so bright a boy should have such a stepmother as the woman his father was about to marry. Then Johnny (or Jack, as he was sometimes called) knew that his father was preparing to marry the woman who was keeping house for him, and it made the boy feel very wretched to think that this woman was to take the place of his mother.
“That very day he went to the Whispering Poplar that stands on the hill and called for the Keeper of the Cows that roam in the night. The lady made her appearance, and then Johnny told her his troubles. The lady smiled for the first time. Then she told Johnny that if he would follow her directions his troubles would disappear. She gave him a roll of blue ribbon, and told him what to say when he presented it to the woman just before the marriage took place. She told him also what to do with his little lantern. Johnny went home feeling very much better, and that night his father told him he was to have a new mother the next day. He said nothing in reply, but smiled as if the news pleased him.
“Johnny lay awake that night a long time, and once he thought the woman came and leaned over his bed as if to listen, but just then a cow not far away lowed once, twice, thrice. Then the woman went away muttering something.
“The next day the invited guests began to assemble early, and after a while the preacher came. The women neighbors would have the bride to stand up in the middle of the floor to admire her just before the ceremony, and when she stood up Johnny began to march around her, waving his lantern and his blue ribbon and singing:—
“‘I have for the bride ten yards of blue ribbon—
Ten yards of blue ribbon, ten yards of blue ribbon—
I have for the bride ten yards of blue ribbon,
So rich and so soft and so rare;
Five yards to pin on her snowy white bosom—
Her snowy white bosom, her snowy white bosom—