Monday, September 22, 2008













THE VELVET RIBBON
by Ann McGovern
Once there was a man who fell in love with a beautiful girl. And before
the next full moon rose in the sky, they were wed.
To please her husband, the young wife wore a different gown each night.
Sometimes she was dressed in yellow; other nights she wore red or blue
or white. And she always wore a black velvet ribbon around her slender
neck.
Day and night she wore that ribbon, and it was not long before her
husband's curiosity got the better of him.
"Why do you always wear that ribbon?" he asked.
She smiled a strange smile and said not a word.
At last her husband got angry. And one night he shouted at his bride.
"Take that ribbon off! I'm tired of looking at it."
You will be sorry if I do," she replied, "so I won't." Every morning at
breakfast, the husband ordered his wife to remove the black velvet
ribbon from around her neck. Every night at dinner he told her the same
thing.
But every morning at breakfast and every night at dinner, all his wife
would say was, "You'll be sorry if I do. So I won't."
A week had passed. The husband no longer looked into his wife's eyes. He
could only stare at that black velvet ribbon around her neck.
One night as his wife lay sleeping, he tiptoed to her sewing basket. He
took out a pair of scissors.
Quickly and quietly, careful not to awaken her, he bent over his wife's
bed
and
SNIP! went the scissors, and the velvet ribbon fell to the floor
and
SNAP! off came her head. It rolled over the floor in the moonlight,
wailing tearfully:
"I...told...you...you'd...be...s-o-r-r-y!"

4 comments:

Jenny Carter said...

That is an awesome story. Cute. Is that your painting?

Pease Porridge said...

Yes, this is my painting. It is quite scary isn't it? :) It will take a brave soul to hang this one. MmmWa hah hhahhhhaaaaa. That was a halloween laugh.

Cris said...

Oh, I remember that story when we were little. I think us big sisters retold it to you when you were little. It was so much fun to tell and we would always all laugh at the end. Do Anthony and Rose like it?

Pease Porridge said...

Yes, of course they do. Do you remember we had it on tape or a record? I can still hear the storyteller's voice. I wonder where that is? Susan probably has it.