The Short-story | Page 7

falling to pieces; his cow would either go astray or get
among the cabbages; weeds were sure to grow quicker in his fields than
anywhere else; the rain always made a point of setting in just as he had
some out-door work to do, so that though his patrimonial estate had
dwindled away under his management, acre by acre, until there was
little more left than a mere patch of Indian corn and potatoes, yet it was
the worst conditioned farm in the neighborhood.

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to
nobody. His son Rip, an urchin begotten in his own likeness, promised
to inherit the habits, with the old clothes of his father. He was generally
seen trooping like a colt at his mother's heels, equipped in a pair of his
father's cast-off galligaskins, which he had much ado to hold up with
one hand, as a fine lady does her train in bad weather.
Rip Van Winkle, however, was one of those happy mortals, of foolish,
well-oiled dispositions, who take the world easy, eat white bread or
brown, whichever can be got with least thought or trouble, and would
rather starve on a penny than work for a pound. If left to himself, he
would have whistled life away in perfect contentment; but his wife kept
continually dinning in his ears about his idleness, his carelessness, and
the ruin he was bringing on his family. Morning, noon, and night, her
tongue was incessantly going, and everything he said or did was sure to
produce a torrent of household eloquence. Rip had but one way of
replying to all lectures of the kind, and that, by frequent use, had grown
into a habit. He shrugged his shoulders, shook his head, cast up his eyes,
but said nothing. This, however, always provoked a fresh volley from
his wife; so that he was fain to draw off his forces, and take to the
outside of the house--the only side which, in truth, belongs to a
hen-pecked husband.
Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog Wolf, who was as much
hen-pecked as his master; for Dame Van Winkle regarded them as
companions in idleness, and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye,
as the cause of his master's going so often astray. True it is, in all points
of spirit befitting an honorable dog, he was as courageous an animal as
ever scoured the woods--but what courage can withstand the
ever-during and all-besetting terrors of a woman's tongue? The moment
Wolf entered the house his crest fell, his tail drooped to the ground, or
curled between his legs, he sneaked about with a gallows air, casting
many a sidelong glance at Dame Van Winkle, and at the least flourish
of a broom-stick or ladle, he would fly to the door with yelping
precipitation.
Times grew worse and worse with Rip Van Winkle as years of

matrimony rolled on; a tart temper never mellows with age, and a sharp
tongue is the only edged tool that grows keener with constant use. For a
long while he used to console himself, when driven from home, by
frequenting a kind of perpetual club of the sages, philosophers, and
other idle personages of the village; which held its sessions on a bench
before a small inn, designated by a rubicund portrait of His Majesty
George the Third. Here they used to sit in the shade through a long lazy
summer's day, talking listlessly over village gossip, or telling endless
sleepy stories about nothing. But it would have been worth any
statesman's money to have heard the profound discussions that
sometimes took place, when by chance an old newspaper fell into their
hands from some passing traveller. How solemnly they would listen to
the contents, as drawled out by Derrick Van Bummel, the schoolmaster,
a dapper learned little man, who was not to be daunted by the most
gigantic word in the dictionary; and how sagely they would deliberate
upon public events some months after they had taken place.
The opinions of this junto were completely controlled by Nicholas
Vedder, a patriarch of the village, and landlord of the inn, at the door of
which he took his seat from morning till night, just moving sufficiently
to avoid the sun and keep in the shade of a large tree; so that the
neighbors could tell the hour by his movements as accurately as by a
sun-dial. It is true he was rarely heard to speak, but smoked his pipe
incessantly. His adherents, however (for every great man has his
adherents), perfectly understood him, and knew how to gather his
opinions. When anything that was read or related displeased him, he
was observed to smoke his pipe vehemently, and to send forth short,