Rip Van Winkle

In a village at the foot of the Catskill Mountains, by the Hudson River, there once lived a man named Rip Van Winkle. He would do anything for anyone except himself: his neighbors could always count on him to mend a fence or carry a message. Yet his own farm was the most neglected in the district. Whenever his wife's complaints became unbearable, Rip would take his gun, whistle for his dog, Wolf, and escape into the hills.

One autumn afternoon, having wandered higher than usual, he was resting on a green ridge when he heard a voice calling his name. Climbing toward him was a short, broad old man with a thick beard, dressed in old-fashioned Dutch clothes and carrying a barrel on his shoulder. Without a word, the stranger signaled to Rip to help him, and together they carried the barrel up a narrow gully into a hollow surrounded by cliffs.

There, a group of equally strange men in the same old clothes were playing ninepins in complete silence. The only sound was the rolling of the balls, which echoed among the rocks like distant thunder. Nobody explained anything. The barrel was opened, Rip was made to serve the drink, and whenever the players weren't looking, he tasted it himself. He tasted it again, and again, until his eyes grew heavy and he fell into a deep sleep.

When he woke, it was a bright morning, and the men had gone. His gun, which he had always kept so carefully, lay beside him, orange with rust, its wood crumbling. Wolf was nowhere to be found. His joints were so stiff that he could hardly stand. Assuming that the drink had played tricks on him, he limped down the mountain, already rehearsing what he would say to his wife.

The village had grown, and there were strangers' faces at every window. His own house had fallen in, its roof open to the sky. At the old inn, the painted face of King George on the sign had been given a blue coat and a new name: General Washington. Men were arguing loudly about elections. A war had been fought and won while he slept. When Rip, bewildered, announced that he was a loyal subject of the King, he was very nearly thrown out of town as a spy.

"Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle?" he cried at last. "I've only been gone one night!"

"Rip Van Winkle?" someone answered. "That's him, over there, leaning against the tree." Rip saw a lazy young man in ragged clothes who looked exactly as he himself had looked when he went up the mountain. It was his son. For a terrible moment, Rip no longer knew who he was.

Then a young woman pushed through the crowd with a baby in her arms. When the baby began to cry, she said, "Shh, little Rip. Don't be scared of the old gentleman."

Rip stared at her. "What was your father's name?" he asked.

"Rip Van Winkle," she said. "But it's been twenty years since he went off into the mountains with his gun, and nobody has heard of him since." She studied the old man's face, the long white beard, and the eyes that were, under all the dirt, still kind and puzzled. Then her own eyes widened. "Father?" she whispered.