. He was a
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the
[v]chivalrous days of Peter Stuyvesant, and accompanied him to the siege
of Fort Christina. He inherited, however, but little of the martial
character of his ancestors. I have observed that he was a simple,
good-natured man; he was, moreover, a kind neighbor and an obedient,
henpecked husband.

Certain it is that he was a great favorite among all the goodwives of
the village, who took his part in all family squabbles; and never
failed, whenever they talked those matters over in their evening
gossipings, to lay all the blame on Dame Van Winkle. The children of the
village, too, would shout with joy whenever he approached. He assisted
at their sports, made their playthings, taught them to fly kites and
shoot marbles, and told them long stories of ghosts, witches, and
Indians. Whenever he went dodging about the village, he was surrounded
by a troop of them, hanging on his skirts, clambering on his back, and
playing a thousand tricks on him; and not a dog would bark at him
throughout the neighborhood.

The great error in Rip's composition was a strong dislike of all kinds
of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of perseverance; for
he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and heavy as a lance, and
fish all day without a murmur, even though he should not be encouraged
by a single nibble. He would carry a fowling piece on his shoulder for
hours together, trudging through woods and swamps, and up hill and down
dale, to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never refuse to
assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at
all country frolics for husking Indian corn, or building stone fences;
the women of the village, too, used to employ him to run their errands,
and to do such little odd jobs as their less obliging husbands would not
do for them. In a word, Rip was ready to attend to anybody's business
but his own; but as to doing family duty, and keeping his farm in order,
he found it impossible.

His children, too, were as ragged and wild as if they belonged to
nobody. His son Rip 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
breeches, 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 h