[Illustration: WASHINGTON IRVING]
THE SHORT-STORY
With
Introduction and Notes
BY
W. PATTERSON ATKINSON, A.M.
VICE-PRINCIPAL OF THE LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL
JERSEY CITY
ALLYN AND BACON
Boston New York Chicago
COPYRIGHT, 1916,
BY ALLYN AND BACON.
Norwood Press
J. S. Cushing Co.--Berwick & Smith Co.
Norwood, Mass., U.S.A.
FOREWORD
This book is the result of actual work with first year High School
pupils. Furthermore, the completed text has been tried out with them.
Their difficulties, standards of reading, and the average development of
their minds and taste have constantly been remembered. Whatever teaching
quality the book may possess is due to their criticisms.
Hearty thanks are due Messrs. G. P. Putnam's Sons, Messrs. Charles
Scribner's Sons, The Thomas Y. Crowell Company, and The Houghton Mifflin
Company for gracious permission to use copyrighted material.
CONTENTS
PAGE
PORTRAITS OF AUTHORS vii
INTRODUCTION
I. Definition and Development ix
II. Forms xvi
III. The Short-story as Narration xvii
IV. Representative Short-stories xxi
V. Bibliography xxv
WASHINGTON IRVING: Rip Van Winkle (1820) 1
EDGAR ALLAN POE: The Gold Bug (1842) 23
The Purloined Letter (1845) 69
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE: Howe's Masquerade (1838) 93
The Birthmark (1843) 112
FRANCIS BRET HARTE: The Outcasts of Poker Flat (1869) 134
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON: The Sire de Malétroit's Door (1878) 148
Markheim (1885) 174
RUDYARD KIPLING: Wee Willie Winkie (1888) 196
NOTES 211
LIST OF PORTRAITS
WASHINGTON IRVING _Frontispiece_
FACING PAGE
EDGAR ALLAN POE 23
NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE 93
FRANCIS BRET HARTE 134
ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON 148
RUDYARD KIPLING 196
INTRODUCTION
I
DEFINITION AND DEVELOPMENT
Mankind has always loved to tell stories and to listen to them. The most
primitive and unlettered peoples and tribes have always shown and still
show this universal characteristic. As far back as written records go we
find stories; even before that time, they were handed down from remote
generations by oral tradition. The wandering minstrel followed a very
ancient profession. Before him was his prototype--the man with the gift
of telling stories over the fire at night, perhaps at the mouth of a
cave. The Greeks, who ever loved to hear some new thing, were merely
typical of the ready listeners.
In the course of time the story passed through many forms and many
phases--the myth, e.g. _The Labors of Hercules_; the legend, e.g. _St.
George and the Dragon_; the fairy tale, e.g. _Cinderella_; the fable,
e.g. _The Fox and the Grapes_; the allegory, e.g. Addison's _The Vision
of Mirza_; the parable, e.g. _The Prodigal Son_. Sometimes it was merely
to amuse, sometimes to instruct. With this process are intimately
connected famous books, such as "The Gesta Romanorum" (which, by the
way, has nothing to do with the Romans) and famous writers like
Boccaccio.
Gradually there grew a body of rules and a technique, and men began to
write about the way stories should be composed, as is seen in
Aristotle's statement that a story should have a beginning, a middle,
and an end. Definitions were made and the elements named. In the
fullness of time story-telling became an art.
Similar stories are to be found in many different literatures because
human nature is fundamentally the same the world over; that is, people
are swayed by the same motives, such as love, hate, fear, and the like.
Another reason for this similarity is the fact that nations borrowed
stories from other nations, changing the names and circumstances.
Writers of power took old and crude stories and made of them matchless
tales which endure in their new form, e.g. Hawthorne's _Rappaccini's
Daughter_. Finally the present day dawned and with it what we call the
short-story.
The short-story--Prof. Brander Matthews has suggested the hyphen to
differentiate it from the story which is merely short and to indicate
that it is a new species[1]--is a narrative which is short and has
unity, compression, originality, and ingenuity, each in a high
degree.[2] The notion of shortness as used in this definition may be
inexactly though easily grasped by considering the length of the average
magazine story. Compression means that nothing must be included that can
be left out. Clayton Hamilton expresses this idea by the convenient
phrase "economy of means."[3] By originality is meant something new in
plot, point, outcome, or character. (See Introduction III for a
discussion of these terms.) Ingenuity suggests cleverness in handling
the theme. The short-story also is impressionistic because it leaves to
the reader the reconstruction from hints of much of the setting and
details.
[Footnote 1: _The Philosophy of the Short-Story in Pen and Ink_, page
72. (Longmans, Green & Co., 1888.)]
[Footnote 2: _Ibid._]
[Footnote 3: _Materials of Fiction_, page 175. (Doubleday, Page & Co.,
1912.)]
Mr. Hamilton has also constructed another useful definition. He says:
"The aim of a short-story is to produce a single narrative effect with
the greatest economy of means that is consistent with the utmost
emphasis."[4]
[Footnote 4: _Materials of Fiction_, page 173. (Doubleday, Page & Co.,
1912.)]
However, years before, in 1842, in his celebrated review of Hawthorne's
_Tales_[5] Edgar Allan Poe had laid down the same theory, in which he
emphasizes what he elsewhere calls, after Schlegel, the unity or
totality of interest, _i.e._ unity of impression, effect, and economy.
Stevenson, too, has written critically of the short-story, laying stress
on this essential unity, pointing out how each effect leads to the next,
and how the end is part of the beginning.[6]
[Footnote 5: _Graham's Magazine_, May, 1842.]
[Footnote 6: _Vailima Letters_, I, page 147.]
America may justly lay claim to this new species of short narrative.
Beginning in the early part of the nineteenth century there had begun to
appear in this country stories showing variations from the English type
of story which "still bore upon it marks of its origin; it was either a
hard, formal, didactic treatise, derived from the moral apologue or
fable; or it was a sentimental love-tale derived from the artificial
love-romance that followed the romance of chivalry."[7] The first one to
stand out prominently is Washington Irving's _Rip Van Winkle_, which was
published in 1820. This story, while more leisurely and less condensed
than the completely developed form of the short-story, had the important
element of humor, as well as freshness, grace, and restraint, nothing
being said that should not be said.
[Footnote 7: Krapp's _Irving's Tales of a Traveller_, etc. Introduction.
(Scott, Foresman & Co.)]
The next writer in the order of development is Edgar Allan Poe, whose
_Berenice_ appeared in 1835. With it the short-story took definite form.
Poe's contribution is structure and technique; that is, he definitely
introduced the characteristics noted in the definition--unity,
compression, originality, and ingenuity. With almost mathematical
precision he sets out to obtain an effect. To quote from his
before-mentioned review of Hawthorne his own words which are so definite
as almost to compose a formula of his way of writing a short-story and
are so thoughtful as to be nearly the summary of any discussion of the
subject: "A skillful literary artist has constructed a tale. If wise, he
has not fashioned his thoughts to accommodate his incidents; but having
conceived, with deliberate care, a certain unique or single effect to be
wrought out, he then invents such incidents--he then combines such
events--as may best aid him in establishing this preconceived effect. If
his very initial sentence tend not to the out-bringing of this effect,
then he has failed in his first step. In the whole composition there
should be no word written of which the tendency, direct or indirect, is
not to the one preëstablished design. And by such means, with such care
and skill, a picture is at length painted which leaves in the mind of
him who contemplates it with a kindred art a sense of the fullest
satisfaction. The idea of the tale has been presented unblemished
because undisturbed; and this is an end unattainable by the novel." It
is to be noted that Poe roused interest in his effect by the method of
suspense, that is, by holding back the solution of the plot, by putting
off telling what the reader wants to know, though he continually
aggravates the desire to know by constant hints, the full significance
of which is only realized when the story is done. His stories are of two
main classes: what have been called stories of "impressionistic terror,"
that is, stories of great fear induced in a character by a mass of
rather vague and unusual incidents, such as _The Fall of the House of
Usher_ (1839) and _The Pit and the Pendulum_ (1843); and stories of
"ratiocination," that is, of the ingenious thinking out of a problem, as
_The Mystery of Marie Rogêt_ (1843). In the latter type he is the
originator of the detective story.
The writings of Nathaniel Hawthorne exhibit the next stage of
development. While lacking some of the technical excellence of Poe by
often not knowing how to begin or how to end a story, by sacrificing
economy or compression, yet he presented something new in making a story
of situation, that is, by putting a character in certain circumstances
and working out the results, as _The Birthmark_ (1843). His stories also
fall into two groups, the imaginative, like _Howe's Masquerade_ (1838),
and the moralizing introspective, or, as they have been called, the
"moral-philosophic," that is, stories which look within the human mind
and soul and deal with great questions of conduct, such as _The
Ambitious Guest_ (1837). Hawthorne was the descendant of Puritans, men
given to serious thought and sternly religious. It is this strain of his
inheritance which is evidenced in the second group. In all his writing
there is some outward symbol of the circumstances or the state of mind.
It is seen, for example, in _The Minister's Black Veil_ (1835).
In 1868 was published _Luck of Roaring Camp_, by Bret Harte. In this
story and those that immediately followed, the author advanced the
development of the short-story yet another step by introducing local
color. Local color means the peculiar customs, scenery, or surroundings
of any kind, which mark off one place from another. In a literary sense
he discovered California of the days of the early rush for gold.
Furthermore, he made the story more definite. He confined it to one
situation and one effect, thus approaching more to what may be
considered the normal form.
With the form of the short-story fairly worked out, the next development
is to be noted in the tone and subject matter. Local color became
particularly evident, humor became constantly more prominent, and then
the analysis of the working of the human mind, psychologic analysis,
held the interest of some foremost writers. Stories of these various
kinds came to the front about the third quarter of the last century.
"Mark Twain" (Samuel Langhorne Clemens), Thomas Bailey Aldrich, and
Frank R. Stockton preëminently and admirably present the humor so
peculiarly an American trait. Local color had its exponents in George W.
Cable, who presented Louisiana; "Charles Egbert Craddock" (Miss M. N.
Murfree), who wrote of Tennessee; Thomas Nelson Page, who gave us
Virginia; and Miss M. E. Wilkins (Mrs. Charles M. Freeman), who wrote of
New England, to mention only the most notable. With psychologic analysis
the name of Henry James is indissolubly linked. _The Passionate Pilgrim_
(1875) may be taken as an excellent example of his work.
By this time the American short-story had crossed to England and found
in Robert Louis Stevenson an artist who could handle it with consummate
skill. He passed it on a more finished and polished article than when
he received it, because by a long course of self-training he had become
a master in the use of words. His stories remind one of Hawthorne
because there is generally in them some underlying moral question, some
question of human action, something concerning right and wrong. But they
also have another characteristic which is more obvious to the average
reader--their frank romance. By romance is meant happenings either out
of the usual course of events, such as the climax of _Lochinvar_, or
events that cannot occur.
The latest stage in the development of the short-story is due to Rudyard
Kipling, who has made it generally more terse, has filled it with
interest in the highest degree, has found new local color, chiefly in
India, and has given it virility and power. His subject matter is, in
the main, interesting to all kinds of readers. His stories likewise
fulfill all the requirements of the definition. Being a living genius he
is constantly showing new sides of his ability, his later stories being
psychologic. His writings fall into numerous groups--soldier tales;
tales of machinery; of animals; of the supernatural; of native Indian
life; of history; of adventure;--the list could be prolonged. Sometimes
they are frankly tracts, sometimes acute analyses of the working of the
human mind.
So in the course of a little less than a century there has grown to
maturity a new kind of short narrative identified with American
Literature and the American people, exhibiting the foremost traits of
the American character, and written by a large number of authors of
different rank whose work, of a surprisingly high average of technical
excellence, appears chiefly in the magazines.
II
FORMS
Though the short-story has achieved a normal or general form of
straightforward narrative, as in Kipling's _An Habitation Enforced_ or
Mary Raymond Shipman Andrews' _Amici_, yet it exhibits many variations
in presentation. Sometimes it is a series of letters as in James' _A
Bundle of Letters_, sometimes a group of narrative, letters, and
telegrams as in Thomas Bailey Aldrich's _Marjorie Daw_; again, a letter
and a paragraph as in Henry Cuyler Bunner's _A Letter and a Paragraph_,
or a gathering of letters, telegrams, newspaper clippings, and
advertisements as Bunner and Matthews' _Documents in the Case_.
Again it may be told in the first person as in Stevenson's _Pavilion on
the Links_, or in the third person as in Kipling's _The Bridge
Builders_. Yet again it may be a conundrum as Stockton's famous _The
Lady or the Tiger_!
But besides the forms due to the manner of presentation there are other
forms due to the emphasis placed on one of the three elements of a
narrative---action, character, and setting. Consequently using this
principle of classification we have three forms which may be exemplified
by Kipling's _William the Conqueror_, wherein action is emphasized; his
_Tomb of His Ancestors_, wherein character is emphasized; and his _An
Error in the Fourth Dimension_, wherein setting is emphasized.
Using yet another principle of classification--material--we obtain:
stories of dramatic interest, that is, of some striking happening that
would hold the audience of a play in a highly excited state, as
Stevenson's _Sire de Malétroit's Door_; of love, as Bunner's _Love in
Old Cloathes_; of romantic adventure, as Kipling's _Man Who Would Be
King_; of terror, as Poe's _Pit and the Pendulum_; of the supernatural,
as Crawford's _The Upper Berth_; of humor, as humor, as Mary Raymond
Shipman Andrews' _A Good Samaritan_; of animals, as Kipling's
_Rikki-tikki-tavi_; of psychological analysis, as James' _Madonna of the
Future_; and so on.
III
THE SHORT-STORY AS NARRATION
All the previous discussion must not obscure the fact that the
short-story is a form of narration and subject to all that pertains
thereto. Now what is narration and what does it imply?
Narration is that form of discourse which presents a series of events in
the order of time. Events or action presuppose actors, or characters as
they are generally called, and a place where the action may take place;
likewise time and circumstances within which the actors act. These
three, which may be conveniently spoken of as actors, action, and
environment, are three of the elements of narration. But there is a
fourth. To make an interesting story there must be something for the
chief character, technically called the protagonist, to overcome, such
as an adversary, a situation, or an idea, which thing is called the
obstacle. Furthermore, there must be something in the story near the
beginning which brings the protagonist into conflict with the obstacle.
Often this conflict, technically the collision, is brought about by
another character. But it may be some happening. Whatever it is, it is
called the complicating force. Then again, toward the end of the story,
there is something else which either helps the protagonist to overcome
the obstacle, or the obstacle to overcome the protagonist. This is
called the resolving force.
As these two forces work in different parts of the story, the action is
conveniently divided into parts to which names have been attached. First
comes the introduction or proposition, wherein the time, place,
circumstances, and protagonist are presented; then the entanglement,
wherein the protagonist is brought into collision with the obstacle by
the complicating force, and the interest begins to deepen. Next we have
the climax, in which the struggle, and consequently the interest, are at
their height; and this in turn is followed by the resolution, where the
resolving force works and the knot begins to be untied. Finally there is
the dénouement or conclusion.
The career of each character may be conveniently spoken of as a line of
interest. When the lines of interest become entangled we have the plot.
The following diagram illustrates to the eye the development of a story.
Of course it must be distinctly understood that no story is the result
of a mere substitution in a formula. Sometimes the various steps in the
working-out of a story overlap in such a manner that its development
according to a prescribed plan is not apparent.
[Illustration]
Small _c_ is sometimes called the crisis, being the point at which the
action is most intense and begins to turn toward the end.
IV
LIST OF REPRESENTATIVE SHORT-STORIES
1. ALDRICH: Marjorie Daw.
2. Quite So.
3. ANDREWS: Amici.
4. The Glory of the Commonplace.
5. A Good Samaritan.
6. BUNNER: "As One Having Authority."
7. Love in Old Cloathes.
8. BUNNER AND MATTHEWS: Documents in the Case.
9. CABLE: Posson Jone.
10. CHILD: The Man in the Shadow.
11. CLEMENS: Jumping Frog.
12. COBB: To the Editor of the Sun.
13. COLCORD: The Game of Life and Death.
14. DAVIS, R. H.: The Bar Sinister.
15. Gallegher.
16. The Lion and the Unicorn.
17. DOYLE: The Red-Headed League.
18. A Scandal in Bohemia.
19. The Striped Chest.
20. Through the Veil.
21. GARLAND: The Return of a Private.
22. GEROULD: On the Staircase.
23. HALE: The Man without a Country.
24. HARDY: The Three Strangers.
25. HARRIS: The Wonderful Tar Baby.
26. HARTE: Luck of Roaring Camp.
27. Tennessee's Partner.
28. HAWTHORNE: The Ambitious Guest.
29. Ethan Brand.
30. The Gray Champion.
31. The Great Stone Face.
32. "O. HENRY": Friends in San Rosario.
33. Jimmie Hayes and Muriel.
34. IRVING: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow.
35. The Spectre Bridegroom.
36. JAMES: A Passionate Pilgrim.
37. JANVIER: In the St. Peter's Set.
38. The Passing of Thomas.
39. JEWETT: A Native of Winby.
40. KIPLING: The Brushwood Boy.
41. An Habitation Enforced.
42. The Maltese Cat.
43. My Lord the Elephant.
44. Rikki-tikki-tavi.
45. They.
46. The Tomb of His Ancestors.
47. Wee Willie Winkie.
48. William the Conqueror.
49. LONDON: The White Silence.
50. MORRIS: The Trap.
51. MURFREE: The "Harnt" that Walks Chilhowee.
52. PAGE: Marse Chan.
53. Meh Lady.
54. Polly.
55. PARKER: The Stake and the Plumb Line.
56. POE: The Fall of the House of Usher.
57. The Murders in the Rue Morgue.
58. The Pit and the Pendulum.
59. ROBERTS: From the Teeth of the Tide.
60. SPEARMAN: Jimmie the Wind.
61. SMITH, F. H.: Colonel Carter of Cartersville.
62. STEVENSON: The Bottle Imp.
63. A Lodging for the Night.
64. Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde.
65. The Merry Men.
66. The Pavilion on the Links.
67. STOCKTON: The Lady or the Tiger?
68. The Transferred Ghost.
69. A Story of Seven Devils.
70. VAN DYKE: The Blue Flower.
71. WILKINS (FREEMAN): A New England Nun.
72. The Revolt of Mother.
V
BIBLIOGRAPHY
BALDWIN, CHARLES SEARS. American Short-stories. _Longmans, Green, & Co.,
1904._
CANBY, HENRY SEIDEL, A Study of the Short-story. _Henry Holt & Co.,
1913._
DAWSON, W. J. AND CONINGSBY, The Great English Short-story Writers.
_Harper and Brothers, 1910._
HAMILTON, CLAYTON, Materials and Methods of Fiction (Chapters X and XI).
_Doubleday, Page & Co., 1908._
MATTHEWS, BRANDER, The Short-story. _American Book Co., 1907._
PERRY, BLISS, A Study of Prose Fiction (Chapter XII). _Houghton Mifflin
Co., 1902._
SMITH, C. ALPHONSO, The American Short-story. _Ginn & Co., 1912._
THE SHORT-STORY
[The following Tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich
Knickerbocker, an old gentleman of New York, who was very curious in the
Dutch history of the province, and the manners of the descendants from
its primitive settlers. His historical researches, however, did not lie
so much among books as among men; for the former are lamentably scanty
on his favorite topics; whereas he found the old burghers, and still
more their wives, rich in that legendary lore, so invaluable to true
history. Whenever, therefore, he happened upon a genuine Dutch family,
snugly shut up in its low-roofed farmhouse, under a spreading sycamore,
he looked upon it as a little clasped volume of black-letter, and
studied it with the zeal of a book-worm.
The result of all these researches was a history of the province during
the reign of the Dutch governors, which he published some years since.
There have been various opinions as to the literary character of his
work, and, to tell the truth, it is not a whit better than it should be.
Its chief merit is its scrupulous accuracy, which indeed was a little
questioned on its first appearance, but has since been completely
established; and it is now admitted into all historical collections, as
a book of unquestionable authority.
The old gentleman died shortly after the publication of his work, and
now that he is dead and gone, it cannot do much harm to his memory to
say that his time might have been much better employed in weightier
labors. He, however, was apt to ride his hobby his own way; and though
it did now and then kick up the dust a little in the eyes of his
neighbors, and grieve the spirit of some friends, for whom he felt the
truest deference and affection; yet his errors and follies are
remembered "more in sorrow than in anger," and it begins to be
suspected, that he never intended to injure or offend. But however his
memory may be appreciated by critics, it is still held dear by many
folks, whose good opinion is well worth having; particularly by certain
biscuit-bakers, who have gone so far as to imprint his likeness on their
new-year cakes; and have thus given him a chance for immortality, almost
equal to the being stamped on a Waterloo Medal, or a Queen Anne's
Farthing.]
RIP VAN WINKLE
A POSTHUMOUS WRITING OF DIEDRICH KNICKERBOCKER
By Woden, God of Saxons,
From whence comes Wensday, that is Wodensday,
Truth is a thing that ever I will keep
Unto thylke day in which I creep into
My sepulchre--
CARTWRIGHT.
Whoever has made a voyage up the Hudson must remember the Kaatskill
mountains. They are a dismembered branch of the great Appalachian
family, and are seen away to the west of the river, swelling up to a
noble height, and lording it over the surrounding country. Every change
of season, every change of weather, indeed, every hour of the day,
produces some change in the magical hues and shapes of these mountains,
and they are regarded by all the good wives, far and near, as perfect
barometers. When the weather is fair and settled, they are clothed in
blue and purple, and print their bold outlines on the clear evening sky;
but, sometimes, when the rest of the landscape is cloudless, they will
gather a hood of gray vapors about their summits, which, in the last
rays of the setting sun, will glow and light up like a crown of glory.
At the foot of these fairy mountains, the voyager may have descried the
light smoke curling up from a village whose shingle-roofs gleam among
the trees, just where the blue tints of the upland melt away into the
fresh green of the nearer landscape. It is a little village of great
antiquity, having been founded by some of the Dutch colonists, in the
early times of the province, just about the beginning of the government
of the good Peter Stuyvesant, (may he rest in peace!) and there were
some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years,
built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland, having latticed
windows and gable fronts, surmounted with weather-cocks.
In that same village, and in one of these very houses (which, to tell
the precise truth, was sadly time-worn and weather-beaten), there lived
many years since, while the country was yet a province of Great Britain,
a simple good-natured fellow of the name of Rip Van Winkle. He was a
descendant of the Van Winkles who figured so gallantly in the 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 hen-pecked husband.
Indeed, to the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of
spirit which gained him such universal popularity; for those men are
most apt to be obsequious and conciliating abroad, who are under the
discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered
pliant and malleable in the fiery furnace of domestic tribulation; and a
curtain lecture is worth all the sermons in the world for teaching the
virtues of patience and long-suffering. A termagant wife may, therefore,
in some respects, be considered a tolerable blessing; and if so, Rip Van
Winkle was thrice blessed.
Certain it is, that he was a great favorite among all the good wives of
the village, who, as usual with the amiable sex, 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 with
impunity; and not a dog would bark at him throughout the neighborhood.
The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion to all
kinds of profitable labor. It could not be from the want of assiduity or
perseverance; for he would sit on a wet rock, with a rod as long and
heavy as a Tartar's 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.
In fact, he declared it was of no use to work on his farm; it was the
most pestilent little piece of ground in the whole country; everything
about it went wrong, and would go wrong, in spite of him. His fences
were continually 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, frequent
and angry puffs; but when pleased, he would inhale the smoke slowly and
tranquilly, and emit it in light and placid clouds; and sometimes,
taking the pipe from his mouth, and letting the fragrant vapor curl
about his nose, would gravely nod his head in token of perfect
approbation.
From even this stronghold the unlucky Rip was at length routed by his
termagant wife, who would suddenly break in upon the tranquillity of the
assemblage and call the members all to naught; nor was that august
personage, Nicholas Vedder himself, sacred from the daring tongue of
this terrible virago, who charged him outright with encouraging her
husband in habits of idleness.
Poor Rip was at last reduced almost to despair; and his only
alternative, to escape from the labor of the farm and clamor of his
wife, was to take gun in hand and stroll away into the woods. Here he
would sometimes seat himself at the foot of a tree, and share the
contents of his wallet with Wolf, with whom he sympathized as a
fellow-sufferer in persecution. "Poor Wolf," he would say, "thy mistress
leads thee a dog's life of it; but never mind, my lad, whilst I live
thou shalt never want a friend to stand by thee!" Wolf would wag his
tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs can feel pity I
verily believe he reciprocated the sentiment with all his heart.
In a long ramble of the kind on a fine autumnal day, Rip had
unconsciously scrambled to one of the highest parts of the Kaatskill
mountains. He was after his favorite sport of squirrel shooting, and the
still solitudes had echoed and re-echoed with the reports of his gun.
Panting and fatigued, he threw himself, late in the afternoon, on a
green knoll, covered with mountain herbage, that crowned the brow of a
precipice. From an opening between the trees he could overlook all the
lower country for many a mile of rich woodland. He saw at a distance the
lordly Hudson, far, far below him, moving on its silent but majestic
course, with the reflection of a purple cloud, or the sail of a lagging
bark, here and there sleeping on its glassy bosom, and at last losing
itself in the blue highlands.
On the other side he looked down into a deep mountain glen, wild,
lonely, and shagged, the bottom filled with fragments from the impending
cliffs, and scarcely lighted by the reflected rays of the setting sun.
For some time Rip lay musing on this scene; evening was gradually
advancing; the mountains began to throw their long blue shadows over the
valleys; he saw that it would be dark long before he could reach the
village, and he heaved a heavy sigh when he thought of encountering the
terrors of Dame Van Winkle.
As he was about to descend, he heard a voice from a distance, hallooing,
"Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle!" He looked round, but could see nothing
but a crow winging its solitary flight across the mountain. He thought
his fancy must have deceived him, and turned again to descend, when he
heard the same cry ring through the still evening air: "Rip Van Winkle!
Rip Van Winkle!"--at the same time Wolf bristled up his back, and giving
a low growl, skulked to his master's side, looking fearfully down into
the glen. Rip now felt a vague apprehension stealing over him; he looked
anxiously in the same direction, and perceived a strange figure slowly
toiling up the rocks, and bending under the weight of something he
carried on his back. He was surprised to see any human being in this
lonely and unfrequented place, but supposing it to be some one of the
neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield it.
On nearer approach he was still more surprised at the singularity of the
stranger's appearance. He was a short square-built old fellow, with
thick bushy hair, and a grizzled beard. His dress was of the antique
Dutch fashion--a cloth jerkin strapped round the waist--several pair of
breeches, the outer one of ample volume, decorated with rows of buttons
down the sides, and bunches at the knees. He bore on his shoulder a
stout keg, that seemed full of liquor, and made signs for Rip to
approach and assist him with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful
of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity; and
mutually relieving one another, they clambered up a narrow gully,
apparently the dry bed of a mountain torrent. As they ascended, Rip
every now and then heard long rolling peals, like distant thunder, that
seemed to issue out of a deep ravine, or rather cleft, between lofty
rocks, toward which their rugged path conducted. He paused for an
instant, but supposing it to be the muttering of one of those transient
thunder-showers which often take place in mountain heights, he
proceeded. Passing through the ravine, they came to a hollow, like a
small amphitheatre, surrounded by perpendicular precipices, over the
brinks of which impending trees shot their branches, so that you only
caught glimpses of the azure sky and the bright evening cloud. During
the whole time Rip and his companion had labored on in silence; for
though the former marvelled greatly what could be the object of carrying
a keg of liquor up this wild mountain, yet there was something strange
and incomprehensible about the unknown, that inspired awe and checked
familiarity.
On entering the amphitheatre, new objects of wonder presented
themselves. On a level spot in the centre was a company of odd-looking
personages playing at nine-pins. They were dressed in a quaint
outlandish fashion; some wore short doublets, others jerkins, with long
knives in their belts, and most of them had enormous breeches, of
similar style with that of the guide's. Their visages, too, were
peculiar: one had a large beard, broad face, and small piggish eyes: the
face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose, and was surmounted
by a white sugar-loaf hat set off with a little red cock's tail. They
all had beards, of various shapes and colors. There was one who seemed
to be the commander. He was a stout old gentleman, with a weather-beaten
countenance; he wore a laced doublet, broad belt and hanger,
high-crowned hat and feather, red stockings, and high-heeled shoes, with
roses in them. The whole group reminded Rip of the figures in an old
Flemish painting, in the parlor of Dominie Van Shaick, the village
parson, and which had been brought over from Holland at the time of the
settlement.
What seemed particularly odd to Rip was, that though these folks were
evidently amusing themselves, yet they maintained the gravest faces, the
most mysterious silence, and were, withal, the most melancholy party of
pleasure he had ever witnessed. Nothing interrupted the stillness of the
scene but the noise of the balls, which, whenever they were rolled,
echoed along the mountains like rumbling peals of thunder.
As Rip and his companion approached them, they suddenly desisted from
their play, and stared at him with such fixed statue-like gaze, and such
strange, uncouth, lack-lustre countenances, that his heart turned within
him, and his knees smote together. His companion now emptied the
contents of the keg into large flagons, and made signs to him to wait
upon the company. He obeyed with fear and trembling; they quaffed the
liquor in profound silence, and then returned to their game.
By degrees Rip's awe and apprehension subsided. He even ventured, when
no eye was fixed upon him, to taste the beverage, which he found had
much of the flavor of excellent Hollands. He was naturally a thirsty
soul, and was soon tempted to repeat the draught. One taste provoked
another; and he reiterated his visits to the flagon so often that at
length his senses were overpowered, his eyes swam in his head, his head
gradually declined, and he fell into a deep sleep.
On waking, he found himself on the green knoll whence he had first seen
the old man of the glen. He rubbed his eyes--it was a bright sunny
morning. The birds were hopping and twittering among the bushes, and the
eagle was wheeling aloft, and breasting the pure mountain breeze.
"Surely," thought Rip, "I have not slept here all night." He recalled
the occurrences before he fell asleep. The strange man with a keg of
liquor--the mountain ravine--the wild retreat among the rocks--the
woe-begone party at nine-pins--the flagon--"Oh! that flagon! that wicked
flagon!" thought Rip--"what excuse shall I make to Dame Van Winkle!"
He looked round for his gun, but in place of the clean well-oiled
fowling-piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel
incrusted with rust, the lock falling off, and the stock worm-eaten. He
now suspected that the grave roysters of the mountain had put a trick
upon him, and, having dosed him with liquor, had robbed him of his gun.
Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a
squirrel or partridge. He whistled after him and shouted his name, but
all in vain; the echoes repeated his whistle and shout, but no dog was
to be seen.
He determined to revisit the scene of the last evening's gambol, and if
he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he rose to
walk, he found himself stiff in the joints, and wanting in his usual
activity. "These mountain beds do not agree with me," thought Rip, "and
if this frolic should lay me up with a fit of rheumatism, I shall have a
blessed time with Dame Van Winkle." With some difficulty he got down
into the glen: he found the gully up which he and his companion had
ascended the preceding evening; but to his astonishment a mountain
stream was now foaming down it, leaping from rock to rock, and filling
the glen with babbling murmurs. He, however, made shift to scramble up
its sides, working his toilsome way through thickets of birch,
sassafras, and witch-hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by
the wild grapevines that twisted their coils or tendrils from tree to
tree, and spread a kind of network in his path.
At length he reached to where the ravine had opened through the cliffs
to the amphitheatre; but no traces of such opening remained. The rocks
presented a high impenetrable wall over which the torrent came tumbling
in a sheet of feathery foam, and fell into a broad deep basin, black
from the shadows of the surrounding forest. Here, then, poor Rip was
brought to a stand. He again called and whistled after his dog; he was
only answered by the cawing of a flock of idle crows, sporting high in
air about a dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice; and who, secure in
their elevation, seemed to look down and scoff at the poor man's
perplexities. What was to be done? the morning was passing away, and Rip
felt famished for want of his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog
and gun; he dreaded to meet his wife; but it would not do to starve
among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered the rusty firelock,
and, with a heart full of trouble and anxiety, turned his steps
homeward.
As he approached the village he met a number of people, but none whom he
knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself
acquainted with every one in the country round. Their dress, too, was of
a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all
stared at him with equal marks of surprise, and whenever they cast their
eyes upon him, invariably stroked their chins. The constant recurrence
of this gesture induced Rip, involuntarily, to do the same, when, to his
astonishment, he found his beard had grown a foot long!
He had now entered the skirts of the village. A troop of strange
children ran at his heels, hooting after him, and pointing at his gray
beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for an old
acquaintance, barked at him as he passed. The very village was altered;
it was larger and more populous. There were rows of houses which he had
never seen before, and those which had been his familiar haunts had
disappeared. Strange names were over the doors--strange faces at the
windows--every thing was strange. His mind now misgave him; he began to
doubt whether both he and the world around him were not bewitched.
Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day
before. There stood the Kaatskill mountains--there ran the silver Hudson
at a distance--there was every hill and dale precisely as it had always
been--Rip was sorely perplexed--"That flagon last night," thought he,
"has addled my poor head sadly!"
It was with some difficulty that he found the way to his own house,
which he approached with silent awe, expecting every moment to hear the
shrill voice of Dame Van Winkle. He found the house gone to decay--the
roof fallen in, the windows shattered, and the doors off the hinges. A
half-starved dog that looked like Wolf was skulking about it. Rip called
him by name, but the cur snarled, showed his teeth, and passed on. This
was an unkind cut indeed--"My very dog," sighed poor Rip, "has forgotten
me!"
He entered the house, which, to tell the truth, Dame Van Winkle had
always kept in neat order. It was empty, forlorn, and apparently
abandoned. This desolateness overcame all his connubial fears--he called
loudly for his wife and children--the lonely chambers rang for a moment
with his voice, and then all again was silence.
He now hurried forth, and hastened to his old resort, the village
inn--but it too was gone. A large rickety wooden building stood in its
place, with great gaping windows, some of them broken and mended with
old hats and petticoats, and over the door was painted, "the Union
Hotel, by Jonathan Doolittle." Instead of the great tree that used to
shelter the quiet little Dutch inn of yore, there now was reared a tall
naked pole, with something on the top that looked like a red night-cap,
and from it was fluttering a flag, on which was a singular assemblage of
stars and stripes--all this was strange and incomprehensible. He
recognized on the sign, however, the ruby face of King George, under
which he had smoked so many a peaceful pipe; but even this was
singularly metamorphosed. The red coat was changed for one of blue and
buff, a sword was held in the hand instead of a sceptre, the head was
decorated with a cocked hat, and underneath was painted in large
characters, GENERAL WASHINGTON.
There was, as usual, a crowd of folk about the door, but none that Rip
recollected. The very character of the people seemed changed. There was
a busy, bustling, disputatious tone about it, instead of the accustomed
phlegm and drowsy tranquillity. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas
Vedder, with his broad face, double chin, and fair long pipe, uttering
clouds of tobacco-smoke instead of idle speeches; or Van Bummel, the
schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place
of these, a lean, bilious-looking fellow, with his pockets full of
handbills, was haranguing vehemently about rights of
citizens--elections--members of congress--liberty--Bunker's Hill--heroes
of seventy-six--and other words, which were a perfect Babylonish jargon
to the bewildered Van Winkle.