The Strange Story Book Part 7

'He went off to the wars too, and became a general, and is now a member of Congress.'

Rip asked no further questions: his home and his friends were gone, and he seemed to be alone in the world. At length a cry of despair broke from him.

'Does n.o.body know Rip van Winkle?'

'Rip van Winkle?' answered two or three. 'Oh, to be sure! There's Rip van Winkle leaning against that tree.'

Rip looked where they pointed, and grew more bewildered and despairing than ever. For what he saw was himself; himself as he had been yesterday when he went up the mountain; himself in the rags that he had worn with such a light heart.

'And what is _your_ name?' asked the man in the c.o.c.ked hat, watching his face.

'G.o.d knows,' cried Rip; 'I don't know who I am. I'm not myself. I'm somebody else--that's me yonder--at least I can't tell; he seems to have got into my shoes. I was myself last night, but I fell asleep on the mountain and they changed my gun, and now everything is changed and I'm changed, and I don't know what is my name or who I am.'

When he had ceased, the bystanders looked at each other and tapping their foreheads, whispered something about taking away the gun so that he might not do himself a mischief. They were still talking when a pleasant-faced woman pushed through the crowd to get a peep of the stranger with the long beard. His looks frightened the child she was carrying, and it began to cry. 'Hush, Rip! hush!' she said; 'the old man won't hurt you.'

As he heard her words Rip started and turned towards her eagerly.

'What is your name?' he asked.

'Judith Gardener.'

'And who was your father?'

'Ah, poor man, he was Rip van Winkle; but he went away from home more than twenty years agone. He took his dog and his gun with him, and the dog was found lying in front of the door early next morning. But as for father, whether he shot himself by accident or was carried away by the Indians, we never knew. I was only a little girl then.'

'And your mother?'

'Oh, she died only a short time since. She flew into such a pa.s.sion with a pedlar who she thought had cheated her, that she broke a blood vessel.'

But though Rip had inquired after his wife, all affection for her had long died away, and he did not take this news much to heart. He flung his arms round his daughter and cried.

'I am your father. Don't you know me? Young Rip van Winkle once, now old Rip van Winkle. Does _n.o.body_ know poor Rip van Winkle?'

The crowd heard, amazed, and in silence. Then suddenly an old woman went up to him, and peered closely into his face.

'Why, 'tis Rip van Winkle, for sure!' said she. 'Welcome home, neighbour! Where have you been these twenty long years?'

Rip's story was soon told, but the people who listened to it had as much difficulty in believing that you could sleep for twenty years and think it was one night, as Rip himself. 'Mad!' was the only interpretation they put upon the tale, though they did not say so openly.

In the midst of the general perplexity an old man was seen coming along the road, and someone called out:

'Here is Peter Vanderdonk! Let us ask him if he ever knew of such doings?'

'Ay, let us! He is the oldest dweller in the village, and we will abide by his words,' the rest answered in chorus, and they watched intently till Peter came up.

'Why! 'tis Rip van Winkle back again!' he exclaimed, just as the old woman had done. 'Right glad I am to see him, too.'

Who can tell the joy of poor Rip at this hearty greeting? So he was no ghost after all, as he had almost begun to think, but a flesh and blood man, with friends like other people. He could hardly speak for happiness, but he grasped Peter's hand tightly, and then the man with the c.o.c.ked hat asked Peter if he had ever heard any strange stories of the Catskill Mountains.

'Ay, that have I, many a time,' replied Peter. 'My grandfather--he was mighty taken up with all such things--told me that the great Hendrik Hudson who first came over from Europe and gave his name to the river, held a feast up there once in every twenty years, with the crew of his ship the "Half Moon"; and my old father had actually beheld them playing at ninepins in the hollow of the mountains. And though I never saw anything myself,' finished Peter, 'I heard the sound of their b.a.l.l.s one summer afternoon, and anybody who did not know, would have thought it was thunder.'

After this the crowd broke up and went about its own concerns, and Rip returned with his daughter to her own house. Her husband was one of the children he had played with long ago, and he was now a thriving farmer.

Rip's son, whom he had seen leaning against the tree, was supposed to be employed on the farm, but he was no more fond of attending to his own work than his father before him.

Little by little Rip slipped back into his former life, and gathered about him those of his old friends that were still left. But now, as in the days of long ago, it was the children whom he loved best, and when they grew tired of romping together, he would sit down on some green knoll while they climbed about him, and tell them the tale, of which they never grew weary, of his night on the Catskills.

None of you who read this story are old enough to remember the wonderful American actor Jefferson, who played Rip van Winkle till he grew at last to feel he was more Rip van Winkle than Jefferson. But those who _did_ see him act it will never forget it, nor his burst of despair when he came home, to be repudiated and denied by everyone.

_THE WONDERFUL BASKET_

There was once a time when young women of the Tlingit tribe were not allowed to eat between their meals, but in spite of this rule which they knew very well, two girls belonging to one of the n.o.blest families one day being very hungry took some food. Of course, they did not tell anybody, but their mother, who looked after the food-box found it out and was very angry.

'What do you mean by behaving like that?' she asked her eldest daughter, shaking her violently while she spoke. 'It is not right that a big girl like you should do such things. I am ashamed of you! As you are so fond of eating, you had better go and marry Mountain Dweller. You will get plenty of food from him.' But though the mother did not scold her other daughter who was still quite little, the child did not like her sister to be slapped and scratched. The sister did not like it either; so that night the two girls crept softly out of the house and ran away to the forest.

The mother was surprised next morning when she found no signs of her daughters, but she thought they were cross or lazy, and had stayed in bed in order that they might not have to do any work. She waited a little, expecting to see them every moment, and as they did not come she called out, 'Why don't you get up? it is very late.' There was no answer, so she went to their room to discover what was the matter. Then she perceived that they had never been to bed at all, and felt sorry that her cross words the day before had driven them away.

The first thing she did was to go to the houses of some neighbours, and ask if they knew anything of her daughters, and if they had been playing any games with the children. But no one had seen them; and for seven days the mother wandered from one place to another, but she could never find any trace of them.

All this time the two girls were walking about the woods not knowing where they went, and looking vainly for fruit or berries, as they were very hungry. At last the path they were following led upwards, and they found themselves among the mountains. A faint sound as of somebody chopping wood a long distance off reached their ears, and the elder sister said to herself, 'I wonder if that is the man that mother was talking of.' By and bye the sound grew clearer and clearer, and on turning a corner they came upon the woodcutter, with his face painted red, standing over a fallen tree. As the girls approached he looked up and said:

'What are you two doing here?'

'Mother was unkind to us,' answered the elder, 'so we came away.'

'What had you done to vex her?' asked the man.

'We had eaten some food between our meals, and she said, "If you are so fond of eating, you had better go and marry Mountain Dweller."'

'Well, come into my house,' said Mountain Dweller, for it was he who was chopping the wood, and they went with him and he took them all over it, and very fine it was. Last of all he led them into a store-house full of dried meat, salmon, and deer, and halibut. They gazed at it hungrily, though they did not say anything, but Mountain Dweller saw their eyes and gave them food which they gladly ate; and they slept there all that night, as they did not know where else to go.

Next morning they got up very early and found Mountain Dweller making ready to hunt, drawing on his leggings and choosing his weapons.

'We will be married to-morrow,' said he, 'but to-day I have a long way to walk, and I shall not be back till nightfall. And before I go, I want to warn you not to peep behind the large curtain of skins hanging over that door. A very bad woman lives on the other side, and she does not like anyone to see her.'

[Ill.u.s.tration: HOW THE GIRLS FOUND MOUNTAIN-DWELLER]

'No; of course we won't,' answered they, and Mountain Dweller set out.