University of Virginia Library

AN OBEDIENT HEN-PECKED HUSBAND.

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, when
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 seige 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
neighbour, 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 maleable 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 termagent 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 favourite 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 neighbourhood.

The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable
aversion to all kinds of profitable labour. 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 murmer,
even though he should not be encouraged by a sinble
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
neighbour 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 any body'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; every thing 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 field than any where 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 worse conditioned
farm in the neighbourhood.

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 the 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 every thing 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 got 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 henpecked 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 honourable 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 dropped 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 broomstick
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, of 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 neighbours 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 any thing 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 vapour curl about his nose, would gravely
nod his head in token of perfect approbation.

From even this strong hold the unlucky Rip was at
length routed by his termagent wife, who would suddenly
break in upon the tranquillity of the assemblage and call
the members all to nought; 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 labour of the
farm and clamour 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.