Having nothing to do at home, and being arrived at that happy age when a man can be idle with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the inn door, and was reverenced as one of the patriarchs of the village, and a chronicle of the old times “before the war.”  It was some time before he could get into the regular track of gossip, or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during his torpor.  How that there had been a revolutionary war—­that the country had thrown off the yoke of old England—­and that, instead of being a subject of his Majesty George the Third, he was now a free citizen of the United States.  Rip, in fact, was no politician; the changes of states and empires made but little impression on him; but there was one species of despotism under which he had long groaned, and that was—­petticoat government.  Happily that was at an end; he had got his neck out of the yoke of matrimony, and could go in and out whenever he pleased, without dreading the tyranny of Dame Van Winkle.  Whenever her name was mentioned, however, he shook his head, shrugged his shoulders, and cast up his eyes, which might pass either for an expression of resignation to his fate, or joy at his deliverance.

He used to tell his story to every stranger that arrived at Mr. Doolittle’s hotel.  He was observed, at first, to vary on some points every time he told it, which was, doubtless, owing to his having so recently awaked.  It at last settled down precisely to the tale I have related, and not a man, woman, or child in the neighborhood but knew it by heart.  Some always pretended to doubt the reality of it, and insisted that Rip had been out of his head, and that this was one point on which he always remained flighty.  The old Dutch inhabitants, however, almost universally gave it full credit.  Even to this day they never hear a thunder-storm of a summer afternoon about the Kaatskill, but they say Hendrick Hudson and his crew are at their game of ninepins; and it is a common wish of all henpecked husbands in the neighborhood, when life hangs heavy on their hands, that they might have a quieting draught out of Rip Van Winkle’s flagon.

IV.  THE GOLD-BUG (1843)

BY EDGAR ALLAN POE (1809-1849)

[Setting.  Sullivan’s Island is at the entrance of Charleston harbor, just east of Charleston, South Carolina.  It is the site of Fort Moultrie, where Poe served as a private soldier in Battery H of the First Artillery, United States Army, from November, 1827, to November, 1828.  The atmosphere of the place in Poe’s time is well preserved, but no such beetle as the gold-bug has been discovered.  Poe may have found a hint for his story in the wreck of the old brigantine Cid Campeador off the coast of South Carolina in 1745, the affidavits of the burying of the treasure being still preserved in the Probate Court Records of Charleston.