 Ripe Figs by Kate Chopin, read for LibriVox.org. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to learn how to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Ripe Figs by Kate Chopin. Mama Nanane said that when the figs were ripe, Babette might go to visit her cousins down on the bayou la force, where the sugar canes grow. Not that the ripening figs had the least thing to do with it, but that is the way Mama Nanane was. It seemed to Babette a very long time to wait, for the leaves upon the trees were tender yet, and the figs were like little hard green marbles. But warm rains came along, and plenty of strong sunshine. And though Mama Nanane was as patient as the statue of LeMadan, and Babette as restless as a hummingbird, the first thing they both knew, it was hot summertime. Every day Babette danced out to where the fig trees were in a long line against the fence. She walked slowly beneath them, carefully peering between the gnarled spreading branches. But each time she came disconsolate away. What she saw there finally was something that made her sing and dance the whole long day. When Mama Nanane sat down in her stately way to breakfast the following morning, her muslin cap standing out like an oriole about her white placid face. Babette approached. She bore a dainty porcelain platter, which she sat down before her godmother. It contained a dozen purple figs, fringed around with their rich green leaves. Ah, said Mama Nanane, arching her eyebrows. How early the figs have ripened this year. Oh, said Babette, I think they have ripened very late. Babette continued Mama Nanane as she peeled the very plumpest figs with her pointed silver fruit knife. You will carry my love to them all down on bayou la force. And tell your tent of cuisine, I shall look for her to sent. When the chrysanthemums are in bloom. End of Ripe Figs by Kate Chopin. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis-Dray. Rip Van Winkle by Washington Irving. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Paul Tremblay. Rip Van Winkle, a posthumous writing of Diedrich Nicobacher by Washington Irving. The following tale was found among the papers of the late Diedrich Nicobacher, 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 lay so much among books as among men for the former are lamentably scanty on his favorite topics. Whereas he found the old burgers 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 lower-roofed farmhouse under a spreading sycamore. He hung upon it as a little clasp, volume of black letter, and studied it with the zeal of a bookworm. 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 wit 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 is now admitted into all history 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 and 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 among many folk whose good opinion is well worth having, particularly 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 able to being stamped on a Waterloo medal or a Queen Anne's Farthing by Woden, God of Saxons, from whence comes Wednesday, that is, Woden's Day, Truth is a thing that ever I will keep unto thy light day and which I creep into my sepulchre. Cartwright, whoever has made the voyage up the Hudson must remember the Catskill 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 alerting 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 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 grey vapours about their summits which, in the last ray 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 described 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 narrow 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 Sturbesant. May he rest in peace. And there were some of the houses of the original settlers standing within a few years, with lattice windows, gable fronts amounted with weather cocks, and built of small yellow bricks brought from Holland. 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 Sturbesant, and accompanied him to the siege of Fort Cristina. 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, hand-packed husband, indeed. To the latter circumstance might be owing that meekness of spirit which gained him so much universal popularity. For those men are most apt to be obsequious in conciliating abroad, who are under the discipline of shrews at home. Their tempers, doubtless, are rendered pliant in malleable and a 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 tourniquent 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 these 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, clamoring 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 inseparable aversion to all kinds of profitable labor. It could not be for the want of assiguity 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 fouling piece on his shoulder for hours together, trudging through woods and swamps and uphill and down dale to shoot a few squirrels or wild pigeons. He would never even refuse to assist a neighbor in the roughest toil, and was a foremost man at all country follicks for husking Indian corn or building stone fences. The woman 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, it was impossible. In fact, he declared, it was 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 sitting in just as he had some outdoor 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 Galagaskins, which she had much to do 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 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 this 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 folly from his wife so that he was feigned to draw off his forces and take to the outside of the house, the only side which, in truth, belongs to a hen-packed husband. Rip's sole domestic adherent was his dog, Wolf, who was as much hen-packed as his master. Four, Dame Van Winkle regarded them as companions in idleness and even looked upon Wolf with an evil eye as the cause of his masters often going 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-doring 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 side-long glance at Dame Van Winkle and at the least flourish of a boomstick or ladle 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 edge tool that grows keener by 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 that held its sessions on a bench before a small inn designated by a Rubicon portrait of His Majesty George III. Here, they used to sit in the shade of a long, lazy summer's day, blacklistlessly over village gossip or tell 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 traveler. How solemnly they would listen to the contents as drawled out by Derek Van Bumel, the schoolmaster, a dappa-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 gento were completely controlled by Nicholas Vader, 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 keeping the shade of a large tree so that the neighbors could tell the hour of his movements as accurately as by a sundial. It is true he was really heard to speak but smoked his pipe incessantly. His adherence, however, for every great man has his adherence, 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 send forth short, frequent and angry pus. 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 gnaw at his head in token of perfect approbation. From even this stronghold the unlucky rip was at length routed by his termigant wife who would suddenly break in upon the tranquility of this assemblage, call the members all to not nor was the august personage, Nicholas Vader himself, sacred from the daring tongue of this terrible verago 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 the 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 the dog's life of it. But never mind, my lad, while I live I'll never want a friend to stand by thee. Wolf would wag his tail, look wistfully in his master's face, and if dogs can't feel pity, I barely 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 Catskill 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. Painting 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, the reflection of a purple cloud, or the seal 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 blamed using on the 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, hollowing, Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle! He looked around, 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 ringing through the still evening air. Rip Van Winkle! Rip Van Winkle! At the same time, Wolf bristled up his back in giving a low growl, sculpt 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, unfrequented place, but supposing it to be someone of his neighborhood in need of his assistance, he hastened down to yield to it. A 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 jerk and strapped around 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 in a system with the load. Though rather shy and distrustful of this new acquaintance, Rip complied with his usual alacrity and mutually relieving each other. 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 peels like distant thunder that seemed to issue out of a deep ravine or rather cleft between the 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 amphitheater surrounded by a perpendicular precipice over the brinks of which impending trees shot their branches so that you only caught glimpses of the azora sky in the bright evening cloud. During the whole time, Rip and his companion had labored on in silence. Four, though the former marveled 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 amphitheater, new objects of wonder presented themselves. On a level spot in the center 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 and their belts, and most had enormous breeches of similar style with that of the guides. Their visages, too, were peculiar. One had a large head, broad face, and small, pigish eyes. The face of another seemed to consist entirely of nose and was surmounted by a white sugarloaf hat set off with a little red cox 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 lace 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 Domineu van Schleik, 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, with all, 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 peels of thunder. As Rip and his companions approached them, they suddenly desisted from their play and steered at him with such fixed, statue-like gaze and such strange, uncouth, lackluster countenances that his heart turned within him and his knees smote together. His companions now emptied the contents of the keg into large fluggins and made signs of 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 hullins. He was naturally a thirsty soul and was soon tempted to repeat the draft. One taste provoked another and he reiterated his visit to the floggin 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 awakening, he found himself on the green knoll from 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 willing aloft and breasting the pure mountain breeze. Surely, thought Rip, I have not slept here all night. He recalled the occurrence before he fell asleep. The strange man with the keg of liquor, the mountain ravine, the wild retreat among the rocks, the woe-begone party at ninepins, the flagon. Oh, that flagon, that wicked flagon, thought Rip, what excuse shall I make to dame Van Winkle? He looked around for his gun, but in place of the clean, well-oiled fouling piece, he found an old firelock lying by him, the barrel encrusted 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 doused him with liquor had robbed him of his gun. Wolf, too, had disappeared, but he might have strayed away after a squirrel or a potridge. He whistled after him, 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 gamble and, if he met with any of the party, to demand his dog and gun. As he arose 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 the 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 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 a shift to scramble up its sides, working his toil some way through thickets of birch, sassafras, and witch hazel, and sometimes tripped up or entangled by the wild grapevines that twisted their coils and 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 amphitheater, 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 the ear above the dry tree that overhung a sunny precipice, and who, secure in their elevation, seemed to look down in scoff at the poor man's perplexities. What was to be done? The morning was passing away and Rip felt famished for his breakfast. He grieved to give up his dog in gun. He dreaded to meet his wife, but it would not do to starve among the mountains. He shook his head, shouldered his 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 that he knew, which somewhat surprised him, for he had thought himself acquainted with everyone in the country round. Their dress, too, was of a different fashion from that to which he was accustomed. They all steered at him with equal marks of surprise, and, whenever they cast 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 troupe of strange children ran at his heels, hooting after him and pointing at his grey beard. The dogs, too, not one of which he recognized for his old acquaintances, barked at him as he passed. The very village seemed 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 doors, strange faces at the windows. Everything was strange. His mind now began to misgive him that both he and the world around him were bewitched. Surely this was his native village, which he had left but the day before. There stood the Catskill Mountains. There ran the Silver Hudson at a distance. There was every hill in 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 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 curl snarled, showed his teeth and passed on. That 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 desert-litness overcame all his cannubial fears. He called loudly for his wife and children. The lonely chambers rung for a moment with his voice. And then, all again, was silence. He now hurried forth and hastened to his old resort, the little village in, 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 was now reared a tall, naked pole with something on top that looked like a red nightcap in, from its 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 metamorphist. The red coat was changed for one of blue and buff. A sword was stuck in the hand instead of a scepter. 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 tranquility. He looked in vain for the sage Nicholas Vader with his broad face, double chin and fair, long pipe uttering clouds of tobacco smoke instead of idle speeches. Or Ben Bumel, the schoolmaster, doling forth the contents of an ancient newspaper. In place of these, a lean, billows-looking fellow with his pockets full of handbills was haranguing vehemently about rights of citizens, elections, members of Congress, Liberty, Bunkers Hill, heroes of 76, and other words that were a perfect Babylonious jargon to the bewildered Van Winkle. The appearance of Rip with his long, grizzled beard, his rusty fouling piece, his uncouth dress and the army of women and children that had gathered at his heels soon attracted the attention of the tavern politicians. They crowded around him, eyeing him from head to foot with great curiosity. The orator bustled up to him and, drawing him partly aside, inquired which side he voted. Rip stared in vacant stupidity. Another short but busy little fellow pulled him by the arm and, raising on tiptoe, inquired in his ear whether he was a federal or Democrat. Rip was equally at a loss to comprehend the question. When a knowing, self-important old gentleman in a sharp cocked hat made his way through the crowd, putting them to the right and left with his elbows as he passed and planting himself before Van Winkle with one arm a Kimbo, the other resting on his cane, his keen eyes and sharp hat penetrating, as it were, into his very soul, demanded in an austere tone what brought him to the election with a gun on his shoulder and a mob at his heels and whether he meant to breed a riot in the village. Alas, gentlemen, cried Rip, somewhat dismayed, I am a poor, quiet man, a native of this place and a loyal subject of the king. God bless him. Hear a general shout, burst from the bystanders, a Tory, a Tory, a spy, a refugee, hustle him away with him. It was with great difficulty that the self-important man in a cocked hat restored order and, having assumed a tenfold austerity of brow, demanded again of the unknown culprit what he came there for and whom he was seeking. The poor man humbly assured them that he meant no harm but merely came there in search of some of his neighbors who used to keep about the tavern. Well, who are they? Name them. Rip thought himself a moment and inquired, where's Nicholas Vader? There was a silence for a little while when an old man replied in a thin piping voice, Nicholas Vader? Why? He is dead and gone these eighteen years. There was a wooden tombstone in the churchyard that used to tell all about him but that's rotted and gone too. Where's Rome Dutcher? Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war. Some say he was killed at the Battle of Stony Point. Others say he was drowned in a squall at the foot of Antony's nose. I don't know. He never came back again. Where's Van Bommel, the school master? He went off to the wars too. He was a great militia general and is now in Congress. Rip's heart died away at hearing of these sad changes in his home and friends and finding himself thus alone in the world. Every answer puzzled him too by treating of such enormous lapses of time and of matters which he could not understand. War, Congress, Stony Point? He had no courage to ask after any more friends but cried out in despair. Does nobody here know Rip Van Winkle? Oh, Rip Van Winkle. Exclaimed two or three. Oh, to be sure, that's Rip Van Winkle yonder leaning against the tree. Rip looked and beheld a precise counterpart of himself as he went up to the mountain. Apparently, as lazy and certainly as ragged, the poor fellow was now completely confounded. He doubted his own identity and whether he was himself or another man. In the midst of his bewilderment, the man in a cocked hat demanded who he was and what was his name. God knows, exclaimed he at his wit's end, I'm not myself. I'm somebody else. That's me yonder. No, that's somebody else got into my shoes. I was myself last night but I fell asleep on the mountain and they've changed my gun and everything's changed and I'm changed and I can't tell what's my name or who I am. The bystanders began now to look at each other. Not wink significantly and tap their fingers against their foreheads. There was a whisper also about securing the gun and keeping the old fellow from doing mischief. At the very suggestion of which the self-important man and the cocked hat retired with some precipitation, at this critical moment a fresh, likely woman passed through the throng to get a peep at the grey-bearded man. She had a chubby child in her arms which, frightened at his looks, began to cry. Hush, rip! cried she. Hush, you little fool! The old man won't hurt you. The name of the child, the heir of the mother, the tone of her voice, all awakened a train of recollections in his mind. What is your name, my good woman? asked he. Judith Gardner and your father's name? Ah, poor man. His name was Rip Van Winkle. It's twenty years since he went away from home with his gun and never has been heard of since. His dog came home without him. But whether he shot himself or was carried away by Indians, nobody can tell. I was then but a little girl. Rip had but one question more to ask. But he put it with a faltering voice. Where's your mother? Oh, she too had died but a short time since. She broke a blood vessel and a fit of passion at a New England peddler. There was a drop of comfort, at least in this intelligence. The honest man could contain himself no longer. He caught his daughter and her child in his arms. I am your father. Quite he. Young Rip Van Winkle once. Old Rip Van Winkle now. Does nobody know? Poor Rip Van Winkle? All stood amazed until an old woman tottering out from among the crowd put her hand to her brow and peering under it in his face for a moment exclaimed, Sure enough. It is Rip Van Winkle. It is himself. Welcome home again, old neighbor. Why? Where have you been these 20 long years? Rip's story was soon told for the whole 20 years had been to him but as one night. The neighbors stared when they heard it. Some were seen to wink at each other and put their tongues in their cheeks and the self-important man in the cocked hat who, when the alarm was over had returned to the field, screwed down the corners of his mouth and shook his head upon which there was a general shaking of the head throughout the assemblage. It was determined, however, to take the opinion of old Peter Vanderdank who was seen slowly advancing up the road. He was a descendant of the historian of that name who wrote one of the earliest accounts of the province. Peter was the most ancient inhabitant of the village and well-versed in all the wonderful events and traditions of the neighborhood. He recollected Rip at once and cooperated his story in the most satisfactory manner. He assured the company that it was a fact handed down from his ancestor, the historian, that the Catskill Mountains had always been haunted by strange beings. That it was affirmed that the great Hendrik Hudson, the first discoverer of the river and country, kept a kind of vigil there every twenty years with his crew of the half moons being permitted in this way to revisit the scenes of his enterprise and keep a guardian eye upon the river in the great city called by his name. That his father had once seen them in their old Dutch dresses playing at nine pins in the hollow of the mountain and that he himself had heard one summer afternoon the sound of their balls like long peels of thunder. To make a long story short, the company broke up and returned to the more important concerns of the election. Rip's daughter took him home to live with her. She had a snug, well furnished house and a stout, cheery farmer for a husband whom Rip recollected for one of the urchins that used to climb upon his back. As to Rip's son and heir, who was the ditto of himself seen linging against the tree, he was employed to work on the farm but he winced in hereditary disposition to attend to anything else but his business. Rip now resumed his old walks and habits. He soon found many of his former cronies though all rather the worse for the wear and tear of time and preferred making friends among the rising generation with whom he soon grew into great favor. Having nothing to do at home and being arrived at that happy age when a man can do nothing with impunity, he took his place once more on the bench at the indoor 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 tract of gossip or could be made to comprehend the strange events that had taken place during the 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 III 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 grown and it 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 the 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 a weight. 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 thunderstorm of a summer afternoon about the Catskill but they say Hendrik Hudson and his crew are at their game of nine pins and it is a common wish of all hen-packed husbands in the neighborhood when life hangs heavy on their hands that they might have a quieting draft out of Rip Van Wiegel's flogging note. The foregoing tale one would suspect had been suggested by Mr. Nicobacher by a little German superstition about Charles V and the Kripperhauser mountain. The subjoined note however which he had appended to the tale shows that it is an absolute fact narrated with his usual fidelity. The story of Rip Van Wiegel may seem incredible to many but nevertheless I give it my full belief for I know the vicinity of our old Dutch settlements to have been very subject to marvelous events and appearances. Indeed, I have heard many stranger stories than this and the villages along the Hudson all of which were too well authenticated to admit of a doubt. I have even talked with Rip Van Wiegel myself who, when asked I saw him was a very venerable old man and so perfectly rational and consistent on every other point that I think no conscientious person could refuse to take this into the bargain. I have seen a certificate on the subject taken before a country justice and signed with a cross in the justice's own handwriting. The story, therefore, is beyond the possibility of doubt. Diedrich Nicobarcker, 1819 End of Rip Van Wiegel A posthumous writing of Diedrich Nicobarcker Read by Paul Henry Tremblay Louisville, Kentucky, 2008 The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin This is a LibraVox recording. All LibraVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information and to learn how to volunteer, please visit LibraVox.org The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin Knowing that Mrs. Millard was afflicted with a heart trouble, great care was taken to break to her as gently as possible the news of her husband's death. It was her sister Josephine who told her in broken sentences, veiled hints that revealed her half-concealing. Her husband's friend Richard was there, too, near her. It was he who had been in the newspaper office when intelligence of the railroad disaster was received, with Brentley Millard's name leading the list of killed. He had only taken the time to assure himself of its truth by a second telegram and had hastened to forestall any less careful, less tender friend in bearing the sad message. She did not hear the story as many women have heard the same with a paralyzed inability to accept its significance. She wept at once with sudden wild abandonment in her sister's arms. When the storm of grief had spent itself, she went away to her room alone. She would have no one follow her. There stood, facing the open window, a comfortable roomy armchair. Into this she sank, pressing down by a physical exhaustion that haunted her body and seemed to reach into her soul. She could see in the open square before her house the tops of trees that were all a quiver with a new spring life. The delicious breath of rain was in the air. In the street below a peddler was crying his wares. The notes of a distant song which someone was singing reached her faintly and countless sparrows were twittering in the eaves. There were patches of blue sky showing here and there through the clouds that had met and piled one above the other in the west facing her window. She sat with her head thrown back upon the cushion of the chair quite motionless except when a sob came up into her throat and shook her child who has cried itself to sleep continues to sob in its dreams. She was young with a fair calm face whose lines bespoke repression and even a certain strength. But now there was a dull stare in her eyes whose gaze was fixed away off yonder in one of those patches of blue sky. It was not a glance of reflection but rather indicated a suspension of intelligent thought. There was something coming to her and she was waiting for it fearfully. What was it? She did not know. It was too subtle and elusive to name but she felt it creeping out of the sky reaching towards her through the sounds, the sense, the color that filled the air. Now her bosom rose and fell tumultuously. She was beginning to recognize this thing that was approaching to possess her and she was striving to beat it back with her will as powerless as her two white slender hands would have been. When she abandoned herself a little whispered word escaped her slightly parted lips. She said it over and over under her breath. Free, free, free. The vacant stare and the look of terror that had followed it went from her eyes. They stayed keen and bright. Her pulses beat fast and the coursing blood warmed and relaxed every inch of her body. She did not stop to ask if it were or were not a monstrous joy that held her. A clear and exalted perception enabled her to dismiss the suggestion as trivial. She knew that she would weep again when she saw the kind tender hands folded in death the face that had never looked saved with love upon her fixed and gray and dead. But she saw beyond that bitter moment a long procession of years to come that would belong to her absolutely and she opened and spread her arms out to them in welcome. There would be no one to live for her during those coming years. She would live for herself. There would be no powerful will bending hers in that blind persistence with which men and women believe they have a right to impose a private will upon a fellow creature. A kind intention or a cruel intention made the act seem no less a crime as she looked upon it in a brief moment of illumination. And yet she had loved him. Sometimes. Often she had not. What did it matter? What could love, the unsolved mystery count for in face of this possession of self-assertion which she suddenly recognized as the strongest impulse of her being? Free. Body and soul free. She kept whispering. Josephine was kneeling before the closed door with her lips to the keyhole imploring for admission. Louise, open the door. I beg. Open the door. You will make yourself ill. What are you doing, Louise? For heaven's sake, open the door. Go away. I am not making myself ill. No. She was drinking a very elixir of life through the open window. Her fancy was running riot along those days ahead of her. Spring days and summer days and all sorts of days that would be her own. She breathed a quick prayer that life might be long. It was only yesterday she had thought with a shutter that life might be long. She arose at length and opened the door to her sister's importunities. There was a feverish triumph in her eyes and she carried herself unwittingly like a goddess of victory. She clasped her sister's waist and together they descended the stairs. Richards stood waiting for them at the bottom. Someone was opening the front door with a latch key. It was Brentley Mallard, who entered a little travel-stained and composedly carrying his grip sack and umbrella. He had been far from the scene of the accident and did not even know there had been one. He stood amazed at Josephine's piercing cry at Richards' quick motion to screen him from the view of his wife. But Richards was too late. When the doctors came, they said she had died of heart disease, of joy that kills. End of The Story of an Hour by Kate Chopin. Read for LibriVox.org by Alan Davis Drake.