im, but that's rotten and gone too." "Where's Brom
Dutcher?" "Oh, he went off to the army in the beginning of the war. Some
say he was killed at the storming of Stony Point; others say he was
drowned in a squall at the foot of Anthony's Nose. I don't know; he never
came back again."

"Where's Van Bummel, the schoolmaster?" "He went off to the wars, too;
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 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 the 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, nod, 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 in the cocked hat
retired with some precipitation. At this critical moment, a fresh, comely
woman pressed through the throng to get a peep at the gray-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 air 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 Gardenier." "And your father's name?" "Ah, poor
man! Rip Van Winkle was his name; but it's