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 the
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, died but a short time since;
she broke a blood vessel in 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!" cried 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 twenty long years?"
Rip's story was soon told, for the whole twenty years had been to him but
as one night.

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. 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.
--Irving.

NOTES.--Rip Van Winkle, according to Irving's story in "The Sketch Book,"
was a great drunkard, and was driven from his home in the Catskill
Mountains, one night, by his wife. Wandering among the mountains, he fell
in with the ghosts of Hendrick Hudson and his crew, with whom he played a
game of ninepins. Upon drinking the liquor which they offered him,
however, he immediately fell into a deep sleep which lasted for twenty
years. The above lesson recounts the events that befell him when he
returned to his native village. In the meantime the Revolution of 1776 had
taken place.

The Federals and the Democrats formed the two leading political parties of
that time.

Stony Point is a promontory on the Hu