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 neighborhood.
The great error in Rip's composition was an insuperable aversion
to all kinds of profitable labor. 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 murmur, even though he should not be encouraged by a single
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 neighbor 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.
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