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, 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 for 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 in 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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