to assist a neighbor even in the roughest toil." Rip also entertains the village children by telling them ghost stories, playing games, and flying kites with them. He enjoys hunting and fishing and is content to spend long hours engaged in these activities, even if he doesn't catch much.

It becomes less surprising that Rip's wife, Dame Van Winkle, is such an aggressive woman when readers learn that Rip has no interest in tending to their farm or engaging in any kind of "profitable labor." His rambles through the village and the woods, and his habit of helping out around town instead of at home, leave Dame Van Winkle to care for their house and children by herself. Rip is full of excuses when it comes to the farm, and he seems to think that he is the world's unluckiest farmer. From weeds growing on his land to his cattle going astray, it all becomes too much for Rip, so he simply gives up. As soon as his wife starts shouting at him, Rip's habit is to escape either to the inn or to the forest with his beloved dog.

The narrator tells us that Rip Van Winkle most enjoys going off by himself to hunt or fish. He is described as a person who can happily sit on a "wet rock" all day with his fishing rod dangling in the water, even if he never gets a bite from a fish. He is also happiest when he can wander in the forest all day with his gun on his shoulder, shooting a few pigeons or squirrels.

The good-natured Rip also enjoys helping neighboring housewives with small errands or chores or playing with the village's children, who follow him around. He shows them how to fly kites and shoot marbles. He also tells them long stories about ghosts, Native Americans, and witches.

Finally, Rip enjoys hanging around the village inn, under the sign of George III, talking about months-old news.

In sum, Rip enjoys easy tasks that don't take much initiative, planning, or self-denial. He likes to have a good time in the moment, talking with friends or wandering around with his dog and pursuing low-stakes goals.

What Rip can't seem to do is any disciplined work that requires delaying gratification, such as improving his farm and making it into a profitable business. He believes that everything on the farm goes wrong no matter what he does, an excuse for his lack of initiative.

Rip van Winkle is fond of wandering the countryside and wilderness with his gun or his fishing rod and can disappear for hours and hours at a time following these pursuits. He enjoys helps neighboring women with small chores and is popular with children. He also likes loitering on the bench in front of the village inn, under the picture of King George III. At the inn, he and his friends read old newspapers and discuss political events that have already occurred, drowsing away many an afternoon.

All of the activities Rip enjoys characterize him as a type: the lackadaisical colonial subject who lacks ambition, drive, and purpose. He is happy-go-lucky, and complacent, and he fails to build a future for himself or his family. He is a contrast, as he finds to his surprise after sleeping for twenty years, to the energetic new man unleashed by the American Revolution.

Rip van Winkle takes his gun and heads up into the Catskill Mountains on a regular basis. It's nice and quiet up there, a place where he can go to escape his bad-tempered, nagging wife. It's also one of the few places where the notoriously lazy Rip can engage in meaningful activities. Back home he finds it too much like hard work to keep the farm going. But up in the mountains he's more active than he is round the farm. Here, he indulges in his favorite sport of squirrel shooting.

On other occasions he just sits beneath a tree, lazily feasting his eyes on the deep mountain glen down below. Sometimes he's accompanied on his hunting expeditions by his faithful dog Wolf, who's every bit as maltreated by Dame Van Winkle as Rip himself. Rip sees a kindred spirit in Wolf, with whom he shares his food.

The Catskill Mountains, then, are a haven of peace, calm, and serenity for Rip, a place where he can escape the many vexations with which his home life is afflicted. At some point, though, he'll have to walk back down the mountain again. Only this time, after twenty years of sleep, it'll be a very different scene that awaits him.