"Listen to the Dutchmen that Rip Van Winkle saw playing bowls when he visited them during his twenty years' nap," laughed Ethel Brown who was a reader of Washington Irving's "Sketch Book."
"I don't wonder he felt dozy in summer with such a lovely scene to quiet him," Mrs. Emerson said in his defence. "I feel a trifle sleepy myself," and she leaned back in her chair and closed her eyes with an appearance of extreme comfort.
They passed Kingston which was burned by the British just two months after the battle of Bennington; and by a large town which proved to be Poughkeepsie.
"Here's where we should land if we were going to finish our investigation of colleges by seeing Vassar," said Mr. Emerson.
"I'm glad we aren't going to get off!" exclaimed Ethel Brown. "I'm so undecided now I don't see how I'll ever make up my mind where to go!"
"Something will happen to help you decide," consoled Dorothy. "Isn't this where the big college boat races are rowed?" she asked Mr. Emerson.
"Right here on this broad stretch of water. A train of observation cars--flat cars--follows the boats along the bank. I must bring the Club up here to some of them some time."
"O-oh!" all the girls cried with one voice, and they stared at the river and the shore as if they might even then see the shells dashing down the stream and the shouting crowds in the steamers and on the banks.
Below Newburgh the river narrowed beneath upstanding cliffs and a point jutted out into the water.
"Do you recognize that piece of land?" Mr. Emerson asked.