Fred Van Winkle

 

Vocabulary

wake up	get up	something
under	anything	favorite
shout	farm	next
same	thing	different
need	have to	support
example	for example	set a good example
grow	otherwise	child/children
grow up	like (2)	just like you
toward	forest	begin/began/begun
going to	pick	mushroom
berry	enter	nice
quiet	after	wilderness
several	stream	drink/drank/drunk
look	look up	see/saw/seen
nothing	continue	hear/heard
foot	step	footstep
wear	think (2)	think/thought
strange	costume	carry
heavy	keg/cask	wood/wooden
agree	hoist	light (2)
follow	reach	shoulder
valley	group	delicious
meal	cook (2)	fire
invite	join	eat/ate/eaten
sleepy	feel/felt	long/longer
get back	different	dress
to dress	fun	funny (2)
anyway	move	somewhere else
carriage	without	pass by
wonder	door	great-grandmother

 
 

Under a Tree

“Fred! Fred! Fred! Wake up and work! Do something! Do anything!” Fred’s wife, shouted at him.
Fred was under his favorite tree.
“Oh…Betty…don’t shout at me…I’m…I’m….”

After a few hours, Fred got up and did some work on his farm.

The Next Day

The next day, it was the same thing.

“Fred, why don’t you work?” said his wife. “You know you have to support the family. You also need to set a good example for our children — otherwise they will grow up to be just like…YOU!”

Fred got up and began walking….towards the forest.

“Fred! Where are you going?”
“I’m going to pick mushrooms and berries,” Fred answered, then entered the forest.

In the Wilderness

“Ah, it’s so nice and quite out in the wilderness,” Fred though.

After several hours, he came upon a small stream. He stopped to drink some water.

Fred….Fred….Fred….

Fred looked up, but saw nothing. He continued to drink from the stream.

Footsteps

Then he heard footsteps. This time he saw a man wearing a strange costume carrying a wooden keg.

“Whew! This is very heavy,” said the strange man. “Could you please carry this for me?”

Fred agreed.

The Keg

So he hoisted the keg on his shoulder and followed the strange man.

They walked until they reached a small valley. There a group of men wearing the same, strange costumes were talking, singing, and dancing. A delicious meal was being cooked over a fire.

The Party

They invited Fred to join their party.

And so everyone ate, drank, sang, and danced.

Many hours went by.

Then Fred began to feel sleepy. . . . . . . .

Woke Up

When Fred woke up, it was morning. The strange men were all gone.

So he got up and started walking back home.

But it took much longer to get back.

Returned to the Village

As Fred entered his village…he felt very strange.

“Why are many of the houses so different?” he thought. “And the people are dressed in funny clothes…Who are these people anyway? They must have moved here from somewhere else. Oh and what’s that? It’s a strange horse carriage — but without a horse!”

Home

Fred came to his home.

As he passed by his favorite tree, he saw a young man sleeping under it. “I wonder who that could be,” Fred thought.

“Betty! Betty! Betty! I’m home,” cried Fred.

The door opened…but it wasn’t his wife; it was a different woman.

“Betty?” said the woman. “She was my great-grandmother.”
 
 

 
 

Questions

1. What did Fred often do every day? Every day Fred….

2. Was his wife happy with him? Why or why not?

3. What did Fred do one day? One day Fred….

4. Why did Fred go into the forest?

5. What did he hear? He heard….

6. What happened while he was by the stream?

7. What happened next?

8. When Fred returned home, was everything normal?

9. What happened in the end? In the end….

10. Is there a moral or lesson to this story?
 
 

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