Ichabod

“ Such was the appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper, and it was altogether such an apparition as is seldom to be met with in broad day light.
It was, as I have said, a fine autumnal day; the sky was clear and serene, and nature wore that rich and golden livery which we always associate with the idea of abundance. ”

“ Ichabod had gambled with this man in the past, and had seen him lose half he possessed without the twitch of an eyelid. A force which now could cause that sudden change of expression––no man on earth knew, better than Ichabod, its intensity. Perhaps a shade of the same feeling crept into his own answering voice. ”

“ Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains, smoked out his singing-school by stopping up the chimney, broke into the schoolhouse at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held their meetings there. ”

“ It was a mad race for old Ichabod, and they were pretty well drenched when the old maid climbed aboard the [220] transport, breathless but triumphant. I have since learned that Dido won her wandering Æneas in Manila, and that the captain finally has found his “bucko mate.”
It was old Ichabod’s delight to teach a class of sorry-looking señoritas, with their dusty toes stuck into carpet slippers, and their hair combed back severely on their heads. The afternoons he spent in visiting his flock; we could descry him from afar, chin in the air, arms swinging, hiking along with five-foot strides. ”

“ This was nothing to Ichabod, whose intellect was not constructed for the reception of historical evidences.
‘Then ax thy feyther, Master Richard,’ he answered; ‘he’ll tell thee the rights on it.’
The boy walked on pondering, as children of his age will do. The seniors would be surprised pretty often if they could guess how deep and far the young thoughts go, but, then, the seniors have forgotten their own young days, or were never of a thinking habit. Ichabod clamped along with his mind on beer. ”

“ On mounting a rising ground, which brought the figure of his fellow-traveler in relief against the sky, Ichabod was horror-struck on perceiving that he was headless; but his horror was still more increased on observing that the head, which should have rested on his shoulders, was carried before him on the pommel of his saddle. His terror rose to desperation. He rained a shower of kicks and blows upon Gunpowder, hoping, by a sudden movement, to give his companion the slip; but the specter started full jump with him. ”

“ The keen joy of life was warmly flooding Ichabod Maurice this spring day. Not life for the sake of an ambition or a duty, but delight in the mere animal pleasure of existence. He had risen early, and, a neighbor with him, they had driven forth: stars all about, perpendicular, horizontal, save in the reddening east, upon their long day’s drive to the sawmill. The two teams plodded along steadily, their footfall muffled in the soft prairie loam; the earth elsewhere soundless, with a silence which even yet was a marvel to the city man. ”

“ The wavering reflection of a silver star in the bosom of the brook told him that he was not mistaken. He saw the walls of the church dimly glaring under the trees beyond. He recollected the place where Brom Bones’ ghostly competitor had disappeared. “If I can but reach that bridge,” thought Ichabod, “I am safe.” Just then he heard the black steed panting and blowing close behind him; he even fancied that he felt his hot breath. ”

“ The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken looking-glass that hung up in the schoolhouse. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and, thus gallantly mounted, issued forth like a knight-errant in quest of adventures. ”

“ The old man stood waving his hat mechanically as the launch glided away. Ichabod watched with unseeing eyes. He was in a daze, thinking more in sorrow than in anger of "how fer he had let them minxes go with him—an' Sary a-lookin' on, too!" He shook his head despondently, as he reflected that the closing incident would have been more agreeable if "Sary hadn't been a-lookin' on." ”

“ Captain Ichabod found him one morning perched upon the top of a floating crate, washed from the deck of a schooner that had gone upon the beach in a booming southeaster. The Captain had proved a life-saver indeed to the proud old bird. Ichabod, when he first spied Shrimp, as he afterward named this bit of flotsam, was wildly anxious to save the creature so it might have a life on shore suited to its nature and desires. ”

“ And a triangle within that which has a red stone, a grey stone and a white stone.
Ichabod spent many hours finding many designs that became more and more complicated as his powers of observation grew with practice. Then he began to log his designs in a large leather book; and as he counted designs and described them, the pages began to fill as the sun continued to return.
He had begun his second ledger when a friend came by. His friend was a poet and also interested in the nature of things.
"My friend," cried Ichabod, "come quickly! I have discovered the most wonderous thing in the universe." ”

“ Ichabod stepped ashore, nonplused. His expression was stern and forbidding as he advanced on his friend, the Doctor, and demanded the meaning of all this.
"Why, Captain Ichabod," came the answer, "the women folks up there have named this meeting Ichabod Jones' coming-out party. You know in great cities where there's a heap of society, when a girl reaches an age that they think it is time for her to be setting her cap, they arrange a swell party to let the fellows know that the young lady is eligible. ”

“ Ichabod, who had no relish for this strange midnight companion, and bethought himself of the adventure of Brom Bones with the Galloping Hessian, now quickened his steed, in hopes of leaving him behind. The stranger, however, quickened his horse to an equal pace. Ichabod pulled up, and fell into a walk, thinking to lag behind—the other did the same. His heart began to sink within him ”

“ Then, seeing his old Island companion approaching, Shrimp hurriedly scurried off into the thick growth of bushes, and as he went he issued an authoritative call to the hens to follow, to which they rendered prompt obedience. Ichabod halted, and stared for a moment in dismay. He made no attempt to continue the pursuit. He realized that the old rooster had had a taste of real life, like himself he had come to realize the mistake of living alone on an island of sandy waste, far from the society of the gentler sex. ”

“ Some of the damsels mounted on pillions behind their favorite swains, and their light-hearted laughter, mingling with the clatter of hoofs, echoed along the silent woodlands, sounding fainter and [502] fainter until they gradually died away—and the late scene of noise and frolic was all silent and deserted. Ichabod only lingered behind, according to the custom of country lovers, to have a tête-a-tête with the heiress, fully convinced that he was now on the high road to success. ”

“ To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness; for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy lover, Achilles. Ichabod, therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing-master, he made frequent visits at the farmhouse ”

“ The audacious exaggeration of every feature in the portrait of Ichabod Crane is inimitably clever. The schoolmaster gets no pity and needs none. And the reader is justified in his unsympathetic attitude when later he learns that Ichabod, instead of having been carried off by the headless Hessian, merely changed his quarters, and when last heard of had studied law, written for the newspapers, and gone into politics. ”

“ This stillness was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro, in tow-cloth jacket and trousers, who, mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, came clattering up to the schoolhouse door. He brought an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merrymaking, or “quilting frolic,” to be held that evening at the house of Herr Van Tassel; and having delivered his message, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission. ”

“ The darkness added to the terror and difficulty of the conflict. Ichabod found himself, at first, engaged with Snake-tongue; but a blow from the butt-end of his rifle ended the unequal conflict, and the Seneca lay disabled. "Take that, you infarnal slanderer," he cried, as he dealt the blow. "Learn to use your cussed snake's tongue with more moderation, when speaking of respectable females." ”

“ No man, with the knowledge Ichabod possessed, could have misunderstood the challenge in that impassive face. No man, a year ago, would have accepted that challenge more quickly. Now––But God only knew whether or no he would forget,––now.
For a minute, which to an onlooker would have seemed interminable, the two men faced each other. Up from the street came the ring of a heavy hammer on a sweet-voiced anvil, as Jim Donovan, the blacksmith, sharpened anew the breaking ploughs which were battling the prairie sod for bread. ”

“ On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool from whence he watched the doings of his little school. In his hand he held a ferule, that scepter of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the stool, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk were sundry contraband articles{151} taken from idle urchins, such as half-eaten apples, popguns, whirligigs, and fly cages. ”

“ Thus, while the busy dame bustled about the house, or plied her spinning-wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior, who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence.
I profess not to know how women's hearts are wooed and won. ”

“ The majesty of it held him silent until day dawned, and with the coming of the sun there woke in unison the chorus of joyous animal life. Then Ichabod, his long legs dangling over the dashboard, lifted up a voice untrained as the note of a loon, and sang lustily, until his companion 179 on the wagon ahead,––boy-faced, man-bodied,––grinned perilously.
The long-visaged man was near happiness that morning,––unbelievably near. By nature unsocial, by habit, city inbred, artificially taciturn, there came with the primitive happiness of the moment the concomitant primitive desire for companionship. ”

“ Following noiselessly the rough path over which Ralph and Miss Barton had journeyed the day before, he hoped to reach the shanty by day-light.
A walk through the forest in a new country by night, to one unaccustomed to it, would not be likely to excite the most agreeable reflections. But Ichabod had in other times been used to all the dangers of the wilderness, and this morning walk had to him sufficient excitement to make it decidedly a pleasure. ”

“ As he approached the stream, his heart began to thump; he summoned up, however, all his resolution, gave his horse half a score of kicks in the ribs, and attempted to dash briskly across the bridge; but instead of starting forward, the perverse old animal made a lateral movement, and ran broadside against the fence. Ichabod, whose fears increased with the delay, jerked the reins on the other side, and kicked lustily with the contrary foot; it was all in vain; his steed started, it is true, but it was only to plunge to the opposite side of the road into a thicket of brambles and alder-bushes. ”

“ The fishing fleet had put to sea again in order to take advantage of as many days as possible with favorable weather for their labor. Ichabod made his boat fast, and then with his bundle of clams took his way at once to the physician's house. Doctor Hudson himself met the fisherman at the threshold with a warm handshake.
"Why, Ichabod!" he exclaimed, with a cheery smile. "Now, what in the world has come over you? In all my life I don't think I ever saw such a change for the better in a man's appearance within the few hours since I saw you last. ”

“ Ichabod turned toward the spectators.
“Will any man lend me––”
“Here––”
“Here––”
“And give us a little light.”
“Outside,” suggested the saloon-keeper.
“We’re not advertising patent medicine,” blazed Ichabod, and the lamps were lit immediately.
Once more the long-visaged man appealed to the group lined up now against the bar.
“Gentlemen––I never carried a revolver a half-hour in my life. Is it any more than fair that I name the details?”
“Name ’m and be quick,” acquiesced his big opponent before the others could speak.
“Thanks, Mr. Duggin,” with equal swiftness. ”

“ Ichabod had forgotten himself, and he rushed on, far above the head of the gaping Swede.
“There’s one instinct in the world, the instinct of parenthood, which advances eternal, stronger, infinitely, as man’s mind grows stronger. So unvarying the rule that it’s almost an index of civilization itself, advancing from a crude instinct of the body-base and animal––until it reaches the realm of the mind: the highest, the holiest of man’s desires: yet stronger immeasurably, as with the educated, things of the mind are stronger than things of the body. ”