In the bosom of one of those spacious coves which indent the eastern

shore of the Hudson, at that broad expansion of the river denominated

by the ancient Dutch navigators the Tappan Zee, and where they always

prudently shortened sail, and implored the protection of St. Nicholas

when they crossed, there lies a small market-town or rural port, which

by some is called Greensburgh, but which is more generally and properly

known by the name of Tarry Town. This name was given, we are told, in

former days, by the good housewives of the adjacent country, from the

inveterate propensity of their husbands to linger about the village

tavern on market days. Be that as it may, I do not vouch for the fact,

but merely advert to it, for the sake of being precise and authentic.

Not far from this village, perhaps about two miles, there is a little

valley, or rather lap of land, among high hills, which is one of the

quietest places in the whole world. A small brook glides through it, with

just murmur enough to lull one to repose; and the occasional whistle of

a quail, or tapping of a woodpecker, is almost the only sound that ever

breaks in upon the uniform tranquillity.

I recollect that, when a stripling, my first exploit in squirrel-shooting

was in a grove of tall walnut trees that shades one side of the valley. I

had wandered into it at noon time, when all nature is peculiarly quiet,

and was startled by the roar of my own gun, as it broke the Sabbath

stillness around, and was prolonged and reverberated by the angry echoes.

If ever I should wish for a retreat, whither I might steal from the

world and its distractions, and dream quietly away the remnant of a

troubled life, I know of none more promising than this little valley.

From the listless repose of the place, and the peculiar character of

its inhabitants, who are descendants from the original Dutch settlers,

this sequestered glen has long been known by the name of Sleepy Hollow,

and its rustic lads are called the Sleepy Hollow Boys throughout all

the neighboring country. A drowsy, dreamy influence seems to hang over

the land, and to pervade the very atmosphere. Some say that the place

was bewitched by a high German doctor, during the early days of the

settlement; others, that an old Indian chief, the prophet or wizard of

his tribe, held his pow-wows there before the country was discovered by

Master Hendrick Hudson. Certain it is, the place still continues under

the sway of some witching power, that holds a spell over the minds of the

good people, causing them to walk in a continual reverie. They are given

to all kinds of marvelous beliefs; are subject to trances and visions;

and frequently see strange sights, and hear music and voices in the air.

The whole neighborhood abounds with local tales, haunted spots, and

twilight superstitions; stars shoot and meteors glare oftener across the

valley than in any other part of the country, and the nightmare, with her

whole nine fold, seems to make it the favorite scene of her gambols.

The dominant spirit, however, that haunts this enchanted region, and

seems to be commander-in-chief of all the powers of the air, is the

apparition of a figure on horseback without a head. It is said by some

to be the ghost of a Hessian trooper, whose head had been carried away

by a cannon-ball, in some nameless battle during the Revolutionary war;

and who is ever and anon seen by the country folk, hurrying along in

the gloom of night, as if on the wings of the wind. His haunts are not

confined to the valley, but extend at times to the adjacent roads, and

especially to the vicinity of a church at no great distance. Indeed,

certain of the most authentic historians of those parts, who have been

careful in collecting and collating the floating facts concerning this

specter, allege that the body of the trooper having been buried in the

churchyard, the ghost rides forth to the scene of battle in nightly

quest of his head; and that the rushing speed with which he sometimes

passes along the Hollow, like a midnight blast, is owing to his being

belated, and in a hurry to get back to the churchyard before daybreak.

Such is the general purport of this legendary superstition, which has

furnished materials for many a wild story in that region of shadows; and

the specter is known, at all the country firesides, by the name of the

Headless Horseman of Sleepy Hollow.

It is remarkable that the visionary propensity I have mentioned is not

confined to the native inhabitants of the valley, but is unconsciously

imbibed by every one who resides there for a time. However wide awake

they may have been before they entered that sleepy region, they are sure,

in a little time, to inhale the witching influence of the air, and begin

to grow imaginative—to dream dreams, and see apparitions.

I mention this peaceful spot with all possible laud; for it is in such

little retired Dutch valleys, found here and there embosomed in the great

State of New York, that population, manners, and customs remain fixed;

while the great torrent of migration and improvement, which is making

such incessant changes in other parts of this restless country, sweeps by

them unobserved. They are like those little nooks of still water which

border a rapid stream; where we may see the straw and bubble riding

quietly at anchor, or slowly revolving in their mimic harbor, undisturbed

by the rush of the passing current. Though many years have elapsed since

I trod the drowsy shades of Sleepy Hollow, yet I question whether I

should not still find the same trees and the same families vegetating in

its sheltered bosom.

ICHABOD CRANE AND KATRINA VAN TASSEL

In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American

history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of

the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it,

“tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children

of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut, a State which supplies

the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and

sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country

school-masters. The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person.

He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and

legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have

served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His

head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes,

and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weather-cock, perched

upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him

striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes

bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the

genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from

a cornfield.

His schoolhouse was a low building of one large room, rudely constructed

of logs; the windows partly glazed, and partly patched with leaves of

old copy-books. It was most ingeniously secured at vacant hours, by a

withe twisted in the handle of the door, and stakes set against the

window shutters; so that, though a thief might get in with perfect ease,

he would find some embarrassment in getting out; an idea most probably

borrowed by the architect, Yost Van Houten, from the mystery of an

eel-pot. The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but pleasant situation,

just at the foot of a woody hill, with a brook running close by, and a

formidable birch tree growing at one end of it. From hence the low murmur

of his pupils’ voices, conning over their lessons, might be heard in a

drowsy summer’s day, like the hum of a bee-hive; interrupted now and

then by the authoritative voice of the master, in the tone of menace or

command; or, peradventure, by the appalling sound of the birch, as he

urged some tardy loiterer along the flowery path of knowledge. Truth to

say, he was a conscientious man, and ever bore in mind the golden maxim,

“Spare the rod and spoil the child.”—Ichabod Crane’s scholars certainly

were not spoiled.

I would not have it imagined, however, that he was one of those cruel

potentates of the school, who joy in the smart of their subjects; on

the contrary, he administered justice with discrimination rather than

severity, taking the burthen off the backs of the weak and laying it on

those of the strong. Your mere puny stripling, that winced at the least

flourish of the rod, was passed by with indulgence; but the claims of

justice were satisfied by inflicting a double portion on some little,

tough, wrong-headed, broad-skirted Dutch urchin, who sulked and swelled

and grew dogged and sullen beneath the birch. All this he called “doing

his duty by their parents” and he never inflicted a chastisement without

following it by the assurance, so consolatory to the smarting urchin,

that “he would remember it, and thank him for it the longest day he had

to live.”

When school hours were over, he was even the companion and playmate

of the larger boys; and on holiday afternoons would convoy some of

the smaller ones home, who happened to have pretty sisters, or good

housewives for mothers, noted for the comforts of the cupboard. Indeed it

behooved him to keep on good terms with his pupils. The revenue arising

from his school was small, and would have been scarcely sufficient to

furnish him with daily bread, for he was a huge feeder, and, though

lank, had the dilating powers of an anaconda; but to help out his

maintenance, he was, according to country custom in those parts, boarded

and lodged at the houses of the farmers whose children he instructed.

With these he lived successively a week at a time; thus going the rounds

of the neighborhood, with all his worldly effects tied up in a cotton

handkerchief.

That all this might not be too onerous on the purses of his rustic

patrons, who are apt to consider the costs of schooling a grievous

burden, and schoolmasters as mere drones, he had various ways of

rendering himself both useful and agreeable. He assisted the farmers

occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms; helped to make hay;

mended the fences; took the horses to water; drove the cows from pasture;

and cut wood for the winter fire. He laid aside, too, all the dominant

dignity and absolute sway with which he lorded it in his little empire,

the school, and became wonderfully gentle and ingratiating. He found

favor in the eyes of the mothers, by petting the children, particularly

the youngest; and like the lion bold, which whilom so magnanimously the

lamb did hold, he would sit with a child on one knee, and rock a cradle

with his foot for whole hours together.

In addition to his other vocations, he was the singing-master of the

neighborhood, and picked up many bright shillings by instructing the

young folks in psalmody. It was a matter of no little vanity to him, on

Sundays, to take his station in front of the church gallery, with a band

of chosen singers; where, in his own mind, he completely carried away the

palm from the parson. Certain it is, his voice resounded far above all

the rest of the congregation; and there are peculiar quavers still to be

heard in that church, and which may even be heard half a mile off, quite

to the opposite side of the mill-pond, on a still Sunday morning, which

are said to be legitimately descended from the nose of Ichabod Crane.

Thus, by divers little makeshifts in that ingenious way which is commonly

denominated “by hook and by crook,” the worthy pedagogue got on tolerably

enough, and was thought, by all who understood nothing of the labor of

headwork, to have a wonderfully easy life of it.

The schoolmaster is generally a man of some importance in the female

circle of a rural neighborhood, being considered a kind of idle

gentlemanlike personage, of vastly superior taste and accomplishments to

the rough country swains, and, indeed, inferior in learning only to the

parson. His appearance, therefore, is apt to occasion some little stir at

the tea table of a farmhouse, and the addition of a supernumerary dish

of cakes or sweetmeats, or, peradventure, the parade of a silver teapot.

Our man of letters, therefore, was peculiarly happy in the smiles of all

the country damsels. How he would figure among them in the churchyard,

between services on Sundays! gathering grapes for them from the wild

vines that overran the surrounding trees; reciting for their amusement

all the epitaphs on the tombstones; or sauntering, with a whole bevy of

them, along the banks of the adjacent mill-pond; while the more bashful

country bumpkins hung sheepishly back, envying his superior elegance and

address.

From his half itinerant life, also, he was a kind of traveling gazette,

carrying the whole budget of local gossip from house to house; so that

his appearance was always greeted with satisfaction. He was, moreover,

esteemed by the women as a man of great erudition, for he had read

several books quite through, and was a perfect master of Cotton Mather’s

history of New England Witchcraft, in which, by the way, he most firmly

and potently believed.

He was, in fact, an odd mixture of small shrewdness and simple credulity.

His appetite for the marvelous, and his powers of digesting it, were

equally extraordinary; and both had been increased by his residence

in this spellbound region. No tale was too gross or monstrous for his

capacious swallow. It was often his delight, after his school was

dismissed in the afternoon, to stretch himself on the rich bed of

clover, bordering the little brook that whimpered by his schoolhouse,

and there con over old Mather’s direful tales, until the gathering dusk

of the evening made the printed page a mere mist before his eyes. Then,

as he wended his way, by swamp and stream and awful woodland, to the

farmhouse where he happened to be quartered, every sound of nature,

at that witching hour, fluttered his excited imagination: the moan of

the whippoorwill from the hill-side; the boding cry of the tree-toad,

that harbinger of storm; the dreary hooting of the screech-owl, or the

sudden rustling in the thicket of birds frightened from their roost. The

fire-flies, too, which sparkled most vividly in the darkest places, now

and then startled him, as one of uncommon brightness would stream across

his path; and if, by chance, a huge blockhead of a beetle came winging

his blundering flight against him, the poor varlet was ready to give up

the ghost, with the idea that he was struck with a witch’s token. His

only resource on such occasions, either to drown thought, or drive away

evil spirits, was to sing psalm tunes; and the good people of Sleepy

Hollow, as they sat by their doors of an evening, were often filled with

awe, at hearing his nasal melody, “in linked sweetness long drawn out,”

floating from the distant hill, or along the dusky road.

Another of his sources of fearful pleasure was to pass long winter

evenings with the old Dutch wives, as they sat spinning by the fire, with

a row of apples roasting and spluttering along the hearth, and listen

to their marvelous tales of ghosts and goblins, and haunted fields, and

haunted brooks, and haunted bridges, and haunted houses, and particularly

of the headless horseman, or galloping Hessian of the Hollow, as they

sometimes called him. He would delight them equally by his anecdotes of

witchcraft, and of the direful omens and portentous sights and sounds in

the air, which prevailed in the earlier times of Connecticut; and would

frighten them woefully with speculations upon comets and shooting stars;

and with the alarming fact that the world did absolutely turn round, and

that they were half the time topsy-turvy!

But if there was a pleasure in all this, while snugly cuddling in the

chimney corner of a chamber that was all of a ruddy glow from the

crackling wood fire, and where, of course, no specter dared to show his

face, it was dearly purchased by the terrors of his subsequent walk

homewards. What fearful shapes and shadows beset his path amidst the dim

and ghastly glare of a snowy night!—With what wistful look did he eye

every trembling ray of light streaming across the waste fields from some

distant window!—How often was he appalled by some shrub covered with

snow, which, like a sheeted specter, beset his very path!—How often did

he shrink with curdling awe at the sound of his own steps on the frosty

crust beneath his feet; and dread to look over his shoulder, lest he

should behold some uncouth being tramping close behind him!—and how often

was he thrown into complete dismay by some rushing blast, howling among

the trees, in the idea that it was the Galloping Hessian on one of his

nightly scourings!

All these, however, were mere terrors of the night, phantoms of the

mind that walk in darkness; and though he had seen many specters in his

time, and been more than once beset by Satan in divers shapes, in his

lonely perambulations, yet daylight put an end to all these evils; and

he would have passed a pleasant life of it, in despite of the devil and

all his works, if his path had not been crossed by a being that causes

more perplexity to mortal man than ghosts, goblins, and the whole race of

witches put together, and that was—a woman.

Among the musical disciples who assembled, one evening in each week,

to receive his instructions in psalmody, was Katrina Van Tassel, the

daughter and only child of a substantial Dutch farmer. She was a

blooming lass of fresh eighteen; plump as a partridge; ripe and melting

and rosy cheeked as one of her father’s peaches; and universally famed,

not merely for her beauty, but her vast expectations. She was withal a

little of a coquette, as might be perceived even in her dress, which

was a mixture of ancient and modern fashions, as most suited to set

off her charms. She wore the ornaments of pure yellow gold, which her

great-great-grandmother had brought over from Saardam; the tempting

stomacher of the olden time; and withal a provokingly short petticoat, to

display the prettiest foot and ankle in the country round.

Ichabod Crane had a soft and foolish heart toward the sex; and it is

not to be wondered at that so tempting a morsel soon found favor in his

eyes, more especially after he had visited her in her paternal mansion.

Old Baltus Van Tassel was a perfect picture of a thriving, contented,

liberal-hearted farmer. He seldom, it is true, sent either his eyes or

his thoughts beyond the boundaries of his own farm; but within those

every thing was snug, happy, and well-conditioned. He was satisfied with

his wealth, but not proud of it; and piqued himself upon the hearty

abundance, rather than the style in which he lived. His stronghold was

situated on the banks of the Hudson, in one of those green, sheltered,

fertile nooks, in which the Dutch farmers are so fond of nestling. A

great elm-tree spread its broad branches over it; at the foot of which

bubbled up a spring of the softest and sweetest water, in a little

well, formed of a barrel; and then stole sparkling away through the

grass, to a neighboring brook, that bubbled along among alders and

dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn, that might have

served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed bursting

forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding

within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering

about the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as

if watching the weather, some with their heads under their wings or

buried in their bosoms, and others swelling, and cooing, and bowing

about their dames, were enjoying the sunshine on the roof. Sleek

unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and abundance of their

pens, whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of sucking pigs, as if

to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were riding in an

adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of turkeys

were gobbling through the farmyard, and guinea fowls fretting about it,

like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish discontented cry. Before

the barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a

warrior, and a fine gentleman, clapping his burnished wings, and crowing

in the pride and gladness of his heart—sometimes tearing up the earth

with his feet, and then generously calling his ever-hungry family of

wives and children to enjoy the rich morsel which he had discovered.

The pedagogue’s mouth watered, as he looked upon this sumptuous promise

of luxurious winter fare. In his devouring mind’s eye he pictured to

himself every roasting-pig running about with a pudding in his belly,

and an apple in his mouth; the pigeons were snugly put to bed in a

comfortable pie, and tucked in with a coverlet of crust; the geese were

swimming in their own gravy; and the ducks pairing cozily in dishes,

like snug married couples, with a decent competency of onion sauce. In

the porkers he saw carved out the future sleek side of bacon, and juicy

relishing ham; not a turkey but he beheld daintily trussed up, with its

gizzard under its wing, and peradventure, a necklace of savory sausages;

and even bright chanticleer himself lay sprawling on his back, in a

side-dish, with uplifted claws, as if craving that quarter which his

chivalrous spirit disdained to ask while living.

As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his great

green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of wheat, of rye,

of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards burthened with ruddy

fruit which surrounded the warm tenement of Van Tassel, his heart yearned

after the damsel who was to inherit these domains, and his imagination

expanded with the idea, how they might be readily turned into cash, and

the money invested in immense tracts of wild land, and shingle palaces

in the wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and

presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of children,

mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household trumpery, with pots

and kettles dangling beneath; and he beheld himself bestriding a pacing

mare, with a colt at her heels, setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or

the Lord knows where.

When he entered the house the conquest of his heart was complete. It was

one of those spacious farmhouses, with high-ridged, but lowly-sloping

roofs, built in the style handed down from the first Dutch settlers;

the low projecting eaves forming a piazza along the front, capable of

being closed up in bad weather. Under this were hung flails, harness,

various utensils of husbandry, and nets for fishing in the neighboring

river. Benches were built along the sides for summer use; and a great

spinning-wheel at one end, and a churn at the other, showed the various

uses to which this important porch might be devoted. From this piazza

the wondering Ichabod entered the hall, which formed the center of the

mansion and the place of usual residence. Here rows of resplendent

pewter, ranged on a long dresser, dazzled his eyes. In one corner

stood a huge bag of wool ready to be spun; in another a quantity of

linsey-woolsey just from the loom; ears of Indian corn, and strings of

dried apples and peaches, hung in gay festoons along the walls, mingled

with the gaud of red peppers; and a door left ajar gave him a peep

into the best parlor, where the claw-footed chairs and dark mahogany

tables shone like mirrors; and irons, with their accompanying shovel and

tongs, glistened from their covert of asparagus tops; mock-oranges and

conch-shells decorated the mantelpiece; strings of various colored birds’

eggs were suspended above it; a great ostrich egg was hung from the

center of the room; and a corner cupboard, knowingly left open, displayed

immense treasures of old silver and well-mended china.

From the moment Ichabod laid his eyes upon these regions of delight the

peace of his mind was at an end, and his only study was how to gain the

affections of the peerless daughter of Van Tassel. In this enterprise,

however, he had more real difficulties than generally fell to the lot of

a knight-errant of yore, who seldom had anything but giants, enchanters,

fiery dragons, and such like easily-conquered adversaries, to contend

with; and had to make his way merely through gates of iron and brass,

and walls of adamant, to the castle keep, where the lady of his heart

was confined, all which he achieved as easily as a man would carve his

way to the center of a Christmas pie; and then the lady gave him her

hand as a matter of course. Ichabod, on the contrary, had to win his way

to the heart of a country coquette, beset with a labyrinth of whims and

caprices, which were forever presenting new difficulties and impediments;

and he had to encounter a host of fearful adversaries of real flesh and

blood, the numerous rustic admirers, who beset every portal to her heart;

keeping a watchful and angry eye upon each other, but ready to fly out in

the common cause against any new competitor.

BROM BONES

Among these the most formidable was a burly, roaring, roystering blade,

of the name of Abraham, or, according to the Dutch abbreviation, Brom

Van Brunt, the hero of the country round, which rang with his feats of

strength and hardihood. He was broad-shouldered and double-jointed, with

short curly black hair, and a bluff but not unpleasant countenance,

having a mingled air of fun and arrogance. From his Herculean frame and

great powers of limb, he had received the nickname of BROM BONES, by

which he was universally known. He was famed for great knowledge and

skill in horsemanship, being as dexterous on horseback as a Tartar. He

was foremost at all races and cock-fights; and, with the ascendency

which bodily strength acquires in rustic life, was the umpire in all

disputes, setting his hat on one side, and giving his decisions with

an air and tone admitting of no gainsay or appeal. He was always ready

for either a fight or a frolic; but had more mischief than ill-will in

his composition; and, with all his overbearing roughness, there was a

strong dash of waggish good humor at bottom. He had three or four boon

companions, who regarded him as their model, and at the head of whom he

scoured the country, attending every scene of feud or merriment for miles

round. In cold weather he was distinguished by a fur cap, surmounted

with a flaunting fox’s tail; and when the folks at a country gathering

descried this well-known crest at a distance, whisking about among a

squad of hard riders, they always stood by for a squall. Sometimes

his crew would be heard dashing along past the farmhouses at midnight,

with whoop and halloo, like a troop of Don Cossacks; and the old

dames, startled out of their sleep, would listen for a moment till the

hurry-scurry had clattered by, and then exclaim, “Ay, there goes Brom

Bones and his gang!” The neighbors looked upon him with a mixture of awe,

admiration, and good will; and when any madcap prank or rustic brawl

occurred in the vicinity, always shook their heads, and warranted Brom

Bones was at the bottom of it.

This rantipole hero had for some time singled out the blooming Katrina

for the object of his uncouth gallantries, and though his amorous toyings

were something like the gentle caresses and endearments of a bear, yet it

was whispered that she did not altogether discourage his hopes. Certain

it is, his advances were signals for rival candidates to retire, who

felt no inclination to cross a lion in his amours; insomuch, that when

his horse was seen tied to Van Tassel’s paling, on a Sunday night, a

sure sign that his master was courting, or, as it is termed, “sparking,”

within, all other suitors passed by in despair, and carried the war into

other quarters.

Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend,

and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from

the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however,

a happy mixture of pliability and perseverance in his nature; he was in

form and spirit like a supple-jack—yielding, but tough; though he bent,

he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet,

the moment it was away—jerk! he was as erect, and carried his head as

high as ever.

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; not that he had

anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which

is so often a stumbling-block in the path of lovers. Balt Van Tassel was

an easy, indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his

pipe, and, like a reasonable man and an excellent father, let her have

her way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to

attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she sagely

observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after,

but girls can take care of themselves. 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. To me they

have always been matters of riddle and admiration. Some seem to have but

one vulnerable point, or door of access; while others have a thousand

avenues, and may be captured in a thousand different ways. It is a

great triumph of skill to gain the former, but a still greater proof of

generalship to maintain possession of the latter, for the man must battle

for his fortress at every door and window. He who wins a thousand common

hearts is therefore entitled to some renown; but he who keeps undisputed

sway over the heart of a coquette is indeed a hero. Certain it is, this

was not the case with the redoubtable Brom Bones; and from the moment

Ichabod Crane made his advances, the interests of the former evidently

declined; his horse was no longer seen tied at the palings on Sunday

nights, and a deadly feud gradually arose between him and the preceptor

of Sleepy Hollow.

Brom, who had a degree of rough chivalry in his nature, would fain have

carried matters to open warfare, and have settled their pretensions

to the lady, according to the mode of those most concise and simple

reasoners, the knights-errant of yore—by single combat; but Ichabod was

too conscious of the superior might of his adversary to enter the lists

against him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would “double the

schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse”; and he

was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was something extremely

provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it left Brom no alternative

but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in his disposition, and

to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival. 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 of the country held their meetings there. But what

was still more annoying, Brom took all opportunities of turning him into

ridicule in presence of his mistress, and had a scoundrel dog whom he

taught to whine in the most ludicrous manner, and introduced as a rival

of Ichabod’s to instruct her in psalmody.

THE QUILTING FROLIC

In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any

material effect on the relative situation of the contending powers.

On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned

on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his

little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferrule, that scepter

of despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails, behind

the throne, a constant terror to evil doers; while on the desk before

him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons,

detected upon the persons of idle urchins; such as half-munched apples,

popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little paper

game-cocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice

recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their

books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the master;

and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the schoolroom. It was

suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro, in tow-cloth jacket

and trousers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat, like the cap of Mercury,

and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild, half-broken colt, which he

managed with a rope by way of halter. He came clattering up to the school

door with an invitation to Ichabod to attend a merry-making or “quilting

frolic,” to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel’s; and having

delivered his message with that air of importance, and effort at fine

language, which a negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind,

he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow,

full of the importance and hurry of his mission.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolroom. The scholars

were hurried through their lessons, without stopping at trifles; those

who were nimble skipped over half with impunity, and those who were tardy

had a smart application now and then in the rear to quicken their speed

or help them over a tall word. Books were flung aside without being put

away on the shelves, inkstands were over-turned, benches thrown down, and

the whole school was turned loose an hour before the usual time, bursting

forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green,

in joy of their early emancipation.

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 domiciled, 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. But it is meet I should,

in the true spirit of romantic story, give some account of the looks

and equipments of my hero and his steed. The animal he bestrode was a

broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his

viciousness. He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like

a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burs;

one eye had lost its pupil and was glaring and spectral; but the other

had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. Still he must have had fire and

mettle in his day, if we may judge from the name he bore of Gunpowder. He

had, in fact, been a favorite steed of his master’s, the choleric Van

Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of

his own spirit into the animal; for, old and broken-down as he looked,

there was more of the lurking devil in him than in any young filly in the

country.

Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short

stirrups, which brought his knees nearly up to the pommel of the saddle;

his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers; he carried his whip

perpendicularly in his hand, like a scepter, and, as his horse jogged on,

the motion of his arms was not unlike the flapping of a pair of wings.

A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip

of forehead might be called; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered

out almost to the horse’s tail. 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

daylight.

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. The forests had put on their

sober brown and yellow, while some trees of the tenderer kind had been

nipped by the frosts into brilliant dyes of orange, purple, and scarlet.

Streaming files of wild ducks began to make their appearance high in the

air; the bark of the squirrel might be heard from the groves of beech and

hickory nuts, and the pensive whistle of the quail at intervals from the

neighboring stubble-field.

The small birds were taking their farewell banquets. In the fullness of

their revelry they fluttered, chirping and frolicking, from bush to bush,

and tree to tree, capricious from the very profusion and variety around

them. There was the honest cock-robin, the favorite game of stripling

sportsmen, with its loud querulous note, and the twittering blackbirds

flying in sable clouds; and the golden-winged woodpecker, with his

crimson crest, his broad black gorget, and splendid plumage; and the

cedar bird, with its red-tipt wings and yellow-tipt tail, and its little

montero cap of feathers; and the blue-jay, that noisy coxcomb, in his

gay light-blue coat and white underclothes, screaming and chattering,

nodding and bobbing and bowing, and pretending to be on good terms with

every songster of the grove.

As Ichabod jogged slowly on his way, his eye, ever open to every symptom

of culinary abundance, ranged with delight over the treasures of jolly

autumn. On all sides he beheld vast store of apples; some hanging in

oppressive opulence on the trees; some gathered into baskets and barrels

for the market; others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press.

Farther on he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with its golden ears

peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes

and hasty pudding; and the yellow pumpkins lying beneath them, turning

up their fair round bellies to the sun, and giving ample prospects of

the most luxurious of pies; and anon he passed the fragrant buckwheat

fields, breathing the odor of the bee-hive, and as he beheld them, soft

anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slap-jacks, well buttered,

and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand

of Katrina Van Tassel.

Thus feeding his mind with many sweet thoughts and “sugared

suppositions,” he journeyed along the sides of a range of hills which

look out upon some of the goodliest scenes of the mighty Hudson. The sun

gradually wheeled his broad disk down into the west. The wide bosom of

the Tappan Zee lay motionless and glassy, excepting that here and there

a gentle undulation waved and prolonged the blue shadow of the distant

mountain. A few amber clouds floated in the sky, without a breath of air

to move them. The horizon was of a fine golden tint, changing gradually

into a pure apple green, and from that into the deep blue of the

mid-heaven. A slanting ray lingered on the woody crests of the precipices

that overhung some parts of the river, giving greater depth to the

dark-gray and purple of their rocky sides. A sloop was loitering in the

distance, dropping slowly down with the tide, her sail hanging uselessly

against the mast, and as the reflection of the sky gleamed along the

still water, it seemed as if the vessel was suspended in the air.

It was toward evening that Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Heer

Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the

adjacent country. Old farmers, a spare, leathern-faced race, in homespun

coats and breeches, blue stockings, huge shoes, and magnificent pewter

buckles. Their brisk withered little dames, in close crimped caps, long

waisted short-gowns, homespun petticoats, with scissors and pincushions,

and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside. Buxom lasses, almost as

antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon,

or perhaps a white frock, gave symptoms of city innovation. The sons,

in short square-skirted coats with rows of stupendous brass buttons,

and their hair generally queued in the fashion of the times, especially

if they could procure an eel-skin for the purpose, it being esteemed

throughout the country, as a potent nourisher and strengthener of the

hair.

Brom Bones, however, was the hero of the scene, having come to the

gathering on his favorite steed, Daredevil, a creature, like himself,

full of mettle and mischief, and which no one but himself could manage.

He was, in fact, noted for preferring vicious animals, given to all kinds

of tricks, which kept the rider in constant risk of his neck, for he held

a tractable well-broken horse as unworthy of a lad of spirit.

Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon

the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van

Tassel’s mansion. Not those of the bevy of buxom lasses, with their

luxurious display of red and white; but the ample charms of a genuine

Dutch country tea-table, in the sumptuous time of autumn. Such heaped-up

platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable kinds, known only

to experienced Dutch housewives! There was the doughty doughnut, the

tenderer oly koek, and the crisp and crumbling cruller; sweet cakes

and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of

cakes. And then there were apple pies and peach pies and pumpkin pies;

besides slices of ham and smoked beef; and moreover delectable dishes

of preserved plums, and peaches, and pears, and quinces, not to mention

broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk and

cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated

them, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from

the midst—Heaven bless the mark! I want breath and time to discuss

this banquet as it deserves, and am too eager to get on with my story.

Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry as his historian, but

did ample justice to every dainty.

He was a kind and thankful creature, whose heart dilated in proportion as

his skin was filled with good cheer; and whose spirits rose with eating

as some men’s do with drink. He could not help, too, rolling his large

eyes round him as he ate, and chuckling with the possibility that he

might one day be lord of all this scene of almost unimaginable luxury

and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he’d turn his back upon the old

schoolhouse, snap his fingers in the face of Hans Van Ripper, and every

other niggardly patron, and kick any itinerant pedagogue out of doors

that should dare to call him comrade.

Old Baltus Van Tassel moved about among his guests with a face dilated

with content and good humor, round and jolly as the harvest moon. His

hospitable attentions were brief, but expressive, being confined to a

shake of the hand, a slap on the shoulder, a loud laugh, and a pressing

invitation to fall to, and help themselves.

And now the sound of the music from the common room, or hall, summoned to

the dance. The musician was an old gray-headed negro, who had been the

itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century.

His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of

the time he scraped on two or three strings, accompanying every movement

of the bow with a motion of the head, bowing almost to the ground, and

stamping with his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start.

Ichabod prided himself upon his dancing as much as upon his vocal powers.

Not a limb, not a fiber about him was idle; and to have seen his loosely

hung frame in full motion, and clattering about the room, you would

have thought Saint Vitus himself, that blessed patron of the dance, was

figuring before you in person. He was the admiration of all the negroes,

who, having gathered, of all ages and sizes, from the farm and the

neighborhood, stood forming a pyramid of shining black faces at every

door and window, gazing with delight at the scene, rolling their white

eye-balls, and showing grinning rows of ivory from ear to ear. How could

the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? The lady of

his heart was his partner in the dance, and smiling graciously in reply

to all his amorous oglings; while Brom Bones, sorely smitten with love

and jealousy, sat brooding by himself in one corner.

When the dance was at an end, Ichabod was attracted to a knot of the

sager folks, who, with old Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the

piazza, gossiping over former times, and drawing out long stories about

the war.

This neighborhood, at the time of which I am speaking, was one of

those highly-favored places which abound with chronicle and great men.

The British and American line had run near it during the war; it had,

therefore, been the scene of marauding, and infested with refugees,

cowboys, and all kinds of border chivalry. Just sufficient time had

elapsed to enable each story-teller to dress up his tale with a little

becoming fiction, and, in the indistinctness of his recollection, to make

himself the hero of every exploit.

There was the story of Doffue Martling, a large blue-bearded Dutchman,

who had nearly taken a British frigate with an old iron nine-pounder

from a mud breastwork, only that his gun burst at the sixth discharge.

And there was an old gentleman who shall be nameless, being too rich a

mynheer to be lightly mentioned, who, in the battle of Whiteplains, being

an excellent master of defense, parried a musket ball with a small sword,

insomuch that he absolutely felt it whiz around the blade, and glance

off at the hilt; in proof of which he was ready at any time to show the

sword with the hilt a little bent. There were several more that had been

equally great in the field, not one of whom but was persuaded that he had

a considerable hand in bringing the war to a happy termination.

But all these were nothing to the tales of ghosts and apparitions that

succeeded. The neighborhood is rich in legendary treasures of the kind.

Local tales and superstitions thrive best in these sheltered long-settled

retreats, but are trampled under foot by the shifting throng that forms

the population of most of our country places. Besides, there is no

encouragement for ghosts in most of our villages, for they have scarcely

had time to finish their first nap, and turn themselves in their graves,

before their surviving friends have traveled away from the neighborhood;

so that when they turn out at night to walk their rounds they have no

acquaintance left to call upon. This is perhaps the reason why we so

seldom hear of ghosts except in our long-established Dutch communities.

The immediate cause, however, of the prevalence of supernatural stories

in these parts was doubtless owing to the vicinity of Sleepy Hollow.

There was a contagion in the very air that blew from that haunted region;

it breathed forth an atmosphere of dreams and fancies infecting all the

land. Several of the Sleepy Hollow people were present at Van Tassel’s,

and, as usual, were doling out their wild and wonderful legends. Many

dismal tales were told about funeral trains, and mourning cries and

wailings heard and seen about the great tree where the unfortunate Major

André was taken, and which stood in the neighborhood. Some mention was

made also of the woman in white, that haunted the dark glen at Raven

Rock, and was often heard to shriek on winter nights before a storm,

having perished there in the snow. The chief part of the stories,

however, turned upon the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the headless

horseman, who had been heard several times of late, patrolling the

country; and, it was said, tethered his horse nightly among the graves in

the churchyard.

The sequestered situation of this church seems always to have made it

a favorite haunt of troubled spirits. It stands on a knoll, surrounded

by locust-trees and lofty elms, from among which its decent whitewashed

walls shine modestly forth, like Christian purity beaming through the

shades of retirement. A gentle slope descends from it to a silver sheet

of water, bordered by high trees, between which peeps may be caught at

the blue hills of the Hudson. To look upon its grass-grown yard, where

the sunbeams seem to sleep so quietly, one would think that there at

least the dead might rest in peace. On one side of the church extends

a wide woody dell, along which raves a large brook among broken rocks

and trunks of fallen trees. Over a deep black part of the stream, not

far from the church, was formerly thrown a wooden bridge; the road that

led to it, and the bridge itself, were thickly shaded by overhanging

trees, which cast a gloom about it, even in the daytime; but occasioned

a fearful darkness at night. This was one of the favorite haunts of the

headless horseman and the place where he was most frequently encountered.

The tale was told of old Brouwer, a most heretical disbeliever in ghosts,

how he met the horseman returning from his foray into Sleepy Hollow, and

was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake,

over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge, when the horseman

suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw old Brouwer into the brook, and

sprang away over the tree-tops with a clap of thunder.

This story was immediately matched by a thrice marvelous adventure of

Brom Bones, who made light of the galloping Hessian as an arrant jockey.

He affirmed that, on returning one night from the neighboring village of

Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had

offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and should have won it,

too, for Daredevil beat the goblin horse all hollow, but, just as they

came to the church bridge, the Hessian bolted, and vanished in a flash of

fire.

All these tales, told in that drowsy undertone with which men talk in the

dark, the countenances of the listeners only now and then receiving a

casual gleam from the glare of a pipe, sank deep in the mind of Ichabod.

He repaid them in kind with large extracts from his invaluable author,

Cotton Mather, and added many marvelous events that had taken place in

his native State of Connecticut, and fearful sights which he had seen in

his nightly walks about Sleepy Hollow.

The revel now gradually broke up. The old farmers gathered together their

families in their wagons, and were heard for some time rattling along the

hollow roads, and over the distant hills. 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 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. What passed at this interview I will not pretend to say,

for in fact I do not know. Something, however, I fear me, must have gone

wrong, for he certainly sallied forth, after no very great interval, with

an air quite desolate and chop-fallen.—Oh, these women! these women!

Could that girl have been playing off any of her coquettish tricks?—Was

her encouragement of the poor pedagogue all a mere sham to secure her

conquest of his rival?—Heaven only knows, not I!—Let it suffice to say,

Ichabod stole forth with the air of one who had been sacking a hen-roost

rather than a fair lady’s heart. Without looking to the right or left to

notice the scene of rural wealth, on which he had so often gloated, he

went straight to the stable, and with several hearty cuffs and kicks,

roused his steed most uncourteously from the comfortable quarters in

which he was soundly sleeping, dreaming of mountains of corn and oats,

and whole valleys of timothy and clover.

ICHABOD’S TERRIFYING EXPERIENCES

It was the very witching time of night that Ichabod, heavy-hearted and

crestfallen, pursued his travel homewards, along the sides of the lofty

hills which rise above Tarry Town, and which he had traversed so cheerily

in the afternoon. The hour was as dismal as himself. Far below him, the

Tappan Zee spread its dusky and indistinct waste of waters, with here and

there the tall mast of a sloop, riding quietly at anchor under the land.

In the dead hush of midnight, he could even hear the barking of the watch

dog from the opposite shore of the Hudson; but it was so vague and faint

as only to give an idea of his distance from this faithful companion of

man. Now and then, too, the long-drawn crowing of a cock, accidentally

awakened, would sound far, far off, from some farmhouse away among the

hills—but it was like a dreaming sound in his ear. No signs of life

occurred near him, but occasionally the melancholy chirp of a cricket, or

perhaps the guttural twang of a bull-frog, from a neighboring marsh, as

if sleeping uncomfortably, and turning suddenly in his bed.

All the stories of ghosts and goblins that he had heard in the afternoon

now came crowding upon his recollection. The night grew darker and

darker; the stars seemed to sink deeper in the sky, and driving clouds

occasionally hid them from his sight. He had never felt so lonely and

dismal. He was, moreover, approaching the very place where many of the

scenes of the ghost stories had been laid. In the center of the road

stood an enormous tuliptree, which towered like a giant above all the

other trees of the neighborhood, and formed a kind of landmark. Its limbs

were gnarled, and fantastic, large enough to form trunks for ordinary

trees, twisting down almost to the earth, and rising again into the air.

It was connected with the tragical story of the unfortunate André, who

had been taken prisoner hard by, and was universally known by the name

of Major André’s tree. The common people regarded it with a mixture of

respect and superstition, partly out of sympathy for the fate of its

ill-starred namesake, and partly from the tales of strange sights and

doleful lamentations told concerning it.

As Ichabod approached this fearful tree, he began to whistle; he thought

his whistle was answered—it was but a blast sweeping sharply through

the dry branches. As he approached a little nearer he thought he saw

something white hanging in the midst of the tree—he paused and ceased

whistling; but on looking more narrowly perceived that it was a place

where the tree had been scathed by lightning, and the white wood laid

bare. Suddenly he heard a groan—his teeth chattered and his knees smote

against the saddle; it was but the rubbing of one huge bough upon

another, as they were swayed about by the breeze. He passed the tree in

safety, but new perils lay before him.

About two hundred yards from the tree a small brook crossed the road and

ran into a marshy and thickly-wooded glen, known by the name of Wiley’s

swamp. A few rough logs, laid side by side, served for a bridge over

this stream. On that side of the road where the brook entered the wood

a group of oaks and chestnuts, matted thick with wild grapevines, threw

a cavernous gloom over it. To pass this bridge was the severest trial.

It was at this identical spot that the unfortunate André was captured,

and under the covert of those chestnuts and vines were the sturdy yeomen

concealed who surprised him. This has ever since been considered a

haunted stream, and fearful are the feelings of the schoolboy who has to

pass it alone after dark.

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 schoolmaster now bestowed both whip

and heel upon the starveling ribs of old Gunpowder, who dashed forward,

snuffing and snorting, but came to a stand just by the bridge, with

a suddenness that had nearly sent his rider sprawling over his head.

Just at this moment a plashy tramp by the side of the bridge caught the

sensitive ear of Ichabod. In the dark shadow of the grove, on the margin

of the brook, he beheld something huge, misshapen, black, and towering.

It stirred not, but seemed gathered up in the gloom, like some gigantic

monster ready to spring upon the traveler.

The hair of the affrighted pedagogue rose upon his head with terror.

What was to be done? To turn and fly was now too late; and besides, what

chance was there of escaping ghost or goblin, if such it was, which

could ride upon the wings of the wind? Summoning up, therefore, a show

of courage, he demanded in stammering accents—“Who are you?” He received

no reply. He repeated his demand in a still more agitated voice. Still

there was no answer. Once more he cudgelled the sides of the inflexible

Gunpowder, and, shutting his eyes, broke forth with involuntary fervor

into a psalm tune. Just then the shadowy object of alarm put itself in

motion, and, with a scramble and a bound, stood at once in the middle

of the road. Though the night was dark and dismal, yet the form of the

unknown might now in some degree be ascertained. He appeared to be a

horseman of large dimensions, and mounted on a black horse of powerful

frame. He made no offer of molestation or sociability, but kept aloof on

one side of the road, jogging along on the blind side of old Gunpowder,

who had now got over his fright and waywardness.

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; he endeavored to resume his psalm

tune, but his parched tongue clove to the roof of his mouth, and he could

not utter a stave. There was something in the moody and dogged silence

of this pertinacious companion that was mysterious and appalling. It

was soon fearfully accounted for. On mounting a rising ground, which

brought the figure of his fellow-traveler in relief against the sky,

gigantic in height, and muffled in a cloak, 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 the 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. Away then they dashed through thick

and thin; stones flying, and sparks flashing at every bound. Ichabod’s

flimsy garments fluttered in the air, as he stretched his long lank body

away over his horse’s head, in the eagerness of his flight.

They had now reached the road which turns off to Sleepy Hollow; but

Gunpowder, who seemed possessed with a demon, instead of keeping up it,

made an opposite turn, and plunged headlong down hill to the left. This

road leads through a sandy hollow, shaded by trees for about a quarter

of a mile, where it crosses the bridge famous in goblin story, and just

beyond swells the green knoll on which stands the whitewashed church.

As yet the panic of the steed had given his unskillful rider an apparent

advantage in the chase; but just as he had got half way through the

hollow the girths of the saddle gave way, and he felt it slipping from

under him. He seized it by the pommel, and endeavored to hold it firm,

but in vain; and had just time to save himself by clasping old Gunpowder

round the neck, when the saddle fell to the earth, and he heard it

trampled under foot by his pursuer. For a moment the terror of Hans Van

Ripper’s wrath passed across his mind—for it was his Sunday saddle; but

this was no time for petty fears; the goblin was hard on his haunches;

and (unskillful rider that he was!) he had much ado to maintain his seat;

sometimes slipping on one side, sometimes on another, and sometimes

jolted on the high ridge of his horse’s back-bone, with a violence that

he verily feared would cleave him asunder.

An opening in the trees now cheered him with the hopes that the church

bridge was at hand. 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’s 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. Another convulsive kick in the ribs, and

old Gunpowder sprang upon the bridge; he thundered over the resounding

planks; he gained the opposite side; and now Ichabod cast a look behind

to see if his pursuer should vanish, according to rule, in a flash of

fire and brimstone. Just then he saw the goblin rising in his stirrups,

and in the very act of hurling his head at him. Ichabod endeavored to

dodge the horrible missile, but too late. It encountered his cranium with

a tremendous crash—he was tumbled headlong into the dust, and Gunpowder,

the black steed, and the goblin rider passed by like a whirlwind.

The next morning the old horse was found without his saddle, and with the

bridle under his feet, soberly cropping the grass at his master’s gate.

Ichabod did not make his appearance at breakfast—dinner-hour came, but

no Ichabod. The boys assembled at the schoolhouse, and strolled idly

about the banks of the brook, but no schoolmaster. Hans Van Ripper now

began to feel some uneasiness about the fate of poor Ichabod and his

saddle. An inquiry was set on foot, and after diligent investigation they

came upon his traces. In one part of the road leading to the church was

found the saddle trampled in the dirt; the tracks of horses’ hoofs deeply

dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the

bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the

water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod,

and close beside it a shattered pumpkin.

The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be

discovered. Hans Van Ripper, as executor of his estate, examined the

bundle which contained all his worldly effects. They consisted of two

shirts and a half; two stocks for the neck; a pair or two of worsted

stockings; an old pair of corduroy small-clothes; a rusty razor; a book

of psalm tunes, full of dogs’ ears; and a broken pitchpipe. As to the

books and furniture of the schoolhouse, they belonged to the community,

excepting Cotton Mather’s History of Witchcraft, a New England Almanac,

and a book of dreams and fortune-telling; in which last was a sheet of

foolscap much scribbled and blotted in several fruitless attempts to make

a copy of verses in honor of the heiress of Van Tassel. These magic books

and the poetic scrawl were forthwith consigned to the flames by Hans Van

Ripper, who from that time forward determined to send his children no

more to school, observing that he never knew any good come of this same

reading and writing. Whatever money the schoolmaster possessed, and he

had received his quarter’s pay but a day or two before, he must have had

about his person at the time of his disappearance.

The mysterious event caused much speculation at the church on the

following Sunday. Knots of gazers and gossips were collected in the

churchyard, at the bridge, and at the spot where the hat and pumpkin

had been found. The stories of Brouwer, of Bones, and a whole budget of

others, were called to mind; and when they had diligently considered them

all, and compared them with the symptoms of the present case, they shook

their heads, and came to the conclusion that Ichabod had been carried off

by the galloping Hessian. As he was a bachelor, and in nobody’s debt,

nobody troubled his head any more about him. The school was removed to

a different quarter of the hollow, and another pedagogue reigned in his

stead.

It is true, an old farmer, who had been down to New York, on a visit

several years after, and from whom this account of the ghostly adventure

was received, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still

alive; that he had left the neighborhood, partly through fear of the

goblin and Hans Van Ripper, and partly in mortification at having been

suddenly dismissed by the heiress; that he had changed his quarters to a

distant part of the country; had kept school and studied law at the same

time, had been admitted to the bar, turned politician, electioneered,

written for the newspapers, and finally had been made a justice of

the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, who shortly after his rival’s

disappearance conducted the blooming Katrina in triumph to the altar,

was observed to look exceedingly knowing whenever the story of Ichabod

was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the

pumpkin, which led some to suspect that he knew more about the matter

than he chose to tell.

The old country wives, however, who are the best judges of these matters,

maintain to this day that Ichabod was spirited away by supernatural

means; and it is a favorite story often told about the neighborhood round

the winter evening fire. The bridge became more than ever an object of

superstitious awe, and that may be the reason why the road has been

altered of late years, so as to approach the church by the border of the

mill-pond. The schoolhouse being deserted soon fell to decay, and was

reported to be haunted by the ghost of the unfortunate pedagogue; and the

plowboy, loitering homeward of a still summer evening, has often fancied

his voice at a distance, chanting a melancholy psalm tune among the

tranquil solitudes of Sleepy Hollow.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 424.

=Discussion.= 1. What was the situation of Sleepy Hollow? 2. Read

all the names Irving applies to this valley. 3. What impression do

these names help to give? 4. What effect upon the inhabitants had

the situation of the valley? 5. In describing this effect, what

comparison does Irving use? 6. Why does Irving exaggerate Ichabod’s

peculiarities? 7. What stories did Ichabod enjoy? 8. What effect

did these have upon him? 9. For what is the author preparing the

reader when he tells this? 10. How do you account for Ichabod’s

disappearance? 11. Read all the hints throughout the story which

helped you to come to this conclusion. 12. Read lines which show

Irving’s humor. 13. What is the spirit of this humor? 14. Read lines

which show Irving’s power to describe nature. 15. What do you think

is the finest description in the tale? 16. Pronounce the following:

inapplicable; genius; formidable; patrons; grievous; elm; Herculean;

alternative; horizon; hospitable.

=Phrases=

spacious coves, 479, 1

inveterate propensity, 479, 9

precise and authentic, 479, 12

prolonged and reverberated, 479, 24

pow-wows, 480, 13

legendary superstition, 481, 5

great torrent of migration, 481, 19

genius of famine, 482, 11

cruel potentates, 482, 34

comforts of the cupboard, 483, 13

dilating powers of an anaconda, 483, 18

legitimately descended, 484, 11

direful omens, 486, 3

curdling awe, 486, 19

sumptuous promise, 488, 13

utensils of husbandry, 489, 9

labyrinth of whims, 490, 6

rantipole hero, 491, 10

obstinately pacific system, 493, 3

early emancipation, 494, 19

culinary abundance, 496, 5

sequestered situation, 500, 27

ill-starred, 503, 18

diligent investigation, 507, 5

forthwith consigned, 507, 25

THE GREAT STONE FACE

NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE

One afternoon, when the sun was going down, a mother and her little boy

sat at the door of their cottage, talking about the Great Stone Face.

They had but to lift their eyes, and there it was plainly to be seen,

though miles away, with the sunshine brightening all its features.

And what was the Great Stone Face?

Embosomed amongst a family of lofty mountains, there was a valley so

spacious that it contained many thousand inhabitants. Some of these good

people dwelt in log-huts, with the black forest all around them, on the

steep and difficult hillsides. Others had their homes in comfortable

farmhouses, and cultivated the rich soil on the gentle slopes or level

surfaces of the valley. Others, again, were congregated into populous

villages, where some wild, highland rivulet, tumbling down from its

birthplace in the upper mountain region, had been caught and tamed by

human cunning, and compelled to turn the machinery of cotton-factories.

The inhabitants of this valley, in short, were numerous, and of many

modes of life. But all of them, grown people and children, had a kind of

familiarity with the Great Stone Face, although some possessed the gift

of distinguishing this grand natural phenomenon more perfectly than many

of their neighbors.

The Great Stone Face, then, was a work of Nature in her mood of majestic

playfulness, formed on the perpendicular side of a mountain by some

immense rocks, which had been thrown together in such a position as, when

viewed at a proper distance, precisely to resemble the features of the

human countenance. It seemed as if an enormous giant, or a Titan, had

sculptured his own likeness on the precipice. There was the broad arch of

the forehead, a hundred feet in height; the nose, with its long bridge;

and the vast lips, which, if they could have spoken, would have rolled

their thunder accents from one end of the valley to the other. True it

is, that if the spectator approached too near, he lost the outline of the

gigantic visage, and could discern only a heap of ponderous and gigantic

rocks, piled in chaotic ruin one upon another. Retracing his steps,

however, the wondrous features would again be seen; and the farther he

withdrew from them, the more like a human face, with all its original

divinity intact, did they appear; until, as it grew dim in the distance,

with the clouds and glorified vapor of the mountains clustering about it,

the Great Stone Face seemed positively to be alive.

It was a happy lot for children to grow up to manhood or womanhood with

the Great Stone Face before their eyes, for all the features were noble,

and the expression was at once grand and sweet, as if it were the glow

of a vast, warm heart, that embraced all mankind in its affections, and

had room for more. It was an education only to look at it. According to

the belief of many people, the valley owed much of its fertility to this

benign aspect that was continually beaming over it, illuminating the

clouds, and infusing its tenderness into the sunshine.

As we began with saying, a mother and her little boy sat at their

cottage-door, gazing at the Great Stone Face, and talking about it. The

child’s name was Ernest.

“Mother,” said he, while the Titanic visage smiled on him, “I wish that

it could speak, for it looks so very kindly that its voice must needs

be pleasant. If I were to see a man with such a face, I should love him

dearly.”

“If an old prophecy should come to pass,” answered his mother, “we may

see a man, some time or other, with exactly such a face as that.”

“What prophecy do you mean, dear mother?” eagerly inquired Ernest. “Pray

tell me all about it!”

So his mother told him a story that her own mother had told to her, when

she herself was younger than little Ernest; a story, not of things that

were past, but of what was yet to come; a story, nevertheless, so very

old, that even the Indians, who formerly inhabited this valley, had

heard it from their forefathers, to whom, as they affirmed, it had been

murmured by the mountain streams, and whispered by the wind among the

tree-tops. The purport was, that, at some future day, a child should

be born hereabouts, who was destined to become the greatest and noblest

personage of his time, and whose countenance, in manhood, should bear

an exact resemblance to the Great Stone Face. Not a few old-fashioned

people, and young ones likewise, in the ardor of their hopes, still

cherished an enduring faith in this old prophecy. But others, who had

seen more of the world, had watched and waited till they were weary, and

had beheld no man with such a face, nor any man that proved to be much

greater or nobler than his neighbors, concluded it to be nothing but

an idle tale. At all events, the great man of the prophecy had not yet

appeared.

“O mother, dear mother!” cried Ernest, clapping his hands above his head,

“I do hope that I shall live to see him!”

His mother was an affectionate and thoughtful woman, and felt that it was

wisest not to discourage the generous hopes of her little boy. So she

only said to him, “Perhaps you may.”

And Ernest never forgot the story that his mother told him. It was always

in his mind, whenever he looked upon the Great Stone Face. He spent

his childhood in the log-cottage where he was born, and was dutiful

to his mother, and helpful to her in many things, assisting her much

with his little hands, and more, with his loving heart. In this manner,

from a happy yet often pensive child, he grew up to be a mild, quiet,

unobtrusive boy, and sun-browned with labor in the fields, but with more

intelligence brightening his aspect than is seen in many lads who have

been taught at famous schools. Yet Ernest had had no teacher, save only

that the Great Stone Face became one to him. When the toil of the day

was over, he would gaze at it for hours, until he began to imagine that

those vast features recognized him, and gave him a smile of kindness and

encouragement, responsive to his own look of veneration. We must not take

upon us to affirm that this was a mistake, although the Face may have

looked no more kindly at Ernest than at all the world besides. But the

secret was that the boy’s tender and confiding simplicity discerned what

other people could not see; and thus the love, which was meant for all,

became his peculiar portion.

About this time there went a rumor throughout the valley, that the

great man, foretold from ages long ago, who was to bear a resemblance to

the Great Stone Face, had appeared at last. It seems that, many years

before, a young man had migrated from the valley and settled at a distant

seaport, where, after getting together a little money, he had set up as a

shopkeeper. His name—but I could never learn whether it was his real one,

or a nickname that had grown out of his habits and success in life—was

Gathergold. Being shrewd and active, and endowed by Providence with that

inscrutable faculty which develops itself in what the world calls luck,

he became an exceedingly rich merchant, and owner of a whole fleet of

bulky-bottomed ships. All the countries of the globe appeared to join

hands for the mere purpose of adding heap after heap to the mountainous

accumulation of this one man’s wealth. The cold regions of the north,

almost within the gloom and shadow of the Arctic Circle, sent him their

tribute in the shape of furs; hot Africa sifted for him the golden sands

of her rivers, and gathered up the ivory tusks of her great elephants out

of the forests; the East came bringing him the rich shawls, and spices,

and teas, and the effulgence of diamonds, and the gleaming purity of

large pearls. The ocean, not to be behind-hand with the earth, yielded

up her mighty whales, that Mr. Gathergold might sell their oil, and make

a profit on it. Be the original commodity what it might, it was gold

within his grasp. It might be said of him, as of Midas in the fable,

that whatever he touched with his finger immediately glistened, and grew

yellow, and was changed at once into sterling metal, or, which suited him

still better, into piles of coin. And, when Mr. Gathergold had become so

very rich that it would have taken him a hundred years only to count his

wealth, he bethought himself of his native valley, and resolved to go

back thither, and end his days where he was born. With this purpose in

view, he sent a skillful architect to build him such a palace as should

be fit for a man of his vast wealth to live in.

As I have said above, it had already been rumored in the valley that

Mr. Gathergold had turned out to be the prophetic personage so long and

vainly looked for, and that his visage was the perfect and undeniable

similitude of the Great Stone Face. People were the more ready to

believe that this must needs be the fact, when they beheld the splendid

edifice that rose, as if by enchantment, on the site of his father’s

old weatherbeaten farmhouse. The exterior was of marble, so dazzlingly

white that it seemed as though the whole structure might melt away in

the sunshine, like those humbler ones which Mr. Gathergold, in his

young play-days, before his fingers were gifted with the touch of

transmutation, had been accustomed to build of snow. It had a richly

ornamented portico, supported by tall pillars, beneath which was a lofty

door, studded with silver knobs, and made of a kind of variegated wood

that had been brought from beyond the sea. The windows, from the floor to

the ceiling of each stately apartment, were composed, respectively, of

but one enormous pane of glass, so transparently pure that it was said

to be a finer medium than even the vacant atmosphere. Hardly anybody had

been permitted to see the interior of this palace; but it was reported,

and with good semblance of truth, to be far more gorgeous than the

outside, insomuch that whatever was iron or brass in other houses was

silver or gold in this; and Mr. Gathergold’s bedchamber, especially, made

such a glittering appearance that no ordinary man would have been able to

close his eyes there. But, on the other hand, Mr. Gathergold was now so

inured to wealth, that perhaps he could not have closed his eyes unless

where the gleam of it was certain to find its way beneath his eyelids.

In due time, the mansion was finished; next came the upholsterers, with

magnificent furniture; then, a whole troop of black and white servants,

the harbingers of Mr. Gathergold, who, in his own majestic person, was

expected to arrive at sunset. Our friend Ernest, meanwhile, had been

deeply stirred by the idea that the great man, the noble man, the man of

prophecy, after so many ages of delay, was at length to be made manifest

to his native valley. He knew, boy as he was, that there were a thousand

ways in which Mr. Gathergold, with his vast wealth, might transform

himself into an angel of beneficence, and assume a control over human

affairs as wide and benignant as the smile of the Great Stone Face.

Full of faith and hope, Ernest doubted not that what the people said

was true, and that now he was to behold the living likeness of those

wondrous features on the mountain-side. While the boy was still gazing

up the valley, and fancying, as he always did, that the Great Stone Face

returned his gaze and looked kindly at him, the rumbling of wheels was

heard, approaching swiftly along the winding road.

“Here he comes!” cried a group of people who were assembled to witness

the arrival. “Here comes the great Mr. Gathergold!”

A carriage, drawn by four horses, dashed round the turn of the road.

Within it, thrust partly out of the window, appeared the physiognomy

of the old man, with a skin as yellow as if his own Midas-hand had

transmuted it. He had a low forehead, small, sharp eyes, puckered about

with innumerable wrinkles, and very thin lips, which he made still

thinner by pressing them forcibly together.

“The very image of the Great Stone Face!” shouted the people, “Sure

enough, the old prophecy is true; and here we have the great man come, at

last!”

And, what greatly perplexed Ernest, they seemed actually to believe that

here was the likeness which they spoke of. By the roadside there chanced

to be an old beggar-woman and two little beggar-children, stragglers

from some far-off region, who, as the carriage rolled onward, held out

their hands and lifted up their doleful voices, most piteously beseeching

charity. A yellow claw—the very same that had clawed together so much

wealth—poked itself out of the coach-window, and dropped some copper

coins upon the ground; so that, though the great man’s name seems to

have been Gathergold, he might just as suitably have been nicknamed

Scattercopper. Still, nevertheless, with an earnest shout, and with as

much good faith as ever, the people bellowed—

“He is the very image of the Great Stone Face!”

But Ernest turned sadly from the wrinkled shrewdness of that sordid

visage, and gazed up the valley, where, amid a gathering mist, gilded by

the last sunbeams, he could still distinguish those glorious features

which had impressed themselves into his soul. Their aspect cheered him.

What did the benign lips seem to say?

“He will come! Fear not, Ernest; the man will come!”

The years went on, and Ernest ceased to be a boy. He had grown to be a

young man now. He attracted little notice from the other inhabitants of

the valley; for they saw nothing remarkable in his way of life, save

that, when the labor of the day was over, he still loved to go apart and

gaze and meditate upon the Great Stone Face. According to their idea of

the matter, it was a folly, indeed, but pardonable, inasmuch as Ernest

was industrious, kind, and neighborly, and neglected no duty for the sake

of indulging this idle habit. They knew not that the Great Stone Face

had become a teacher to him, and that the sentiment which was expressed

in it would enlarge the young man’s heart, and fill it with wider and

deeper sympathies than other hearts. They knew not that thence would come

a better wisdom than could be learned from books, and a better life than

could be molded on the defaced example of other human lives. Neither

did Ernest know that the thoughts and affections which came to him so

naturally, in the fields and at the fireside, and wherever he communed

with himself, were of a higher tone than those which all men shared with

him. A simple soul—simple as when his mother first taught him the old

prophecy—he beheld the marvelous features beaming adown the valley, and

still wondered that their human counterpart was so long in making his

appearance.

By this time poor Mr. Gathergold was dead and buried; and the oddest part

of the matter was that his wealth, which was the body and spirit of his

existence, had disappeared before his death, leaving nothing of him but

a living skeleton, covered over with a wrinkled, yellow skin. Since the

melting away of his gold, it had been very generally conceded that there

was no such striking resemblance, after all, betwixt the ignoble features

of the ruined merchant and that majestic face upon the mountain-side. So

the people ceased to honor him during his lifetime, and quietly consigned

him to forgetfulness after his decease. Once in a while, it is true, his

memory was brought up in connection with the magnificent palace which

he had built, and which had long ago been turned into a hotel for the

accommodation of strangers, multitudes of whom came, every summer, to

visit that famous natural curiosity, the Great Stone Face. Thus, Mr.

Gathergold being discredited and thrown into the shade, the man of

prophecy was yet to come.

It so happened that a native-born son of the valley, many years before,

had enlisted as a soldier, and, after a great deal of hard fighting,

had now become an illustrious commander. Whatever he may be called in

history, he was known in camps and on the battlefield under the nickname

of Old Blood-and-Thunder. This war-worn veteran, being now infirm with

age and wounds, and weary of the turmoil of a military life, and of the

roll of the drum and the clangor of the trumpet, that had so long; been

ringing in his ears, had lately signified a purpose of returning to his

native valley, hoping to find repose where he remembered to have left

it. The inhabitants, his old neighbors and their grown-up children, were

resolved to welcome the renowned warrior with a salute of cannon and

a public dinner; and all the more enthusiastically, it being affirmed

that now, at last, the likeness of the Great Stone Face had actually

appeared. An aid-de-camp of Old Blood-and-Thunder, traveling through

the valley, was said to have been struck with the resemblance. Moreover

the school-mates and early acquaintances of the general were ready to

testify, on oath, that, to the best of their recollection, the aforesaid

general had been exceedingly like the majestic image, even when a boy,

only that the idea had never occurred to them at that period. Great,

therefore, was the excitement throughout the valley; and many people,

who had never once thought of glancing at the Great Stone Face for years

before, now spent their time in gazing at it, for the sake of knowing

exactly how General Blood-and-Thunder looked.

On the day of the great festival, Ernest and all the other people of

the valley left their work, and proceeded to the spot where the sylvan

banquet was prepared. As he approached, the loud voice of the Rev. Dr.

Battleblast was heard, beseeching a blessing on the good things set

before them, and on the distinguished friend of peace in whose honor they

were assembled. The tables were arranged in a cleared space of the woods,

shut in by the surrounding trees, except where a vista opened eastward,

and afforded a distant view of the Great Stone Face. Over the general’s

chair, which was a relic from the home of Washington, there was an arch

of verdant boughs, with the laurel profusely intermixed, and surmounted

by his country’s banner, beneath which he had won his victories. Our

friend Ernest raised himself on his tiptoes, in hopes to get a glimpse

of the celebrated guest; but there was a mighty crowd about the tables

anxious to hear the toasts and speeches, and to catch any word that might

fall from the general in reply; and a volunteer company, doing duty as a

guard, pricked ruthlessly with their bayonets at any particularly quiet

person among the throng. So Ernest, being of an unobtrusive character,

was thrust quite into the background, where he could see no more of Old

Blood-and-Thunder’s physiognomy than if it had been still blazing on

the battlefield. To console himself, he turned towards the Great Stone

Face, which, like a faithful and long-remembered friend, looked back and

smiled upon him through the vista of the forest. Meanwhile, however, he

could overhear the remarks of various individuals, who were comparing the

features of the hero with the face on the distant mountain-side.

“’Tis the same face, to a hair!” cried one man, cutting a caper for joy.

“Wonderfully like, that’s a fact!” responded another.

“Like! why, I call it Old Blood-and-Thunder himself, in a monstrous

looking-glass!” cried a third. “And why not? He’s the greatest man of

this or any other age, beyond a doubt.”

And then all three of the speakers gave a great shout, which communicated

electricity to the crowd, and called forth a roar from a thousand voices,

that went reverberating for miles among the mountains, until you might

have supposed that the Great Stone Face had poured its thunder-breath

into the cry. All these comments, and this vast enthusiasm, served the

more to interest our friend; nor did he think of questioning that now, at

length, the mountain-visage had found its human counterpart. It is true,

Ernest had imagined that this long-looked-for personage would appear

in the character of a man of peace, uttering wisdom, and doing good,

and making people happy. But, taking an habitual breadth of view, with

all his simplicity, he contended that Providence should choose its own

method of blessing mankind, and could conceive that this great end might

be effected even by a warrior and a bloody sword, should inscrutable

wisdom see fit to order matters so.

“The general! the general!” was now the cry. “Hush! silence! Old

Blood-and-Thunder’s going to make a speech.”

Even so; for, the cloth being removed, the general’s health had been

drunk, amid shouts of applause, and he now stood upon his feet to

thank the company. Ernest saw him. There he was, over the shoulders

of the crowd, from the two glittering epaulets and embroidered collar

upward, beneath the arch of green boughs with intertwined laurel, and

the banner drooping as if to shade his brow! And there, too, visible in

the same glance, through the vista of the forest, appeared the Great

Stone Face! And was there, indeed, such a resemblance as the crowd had

testified? Alas, Ernest could not recognize it! He beheld a war-worn and

weatherbeaten countenance, full of energy, and expressive of an iron

will; but the gentle wisdom, the deep, broad, tender sympathies, were

altogether wanting in Old Blood-and-Thunder’s visage; and even if the

Great Stone Face had assumed his look of stern command, the milder traits

would still have tempered it.

“This is not the man of prophecy,” sighed Ernest to himself, as he made

his way out of the throng. “And must the world wait longer yet?”

The mists had congregated about the distant mountain-side, and there

were seen the grand and awful features of the Great Stone Face, awful

but benignant, as if a mighty angel were sitting among the hills, and

enrobing himself in a cloud-vesture of gold and purple. As he looked,

Ernest could hardly believe but that a smile beamed over the whole

visage, with a radiance still brightening, although without motion of the

lips. It was probably the effect of the western sunshine, melting through

the thinly diffused vapors that had swept between him and the object that

he gazed at. But—as it always did—the aspect of his marvelous friend made

Ernest as hopeful as if he had never hoped in vain.

“Fear not, Ernest,” said his heart, even as if the Great Face were

whispering him—“fear not, Ernest; he will come.”

More years sped swiftly and tranquilly away. Ernest still dwelt in his

native valley, and was now a man of middle age. By imperceptible degrees,

he had become known among the people. Now, as heretofore, he labored for

his bread, and was the same simple-hearted man that he had always been.

But he had thought and felt so much, he had given so many of the best

hours of his life to unworldly hopes for some great good to mankind, that

it seemed as though he had been talking with the angels, and had imbibed

a portion of their wisdom unawares. It was visible in the calm and

well-considered beneficence of his daily life, the quiet stream of which

had made a wide green margin all along its course. Not a day passed by,

that the world was not the better because this man, humble as he was, had

lived. He never stepped aside from his own path, yet would always reach

a blessing to his neighbor. Almost involuntarily, too, he had become a

preacher. The pure and high simplicity of his thought, which, as one of

its manifestations, took shape in the good deeds that dropped silently

from his hand, flowed also forth in speech. He uttered truths that

wrought upon and molded the lives of those who heard him. His auditors,

it may be, never suspected that Ernest, their own neighbor and familiar

friend, was more than an ordinary man; least of all did Ernest himself

suspect it; but, inevitably as the murmur of a rivulet, came thoughts out

of his mouth that no other human lips had spoken.

When the people’s minds had had a little time to cool, they were ready

enough to acknowledge their mistake in imagining a similarity between

General Blood-and-Thunder’s truculent physiognomy and the benign visage

on the mountain-side. But now, again, there were reports and many

paragraphs in the newspapers, affirming that the likeness of the Great

Stone Face had appeared upon the broad shoulders of a certain eminent

statesman. He, like Mr. Gathergold and Old Blood-and-Thunder, was a

native of the valley, but had left it in his early days, and taken up

the trades of law and politics. Instead of the rich man’s wealth and

the warrior’s sword, he had but a tongue, and it was mightier than both

together. So wonderfully eloquent was he, that whatever he might choose

to say, his auditors had no choice but to believe him; wrong looked

like right, and right like wrong; for when it pleased him, he could make

a kind of illuminated fog with his mere breath, and obscure the natural

daylight with it. His tongue, indeed, was a magic instrument: sometimes

it rumbled like the thunder; sometimes it warbled like the sweetest

music. It was the blast of war—the song of peace; and it seemed to have

a heart in it, when there was no such matter. In good truth, he was a

wondrous man; and when his tongue had acquired him all other imaginable

success—when it had been heard in halls of state, and in the courts of

princes and potentates—after it had made him known all over the world,

even as a voice crying from shore to shore—it finally persuaded his

countrymen to select him for the Presidency. Before this time—indeed,

as soon as he began to grow celebrated—his admirers had found out the

resemblance between him and the Great Stone Face; and so much were they

struck by it, that throughout the country this distinguished gentleman

was known by the name of Old Stony Phiz. The phrase was considered as

giving a highly favorable aspect to his political prospects; for, as is

likewise the case with the Popedom, nobody ever becomes President without

taking a name other than his own.

While his friends were doing their best to make him President, Old Stony

Phiz, as he was called, set out on a visit to the valley where he was

born. Of course, he had no other object than to shake hands with his

fellow-citizens, and neither thought nor cared about any effect which his

progress through the country might have upon the election. Magnificent

preparations were made to receive the illustrious statesman; a cavalcade

of horsemen set forth to meet him at the boundary line of the State, and

all the people left their business and gathered along the wayside so to

see him pass. Among these was Ernest. Though more than once disappointed,

as we have seen, he had such a hopeful and confiding nature that he was

always ready to believe in whatever seemed beautiful and good. He kept

his heart continually open, and thus was sure to catch the blessing from

on high when it should come. So now again, as buoyantly as ever, he went

forth to behold the likeness of the Great Stone Face.

The cavalcade came prancing along the road, with a great clattering of

hoofs and a mighty cloud of dust, which rose up so dense and high that

the visage of the mountain-side was completely hidden from Ernest’s

eyes. All the great men of the neighborhood were there on horseback;

militia officers, in uniform; the member of Congress; the sheriff of the

county; the editors of newspapers; and many a farmer, too, had mounted

his patient steed, with his Sunday coat upon his back. It really was

a very brilliant spectacle, especially as there were numerous banners

flaunting over the cavalcade, on some of which were gorgeous portraits of

the illustrious statesman and the Great Stone Face, smiling familiarly

at one another, like two brothers. If the pictures were to be trusted,

the mutual resemblance, it must be confessed, was marvelous. We must

not forget to mention that there was a band of music, which made the

echoes of the mountains ring and reverberate with the loud triumph of its

strains; so that airy and soul-thrilling melodies broke out among all the

heights and hollows, as if every nook of his native valley had found a

voice, to welcome the distinguished guest. But the grandest effect was

when the far-off mountain precipice flung back the music; for then the

Great Stone Face itself seemed to be swelling the triumphant chorus, in

acknowledgment that, at length, the man of prophecy was come.

All this while the people were throwing up their hats and shouting with

enthusiasm so contagious that the heart of Ernest kindled up, and he

likewise threw up his hat, and shouted, as loudly as the loudest, “Huzza

for the great man! Huzza for Old Stony Phiz!” But as yet he had not seen

him.

“Here he is, now!” cried those who stood near Ernest. “There! There! Look

at Old Stony Phiz and then at the Old Man of the Mountain, and see if

they are not as like as two twin-brothers!”

In the midst of all this gallant array came an open barouche, drawn by

four white horses; and in the barouche, with his massive head uncovered,

sat the illustrious statesman, Old Stony Phiz himself.

“Confess it,” said one of Ernest’s neighbors to him, “the Great Stone

Face has met its match at last!”

Now, it must be owned that, at his first glimpse of the countenance

which was bowing and smiling from the barouche, Ernest did fancy that

there was a resemblance between it and the old familiar face upon the

mountain-side. The brow, with its massive depth and loftiness, and all

the other features, indeed, were boldly and strongly hewn, as if in

emulation of a more than heroic, of a Titanic model. But the sublimity

and stateliness, the grand expression of a divine sympathy, that

illuminated the mountain visage and etherealized its ponderous granite

substance into spirit, might here be sought in vain. Something had been

originally left out, or had departed. And therefore the marvelously

gifted statesman had always a weary gloom in the deep caverns of his

eyes, as of a child that has outgrown its playthings or a man of mighty

faculties and little aims, whose life, with all its high performances,

was vague and empty, because no high purpose had endowed it with reality.

Still, Ernest’s neighbor was thrusting his elbow into his side, and

pressing him for an answer.

“Confess! confess! Is not he the very picture of your Old Man of the

Mountain?”

“No!” said Ernest, bluntly, “I see little or no likeness.”

“Then so much the worse for the Great Stone Face!” answered his neighbor;

and again he set up a shout for Old Stony Phiz.

But Ernest turned away, melancholy, and almost despondent; for this

was the saddest of his disappointments, to behold a man who might have

fulfilled the prophecy, and had not willed to do so. Meantime, the

cavalcade, the banners, the music, and the barouches swept past him, with

the vociferous crowd in the rear, leaving the dust to settle down, and

the Great Stone Face to be revealed again, with the grandeur that it had

worn for untold centuries.

“Lo, here I am, Ernest!” the benign lips seemed to say. “I have waited

longer than thou, and am not yet weary. Fear not; the man will come.”

The years hurried onward, treading in their haste on one another’s heels.

And now they began to bring white hairs, and scatter them over the head

of Ernest; they made reverend wrinkles across his forehead, and furrows

in his cheeks. He was an aged man. But not in vain had he grown old:

more than the white hairs on his head were the sage thoughts in his mind;

his wrinkles and furrows were inscriptions that Time had graved, and in

which he had written legends of wisdom that had been tested by the tenor

of a life. And Ernest had ceased to be obscure. Unsought for, undesired,

had come the fame which so many seek, and made him known in the great

world, beyond the limits of the valley in which he had dwelt so quietly.

College professors, and even the active men of cities, came from far

to see and converse with Ernest; for the report had gone abroad that

this simple husbandman had ideas unlike those of other men, not gained

from books, but of a higher tone—a tranquil and familiar majesty, as if

he had been talking with the angels as his daily friends. Whether it

were sage, statesman, or philanthropist, Ernest received these visitors

with the gentle sincerity that had characterized him from boyhood, and

spoke freely with them of whatever came uppermost, or lay deepest in his

heart or their own. While they talked together, his face would kindle,

unawares, and shine upon them, as with a mild evening light. Pensive

with the fulness of such discourse, his guests took leave and went their

way; and passing up the valley, paused to look at the Great Stone Face,

imagining that they had seen its likeness in a human countenance, but

could not remember where.

While Ernest had been growing up and growing old, a bountiful Providence

had granted a new poet to this earth. He, likewise, was a native of the

valley, but had spent the greater part of his life at a distance from

that romantic region, pouring out his sweet music amid the bustle and

din of cities. Often, however, did the mountains which had been familiar

to him in his childhood lift their snowy peaks into the clear atmosphere

of his poetry. Neither was the Great Stone Face forgotten, for the poet

had celebrated it in an ode, which was grand enough to have been uttered

by its own majestic lips. This man of genius, we may say, had come down

from heaven with wonderful endowments. If he sang of a mountain, the

eyes of all mankind beheld a mightier grandeur reposing on its breast,

or soaring to its summit, than had before been seen there. If his theme

were a lovely lake, a celestial smile had now been thrown over it, to

gleam forever on its surface. If it were the vast old sea, even the deep

immensity of its dread bosom seemed to swell the higher, as if moved by

the emotions of the song. Thus the world assumed another and a better

aspect from the hour that the poet blessed it with his happy eyes. The

Creator had bestowed him, as the last best touch to his own handiwork.

Creation was not finished till the poet came to interpret, and so

complete it.

The effect was no less high and beautiful, when his human brethren were

the subject of his verse. The man or woman, sordid with the common dust

of life, who crossed his daily path, and the little child who played in

it, were glorified if he beheld them in his mood of poetic faith. He

showed the golden links of the great chain that intertwined them with

an angelic kindred; he brought out the hidden traits of a celestial

birth that made them worthy of such kin. Some, indeed, there were, who

thought to show the soundness of their judgment by affirming that all

the beauty and dignity of the natural world existed only in the poet’s

fancy. Let such men speak for themselves, who undoubtedly appear to have

been spawned forth by Nature with a contemptuous bitterness; she having

plastered them up out of her refuse stuff, after all the swine were made.

As respects all things else, the poet’s ideal was the truest truth.

The songs of this poet found their way to Ernest. He read them after his

customary toil, seated on the bench before his cottage-door, where for

such a length of time he had filled his repose with thought, by gazing at

the Great Stone Face. And now as he read stanzas that caused the soul to

thrill within him, he lifted his eyes to the vast countenance beaming on

him so benignantly.

“O majestic friend,” he murmured, addressing the Great Stone Face, “is

not this man worthy to resemble thee?”

The Face seemed to smile, but answered not a word.

Now it happened that the poet, though he dwelt so far away, had not only

heard of Ernest, but had meditated much upon his character, until he

deemed nothing so desirable as to meet this man, whose untaught wisdom

walked hand in hand with the noble simplicity of his life. One summer

morning, therefore, he took passage by the railroad, and, in the decline

of the afternoon, alighted from the cars at no great distance from

Ernest’s cottage. The great hotel, which had formerly been the palace

of Mr. Gathergold, was close at hand, but the poet, with his carpetbag

on his arm, inquired at once where Ernest dwelt, and was resolved to be

accepted as his guest.

Approaching the door, he there found the good old man, holding a volume

in his hand, which alternately he read, and then, with a finger between

the leaves, looked lovingly at the Great Stone Face.

“Good evening,” said the poet. “Can you give a traveler a night’s

lodging?”

“Willingly,” answered Ernest; and then he added, smiling, “Methinks I

never saw the Great Stone Face look so hospitably at a stranger.”

The poet sat down on the bench beside him, and he and Ernest talked

together. Often had the poet held intercourse with the wittiest and

the wisest but never before with a man like Ernest, whose thoughts and

feelings gushed up with such a natural freedom, and who made great truths

so familiar by his simple utterance of them. Angels, as had been so often

said, seemed to have wrought with him at his labor in the fields; angels

seemed to have sat with him by the fireside; and, dwelling with angels

as friend with friends, he had imbibed the sublimity of their ideas,

and imbued it with the sweet and lowly charm of household words. So

thought the poet. And Ernest, on the other hand, was moved and agitated

by the living images which the poet flung out of his mind, and which

peopled all the air about the cottage-door with shapes of beauty, both

gay and pensive. The sympathies of these two men instructed them with

a profounder sense than either could have attained alone. Their minds

accorded into one strain, and made delightful music which neither of

them could have claimed as all his own, nor distinguished his own share

from the other’s. They led one another, as it were, into a high pavilion

of their thoughts, so remote, and hitherto so dim, that they had never

entered it before, and so beautiful that they desired to be there always.

As Ernest listened to the poet, he imagined that the Great Stone Face was

bending forward to listen too. He gazed earnestly into the poet’s glowing

eyes.

“Who are you, my strangely gifted guest?” he said.

The poet laid his finger on the volume that Ernest had been reading.

“You have read these poems,” said he. “You know me, then, for I wrote

them.”

Again, and still more earnestly than before, Ernest examined the poet’s

features; then turned towards the Great Stone Face; then back, with an

uncertain aspect, to his guest. But his countenance fell; he shook his

head, and sighed.

“Wherefore are you sad?” inquired the poet.

“Because,” replied Ernest, “all through life I have awaited the

fulfilment of a prophecy; and, when I read these poems, I hoped that it

might be fulfilled in you.”

“You hoped,” answered the poet, faintly smiling, “to find in me the

likeness of the Great Stone Face. And you are disappointed, as formerly

with Mr. Gathergold, and Old Blood-and-Thunder, and Old Stony Phiz. Yes,

Ernest, it is my doom. You must add my name to the illustrious three, and

record another failure of your hopes. For—in shame and sadness do I speak

it, Ernest—I am not worthy to be typified by yonder benign and majestic

image.”

“And why?” asked Ernest. He pointed to the volume. “Are not those

thoughts divine?”

“They have a strain of the Divinity,” replied the poet. “You can hear

in them the far-off echo of a heavenly song. But my life, dear Ernest,

has not corresponded with my thought. I have had grand dreams, but they

have been only dreams, because I have lived—and that, too, by my own

choice—among poor and mean realities. Sometimes even—shall I dare to say

it?—I lack faith in the grandeur, the beauty, and the goodness, which my

own works are said to have made more evident in nature and in human life.

Why, then, pure seeker of the good and true, shouldst thou hope to find

me, in yonder image of the divine?”

The poet spoke sadly, and his eyes were dim with tears. So, likewise,

were those of Ernest.

At the hour of sunset, as had long been his frequent custom, Ernest was

to discourse to an assemblage of the neighboring inhabitants in the open

air. He and the poet, arm in arm, still talking together as they went

along, proceeded to the spot. It was a small nook among the hills, with

a gray precipice behind, the stern front of which was relieved by the

pleasant foliage of many creeping plants that made a tapestry for the

naked rock, by hanging their festoons from all its rugged angles. At a

small elevation above the ground, set in a rich framework of verdure,

there appeared a niche, spacious enough to admit a human figure, with

freedom for such gestures as spontaneously accompany earnest thought

and genuine emotion. Into this natural pulpit Ernest ascended, and

threw a look of familiar kindness around upon his audience. They stood,

or sat, or reclined upon the grass, as seemed good to each, with the

departing sunshine falling obliquely over them, and mingling its subdued

cheerfulness with the solemnity of a grove of ancient trees, beneath and

amid the boughs of which the golden rays were constrained to pass. In

another direction was seen the Great Stone Face, with the same cheer,

combined with the same solemnity, in its benignant aspect.

Ernest began to speak, giving to the people of what was in his heart

and mind. His words had power, because they accorded with his thoughts;

and his thoughts had reality and depth, because they harmonized with

the life which he had always lived. It was not mere breath that this

preacher uttered; they were the words of life, because a life of good

deeds and holy love was melted into them. Pearls, pure and rich, had been

dissolved into this precious draught. The poet, as he listened, felt that

the being and character of Ernest were a nobler strain of poetry than he

had ever written. His eyes glistening with tears, he gazed reverentially

at the venerable man, and said within himself that never was there an

aspect so worthy of a prophet and a sage as that mild, sweet, thoughtful

countenance, with the glory of white hair diffused about it. At a

distance, but distinctly to be seen, high up in the golden light of the

setting sun, appeared the Great Stone Face, with hoary mists around

it, like the white hairs around the brow of Ernest. Its look of grand

beneficence seemed to embrace the world.

At that moment, in sympathy with a thought which he was about to utter,

the face of Ernest assumed a grandeur of expression, so imbued with

benevolence, that the poet, by an irresistible impulse, threw his arms

aloft, and shouted—

“Behold! Behold! Ernest is himself the likeness of the Great Stone Face!”

Then all the people looked, and saw that what the deep-sighted poet said

was true. The prophecy was fulfilled. But Ernest, having finished what he

had to say, took the poet’s arm, and walked slowly homeward, still hoping

that some wiser and better man than himself would by and by appear,

bearing a resemblance to the Great Stone Face.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

For Biography, see page 348.

=Discussion.= 1. What old prophecy did Ernest hope to see fulfilled?

2. What did he see in the Great Stone Face that influenced him?

3. What did Gathergold care most for? 4. For what did he use his

wealth? 5. How did Ernest know this? 6. What qualities had won the

soldier his fame? 7. What qualities did he lack? 8. How were his

characteristics revealed? 9. In what way did the statesman fail

to meet comparison with the Great Stone Face? The poet? 10. Which

failure disappointed Ernest most? Why? 11. How do you account for

Ernest’s likeness to the Great Stone Face? 12. How was it that the

poet could see the likeness when everyone else had failed to do so?

13. What may influence anyone as the Great Stone Face influenced

Ernest? 14. If Gathergold represents riches, what is each of the

other great men intended to represent? 15. Which of the things thus

represented is the greatest? 16. What does Ernest represent? 17.

What does the Great Stone Face represent? 18. Contrast Gathergold’s

treatment of the beggars with the way Ernest felt the Great Stone

Face would have treated them. 19. Apply the principle, that the

life we live is reflected in our features, spirit, and actions, to

Washington and Lincoln. 20. Can you tell Hawthorne’s purpose in

writing this story? 21. Pronounce the following: harbingers; benign;

wounds; beneficence; buoyantly; obliquely; draught.

=Phrases=

embosomed amongst, 510, 7

majestic playfulness, 510, 23

chaotic ruin, 511, 3

original divinity intact, 511, 6

benign aspect, 511, 16

peculiar portion, 512, 36

mountainous accumulation, 513, 13

touch of transmutation, 514, 7

sylvan banquet, 517, 31

angelic kindred, 525, 14

AMERICAN LITERATURE OF LIGHTER VEIN

[Illustration]

THE CELEBRATED JUMPING FROG

MARK TWAIN

In compliance with the request of a friend of mine, who wrote me from the

East, I called on good-natured, garrulous old Simon Wheeler, and inquired

after my friend’s friend, _Leonidas W._ Smiley, as requested to do, and

I hereunto append the result. I have a lurking suspicion that _Leonidas

W._ Smiley is a myth; that my friend never knew such a personage; and

that he only conjectured that, if I asked old Wheeler about him, it would

remind him of his infamous _Jim_ Smiley, and he would go to work and

bore me nearly to death with some infernal reminiscence of him as long

and tedious as it should be useless to me. If that was the design, it

certainly succeeded.

I found Simon Wheeler dozing comfortably by the bar-room stove of the

old, dilapidated tavern in the ancient mining camp of Angel’s, and I

noticed that he was fat and bald-headed, and had an expression of winning

gentleness and simplicity upon his tranquil countenance. He roused up and

gave me good-day. I told him a friend of mine had commissioned me to make

some inquiries about a cherished companion of his boyhood named _Leonidas

W._ Smiley—_Rev. Leonidas W._ Smiley—a young minister of the Gospel, who

he had heard was at one time a resident of Angel’s Camp. I added that,

if Mr. Wheeler could tell me anything about this Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley,

I would feel under many obligations to him.

Simon Wheeler backed me into a corner and blockaded me there with his

chair, and then sat me down and reeled off the monotonous narrative

which follows this paragraph. He never smiled, he never frowned, he

never changed his voice from the gentle-flowing key to which he tuned

the initial sentence, he never betrayed the slightest suspicion of

enthusiasm; but all through the interminable narrative there ran a vein

of impressive earnestness and sincerity, which showed me plainly that,

so far from his imagining that there was anything ridiculous or funny

about his story, he regarded it as a really important matter, and admired

its two heroes as men of transcendent genius in _finesse_. To me, the

spectacle of a man drifting serenely along through such a queer yarn

without ever smiling, was exquisitely absurd. As I said before, I asked

him to tell me what he knew of Rev. Leonidas W. Smiley, and he replied as

follows. I let him go on in his own way, and never interrupted him once:

There was a feller here once by the name of _Jim_ Smiley, in the winter

of ’49—or maybe it was the spring of ’50—I don’t recollect exactly,

somehow, though what makes me think it was one or the other is because I

remember the big flume wasn’t finished when he first came to the camp;

but any way, he was the curiosest man about always betting on any thing

that turned up you ever see, if he could get anybody to bet on the

other side; and if he couldn’t, he’d change sides. Any way that suited

the other man would suit him—any way just so’s he got a bet, _he_ was

satisfied. But still he was lucky, uncommon lucky; he most always come

out winner. He was always ready and laying for a chance; there couldn’t

be no solit’ry thing mentioned but that feller’d offer to bet on it,

and take any side you please, as I was just telling you. If there was a

horse-race, you’d find him flush or you’d find him busted at the end of

it; if there was a dog-fight, he’d bet on it; if there was a cat-fight,

he’d bet on it; if there was a chicken-fight, he’d bet on it; why, if

there was two birds setting on a fence, he would bet you which one would

fly first; or if there was a camp-meeting, he would be there reg’lar,

to bet on Parson Walker, which he judged to be the best exhorter about

here, and so he was, too, and a good man. If he even seen a straddle-bug

start to go anywheres, he would bet you how long it would take him to

get to wherever he was going to, and if you took him up, he would foller

that straddle-bug to Mexico but what he would find out where he was bound

for and how long he was on the road. Lots of the boys here has seen that

Smiley, and can tell you about him. Why, it never made no difference to

_him_—he would bet on _any_ thing—the dangdest feller. Parson Walker’s

wife laid very sick once, for a good while, and it seemed as if they

warn’t going to save her; but one morning he come in, and Smiley asked

how she was, and he said she was considerable better—thank the Lord for

his inf’nit mercy—and coming on so smart that, with the blessing of

Prov’dence, she’d get well yet; and Smiley, before he thought, says,

“Well, I’ll risk two-and-a-half that she don’t, any way.”

Thish-yer Smiley had a mare—the boys called her the fifteen-minute nag,

but that was only in fun, you know, because, of course, she was faster

than that—and he used to win money on that horse, for all she was so

slow and always had the asthma, or the distemper, or the consumption,

or something of that kind. They used to give her two or three hundred

yards start, and then pass her under way; but always at the fag-end of

the race she’d get excited and desperate-like, and come cavorting and

straddling up, and scattering her legs around limber, sometimes in the

air, and sometimes out to one side amongst the fences, and kicking up

m-o-r-e dust, and raising m-o-r-e racket with her coughing and sneezing

and blowing her nose—and always fetch up at the stand just about a neck

ahead, as near as you could cipher it down.

And he had a little small bull pup, that to look at him you’d think he

wan’t worth a cent, but to set around and look ornery, and lay for a

chance to steal something. But as soon as money was up on him, he was

a different dog; his underjaw’d begin to stick out like the fo’castle

of a steamboat, and his teeth would uncover, and shine savage like

the furnaces. And a dog might tackle him, and bully-rag him, and bite

him, and throw him over his shoulder two or three times, and Andrew

Jackson—which was the name of the pup—Andrew Jackson would never let

on but what _he_ was satisfied, and hadn’t expected nothing else—and

the bets being doubled and doubled on the other side all the time, till

the money was all up; and then all of a sudden he would grab that other

dog jest by the j’int of his hind leg and freeze to it—not chaw, you

understand, but only jest grip and hang on till they throwed up the

sponge, if it was a year. Smiley always come out winner on that pup, till

he harnessed a dog once that didn’t have no hind legs, because they’d

been sawed off by a circular saw, and when the thing had gone along far

enough, and the money was all up, and he come to make a snatch for his

pet holt, he saw in a minute how he’d been imposed on, and how the other

dog had been in the door, so to speak, and he ’peared surprised, and

then he looked sorter discouraged-like, and didn’t try no more to win

the fight, and so he got shucked out bad. He give Smiley a look, as much

as to say his heart was broke, and it was _his_ fault, for putting up a

dog that hadn’t no hind legs for him to take holt of, which was his main

dependence in a fight, and then he limped off a piece and laid down and

died. It was a good pup, was that Andrew Jackson, and would have made

a name for hisself if he’d lived, for the stuff was in him, and he had

genius—I know it, because he hadn’t had no opportunities to speak of, and

it don’t stand to reason that a dog could make such a fight as he could

under them circumstances, if he hadn’t no talent. It always makes me feel

sorry when I think of that last fight of his’n, and the way it turned out.

Well, thish-yer Smiley had rat-tarriers, and chicken cocks, and tom-cats,

and all them kind of things, till you couldn’t rest, and you couldn’t

fetch nothing for him to bet on but he’d match you. He ketched a frog one

day, and took him home, and said he cal’klated to edercate him; and so he

never done nothing for three months but set in his back yard and learn

that frog to jump. And you bet you he _did_ learn him, too. He’d give him

a little punch behind, and the next minute you’d see that frog whirling

in the air like a doughnut—see him turn one summerset, or maybe a couple,

if he got a good start, and come down flat-footed and all right, like a

cat. He got him up so in the matter of catching flies, and kept him in

practice so constant, that he’d nail a fly every time as far as he could

see him. Smiley said all a frog wanted was education, and he could do

most any thing—and I believe him. Why, I’ve seen him set Dan’l Webster

down here on this floor—Dan’l Webster was the name of the frog—and sing

out, “Flies, Dan’l, flies!” and quicker’n you could wink, he’d spring

straight up, and snake a fly off’n the counter there, and flop down on

the floor again as solid as a gob of mud, and fall to scratching the side

of his head with his hind foot as indifferent as if he hadn’t no idea

he’d been doin’ any more’n any frog might do. You never see a frog so

modest and straightforward as he was, for all he was so gifted. And when

it come to fair and square jumping on a dead level, he could get over

more ground at one straddle than any animal of his breed you ever see.

Jumping on a dead level was his strong suit, you understand; and when

it come to that, Smiley would ante up money on him as long as he had a

red. Smiley was monstrous proud of that frog, and well he might be, for

fellers that had traveled and been everywheres, all said he laid over any

frog that ever _they_ see.

Well, Smiley kept the beast in a little lattice box, and he used to fetch

him down town sometimes and lay for a bet. One day a feller—a stranger in

the camp, he was—come across him with his box, and says:

“What might it be that you’ve got in the box?”

And Smiley says, sorter indifferent like, “It might be a parrot, or it

might be a canary, maybe, but it an’t—it’s only just a frog.”

And the feller took it and looked at it careful, and turned it round this

way and that, and says, “H’m—so ’tis. Well, what’s _he_ good for?”

“Well,” Smiley says, easy and careless, “He’s good enough for _one_

thing, I should judge—he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.”

The feller took the box again, and took another long, particular look,

and give it back to Smiley, and says, very deliberate, “Well, I don’t see

no p’ints about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

“Maybe you don’t,” Smiley says. “Maybe you understand frogs, and maybe

you don’t understand ’em; maybe you’ve had experience, and maybe you an’t

only a amature, as it were. Anyways, I’ve got _my_ opinion, and I’ll risk

forty dollars that he can outjump any frog in Calaveras county.”

And the feller studied a minute, and then says, kinder sad like, “Well,

I’m only a stranger here, and I ain’t got no frog; but if I had a frog,

I’d bet you.”

And then Smiley says, “That’s all right—that’s all right—if you’ll hold

my box a minute, I’ll go and get you a frog.” And so the feller took the

box, and put up his forty dollars along with Smiley’s, and set down to

wait.

So he set there a good while thinking and thinking to hisself and then he

got the frog out and prized his mouth open and took a teaspoon and filled

him full of quail shot—filled him pretty near up to his chin—and set him

on the floor. Smiley he went to the swamp and slopped around in the mud

for a long time, and finally he ketched a frog, and fetched him in, and

give him to this feller, and says:

“Now, if you’re ready, set him alongside of Dan’l, with his forepaws

just even with Dan’l, and I’ll give the word.” Then he says,

“One—two—three—jump!” and him and the feller touched up the frogs from

behind, and the new frog hopped off, but Dan’l give a heave, and hysted

up his shoulders—so—like a Frenchman, but it wan’t no use—he couldn’t

budge; he was planted as solid as an anvil, and he couldn’t no more stir

than if he was anchored out. Smiley was a good deal surprised, and he was

disgusted too, but he didn’t have no idea what the matter was, of course.

The feller took the money and started away; and when he was going out

at the door, he sorter jerked his thumb over his shoulders—this way—at

Dan’l, and says again, very deliberate, “Well, _I_ don’t see no p’ints

about that frog that’s any better’n any other frog.”

Smiley he stood scratching his head and looking down at Dan’l a long

time, and at last he says, “I do wonder what in the nation that frog

throw’d off for—I wonder if there an’t something the matter with him—he

’pears to look mighty baggy, somehow.” And he ketched Dan’l by the nap

of the neck, and lifted him up and says, “Why, blame my cats, if he

don’t weigh five pound!” and turned him upside down, and he belched out

a double handful of shot. And then he see how it was, and he was the

maddest man—he set the frog down and took out after that feller, but he

never ketched him. And—

[Here Simon Wheeler heard his name called from the front yard, and got

up to see what was wanted.] And turning to me as he moved away, he said,

“Just set where you are, stranger, and rest easy—I ain’t going to be gone

a second.”

But, by your leave, I did not think that a continuation of the history of

the enterprising vagabond _Jim_ Smiley would be likely to afford me much

information concerning the Rev. _Leonidas W._ Smiley, and so I started

away.

At the door I met the sociable Wheeler returning, and he buttonholed me

and recommenced:

“Well, thish-yer Smiley had a yaller one-eyed cow that didn’t have no

tail, only jest a short stump like a bannanner, and—”

“Oh, hang Smiley and his afflicted cow!” I muttered, good-naturedly, and

bidding the old gentleman good-day, I departed.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

=Biography.= Samuel Langhorne Clemens (1835-1910), better known by

his pen name Mark Twain, is America’s greatest humorous writer. Like

Walt Whitman he was of humble parentage. He was born in the village

of Florida, Missouri, and at the age of four years, moved with his

parents to the river town of Hannibal, which he immortalized in his

two most popular books, _Tom Sawyer_ and _Huckleberry Finn_. He

became a printer and later a pilot on a Mississippi steamboat. For

a few years he served as assistant to his brother who was secretary

of the Territory of Nevada. This brought him in touch with the

gold fields of the West, and he set out to make his fortune in a

mining camp. He found only a very small amount of gold, but his

wonderful experiences in the West furnish the basis of some of his

most popular stories and books, such as “The Celebrated Jumping

Frog” and _Roughing It_. As a newspaper reporter he chose the pen

name Mark Twain, an old river expression, meaning the mark that

registers two (twain) fathoms (twelve feet) of water. His start to

literary fame came with the publication of the story “The Celebrated

Jumping Frog.” Later he traveled through Europe and the Holy Land,

paying his expenses by means of a series of letters describing his

trip, written for a San Francisco newspaper. These letters were

afterward collected in a book called _The Innocents Abroad_, a

delightfully humorous collection of descriptive sketches. For a time

he was part owner and associate editor of the _Buffalo Express_,

but the investment was not profitable and he spent much of his time

on the lecture platform. He died at Redding, Connecticut, in his

seventy-fifth year.

=Discussion.= 1. What paragraphs in this selection relate the

circumstances under which Simon Wheeler’s reminiscences of Jim

Smiley were told? 2. What were these circumstances? 3. Are all

parts of these introductory paragraphs to be taken seriously? 4.

Does Mark Twain intend to convince his readers that they will find

Simon Wheeler’s narrative “monotonous” and “interminable”? 5. Why

does he call it so? 6. What paragraphs in these reminiscences lead

up to the story of the jumping frog? 7. In whom do these paragraphs

serve to interest the reader? 8. What is this person’s most marked

characteristic? 9. What illustrations of this characteristic are

given? 10. Did you enjoy reading this selection? 11. Can you tell

what made it enjoyable? 12. Pronounce the following: infamous;

inquiries; exquisitely; fellow; amateur.

=Phrases=

in compliance, 531, 1

hereunto append, 531, 4

initial sentence, 532, 8

slightest suspicion of enthusiasm, 532, 9

transcendent genius of _finesse_, 532, 14

cavorting and straddling up, 533, 25

lattice box, 535, 21

anchored out, 536, 26

THE HEIGHT OF THE RIDICULOUS

OLIVER WENDELL HOLMES

I wrote some lines once on a time

In wondrous merry mood,

And thought, as usual, men would say

They were exceeding good.

They were so queer, so very queer,

I laughed as I would die;

Albeit, in the general way,

A sober man am I.

I called my servant, and he came;

How kind it was of him

To mind a slender man like me,

He of the mighty limb!

“These to the printer,” I exclaimed.

And, in my humorous way,

I added (as a trifling jest),

“There’ll be the devil to pay.”

He took the paper, and I watched,

And saw him peep within;

At the first line he read, his face

Was all upon the grin.

He read the next; the grin grew broad,

And shot from ear to ear;

He read the third; a chuckling noise

I now began to hear.

The fourth; he broke into a roar;

The fifth; his waistband split;

The sixth; he burst five buttons off,

And tumbled in a fit.

Ten days and nights, with sleepless eye,

I watched that wretched man,

And since, I never dare to write

As funny as I can.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

=Biography.= Oliver Wendell Holmes (1809-1894) was born in Cambridge,

Massachusetts, the son of a Congregational minister. He attended

Phillips Exeter Academy and was graduated from Harvard College in the

famous class of 1829. After studying medicine and anatomy in Paris,

he began practicing in Boston. Later he was made professor of anatomy

and physiology at Dartmouth College, and afterwards at Harvard. In

1850 he wrote the poem “Old Ironsides” as a protest against the

dismantling of the historic battleship _Constitution_ which lay in

the harbor. It stirred the entire country so that the Secretary

of the Navy found it advisable to recall the order he had issued.

Like Bryant, Holmes was a poet on occasion, not by profession. For

more than forty years after he entered on his duties at Harvard he

delivered his four lectures a week eight months of the year, and

President Eliot bore witness that he was not less skillful with the

scalpel and the microscope than with the pen.

When Lowell was offered the editorship of the _Atlantic Monthly_,

he made it a condition of his acceptance that Holmes should be a

contributor. The result was a series of articles entitled _The

Autocrat of the Breakfast Table_. Among his poems, the best known

are his “Chambered Nautilus,” “The Height of the Ridiculous”,

“The Deacon’s Masterpiece” (The One Hoss Shay), and short poems

in celebration of various occasions. Among these are some forty

poems read at anniversaries of his college class, notably the one

beginning: “Has any old fellow got mixed with the boys?” In this he

refers playfully to the author of “America” as one whom “Fate tried

to conceal by naming him Smith.”

He wrote several novels, but it is as the author of the _Autocrat_

series and by his humorous poems that he will be best remembered by

his readers. By his personal associates he was most fondly remembered

for his sunny, cheerful disposition and his witty conversation.

=Discussion.= 1. What is it that is described by the poet as being

the “height of the ridiculous”? 2. What incidents are related that

seem to show him to be right in this estimate? 3. What opinion of the

poet does the poem give you? 4. In what state of mind do you think

of him as writing it? 5. What is the “trifling jest” referred to in

stanza 4? 6. What have the humorists done for the world? 7. Of what

use is a poem like this?

=Phrases=

the height of the ridiculous, 538 (title)

albeit, in the general way, 538, 7

a trifling jest, 539, 7

a chuckling noise, 539, 15

THE GIFT OF THE MAGI

O. HENRY

One dollar and eighty-seven cents. That was all. And sixty cents of it

was in pennies. Pennies saved one and two at a time by bulldozing the

grocer and the vegetable man and the butcher until one’s cheeks burned

with the silent imputation of parsimony that such close dealing implied.

Three times Della counted it. One dollar and eighty-seven cents. And the

next day would be Christmas.

There was clearly nothing to do but flop down on the shabby little

couch and howl. So Della did it. Which instigates the moral reflection

that life is made up of sobs, sniffles, and smiles, with sniffles

predominating.

While the mistress of the home is gradually subsiding from the first

stage to the second, take a look at the home. A furnished flat at $8 per

week. It did not exactly beggar description, but it certainly had that

word on the lookout for the mendicancy squad.

In the vestibule below was a letter-box into which no letter would go,

and an electric button from which no mortal finger could coax a ring.

Also appertaining thereunto was a card bearing the name “Mr. James

Dillingham Young.”

The “Dillingham” had been flung to the breeze during a former period of

prosperity when its possessor was being paid $30 per week. Now, when the

income was shrunk to $20, the letters of “Dillingham” looked blurred,

as though they were thinking seriously of contracting to a modest and

unassuming D. But whenever Mr. James Dillingham Young came home and

reached his flat above he was called “Jim” and greatly hugged by Mrs.

James Dillingham Young, already introduced to you as Della. Which is all

very good.

Della finished her cry and attended to her cheeks with the powder rag.

She stood by the window and looked out dully at a gray cat walking a gray

fence in a gray backyard. Tomorrow would be Christmas Day, and she had

only $1.87 with which to buy Jim a present. She had been saving every

penny she could for months, with this result. Twenty dollars a week

doesn’t go far. Expenses had been greater than she had calculated. They

always are. Only $1.87 to buy a present for Jim. Her Jim. Many a happy

hour she had spent planning for something nice for him. Something fine

and rare and sterling—something just a little bit near to being worthy of

the honor of being owned by Jim.

There was a pier-glass between the windows of the room. Perhaps you have

seen a pier-glass in an $8 flat. A very thin and very agile person may,

by observing his reflection in a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips,

obtain a fairly accurate conception of his looks. Della, being slender,

had mastered the art.

Suddenly she whirled from the window and stood before the glass. Her eyes

were shining brilliantly, but her face had lost its color within twenty

seconds. Rapidly she pulled down her hair and let it fall to its full

length.

Now, there were two possessions of the James Dillingham Youngs in which

they both took a mighty pride. One was Jim’s gold watch that had been

his father’s and his grandfather’s. The other was Della’s hair. Had the

Queen of Sheba lived in the flat across the airshaft, Della would have

let her hair hang out the window some day to dry just to depreciate Her

Majesty’s jewels and gifts. Had King Solomon been the janitor, with all

his treasures piled up in the basement, Jim would have pulled out his

watch every time he passed, just to see him pluck at his beard from envy.

So now Della’s beautiful hair fell about her, rippling and shining like

a cascade of brown waters. It reached below her knee and made itself

almost a garment for her. And then she did it up again nervously and

quickly. Once she faltered for a minute and stood still while a tear or

two splashed on the worn red carpet.

On went her old brown jacket; on went her old brown hat. With a whirl of

skirts and with the brilliant sparkle still in her eyes, she fluttered

out of the door and down the stairs to the street.

Where she stopped, the sign read: “Mme. Sofronie. Hair Goods of All

Kinds.” One flight up Della ran, and collected herself, panting. Madame,

large, too white, chilly, hardly looked the “Sofronie.”

“Will you buy my hair?” asked Della.

“I buy hair,” said Madame. “Take yer hat off and let’s have a sight at

the looks of it.”

Down rippled the brown cascade.

“Twenty dollars,” said Madame, lifting the mass with a practiced hand.

“Give it to me quick,” said Della.

Oh, and the next two hours tripped by on rosy wings. Forget the hashed

metaphor. She was ransacking the stores for Jim’s present.

She found it at last. It surely had been made for Jim and no one else.

There was no other like it in any of the stores, and she had turned all

of them inside out. It was a platinum fob chain, simple and chaste in

design, properly proclaiming its value by substance alone and not by

meretricious ornamentation—as all good things should do. It was even

worthy of The Watch. As soon as she saw it she knew that it must be

Jim’s. It was like him. Quietness and value—the description applied to

both. Twenty-one dollars they took from her for it, and she hurried home

with the 87 cents. With that chain on his watch Jim might be properly

anxious about the time in any company. Grand as the watch was, he

sometimes looked at it on the sly on account of the old leather strap

that he used in place of a chain.

When Della reached home her intoxication gave way a little to prudence

and reason. She got out her curling irons and lighted the gas and went

to work repairing the ravages made by generosity added to love. Which is

always a tremendous task, dear friends—a mammoth task.

Within forty minutes her head was covered with tiny, close-lying curls

that made her look wonderfully like a truant schoolboy. She looked at

her reflection in the mirror long, carefully, and critically.

“If Jim doesn’t kill me,” she said to herself, “before he takes a second

look at me, he’ll say I look like a Coney Island chorus girl. But what

could I do—oh! what could I do with a dollar and eighty-seven cents?”

At 7 o’clock the coffee was made and the frying-pan was on the back of

the stove hot and ready to cook the chops.

Jim was never late. Della doubled the fob chain in her hand and sat on

the corner of the table near the door that he always entered. Then she

heard his step on the stair away down on the first flight, and she turned

white for just a moment. She had a habit of saying little silent prayers

about the simplest everyday things, and now she whispered: “Please God,

make him think I am still pretty.”

The door opened and Jim stepped in and closed it. He looked thin and very

serious. Poor fellow, he was only twenty-two—and to be burdened with a

family! He needed a new overcoat and he was without gloves.

Jim stopped inside the door, as immovable as a setter at the scent of

quail. His eyes were fixed upon Della, and there was an expression in

them that she could not read, and it terrified her. It was not anger, nor

surprise, nor disapproval, nor horror, nor any of the sentiments that she

had been prepared for. He simply stared at her fixedly with that peculiar

expression on his face.

Della wriggled off the table and went for him.

“Jim, darling,” she cried, “don’t look at me that way. I had my hair cut

off and sold it because I couldn’t live through Christmas without giving

you a present. It’ll grow out again—you won’t mind, will you? I just had

to do it. My hair grows awfully fast. Say ‘Merry Christmas,’ Jim, and

let’s be happy. You don’t know what a nice—what a beautiful, nice gift

I’ve got for you.”

“You’ve cut off your hair?” asked Jim laboriously, as if he had not

arrived at that patent fact yet, even after the hardest mental labor.

“Cut it off and sold it,” said Della. “Don’t you like me just as well,

anyhow? I’m me without my hair, ain’t I?”

Jim looked about the room curiously.

“You say your hair is gone?” he said, with an air almost of idiocy.

“You needn’t look for it,” said Della. “It’s sold, I tell you—sold and

gone, too. It’s Christmas Eve, boy. Be good to me, for it went for you.

Maybe the hairs of my head were numbered,” she went on with a sudden

serious sweetness, “but nobody could ever count my love for you. Shall I

put the chops on, Jim?”

Out of his trance Jim seemed quickly to wake. He enfolded his Della. For

ten seconds let us regard with discreet scrutiny some inconsequential

object in the other direction. Eight dollars a week or a million a

year—what is the difference? A mathematician or a wit would give you the

wrong answer. The magi brought valuable gifts, but that was not among

them. This dark assertion will be illuminated later on.

Jim drew a package from his overcoat pocket and threw it upon the table.

“Don’t make any mistake, Dell,” he said, “about me. I don’t think there’s

anything in the way of a haircut or a shave or a shampoo that could make

me like my girl any less. But if you’ll unwrap that package you may see

why you had me going a while at first.”

White fingers and nimble tore at the string and paper. And then an

ecstatic scream of joy; and then, alas! a quick feminine change to

hysterical tears and wails, necessitating the immediate employment of all

the comforting powers of the lord of the flat.

For there lay The Combs—the set of combs, side and back, that Della had

worshiped for long in a Broadway window. Beautiful combs, pure tortoise

shell, with jeweled rims—just the shade to wear in the beautiful vanished

hair. They were expensive combs, she knew, and her heart had simply

craved and yearned over them without the least hope of possession. And

now they were hers, but the tresses that should have adorned the coveted

adornments were gone.

But she hugged them to her bosom, and at length she was able to look up

with dim eyes and a smile and say: “My hair grows so fast, Jim!”

And then Della leaped up like a little singed cat and cried, “Oh, oh!”

Jim had not yet seen his beautiful present. She held it out to him

eagerly upon her open palm. The dull precious metal seemed to flash with

a reflection of her bright and ardent spirit.

“Isn’t it a dandy, Jim? I hunted all over town to find it. You’ll have to

look at the time a hundred times a day now. Give me your watch. I want to

see how it looks on it.”

Instead of obeying, Jim tumbled down on the couch and put his hands under

the back of his head and smiled.

“Dell,” said he, “let’s put our Christmas presents away and keep ’em a

while. They’re too nice to use just at present. I sold the watch to get

the money to buy your combs. And now suppose you put the chops on.”

The magi, as you know, were wise men—wonderfully wise men—who brought

gifts to the Babe in the manger. They invented the art of giving

Christmas presents. Being wise, their gifts were no doubt wise ones,

possibly bearing the privilege of exchange in case of duplication.

And here I have lamely related to you the uneventful chronicle of two

foolish children in a flat who most unwisely sacrificed for each other

the greatest treasures of their house. But in a last word to the wise

of these days let it be said that of all who give gifts these two were

the wisest. Of all who give and receive gifts, such as they are wisest.

Everywhere they are wisest. They are the magi.

NOTES AND QUESTIONS

=Biography.= William Sidney Porter (1862-1910), better known by

his pen name, O. Henry, was born in Greensboro, North Carolina.

His teacher was his aunt, who encouraged his love of stories and

story-telling. As a boy he read widely and showed a natural gift

for sketching. When a mere boy, he went to Texas where he spent two

years on a sheep ranch. He became a reporter for the _Daily Post_

of Houston, Texas, and later he wrote extensively for the leading

magazines. In 1902 he went to New York City to live and from this

time on he devoted himself almost exclusively to short-story

writing. He holds a prominent place among the world’s greatest

short-story writers. His best known books are _The Four Million_,

from which “The Gift of the Magi” is taken, _Whirligigs_, and _Heart

of the West_, portraying life in Texas. His stories are drawn from

real situations and picture the various types found in ordinary

American life. They are noted for their surprising endings and for

their warm human sympathy.

=Discussion.= 1. Has this story an interesting beginning? 2. What

does it make you curious about? 3. Throughout the story find other

instances where the author arouses your curiosity, but does not

immediately tell you what you wish to know. 4. When did a plan for

obtaining money first suggest itself to Della? 5. Where do you first

begin to suspect what the plan is? 6. Does Jim’s behavior, when he is

told that Della has cut off her hair, puzzle you as well as Della? 7.

Where do you learn why he was so bewildered? 8. O. Henry’s stories

usually have a surprise at the end; is there a surprise in this one?

9, What reason do you see for calling Jim and Della “the magi”?

=Phrases=

imputation of parsimony, 541, 4

instigates the moral reflection, 541, 9

beggar description, 541, 14

mendicancy squad, 541, 15

appertaining thereunto, 541, 19

a rapid sequence of longitudinal strips, 542, 14

just to depreciate, 542, 26

meretricious ornamentation, 543, 22

repairing the ravages, 543, 33

immovable as a setter, 544, 20

patent fact, 544, 36

inconsequential object, 545, 13

case of duplication, 546, 21

WOUTER VAN TWILLER

WASHINGTON IRVING

It was in the year of our Lord 1629 that Mynheer Wouter Van Twiller

was appointed governor of the province of Nieuw-Nederlandts, under the

commission and control of their High Mightinesses, the Lords States

General of the United Netherlands, and the privileged West India Company.

This renowned old gentleman arrived at New-Amsterdam in the merry month

of June, the sweetest month in all the year; when Dan Apollo seems

to dance up the transparent firmament—when the robin, the thrush, and

a thousand other wanton songsters made the woods resound with amorous

ditties, and the luxurious little boblincon revels among the clover

blossoms of the meadows—all which happy coincidence persuaded the old

dames of New-Amsterdam, who were skilled in the art of foretelling

events, that this was to be a happy and prosperous administration.

The renowned Wouter (or Walter) Van Twiller was descended from a long

line of Dutch burgomasters, who had successively dozed away their lives

and grown fat upon the bench of magistracy in Rotterdam; and who had

comported themselves with such singular wisdom and propriety, that they

were never either heard or talked of—which, next to being universally

applauded, should be the object of ambition of all sage magistrates and

rulers.

There are two opposite ways by which some men get into notice—one by

talking a vast deal and thinking a little, and the other by holding

their tongues, and not thinking at all. By the first, many a vaporing,

superficial pretender acquires the reputation of a man of quick parts—by

the other, many a vacant dunderpate, like the owl, the stupidest of

birds, comes to be complimented by a discerning world with all the

attributes of wisdom. This, by the way, is a mere casual remark, which

I would not for the universe have it thought I apply to Governor Van

Twiller. On the contrary, he was a very wise Dutchman, for he never said

a foolish thing—and of such invincible gravity, that he was never known

to laugh, or even to smile, through the course of a long and prosperous

life. Certain, however, it is, there never was a matter proposed,

however simple, and on which your common narrow-minded mortals would

rashly determine at the first glance, but what the renowned Wouter put

on a mighty, mysterious, vacant kind of look, shook his capacious head,

and, having smoked for five minutes with redoubled earnestness, sagely

observed that he had his doubts about the matter—which in process of time

gained him the character of a man slow in belief, and not easily imposed

on.

The person of this illustrious old gentleman was as regularly formed

and nobly proportioned, as though it had been molded by the hands of

some cunning Dutch statuary, as a model of majesty and lordly grandeur.

He was exactly five feet six inches in height, and six feet five inches

in circumference. His head was a perfect sphere, and of such stupendous

dimensions that Dame Nature, with all her sex’s ingenuity, would have

been puzzled to construct a neck capable of supporting it; wherefore she

wisely declined the attempt, and settled it firmly on the top of his

back-bone, just between the shoulders. His body was of an oblong form,

particularly capacious at bottom; which was wisely ordered by Providence,

seeing that he was a man of sedentary habits, and very averse to the

idle labor of walking. His legs, though exceeding short, were sturdy

in proportion to the weight they had to sustain; so that when erect he

had not a little the appearance of a robustious beer-barrel, standing

on skids. His face, that infallible index of the mind, presented a

vast expanse, perfectly unfurrowed or deformed by any of those lines

and angles which disfigure the human countenance with what is termed

expression. Two small gray eyes twinkled feebly in the midst, like two

stars of lesser magnitude in the hazy firmament; and his full-fed cheeks,

which seemed to have taken toll of everything that went into his mouth,

were curiously mottled and streaked with dusky red, like a Spitzenberg

apple.

His habits were as regular as his person. He daily took his four stated

meals, appropriating exactly an hour to each; he smoked and doubted eight

hours, and he slept the remaining twelve of the four and twenty. Such

was the renowned Wouter Van Twiller—a true philosopher, for his mind

was either elevated above, or tranquilly settled below, the cares and

perplexities of this world. He had lived in it for years, without feeling

the least curiosity to know whether the sun revolved round it, or it

round the sun; and he had watched, for at least half a century, the smoke

curling from his pipe to the ceiling; without once troubling his head

with any of those numerous theories, by which a philosopher would have

perplexed his brain, in accounting for its rising above the surrounding

atmosphere.

In his council he presided with great state and solemnity. He sat in

a huge chair of solid oak, hewn in the celebrated forest of the Hague,

fabricated by an experienced timmerman of Amsterdam, and curiously carved

about the arms and feet, into exact imitations of gigantic eagle’s claws.

Instead of a scepter, he swayed a long Turkish pipe, wrought with jasmine

and amber, which had been presented to a Stadtholder of Holland, at the

conclusion of a treaty with one of the petty Barbary powers. In this

stately chair would he sit, and this magnificent pipe would he smoke,

shaking his right knee with a constant motion, and fixing his eye for

hours together upon a little print of Amsterdam, which hung in a black

frame against the opposite wall of the council chamber. Nay, it has

even been said, that when any deliberation of extraordinary length and

intricacy was on the carpet, the renowned Wouter would absolutely shut

his eyes for full two hours at a time, that he might not be disturbed by

external objects—and at such times the internal commotion of his mind was

evinced by certain regular guttural sounds, which his admirers declared

were merely the noise of conflict, made by his contending doubts and

opinions.

It is with infinite difficulty I have been enabled to collect these

biographical anecdotes of the great man under consideration. The facts

respecting him were so scattered and vague, and divers of them so

questionable in point of authenticity, that I have had to give up the

search after many, and decline the admission of still more, which would

have tended to heighten the coloring of his portrait.

I have been the more anxious to delineate fully the person and habits

of the renowned Van Twiller, from the consideration that he was not

only the first, but also the best governor that ever presided over this

ancient and respectable province; and so tranquil and benevolent was his

reign, that I do not find throughout the whole of it, a single instance

of any offender being brought to punishment—a most indubitable sign of a

merciful governor, and a case unparalleled, excepting in the reign of the

illustrious King Log, from whom, it is hinted, the renowned Van Twiller

was a lineal descendant.

The very outset of the career of this excellent magistrate was

distinguished by an example of legal acumen, that gave flattering

presage of a wise and equitable administration. The morning after he

had been solemnly installed in office, and at the moment that he was

making his breakfast, from a prodigious earthen dish, filled with milk

and Indian pudding, he was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of one

Wandle Schoonhoven, a very important old burgher of New-Amsterdam, who

complained bitterly of one Barent Bleecker, inasmuch as he fraudulently

refused to come to a settlement of accounts, seeing that there was a

heavy balance in favor of the said Wandle. Governor Van Twiller, as I

have already observed, was a man of few words; he was likewise a mortal

enemy to multiplying writings—or being disturbed at his breakfast. Having

listened attentively to the statement of Wandle Schoonhoven, giving an

occasional grunt, as he shoveled a spoonful of Indian pudding into his

mouth—either as a sign that he relished the dish, or comprehended the

story—he called unto him his constable, and pulling out of his breeches

pocket a huge jack-knife, despatched it after the defendant as a summons,

accompanied by his tobacco-box as a warrant.