adjacent innovations sumptuous piazza
antiquated animated skeleton specter
It was toward evening when Ichabod arrived at the castle of the Herr Van
Tassel. He found it thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent
country,--old farmers, in homespun coats and breeches, blue stockings,
huge shoes, and magnificent pewter buckles; their brisk little dames, in
close-crimped caps and long-waisted gowns, with scissors and pincushions,
and gay calico pockets hanging on the outside; young girls, almost as
antiquated as their mothers, excepting where a straw hat, a fine ribbon,
or perhaps a white frock showed signs of city innovations; the sons, in
short, square-skirted coats with rows of huge brass buttons, and their
hair generally queued in the fashion of the times.
What a world of charms burst upon the gaze of my hero as he entered the
state parlor of Van Tassel’s mansion--the ample charms of a Dutch country
tea table, in the sumptuous time of autumn! Such heaped-up platters of
cakes, of various and indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch
housewives!
There were doughnuts and crisp, crumbling crullers; 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; and slices
of ham and smoked beef; and 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,
with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst!
I want breath and time to describe this banquet as I ought, and am too
eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great
a hurry, but did ample justice to every dainty.
And now, supper being ended, the sound of music from the common room
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 away on two or three strings, moving his head
with every movement of the bow, and stamping his foot whenever a fresh
couple were to start.
Ichabod prided himself on his dancing. Not a limb, not a fiber about him
was idle. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and
joyous? When the dance was over, Ichabod joined a circle of the older
folks, who, with Herr Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza,
and told stories of the war and wild and wonderful legends of ghosts and
other supernatural beings.
Some mention was made of a woman in white that haunted the dark glen at
Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on wintry nights before a storm.
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. One man told how he had once met the
horseman and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over
bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge by the
church, when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw him into
the brook, and sprang away over the tree tops with a clap of thunder.
A wild, roistering young man, who was called Brom Bones, declared that the
headless horseman was, after all, no rider compared with himself. He said
that 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 would have won it, too, but just as they came
to the church bridge, the specter bolted and vanished in a flash of fire.