The Leyend of Sleepy Hollow

The School Master

It is not just the local people who imagine things. Everyone who comes to live in the area is affected. However wide awake they were before they arrived in this sleepy region, they soon inhale the magic influence of the air and begin to imagine thing. In these little Dutch valleys everything stays the same. It has been many years since I visited Sleepy Hollow, but I'm sure everything has remained exactly as it was.

Around thirty years ago, a man from Connecticut by the name of Ichabid Crena stayed or, as he expressed it, "tarred" in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the neighborhood. The surname of Crane suited him. He was tall, but extremely thin, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs. His hands dangled a mile out of his sleeves, and his feet were like shovels, His head was small and flat on the top. He had huge ears, Lange green glassy eyes, and a long rose. If you saw him striding across a hill on a windy day, with his clothes fluttering around him, you could have mistaken him for a scarecrow.

His schoolhouse was one large room, constructed from logs. The windows were partly glazed, and partly covered up with pages from old copybooks. When not in use, the room was locked by twisting a twig in the handle of the door, and by leaning stakes against the window shutters.

It was easy for a thief to get in, but it was likely to be difficult for him to get out again. The schoolhouse was in a lonely but attractive location at the foot of a woody hill. There was a stream close by with a large birch tree growing at one end.

From there the low murmur of his pupils' voices, studying their lessons, could be heard on drowsy summer days, like the hum of a beehive. This was interrupted now and then by Ichabod's authoritative voice, speaking in a tone of menace, or by the terrible sound of the birch, as he encouraged some tardy loiterer to move along the flowery path of knowledge. I am not saying that he was a cruel man. On the contrary, he only used the birch on the real troublemakers. He never punished anyone without assuring him afterwards, 'you will remember and thank me for this as long as you live.

When school was over, he usually accompanied some of the smaller boys home if they had pretty sisters, or if their mothers were good cooks. He took care to be on good terms with his pupils. The revenue from his school was small, and it was scarcely enough to feed him. He ate a lot and though he was thin he had the dilating powers of an anaconda.

To help out with his maintenance, he lived and ate at the houses of the farmers whose children he taught. He lived a week at a time with each family, thus going the rournds of the neighborhood with all his worldly belongings tied up in a cotton handkerchief.

So that this was not too costly for his patrons, who considered the cost of schoolinga heavy burden , he made himself useful. He helped the farmers with light work, helped to make hay, mended fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire. He found favor in the eyes of the mothers by being nice to the children, particularly the youngest. He sat for hours with a child on one knee, rocking a cradle at the same time with his other foot.

Ichabod was also the neighborhood singing master and earned a few shillings by instructing the children to sing hymns . On Sundays he went to church with his group of chosen singers, and his voice resounded far above the rest of the congregation.