The Legend of Sleepy Hollow | Page 3

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 beehive;
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 burden 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 millpond, 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