nished 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 its belly
and an apple in its 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 cosily 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 burdened 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 bui