rly 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 away 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 St. 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 eyeballs, 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