then stole sparkling away through the grass, to a neighboring brook, that babbled
along among alders and dwarf willows. Hard by the farmhouse was a vast barn,
that might have served for a church; every window and crevice of which seemed
bursting forth with the treasures of the farm; the flail was busily resounding
within it from morning to night; swallows and martins skimmed twittering about
the eaves; and rows of pigeons, some with one eye turned up, as if watching the
weather, some with their heads under their wings or buried in their bosoms, and
others swelling, and cooing, and bowing about their dames, were enjoying the
sunshine on the roof. Sleek unwieldy porkers were grunting in the repose and
abundance of their pens, from whence sallied forth, now and then, troops of
sucking pigs, as if to snuff the air. A stately squadron of snowy geese were
riding in an adjoining pond, convoying whole fleets of ducks; regiments of
turkeys were gobbling through the farmyard, and Guinea fowls fretting about it,
like ill-tempered housewives, with their peevish, discontented cry. Before the
barn door strutted the gallant cock, that pattern of a husband, a warrior and a fine
gentleman, clapping his burnished 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 his belly, and an apple in his
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