Calico Illustrated Classics: The Legend of Sleepy Hollow and Rip Van Winkle
I mention this respectfully You see in these little retired Dutch valleys found here and there in the great state of New York the population never grows The residents remain true to their ways of life and their customs remain fixed The smaller regions like Sleepy Hollow let changes sweep by them They are like little nooks of still water alongside a rapid stream Though it’s been many years since I have lived in Sleepy Hollow I bet today it is still the same I would probably see the same trees and vines and the same families relaxing in their homes 10
2 Ichabod Crane During this time in American history there lived a man named Ichabod Crane Ichabod served as the schoolmaster in Sleepy Hollow He was a native of Connecticut a state that supplies frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters The last name of Crane suited Ichabod He was tall and lanky with narrow shoulders long arms and legs and hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves His feet were so large they could serve as shovels His whole frame hung together loosely His head was small and flat on top He had huge ears large green glassy eyes and a long nose His nose looked like a weathercock perched 11
upon his neck that could tell which way the wind blew When he would stride along a hill on a windy day his clothes hung baggy and fluttered about him Someone could mistake him for a scarecrow that had escaped from his pole and wandered away from a cornfield 12
Sleepy Hollow’s schoolhouse was a low building loosely made from rough logs It was just a one-room schoolhouse Many of the windows were broken and patched with the pages of old schoolbooks When the school was closed the door was locked with a twig in the handle There were stakes set against the window shutters A thief could get in but he would have a difficult time getting out The schoolhouse stood in a rather lonely but beautiful spot at the foot of a woody hill A brook ran softly close by with a birch tree growing at one end of it On a drowsy summer day the voices of the students rose into the air like the hum of a beehive The sound was only interrupted now and then by the stern voice of Ichabod as he scolded a tardy student You must arrive on time if you want to learn Ichabod was a teacher who remembered the old saying Spare the rod and strict 13
