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quilting frolic," to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's. Having delivered his message, he dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission.

4. All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room. The children were hurried through their lessons, without stopping at trifles; those who were nimble skipped over half, with impunity; and those who were tardy had a smart application of the whip to quicken their speed, or help them over a long word. Books were flung aside, without being put away on the shelves, inkstands were overturned, and benches thrown down; and the whole school, turned loose an hour before the usual time, burst forth like a legion of young imps, yelping and racketing about the green, in joy at their early emancipation.

5. The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra half-hour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best and, indeed, only suit of rusty black, and arranging his locks by a bit of broken glass that hung in the school-house. That he might make his appearance before his mistress in the true style of a cavalier, he borrowed a horse from the farmer with whom he boarded,an old Dutchman, by the name of Hans Van Ripper.

6. This animal was a broken-down plough-horse that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness. He I was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and knotted with burrs; one eye had lost its pupil, and was glaring and spectral; but the other had the gleam of a genuine devil in it. He bore the name of Gunpowder ; and had been a favorite steed of his master, the choleric Van Ripper, who was a furious rider, and had infused, very probably, some of his own spirit into the animal.

7. Ichabod was a suitable figure for such a steed. He rode with short stirrups, which brought his knees nearly

up to the pommel of the saddle; his sharp elbows stuck out like grasshoppers'; he carried his whip perpendicu

larly in his hand,

like a sceptre, and, as his horse jogged

on,

the motion of his

arms was not unlike

the flapping of a pair of wings. A small wool hat rested on the top of his nose, for so his scanty strip of forehead might be called; and the skirts of his black coat fluttered out almost to the horse's tail. Such was the

appearance of Ichabod and his steed, as they shambled out of the gate of Hans Van Ripper.

It was, altogether such an apparition as is seldom to

be met in broad day-light.

his way,
his eye, al-

8. As Ichabod jogged slowly on his ways open to every symptom of culinary abundance, ranged, with delight, over the treasures of autumn.

On

all sides, he beheld vast stores of apples; some hanging in oppressive opulence on the trees, some gathered into baskets and barrels for the market, others heaped up in rich piles for the cider-press.

9. Farther on, he beheld great fields of Indian corn, with golden ears, peeping from their leafy coverts, and holding out the promise of cakes and hasty-pudding. The yellow pumpkins, lying beneath them, turned up their fair round sides to the sun, and gave ample prospects of the most luxurious of pies; anon, he passed the fragrant buckwheat fields, breathing the odor of the bee-hive; and, as he beheld them, soft anticipations stole over his mind of dainty slapjacks, well buttered, and garnished with honey or treacle, by the delicate little dimpled hand of Katrina Van Tassel.

10. It was toward evening when Ichabod arrived at the castle of Mynheer Van Tassel, which he found thronged with the pride and flower of the adjacent country. Fain would I pause to dwell upon the world of charms that burst upon the enraptured gaze of my hero, as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel's mansion, such heapedup platters of cakes of various and almost indescribable. kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives, the doughty doughnut, the crisp and crumbly cruller, sweet cakes and short-cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes!

11. Then, there were apple-pies and peach-pies and pumpkin-pies; also, slices of ham and smoked beef; and, moreover, delectable dishes of preserved plums, and peaches and pears and quinces; not to mention broiled shad and roasted chickens; together with bowls of milk. and cream, all mingled higgledy-piggledy, pretty much as I have enumerated them, with the motherly tea-pot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst.

12 IL

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 this scene of almost unimaginable luxury and splendor. Then, he thought, how soon he'd turn his back upon the old school-house, 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!-Washington Irving.

XXVII.

THE WRECK OF THE "GRACE OF
SUNDERLAND."

"THEY ring for service,” quoth the fisherman ;

"Our parson preaches in the church to-night."

2. "And do the people go?" my brother asked.

3. "Ay, Sir; they count it mean to stay away,
He takes it so to heart. He's a rare man,
Our parson; half a head above us all."

4. "That's a great gift, and notable,” said I.

5. "Ay, Sir; and, when he was a younger man,
He went out in the life-boat very oft,

Before the " Grace of Sunderland" was wrecked.
He's never been his own man since that hour;

For there were thirty men aboard of her,

Anigh as close as you are now to me,

And ne'er a one was saved.

6.

7.

With two small children, in a row; the church

And yard are full of seamen's graves, and few
Have any names.

"She bumped upon the reef; Our parson, my young son, and several more, Were lashed together with a two-inch rope,

9.

10.

"When she took the ground,

She went to pieces like a lock of hay

Tossed from a pitchfork. Ere it came to that,

The captain reeled on deck with two small things,—
One in each arm, his little lad and lass.

Their hair was long, and blew before his face,

Or else, we thought he had been saved; he fell,
But held them fast.

The breakers licked them off; and some were crushed,
Some, swallowed in the yeast, some, flung up dead,
The dear breath beaten out of them; not one
Jumped from the wreck upon the reef to catch
The hands that strained to reach, but tumbled back
With eyes wide open.

"But the captain lay

And clung the only man alive. They prayed

'For God's sake, captain, throw the children here!'
'Throw them!' our parson cried; - and then she struck;
And he threw one, a pretty two years child;

But the gale dashed him on the slippery verge,

And down he went They say they heard him cry