ht of his adversary to enter the
lists against him; he had overheard a boast of Bones, that he would
"double the schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own
schoolhouse;" and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was
something extremely provoking in this obstinately pacific system; it
left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of rustic waggery in
his disposition, and to play off boorish practical jokes upon his rival.
Ichabod became the object of whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang
of rough riders. They harried his hitherto peaceful domains; smoked
out his singing school by stopping up the chimney; broke into the
schoolhouse at night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe
and window stakes, and turned everything topsy-turvy, so that the poor
schoolmaster began to think all the witches in the country held
their meetings there. But what was still more annoying, Brom took all
opportunities of turning him into ridicule in presence of his mistress,
and had a scoundrel dog whom he taught to whine in the most ludicrous
manner, and introduced as a rival of Ichabod's, to instruct her in
psalmody.

In this way matters went on for some time, without producing any
material effect on the relative situations of the contending powers. On
a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on
the lofty stool from whence he usually watched all the concerns of his
little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that sceptre of
despotic power; the birch of justice reposed on three nails behind the
throne, a constant terror to evil doers, while on the desk before
him might be seen sundry contraband articles and prohibited weapons,
detected upon the persons of idle urchins, such as half-munched apples,
popguns, whirligigs, fly-cages, and whole legions of rampant little
paper gamecocks. Apparently there had been some appalling act of justice
recently inflicted, for his scholars were all busily intent upon their
books, or slyly whispering behind them with one eye kept upon the
master; and a kind of buzzing stillness reigned throughout the
schoolroom. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro in
tow-cloth jacket and trowsers, a round-crowned fragment of a hat,
like the cap of Mercury, and mounted on the back of a ragged, wild,
half-broken colt, which he managed with a rope by way of halter. He came
clattering up to the school door with an invitation to Ichabod t