University of Virginia Library

AN INVITATION.

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 a 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 game cocks. 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 school-room. 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 to attend a merry meeting, or
“quilting frolic,” to be held that evening at Mynheer
Van Tassel's; and having delivered his message with that
air of importance, and effort at fine language, which a
negro is apt to display on petty embassies of the kind, he
dashed over the brook, and was seen scampering away up
the hollow, full of the importance and hurry of his mission.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet school-room.
The scholars 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 now and then in the rear, to
quicken their speed, or help them over a tall word. Books
were flung aside, without being put away on the shelves;
inkstands were overturned; benches thrown down; and
the whole school was turned loose an hour before the
usual time; bursting forth like a legion of young imps,
yelping and racketting about the green, in joy at their early
emancipation.