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BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT

The stormy March is come at last,

With wind, and cloud, and changing skies; I hear the rushing of the blast,

That through the snowy valley flies.

Ah, passing few are they who speak,
Wild stormy month! in praise of thee;
Yet, though thy winds are loud and bleak,
Thou art a welcome month to me.

For thou, to northern lands again,
The glad and glorious sun dost bring,
And thou hast joined the gentle train
And wear'st the gentle name of Spring.

Thou bring'st the hope of those calm skies,
And that soft time of sunny showers,
When the wide bloom, on earth that lies,
Seems of a brighter world than ours.

Abridged.

ICHABOD CRANE

BY WASHINGTON IRVING

The nation was only seven years old when Irving was born in the city of New York. "Washington's work is ended," said his mother, "and the child shall be named for him." A young Scotch maid in the family, seeing President Washington enter a shop one morning, followed with her charge. "Please, your honor," said she, "here's a bairn was named for you," whereupon Washington kindly placed his hand on the head of the little boy, then in his first trousers, little dreaming that he was blessing his future biographer. Though the Irving household was conducted with some strictness, the

boy managed to have a good time of it. Of his two half-holidays a week one was taken up with studying the catechism, but on the other there were all sorts of jolly games with his older brothers and sisters, play-acting, and fascinating books of voyages and travels. Irving's first journey up the Hudson, taken in a sloop, was a memorable experience. The Catskill Mountains, the scene later of his Rip Van Winkle, he says, "had the most witching effect on my boyish imagination." The recesses of Sleepy Hollow, made immortal by the story of Ichabod Crane's wild ride, he explored with his gun. Rip Van Winkle and The Legend of Sleepy Hollow are the most famous numbers in Irving's Sketch-Book. Many of Irving's mature years were spent abroad first in search of health and later as minister to Spain. He died in 1859.

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On a fine autumnal afternoon, Ichabod, in pensive mood, sat enthroned on the lofty stool whence he usually watched all the concerns of his little literary realm. In his hand he swayed a ferule, that scepter 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, pop-guns, 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 school-room. It was suddenly interrupted by the appearance of a negro, in towcloth jacket and trousers, 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 merrymaking, or "quilting frolic," to be held that evening at Mynheer Van Tassel's.

room.

All was now bustle and hubbub in the late quiet schoolThe 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 racketing about the green, in joy at their early emancipation.

The gallant Ichabod now spent at least an extra halfhour at his toilet, brushing and furbishing up his best, and indeed only, suit of rusty black, and arranging his looks by a bit of broken looking-glass, that hung up 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 was domiciliated, a choleric old Dutchman, of the name of Hans Van Ripper, and thus gallantly mounted issued forth, like a knighterrant in quest of adventures.

The animal he bestrode was a broken-down plow-horse, that had outlived almost everything but his viciousness.

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He was gaunt and shagged, with a ewe neck and a head like a hammer; his rusty mane and tail were tangled and

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