What a world of charms burst upon the gaze of my hero as he entered the state parlor of Van Tassel’s mansion--the ample charms of a Dutch country tea table, in the sumptuous time of autumn! Such heaped-up platters of cakes, of various and indescribable kinds, known only to experienced Dutch housewives! There were doughnuts and crisp, crumbling crullers; sweet cakes and short cakes, ginger cakes and honey cakes, and the whole family of cakes; and then there were apple pies, and peach pies, and pumpkin pies; and slices of ham and smoked beef; and 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, with the motherly teapot sending up its clouds of vapor from the midst! I want breath and time to describe this banquet as I ought, and am too eager to get on with my story. Happily, Ichabod Crane was not in so great a hurry, but did ample justice to every dainty. And now, supper being ended, the sound of music from the common room summoned to the dance. The musician was an old, gray-headed negro, who had been the itinerant orchestra of the neighborhood for more than half a century. His instrument was as old and battered as himself. The greater part of the time he scraped away on two or three strings, moving his head with every movement of the bow, and stamping his foot whenever a fresh couple were to start. Ichabod prided himself on his dancing. Not a limb, not a fiber about him was idle. How could the flogger of urchins be otherwise than animated and joyous? When the dance was over, Ichabod joined a circle of the older folks, who, with Herr Van Tassel, sat smoking at one end of the piazza, and told stories of the war and wild and wonderful legends of ghosts and other supernatural beings. Some mention was made of a woman in white that haunted the dark glen at Raven Rock, and was often heard to shriek on wintry nights before a storm. The chief part of the stories, however, turned upon the favorite specter of Sleepy Hollow, the headless horseman, who had been heard several times of late patrolling the country. One man told how he had once met the horseman and was obliged to get up behind him; how they galloped over bush and brake, over hill and swamp, until they reached the bridge by the church, when the horseman suddenly turned into a skeleton, threw him into the brook, and sprang away over the tree tops with a clap of thunder. A wild, roistering young man, who was called Brom Bones, declared that the headless horseman was, after all, no rider compared with himself. He said that returning one night from the neighboring village of Sing Sing, he had been overtaken by this midnight trooper; that he had offered to race with him for a bowl of punch, and would have won it, too, but just as they came to the church bridge, the specter bolted and vanished in a flash of fire. IV. THE MIDNIGHT ADVENTURE