An inquiry was set on foot, and after much investigation they came upon his traces. In one part of the road by the church was found the saddle trampled in the dirt. The tracks of horses’ hoofs deeply dented in the road, and evidently at furious speed, were traced to the bridge, beyond which, on the bank of a broad part of the brook, where the water ran deep and black, was found the hat of the unfortunate Ichabod, and close beside it a shattered pumpkin. The brook was searched, but the body of the schoolmaster was not to be discovered. As Ichabod was a bachelor, and in nobody’s debt, nobody troubled his head any more about him. It is true, an old farmer, who went down to New York on a visit several years after, brought home the intelligence that Ichabod Crane was still alive; that he had left the neighborhood, partly through fear of the goblin and the farmer whose horse he had ridden, and partly for other reasons; that he had changed his quarters to a distant part of the country, had kept school and studied law, and finally had been made a justice of the Ten Pound Court. Brom Bones, too, was observed to look very knowing whenever the story of Ichabod was related, and always burst into a hearty laugh at the mention of the pumpkin, which led some to suppose that he knew more about the matter than he chose to tell. --WASHINGTON IRVING. THE BLUEBIRD When God had made a host of them, One little flower still lacked a stem To hold its blossom blue; So into it He breathed a song, And suddenly, with petals strong As wings, away it flew. --FATHER TABB. * * * * * We live in deeds, not years; in thoughts, not breaths; In feelings, not in figures on a dial. We should count time by heart-throbs. He most lives Who thinks most, feels the noblest, acts the best. --PHILIP JAMES BAILEY. THE BROOK I come from haunts of coot and hern, I make a sudden sally, And sparkle out among the fern To bicker down a valley. By thirty hills I hurry down, Or slip between the ridges, By twenty thorps, a little town, And half a hundred bridges. Till last by Philip’s farm I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever. I chatter over stony ways, In little sharps and trebles, I bubble into eddying bays, I babble on the pebbles. With many a curve my banks I fret By many a field and fallow, And many a fairy foreland set With willow weed and mallow. I chatter, chatter, as I flow To join the brimming river, For men may come and men may go, But I go on forever.