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III . Ghosts and a Girl Ichabod was a strange mixture . He was a little clever , but he was also very easy to fool . He loved wonderful stories , and he believed all of them . Life in the magic valley only made this worse . After school he often lay on the grass by the stream and read Mather’s terrible tales . Then he walked home through the fields and woods . At that hour every sound frightened him , even the hoot of an owl . Sometimes a big beetle flew into him by accident . Then the poor man almost died of fear . He was sure that a witch had sent it . On such evenings he always sang psalms to keep the evil spirits away . People heard his voice from far away , loud and long , and very much through his nose . In winter he loved to spend long evenings with the old Dutch wives . They sat spinning by the fire while apples roasted in front of it . They told him tales of haunted fields , streams , bridges and houses . Most of all they talked about the Headless Horseman . In return , Ichabod frightened them with stories about comets . Worst of all , he told them that the world turned round . So half the time they were upside down ! By the warm fire no ghost dared to show its face . But afterwards he had to walk home in the dark . What terrible shapes he saw on snowy nights ! A small bush under the snow looked like a ghost in a white sheet . The sound of his own steps made him shiver . He was afraid to look over his shoulder . And when the wind howled through the trees , he was sure it was the Headless Horseman . These were only fears of the night , and in the daytime they disappeared . But one day he met a danger worse than all the ghosts in the world . It was a woman . Her name was Katrina Van Tassel . She was eighteen , and she came to his singing class once a week . She was the only child of a rich Dutch farmer . She was plump and fresh , with cheeks as rosy as her father’s peaches . Everyone knew about her beauty . And everyone knew about the money she was going to have one day . She liked to be admired , too . She wore her great - great - grandmother’s gold jewellery from Holland . Her skirt was just a little short , to show the prettiest feet in the country . Ichabod had a soft and foolish heart , and he liked her at once . He liked her even more after he visited her father’s farm . Old Baltus Van Tassel was a happy , generous farmer . He rarely thought about anything beyond his own fences . But inside them everything was warm , rich and in good order . His farmhouse stood by the Hudson under a great elm tree . Near it stood an enormous barn , as big as a church and full to bursting . Pigeons sat in the sun on its roof . Fat pigs lay in their pens . Geese and ducks swam on the pond . Ichabod’s mouth watered . In his mind he saw every little pig roasting with an apple in its mouth . The pigeons were asleep in a comfortable pie . The ducks lay in dishes in pairs , like happily married couples , with onion sauce . Then he looked at the wide fields and the orchards full of red apples . His heart longed for the girl who was going to own all this .
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