As the enraptured Ichabod fancied all this, and as he rolled his
great green eyes over the fat meadow-lands, the rich fields of
wheat, of rye, of buckwheat, and Indian corn, and the orchards
burdened with ruddy fruit, which surrounded the warm tenement of
Van Tassel, his heart yearned after the damsel who was to inherit
these domains, and his imagination expanded with the idea how
they might be readily turned into cash and the money invested in
immense tracts of wild land and shingle palaces in the
wilderness. Nay, his busy fancy already realized his hopes, and
presented to him the blooming Katrina, with a whole family of
children, mounted on the top of a wagon loaded with household
trumpery, with pots and kettles dangling beneath, and he beheld
himself bestriding a pacing mare, with a colt at her heels,
setting out for Kentucky, Tennessee, or the Lord knows where.
When he entered the house the conquest of his heart was complete.
It was one of those spacious farmhouses with high-ridged but
lowly-sloping roofs, built in the style handed down from the
first Dutch settlers, the low projecting eaves forming a piazza
along the front capable of being closed up in bad weather. Under
this were hung flails, harness, various utensils of husbandry,
and nets for fishing in the neighboring river.
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