himself in front of the door; on a bench, at the side of the
house, stand rows of washtubs filled with soiled linen, and a
woman is busy wringing out clothes; while another, with a
bucket on her head, goes to the well to supply her with a
fresh thimbleful of water; and still a third milks a handsome
dapple-gray cow in the yard where the dairy stands. There is a
well-filled barn behind, with another cow and a horse, too,
for that matter, in the stable attached, and the farmer, who is
putting the last sheaf on his wheat-stack, looks contented enough
with his lot.

Just beyond the stream, on whose bank the fisherman sits
leisurely dropping his line, stands the village church; a
fac-simile of the old Dutch Church which has stood near the
entrance of Sleepy Hollow since long before the Revolution, and
is hallowed now not only by the pious associations of centuries,
but by the near vicinage of Irving's grave. In its little
twelve-inch counterpart, every point of the ancient structure is
preserved in exact detail. The dull red walls, the beetling roof,
the narrow pointed windows and low, arched door; the quaint Dutch
weathercock, and odd-shaped tower--aye, even the bell within, no
bigger than a doll's thimble--and upon all a sentimental traveler
in the person of a china figure perhaps three inches in height,
is gazing half pensively, half curiously, as we suppose, at this
relic of by-gone years!

On the other side of the stream the village school, likewise an
ancient and steeple-crowned edifice, stands out in the midst of a
bare and clean swept playground. It bears its signature upon its
front: