beguiled me in the holiday rovings of boyhood into this sequestered
region. I shunned, however, the populous parts of the Hollow, and sought
its retired haunts far in the foldings of the hills, where the Pocantico
"winds its wizard stream" sometimes silently and darkly through solemn
woodlands; sometimes sparkling between grassy borders in fresh, green
meadows; sometimes stealing along the feet of rugged heights under
the balancing sprays of beech and chestnut trees. A thousand crystal
springs, with which this neighborhood abounds, sent down from the
hill-sides their whimpering rills, as if to pay tribute to the
Pocantico. In this stream I first essayed my unskilful hand at angling.
I loved to loiter along it with rod in hand, watching my float as it
whirled amid the eddies or drifted into dark holes under twisted roots
and sunken logs, where the largest fish are apt to lurk. I delighted
to follow it into the brown accesses of the woods; to throw by my
fishing-gear and sit upon rocks beneath towering oaks and clambering
grape-vines; bathe my feet in the cool current, and listen to the summer
breeze playing among the tree-tops. My boyish fancy clothed all nature
around me with ideal charms, and peopled it with the fairy beings I
had read of in poetry and fable. Here it was I gave full scope to my
incipient habit of day dreaming, and to a certain propensity, to weave
up and tint sober realities with my own whims and imaginings, which has
sometimes made life a little too much like an Arabian tale to me, and
this "working-day world" rather like a region of romance.

The great gathering-place of Sleepy Hollow in those days was the church.
It stood outside of the Hollow, near the great highway, on a green bank
shaded by trees, with the Pocantico sweeping round it and emptying
itself into a spacious mill-pond. At that time the Sleepy Hollow
church was the only place of worship for a wide neighborhood. It was
a venerable edifice, partly of stone and partly of brick, the latter