Such was the formidable rival with whom Ichabod Crane had to contend and, considering all things, a stouter man than he would have shrunk from the competition, and a wiser man would have despaired. He had, however, a happy mixture of pliability and perserverance in his nature; he was in form and spirit like a supple jack-yielding, but tough; though he bent, he never broke; and though he bowed beneath the slightest pressure, yet, the moment it was away-jerk!he was as erect, and carried his head as high as ever.                                 To have taken the field openly against his rival would have been madness, for he was not a man to be thwarted in his amours, any more than that stormy  lover Achilles. Ichabod,therefore, made his advances in a quiet and gently insinuating manner. Under cover of his character of singing master, he made frequent visits to the farmhouse; not that he had anything to apprehend from the meddlesome interference of parents, which is so often a stumbling block in the path of lovers. Balt VAN Tassel was an easy indulgent soul; he loved his daughter better even than his own pipe, and, like a reasonable man and excellent father, let her have way in everything. His notable little wife, too, had enough to do to attend to her housekeeping and manage her poultry; for, as she sagely observed, ducks and geese are foolish things, and must be looked after, but girls can take care of themselves. Thus while the busy dame bustled about the spinning wheel at one end of the piazza, honest Balt would sit smoking his evening pipe at the other, watching the achievements of a little wooden warrior , who, armed with a sword in each hand, was most valiantly fighting the wind on the pinnacle of the barn. In the meantime, Ichabod would carry on his suit with the daughter by the side of the spring under the great elm, or sauntering along in the twilight, that hour so favorable to the lover's eloquence.