The cognomen of Crane was not inapplicable to his person. He was tall, but exceedingly lank, with narrow shoulders, long arms and legs, hands that dangled a mile out of his sleeves, feet that might have served for shovels, and his whole frame most loosely hung together. His head was small, and flat at top, with huge ears, large green glassy eyes, and a long snipe nose, so that it looked like a weathercock perched upon his spindle neck, to tell which way the wind blew. To see him striding along the profile of a hill on a windy day, with his clothes bagging and fluttering about him, one might have mistaken him for the genius of famine descending upon the earth, or some scarecrow eloped from a cornfield.
Because the Headless Horseman came up in conversation and we followed the winding thread down to the river of memory
Because my kid asks a gazillion questions about everything
Because between us, we pieced together enough of the story to make us hunger for more, and somehow Bug knew that the dastardly figure could not cross the river to give chase to Crane
Because I searched my neural archives for the rest but could only call up fragments
Because my job gives me free access to mountains of books at multiple libraries, and anything that strikes my fancy is in my hands in the blink of an eye
Because Giovanni wandered with me through library stacks and remembered Sleepy Hollow when all I could recall was “Ichabod Crane”
Because my parents filled the house with books when I was little
Because the picture of the smouldering horseman haunts me still
Because Washington Irving crafted one of the most memorable descriptions in American literature
Because of all these strange blessings and more, there is a copy of The Legend of Sleepy Hollow open next to me and much to be thankful for on this November night.
Shannon E. Williams 