Washington Irving’s The Legend of Sleepy Hollow (Imitation)

“In this by-place of nature, there abode, in a remote period of American history, that is to say, some thirty years since, a worthy wight of the name of Ichabod Crane; who sojourned, or, as he expressed it, “tarried,” in Sleepy Hollow, for the purpose of instructing the children of the vicinity. He was a native of Connecticut; a State which supplies the Union with pioneers for the mind as well as for the forest, and sends forth yearly its legions of frontier woodsmen and country schoolmasters. 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 weather-cock, 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.” (Irving)

My imitation, My odd neighbor Katherine

           

            My neighbor Katherine is short, but slightly fat, with plump thighs and legs, hair that reaches all the way to Berlin, ears that could be mistaken for wings, and her whole body compressed together like that of a storage garage. Her head is large and eyes are microscopic, with long lashes, small bushy brown eye brows, and a small pudgy nose, which resembles that of a pig. On a chair in her porch she naps, her hair flutters whenever the wind blows. To see her riding a tiny tricycle, with her hair flying around her, one may confuse her for a mythical creature from a folk tale, or a vehicle gone haywire. Although she is chubby, and has features that seem almost abnormal, she has an angelic voice that can shame even a singing canary on a morning of a spring day.