But there was a problem for Ichabod. All the young men from the area admired Katrina. And there was one young man who admired her very much. He wanted to marry her too. This man’s name was Brom Bones.
Brom Bones was very different from Ichabod. He was tall and handsome. His body was big and strong, and he had short, black, curly hair. He was a very brave young man and he was an excellent horse rider. He often rode in horse-races and he always won them.
Brom Bones was not afraid of anybody or anything. He was the leader of a group of young men. These young men admired Brom and they rode with him everywhere. Sometimes the people of the area heard the sound of horses on the road late at night.
“That’s Brom Bones and his friends”! they said to each other.
Brom Bones enjoyed playing tricks on people. He was not a bad man, but he liked to have fun.
Brom Bones often went to Baltus Van Tassel’s farm to see Katrina. When other young men from the area saw Brom’s horse outside the Van Tassel’s farmhouse, they smiled sadly.
“Now Katrina won’t speak to us,” they said. “Brom will win her love easily. And we don’t want to fight with Brom.”
4
So everybody else stopped trying to win Katrina’s love – everybody except Ichabod Crane.
Ichabod was not worried about Brom Bones and his visits to Katrina. He started to visit her himself. And when the schoolmaster came to the house, Katrina’s father smoked his pipe happily. Her mother sang while she did her work. They both smiled when Ichabod took walks with Katrina, or when he sat and talked with her outside the house. All the Van Tassels were happy.
But when Brom Bones heard about Ichabod’s visits to Katrina, he was not happy.
“What!” he shouted. “Is that ugly schoolmaster visiting Katrina? I’ll fight him. I’ll knock him down and put him on a shelf in his own schoolhouse!”
But Ichabod did not want to fight Brom. Brom was very strong and he could win any fight easily – Ichabod knew that. So the schoolmaster stayed away from Brom. This made Brom even angrier.
“I can’t fight him with my hands because he won’t come near me,” Brom said. “So I’ll try another way of fighting him.”
He started playing tricks on the schoolmaster. First, Brom and his friends got into Ichabod’s schoolhouse one night. They moved all the furniture around. Ichabod was very frightened the next day.
“An evil spirit did this,” he said.
Next, Brom taught his dog to make a terrible noise. Then he waited outside the schoolhouse with the animal. Whenever Ichabod sang, the dog made this terrible noise. All Ichabod’s pupils laughed.
One fine autumn afternoon, Ichabod was in the schoolhouse with his pupils. Suddenly there was a knock at the door. When Ichabod opened it, he saw one of Baltus Van Tassel’s servants outside.
“You are invited to a party tonight at the Van Tassel farm,” said the servant. “Will you come?”
“Oh, yes!” said Ichabod. He was very happy and excited. He also felt very important. Katrina’s parents had asked him to a party. So they really did like him. They wanted him to marry their daughter. That was good. And he was going to see Katrina at the party.
He sent his pupils home an hour early that day. They were very surprised by this. It had never happened before!