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Caturday Pootie Diary: The Legend of Sleepy Freddie [1]
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Date: 2022-10-15
“Tell me about it,” he demanded, his back to the television.
“You can just watch it,” I explained, pointing at the cartoon that was starting.
“I like when you tell me.”
“Awww,” I said, touched.
“Leave out any ducks!” he ordered.
“You don’t want to hear about the headless horseduck?” I teased.
His eyes widened. “It’s a horse and a duck?” he asked, horrified
“There aren’t any ducks in the story,” I assured him. “I mean, I’m sure the village of Sleepy Hollow has ducks in its ponds, but they aren’t mentioned.”
He relaxed. “You may tell me the story,” he said, imperiously.
“Thank you,” I said, dryly. “You sure you don’t want to just watch the cartoon?”
“No.”
“It’s been years since I saw the cartoon or read the actual story by Washington Irving, but I will do my best.”
“That’s all a human can do,” he said, sagely.
“There was also a movie with Christina Ricci that I like a lot, but I’m not sure how faithful it is to the original story,” I hedged.
“Tell it!”
“Once upon a time, a man named Ichabod Crane moved to Sleepy Hollow to become the village schoolmaster. This was in the late eighteenth century, so all the women wore long dresses and the men wore tri-corner hats,” I explained, setting the scene.
“Ichabod was an outsider,” I continued, “but he worked hard to ingratiate himself with the locals. He was in charge of the school, but he also pitched in on farms that needed a little extra help, and was always ready to gossip with the townswomen.”
“The crows gossip,” Freddie said, darkly.
“What?”
“They have long memories and dark humor. They know everything and like to talk about it.”
“When do you talk to crows?”
“They hang out in the front yard sometimes. I don’t know, go back to the story.”
“I want to hear more about the crows!”
“Later.”
I sighed, but continued. “Ichabod became a popular man, despite being an outsider and a yankee. He was young and eligible and set his heart on Katrina, a young woman with a wealthy father.”
“She was pretty?”
“Very! And rich, which probably helped attract his interest. Ichabod was a little ambitious. But Katrina already had a suitor. A mischievous young man named Brom was seeking her hand.”
“Ichabod should arch his back and hiss at Brom,” Freddie opined. “And he should rub his head on Katrina.”
“Is that what you would do?”
“It’s how you let someone know they are stepping into your territory,” he explained.
“Human women don’t really appreciate being marked as the territory of human men,” I told him.
“Humans make everything too complicated,” he lamented, shaking his furry head.
“Ichabod was a very superstitious man,” I continued. “There wasn’t a story about ghosts or witches that he didn’t believe was real. To his delight, Sleepy Hollow was a village that was said to be full of haunted things. The people there told all sorts of tales about the supernatural and Ichabod was entranced by all of it. But their favorite story by far was the tale of the Headless Horseman who haunted the forest around Sleepy Hollow.”
“This is the horseduck?” Freddie whispered.
“No duck! I promise! A horseman is just a man on a horse.”
“That’s not very scary.”
“No. But this man on a horse had no head.”
“Ooooh, that’s pretty scary.”
“He was said to be a Hessian soldier who lost his head in the Revolutionary War when he was hit by a cannonball. He rode around at night, looking for the battle so he could finish it.”
“He was a ghost?”
“He was! And it was said that he could not pass the covered bridge at the edge of town. He would just disappear in a puff of brimstone and smoke!”
“One night, Ichabod attended a party at Katrina’s father’s house. It was a long night and he was very nervous, because he planned to ask Katrina to marry him.”
“He was going to rub his head on her,” he said, nodding.
“Well. He was going to ask her permission. Anyway, the party ended and he asked her to marry him.
“And she said ‘no.’”
“She didn’t want him to mark her?” he asked.
“No. I think she might have realized he just wanted her father’s money. And maybe she liked Brom better.
“So Ichabod left the party on his horse, Gunpowder. He was feeling sad, so he took his time making his way home through the forest in the dark.”
Freddie gasped, “The horseman!”
“That’s right!” I said, tapping his forehead gently with my finger.
“Ichabod and Gunpowder made their way slowly through the woods when he noticed a man on a horse following slowly behind. He felt very uneasy about this, but at first he wasn’t sure why. He kept turning on Gunpowder to look at the dark figure behind them but at first didn’t know what was wrong. Then he saw it...”
“What?” Freddie asked, tensing.
“The Horseman had no head!” I yelled.
“Oh no! What did Ichabod and Gunpowder do?”
“Ichabod remembered what the villagers had told him — the horseman could not pass over the covered bridge.”
“He would be safe if he got there first!”
“That’s right! So Ichabod flicked the reins and pushed Gunpowder into the fastest run of his life!”
“Go Gunpowder!” Freddie shouted.
“The Horseman gave chase, of course, his head resting on his lap so he could see where he was going. They raced through the woods, lashed by tree branches and startling the wildlife.”
“Did they make it to the bridge?” he asked, on pins and needles.
“They made it,” I said.
“Yay!”
“But the Horseman didn’t disappear as promised.”
“Oh no!”
“He paced on the other side of the bridge, watching Ichabod as he recovered from his exertion.”
“Gunpowder did all the work,” Freddie pointed out.
“Being scared takes a lot out of you,” I explained. “And riding a horse is not like driving a car. Anyway, the Horseman stopped and faced Ichabod, then picked up his head and held it high. But it wasn’t a head! It was a jack-o-lantern!”
“Those things you make and put on the porch for the small humans?”
“Exactly! He threw the pumpkin at Ichabod and hit him, knocking him off his horse!”
“And then what happened?”
“No one is really sure. The villagers found Gunpowder in the morning along with Ichabod’s hat, but the man was never seen in Sleepy Hollow again. But whenever he was mentioned, Brom became a little smug and seemed to know things about it no one else did.”
“And he rubbed his head on Katrina?”
“They married, yes. And remember that Brom was very mischievous. He liked pranks.”
“He was the duck!”
I laughed. “Irving leaves it open to interpretation, but yes, he was probably the Horseman that night. Ichabod probably fled and restarted his life somewhere else.”
Freddie thought about it for a few minutes. “That was a pretty good story, but it needed a vacuum to make it really scary.”
“They didn’t exist in the eighteenth century,” I pointed out.
“The cats back then had it easy.”
I laughed. “Not really,” I said. “Now tell me about these crows.”
Freddie yawned. “No. It’s time for the legend of sleepy Freddie,” he said, resting his head on his paws and closing his eyes.
Happy Caturday, Peeps! I hope you enjoyed this spooky story as much as Freddie and I did. Sleepy Hallow is one of those stories that has just the right tone for this season and I do love it.
[END]
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