The excerpt represents the core issue or deciding factor on which you must meditate, and is drawn from The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by Washington Irving: overheard a boast of Bones, that he would "double the
schoolmaster up, and lay him on a shelf of his own schoolhouse;"
and he was too wary to give him an opportunity. There was
something extremely provoking, in this obstinately pacific
system; it left Brom no alternative but to draw upon the funds of
rustic waggery in his disposition, and to play off boorish
practical jokes upon his rival. Ichabod became the object of
whimsical persecution to Bones and his gang of rough riders. They
harried his hitherto peaceful domains, smoked out his singing-
school by stopping up the chimney, broke into the schoolhouse at
night, in spite of its formidable fastenings of withe and window
The Legend of Sleepy Hollow |