The Legend of Sleepy Hollow

Vanderhoof:
Now hold on a minute, Mister unmarried school master. That was the truth those kids told you 'bout them Indian spirits.

Ichabod Crane:
Mr. Vanderhoof, Indian ghosts, Headless Horsemen?

Vanderhoof:
Bite down your tongue! Don't you ever go laughing at the Headless Horseman.

Ichabod Crane:
[looks up at the owl] You expect me to believe that that owl is the ghost of an Indian?

Vanderhoof:
Chief Running Buffalo.

Ichabod Crane:
Who said who?

Boy:
Chief Running Buffalo.

Ichabod Crane:
Who?

Boy:
The ghost of Chief Running Buffalo, sir. [points up to an owl]

Ichabod Crane:
The ghost? You don't believe in that kind of stuff do you?

Boy:
Well this school house was built on an old Indian cemetery, Grandpa says it's haunted by spirits from the past.

Vanderhoof:
Remember that big fellow you met this morning?

Ichabod Crane:
Brom Bones.

Vanderhoof:
He figures Katrina's his girl. He catches you looking sideways at her, he's naturally going to tie knots in all your arms and legs... or worse. [nods to memorial stone]

Ichabod Crane:
R.I.P? Brom Bones killed the previous schoolmaster?

Vanderhoof:
Might just as well have. Palmer was never the same after Brom Bones thundered the poor fellow halfway across the country.

Ichabod Crane:
Brom Bones assaulted the schoolmaster just for looking at Miss Van Tassel?

Vanderhoof:
A-salted, a-peppered, and a-roasted him too! Just for reading poetry to Katrina. Course by that time I think Palmer was already a little funny in the head like the other school masters.

Ichabod Crane:
What do you mean?

Vanderhoof:
Three before Palmer, all turned strange before they took off out of here. Course I figured, the ghosts and spirits did it to them.

Ichabod Crane:
Come away with those ridiculous, ridiculous scare stories of yours!

Vanderhoof:
You're just like them others, seems a shame. You fellows with all your book learning, always come up short on common horse sense.

Palmer:
I'm not alive, I'm not dead, I'm both, and neither!

Ichabod Crane:
I just saw a face in the window.

Thelma Dumkey:
[looks out] I don't see anything!

Vanderhoof:
There's nobody out there.

Thelma Dumkey:
What kind of a face did you see?

Ichabod Crane:
A man's face, it was big, heavy, uh... had a big white bushy beard.

Thelma Dumkey:
White beard?

Ichabod Crane:
Yes, wild eyed look, mole on the cheek.

Vanderhoof, Thelma Dumkey:
[look at each other] Palmer!

Ichabod Crane:
Winthrop Palmer? I thought you said he was dead.

Vanderhoof:
He is! I knew something like this would happen if you burned the devil bag!

Ichabod Crane:
What happened to my predecessor, Winthrop Palmer?

Vanderhoof:
I TOLD YOU! Didn't have the grit of a short chicken after Brom Bones thumped him. Looked over his shoulder one dark night, saw the Headless Horseman coming after him. Galloped his horse straight away over the Palisades and right down into the Hudson River. Fred Dutcher saw it first hand, bad currents in the Hudson hereabouts, Old Palmer never had a chance. If the jump didn't do it, the river did.

Vanderhoof:
I told this fellow that Sleepy Hollow was full of ghosts, but he wouldn't listen! He was just like all the others! And now the schoolmaster Palmer has come back! Like we haven't got enough ghosts already!

Ichabod Crane:
[discovers who's been chasing him] Brom Bones?

Brom Bones:
[rides off] Every man for himself, schoolmaster, it's the real Headless Horseman!

Thelma Dumkey:
You and me just naturally seem cut out for a double harness, Brom Bones.

Brom Bones:
Now Thelma, you gotta stop talking like that. You know I'm fixing to get hitched up with Katrina one of these days.

Thelma Dumkey:
You've been saying that for years, and there ain't none of us getting any younger.

Brom Bones:
Squire, I don't take it lightly seeing the schoolmaster hanging around Katrina. I thought you and me had an agreement.

Squire Van Tassel:
I agreed that you could court my Katrina with matrimonial intentions, but that was three years ago, Brom Bones.

Brom Bones:
Well Squire, marriage ain't nothing for a man to hurry into.

Squire Van Tassel:
And for three years I'm still not a grandfather!