Lands
were distributed into building lots, and rented out to safe tenants,
instead of producing a paltry crop of cabbages, they returned him an
abundant crop of rents; insomuch that on quarter day, it was a goodly
sight to see his tenants rapping at his door, from morning to night,
each with a little round-bellied bag of money, the golden produce of
the soil.
The ancient mansion of his forefathers was still kept up, but instead
of being a little yellow-fronted Dutch house in a garden, it now stood
boldly in the midst of a street, the grand house of the neighborhood;
for Wolfert enlarged it with a wing on each side, and a cupola or tea
room on top, where he might climb up and smoke his pipe in hot weather;
and in the course of time the whole mansion was overrun by the
chubby-faced progeny of Amy Webber and Dirk Waldron.
As Wolfert waxed old and rich and corpulent, he also set up a great
gingerbread-colored carriage drawn by a pair of black Flanders mares
with tails that swept the ground; and to commemorate the origin of his
greatness he had for a crest a fullblown cabbage painted on the
pannels, with the pithy motto Alles Kopf that is to say, ALL HEAD;
meaning thereby that he had risen by sheer head-work.
To fill the measure of his greatness, in the fullness of time the
renowned Ramm Rapelye slept with his fathers, and Wolfert Webber
succeeded to the leathern-bottomed arm-chair in the inn parlor at
Corlears Hook; where he long reigned greatly honored and respected,
insomuch that he was never known to tell a story without its being
believed, nor to utter a joke without its being laughed at.
End of Tales of a Traveller, by Washington Irving
