How did Ichabod Crane help the farmers?

Ichabod Crane is a very obliging man. But then he has to be. His school is dependent on the fees it receives from the local wealthy farmers whose children are educated there. As part of a longstanding local custom Ichabod also receives board and lodgings from a local family, staying with it for a week before moving on to another one. Ichabod travels all around the neighborhood, from place to place, his worldly goods slung over a bony shoulder in a cotton handkerchief.
When staying on a farm, Ichabod always tries so very hard to make himself useful:

He assisted the farmers occasionally in the lighter labors of their farms, helped to make hay, mended the fences, took the horses to water, drove the cows from pasture, and cut wood for the winter fire.

In his own little empire of the schoolhouse, Ichabod is lord of all he surveys. But down on the farm, surrounded by all those rich farmers, he is little better than a servant. He does not make matters any easier by behaving in a fawning, ingratiating manner. There is nothing he will not do to get in with these local worthies; he will even pat and play with little children—anything to make himself useful.