Our little hero lived in a very pretty cottage on the hills. He was fond of reading, and his parents, who could well afford it, indulged the boy to his heart’s content with interesting books.
By his schoolmates this lad was known by the nickname of “Careless Harry,” because he was so untidy and negligent in his habits. Out of all the expensive books that had been purchased for him there wasn’t one that had a decent cover. Indeed, some of them had their backs completely broken with ill-usage, while others hadn’t a back at all. Besides being careless and forgetful the boy had still another fault. If his mother asked him a question, the answer was sure to be, “I don’t know.”
“Where’s your hat, Harry?”
“I don’t know.”
“What have you done with your ball?”
“I don’t know.”
“Child, however did you tear your clothing in that frightful manner?”
“I am sure I don’t know.”
His room was littered with his books, toys, and playthings. There stood the rocking-horse with his tail pulled out. Here, flat on its back, lay his sister’s big doll, its poor face dreadfully disfigured by Harry’s mischievous fingers. His mother was very much displeased with him, and had sent him to bed, promising to take severe measures with him if she ever heard “I don’t know” from his lips again.
Harry was very frightened. He did not wish to vex his mother, or to act unkindly towards his sister, and so, resolving to be more careful in the future, he covered his head over with the bedclothes and fell fast asleep.
But Harry’s carelessness had raised the ire of others besides his mother and sister, and they were determined to punish him.
It is all very well to treat books, dolls, drums, rocking-horses, and other playthings as if they had no life in them, but careless boys may do that once too often. So it appeared in this case. Harry was no sooner asleep than these ill-fated creatures held a great discussion with reference to his cruelty.
“I’ll not stand this any longer,” cried Robinson Crusoe, stepping from the boy’s bookshelf. “I’m getting an old man, and I won’t be insulted by having my only covering torn from my back by this young rogue. There he is covered up quite snug, while I am standing here shivering in my shirt.”
“And I,” responded little Red Riding Hood, “would gladly see him punished. He has thrown so much soapy water over me I feel as if I’d been shipwrecked in the washing-tub.”
“And I,” echoed the Drum, “owe him a grudge, not so much for the hard thumps he has bestowed on my person, as for his disgraceful treatment of yonder fair lady, whose dear nose he has completely put out of joint. That lady doll is my relation. We were born in the same place, were sent out in the same ship to Australia, and have occupied the same shop, until purchased and brought here to be cuffed and ill-treated by this boy. Gentlemen, I mean to avenge the lady.”
Now the ice was broken, accusations came so fast and thick against the unlucky culprit that it was quite impossible to make them all out. Fishing rods, minus line or hook, bats without handles, balls and tops, which danced like mad around the bed—the hubbub became so great the wonder is the whole house was not roused by his accusers.
The noise, however, woke Harry, who sat bolt upright in bed, and gazed with a bewildered stare at the queer crowd surrounding him. He was too much alarmed to speak, but one glance showed him Robinson Crusoe, clad in nothing but his fly-leaves, standing at his bedside, with many others, who in the dim light he could not recognise.
“Place him on my back, friends, and I’ll gallop away to—‘I don’t know,’ ” cried out the tailless Rocking-horse in a terrible voice; and the words were no sooner uttered than poor Harry was quickly blindfolded, dragged from his bed, and placed astride the horse, who instantly galloped out into the cold night with him.
The pace at which the steed travelled was a caution. Harry had once accompanied his father to Gawler by rail, but the speed of the train was like travelling on a bullock dray in comparison to the flying pace of that beast without a tail. How he held on to its back is a positive wonder. All he saw was the clear starlit sky above his head, rocking and rolling about like the waves at the Semaphore on a windy day. His poor feet ached with the cold, for his only covering was his night-gown, and his legs felt as though they didn’t belong to him. At length, just as he was beginning to feel faint and giddy from exhaustion, the Rocking-horse stopped, and the bandage was removed from his eyes. Ah! what a sight he beheld. There was the Drum he had broken strutting about on legs like a human being, who came up to Harry with a haughty swagger, and said, “Boy, why did you break my head?”
“A JACK-IN-THE-BOX … CAME AND REVILED HIM.”
And then a Hoop came, and demanded, “why he was thrown aside in the lumber-room?” and a black Jack-in-the-box, whose scanty locks had been wantonly torn from his scalp, came and reviled him; and, lastly, his late victim, the poor doll, made its appearance in a winding sheet, and began to reproach him for his cruelty.
The unfortunate boy seated himself on the ground and burst into tears, but the more he wept the more his tormentors jeered at him; and really the Drum and Robinson Crusoe seemed to incite the others to insult him; therefore was our poor Harry very miserable indeed. Growing tired of playing with him, or afraid of the cold wind, perhaps, his strange companions at last took their departure, and Harry was left alone.
Such companionship had been bad enough, but solitude was worse. He started up, and shouted with all his might, “Is there anybody about?” “I don’t know,” sighed the wind. “Which is the way home?” shouted Harry. “I don’t know,” chuckled the laughing jackass. “Where’s my mother?” screamed the boy. “I don’t know,” exclaimed a ’possum and a kangaroo together. Too frightened to speak any more, Harry groped his way along in the darkness. As day dawned he came to a very high hill, and here he saw his tormentors having some rare fun. The Doll had mounted the Rocking-horse, which was galloping round and round as they do in a circus. While the Drum beat time, old Robinson Crusoe was waltzing with the Lady of the Lake; and Jack the Giant-killer played leap-frog with Mother Hubbard, Red Riding Hood and Little Jack Horner. Their merriment grew more fast and furious every moment, but the instant they espied our hero it ceased, and a deep silence fell upon them all.
“Ladies and gentlemen,” cried a Pop-gun, breaking the silence, “you are aware we have refrained from doing injury to this cruel boy, through the mediation of the ‘Old Woman who lived in a Shoe.’ We left him in peace to make his way home, and instead of doing so he has wantonly broken in upon our secret revelry, and so has forfeited all claim to our clemency. What shall we do with him?”
“Pitch him headlong from the cliff,” replied the Drum in a deep voice.
“It shall be done,” responded a chorus of voices.
Poor Harry, who had not spoken hitherto, now found his voice. “No, no! Spare me, good gentlemen; spare me!” he cried.
They only mocked him for his pains. “Hearken to him pleading for mercy! Careless Harry! cruel Harry!” and amidst much noise and confusion the young mortal was carried to the apex of the steep, tall cliff, and pushed over into the yawning gulf below.
Poor Harry, half mad with terror, uttered a series of piercing shrieks as he felt himself falling—falling through the air—and called aloud for his mother to help him. Conceive his joy when he found himself in her arms, and heard her well-known voice reassuring him.
“You are safe, my boy, quite safe. What has frightened you?”
“Oh, mother! I have been taken away in the night.”
“Taken away! Where?”
“To—to—‘I don’t know.’ ”
The mother smiled to herself as she left the room, and “Careless Harry” went out to see if the rocking-horse and the others had returned home.