Lazy Harry

Harry was a lazy fellow, and, although he had nothing further to do than to drive his goat daily to the meadow, he sighed continually when he reached home, after his day’s work, and would say: “In truth it is a weary life this, and a troublesome job, year after year, to drive a goat into the field every day till the autumn comes. It were better if one could lie down and sleep; but no! one must always be watching lest the goat should injure the young trees, or creep through the hedge into some garden, and so get away. Now how can I obtain quiet and enjoy life?” Once he sat down to collect his thoughts and consider how he should free his shoulders from their burden. For a long time nothing came of his reflections, till all at once it flashed upon him as if a scale had fallen from his eyes. “I know what I will do,” he cried; “I will marry fat Kate; she also has a goat, and she can drive out mine with hers, and so save me the trouble.”

So thinking, Harry got up and set his weary legs in motion to cross over the road (for the distance was no further to the parents of fat Kate) to offer himself as a husband for their industrious and virtuous daughter. The parents did not consider long; “Like and like agree together,” thought they, and so consented. Thereupon fat Kate became Harry’s wife, and drove out the two goats while her husband passed his time easily, troubling himself about no other labour than his own laziness! Only now and then he went out, because, as he said, he relished the quiet the better afterwards; and if he did not go out he lost all feeling for the rest.

Soon, however, fat Kate became no less lazy. “Dear Harry,” said she one day, “why should we sour our lives without necessity, and harass the best part of our young days? Would it not be better if we gave our two goats, which now disturb us every morning in our best sleep, to our neighbour, and let him give us in return a bee-hive which we can place behind the house in a sunny place, and afterwards need trouble no more about it? The bees need no looking after, and have not to be driven every day into the meadow, for they will fly out and return home of themselves and collect their honey without any interference on our part.”

“You have spoken like a wise woman,” replied lazy Harry; “let us pursue your plan without delay: besides, honey both tastes and nourishes better than goat’s milk, and can be kept much longer!”

The neighbour willingly gave a bee-hive in exchange for the two goats, and certainly the bees did fly unceasingly from early morning till late in the evening in and out of their hive, and filled it too with a store of the choicest honey, so that Harry was able to take out a large jar-full in the autumn.

This jar they placed on a board which was nailed to the wall in their sleeping-room; and as they feared it might be stolen from them, or that the mice might manage to get at it, fat Kate fetched a stout hazel-stick and laid it by her bed, so that she could reach it without troubling herself to get up, and drive away by these means the uninvited guests.

Lazy Harry, however, would not leave his bed till noonday; “He who rises early wastes his possessions,” he said. One morning when the bright daylight found him still in his bed, and he had just awakened from a long sleep, he said to his wife, “You women like sweets, and you have been stealing some of the honey; it were better, before you eat it all out, that we barter it away with some one for a goose.” “But not before we have a boy to take care of it,” replied the fat Kate. “Shall I distress myself about the young geese and waste my strength unnecessarily on their account?”

“Do you think,” said Harry, “that a boy will take care of them? Now-a-days the children don’t mind anybody, but act just as they think proper, because they fancy themselves wiser than their elders; just like that boy who instead of looking after the cow hunted three blackbirds.”

“Oh,” replied Kate, “he shall catch it if he does not do what I tell him. I will take a stick and give him no end of blows across the shoulders. See here, Harry,” she cried, and caught up the stick which was laid to keep away the mice. “See here, I will lay on him like this.” But unluckily, in raising the stick she hit the honey jar, and threw it down on the bed. The jar was shivered to atoms, and the beautiful honey flowed all over the ground. “There lies our goose and goose boy,” exclaimed Harry; “they will not want to be tended now. But still it is a lucky thing that the jar did not fall upon my head, so we have good reason to be contented with our fate.” So saying, he looked among the broken fragments and discovered one in which some honey was still left. “This we will eat,” said he to his wife, “and then rest awhile longer after our fright, for what does it signify if we do lie a little later than usual in bed? the day is long enough!”

“Yes, yes,” replied fat Kate, “the affair has happened at a very good time. Do you know, the snail was once invited to a wedding, but he tarried so long on the road, that he arrived at the christening instead. In front of the house he fell over the step, but all he said was Hurrying is no good.”