Scary Stories Treasury

This short story I will be blogging about this week is, Harold. Again, like the two previous times, this is from the book of Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark. I forgot to say who the author and illustrator are in the two other blogs, so I'll state them today. The author of all the Scary Stories To Tell In The Dark series is Alvin Schwartz. He has, over the years, collected numerous stories in several places for his books. The person he is working with who illustrates for the books is Stephen Gammell. By looking at the pictures he has created, they fit well into the story. The creepy/scary vibe it gives off.

Harold is about two men, Thomas and Alfred, who are working at night in a field, scaring away birds. During the day, they tended to their cows. They didn't hate their jobs, but everyday they did the same thing. Their routine became boring, so Thomas got an idea. "Let's make a doll the size of a man," With this, he was thinking of hanging up the doll, to make their jobs easier in the later hours. "It would be fun to make, and we could put it in the garden to scare the birds away."
Alfred agreed, with the exception of making it a bit of a revenge doll. The two men decided it should look like a farmer they both despised, Harold. They made the facial features out to be, as best they could do, Harold. So, sure enough, they had created a scarecrow. They put him out each night, bringing him in during the day to ensure he would not get rained on. Both Alfred and Thomas made fun of the doll, asking it questions like, "How are the crops growing, Harold?" Whenever one was upset, they would take their anger out on him by kicking or punching him. Other times, since they were sick of the stew they had for supper, they'd often smear it on his face.
One night, while the men were eating their stew, and smeared some on Harold's face, he grunted. Of course, they were confused on what the noise was. Thomas was the one who wiped the food on his face, so he told Alfred, the one who questioned it, that it was him. Alfred didn't believe him, for obvious reasons. Thomas was contemplating plans to get rid of the odd scarecrow, but it was a one sided thought.
They left Harold alone for some time, maybe hoping the grunt didn't really come from him and was one of the cows or something. Now and then, he grunted. They debunked it as a rodent that had crawled inside of him, so they continued their vicious ways with him.
Soon, things began getting even weirder with Harold. They both agreed, but quickly brushed it off and thought there really was nothing to be afraid of. One day they were going somewhere and left their hut. Thomas looked back to the hut to look for Alfred, Harold was on the roof of the hut. Thomas was confused since he only saw him and not Alfred.  He watched closely as Harold knelt down only to stretch out bloody skin to dry in the sun.       Summary, character analysis