to cut him down. And when he was being carried away on the sledge he lay
wondering, _so_ contentedly, whether he should be the mast of a ship or
part of a fine city house. But when they came to the town he was taken
out and set upright in a tub and placed on the edge of a path in a row
of other fir trees, all small, but none so little as he. And then the
Little Fir Tree began to see life.

People kept coming to look at the trees and to take them away. But
always when they saw the Little Fir Tree they shook their heads and
said,--

"It is too little, too little."

Until, finally, two children came along, hand in hand, looking
carefully at all the small trees. When they saw the Little Fir Tree they
cried out,--

"We'll take this one; it is just little enough!"

They took him out of his tub and carried him away, between them. And the
happy Little Fir Tree spent all his time wondering what it could be that
he was just little enough for; he knew it could hardly be a mast or a
house, since he was going away with children.

He kept wondering, while they took him in through some big doors, and
set him up in another tub, on the table, in a bare little room. Very
soon they went away, and came back again with a big basket, which they
carried between them. Then some pretty ladies, with white caps on their
heads and white aprons over their blue dresses, came bringing little
parcels. The children took things out of the basket and began to play