"Here another angel interrupted the little narrator with the question:
'Do you mean the nut-tree in Dorbstadt?' and, receiving an answer in the
affirmative, he cried: 'I, Master, I am that old carpenter, and during my
last summers, I had no greater pleasure than to sit by the Fresh Spring
under the nut-tree, and while I smoked my pipe to think of my old wife,
whom I was soon to find again with you. In the autumn, too, many a dry
brown leaf found its way among the more expensive tobacco ones.'

"'And I,' cried a former peddler, breaking into the carpenter's story,
'I assuredly have not forgotten the nut-tree, where I always set down my
pack when my shoulders were nearly broken, and under whose shade I used
to rest my weary limbs before entering the village.'

"'I, too! How often have I stopped under the spreading branches of that
tree on a hot summer day and found refreshment!' cried a former post-
messenger of Dorbstadt. A porter who had also lived there added his
praises.

"'But the nut-trees were cut down many years ago,' the latter added.

"'I saw it,' cried the spirit of little Hannele, and one heard from her
tone how she deplored it. 'They were felled when the Poor-house was
given up. 'But the great Son of God has now heard what he wished to
know.'

"'No, no,' the Saviour answered, 'I should still like to know what
became of the wood of these trees.'

"The voices of several angels were heard at the same moment, for many
of the poor weavers of Dorbstadt were to be found in the Heavenly