beautiful place in the world. Is that where you come from? Have
you been in the storeroom, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and
hams hang from the ceiling, where one dances on tallow candles,
and where one goes in thin and comes out fat?'

'I know nothing about that,' said the tree. 'But I know the
wood, where the sun shines, and the birds sing.' And then it
told them all about its young days, and the little mice had never
heard anything like that before, and they listened with all their
ears, and said: 'Oh, how much you have seen! How lucky you have
been!'

'I?' said the fir-tree, and then it thought over what it had told
them. 'Yes, on the whole those were very happy times.' But then
it went on to tell them about Christmas Eve, when it had been
adorned with sweet-meats and tapers.

'Oh!' said the little mice, 'how lucky you have been, you old
fir-tree!'

'I'm not at all old' said the tree. 'I only came from the wood
this winter. I am only a little backward, perhaps, in my
growth.'

'How beautifully you tell stories!' said the little mice. And
next evening they came with four others, who wanted to hear the
tree's story, and it told still more, for it remembered
everything so clearly and thought: 'Those were happy times! But
they may come again. Humpty dumpty fell downstairs, and yet he
married a princess; perhaps I shall also marry a princess!' And