“Where were you then?” said Carl.
“On the outside of a great evergreen oak in a forest of Valencia. I was a piece of its bark. I wish I was there now. But the outer bark of those trees gets dead after a while; and then the country-people come and cut it off and sell it out of the land.”
“And were you dead and sold off?” said Carl.
“To be sure I was. As fine a piece of cork as ever grew. I had been growing nine years since the tree was cut before.”
“Well but tell me your story,” said Carl.
“I tell you,” said the little cork boat, “I haven’t any story. There was nothing to be seen in the forest but the great shades of the kingly oaks, and the birds that revelled in the solitudes of their thick branches, and the martens, and such-like. It was fine there, though. The north winds, which the pine cone says so shake the heads of the fir-trees in his country, never trouble anything in mine. The snow never lay on the glossy leaves of my parent oak. But no Norrska lived there; or if there did, I never knew her. Nobody came near us, unless a stray peasant now and then passed through. And when I was cut down, I was packed up and shipped off to England, and shifted from hand to hand, till John Krinken took it into his head, years ago, to make a sort of cork jacket of me, with one or two of my companions; and I have been tumbling about in his possession ever since. He has done for me now. I am prettier than I ever was before, but I shall never be of any use again. I shall try the water, I suppose, again a few times for your pleasure, and then probably I shall try the fire, for the same.”
“The fire! No, indeed,” said Carl. “I’m not going to burn you up. I am going to see you sail this minute, since you won’t do anything else. You old stocking, you may wait till I come back. I don’t believe you’ve got much of a story.”
And Carl sprang up and went forthwith to the beach, to find a quiet bit of shallow water in some nook where it would be safe to float his cork boat. But the waves were beating pretty high that day, and the tide coming in, and, altogether there was too much commotion on the beach to suit the little ‘Santa Claus,’ as he had named her. So Carl discontentedly came back, and set up the little boat to dry, and turned him to the old stocking.