"I'm not old at all," said the Fir Tree. "There are many much older than I."
"Where do you come from?" asked the Mice. "And what do you know?" They were dreadfully inquisitive. "Tell us about the most beautiful spot on earth. Have you been there? Have you been in the store room, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from the ceiling, where one dances on tallow candles, and goes in thin and comes out fat?"
"I don't know that," replied the Tree; "but I know the wood, where the sun shines and the birds sing."
And then it told all about its youth.
And the little Mice had never heard anything of the kind; and they listened and said:
"What a number of things you have seen! How happy you must have been!"
"I?" replied the Fir Tree; and it thought about what it had told. "Yes, those were really quite happy times." But then he told of the Christmas Eve, when he had been hung with sweetmeats and candles.
"Oh!" said the little Mice, "how happy you have been, you old Fir Tree!"
"I'm not old at all," said the Tree. "I only came out of the wood this winter. I'm only rather backward in my growth."
"What splendid stories you can tell!" said the little Mice.