HE LET FALL THE BUNCH OF KEYS
Ripe Nuts in their Cups
THE OGRE
HIS time I am going to talk about myself, to tell you something that really happened to me. If you do not believe this you must not listen. I can only tell this story to children who are quite sure that I speak the truth.
I was between six and seven years old and still learning my letters at school. One fine Sunday afternoon in September I went with five or six of my schoolfellows into the Aulnes wood.
It was the nut season, and we knew there were a number of nut-trees in the wood.
After gathering nuts for some time on the edge of the wood, it happened that in going from tree to tree we gradually separated from each other. Before I became aware of it, I was deep in the wood. There I discovered a sort of hedge where the nuts grew so plentifully that I could hardly believe my eyes.