“Henny Penny!” cried some. “Humpty Dumpty!” cried others; and there was a great uproar. But the fir tree kept silent and thought: “What am I supposed to do now? Have I nothing to do with all this?” [[53]]But it had already been in the entertainment, and had played out its part.
Then the old man told the story of Humpty Dumpty,—how he fell downstairs, but soon got up again, and married a princess. And the children clapped their hands and cried, “Another! another!” for they wanted to hear the story of Henny Penny too; but this time they got only Humpty Dumpty. The fir tree stood quiet and thoughtful. The birds in the forest had never told anything like that,—how Humpty Dumpty fell downstairs, and yet married a princess.
“Ah, yes, that is the way it happens in the world, I suppose,” thought the fir tree. And it believed the story because such a nice man had told it.
“Well,” it thought, “who knows? Perhaps I shall fall downstairs, too, and marry a princess”; and it looked forward eagerly to the next evening, expecting to be again decked out with candles and toys, tinsel and fruit. “To-morrow I will not tremble,” thought the tree; “I will enjoy to the full [[54]]all my splendor, and I shall hear the story of Humpty Dumpty again, and perhaps Henny Penny too.” And the tree stood silent and lost in thought all night.
In the morning the servants came in. “Now,” thought the tree, “all the decking me out will begin again.” But they dragged it out of the room and upstairs to the garret, and threw it on the floor in a dark corner where no daylight shone, and there they left it. “What does this mean?” thought the tree. “What am I to do here? What is there for me to hear in a place like this?” and it leaned against the wall, and thought and thought.
And it had time enough to think, for days and nights passed and no one came near it; and when at last some one did come, it was only to put some great boxes into a corner. So the tree was completely hidden from sight; it seemed as if it had been quite forgotten.
“It is winter now out of doors,” thought the tree. “The ground is hard and covered [[55]]with snow, so that people cannot plant me yet. That is doubtless why I am left here under cover till the spring comes. How thoughtful and kind everybody is to me! Still, I wish it were not so dark here, and so terribly lonely, with not even a little hare to look at. How pleasant it was out in the forest while the snow lay on the ground, when the hare would run by—yes, and jump over me, too; but I did not like it at all then. Oh, it is terribly lonely here!”
“Squeak, squeak!” said a little mouse, stealing out of his hole and creeping cautiously toward the tree; then came another, and they both sniffed at the fir tree, and crept in and out between its branches.
“Oh, it is very cold!” said the little mouse. “If it were not, we should be very comfortable here, shouldn’t we, old fir tree?”
“I am not old at all,” said the fir tree. “There are many who are much older than I am.”