“Where do you come from?” asked the mice, who were full of curiosity; “and what do you know? What is the most beautiful [[56]]place on earth that you know about? Do tell us all about it! Have you been in the storeroom, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from the ceiling? One can run about on tallow candles there. Ah! that is the place where one goes in thin and comes out fat.”
“I know nothing about that,” said the fir tree; “but I know of the wood, where the sun shines and the birds sing.”
And then the tree told the little mice all about its youth. The mice had never heard anything like that before, and they listened with all their ears, and said: “How much you have seen! How happy you must have been!”
“Happy!” exclaimed the fir tree; and then, as it thought over what it had been telling them, it added, “Ah, yes, those were happy days.”
But when it went on and told them about Christmas Eve, and how it had been adorned with sweetmeats and candles, the mice repeated once more, “How happy, how very fortunate you have been, you old fir tree!” [[57]]
“I am not old at all,” replied the tree. “I only came from the forest this winter. I am now checked in my growth.”
“What splendid stories you do know!” said the little mice. And the next night they came with four others, to have them hear what the tree had to tell. The more it talked, the more it remembered, and then it thought to itself: “Yes, those were happy days, but they may come again. Humpty Dumpty fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess. Perhaps I, too, may marry a princess.” And the tree thought of a pretty little birch tree that grew in the forest; she was a princess, a real princess, to the fir tree.
“Who is Humpty Dumpty?” asked the little mice. And then the tree told the whole story; it could remember every single word. And the little mice were so delighted with it that they were ready to jump with joy up to the very top of the tree. The next night a great many more mice made their appearance, and on Sunday two rats came; but they did not care about the story at all, and [[58]]that troubled the mice, for it made them also think less of it.
“Is that the only story you know?” asked the rats.
“The only one,” answered the tree. “I heard it on the happiest evening of my life; but I did not know I was so happy at the time.”