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wood, when the snow lay thick and the hare sprang past; yes, even when he jumped over me; but then I did not like it. It is terribly lonely up here!"

"Piep! Piep!" said a little Mouse, and crept forward, and then came another little one. They smelt at the Fir Tree, and then slipped among the branches.

"It's horribly cold," said the two little Mice, "or else it would be comfortable here. Don't so, you old Fir Tree?"

you think "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 the earth. Have you been there? Have you been in the storeroom, 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 sweatmeats 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 came out of the wood only this winter. I'm only rather backward in my growth."

"What splendid stories you can tell!" said the little Mice.

And next night they came with four other little Mice, to hear what the Tree had to relate; and the more it said, the more clearly did it remember everything, and thought, "Those were quite merry days. But they may come again. Klumpey-Dumpey fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess. Perhaps I may marry a princess, too!" And then the Fir Tree thought of a pretty little Birch Tree that grew out in the forest; for the Fir Tree, that Birch was a real princess.

"Who's Klumpey-Dumpey?" asked the little Mice.

And then the Fir Tree told the whole story. It could remember every single word; and the little Mice were ready to leap to the very top of the tree with pleasure. Next night a great many more Mice came, and on Sunday two Rats even appeared; but these thought the story was not pretty, and the little Mice were sorry for that, for now they also did not like it so much as before.

"Do you know only one story?" asked the Rats. "Only that one," replied the Tree. "I heard that on the happiest evening of my life; I did not think then how happy I was."

"That's a very miserable story. Don't you know any about bacon and tallow candles—a storeroom story?"

"No," said the Tree.

"Then we'd rather not hear you," said the Rats.

And they went back to their own people. The little Mice at last also stayed away; and then the Tree sighed and said, “It was very nice when they sat around me, the merry little Mice, and listened when I spoke to them. Now that's past, too. But I shall remember to be pleased when they take me 'out."

But when did that happen? Why, it was one morning that people came and rummaged in the garret; the boxes were put away, and the Tree was brought out; they certainly threw him rather roughly on the floor, but a servant dragged him away at once to the stairs, where the daylight shone. "Now life is beginning again," thought the Tree. It felt the fresh air and the first sunbeams, and then it was out in the courtyard. Everything passed so quickly that the Tree quite forgot to look at itself, there was so much to look at all around. The courtyard was close to a garden, and there everything was blooming; the roses hung fresh and fragrant over the little paling, the linden trees were in blossom, and the swallows cried, "Quinze-wit! quinze-wit! my husband's come!" But it was not the Fir Tree that they meant.

"Now I shall live!" cried the Tree, rejoicingly, and spread its branches far out; but, alas! they were all withered and yellow, and it lay in the corner among nettles and weeds. The tinsel star was still upon it, and shone in the bright sunshine.

In the courtyard a couple of the merry children were playing who had danced round the Tree at Christmas time, and had rejoiced over it. One of the youngest ran up and tore off the golden star. "Look what is sticking to the ugly old Fir Tree!"

said the child, and he trod on the branches till they cracked under his boots.

And the Tree looked at all the blooming flowers and the splendor of the garden, then looked at itself, and wished it had remained in the dark corner of the garret; it thought of its fresh youth in the wood, of the merry Christmas Eve, and of the little Mice which had listened so pleasantly to the story of Klumpey-Dumpey.

"Past! past!" said the old Tree. joiced when I could have done so!

"Had I but rePast! past!"

And the servant came and chopped the Tree into little pieces; a whole bundle lay there; it blazed brightly under the great brewing copper, and it sighed deeply, and each sigh was like a little shot; and the children, who were at play there, ran up, seated themselves by the fire, looked into it, and cried "Puff! puff!" But at each explosion, which was a deep sigh, the Tree thought of a summer day in the woods, or of a winter night there, when the stars beamed; he thought of Christmas Eve and of Klumpey-Dumpey, the only story he had ever heard or knew how to tell; and thus the Tree was burned.

The boys played in the garden, and the youngest had on his breast a golden star, which the Tree had worn on its happiest evening. Now that was past, and the Tree's life was past, and the story is past, too: past! past!-and that's the way with all stories.

HANS CHRISTIAN ANDERSEN

HEN a man writes as beautiful and as interesting stories as Hans Christian Andersen has written for children, we like to know something about him; and we find that nothing that he ever wrote was much more interesting than his own life. Certainly no one who knew him while he was a child could have thought that he would ever have much chance of becoming a famous man.

He was born on April 2nd, 1805, in the city of Odense, in Denmark. The room in which he was born was kitchen, parlor, bedroom and workshop for the whole family, for the family of Andersen had little to do with, and little knowledge of how to make the best of what they had. The father was a cobbler, but a cobbler who was much more interested in other things than he was in his trade, into which he had been forced quite contrary to his own wishes. The mother was a careless, easy-going person, who was kind to her child, but had not the slightest idea of training him, or of restraining any of his odd tastes. These tastes were determined more or less by his father, who was a great reader, particularly of plays; and we see the results of this early introduction to the drama in Hans Christian Andersen throughout his life.

Little Hans Christian was a most extraordinary child. He was ugly, as he remained all his life; for

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