Page 74 - English_Spark_8

come to look at me I wonder if I shall take root here, and winter and summer stand

covered with ornaments!’
In the evening, the candles were lighted in every bough. What brightness! The Tree

trembled, so one of the tapers set fire to the foliage. It started burning. ‘Help! Help!’
cried the young ladies, and they quickly put out the fire.

Now the Tree did not even dare tremble. What a state he was in! He was so uneasy.

Suddenly both the doors opened and a troop of children rushed in. They danced
round the Tree, and one present after the other was pulled off.

What are they about? ‘thought the Tree. What is to happen now?’ And the lights
burnt down to the very branches, and as they burnt down they were put out one after
the other. Children fell upon it with such violence that all its branches cracked.

The children danced about with their beautiful playthings; no one looked at the Tree

except the old nurse, who peeped between the branches; but it was only to see if there
was a fig or an apple left that had been forgotten.

‘A story! A story!’ cried the children, drawing a little fat man towards the Tree. He
seated himself under it and said, ‘Now we are in the shade, and the Tree can listen

too. But I shall tell only one story. Now which will you have; that about Ivedy-Avedy, or
about Humpty-Dumpty, who tumbled downstairs, and yet after all came to the throne
and married the princess?’

‘Humpty-Dumpty fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess! Yes, yes! That’s
the way of the world!’ thought the Fir Tree, and believed it. Well, well! Who knows,

perhaps I may fall downstairs, too, and get a princess as wife!’
In the morning the servant and the housemaid came in. They dragged him out of the

room, and up the stairs into the loft: and here, in a dark corner, where no daylight could
enter, they left him. ‘What’s the meaning of this?’ thought the Tree.

‘What am I to do here? He leaned against the wall lost in thoughts. Days and nights
passed on, and nobody came up; and when at last somebody did come, it was only to

put some great trunks in a corner, out of the way. There stood the Tree quite hidden;
entirely forgotten.

‘Squeak! Squeak!’ said a little Mouse, at the same moment, peeping out of his hole.
And then another little one came. They smelt the Fir Tree, and rustled among the

branches.
It is dreadfully cold, said the Mouse. ‘But for that, it would be delightful here, old Fir,

wouldn’t it?’ ‘I am by no means old, said the Fir Tree’.

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