Previous - Next

THE FIR TREE

Out in the woods stood a nice little Fir Tree. The place he had was a very
good one: the sun shone on him: as to fresh air, there was enough of that, and
round him grew many large-sized comrades, pines as well as firs. But the
little Fir wanted so very much to be a grown-up tree.

He did not think of the warm sun and of the fresh air; he did not care for the
little cottage children that ran about and prattled when they were in the
woods looking for wild-strawberries. The children often came with a whole
pitcher full of berries, or a long row of them threaded on a straw, and sat
down near the young tree and said, "Oh, how pretty he is! What a nice little
fir!" But this was what the Tree could not bear to hear.

At the end of a year he had shot up a good deal, and after another year he was
another long bit taller; for with fir trees one can always tell by the shoots
how many years old they are.

"Oh! Were I but such a high tree as the others are," sighed he. "Then I should
be able to spread out my branches, and with the tops to look into the wide
world! Then would the birds build nests among my branches: and when there was
a breeze, I could bend with as much stateliness as the others!"

Neither the sunbeams, nor the birds, nor the red clouds which morning and
evening sailed above him, gave the little Tree any pleasure.

In winter, when the snow lay glittering on the ground, a hare would often come
leaping along, and jump right over the little Tree. Oh, that made him so
angry! But two winters were past, and in the third the Tree was so large that
the hare was obliged to go round it. "To grow and grow, to get older and be
tall," thought the Tree--"that, after all, is the most delightful thing in the
world!"

In autumn the wood-cutters always came and felled some of the largest trees.
This happened every year; and the young Fir Tree, that had now grown to a very
comely size, trembled at the sight; for the magnificent great trees fell to
the earth with noise and cracking, the branches were lopped off, and the trees
looked long and bare; they were hardly to be recognised; and then they were
laid in carts, and the horses dragged them out of the wood.

Where did they go to? What became of them?

In spring, when the swallows and the storks came, the Tree asked them, "Don't
you know where they have been taken? Have you not met them anywhere?"

The swallows did not know anything about it; but the Stork looked musing,
nodded his head, and said, "Yes; I think I know; I met many ships as I was
flying hither from Egypt; on the ships were magnificent masts, and I venture
to assert that it was they that smelt so of fir. I may congratulate you, for
they lifted themselves on high most majestically!"

"Oh, were I but old enough to fly across the sea! But how does the sea look in
reality? What is it like?"

"That would take a long time to explain," said the Stork, and with these words

Previous - Next