"I am not at all old!" said the pine-tree; "there are many much older than I."
"Where do you come from?" asked the mice, "and what do you know?" They were so dreadfully inquisitive. "Tell us about the prettiest spot on earth. Have you been there? Have you been in the larder, where there are cheeses on the shelves and hams hanging from the ceiling, where one can dance on tallow candles, and where one goes in thin and comes out fat?"
"I don't know anything about that," said the tree; "but I know the forest, where the sun shines and where the birds sing." And then it told them everything from its youth onward, and the little mice had never heard anything like it before ; they listened attentively and said:
"Dear, dear! How much you must have seen! How happy you must have been!"
"I?" said the pine-tree, and thought over what it had been telling them. "Well, they were very jolly times, after all!" And then it went on to tell them about Christmas Eve, when it was decorated with cakes and candles.
"Ah!" said the little mice, "how happy you must have been, you old pine-tree!"
"I am not at all old," said the tree; "it is only this winter that I came from the forest. I am in my full prime, I am only a little stunted in my growth."
"How delightfully you do tell stories!" said the little mice, and the next night they came with four other little mice, to hear the tree tell stories; and the more it went on telling the more distinctly it remembered everything, and it thought to itself: "They were very jolly times, after all! But they may come again, they may come again! Lumpy-Dumpy fell down the stairs and still got the princess; perhaps I can get a princess too." And the pine-tree thought of a pretty little birch-tree which grew out in the forest and which to the pine-tree was as good as a real princess.
"Who is Lumpy-Dumpy?" asked the little mice. And then the pine-tree told them the whole story; it remembered every single word of it, and the little mice were so delighted with it that they were ready to jump to the top of the tree. The following night there came a great many more mice and on the Sunday even two rats; but they said the story was not funny, and the little mice were sorry to hear this, for now they also thought less of it.
"Do you know only that one story?" asked the rats.
"Only that one," answered the tree. "I heard it on the happiest evening of my life, but I did not then know how happy I was."
"It's a very poor story! Don't you know any one with bacon and
tallow candles in it — any story from the larders?"
