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 them, 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
recognized; and then they were laid in carts, and the horses dragged
them out of the woods.

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 off he went.

"Rejoice in thy growth!