ch they hung little nets, cut out of
colored paper; every net was filled with sweetmeats; golden apples and
walnuts hung down, as if they grew there, and more than a hundred little
candles, red, white, and blue, were fastened to the different boughs.
Dolls that looked exactly like real people--the tree had never seen such
before--swung among the foliage, and high on the summit of the Tree was
fixed a tinsel star. It was splendid, particularly splendid.

"This evening," said all, "this evening it will shine."

"Oh," thought the Tree, "that it were evening already! Oh, that the
lights may be soon lit up! When may that be done? I wonder if trees will
come out of the forest to look at me? Will the sparrows fly against the
panes? Shall I grow fast here, and stand adorned in summer and winter?"

Yes, he did not guess badly. But he had a complete backache from mere
longing, and the backache is just as bad for a Tree as the headache for
a person.

At last the candles were lighted. What a brilliance, what splendor! The
Tree trembled so in all its branches that one of the candles set fire to
a green twig, and it was scorched.

"Heaven preserve us!" cried the young ladies; and they hastily put the
fire out.

Now the Tree might not even tremble. Oh, that was terrible! It was so
afraid of setting fire to some of its ornaments, and it was quite
bewildered with all the brilliance. And now the folding doors were
thrown open, and a number of children rushed in as if they would have
overturned the whole Tree; the older people followed more deliberately.
The little ones stood quite silent, but only for a minute; then they
shouted till the room rang: they danced gleefully round the Tree, and
one present after another was plucked from it.

"What are they about?" thought the Tree. "What's going to be done?"

And the candles burned down to the twigs, and as they burned down they
were extinguished, and then the children received permission to plunder
the Tree. Oh! they rushed in upon it, so that every branch cracked
again: if it had not been fastened by the top and by the golden star to
the ceiling, it would have fallen down.

The children danced about with their pretty toys. No one looked at the
Tree except one old man, who came up and peeped among the branches, but
only to see if a fig or an apple had not been forgotten.

"A story! A story!" shouted the children; and they drew a little fat man
toward the tree; and he sat down just