"Piep! Piep!" said a little Mouse, and crept forward, and then came another little one. They smelt at the Fir Tree, and then slipped among the branches. "It's horribly cold," said the two little Mice, "or else it would be comfortable here. Don't you think so, you old Fir Tree?" "I'm not old at all," said the Fir Tree. "There are many much older than I." "Where do you come from?" asked the Mice. "And what do you know?" They were dreadfully inquisitive. "Tell us about the most beautiful spot on the earth. Have you been there? Have you been in the storeroom, where cheeses lie on the shelves, and hams hang from the ceiling; where one dances on tallow candles, and goes in thin and comes out fat?" "I don't know that," replied the Tree; "but I know the wood, where the sun shines and the birds sing." And then it told all about its youth. And the little Mice had never heard anything of the kind; and they listened, and said: "What a number of things you have seen! How happy you must have been!" "I?" replied the Fir Tree; and it thought about what it had told. "Yes, those were really quite happy times." But then he told of the Christmas Eve, when he had been hung with sweatmeats and candles. "Oh!" said the little Mice, "how happy you have been, you old Fir Tree!" "I'm not old at all," said the Tree. "I came out of the wood only this winter. I'm only rather backward in my growth." "What splendid stories you can tell!" said the little Mice. And next night they came with four other little Mice, to hear what the Tree had to relate; and the more it said, the more clearly did it remember everything, and thought, "Those were quite merry days. But they may come again. Klumpey-Dumpey fell downstairs, and yet he married the princess. Perhaps I may marry a princess, too!" And then the Fir Tree thought of a pretty little Birch Tree that grew out in the forest; for the Fir Tree, that Birch was a real princess. "Who's Klumpey-Dumpey?" asked the little Mice. And then the Fir Tree told the whole story. It could remember every single word; and the little Mice were ready to leap to the very top of the tree with pleasure. Next night a great many more Mice came, and on Sunday two Rats even appeared; but these thought the story was not pretty, and the little Mice were sorry for that, for now they also did not like it so much as before. "Do you know only one story?" asked the Rats. "Only that one," replied the Tree. "I heard that on the happiest evening of my life; I did not think then how happy I was." "That's a very miserable story. Don't you know any about bacon and tallow candles--a storeroom story?" "No," said the Tree.