At the foot of the lawn which stretched before the house where he lived, stood an oak-tree. This tree was so old that the trunk was quite hollow, and Teddy could squeeze inside it by making himself small. It was here that all his wonderful adventures began. He always went to the oak every morning, vaguely hoping at sometime to catch sight of a belated elf, who might be lurking about after the day had really begun. It had been raining for two days, and Teddy had been kept indoors with a cold, which he hated very much, so on the third morning, when Mamma allowed him to run out for a little while he made all haste to the oak-tree, because he felt that something would be changed and he was quite disappointed to find everything looking just as usual. But when he went inside, however, there was a difference; a small trap door, with a brass ring in it, had appeared in the bottom of the tree. Teddy was delighted, as he was sure the door had not been there two days ago, and he couldn't imagine what it was for. In a minute he was trying to get it open, tugging at the brass ring as hard as he could. It was a tough struggle, but the door yielded at last, and so suddenly that Teddy fell over backward out through the opening of the tree. He didn't mind that, and was up in a jiffy, looking down the black hole which he had uncovered. At first he couldn't see anything, then gradually made out some steps, at the bottom of which it seemed to be lighter. Ted hesitated, it was dark at the top, and he didn't know how far away the light might be, but he made up his mind to go down, and he went cautiously, backward, as on a ladder. It was a long flight. When he reached the bottom step at last, he saw that the light came from an opening at the end of the passage, and was much farther off than it looked, but he kept on and when at last he arrived where it was brighter, he found himself in a new and strange country. To his surprise everything was blue,--grass, leaves on the trees, flowers, all a deep, lovely blue, like the sea. Teddy stared about in much astonishment. There was no one in sight, but he heard a sort of soft, humming sound, like people singing. It seemed to come from the left, so he ran off in that direction, and on turning a corner, saw a hill in front of him, up which he climbed, and there the funniest sight met his eyes. Below, in a round clearing, was an open-air workshop. Tools of all kinds stood about, and in the center of a furnace in full blast, and hard at work were hundreds of little, blue gnomes. They were all hammering, sawing, and planing, making wooden tables and chairs of a very curious kind that Teddy had never seen before. They kept up an odd, chanting song, as they worked, and this was what Teddy had heard. The words were something like these: "Let us sing as we work, As hard as we're able, Let us sing as we finish Each chair, and each table.