"Where are they all going?" asked the Fir Tree. "They are not greater
than I--indeed, one of them was much smaller. Why do they keep all
their branches? Whither are they taken?"
"We know that! We know that!" chirped the Sparrows. "Yonder in the
town we looked in at the windows. We know where they go. Oh! they are
dressed up in the greatest pomp and splendor that can be imagined.
We have looked in at the windows, and have perceived that they are
planted in the middle of a warm room, and adorned with the most
beautiful things--gilt apples, honey-cakes, playthings, and many
hundred of candles."
"And then?" asked the Fir Tree, and trembled through all its branches.
"And then? What happens then?"
"Why, we have not seen anything more. But it was incomparable."
"Perhaps I may be destined to tread this glorious path one day!" cried
the Fir Tree, rejoicingly. "That is even better than traveling across
the sea. How painfully I long for it! If it were only Christmas now!
Now I am great and grown up, like the rest who were led away last
year. Oh, if I were only on the carriage! If I were only in the warm
room, among all the pomp and splendor! And then? Yes, then something
even better will come, something far more charming, or else why should
they adorn me so? There must be something grander, something greater
still to come; but what? Oh! I'm suffering, I'm longing! I don't know
myself what is the matter with me!"
"Rejoice in us," said Air and Sunshine.
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