In the morning the servants entered the room.
“Now the finery starts again,” thought the tree, but they dragged it out of the living room, up the stairs, into the attic, and there, in a dark corner where there was no daylight, they left it. “What’s the meaning of this?” thought the tree. “I wonder what I’m supposed to do here? I wonder what I’ll hear here?” And it leaned up against the wall and thought and thought.—And it had plenty of time because days and nights passed. No one came up there, and when someone finally did come, it was to put some big crates in a corner. The tree stood quite out-of-sight. You would think that it had been completely forgotten.
“Now it’s winter outside,” thought the tree. “The earth is hard and covered with snow. The people couldn’t plant me, so I’ll stay sheltered here until spring! That’s very smart! How good people are! If it just wasn’t so dark and lonely here—not even a little rabbit. It was nice out in the woods with snow on the ground when the rabbit jumped by. Yes, even when it jumped right over me, but I didn’t like it then. Still, up here it’s really lonely.”
“Squeak, squeak!” said a little mouse just then and popped out, and then another one came. They sniffed at the spruce tree and crept through the branches.
“It’s awfully cold,” the little mice said. “Otherwise it’s nice being here. Isn’t that right, you old spruce tree?”
“I’m not old at all,” said the spruce tree. “There are many who are much older than I am.”
“Where do you come from?” asked the mice, “and what do you know?” They were dreadfully curious. “Tell us about the most beautiful place on earth! Have you been there? Have you been in the kitchen where there’s cheese lying on the shelves, and there are hams hanging from the ceiling? Where you dance on tallow candles and go in skinny and come out fat?”
“I don’t know about that,” said the tree, “but I know the woods, where the sun shines, and where the birds sing.” And then he told all about his childhood, and the little mice had never before heard anything like that, and they listened carefully and said, “Oh, you have seen so much! How happy you have been!”
“Me?” said the spruce tree, and thought about what it had said. “Yes, they were actually pretty good times,” and then it told about Christmas Eve, when it was decorated with cakes and candles.
“Oh,” said the little mice, “how happy you have been, you old spruce tree!”
“I am not at all old,” said the tree. “I just came from the forest this very winter. I’m in the prime of life. I’m just not growing right now!”
“You’re a good storyteller,” said the little mice, and the next night they brought four other little mice to hear the tree tell stories. The more it talked, the clearer it remembered everything, and it thought, “they really were fun times, but they can come again. They can come! Clumpy Dumpy fell down the stairs and still got the princess, maybe I can get a princess too.” And then the spruce thought about such a lovely little birch tree that grew out in the forest—that was a truly lovely princess to the spruce tree.
“Who is Clumpy Dumpy?” asked the little mice. And then the spruce tree told the whole story. It remembered every single word, and the little mice almost climbed to the top of the tree in pure pleasure. The next night even more mice arrived, and on Sunday two rats, but they said that the story wasn’t funny, and that saddened the little mice who then also thought less of it.
“Is that the only story you know?” asked the rats.
“The only one,” the tree answered. “I heard it the happiest evening of my life, but at that time I didn’t realize how happy I was.”
“It’s an extraordinarily bad story. Don’t you know any about bacon and tallow candles? No pantry stories?”
“No,” said the tree.
“Well, we’ll say thanks anyway then,” said the rats and went home to their own concerns.
Finally the little mice went away too, and the tree sighed. “It was also rather nice when those nimble little mice sat around me and listened to what I said. But now that is over too—but I will enjoy myself when I’m taken out of here again!”
But when would that happen? Well, there finally came a morning when people came up to the attic and puttered around. Boxes were moved, and the tree was pulled out; true, they threw it rather hard on the floor, but soon a man dragged it right towards the stairs, where there was daylight.
“Now life begins again,” thought the tree. It felt the fresh air, the first sunbeam, and then it was out in the yard. Everything went so quickly; the tree completely forgot to look at itself, there was so much to see all around. The yard was right next to a garden, and everything was blooming there. The roses hung fresh and fragrantly over the little railing, the linden trees were blooming, and the swallows flew around and sang, “tweet sweet, my husband’s come,” but it wasn’t the spruce tree they meant.
“Now I’ll live!” it rejoiced, and spread out its branches. Oh, they were all withered and yellow, and now it was lying in a corner between weeds and nettles. The gold paper star was still sitting in the top and was shining in the clear sunlight.
In the yard a couple of the cheerful children, who had danced around the tree and been so happy with it, were playing. One of the smallest ran over and tore off the gold star.
“Look what’s still sitting on the ugly old Christmas tree,” he said and trampled on the branches so they cracked under his boots.
And the tree looked at all the flowers and freshness in the garden. It looked at itself, and it wished it had stayed in its dark corner in the attic. It thought about its fresh youth in the forest, the wonderful Christmas Eve, and the small mice, who had so happily listened to the story about Clumpy Dumpy.
“Over, all is over,” said the poor tree. “If only I had been happy when I could have been. Over, all over.”
And the servant came and chopped the tree into small pieces. A whole bundle lay there. It flamed up beautifully under the big boiler, and it sighed so deeply, each sigh was like a little shot. That’s why the children who were playing ran in and sat in front of the fire, looked into it, and cried out, “Pop!” With every crack, that really was a deep sigh, the tree thought about a summer day in the forest, and a winter night out there when the stars were shining. It thought about Christmas Eve and Clumpy Dumpy, the only story it had heard and could tell—and then the tree burned out.
The boys played in the yard, and the smallest wore the gold star that the tree had worn on its happiest evening. Now it was over, and the tree was gone and the story too. Over, all over, as all stories are.
IT’S PERFECTLY TRUE!
“IT’S A TERRIBLE STORY!” said a hen over in the part of town where the event didn’t happen. “A terrible story from a henhouse ! I don’t dare sleep alone tonight. It’s a good thing there are so many of us on the roost.” And then she told the story so the feathers stood on end on the other hens, and the rooster let his comb fall. It’s perfectly true!
But we’ll start at the beginning, and that was in a henhouse in another part of town. The sun went down, and the hens flew up. One of them—she had white feathers and short legs—laid her prescribed eggs and was, as a hen, respectable in every way. As she settled on the perch, she preened herself with her beak, and a little feather fell out.
“There went that one,” she said. “The more I preen myself, the more beautiful I will surely become.” And she said it in fun, because she was the cheerful soul among the hens and otherwise, as mentioned, very respectable. Then she fell asleep.
It was dark all around. One hen sat next to the other, and the one sitting next to her wasn’t sleeping. She heard, and she didn’t hear—as you must in this world to live in peace and quiet—so to her other neighbor she just had to say: “Did you hear what was said here? I’ll mention no names, but there’s a hen here who will pluck out her feathers for vanity’s sake. If I were a rooster, I would despise her!”
Right above the hens the owl was sitting with her owl
husband and little owly children. That family has sharp ears, and they heard every word that the neighbor hen uttered. They rolled their eyes, and mother owl fanned herself with her wings. “Just don’t listen! But you did hear what was said, of course. I heard it with my own ears, and you have to hear a lot before your ears fall off. One of the hens has forgotten herself to the extent that she is plucking out all her feathers right in front of the rooster!”
“Little pitchers have big ears,” said father owl. “This isn’t fit for the children.”
“I’ll just tell the neighbor owl. She’s such a respectable owl to whoop it up with.” And away flew mother.
“Whoooo, whoooo” they both hooted, over to the neighbor’s pigeon coop. “Have you heard? Have you heard? Whoooo? There’s a hen who has plucked out all her feathers for the sake of a rooster. She’s freezing to death, if she isn’t dead already!”
“Where? where?” cooed the pigeons.
“In the yard across the street. I’ve as good as seen it myself. It’s really almost unfit to tell, but it’s perfectly true!”
“Truuuu, truuuu, every word,” cooed the pigeons, and cooed down to its hen yard. “There’s a hen—some say two—that plucked out all their feathers so they wouldn’t look like the others and in order to attract the rooster. It’s a daring game because you can catch cold and die of fever, and both of them are dead!”
“Wake up! wake up!” the rooster crowed and flew up on the board fence. He still had sleep in his eyes, but he crowed anyway. “Three hens have died from a broken heart because of a rooster! They plucked out all their feathers! It’s a terrible story, and I don’t want to keep it to myself—pass it on!”
“Pass it on!” peeped the bats, and the hens clucked, and the roosters crowed: “Pass it on! Pass it on!” and the story flew from henhouse to henhouse and finally back to the place where it had started.
“It’s said that there were five hens who plucked all their feathers out to show who had gotten the thinnest for the love of a rooster, and they pecked at each other until they were bloody and fell dead, to the sorrow and shame of their families and a big loss for their owner!”
And the hen, who had lost the little feather, naturally didn’t recognize her own story, and since she was a respectable hen, she said, “I despise those hens! But there are more of that type. Things like this shouldn’t be hushed up, and I’ll do my best to see that it gets into the papers so that everyone in the country will hear about it. Those hens deserve it and so do their families!”
And the story got into the papers and was printed, and it’s perfectly true: one little feather really can become five hens!
THE DUNG BEETLE
THE EMPEROR’S HORSE HAD gold horseshoes. A golden shoe on each foot.
Why did he have golden shoes?
He was the most beautiful animal. He had delicate legs, wise eyes, and a mane that hung like a silk ribbon around his neck. He had carried his master through the fog of battle and rain of bullets, and heard the shots sizzle and sing. He had bitten, kicked and fought along when the enemy pressed forward. With his emperor on his back, he had jumped over the charging enemy’s horse and saved his emperor’s crown of red gold, saved his emperor’s life, which was more than gold, and that’s why the emperor’s horse had gold shoes. A golden shoe on each foot.
And the dung beetle crept out.
“First the big ones, then the small,” he said. “Although it’s not size that matters.” And he stretched out his thin legs.
“What do you want?” asked the blacksmith.
“Gold shoes!” answered the dung beetle.
“You must be out of your mind,” said the smithy. “You want golden shoes too?”
“Gold shoes!” said the dung beetle. “Am I not just as good as the big beast that is waited on, curried, watched over, fed and watered? Don’t I also belong to the emperor’s stable?”
“But why did the horse get golden shoes?” asked the blacksmith. “Don’t you understand that?”
“Understand? I understand that it’s contempt for me,” said the dung beetle. “It’s an insult—and so now I will go out into the wide world.”
“Bug off!” said the smithy.
“Coarse fellow,” said the dung beetle, and then he went outside, flew a short distance, and came to a lovely little flower garden, where there was the smell of roses and lavender.
“Isn’t it nice here?” asked one of the little ladybugs, who flew about with black dots on its red armor-plated wings. “How sweet it smells, and how pretty it is here.”
“I am used to better!” said the dung beetle. “Do you call this pretty? There isn’t even a dunghill here!”
He went on a bit further, into the shadow of a big stock plant. There was a caterpillar crawling on it.
“How lovely the world is!” said the caterpillar. “The sun is so warm! Everything is so pleasant. And when I shall one day fall asleep and die, as it’s called, I’ll wake up and be a butterfly!”
“Who do you think you are?” said the dung beetle. “Flying around like butterflies! I come from the emperor’s stable, but no one there, not even the emperor’s favorite horse, who wears my castoff golden shoes, has such imaginings! Get wings! Fly! Yes, now we’re flying!” And the dung beetle flew. “I don’t like getting annoyed, but I am annoyed anyway.”
Then he plumped down on a large lawn where he lay for awhile and then fell asleep.
Gracious! What a cloud-burst! The dung beetle awoke from the splashing and wanted to crawl right into the ground, but he couldn’t. He flipped over and swam on his stomach and his back. Flying was out of the question. He was sure he would not escape the lawn alive. He lay where he was and remained lying there.
When it let up a little, and the dung beetle had blinked the water from his eyes, he glimpsed something white. It was linen laid out to bleach. He crept over to it and crawled into a fold of the wet cloth. It certainly wasn’t like lying in the warm dung in the stable, but there wasn’t anything better here, and so he remained there a whole day and night while the rain continued. He crawled out the next morning, very annoyed at the climate.
There were two frogs sitting on the linen. Their clear eyes shone with pure pleasure. “What wonderful weather!” said one. “How refreshing it is! And the linen retains the water so well! My hind legs are ticklingjust as when I’m going to swim.”
“I wonder,” said the other, “if the swallow who flies so widely around has found a better climate than ours on its many trips abroad? Such rough weather and such rain. It’s like lying in a wet ditch. If you don’t like this, then you really don’t love your country.”
“You haven’t ever been in the emperor’s stable, have you?” asked the dung beetle. “The wetness there is both warm and spicy! I’m used to that. It’s my climate, but you can’t take it with you when you travel. Isn’t there any hotbed here in the garden, where people of quality like me could go in and feel at home?”
But the frogs didn’t understand him, or didn’t want to understand him.
“I never ask a question more than once,” said the dung beetle when he had asked three times without being answered.
He walked on until he came to a piece of broken pottery. It shouldn’t have been there, but the way it was lying, it gave shelter. Several earwig families lived here. They don’t need a lot of space, just lots of company and parties. The females are especially maternal, and so each of them thought her own children to be the prettiest and smartest.
“Our son has gotten engaged,” said one mother. “The dear innocent! His greatest goal is to one day crawl into the ear of a minister. He’s so lovably childish, and the engagement keeps him from excesses. It’s such a joy for a mother!”
“Our son,” said another mother, “was no sooner hatched than he was having a good time. He’s so full of energy! He’s sowing his wild oats. That’s a great joy for a mother! Isn’t that right, Mr. Dung Beetle?” They recognized the stranger by his shape.
“You’re both right,” said the dung beetle, and he was invited in, as far in as he was able to get under the pottery shard.
“You have to see my little earwig!” said a third, and then a fourth of the mothers. “He’s the most lovable child and so much fun! They’re only naughty when they have a tummy ache, but you get that easily at their age.”
And every mother talked about her children, and the children talked too and used the little fork in their tails to pull at the dung beetle’s whiskers.
“They think up all sorts of things, the little imps!” said the mothers, reeking of motherly love, but this bored the dung beetle, and so he asked if it was far to the hotbed.
“It’s way out in the world, on the other side of the ditch,” said the earwig, “I hope none of my children ever go so far, or it would kill me.”
“I’m going to try to get that far though,” said the dung beetle and left without saying good bye, which is the most elegant.
By the ditch he met several of his relations, all dung beetles.
“This is where we live,” they said. “It’s pretty cozy here. May we invite you down here where it’s warm and wet? Your trip must have tired you.”
“It certainly has!” said the dung beetle. I was lying on linen in the rain, and cleanliness especially takes a lot out of me. I’ve also gotten arthritis in a wing joint from standing in a draft under a pottery shard. It’s really refreshing to be amongst my own kind again!”
“Maybe you came from the hotbed?” asked the oldest one.
“Higher up than that!” said the dung beetle. “I come from the emperor’s stable, where I was born with golden shoes on my feet. I am traveling on a secret mission, and you can’t ask me about it because I won’t tell you.”
Then the dung beetle settled down in the rich mud. Three young female dung beetles were sitting there. They giggled because they didn’t know what to say.
“They’re not engaged,” said their mother, and then they giggled again, but from shyness.