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.
