Often they found a whole basketful and strung strawberries on a straw ; they would sit down by the little fir-tree and say , ` What a pretty little one this is ! ' The tree did not like that at all . By the next year it had grown a whole ring taller , and the year after that another ring more , for you can always tell a fir-tree 's age from its rings . ` Oh ! if I were only a great tree like the others ! ' sighed the little fir-tree , ` then I could stretch out my branches far and wide and look out into the great world ! The birds would build their nests in my branches , and when the wind blew I would bow to it politely just like the others ! ' It took no pleasure in the sunshine , nor in the birds , nor in the rose-coloured clouds that sailed over it at dawn and at sunset . Then the winter came , and the snow lay white and sparkling all around , and a hare would come and spring right over the little fir-tree , which annoyed it very much . But when two more winters had passed the fir-tree was so tall that the hare had to run round it . ` Ah ! to grow and grow , and become great and old ! that is the only pleasure in life , ' thought the tree . In the autumn the woodcutters used to come and hew some of the tallest trees ; this happened every year , and the young fir-tree would shiver as the magnificent trees fell crashing and crackling to the ground , their branches hewn off , and the great trunks left bare , so that they were almost unrecognisable . But then they were laid on waggons and dragged out of the wood by horses . ` Where are they going ? What will happen to them ? ' In spring , when the swallows and storks came , the fir-tree asked them , ` Do you know where they were taken ? Have you met them ? ' The swallows knew nothing of them , but the stork nodded his head thoughtfully , saying , ' I think I know .
I met many new ships XXXXX I flew from Egypt ; there were splendid masts on the ships .
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