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Holiday adventures

"

"Whom do you mean, darling?" said mother anxiously.

Then Trudel groaned and spoke again in her sleep. She uttered the following deep and mystic words: "Gustel, bring in the shark, please; mother can't eat the thimble."

Now, wasn't that a funny thing for a little girl to say in her sleep. Mother was so amused that she wrote the words down on the spot, so as not to forget them, and she troubled her head no more with thoughts of the wild huntsman; indeed the spectres of the night vanished as they always do vanish at a joke!

Some days passed, before the children visited the oak-tree again. When they did so, they found that an enormous branch had been broken off, and lay across the green pathway.

"O dear me," said Lottchen, "our poor little man. I hope it hasn't hurt him!"

"It must have happened on that windy night," said Trudel.

"It was my own fault, it was entirely my own fault," said a queer little voice, and there was the oak-tree man sitting in his house smoking a reed pipe. His arm was bound up with green fern leaves. "Yes, it was my own fault; the wind excited me, and stirred my sap (that's my blood you know)—I stretched out my arms towards her—one embrace—one blessed moment in which to call her mine—and here you see me a cripple for ever!"

"O poor thing, we are so sorry for you," said the children.

"Never mind, it heals easily," said the oak man, "but, alas, my beauty and my symmetry are gone for ever!"

"Your leaves are so nice and fresh; and your house is so pretty; why, you have got furniture in it," said the children in astonishment.

"Such a pretty oak table and beautifully carved chairs; where did you get them from?" asked Lottchen.

"I made them myself out of my own wood; it cheered me up a bit," said the little man. "One must do something, you know; looks snug, doesn't it? Ah, well—I have known love, that is something to be proud of; I have experienced the most pleasing of human emotions. Have you ever been in love?" he said inquisitively, looking at Trudel, who looked big enough in his eyes.

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