And full of faith, when at last she woke,
     She stole to her shoe as the morning broke;
     Such sounds of gladness filled all the air,
     Twas plain St Nicholas had been there!

     In rushed Piccola sweet, half wild: 
     Never was seen such a joyful child. 
     “See what the good saint brought!” she cried,
     And mother and father must peep inside.

     Now such a story who ever heard? 
     There was a little shivering bird! 
     A sparrow, that in at the window flew,
     Had crept into Piccola’s tiny shoe!

     “How good poor Piccola must have been!”
     She cried, as happy as any queen,
     While the starving sparrow she fed and warmed,
     And danced with rapture, she was so charmed.

     Children, this story I tell to you,
     Of Piccola sweet and her bird, is true. 
     In the far-off land of France, they say,
     Still do they live to this very day.

FOOTNOTES: 

[21] From Celia Thaxter’s Stories and Poems for Children.

THE LITTLE FIR TREE

When I was a very little girl some one, probably my mother, read to me Hans Christian Andersen’s story of the Little Fir Tree.  It happened that I did not read it for myself or hear it again during my childhood.  One Christmas Day, when I was grown up, I found myself at a loss for the “one more” story called for by some little children with whom I was spending the holiday.  In the mental search for buried treasure which ensued, I came upon one or two word-impressions of the experiences of the Little Fir Tree, and forthwith wove them into what I supposed to be something of a reproduction of the original.  The latter part of the story had wholly faded from my memory, so that I “made up” to suit the tastes of my audience.  Afterward I told the story to a good many children, at one time or another, and it gradually took the shape it has here.  It was not until several years later that, in rereading Andersen for other purposes, I came upon the real story of the Little Fir Tree, and read it for myself.  Then indeed I was amused, and somewhat distressed, to find how far I had wandered from the text.

I give this explanation that the reader may know I do not presume to offer the little tale which follows as an “adaptation” of Andersen’s famous story.  I offer it plainly as a story which children have liked, and which grew out of my early memories of Andersen’s The Little Fir Tree.

Once there was a Little Fir Tree, slim and pointed, and shiny, which stood in the great forest in the midst of some big fir trees, broad, and tall, and shadowy green.  The Little Fir Tree was very unhappy because he was not big like the others.  When the birds came flying into the woods and lit on the branches of the big trees and built their nests there, he used to call up to them,—­