an answer in the
affirmative, he cried: 'I, Master, I am that old carpenter, and during
my last summers, I had no greater pleasure than to sit by the Fresh
Spring under the nut-tree, and while I smoked my pipe to think of my old
wife, whom I was soon to find again with you. In the autumn, too, many a
dry brown leaf found its way among the more expensive tobacco ones.'

"'And I,' cried a former peddler, breaking into the carpenter's story,
'I assuredly have not forgotten the nut-tree, where I always set down my
pack when my shoulders were nearly broken, and under whose shade I used
to rest my weary limbs before entering the village.'

"'I, too! How often have I stopped under the spreading branches of
that tree on a hot summer day and found refreshment!' cried a former
post-messenger of Dorbstadt. A porter who had also lived there added his
praises.

"'But the nut-trees were cut down many years ago,' the latter added.

"'I saw it,' cried the spirit of little Hannele, and one heard from
her tone how she deplored it. 'They were felled when the Poor-house
was given up. 'But the great Son of God has now heard what he wished to
know.'

"'No, no,' the Saviour answered, 'I should still like to know what
became of the wood of these trees.'

"The voices of several angels were heard at the same moment, for many of
the poor weavers of Dorbstadt were to be found in the Heavenly Kingdom.
St. Peter, however, bade them to be quiet, and permitted only the one
who had last entered the Abode of the Blessed to speak.

"'I was the village doctor,' this one began, 'and I quitted the earth
because I, too, fell a victim to the pestilence of which many of the
poor people were dying, and against which I fought with all my powers,
but with small success. I can tell you all that you wish to know, my
Master, for, during forty-five years, I devoted my humble services to
the sick poor there. When Hannele died in our Poor-house--it happened
before my time--the misery was even greater than at present. The weavers
were ground down by the large manufacturers, until an energetic man
built a factory in our village, and paid them better wages. As the
population then increased, and consequently the number of patients,
space was wanting in which to house them, for the dilapidated
Poor-house--whither they were carried--was no longer large enough to
accommodate them all. Therefore the parish, aided by the owner of the
factory, built a hospital for the wh