Then the old man came in, with a box containing manycurious things to show him. Rouge-pots, scent-boxes, and old cards, solarge and so richly gilded, that none are ever seen like them in thesedays. And there were smaller boxes to look at, and the piano wasopened, and inside the lid were painted landscapes. But when the oldman played, the piano sounded quite out of tune. Then he looked at thepicture he had bought at the broker's, and his eyes sparkledbrightly as he nodded at it, and said, "Ah, she could sing that tune."
  "I will go to the wars! I will go to the wars!" cried the tinsoldier as loud as he could, and threw himself down on the floor.Where could he have fallen? The old man searched, and the little boysearched, but he was gone, and could not be found. "I shall find himagain," said the old man, but he did not find him. The boards of thefloor were open and full of holes. The tin soldier had fallenthrough a crack between the boards, and lay there now in an opengrave. The day went by, and the little boy returned home; the weekpassed, and many more weeks. It was winter, and the windows were quitefrozen, so the little boy was obliged to breathe on the panes, and ruba hole to peep through at the old house. Snow drifts were lying in allthe scrolls and on the inscriptions, and the steps were covered withsnow as if no one were at home. And indeed nobody was home, for theold man was dead. In the evening, a hearse stopped at the door, andthe old man in his coffin was placed in it. He was to be taken tothe country to be buried there in his own grave; so they carried himaway; no one followed him, for all his friends were dead; and thelittle boy kissed his hand to the coffin as the hearse moved away withit. A few days after, there was an auction at the old house, andfrom his window the little boy saw the people carrying away thepictures of old knights and ladies, the flower-pots with the longears, the old chairs, and the cup-boards. Some were taken one way,some another. Her portrait, which had been bought at the picturedealer's, went back again to his shop, and there it remained, for noone seemed to know her, or to care for the old picture. In the spring;they began to pull the house itself down; people called it completerubbish. From the street could be seen the room in which the wallswere covered with leather, ragged and torn, and the green in thebalcony hung straggling over the beams; they pulled it down quickly,for it looked ready to fall, and at last it was cleared awayaltogether. "What a good riddance," said the neighbors' houses. Veryshortly, a fine new house was built farther back from the road; it hadlofty windows and smooth walls, but in front, on the spot where theold house really stood, a little garden was planted, and wild vinesgrew up over the neighboring walls; in front of the garden werelarge iron railings and a great gate, which looked very stately.People used to stop and peep through the railings. The sparrowsassembled in dozens upon the wild vines, and chattered all together asloud as they could, but not about the old house; none of them couldremember it, for many years had passed by, so many indeed, that thelittle boy was now a man, and a really good man too, and his parentswere very proud of him. He was just married, and had come, with hisyoung wife, to reside in the new house with the garden in front of it,and now he stood there by her side while she planted a field flowerthat she thought very pretty. She was planting it herself with herlittle hands, and pressing down the earth with her fingers. "Ohdear, what was that?"