The Steadfast Tin Soldier

Twenty-five tin soldiers were cast from an old spoon. One soldier had only one leg because there was not quite enough tin. He stood as firmly as any of them. On the table stood a paper castle with a little ballerina dancing on one leg, and the soldier believed she was a fellow one-legged comrade.

A goblin in the snuffbox warned him not to wish for what he could not have. The next morning the soldier fell from the windowsill into the street, was swept into a gutter, swallowed by a fish, and eventually returned to the very room where the ballerina stood. A boy threw him into the stove, a wind blew the ballerina in after him, and both perished in the flames. All that remained was a tin heart and a spangled rose.