Hans Christian Andersen's "The Old House" tells the story of a dilapidated, centuries-old house in a street of modern homes. A curious boy befriends the lonely old man who lives there and explores the house, filled with relics and memories of the past. The house and its contents, including a lost tin soldier, are eventually sold and the house is demolished, yet its history and the friendship it fostered endure as memories in the boy's mind, represented by the rediscovery of the tin soldier years later.