you want to know too much, and that is n't fair," he complained.
"I 'll tell you the way to the pine dwarfs, and you must find out the
rest for yourself. Go straight ahead and take the hundred and first
turning to the right, and the fifty-second turning to the left, then
turn round seventeen times; and if that is n't good enough for you I
'll never help you again. Now, off you go!"

Martin saw that he was no longer wanted and set off as fast as he
could. It took him a whole week to reach the hundred and first turning
on the right; and it was the most anxious week he had ever spent, for
he had to keep counting the turnings all the time and was dreadfully
afraid of losing count altogether. And the fifty-second turning on the
left was almost as bad, for his way took him through a large town, and
he dare not stay to speak to any one for fear of overlooking one of the
little streets. He left the town behind him at last; and after walking
for two days longer, he reached the fifty-second turning on his left,
and it led him to the middle of a vast sandy plain.

"How queer!" thought Martin. "Not a single tree to be seen! Surely
the pine dwarfs don't live in a place like this? Perhaps old Bobolink
has only hoaxed me after all."

However, he turned round seventeen times just to see what would happen;
and the first thing that happened was that he became remarkably giddy
and had to sit down on the ground to recover himself. When he did
recover he found he was in a beautiful thick pine wood, with the
sunshine coming through the branches, and flickering here and there
over the ground, and painting the great big pine trunks bright red.
Over it all hung the most delicious silence, only broken by the soft
passage of the wind through the pine leaves. Martin had almost
forgotten the warning Bobolink had given him, but, even if he had quite
forgotten it, nothing would have induced him to speak loudly in such a
stillness as that.

"Are you there, little pine dwarfs?" he whispered, as he looked up
through the pine trees at the blue sky on the other side. No sooner
had his whisper travelled up through the hushed air than all the
branches seemed to be filled with life and movement; and what Martin
had believed to be brown pine cones suddenly moved, and ran about among
the trees, and slid down the long red trunks. And then he saw they
were dear little brown dwarfs, who surrounded him by hundreds and
thousands, and travelled up a