And after he had walked a long way through the dark green forest, he saw a little hut standing under the pine trees.  There was no smoke coming from the chimney, but there was such a chattering in the hut you could hear it far away.  It was like coming near a rookery at evening, or disturbing a lot of starlings.  And as the old man came slowly nearer to the hut, he thought he saw little faces looking at him through the window and peeping through the door.  He could not be sure, because they were gone so quickly.  And all the time the chattering went on louder and louder, till the old man nearly put his hands to his ears.

And then suddenly the chattering stopped.  There was not a sound—­no noise at all.  The old man stood still.  A squirrel dropped a fir cone close by, and the old man was startled by the fall of it, because everything else was so quiet.

“Whatever there is in the hut, it won’t be worse than the old woman,” says the old man to himself.  So he makes the sign of the holy Cross, and steps up to the little hut and takes a look through the door.

There was no one to be seen.  You would have thought the hut was empty.

The old man took a step inside, bending under the little low door.  Still he could see nobody, only a great heap of rags and blankets on the sleeping-place on the top of the stove.  The hut was as clean as if it had only that minute been swept by Maroosia herself.  But in the middle of the floor there was a scrap of green leaf lying, and the old man knew in a moment that it was a scrap of green leaf from the top of a young turnip.

And while the old man looked at it, the heap of blankets and rugs on the stove moved, first in one place and then in another.  Then there was a little laugh.  Then another.  And suddenly there was a great stir in the blankets, and they were all thrown back helter-skelter, and there were dozens and dozens of little queer children, laughing and laughing and laughing, and looking at the old man.  And every child had a little turnip, and showed it to the old man and laughed.

Just then the door of the stove flew open, and out tumbled more of the little queer children, dozens and dozens of them.  The more they came tumbling out into the hut, the more there seemed to be chattering in the stove and squeezing to get out one over the top of another.  The noise of chattering and laughing would have made your head spin.  And everyone of the children out of the stove had a little turnip like the others, and waved it about and showed it to the old man, and laughed like anything.

“Ho,” says the old man, “so you are the thieves who have stolen the turnips from the top of the dovecot?”

“Yes,” cried the children, and the chatter rattled as fast as hailstones on the roof.  “Yes! yes! yes! We stole the turnips.”

“How did you get on to the top of the dovecot when the door into the house was bolted and fast?”