noon
Please stop that noise . It gets on my nerves . '' Button-Bright saw an old gray owl sitting in the crotch of a tree , and he replied with a laugh : `` All right , old Fussy , '' and stopped whistling until he had passed out of the owl 's hearing . At noon he came to a farmhouse where an aged couple lived . They gave him a good dinner and treated him kindly , but the man was deaf and the woman was dumb , so they could answer no questions to guide him on the way to Pon 's house . When he left them he was just as much lost as he had been before . Every grove of trees he saw from a distance he visited , for he remembered that the King 's castle was near a grove of trees and Pon 's hut was near the King 's castle ; but always he met with disappointment .