WEEN DHE HEART IS FROZEN 13 
unhealthy. You see they were wanted at home, 
and so to have gone away from home into un- 
healthy countries to kill birds would have been 
selfish, and one should never be that. So in- 
stead of killing them themselves the women sent 
men to kill them for them, for hey could be spared 
much better, and if they should not come back they 
would not be nearly so much missed. And the 
women said to the men, ‘ Kill the birds and tear off 
their wings, their tails, their bright breasts and 
heads to sew into our hats or onto the sleeves and 
collars of our gowns and mantles. Kill them and 
bring them to us, that you may think us even more 
lovely than you have done before, when you compare 
our beauty with theirs and find that ours is the 
greater. Let us shine down the birds, for they are 
conceited and think themselves our rivals. Then 
kill them. Kill, kill, kill, kill, kill them.” Then 
the men, whose hearts had always been hard, and over 
whose eyes there was a film, went forth into the 
world and began to kill the poor, beautiful birds 
wherever they could find them. Everywhere the 
earth was stained with their blood, and the air thick 
with floating feathers that had been torn from their 
poor, wounded bodies. It was full, too, of their 
frightened cries, and of the wails of their starving young 
ones for the parents who were dead and could not 
