18 BEAUTIFUL: BIRDS 
to kill the birds, not to wear the hats that make the 
birds be killed. And if you do that and really mean 
what you say, if you are really sorry for the birds and 
have real tears in your eyes (or at least in your hearts), 
then your mother will do as you have asked her, for 
you will have pressed that spot, that soft spot, that spot 
that even the wicked little demon, try as he might, 
could not freeze, could not make hard. And as you 
press it, the whole heart that has been frozen will be- 
come warm again, and the powder of the demon will 
go out of it, and the Goddess of Pity will wake up. 
You will do this, will you not? It is only asking, 
and what can be easier than to ask something of your 
mother? But you must make her promise. Never, 
never leave off asking her till you have got her to 
promise. 
And if some of you have mothers who do not kill 
the birds, who do not wear the hats that have birds’ 
lives sewn into them, well it will do them no harm to 
promise too. Then they never w7// wear them, and 
if they should never mean to wear them, they will be 
all the more ready to promise not to. Only in that 
case you might put your arms:round the neck of 
some other woman that you have seen wearing those 
hats and kiss Her and ask fer to promise. And she 
will, you will have touched that spot because you are 
a little child, even though you are not her own little 
