But now, how are the birds to be saved--for _we_ want them _all_ to escape--and how are the women to be saved? That is another thing. You know it is not _their_ fault. They were kind and pitiful till the wicked little demon blew his powder into their hearts. It is _his_ fault. You may be angry with _him_ as much as you like, but you must not think of being angry with the women. Indeed, you should be sorry for them, more even than for the birds, for it is much worse to be a woman with a frozen heart than to be a bird and be shot. Oh, poor, frozen-hearted women, who _would_ be so kind and so pitiful if only they were allowed to be, if only the wicked little demon would go away, and the Goddess of Pity would wake up! Then is there no way of saving them both, the poor birds and the poor women? Yes, there is a way, and it is you--the children--who are to find it out. Listen. It is so simple. All you have to do is to ask these women (these _poor_ women) _not_ to wear the hats that have feathers, that have birds' lives in them, and they will not do so any more. They will listen to you. There is nobody else they would listen to, but they will to you--the children. Perhaps you think that funny. Listen and I will explain it. When the wicked little demon blew his powder called "Apathy" into the hearts of the women, it froze them all up, as I have told you, but there was just one little spot in every one of their hearts that it was not able to freeze. That was the spot called Motherly Love, which every woman has in her heart, and which is the softest spot of all, if only a little child presses it--and especially if it is her own little child. So I want you--the little children who read this little book--to press that spot and to save the birds from being killed. Nobody can do it but you, nobody even can find that spot except you, but you will find it directly. And you are to press it in this way. Throw, each one of you, your arms round your mother's neck, kiss her and ask her not 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 become 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.