e beginning of this account wears birds and their
wings on her hat. It is because she and other women wear birds' feathers
that these tragic things take place in the woods and clearings and open
spaces of God's beautiful world. I say to any woman in all the world
that she is wicked if she wears the feather of any of the birds which
make the world happier and better for being in it. If women must wear
feathers, there are enough for their adornment from birds used for
food, and from the ostrich, which is not injured when its plumes are
taken.

So long as my beautiful woman wears the feathers of the bluebird, the
oriole, or any other of the singing creatures of God, I call her the
accomplice of a murderer. I have talked to her, but somehow I cannot
make her listen to the story of what lies back of the feathers on her
hat. She is more accustomed to praise than blame. When this is printed I
shall send it to her, and it may be that she will read it and grow
earnest over it, and that her heart will be touched, and that she will
never again deserve the name she merits now.

* * * * *

There are, it is said, certain savages--just barely human beings--called
Dyaks. They have become famous to the world as "head-hunters." These
Dyaks creep through miles of forest paths and kill as many as they can
of another lot of people, and then cut off the heads of the slain and
dry them, and hang them up, arranged on lines more or less artistically
festooned about the place in which they live. This exhibition of dried
and dead human heads seems to make these swart and murderous savages
vain and glad. These people are, as we understand, or think we
understand, but undeveloped, cruel, bloody-minded human creatures. They
prefer dried human heads to delicate ferns showing wonderful outlines,
or to brilliant leaves and fragrant flowers. They have their own ideas
concerning decoration.

Upon a dozen or two of the islands in the Southern Pacific, where the
waves lap the sloping sands lazily, and life should be calm and
peaceful, there are, or were until lately, certain people who
occasionally killed certain other people for reasons sufficiently good,
no doubt, to them; and who thus coming into possession of a group of
dead creatures with fingers, conceived the idea that the fingers of
these dead, when dried, would make most artistic, not to say suggestive,
necklaces. So they strung these dried fingers upon something