"If you don't give them up at once, we shall kill you." That is what
the bad ones said.
The poor little one begged them. "O darling sisters, do not kill me! I
haven't got the saucer or the apple with me at all."
"What a lie!" say the bad ones. "You never would leave it behind."
And one caught her by the hair, and the other swung the axe, and
between them they killed the little pretty one, who was called Little
Stupid because she was so good.
Then they looked for the saucer and the apple, and could not find
them. But it was too late now. So they made a hole in the ground, and
buried the little one under a birch tree.
When the sun went down the bad ones came home, and they wailed with
false voices, and rubbed their eyes to make the tears come. They made
their eyes red and their noses too, and they did not look any prettier
for that.
"What is the matter with you, little pigeons?" said the old merchant
and his wife. I would not say "little pigeons" to such bad ones.
Black-hearted crows is what I would call them.