Why be scared of a hat?

Once when I was six I saw a magnificent picture in a book about the jungle called True Stories. It showed a boa constrictor swallowing a wild beast...In those days I thought a lot about jungle adventures, and eventually managed to make my first drawing, using a colored pencil. My drawing Number One looked like this:

I showed the grown-ups my masterpiece, and I asked them if my drawing scared them. They answered, "Why be scared of a hat?"

My drawing was not a picture of a hat. It was a picture of a boa constrictor digesting an elephant. Then I drew the inside of the boa constrictor, so the grown-ups could understand. They always need explanations. My drawing Number Two looked like this:

The grown-ups advised me to pit away my drawings of boa constrictors, outside or inside, and apply myself...That is why at the age of six I abandoned my magnificent career as an artist...So then I had to choose another career, and I learned how to pilot airplanes... ...I lived all alone, without anyone I could really talk to, until I had to make a crash landing in the Sahara Desert...The first night...I went to sleep on the sand a thousand miles from any inhabited country. I was more isolated than a man shipwrecked on a raft in the middle of the ocean. So you can imagine my surprise when I was awakened at daybreak by a funny little voice saying, "Please...draw me a sheep..."
"What?"
"Draw me a sheep..."
...Since I had never drawn a sheep, I made him one of the only two drawings I new how to make--the one of the boa constrictor from the outside. And I was astounded to hear the little fellow answer:
"No! No! I don't want an elephant inside a boa constrictor. A boa constrictor is very dangerous, and an elephant would get in the way. Where I live everything is very small. I need a sheep. Draw me a sheep..."

--Antoine De Saint-Exupery
The Little Prince