Her friend saw, and gave right up.
"I am not going to take it anywhere," she said. "I brought it for you. This is to be its home, and you are to be its mother, grandma, and its friend. You are to be always together from now on—always, and have a good time." With that she tore the paper from the cage.
The parrot, after all, made the speech of the occasion. He considered the garret; the potato-field on the fire-escape, through which the sunlight came in, making a cheerful streak on the floor; Mrs. Ben Wah and her turban; and his late carrier: then he climbed upon his stick, turned a somersault, and said, "Here we are," or words to that effect. Thereupon he held his head over to be scratched by Mrs. Ben Wah in token of a compact of friendship then and there made.
Joy, after all, does not kill. Mrs. Ben Wah wept long and silently, big, happy tears of gratitude. Then she wiped them away, and went about her household cares as of old. The prescription had worked. The next day the "notice" vanished from the wall of the room, where there were now two voices for one.
I came back from Europe to find my old friend with a lighter step and a lighter heart than in many a day. The parrot had learned to speak Canadian French to the extent of demanding his crackers and water in the lingo of the habitant. Whether he will yet stretch his linguistic acquirements to the learning of Iroquois I shall not say. It is at least possible. The two are inseparable. The last time I went to see them, no one answered my knock on the door-jamb. I raised the curtain that serves for a door, and looked in. Mrs. Ben Wah was asleep upon the bed. Perched upon her shoulder was the parrot, no longer constrained by the bars of a cage, with his head tucked snugly in her neck, asleep too. So I left them, and so I like to remember them always, comrades true.
It happened that when I was in Chicago last spring I told their story to a friend, a woman. "Oh, write it!" she said. "You must!" And when I asked why, she replied, with feminine logic: "Because it is so unnecessary. The barrel of flour doesn't stick out all over it."
Now I have done as she bade me. Perhaps she was right. Women know these things best. Like my own city, they have hearts, and will understand the unnecessary story of Mrs. Ben Wah and her parrot.[Back to Contents]
INDEX
Addams, Miss J., Chicago work, [365], [395].
Adler, Professor F., reform work, [71]-72, [371], [402].
Air-shaft in tenements, tenants' uses and peril of, [93].
Alfred Corning Clark buildings, [129], [130].
Allen Street—
Children seeking "the commissioner" for justice, [59]-60.
One-room houses, beginnings of, [97].
School building, [354], [357].
Anderson, Mrs. A. A., bath gift to city, [282].
Armenian Christmas tree, contribution of poor children, [218].
Association for improving condition of the poor—
Baths, public, [282].
Housing reform movement, [128].
Work of, [285].
Athletic meets, Crotona Park, [366].
Bacillus of the slum, [62].
Balkan peninsula, immigration from, [202].
Bands, roof playgrounds, [389]-395.
Barney of Cat Alley, [333]-339.
Baron Hirsch Fund, see [Hirsch Fund.]
Baths, public—
Anderson, Mrs. A. A., gift, [282].
Association for improving condition of poor, work of, [282].
Free river baths, [282].
Hamilton Fish Park, Tammany use of, [149]-152.
Lack of public baths scandal, [281].
Mott Street bath, [282].
Plans for system of municipal baths, [282]-283.
Rivington Street, [281].
Shower-baths for public schools, [283].
Battle Row—
Gang, Easter service, [251]-252.
Improvement, [135].
Baxter Street "dens of death," [14], [20].
Beds, Mills Houses, [159].
Beginning of the battle, [1]-4.
Bellevue, scandal during Tammany government, [66].
Bend, see [Mulberry Bend].
Ben Wah, Mrs., and her parrot, story of, [441]-449.
Beresheim, Jacob—
Arrest for murder, [227].
Birth in tenement, [228].
Law-breaking, [234].
Life and environment, [227]-236.
Schooling neglected, [231].
Berlin death-rate, [124].
Big Flat, Mott Street—
Carriage factory in place of, [32].
Instance of reform still-born, [27].
Blacksmith, Patrick Mullen, [413]-414.
Bleeker Street house, see [Mills Houses].
B'nai B'rith "removal plan," [215].
Bone Alley, destruction, [279]-281, [285].
Boss, character of, [420]-429.
Bottle Alley, Whyó gang headquarters, [272], [308].
Bowery lodging houses, see [Lodging houses].
Boxing match, [430].
Boys—
Clubs, see that [title].
Crime, see that [title].
Farm colony for young vagrants, [127], [172], [350].
Fathers' authority lost, [237]-238.
Future of—effect of political influences, [225]-226.
Gangs, see that [title].
Increase of child crime, [225], [240]-242.
Military spirit, [247], [255].
Play, necessity of, [233].
Summer excursions, Mr. Schwab's proposition, [405]-406.
Type of East Side boy, see [Beresheim, Jacob].
"Weakness not wickedness" reformatory verdict, [244].
Brass bands, school roof playgrounds, [389]-395.
Brick sandwiches, [224].
British Museum, stone arm exhibit, message of warning, [111]-112.
Bronx—
Crotona Park athletic meets, [366].
Primary school 1895, condition, [348].
Brooklyn—
Riverside tenements, [135], [140].
Weeks, L. S., murder, [156].
Bruin, Madame, school punishments, [341]-342.
Buck, Miss W., management of boys' clubs, [373], [383].
Buddensiek, tenement builder, imprisonment, [20]-21.
Building Department, supervision of tenement lighting, etc., [104].
Byrnes, Inspector—lodging houses as nurseries of crime, [54], [156].