Page:Forty years of it (IA fortyyearsofit00whitiala).pdf/341

 so by me myself, was held to be the most cruel, degrading and ignoble fate that could befall a horse. But another reason for my interest was the possession of a curiosity to which the passing show has always been novel, generally amusing, sometimes pleasing and often saddening, too—a curiosity in life which I hope will endure fresh and wholesome until life's largest curiosity shall be satisfied at the end of life.

The progress of the little street car under notice was leisurely and deliberate, sometimes it would wait obligingly for a woman, half a block away, who hurried puffing, and fluttering, and waving, to reach the street corner, and when she had clambered aboard, the driver would slowly unwind his brake, cluck to his horse, the rope traces would strain and the car would bowl along. Ten blocks away from the business section, or a few blocks further on, the little car with its five windows and small hooded platform would enter upon a bare, though expectant scene of vacant lots, and about a mile out, where there was some lonely dwelling staring blankly and reproachfully as though it had been misled, and then abandoned, and further on a few small, expectant cottages, the long, low street car barn was reached, the car was driven on to a little turntable, slowly turned about and started back. Sometimes, if I was lucky, I had a chance to witness the change of horses, and to experience a nebulous pity for the nag that ambled contentedly into the stable, and did not seem to be very tired after all.

On Summit Street there were grander cars, each