The Ghost of the Streetcar Line

I used to think it my duty to cut them with the whip, and I took satisfaction in striking hard, but I wouldn't strike a boy now for the best thousand dollars ever coined. He was a car driver, and his attention had been called to three or four boys stealing a ride on the rear platform. Yes, I was a sort of terror on this route to the boys. Not one of the crowd could put his foot on the step and get away without a cut from the whip. Big or little, rough or gentle, I served all alike; and if the passengers scowled at me for slashing a little kid of seven or eight, I solaced myself with the reflection that it was my duty. Well, one day when the boys had bothered me more than usual, I dodged through the car and found a little bit of a chap, not over seven years old, seated on the lower step. He was all humped over and softly crying. I gave the little chap a cut with the lash and call out in such a voice that off he tumbled into the dust. I saw him rise up and limp away, and there was something in the look he gave me that I shan't forget in a hurry. Do you know that I felt so conscience-stricken that I kept looking for that boy on every trip, calculating to make up with him and secure his forgiveness for my brutality. I did not see him again until the afternoon of the second day. He was in his coffin. It was his funeral procession, which stopped my car for two or three minutes. That boy was ill when he tried to steal his way home with me, and death was not twenty-four hours away when I lashed him and chuckled over the way he rolled into the street!