This is a story for children, because they will know it’s only fooling,
while grown-up people will believe it’s true.
The cable car isn’t a car at all, children, but is a hilly-cum-go, a
species of rocking horse and a grown-up kiddie-kar. It is a native of
and peculiar to San Francisco, and is a loyal member of the N. S. G. W.
It has relatives in the South, and the electric dinkie that rolls up and
down between Venice and Santa Monica is its first cousin. Some say that
it is distantly related to the wheel chairs at Atlantic City. It is not
at all common.
The men who run it are its Uncles. The parents live underground caring
for the young kiddie-kars. At times, if you peek down in that hole
near the Fairmont and are careful not to be run over you may see them
bustling about. Before she was married, the mama was a Marjory Daw of
the Daw family, famous see-sawers. The children take after their mother.
The Uncles are very kind and pick the hilly-cum-goes up in their arms
as tenderly as a woman would. You must have seen them pick the little
things up and run with them across the streets out of the way of autos.
And at night they tuck them in their little beds and hear them say their
prayer which goes:
Oh, dear me, I hope I’m able, All day long to keep my cable.
These hilly-cum-goes are not run by electricity at all, but just
pretend. They are run by three things--black magic, white magic and
a sense of humor. Black magic takes them up the hills, white magic
restrains them down, and the sense of humor is in the Irish conductors.
You may hear, if you listen, the magic coming out of the ground,
“Kibble-kable, kibble-kable,” only fast as anything. At noon time
it goes “Putter, putter, putter,” and at bed-time, “Kuddle-kiddie,
kuddle-kiddie.”
This magic is very, very important. Especially going down hill. Did you
ever, my dears, descend that precipice at the end of the Fillmore street
line? What is it that keeps you from landing flat on your nose on Union
street? Nothing but white magic. What is it that keeps you from shooting
from the Fairmont, straight down into the St. Francis? White magic.
The sense of humor is also very important. Suppose a stout person gets
on, the conductor hops immediately to the opposite side for ballast.
That takes a sense of humor. If the hilly-cum-go is full of young
people, especially sweethearts, the Uncle jiggles the hilly-cum-go
horribly, but if old people are on it goes--“See-saw, Marjory Daw,” just
gently.
I trust, dear children, that all these facts will make you appreciate
more the hilly-cum-go, and when you sit on it so cosy, so intimate with
the street, riding along looking at the scenery, you will be thankful,
that poor old horses do not have to tug you up hill, and that you
have this sturdy little creature to haul you about. Nice little, old
hilly-cum-go.