The Horses of Ellicott Street
	It was first light. Burkas Quaker rode his horse down the middle of Ellicott Street. Tim was a black stallion. Burkas was about 40 years old. He sat high in the saddle, wore a black cowboy hat, and was Hollywood handsome. It was a chilly morning and you could see the steam coming from Tim's nostrils. I knew where they were going. It was fairly common knowledge that Burkas had a moonshine still down in the 22nd Street Woods. Nobody knew where it was or wanted to know. He was a well-liked deacon in the church. Their family said grace at every meal. His grandfather, when saying the blessing, would recite a long list of people he wanted to be blessed. Then he would add at the end, "And, God, please bless all the people in the uninhabited islands of the world." One day I was sitting on a neighbor's front porch with a group of people from the neighborhood. Grandma Davis had just brought out some libations. We saw Burkas Quaker ride by on Tim like he did about twice a week. He nodded and tipped his hat as he passed. He rode to where Ellicott Street turned into a dirt road and then off into the woods. One of the women said to her husband, "Do you think someone should say something to the preacher?" He stood up and said, "Not my circus. Not not my monkey," and went inside. The screen door slammed stating, "And that's the end of it." I know now that he meant that it was none of his business. But I was thinking, The other kids and I are going to go down to the woods and find that circus. Several people owned horses on Ellicott Street. My brother, Joe Pat, had a chestnut mare named Ginger. Years later, when my brother, Andy, got older he had a beautiful red stallion named Bonfire. Then there was Silver. He was a pure white stallion that regularly got out of his corral and ran the neighborhood. He was from a few streets over but was determined to have Ginger as his prize. I remember one night, in the middle of the night, Silver was terrorizing the neighborhood. He was circling our house. You could hear his hooves hitting the ground. I was about four or five and Andy was seven. Tommy would've been 14. Daddy was gone that night on our family's produce route and Mother was scared to death of Silver. She kept saying, "Joe Pat will be home soon. He'll know what to do." When Joe Pat got home he said, "Don't go outside! That's Silver! He's a killer!" A few months before, Joe Pat was trying to court a beautiful, black-haired Gypsy girl that lived down the street from us. Their family was fascinating. All of their dogs had Gypsy names. One name, in particular, that I always loved, was Wooda. Right this minute I'm looking at my Siamese cat asleep on the rug in my living room. And what's his name? Wooda. In mooning over this girl, Joe Pat mentioned it to Grandmother Ash. Actually she sensed it. She said, "If you want to win this girl's heart, this is what you need to do. Get a silk handkerchief and put a lock of the girl's hair in it. Even a few strands will do. Then you find a solid white stallion and ride him in the light of a full moon until he foams at the mouth. Wipe the foam onto the silk scarf containing the maiden's hair. Then you bury it under your front steps, with a lock of your own hair, while the moon is still high and she will be yours forever. I'm sure none of this turned out the way it was supposed to. I know that the only time Silver busted out of his corral was when he had other things on his mind, and being annoyed by someone trying to ride him and wiping his mouth with a handkerchief wasn't it. No wonder Joe Pat reacted the way he did that night. Ginger was a gentle horse. She'd spend much of her time in our front yard. She never tried to go anywhere. It was funny to watch her pick up the hose and drink out of it. One day when Andy was about six years old he was in the front yard petting Ginger. He was barefooted. We always were. Ginger accidentally stepped on his foot. Not hard. She picked her foot up as soon as she realized it. Not wanting anyone to know he'd made that mistake, Andy said in a gruff voice, furrowed brow, and choppy syllables, "That's what I wanted her to do. I wanted her to step on my foot." When he talked like that he looked like that little gruff Mayor of Munchkinland. When my brother, Tommy, was about 16 he would ride Ginger from our house west on Hillsborough Avenue, about 20 miles, to a friend's ranch. They'd go past Rocky Creek and what later became Tampa Shores. Many times he would lay back on top of her because we didn't use a saddle, and go to sleep in the sun, to the slow rocking movement. Ginger knew exactly where to go. There was barely any traffic back then and they would always get there safely. When Ginger got too old to be ridden we retired her to that farm on Rocky Creek. We'd go and visit her often and she was always glad to see us. She stayed in a big green pasture with other horses and eventually gave birth to a colt. She lived a very long, happy life. Lynn Ash