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It took only a minute to get down the ladder into Shadow’s stall where a broom tail jiggled up and down above absurdly long baby legs and small rounded haunches. Shadow’s small daughter breakfasted. Callie squatted on his heels near-by watching the process benignly. "Ain’t she ’bout th’ best-favored filly you ever saw?" he asked. "How come all your hosses is grays? Shiloh her pa?"
Her husband turned toward her. He opened his lips to introduce Eileen. His wife forestalled him. "So this is the Eileen you have been ravin' about for years," she said. "I thought you said she was a pretty girl." Eileen's soul knew one sick instant of recoil. She looked from James Heitman to Caroline, his wife, and remembered that he had a habit of calling her "Callie."
I followed her to a place on the south of Market Street, to a building which resembled a deserted, tumble-down stable or blacksmith's shop plastered with old hand-bills and posters. There were some dirty old window-frames in the second story, but I do not believe there was one whole pane of glass left. "This is the place, Mother Roberts," said Callie.
His name was Rul, and he was not only a good seaman and an expert diver, but spoke fluently nearly a score of Melanesian and Micronesian dialects. On the evening of the day that the cutter left Callie Harbour, on Admiralty Island, Yorke called his six men together, and told them that he was very undecided what to do.
"Any reason why I can’t bunk up there?" he asked Kells. "None ’tall, Kirby, none ’tall. Know you want to be handy like. Stow that there gear up above, Callie, an’ don’t you drop nothin’. Rest yourself easy, son. These here hosses is goin’ to be treated jus’ like th’ good stuff they is." "Croaker, also." Drew stopped by the mule, patted the long nose, gave a flip to the limp ear.
Been a long day travelin’—" "Sure thing. An’ from up there you can hear this little old mare, does she need you." The Kentuckian’s pack had been hoisted into the mow, and Callie had even humped up the fragrant hay to mattress his bedroll. A window was open to the night, and as Drew stretched out wearily, he could hear the distant tinkle of a guitar, perhaps from the Four Jacks.
Callie hailed from the stable. "Th’ mare ... she’s...." Drew jammed the Colt under his belt and ran. The scent of hay, of grain, of horse.... Drew’s head rolled on the pillow improvised from hay and blanket as sun lay hot across his face. He rubbed the back of his hand over his eyes and then came fully awake to remember the night before.
"She sure is right purty, Mister Kirby. Mister Kells said as to tell you he’s sleepin’ on a cot in th’ tack room over there, should you be needin’ him." Callie pointed. "Me, I’m beddin’ down in the last stall. I put your gear up right over here, so’s you can hear if she gits to movin’—" "Thanks." Drew felt in a pocket, tossed Callie the coin his fingers found.
Kincaid's quarters, she inquired if I should like to see a photo of Callie as she formerly looked? "Indeed, I would," I replied. Well, to this day I do not wonder at their failure to recognize her. In that picture she looked like a dirty, emaciated, old vagabond. This is the best I can do in the way of description, dear reader. I wish I had a copy of her "Before and After" to put in this book.
After having a precious time with her family and partaking of her hospitality, we went down-town again. There we spent a glorious evening at a street-meeting. Callie testified. Afterward we went to the Emmanuel Gospel Mission, where she gave a message from that most precious parable, "The Prodigal Son."
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