A Hat Full Of Sky

something small and redheaded vanish into the shadows.
    “Well now,” said Mr. Weavall. “Well now.” And that seemed to exhaust his conversation for a while. Then he said, “Far too much money here to pay for a buryin’. I don’t recall savin’ all this. I reckon you could bury a king for this amount of money.”
    Tiffany swallowed. She couldn’t leave things like this. She just couldn’t.
    “Mr. Weavall, I’ve got something I must tell you,” she said. And she told him. She told him all of it, not just the good bits. He sat and listened carefully.
    “Well, now, isn’t that interesting,” he said when she’d finished.
    “Um…I’m sorry,” said Tiffany. She couldn’t think of anything else to say.
    “So what you’re saying , right, is ’cuz that creature made you take my burying money, right, you think these fairy friends o’ yourn filled my ol’ box with gold so’s you wouldn’t get into trouble, right?”
    “I think so,” said Tiffany.
    “Well, it looks like I should thank you, then,” said Mr. Weavall.
    “What?”
    “Well, it seems to I, if you hadn’t ha’ took the silver and copper, there wouldn’t have been any room for all this gold, right?” said Mr. Weavall. “And I shouldn’t reckon that ol’dead king up on yon hills needs it now.”
    “Yes, but—”
    Mr. Weavall fumbled in the box and held up a gold coin that would have bought his cottage.
    “A little something for you, then, girl,” he said. “Buy yourself some ribbons or something….”
    “No! I can’t! That wouldn’t be fair!” Tiffany protested desperately. This was completely going wrong!
    “Wouldn’t it, now?” said Mr. Weavall, and his bright eyes gave her a long, shrewd look. “Well, then, let’s call it payment for this little errand you’re gonna run for I, eh? You’re gonna run up they stairs, which I can’t quite manage anymore, and bring down the black suit that’s hanging behind the door, and there’s a clean shirt in the chest at the end of the bed. And you’ll polish my boots and help I up, but I’m thinking I could prob’ly make it down the lane on my own.’Cuz, y’see, this is far too much money to buy a man’s funeral, but I reckon it’ll do fine to marry him off, so I am proposin’ to propose to the Widow Tussy that she engages in matrimony with I!”
    The last sentence took a little working out, and then Tiffany said, “You are ?”
    “That I am,” said Mr. Weavall, struggling to his feet. “She’s a fine woman who bakes a very reasonable steak-and-onion pie, and she has all her own teeth. I know that because she showed I. Her youngest son got her a set of fancy store-bought teeth all the way from the big city, and very handsome she looks in ’em. She was kind enough to loan ’em to I one day when I had a difficult piece of pork to tackle, and a man doesn’t forget a kindness like that.”
    “Er…you don’t think you ought to think about this, do you?” said Tiffany.
    Mr. Weavall laughed. “Think? I got no business to be thinking about it, young lady! Who’re you to tell an old ’un like I that he ought to be thinking? I’m ninety-one, I am! Got to be up and doing! Besides, I have reason to believe by the twinkle in her eye that the Widow Tussy will not turn up her nose at my suggestion. I’ve seen a fair number of twinkles over the years, and that was a good ’un. And I daresay that suddenly having a box of gold will fill in the corners, as my ol’ dad would say.”
    It took ten minutes for Mr. Weavall to get changed, with a lot of struggling and bad language and no help from Tiffany, who was told to turn her back and put her hands over her ears. Then she had to help him out into the garden, where he threw away one walking stick and waggled a finger at the weeds.
    “And I’ll be chopping down the lot of you tomorrow!” he shouted triumphantly.
    At the garden gate he grasped the post and pulled himself nearly vertical, panting.
    “All right,” he said, just a little anxiously. “It’s now or never. I look okay, does I?”
    “You look fine, Mr. Weavall.”
    “Everything clean? Everything done up?”
    “Er…yes,” said Tiffany.
    “How’s my hair look?”
    “Er…you don’t have any, Mr. Weavall,” she reminded him.
    “Ah, right. Yes, ’tis true. I’ll have to buy one o’ they whatdyoucallem’s, like a hat made of hair? Have I got enough money for that, d’you think?”
    “A wig? You could buy thousands, Mr.