‘Good evening!’ said the stranger, a young man, perhaps twenty.

The old man nodded, but his hands lay quietly on his knees.

‘I saw that sign out front,’ the stranger went on. ‘“Free Dirt”, it said.’

The old man almost nodded.

The stranger tried a smile. ‘Crazy, but that sign caught my eye.’

There was a glass fan over the front door. A light shone through this glass fan, coloured blue, red, yellow, and touched the old man’s face. It seemed not to bother him.

‘I wondered, free dirt? Never struck me you’d have much left over. When you dig a hole and put the coffin in and refill the hole, you haven’t much dirt left, have you? I should think…’ “

The old man leaned forward. It was so unexpected that the stranger pulled his foot off the bottom step.

’You want some?’ said the old man.

‘Why, no, no, I was just curious. Signs like that make you curious.’

‘Set down,’ said the old man.

’Thanks.’ The young man sat uneasily on the steps. ‘You know how it is, you walk around and never think how it is to own a graveyard.’

‘And?’ said the old man.

’I mean, like how much time it takes to dig graves.’

The old man leaned back in his chair. ‘On a cool day, two hours. Hot day, four. Very hot day, six. Very cold day, not cold so it freezes, but real cold, a man can dig a grave in one hour so he can head in for hot chocolate, brandy in the chocolate. Then again you get a good man on a hot day, he’s no better than a bad man in the cold. Might take eight hours to open up, but there’s easy digging soil here. All loam, no rocks.’

‘I’m curious about winter.’

‘In blizzards we got a ice-box mausoleum to stash the dead undelivered mail — until spring and a whole month of shovels and spades.’