A New Home Among Friendly Folk: Part One.

Since his arrival in The River Lands on the fourth (but not final) Sunday of August, Tanglefoot BarkFellow had been staying at the Cheshire Cat Inn and living modestly.

His meager savings had trickled away quickly. He needed an occupation, some way of making money.
The concept was quite new to him. In the shire of Burr-Scritch Hollow everyone had bartered goods and services. Coins were rarely seen.

He turned to what he knew best and wandered the woods in search of something useful for his new life in a proper town.
After many days of exploring, climbing trees and peeking in dark places he located a family of goats and convinced them to follow him.

He also located a source of very tasty honey, which would prove useful for the sweets made by Fiesty and Juste.

While Tangles was away, Fiesty became concerned.

The others figured Tangles was off doing Ranger activities and didn't pay much attention.
However, Fiesty had a different view.  Her Hobbit-uition gave her insight.
It was clear things were not going smoothly for the young newcomer.

Also she had caught him bathing in the town fountain, although she pretended not to notice in order to save Tangles from embarrassment.

Tangles in the Fountain

She knew that the young Hobbit was quite capable and might make a living on his own.
But she also saw that he had no sense for managing and saving money.

So, while Tangles was away Fiesty managed to fix up an old Hobbit house that hadn't been used in a long while.
It was dusty and leaky, floorboards creaked, but still worthy of being a home.  She  had the
community Hobbits work on the burrow until it was acceptable
Old  Falco Bolger who lived there previously had long since passed away and no one had claimed the burrow.

Upon his return Tangles felt both elation and puzzlement.  With the goats and honey he could start a small farm and sell foodstuffs in town.
However, he had no place for the goats to graze nor a place for himself to lay his head.

His stomach growled and the goats bleated at him.
Tangles turned this way and that, hoping his padded feet would ponder this problem through for him.

Meanwhile, Fae Talia was swinging atop a nearby tree.

Talia Up a Tree

"Bored, bored, bored", she chimed. "What can I do today to amuse myself?"

From her perch in a tree, Talia spotted Tangles.
"I know what to do!" Talia flew to a large bird's nest, and helped herself to a discarded feather. She tied it to the end of a string.

Tangles and Talia

Talia hid in a tree above the path that Tangles was walking on with his hairy Hobbit feet.
She dangled the feather down and tickled Tangles' nose with it.

Tangles batted the feather away without seeing it, but Talia persisted and tickled some more.
His sensitive Hobbit's nose, made keen by smelling the aroma of so many feasts and delicacies, gave a loud, reverberating sneeze.

He closed his eyes and staggered about from the force of it.

It was at that precise moment that he collided with Fiesty, who had been approaching from the other direction.
A cloud of flour and sugar erupted from the basket she had been carrying.

Talia was doubled-over, laughing at the mischief she had caused.
That is, until she spied the sugar spill from Fiesty's basket.

"Pretty Grains! Must ... know ... how many!"  she gasped as she flew to the sugared patch of ground and began counting.

Talia Counts the Grains

It took Fiesty and Tangles a few moments to gather their wits from the collision and explosion of baking ingredients.

After standing up and brushing themselves off, they watched the Fae obsessively counting each sugar grain.

"Sixteen - maybe there are - Seventeen - wee folk living - Eighteen  - on these grains!"  Talia pondered.

The Hobbits backed away silently.  They thought it best to leave Fae matters alone and not speak of them.

Even the goats left Talia to her counting and quietly moved away a few paces, even though they yearned to lick up the sugar.