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As was his habit, Sam's eyes blinked open with the first pink blush of dawn. No matter how tightly Rosie pulled the bedroom curtains, no matter how deeply Sam burrowed his face into his feather pillow, the morn drew him from slumber like the dearest of old friends calling his name. Quietly, so as to give his still sleeping wife a last few moments of much needed rest, he peeled back the covers and tiptoed from the room. There were fires to be stoked, a hearty breakfast to be prepared and, if time permitted, he might even try his hand at splitting a log or two. T'would never do to let himself get out of practice, what with young Frodo that eager to show up his dad. Not that the day wasn't fast approaching when he would... but Sam wasn't ready to concede defeat quite yet.
Soon, the kettle was whistling merrily on the hearth and Sam was elbow deep in flour, deftly twisting strands of sticky sweet-dough into crescent shaped rolls and drizzling a honey glaze on top before popping the tray into the waiting oven. That task accomplished, he turned his attention to scrambling eggs, expertly cracking the shells on the brim of a large earthenware bowl, adding milk and spices and whipping the creamy mixture into a vigorous froth.
As tentative chirps became a full-fledged choir out in the garden and sunlight brushed warm fingers across the kitchen floor, sleepy voices could be heard muttering their good mornings. Sam smiled, his head cocked to one side, listening to the familiar patter of footsteps as his family followed the tantalizing aroma of frying bacon down the hall.
~*~
An hour or so later, a chorus of goodbyes ringing in his ears, Sam stepped outside his smial's big green door and followed a well-worn path around back to the stables. What with all the distance he had to cover this day, he might do well to spare his legs and give Bill Jr. a chance to earn his keep. Bill whickered softly as Sam approached his stall, clearly anticipating both Sam's company and the apple Sam had thoughtfully tucked inside his jacket pocket. For a moment, as Sam leaned against the pony's warm flank, petting a velvety nose, listening to the happy crunching and smelling the sweet tang of straw and pony and leather, he felt as though he'd travelled back in time and Old Bill stood beneath his hand. Here was the same dark brown coat with the little white star on the forehead. Here were the same kind eyes and patient soul...
But there was no great sense of urgency prompting this day's journey. A land dispute out Frogmorton way was not a matter of life and death, though Victor Cobblestone and Freddy Proudfoot seemed to think it should be treated as such. Today's progress through the Shire would not be hindered by dark riders, it would merely be haunted by the ghosts of yesteryear. Haunted, in particular, by one slim, dark-haired sprite, wrapped in a worn travelling cloak, his pale hand outstretched as if to beg for mercy from a merciless foe...
No! Thoughts like that will never do!
Sam gave his head a sharp shake as if to clear it of the cobwebs of the past.
“Too much to do to be lolly-gaggin' about, Bill,” he said sternly, and Bill tossed his head as if in agreement.
After quickly harnessing up the pony, Sam stowed a satchel filled with books and papers safely in the back of the cart and clambered up to the wooden seat. With a cluck of his tongue and a gentle flick of the reins, down The Hill they went.
Despite the earliness of the hour, Hobbiton was astir, the market folk displaying brightly coloured wares to their best advantage, and a bevy of customers bustling to and fro, keeping a sharp eye out for a good bargain or a juicy bit of gossip.
Bill clopped along at a steady pace, snippets of conversation and friendly greetings wafting on the breeze as the old pony and the current master of Bag End jostled their way past friends and neighbours.
“And there stood, Arne, naked as the day he was born. They do say as you shouldn't wake a sleepwalker, but there's common sense, and then there's common decency. And I say -- Good morning, Mr. Mayor! I say...”
“Three coppers! That's outrageous! -- Good day to you, Samwise! Two coppers. And that's my final offer, take it or leave it.”
“No, no, you're confusing Fosco Twoburr with Drogo Foxburr. -- Hullo, Sam! Fine weather we've been havin', ain't it? You know the Foxburrs, don't ye, Lucas? There's a whole passel of 'em just west of Needlehole.”
Sam smiled and nodded and waved. And if his gaze was somewhat over-bright, and he blinked a bit as if to bring the world into sharper focus... well, that just might be the fault of the sun glinting in his eyes. There was no cause for tears on such a pleasant day, now was there?
No, Sam told himself firmly. None at all.
~*~
Robin riding comfortably on her hip and the babe-to-be temporarily somnolent beneath her ever expanding waistline, Rosie surveyed her troops with a well-practiced eye: Elanor, Rose, Goldilocks, Hamfast, Daisy, Primrose, Bilbo, and even little Ruby stood solemnly in a crooked line; the girls' aprons neatly tied, straw brooms and feather dusters at the ready; the lads' pockets bulging with soft cleaning cloths and little jars of lemony-sweet furniture polish.
“Off with you,” she murmured, and with a thunder of footsteps and a flurry of merry cries, her faunts dispersed, each to their assigned quadrant of the smial. Rosie smiled as Elanor lightly flicked her duster on Ruby's nose, making the tiny lass giggle and sneeze. Catching her mother's eye, Elanor smiled too and took her sister's hand, drawing the skipping fauntling towards the study.
And I wonder how much cleaning will be done in that room? Rosie wondered as she headed down the hall. No doubt about it, Ellie will be curled up with a book in no time flat.
Shaking her head as she entered the kitchen, Rosie was just in time to catch a glimpse of Frodo-lad's coat tail as he vanished out to the garden. She nodded her approval at the wealth of fragrant logs neatly piled in their place by the hearth, and simultaneously sidestepped Merry as he burst through the door, parlour bound and staggering slightly under a teetering armful of firewood. Inevitably, Pippin was close on his beloved brother's heels, his stack of wood on a somewhat smaller scale, his destination the master bedroom. Ach, and those lads are trouble looking for a place to happen, she chuckled. We named them well, and no mistake about it.
Settling Robin in an out of the way corner with a stack of building blocks which Sam had carved and painstakingly painted with fanciful letters back when Elanor was a wee bit of a lass, Rosie turned to survey the heart of her domain: the kitchen. Not much had changed here in the years since she became the mistress of Bag End. Oh, the table was a little larger, with cleverly matched segments added to it as the family grew... and there were more chairs to be tucked in out of the way... but the room was still large and airy. It still smelled of sunshine and rosemary – scents she associated with Samwise -- and clove and lavender -- scents that evoked a more complex feeling in her breast, associated as they were with Mr. Frodo.
But even if those scents no longer lingered in the smial, the specter of the old master would still remain, Rosie thought, as she began to clear the table of its breakfast debris. Sam would see to that.
Her eyes drifted from the unused plate set to Sam's right at the head of the table to the chair that was always left vacant... just in case... just because...
“Oh, yes,” she murmured with a wry little smile, “That's one ghost that will never leave us.”
~*~
“My da farmed that land for nigh on sixty years, as did his da before him and his gran'da before that. T'was not our doing Sharkey saw fit to have his ruffians raze our smial to the ground. T'was not my fault if it took a long while to rebuild... to save up for seed and a pony and a plow. I didn't mind if Victor here used my land for pasture when I had no other use for it, but the land is mine and I say it's time for him to take his sheep and--”
“Thank you, Freddy,” Sam said quietly, his head bent over the ancient ledger he'd retrieved from its dusty shelf in Michael Delving's library in preparation for this visit; the spine was warped from dampness, the cover cracked and peeling from long service in the community. Carefully, Sam perused the writing on the pertinent page. Dates and crop yields, neatly entered in tidy columns. A little chart on the opposing page detailed the family line: births and deaths and marriages and the like. But it was a hastily scribbled note in the margin that drew and held his eye...
South field. Clubroot. Ask Sam if the soil is too bitter.
Sam's finger followed the flowing curve of the 's', caressed the 'a' and 'm' and returned to the 's' again. How often had he traced the self-same letters upon the naked flesh of the one who penned these words? How often had his lips followed where his hands led as he wrote other love letters across the fair skin of his beloved, as his touch poured out all the words that he could not say? How sweet the taste of Frodo upon his tongue... How bitter now the taste of regret and lost possibilities.
“Aye,” he murmured. “that it is.”
“I have a solution, good sirs,” he said finally, keeping his finger firmly in contact with the faded ink. “Freddy, what if Victor kept the use of the south field? A bit of mutton in payment and he's to see to the upkeep of the fencing as need be.”
~*~
“Tag! You're it!” Daisy screamed, shamelessly hiking her skirt well up past her knees that she might better escape fleet-footed Pippin's hot pursuit. Preceded by her other giggling siblings, she pounded at a pell-mell pace down the path towards the orchard.
“Mind the 'taters!” Frodo-lad scolded, as a shrieking sister and whooping brother took a short cut through the patch where he was working. He leaned on his hoe, watching as the young ones dashed past.
“Da won't be pleased if he catches them doing damage to the garden,” Elanor's soft voice came from behind. “Do you recall the time we decided to dig for treasure in the cabbages?”
“That I do,” Frodo chuckled. “I remember we had to replant them, each and every one, all the while Da standing over us directing every move we made. And then he told me I was to have no sweets for a week.”
“And he refused to read to me at bedtime for my part in the caper. I cried myself to sleep each and every night of that miserably long week.”
Frodo draped an arm across his sister's shoulders and gave her a gentle squeeze. “You slipped gingersnaps into your pockets and brought them to me. They were still warm from the oven.”
Elanor's arm snaked around Frodo's waist and she smiled. “You made up stories for me. Wonderful tales about two little hobbits and the adventures they would have one day.”
“I don't suppose you happen to have a treat or two in that basket you're carrying now, do you Ellie?” Frodo inquired wistfully.
“Oh, Fro!” Elanor laughed, swinging the basket temptingly. “I don't suppose you have time to tell me a tale?”
Frodo grinned and gestured to a shady spot beneath an apple tree. “Once upon a time...” he said softly.
One by one, the other Gamgee children left off their game and settled in a semicircle at Frodo's feet. And Elanor withdrew a large linen napkin from her basket, and passed freshly baked shortcake biscuits around.
~*~
“And Violet Cotton said that she's my third cousin twice removed, so I have to go to her birthday party, because that's the right and proper thing to do. But I don't really like Violet... and she doesn't like me. I know she's going to hand me some nasty mathom... like a toad... or a sachet of ragweed. And I'll have to smile and thank her. And all the while she'll be laughing at me down deep inside. She's like that, you know. Mean and sneaky. So what should I do? Do I have to go to her silly party, Da? Mam said I should...”
“Toads aren't nasty,” Sam replied. “They're very useful in a garden, and you might do well to remember that.”
“Does that mean I have to go?”
“All I'm sayin' is that Ol' Brown Toes might be partial to some company down there in his shady nook. He can't eat all those bugs by himself, he'll get too fat to hop.” Sam puffed his cheeks up with air till they looked fit to burst and bulged out his eyes.
Goldilocks giggled and wriggled her own brown toes a little deeper into the dark, rich loam of the flowerbed where she'd found Hobbiton's most distinguished resident contentedly pulling weeds, quite oblivious to the failing of the afternoon sun and the dirt encrusting the knees of his second-best pair of britches.
“And if it's ragweed?” she pressed. “A big old sack of stinky ragweed?”
“Ahhh... well then, there are seeds that won't ever be sown by the wind. That'll make a gardener's job go all the faster when it comes weeding time. And a lot of folk will breathe a little easier too, without all that pollen in the air. Folk like poor Jamie Spruceharrow. He's Stephan's kin, isn't he? A cousin on his mam's side.”
And since Stephan Greystone just happened to be the apple of a certain young hobbit lass' eye... Sam quickly hid a smile as Goldilocks' chin came up and her shoulders squared.
“I'll go to Violet's party.” she stated firmly.
“I'll find you a pretty ribbon for your hair my next trip to town.” Sam promised, and sealed the deal with a quick kiss to Goldie's freckled nose. “Now, scoot! Go help your mam shell peas.”
As Goldie scampered off, Sam rocked back on his heels and listened to the cheerful chatter floating out the kitchen window of his smial: Rosie's soft-voiced instructions; Rose's sweet voice raised in song; Prim and Daisy arguing over whose turn it was to fetch the buttermilk this time; and little Ruby nattering on and on about the latest batch of kittens in her grandad's barn.
No doubt about it, there'd be a tabby at Bag End before the month was through. As if a dozen scatterbrained chickens, several goats, a cantankerous milk cow, two dogs, a mob of rabbits that were always escaping their hutch and a faithful old pony weren't enough of a bother!
Sam shook his head and turned his attention back to weeding the flowerbed, letting the familiar rhythm of the simple chore ease the tension in his neck and shoulders. This was the work he was destined to do. Samwise Gamgee was never meant to be sitting in some fancy chamber, arbitrating other folks' problems. He belonged here. Close to the soil, in the garden he loved.
Footsteps trotted up the gravelled path...
“You're late,” Sam noted mildly. Without turning his head to see, as sure as he knew his name was Samwise, he could envision the sheepish look upon his eldest daughter's flushed face, the book clutched to her breast.
“I'm sorry, Da,” Elanor murmured, “but I--”
“Lost track of the time.” Sam smiled, and reached up to smooth a strand of long, golden hair behind Elanor's slightly sunburned ear. “Have I told you how good it is to have you home with us again? Even if it's only for a little while.”
“You may have mentioned it a time or two,” Elanor teased, her smile widening at her father's mock growl.
“In you go, Ellie, or queen's maid or no, your mam will have your head.” Sam squinted at the sun's position. “The lads must be almost done their chores by now. They'll soon be clamouring for their supper. And see to it that that book is put safely away in its proper place this time.”
“Yes, Da,' Elanor soothed, bending to brush her lips across Sam's brow before hastening on her way. For an instant, just before the shadowed doorway welcomed her inside, her slim body was limned by a golden light. And the way her head tilted slightly to the left as she listened to the homey din her mother and sisters made caused Sam's breath to suddenly catch in his throat. How many times had he watched from this very spot as Frodo scampered home to Bilbo, his hair still wet from a quick dip in the Water, a book tucked carelessly beneath his arm. How many times had he heard Frodo making his excuses? How many times had Bilbo laughed at some improbable tale?
The hand that came to rest on Sam's suddenly trembling shoulder was tanned and calloused, not pale and unused to hard labour. The eyes that met his were hazel, not blue; the hair framing the beloved face a riot of golden curls. But, surely, that was only some trick of the fading light?
“Frodo?” Sam whispered uncertainly.
“Go wash up for supper, Da,” Frodo-lad said kindly. “I'll finish here.”
“Aye,' Sam nodded wearily. “Thank you, lad. It's been a long day.”
~*~
Before slipping into Bag End, Sam made good use of the foot bath outside the kitchen door. The tempting scents of baking bread and roasting chicken wrapped around him. Cheerful hellos and a flurry of kisses slowed his progress across the bustling room to the hall which led to the bathing chamber. It was cooler in the depths of the smial, the uproar muffled, the aroma of food overpowered by the equally comforting and familiar scent of furniture polish. Sam closed his eyes and drifted down the long, curved hall, his left hand trailing along the wainscoting to mark his progress. Here were the nicks where, three years past, young Pippin had tried his skill with a whittling knife. Here was the hole where a once knot used to be. And here was the squeaky floorboard, the one Merry always forgot, whenever he tried to creep out from his room for a late night snack.
Frodo used to forget that spot was there as well, the sudden thought came to Sam's mind and he halted, lost to the memory...
Sometimes, a year or two before Mr. Bilbo vanished from the Shire, duty would keep Sam late at Bag End, keep him far too late for him to make his way safely back home. Sometimes, in the wee hours, as Samwise lay abed in the little room just around the corner from where he now stood, the very room that Ham slept in now, he would hear this floorboard creak. Long moments later, a latch would click and his door would quietly open and as quietly close again. Soft footsteps would approach his bed and cool fingers would glide their way across his bare chest. Sam's arms would reach up in welcome and enfold his lover; their lips would meet and the night would fill with free and easy laughter, murmured vows of love and breathless sighs...
Deliberately, Sam rocked his foot back and forth in place a time or two, to make the floorboard sing, to make his heart sing along with it.
“Frodo...” he murmured.
But, of course, there was no reply. And there was naught to do but to continue on his way down the silent hall to his lonely bath.
~*~
Freshly scrubbed and composure as neatly tucked into place as were his favourite old blue shirt's tails, Sam rejoined the bustle in the kitchen. Dishes clattered, chairs scraped across the floor. A parade of food marched from stove to counter to table, detouring around wee Robin, who had crawled squarely into the midst of the fray. Rob squealed in delight as his father swung him up into his arms, and Sam tucked the babe under one arm as he attempted to snatch a tidbit from a passing platter.
“Ah-ah-ah!” Rosie chided and slapped his hand away, much to Prim and Daisy's amusement.
“We already tried that, Da,” Daisy whispered. “Merry says Mam has eyes in the back of her head.”
“Da?” A sharp tug on his britches caused Sam to look down into Bilbo's tear-filled eyes. Bilbo held up the little horse Sam had carved last Yule. “The leg's broken,” he said sadly.
“Do you still have it?” Sam asked, squatting down to Bilbo's level so he might better study the problem “I reckon I can drill a hole and fit a peg inside.”
Bilbo nodded and drew his toy back from Robin's curious grasp. “Ergh, baby drool!” he complained, wiping the offending slime off the polished wood.
“It's not that long ago that you were the drooly one, squirt,” Merry teased.
Bilbo stuck out his tongue.
Merry dropped his armload of firewood into the bin and gave chase.
“Stop that foolishness, lads!” Sam and Rosie chorused, making shooing motions towards the dinner table.
And somehow, as it always did, chaos slowly subsided. The scraping of chair legs on floorboards and the rustle of bodies settling into those chairs faded to an expectant hush as Sam took his place at the head of the table.
“A blessing on our home,” he intoned, bowing his head over his folded hands. “Good food, good health and happiness to those we love... no matter how far they wander.”
“May it be,” his family replied and, for awhile, the sound of hobbits doing what they do best was the only sound in the room. But there are limits to the amount that even the hungriest of hobbits can consume in one sitting and, eventually, the chatter of voices rose once more above the clatter of cutlery on plates.
“Merry spilled a whole pail of milk,” Pippin announced. “He said a bad word too.”
“And whose fault was it that the bucket was left behind me?” Merry countered heatedly.
“Can I have a kitty?” Ruby lisped.
“'May I,'” Rosie corrected absentmindedly. “Oh, Pip, you know it's not nice to tattle. And it is your job to move the milk away as the older lads fill the pails.”
“Jon Westbrook said his dad needs help with the haying,” Frodo-lad murmured. “I thought I might spend the next week or so at their farm, if you can spare me, Da.”
“I think that might be managed,” Sam smiled.
“I'm old enough to go too!” Merry offered eagerly.
“Me too!” Pippin chirped.
“Hold on, hold on, we can't be losing all our lads!” Rosie protested. “Your da doesn't have time to do the chores all by himself.”
“And anyway,” Merry said loftily. “You're still a baby, Pip.”
“I. Am. Not!”
“May I have a kitty?” Ruby said hopefully.
~*~
It never ceased to amaze Sam, how surely with the disappearance of the sun the ruckus of the day faded to the calm of the night. The anthill-busy bustle of the smial was stilled now, even the clickity-clack of Rosie's knitting needles absent, the evening's silence broken only by the chirruping of crickets, the distant baying of a neighbour's hound.
The children and Rosie were long since a-bed -- and so should he be! But still he lingered in the garden: leaning against the friendly comfort of the gate which overlooked The Row; the smoke rising from his pipe curling around his head like a dark question mark against the star-strewn sky. Sam's head tilted up to better see those stars... and as it did, the tears he'd managed to hold back through the long day finally spilled down his cheeks.
“What a great ninny you are, Samwise,” he whispered, dashing the back of his hand across his eyes. ”You have everything a hobbit could want...”
Not everything... a little voice niggled in his heart.
“No,” Sam agreed quietly. “Not everything. But it's a good life. It's the life he wanted for me, filled with beautiful noise... and that will have to do.”
Silently, he turned and made his way into his darkened smial.