Rosie Cotton looked up at her mother and shrugged, scratching at a mosquito bite on one shoulder idly as she watched the night sky's reflection ripple on the water.
"Nothing in particular."
"I would have thought you'd be over with Tolman and his Marigold at her cousin's midsummer party," confessed her mother, sitting down on the soft grass and twisting a stray leaf of clover between her fingers. Rosie snorted.
"Marigold and I aren't what you'd call friendly, as a general way of things. I can't see her inviting me as a third leg on her trysts with our Tom, and I wasn't going to turn up without a reason. April Goodchild doesn't make a mouthful more than her family and their guests can eat, and none of them would appreciate sharing."
"Oh, I think one or two of them wouldn't mind so much," Lily Cotton teased her only daughter. Rosie just smiled to herself and gazed down at the river at the bottom of the hill. "Don't try and tell me you're not sweet on him, lass, I see the way you find excuses to trip up the hill to Bag End and sit there in the garden. As if you'd any interest in learning your letters, my sensible little Rose? I'd sooner expect to find you learning how to build a tower."
Rosie's expression couldn't be deciphered as her mother kept talking. "Still, it was a clever way to play it. All those afternoons in the shade with Mr Baggins teaching you to spell things out, you must have gotten a good long look at little Sam."
"He's not so little, Mum, twenty-five's quite grown." Rosie's voice was soft, and she still had her head down. Her hair fell in a soil-dark curtain in the last light of the day, brushed into ordered curls, and Lily felt proud that her daughter was growing into a right pretty thing.
"I suppose not. All the little ones grow up so fast," sighed Lily. "That's the way of it, though." She stood. "Anyway, must get back in and see about dinner. Don't stay out here too long, girl, the midges will bite you red and blue."
Lily walked back through the gently sloping paddock to the house, turning at the door to make out the shadowed silhouette of Rosie with a smile.
"I like being able to read," Rosie said when she was alone. Only the stars, the clover and the river heard the confession. "I like knowing the stories and the histories, even if Mum doesn't see the sense in it. I think I'd like my own babies to learn their words under that tree with Mr Baggins some day, he's a good teacher." Rosie's young mouth curled up in a smile at the memory of her mother's teasing. "I expect Sam would agree with me, too."
~