"I hate this blouse. It prickles and itches and sticks to my neck!" Rose complained, running to catch up with Elanor. "It's just stupid ol' Harmony Burrowes, anyway."

"If Dad caught you talking like that about a gammer he'd have words to say, you know," Elanor pointed out sternly, though secretly she felt the same. It was hateful to be gussied up in good clothes on such a lovely afternoon, while everyone else was out splashing about on the riverbank and playing tiggy under the trees.

"And why's it only us? Why don't the boys have to be polite and go visiting?"

"Because Miz Burrowes wanted us special. Now hush, you're yelling and we're nearly there."

Rose once again crossed her fingers that their Mum's next baby would be a girl - a girl with brown hair, too, not yellow like Elly's. Rose wanted a sister who looked properly the same as her, and not all skinny and white like an Elf.

Then, feeling guilty at such uncharitable thoughts, she trotted to fall into line beside her sister and slipped her hand into El's.

"Do you think she'll let me play with her little china dogs?" Rose asked meekly. Elanor gave her tiny sister a smile.

"Oh, I 'spect so. I won't, though. Eight's much too old for china dogs."

Rose rolled her eyes. Elanor did get airs sometimes, being the oldest and the only one who'd met... him.

Harmony Burrowes' cottage was practically buried by a thick hedge that ran around the outside of it, the only hint that it wasn't a proper smial lying in the upper-storey windows peeking out from the greenery. Rose was a bit timid of that, stairs weren't sensible things to climb like tree branches were. Why, there wasn't anywhere to wedge your feet if you got tired and needed a rest.

"Oh, girls, you do grow quickly. Come have some jam tarts, they're new out of the oven and it's been driving me to distraction waiting for you with the smell wafting about."

"Hullo-Miss-Burrowes," Elanor said with a curtsey. "How-are-you-today?"

"Quite well, thankyou Elanor. Come on, stop looking so shy and hovering in the doorway and come sit! I wanted to see you two especially today, without all those messy brothers of yours."

"Pip's the only really messy one," Rose put in timidly, nibbling on a tart. Ooo, it was yummy.

Harmony sniffed. "Never had much time for boys, did I. Well," she shook herself and opened the drawer of the sideboard. "I wanted you to have these. They were given to me by your grandmother Bell as you never knew, your Dad's mum. I found them t'other day when I was cleaning and thought 'those nice Gardner girls should have these, by rights'."

"Thankyou!" Elanor took the sheaf of old papers reverently. "They're addressed to Sam-dad! I didn't know granny Bell knew her letters."

"Oh yes, quite the dreamer she was. Lot like your mum, really. She wanted to travel all over the world, used to listen to Mr Bilbo's stories of far-off places for hours on end. Her Sam was her favourite, if she were a favourite-player which she weren't, really. Used to pig-a-back him up when she brought Hamfast his noonpiece in the Bag End gardens, and encourage him to play with Master Frodo. She worried about that lad, said he was too quiet for a regular hobbit."

Elanor and Rose exchanged an excited look. Him! They almost never got stories about him at home unless Dad and Mum were in a very good mood, or a very sad one.

"Was he? Too quiet, I mean?" Rose asked.

"Some might say," Harmony nodded. "But when he played with your parents... though they weren't your parents yet then, being small themselves... he would laugh so. I never heard another hobbit laugh quite like that, I didn't. Lovely boy. Such a shame..."

And then she shook herself, and smiled, and asked if Rose would like to have a careful go at dusting the pair of little china dogs on the endtable.

~

Pretty Good Year | email Mary