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In Dreams
The peal of silvery laughter rang out suddenly, and
Sam couldn’t help but smile. But he quickly hid the errant
expression, and tried his best to look vaguely about, with great
sternness. “Is there not a body to be found, here?” he questioned,
seemingly, the bright blue sky. “There’d be a platter of fresh
blueberry scones in the kitchen, just out of the oven, but it seems
as though I’d be eatin’ them all to meself.”
That won’t take long, he thought to himself, with a certain amount
of self-satisfaction, and indeed, it did not. There was a rustle
deep from the base of the luxuriant bean bush, and then a small
sturdy body burst out and aimed itself at him in a rush of golden
curls and white petticoats. With another squeal of glee, the small
creature wrapped herself firmly about his leg, and looked up at him
with merry hazel eyes, the very portrait of her mother at her age.
“You never be knowin’ I’d be there,” she pronounced with the
greatest of surety, and of course, who was Sam to deny that
certainty?
“Me dear, you’d best not be startling old hobbits such as myself
so,” he chided her playfully, and totally undermining his stern
remonstrance, swung her up into the air as she threw herself back in
his sure clasp and shrieked in delight. But the lure of blueberry
scones was not to be denied for long, and in a moment she was on the
ground again and tugging him towards the smial.
“Come along, Uncle Samwise, how can you be so slow?” The young
hobbit turned, on the verge of becoming a tween and still all gawky
arms and legs, and gave him a long-suffering but patient look. “The
sun will be high, soon enough, and I’d rather not be in that
blackberry thicket then. ‘Tis hard work, at any time, but the worst
when the sun is hot.”
“ ‘Twas a time, lad, but no matter,” he muttered affectionately, his
memories too full of other times, and other voices. “You go along
now, and I’ll be followin’ as best I may.”
With infinite, and only slightly obvious, patience, his nephew
waited for the slower older hobbit to catch up with him, and
thoughtfully held the prickly branches, along the path, to the side
for him. “Just you wait here, now, and I’ll get those berries in the
back then. No sense in prickin’ the both of us up, noways.”
Well, there was sense enough in that, and Sam waited for the lad to
reappear, scratched, sweaty, and disheveled, and with a bucket full
of berries and a triumphant grin. Oh, there had been a time… Sam
suddenly felt the ridiculous tears of old age rising up, but
successfully hid them as he stiffly rose from the wall on which he
had been sitting, and made as if to chastise the harvester.
“I’d never thought t’see you again, lad, and here’s your mother just
awaitin’ t’make a pie, and nary a berry t’be doin’ that with.”
But the tall handsome lad just laughed, too full of his success, and
far too fond of his uncle to take offense, and draping a casual arm
about his shoulder, slowed his pace to match Sam’s as they started
back for the smial.
“Just for a moment, Sam, see what can be done w’the lass,” her
mother exclaimed with an exhausted sigh. “The bread is risen, and I
must be punchin’ it down, and the rest are due home soon enough, and
there’s not a vegetable in the soup yet. How a body’s to do it all,
I’m sure I don’t know, but there’s naught to be done with a
fauntling in my arms, t‘be sure.”
Sam had been laboriously writing out his speech for the next
Hobbiton town meeting, for it always made him feel better to have
something in his hand, whether he actually read it or no, but the
plea of a desperate mother was one that could not be ignored. So he
received the awkward red-faced bundle, with its high-pitched
complaint, and settling it comfortably against his sturdy chest,
gave it an experienced pat or two. With a loud hiccup, and a final
wail of protest, the small bundle was quickly reduced to the
occasional sniffle, and Sam felt inordinately pleased. In a low
voice, he began to hum a tune, exactly what, he knew not, but his
audience appeared to be satisfied with the effort. She gave a last
mighty yawn, and one last soft bleat, and her eyes slowly slid
closed, as the tiny hand stretched open once again and then closed
firmly about Sam’s weskit collar.
Well, the speech would do as it was, he decided with a rueful smile.
It wasn’t as if folk really paid a mind to it, as long as the
post-meeting refreshments were up to their usual high caliber, and
the keg of spring beer was flowing. Settling himself comfortably in
his favorite chair with his precious bundle, he and his charge were
both soundly asleep in no time.
He awoke with a start, his face wet with tears, and carefully sat up
in bed. The moon, full and silver this night, shone through the
slightly open window, and he instinctively turned toward the other
occupant of the bed. But he need not have been concerned.
Frodo was lying on his side facing him, his breathing steady as he
slept, and his arm outstretched. Sam had been lying on that arm,
just a moment before, but Frodo’s sleep was deep and peaceful, and
the removal of Sam from his embrace seemed not to have disturbed him
at all.
Sam watched the calm rise and fall of his chest for a few moments,
and the way the moonlight picked up the occasional strand of silver
in those dark curls, and made them reflect the light that still,
yes, even now, could be seen in that serene countenance.
There would be no sleep for him though, not for awhile. Cautiously
he left the warm feather bed and picked up his robe, dark, soft and
silken, and threw it about him self as he left the room. Through the
smial he walked, his steps sure in the steadfast knowledge of where
every well-polished stone in the floor was, until he found himself
on the doorstep where he, opening the door, sat down and stared
unseeingly into the early dawn.
There was no decision that he had ever made that he had, eventually,
come to regret. He had given his heart freely, and without reserve,
and had never been sorry for the course his life had taken. He had
offered his life over to love, had followed that love through joy
and unimaginable grief, and had ended up on the far side of the
world, where he never would have dreamt himself to be, all for the
sake of that love. There had been pain and heartbreak, such as he
never could have thought bearable, yet there had never been an
alternative. He had loved Frodo with all his heart, whether or no,
and what had followed from that must be accepted.
But here they both were, together once again, at the end of the
world and beyond time itself, and he could not understand why it
should hurt him so that they had had to give up the peaceful lives
they had once possessed. And yet it did. It was a graciously
beautiful land in which they now lived, and he hoped that he was
properly appreciative of the honor that had been bestowed upon Frodo
and him, but that still did not mend its deficits.
So Sam sat in the cold grey dawn and wiped the tears, of which he
would never let Frodo know, from his cheeks as he mourned the faces
that he would never see again, the laughing voices that would never
gladden his heart again, and the secure sense of home that had gone
forever. Frodo meant everything to him, and always had and forever
would, and he never would regret having followed him so far from all
he had ever known, but they were alone and the sun rose from over
the sea, bitter and red, and from the wrong direction.
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