Frodo stood in the main hall and peered down the passageways around the smial, familiarizing himself with his new home. Smaller than Brandybuck Hall, Bag End still had enough nooks and crannies never explored on his previous visits, though the main areas were well known to him.

Bilbo’s study should be here. He pulled open the door. The small boy standing next to Bilbo’s desk looked up at him, gasped, and scrambled backwards to stand pressed against the bookcase.

“What are you doing?” Frodo asked sharply.

“Nothing.” The boy’s hand darted up to his head. Encountering no hat, he gave a quick tug to his unruly forelock and his head bobbed once down and up. “Mr. Frodo, sir,” he added still staring at Frodo wide-eyed. Suddenly he relaxed and gave a disappointed shake of his head. “Durn it. ‘Taint true.”

“What isn’t true?”

“Halfred said folk were queer where you come from, and I thought you might have green hair or horns or some such.” He fixed Frodo with an accusing look. “But you’re no different than Mr. Bilbo.”

Frodo swallowed a laugh at the boy’s disappointment. “You have the advantage of me. Who are you?”

“Sam, sir. Samwise Gamgee.”

The title quote is by the Gaffer Gamgee in Fellowship of the Ring. “If that's being queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in these parts. There's some not far away that wouldn't offer a pint of beer to a friend, if they lived in a hole with golden walls. But they do things proper at Bag End.”

Following the dates given in the family trees, Sam is six years old to Frodo’s twenty-one or, following the dates in the Tale of Years, Sam is nine. Take your pick.