Chapter Thirty-Six: A Day at the Fair

We all went to Fair yesterday, dear, Rose, Elanor, Frodo-lad, Rosie-lass, Merry-lad, Pippin-lad and Goldilocks, not to mention Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin and his son. Rose is swelling with our seventh and if that babe is another lad, then we’ve already agreed that he’s going to be named after my Gaffer.

Remember how much fun we always had? How we would race there so early in the morning to be among the first ones there, how we played at so many of the games and rode on the ponies and went for the hayrides? We ate so much food it’s a wonder we didn’t explode! The corn right from the stalk was always our favorite with the warm butter dripping down our chin. How wet we’d get bobbing for apples. You were always so much better at that then I was. Your curls always got completely soaked and the front of your shirt, then you’d emerge, shining and triumphant with the apple in your mouth that you’d then share with me. How beautiful you were, how very beautiful. I wondered so many times how I got so lucky to know you and have you be my friend and love me so much. You were such a gift to me, to all Middle-earth, so filled with joy and light it was almost blinding at times, but I never wanted to look away either. We would spend the whole day laughing for all the fun we were having and I would be fit to bursting with all the joy it gave me to hear that and to be with you.

Remember when we used to run those races with my left leg tied to your right? We didn’t usually win, sometimes we didn’t even finish, tripping and falling over each other. But we’d laugh so hard and enjoy ourselves no matter how well or poorly we did, simply because we were having fun together. I thought of that today when I watched Frodo-lad and my Merry run. They did a little better than we normally did and in their laughter and my own, I remembered ours. You have given me such a joyful life, my Frodo. I wish you could be here to see it for yourself. I don’t doubt that somehow you are.

The children look forward to this for weeks and every couple years, there’s a new one experiencing it for the first time. I thought of you as I watched the children munch on their corn and how protective they are of each other and how they would take one another by the hand and run off in different directions to either favorite things or things that the other hadn’t seen yet. Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin watched over their namesakes and had just as much fun as they did. I stayed with Rose much of the time and we watched the children play and eat and laugh and I rejoiced that they had so much fun and it was so bright and warm and I thanked you again for all you had done to make it that way.

We stayed out all past dark even. We were all exhausted by that time but happy. We carried most of the children home, asleep in our arms, and I was that glad that Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin had come and enjoyed themselves as well. Rose had bought a few things we needed and we all collapsed in our beds when we got home.

What fun we had! Some of my earliest memories are from these Fairs, riding on my Da’s shoulder’s, eating corn, bobbing for apples. Many of the memories are also associated with you. I remember missing it only one time, that time I was that sick with a fever and wasn’t awake for two days and couldn’t leave my bed for days after that. I remember my mum telling me how you stayed with me the whole time, fretting over me so bad that you were biting your lip to keep the tears from coming and not always succeeding. I remember how you sang to me and held my hand and stroked my curls and made sure I had cool cloths on my forehead and enough water to drink. I couldn’t have been more than twelve. My mum told me she said that you didn’t have to stay, that you could go to the Fair and that she’d watch over me. You just shook your head and held my hand a little tighter. “No, thank you, Mrs. Gamgee,” she told me you said. “I’d rather be here with Sam. I don’t want him to wake up and have him not see me.”

She told me she had almost cried then and had hugged you and then sat down on the other side of my bed and you both waited for me to wake. A real gentlehobbit, she always called you. And, of course, she was right. She told me over and over after I recovered how moved she was by your devotion. It was only then that she told me how sick I had really been, how everyone was so scared I would never wake and how you had never given up hope and had not let her give up hope either and you were right. I woke up on the second day and you were holding onto of my hands and she was holding the other. The first thing I saw was you smiling down at me with those lovely, luminous eyes of yours, then you leaned down and kissed my head. “Welcome back, my Sam,” you said softly. “What a sleepyhead you are!”

I would have laughed if I had enough strength but I smiled for you and you smiled brighter for me and laughed for us both. I looked at my mum then and she kissed me as well, then you helped me sit up and put my pillows behind just right and you and her fed me and then I slept again, but it was a regular sleep, not a sick sleep. You stayed with me the entire time, holding my hand, watching over me, smiling, so full of love. When I realized that you had even stayed and missed the whole Fair, I felt so bad for you. “Don’t fret so, my Sam,” you told me. “I was where I wanted to be.”

Goodnight, dear. Sleep well. I love you so very, very much. Thank you for all the memories and joy you have given me for so very long.