Chapter 29. Very Short Pause

Samwise closed the Red Book with a sigh.

'And so Bag End was to be renewed, and the Shire as well,' Rosie-lass said. She and her family, hearing that Samwise was still at Undertowers, had come from Greenholm for a brief visit. 'And the mallorn seed! Mr Frodo gave many more details than what he finally wrote in the Red Book.'

Her husband Leot looked up from where he leaned against her knee, their littlest fast asleep in his lap with thumb firmly in mouth. Time for bed, he mouthed, and she pouted prettily. Not for me! Unless... she mouthed back at him, and he chuckled softly enough not to waken the little one.

'I'm sure it was disheartening for him to misplace so much that he'd written,' Fastred said. He looked at his cold pipe as if seeing it for the first time. He'd been so interested in the story, he'd forgot to draw on the pipe and it had gone out only half-done.

'Are we finished for the night?' Elanor asked, putting down her needle.

'Not quite,' Sam said quietly, 'but let us put the littlest ones to bed.'

There was a chorus of protest at this, but Sam was firm and Fastred enforced the gran-dad's edict, promising a story of his own fashioning the next day if they went quietly now. Rosie and Leot settled their own littlest ones all tumbled together in the borrowed bed, and returned to the parlour with their older children.

At last, the fire renewed and fresh tea poured, Sam opened the book again. 'This part is what makes me wonder if Mr Frodo lost these pages "accidentally a-purpose",' he said. 'It makes me shake my head, to think of such evil, and in the Shire, even if it came from the outside and not from the hearts of hobbits! It makes me understand Mr Merry a little better, how he never spoke of what happened to him on the Quest, the terrible things he saw, and how he argued with Mr Frodo about how the History ought to be wrote down.'

'Do you think it's fit for our ears?' Elanor asked soberly.

Sam considered, his fingers caressing the Red Book, then nodded. 'I've read it over and over again, considering. I think Mr Frodo might've thrown the pages on the fire, but that he couldn't make up his own mind. I remember him saying once, when he came to supper pale and drained, "There is evil in the world, Samwise. Hobbits must know of it, so that they recognize and can stand firm against it, but they must not know it intimately lest it find purchase in their hearts.*" No, he actually said that more than once. It was important to him that hobbits know the History without being tainted by it.'

'Let me see that a moment,' Fastred said, getting up and going over to Sam. His father-in-love took his hand from the book, and Fastred turned the leaves over with thoughtful care.

'Every page but the title page is a fair copy,' he said slowly. 'These are not draughts, Sam-dad, but written without changes or corrections. Your Mr Frodo took the time to compose these pages and then copy them over again when he had everything to his satisfaction. If he took such care, then oughtn't we to honour his effort?'

Sam nodded. 'When you put it that way, Fas...' He turned back to the page where he'd left off and began once more to read.

*** 

* Thanks go to FantasyFan for this suggested phrasing.