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“Look at those lovely rows! You’ve improved a great deal, Mister Boromir, if you don’t mind me sayin’ so.” Sam removed his fraying straw hat to fan his face in the late summer sun.
“Have I indeed?” Boromir got to his feet to observe their work, wiping the sweat from his brow.
Rows of freshly tilled soil marched down the sprawling garden of Bag End, labeled with Sam’s untidy but determined hand: Peas, Turnips, Leeks, Carrots, Beets, on and on—Boromir might have called it excessive, if he hadn’t known firsthand just how much hobbits were capable of eating.
“’Course you’ve improved,” Sam replied stoutly, now brushing the dirt from his trousers. “After your horrible start—though maybe that’s best forgotten, if you follow me.”
Boromir recalled his first day in Bag End with a wince. After being asked by Rosie to prune the rosebushes she and Sam couldn’t quite reach, he’d marched confidently into the garden and promptly trodden on their newly planted snapdragons, twisting Rosie’s face into a frightening scowl and nearly bringing little Elanor to tears. “Once again, Sam, I must apologize for that.”
“Oh, no harm done.” Sam waved his words away with a reassuring hand.
Boromir's eyes lowered. Always Sam was too quick to forgive him—quicker by far than Boromir deserved—no matter how trifling or serious the offense.
“You replaced the snapdragons right quick, at least," Sam went on, grinning, jogging Boromir from his memories. "Anyways, it’s not your fault. ‘Them Big Folk are clumsy through and through,’ I told my Rosie, you know, ‘and likely it’s on account of those big clunking boots they wear, they can’t help but step on everything in their way.’”
Boromir laughed, and the sound nearly startled him. He was happy, almost unbearably happy, here in this little garden in the Shire, dirt clumped under his fingernails and a sunburn blooming on the back of his neck. Who would have guessed that Boromir, Steward of Gondor and Captain of the White Tower, would develop such a love of gardening?
True, he wouldn't remain in the Shire long enough to see the seeds sprout or to taste the fruits of his hard work, but he minded little. He’d needed something to occupy himself here—he’d never taken a vacation in his life and wasn’t used to being idle—but he’d taken to gardening with greater joy than he could have imagined. It was the act of planting, the steadfast care the seeds needed to grow, the amount of water and depth of soil and a thousand other protections against the elements…
And perhaps most importantly, Boromir’s floppy gardening hat and the lumpy, man-sized shearing gloves Rosie had fashioned for him were a good deal more comfortable than his captain’s armor, and were far less likely to be drenched in blood.
“Now then,” Sam said, scratching his chin. “We’re near done for the day, I should think. If you wouldn't mind, go inside and fetch my pruning shears. We’ll see to the rose bushes and then meet Rosie at the Green Dragon for a mug of ale, if you like.”
With a nod, Boromir went back to the green hobbit-door, pausing to scrape the mud off his boots. He ducked low to avoid the door frame and made his way down the hall.
A chorus of laughter met his ears as he made his awkward, crouching way down the long hallway: Merry and Pippin were watching the two hobbit-children while Rosie was finishing her shift at the pub, Boromir knew, but from the sound of it, his friends weren’t trying very hard to keep their charges in line.
He scratched his chin thoughtfully. Now, did Sam keep his pruning shears in the kitchen? Or were they perhaps—
Something shoved at his calf. “Move!”
“Eh?” Boromir jolted upright and thwacked his head against the rafters. “Valar blast it all—” Eyes watering, he squinted down to see a chubby little figure tugging furiously at his leg.
“Move!” Elanor’s round cheeks were bright red, her wild blonde curls swinging as she punched at his calf. For a child who could be no more than five, her voice held as much authority as a king’s. “Move-move-move, get off the floor!”
“What? Why’s that, lass?”
“Because!” she cried, and it was only then that Boromir noticed that she was standing on a sofa cushion—that she’d, in fact, hopped her way to him on a long trail of cushions, several of which had split open in protest and were now bleeding goose feathers into the air. “Because the floor is molasses! Now move!”
“Ah.” A grin bloomed on his face. “Molasses, is it?”
“Yes, now hurry up, Boromir,” came Pippin’s cry from the living room. “It’s safer in here!”
“Very well,” he said gravely, distantly recalling similar games from Faramir’s childhood—though their antics had involved rather less homey threats than molasses, if memory served. In the Citadel, the marble tiles had most often turned to lava or quicksand, and out of doors the tall grasses had become thickets of enemy spears, which he and Faramir had avoided only by dangling from tree branches and leaping into ponds.
But that mattered little. He could work with molasses.
Scooping up a giggling Elanor in his arms, Boromir trudged toward the living room, groaning and dragging his boots against the floor so exaggeratedly that the hobbit-lass punched his shoulder. “Hurry up!”
“Nearly—there,” Boromir gasped, falling dramatically to his knees in the living room doorway, depositing Elanor safely onto another cushion as he did so.
“Get up, you great lump!” she bellowed, reaching forward to yank on his hair. “You’ll be stuck forever!”
“It’s true,” Pippin added mildly. “We’ve lost many a good hobbit that way, you know.”
Boromir looked up to reply, then snorted. Pippin was standing on the dining room table, his curly hair in the rafters.
“Oy!” Merry called cheerily. He lay flat on his stomach on top of the grandfather clock in the hall, his limbs hanging limply on all sides like a collapsed scarecrow. “How’s the gardening coming along?”
“’ullo, mister Bormeer,” came a call from little Frodo, who stood in a large plant pot, his chubby toddler hands clutching the rim to balance himself. Dirt and leaves were scattered about on the floor, the only visible remnants of the plant pot’s former inhabitant. “You gotta get off the floor, mister, or you’re gonna get stucked,” the hobbit-lad informed him seriously. “Right, Ellie?”
“That’s what I’ve been telling him!” his big sister cried, hand on her hips again. “Mister Pippin, throw him a rope or something. I can’t get him up on my own, he’s too big and fat.”
Boromir spluttered. “Too big and—”
“Don’t worry, Boromir, I’ll save you.” Deftly, Pippin flung a wooden bowl of fruit in the direction of the coat stand near the wall, which toppled toward him with a clatter loud enough to make Boromir wince. Catching hold of it, Pippin directed its wooden feet in Boromir’s direction. “Go on, use this—pull yourself up to safety!”
“And what will Sam say when he sees that you’ve all done your best to destroy Bag End and everything in it?”
“It’s already destroyed,” little Frodo crowed from the plant pot. “It’s covered in molasses!”
Boromir considered this. “A fair point,” he conceded, and with a great show of struggling and straining, he pulled himself to safety. He was too big to sit comfortably in most of the chairs in Bag End, so he settled on the dinner table with his feet resting on the nearest chair. “There,” he said, grinning at the hobbits. “Am I quite safe now, do you think?”
“No!” Elanor cried. “Now the table’s sinking into the molasses, right Mister Merry?”
"You know, I think you're right." Merry swung his legs idly from on top of the grandfather clock. “Excellent observation, Ellie my dear.”
“What am I to do then, Captain Elanor?” Boromir turned back to her. “I await your orders.”
“Get to the sofa—quick!”
Boromir nodded determinedly, but as he stepped back onto the floor, little Frodo gave a shriek. “Don’t touch the floor, Mister!”
He hesitated. “How am I to cross the room, then?”
Elanor rolled her eyes. “Jump across on the pillows, of course!” To demonstrate, she leap-frogged across the room on the strewn sofa cushions before reaching the safety of the rocking chair in the corner. The chair swayed precariously under her momentum, but stayed upright. With a shout of triumph, she turned back to Boromir and jabbed an imperious finger at him. “Now you!”
“Straightaway, Captain,” he replied with a salute, making Elanor giggle.
He hesitated for a moment, but there was nothing else for it. Boromir launched himself from the too-small chair and landed squarely on the nearest sofa cushion, which promptly exploded in a cloud of goose feathers.
“You great lump!” Elanor cried.
“Wooo!” little Frodo shrieked from the plant pot.
“Nicely done, Boromir,” Merry said dryly.
“Oh, nicely done, was it?”
Boromir winced as Sam’s voice cut through the cloud of feathers.
“What is going on here?” Sam’s stout hands were on his hips, and he glared from Boromir to Pippin to Merry, who in the ensuing moment of frightened silence toppled headlong off the grandfather clock and landed in a heap on the floor.
“Sorry, Sam,” Merry muttered.
Sam turned to pluck little Frodo out of the plant pot and rolled his eyes. “I’d expected such things from these two,” he said, turning his curly head to scowl at Merry and Pippin. “But you, Mister Boromir—now, I thought you were more serious than all this. And my Rosie’s cushions, and the dinner table, and all!”
“But Papa—” Elanor tugged on Sam’s sleeve anxiously. “It’s my fault, I made him do it!”
Sam crouched down low, setting Frodo down beside her and brushing dirt and leaves off his clothes. “And why’d you make him do it, Ellie?” he asked, more gently.
She looked around with a quivering lip, clearly mourning the loss of her game. “Because—” Her face screwed up, and then she was sobbing. “Because the floor was molasses!”
Patting her hair, Sam nodded thoughtfully.
“We really are sorry,” Pippin said earnestly, staring at the feather-spotted ground. “We’ll help you clean up, we promise.”
“Oh, you’ll help me, will you?” Sam folded his arms imperiously, and Pippin shrank back with an audible gulp. “You’ll clean this mess up yourselves, and right quick! But first—”
He bent down to Elanor, who was still weeping bitterly into her hands.
“The floor was molasses, was it?”
She nodded shakily.
“It was,” she bawled, wiping at her nose. “I’m sorry—”
“There, there, Ellie. It seems to me the only thing to do now is…” He leaned closer and whispered something in Elanor’s ear.
She stopped crying at once. “Really?”
“That’s right.”
“And Mister Boromir too?”
“Of course.” Sam rocked back on his heels, smiling sagely. “Go on, then. And take little Frodo with you.”
With a shrieking giggle, Elanor grabbed her brother’s pudgy hand and raced out the door into the yard.
“What's that you're planning, Sam?” Boromir asked. He didn’t like the gleam in the hobbit’s eyes.
“Planning?" Sam put his hands on his hips. "Now, I’m sure I don’t know what you mean—I’ve never been one for plans. So then, pick up the chairs and cushions, you lot, and sweep up these feathers.”
Heads bowed in contrition, they set about their tasks.
Boromir struggled to maneuver the broom properly, his tongue between his teeth, while Merry and Pippin began to straighten up the furniture. But only a few minutes had passed before Sam tugged the broom out of Boromir's hands. "What's that you're doing, Mister Boromir?"
"What do you mean? I'm sweeping."
"Scraping up the floor is what you're doing," he cried. "Haven't you never used a broom before?"
Boromir rubbed the back of his neck and coughed.
Sam sighed. "Well, enough of that for now, in any case. Why don't the three of you go outside and pick some flowers for Rosie, to make this place look a bit brighter?”
They weren't anywhere near done cleaning up the mess they'd made, but they looked at one another and shrugged. “It beats moving furniture!" Merry exclaimed, and the three of them made their way to the door.
But no sooner had Boromir stepped onto the front porch than he was struck with a cascade of water—accompanied by a shriek of laughter.
“What the—” Boromir spluttered, wiping at his face and his drenched tunic. Beside him, Merry and Pippin were coughing and spluttering too, though their attacker hadn’t managed to splash much more than their hairy feet.
“We got you!” Elanor cried, poking her head up from behind the door, where she and little Frodo had been lying in wait. They each held empty watering cans in their chubby fists, and little Frodo was giggling so hard that no sound was coming out.
Merry bent and ruffled the boy's hair, laughing. “I suppose we deserved that, didn’t we?”
"Yes!" Frodo giggled, punching the air in victory. "You derserved it!"
"That was a mighty strike, Captain Elanor," Boromir said, wiping at his face and shirt before picking up the laughing hobbit-lass and setting her on his shoulder. "You have a strong arm indeed."
"I know!" She beamed, swinging her feet back and forth proudly.
"Papa!" Little Frodo yelled. "Papa, we did it!"
Sam's laughing face appeared in the doorway. "Well done, Ellie, Frodo! Think that got the molasses off of them, or do they need another bath?"
"No, no," Pippin said hurriedly, hopping on one foot as he squeezed the water out of one of his trouser legs. "We've learned our lesson."
Merry sighed. "Well, we'd best keep cleaning up those feathers, I suppose."
"Oy, dry yourselves off first! I'll not have you tracking water and muck all over my floors," Sam called. Merry and Pippin froze guiltily, then scurried off to obey. "And as for you, Mister Boromir—” Sam ducked back inside and returned with his pruning shears. "Let's finish up our gardening, eh?"
"Can I help too?" Elanor cried from Boromir's shoulder. She tugged at his hair impatiently, making his eyes water.
"Me too, me too!" Little Frodo hopped up and down, tugging at the loose fabric of Boromir's trousers. At Sam's nod of approval, Boromir grinned, scooped up the hobbit-lad, and set him on his other shoulder, and together they made their way to the garden.
"Papa, look how tall I am!" Little Frodo crowed, punching the air by Boromir's head.
Elanor scowled over Boromir's head. "You're not as tall as me!"
"Am too!" Frodo bellowed, and soon they were bickering heatedly. Sighing, Boromir set them both down, where they took off like firecrackers, chasing each other around in the grass and shrieking.
"I really am sorry, Sam," Boromir muttered as he took up the pruning shears. "You and your family have been kind enough to host me here, and I made a mess of things."
"Everyone makes a mess of things sometimes, if you follow me," Sam said. "And anyway, the worst of the mess was made by Merry and Pippin."
"Even so, I should not have forgotten myself thus." Boromir frowned, reaching up to clip away the branches out of hobbit-reach. "It's been many years since I've felt so at ease, and I fear I've let it go to my head."
"You should let it go to your head more often," Sam said, collecting the fallen branches in his arms as Elanor and Frodo laughed and wrestled in the garden nearby. "Only next time leave our poor furniture out of it, no matter how much molasses is flooding Bag End."
Boromir shook Sam's hand, unable to stop himself from laughing. "It's a deal."