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'But this I will say to you: your Quest stands upon the edge of a knife. Stray but a little and it will fail, to the ruin of all. Yet hope remains while all the Company is true.' And with that word she held them in her eyes, and in silence looked searchingly at each of them in turn. None save Legolas and Aragorn could long endure her glance. Sam quickly blushed and hung his head. [...] 'What did you blush for, Sam?' said Pippin. 'You soon broke down. Anyone would have thought you had a guilty conscience. I hope it was nothing worse than a wicked plot to steal one of my blankets.' 'I never thought no such thing,' answered Sam, in no mood for jest. 'If you want to know, I felt as if I hadn't got nothing on, and I didn't like it. She seemed to be looking inside me and asking me what I would do if she gave me the chance of flying back home to the Shire to a nice little hole with-- with a bit of garden of my own.'
The Lord of the Rings, Book II, Chapter 7, page 401
"Mr. Frodo?" Frodo lay still. "Mr. Frodo, you're not asleep, are you?" The tone of voice made it not quite a question, and with a tiny sigh he rolled over to face the questioner.
"No, Sam."
"You've not been sleeping well lately, have you?" It was pointless to deny it. Ever since they'd left Gondor, he'd slept either too deeply and too long, waking with difficulty when it was time to rise and travel on, or he'd lain awake for hours listening to the peaceful breathing of his ever-dwindling band of companions. Tonight was one of the wakeful nights.
"No."
"Is your hand troubling you?"
He didn't need to look to see the anxious concern on Sam's face, to read there his thoughts, which would already be running through the contents of his pack and everything within reach of their campsite in search of anything he could use to bring comfort to his master's problem. "No." He looked anyway, to watch as the tiny wave of relief washed over the concern. "No," he said, smiling faintly. "Nor my shoulder, nor the sting. I'm quite all right, Sam."
"You are not, begging your pardon, sir. I've held my tongue 'til now, but I do wish you'd tell me what was the matter."
Frodo sighed again and rolled onto his back, folding his arms behind his head to look up at the stars. "I feel... lost, Sam. I'm not sure what else to call it. 'The road goes ever on and on,' as Bilbo's old song says, but I'm not sure where mine is leading anymore."
"Why, home, of course," Sam answered. "Mr. Bilbo came on home after his grand adventure, and so you've a right to. I don't suppose we'll have any call for wandering anymore, except for visiting and bein' visited."
"Home," Frodo murmured, as though he hadn't heard the rest. "I'm not sure where that is now. Bag End's been sold--"
"Lord! I'd forgotten it completely!" Sam exclaimed, barely remembering in time to keep his voice down so as not to wake the others.
"And even if Fatty's managed to hold onto that little house at Crickhollow, I've almost no memory of it at all."
"Well, you'll just have to buy back Bag End, then," Sam said, as though the thing were a foregone conclusion.
"I might." He smiled a little in the moonlight. "Lobelia won't be pleased."
"Pleased or no, it's yours by rights. She's had her time."
Frodo shook his head. "I sold it to her fair and square; it's hers unless she wants to sell. It's really too big for me, anyway, and I'm afraid it would all go to weeds and cobwebs in no time without you there to look after it."
"Why, where do you suppose I'm going?" Sam asked, surprised.
Frodo pushed himself up on one elbow to face him. "You'll be setting up on your own, won't you? A nice hole with a bit of garden of your own, just as Galadriel offered you in Lorien."
Sam blushed and looked away. "That's not quite right, Mr. Frodo. Nearly, but I left out a bit when Master Pippin asked me. It was the garden at Bag End the Lady offered to send me home to."
Frodo nearly laughed. "Then I shall certainly have to get it back, if you're that fond of it. And when I do, it's yours, Sam. You'll tend it just as you please, and not for me. It's high time you had a bit of ground of your own, anyway. Why, Sam, what's the matter?"
Sam was shaking his head, a distressed expression on his face. "Please don't give it to me, Mr. Frodo."
"But whyever not? You've earned that much and more. Everything I own wouldn't be enough to repay all you've done for me."
"It's not that, Mr. Frodo, it's just... I don't think I should like to have a garden all my own."
Frodo's brows knitted in puzzlement. "I don't understand."
Sam was quiet for a minute, looking up at the trees, then looked down to study the backs of his hands as he spread the fingers wide against the grass. "There's a lot of pleasures in gardening, Mr. Frodo, and ownership's not one of them. Or if it is, then it's the least of 'em, if you follow me. There's a pleasure in the prettiness of the flowers, and in the taste of the harvest, and in the smell of the good black earth. And then there's a different one in watching the little seeds turn into little green shoots and then grow up big and strong with water and fertilizer and care. There's even a pleasure in weeds and grubs sometimes, though they're a nuisance of course and you can't let 'em stay, just because they're so alive and enjoyin' the sunshine and the rain. But the best part of a garden..."
He sat up, draping his arms loosely over his knees, and gazed out over the countryside again. "The best part of a garden is seeing somebody else enjoy it. That's the part that stays with you, that's there through all the rest of it, that's still there even when it's dripping hot and the skeeters are biting and the dandelion roots have gone so deep you think you'll have to dig up the Shire to get them up. And it's there in the middle of winter, when everything's bare and brown and there's nowt to see except in your own mind of what you've got planned for the spring.
"It's not just sugar-snap peas and tiger lilies I'm planting out there, Mr. Frodo. I'm planting that smile you get when I come into your study and rouse you out of your books to tell you that dinner's ready and you suddenly remember that you're hungry. Or with the peas, you coming into the kitchen of an afternoon and pinching a couple when you think I'm not looking. I'm planting and watering up that look on your face when you come out on a summer morning when the dew's not quite burned off and you're looking at the sun on the lilies like it's the most beautiful thing you could ever imagine." He stopped suddenly, perhaps remembering that he was not speaking only to himself, and blushed deeply enough that the change was visible even in the faint light of the moon.
"Oh, Sam."
He forced himself to turn at the sound of his name and saw Frodo looking at him with eyes so filled with love that it seemed just on the brink of spilling over in the form of tears. "Why, that's the very look I mean!" he said, astonished. "I wonder what's put it there now?"
"Just you."
Sam could find no answer to this, so after a moment's embarrassed silence he said, "So you see why I shouldn't want to raise a garden just for myself."
"I do. Oh, but Sam, such care shouldn't be wasted on an old recluse like me. You ought to have a family."
"You've been my family these twenty years, Mr. Frodo, just as much if not more than my old Dad and Marigold and the others."
"And you've been all I've had since Bilbo went away, but that's not what I mean, Sam. We're not the sort of family you should be cultivating now; you're of an age you ought to be planting children." He'd meant only to quote Sam's own metaphor, but recognized the double entendre as soon as it slipped out. He bit his lower lip and smiled.
Sam caught it, too, and chuckled. "I believe that takes a different sort of garden than you've got to lend me, Mr. Frodo, unless I'm much mistaken," he replied good-naturedly.
"I'm afraid you're right about that," he said, smiling back. "But perhaps there's one in the Shire who could help, unless I've been much mistaken?"
Sam's smile faded to a thoughtful trace and he rocked back and forth slightly, his eyes far away. "Aye, there was. Whether there still is now, though, I'll not know until we get back. We've been gone a good while."
"Any lass who can't wait a year for you doesn't deserve you, Sam. Though I think if anyone in the world ever could, it might be Rose. She's a sweet girl."
"That she is," Sam answered, enjoying both his own memories and Frodo's words of approval. "Of course, she mightn't still care for me."
"And if she doesn't, then another will come along in time who will. In the meantime, you're welcome to stay as long as you like and practice your art on me, provided I get your-- sorry, my-- garden back for you."
"I'd like that, Mr. Frodo." Then he caught sight of Frodo's eyes, deep and unreadable, and he hesitated, unsure of what he was being offered. "Wait... do you mean... to live there?"
"If you like." Frodo hadn't moved a muscle, his expression unchanged.
Sam caught his breath. "Oh, I..." The world was tilting and whirling around him, and in the midst of the turmoil he thought of something else Galadriel had said, about the quest being balanced on the blade of a knife. He felt as though he was back on it now, and could fall either way. He teetered, then caught himself as Frodo's own words came back to him. In the meantime.
"I... if I did, Mr. Frodo, I don't know that I could... leave."
"Then don't come."
Sam looked at him oddly. "You're really set on that, aren't you? Why?"
Frodo sat up, taking his hands and meeting his eyes with a deadly serious gaze. "Because there's far more in you, Samwise Gamgee, than you've ever given yourself credit for, more than will ever come to light if you let yourself stay just the gardener at Bag End. I want to see those seeds come to blossom and fruit, Sam, and I'd never be happy knowing they hadn't.
"I love your lilies, Sam, and they'll be doubly dear to me now that I know why you spend so much care on them, but I'd far rather see the children you'd raise out of your garden, or that you'd put even a half the effort you're worth into cultivating yourself a bit."
Sam looked almost frightened. "I... I'll try, Mr. Frodo."
"Promise me, Sam." There was a hint of warmth and a smile in the admonition, and the love was back in his eyes.
"I promise."
Frodo did smile then, and let go of one of Sam's hands to trace a finger lightly down his cheek. For a moment Sam thought he was going to kiss him, and his heart beat wildly in a mixture of hope and dread. But instead he merely lay back down, still smiling and without letting go of the other hand. "Thank you, Sam."
"You're welcome, Mr. Frodo," he said automatically, and the phrase came out sounding so gruff and ordinary that they both laughed. Frodo tugged him down to lie beside him and curled up against his shoulder just as usual.
"I believe I could sleep now, Sam. You've made the road look a bit clearer, for a while at any rate. My offer still stands, mind you, if ever you should change your mind."
"Oh, I like that!" he exclaimed in quiet mock-indignation, making as if to push Frodo off his shoulder. "As though I'll get a wink of sleep now, with a choice like that hangin' over me head!" But he received no answer, and after a brief pause he gave in and tucked the blankets around them both. A few moments later, in spite of his words, both of them were sound asleep.
'I see,' said Frodo, 'you want to get married, and yet you want to live with me in Bag End too? But my dear Sam, how easy! Get married as soon as you can, and then move in with Rosie. There's room enough in Bag End for as big a family as you could wish for.'
The Lord of the Rings, Book VI, Chapter 9, page 332
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