Setting the wheelbarrow down beside the compost heap, Sam carefully popped a crick out of his back and gazed up into the sky.  The morning breeze was blowing fresh from the west, but with only a few scattered clouds to be seen, the day promised to turn hot as only July could be.  He yawned, reaching for his pitchfork with a rare reluctance.  However much he loved his garden and providing for his growing family, there were days now when his feet longed to wander, to see what lay over the next ridge.  He shook his head, stabbed the fork determinedly into the heap and began filling the barrow.

"Your trouble is you haven't got the sense to stick to a thing, Sam Gamgee," he told himself.  Like many who spend long hours alone, he had developed a habit of keeping himself company, and days in the garden tended to be a series of running conversations of which he was required to hold up both ends.  "Time was you said you'd had all the wandering you ever cared to have and you were glad enough to come on home when you hadn't a leaky roof or a patch of hard clay to call your own.  You've got it better now than you ever dared hope, so don't you go wishin' it away for some foolish itch in the soles of your feet.  Some good hard work's all you need, and you'll feel the better for it."  The barrow full, he tossed the fork with unconscious precision into the soft ground beside the compost and trundled off toward the vegetable patch.

He had the spent early-tomato plants uprooted and the bed turned under for a second planting by the time dawn's soft lavender and peach had given way to the clear, almost fiercely bright blue of a high-summer sky.  Rose had come outside after an hour or so with Elanor on her hip and a glass of lemonade in her hand and kept him company for a few minutes while he drank; now the two of them were around the hill in the side yard under the apple trees, and when he paused in his weeding he could catch occasional snatches of song or the flap of a sheet being shaken open to hang on the clothesline.  He worked a particularly tenacious dandelion loose and sat back on his heels, listening.

"You ought to take your womenfolk on a holiday, Sam," he murmured.  "A trip to the lake, perhaps, or maybe even the sea."   But to say the word 'sea' to himself proved to be a mistake.  He threw himself back in amongst the pea vines and pulled out a handful of goldenrod shoots with a savage yank.  "You know well enough what you're mooning after, and it won't do you a bit of good.  He'll not be coming round to ask you on a walk, and you've other things to be tending to, anyhow."

And tend he did, in silence for the most part, for the better part of the next hour.  Rose and Elanor had long since finished with the laundry and paid him another brief visit before retreating to the cool shelter of the smial to prepare elevenses, and at long last he followed, bringing in a load of cucumbers to fill the box in the cellar.  He was bending over the pump behind the shed, scrubbing earth from his hands and splashing cool water over his face and neck, when a voice just behind him made him jump and narrowly miss cracking his head on the faucet.

"Hullo, Sam, we've come to steal you away."

Spinning around and wiping water out of his eyes with his sleeve before remembering to reach for the towel that hung ready on the pump handle, Sam found himself eye to chin with a towering Took.  "Master Pippin!"

Pippin grinned.  "That's 'Mister,' I'll thank you to remember.  My birthday was last month, as you know very well."

"Oh, come off it, Pip, you'd think not a soul had ever come of age before."  Merry left the climbing rosebush he'd been admiring and ambled over to join them.  "Hullo, Sam."  He pulled the gardener into a half-embrace, heedless of his dripping shirt, then helped himself to Sam's towel to deal with the result.

"Mr. Merry.  *Mister* Peregrin.  What's all this about stealing away?"  He took the towel back and returned to the task of drying off. 

"We mean to--"

"Ah, so here you are at last.  Taken your sweet time about it, I see, though I suppose I might have known you'd be just in time for a meal."

"Rose!"  The pair descended on her with swift kisses and quickly relieved her of the covered basket and tray she carried-- a tray which Sam noted held four tall glasses, besides Elanor's little wooden cup.  Swinging the towel over his shoulder, Sam followed and swept up the cup's owner, who stood uncertainly clinging to her mother's skirts.

"It's all right, Elanorelle.  They're trouble enough, but not the kind you need worry about 'til you're a bit older."

"And then we promise to teach you all sorts of bad habits to worry your old Dad with," Pippin added, balancing the tray of iced tea with ease as he chucked her under the chin.  She pulled back, wide-eyed, and buried her face in Sam's shoulder.

Rose laughed, kissing first Elanor and then Sam.  "That's a good start.  You just keep right on hiding from those two and you'll save us all a good bit of trouble.  Come along, boys, before the ice melts."  She led the way to a shady patch of lawn where a table and benches stood ready, held firmly in place by a determined arm of honeysuckle that seemed to think its chosen support was in danger of being swept away by a strong breeze.

They made a pleasant meal, exchanging news of all that had transpired in Hobbiton and Buckland and Tuckborough since Pippin's birthday party over scones and peach cobbler and tea.  At last, only the dishes remained and the conversation dissolved into contented silence and the buzz of honeybees moving about the garden.  One landed in the empty cobbler pan and wandered about, investigating the sweet droplets clinging to the sides.  They all watched as it turned this way and that, navigating the tiny wilderness of sugar syrup and crumbs with slow crawling journeys and short buzzing hops.  Finally it lost its footing and flew off, breaking the reverie.  Merry yawned and stretched luxuriously.

"My thanks, Mistress Rose, for having mercy on a starving traveler.  Your scones are delicious."

Rose accepted the compliment with a casual nod.  "Aye, and they'd be a sight better if I'd some blackberry jam to put on them, so you lads had best be on your way before the sun gets much higher."

Sam glanced up sharply.  "Where are we going?"

"To old Bilbo's sacred family berrying grounds, of course," Pippin explained as though this should have been obvious.  "You don't suppose Frodo would want you to miss your trip just because he's not here to go along himself, do you?"

Sam said nothing, and Merry added, a bit more gently, "We don't have to go along if you truly don't want to, Sam.  But you didn't go last year, and Rose wrote us last week to say you didn't look like going this year, either.  You and our dear Bagginses and that giant berry patch of yours have been a tradition for as long as I can recall--"

"You knew?" Sam broke in with surprise.

"Of course we knew.  Don't be daft, Sam-- who was it uncovered that whole business with the Ring?  And have you ever known Pip to let a mystery go when food was involved?"

"You never... you never raided..."

"And risk the old hobbit's wrath and the loss of our share of the spoils?  Not a chance," Pippin answered cheerfully.  Sam refrained from pointing out that this had never stopped them from raiding nearly every other garden and orchard in the Shire, Bag End's included, and he continued.  "No sense in going all that way and fighting the thorns and crazed insects when the jam's delivered right to your door regardless.  But for you, my dear hobbit, and for the sake of all future generations who would otherwise be deprived of one of the finest unofficial holidays in the Shire, I am willing to sacrifice my personal comfort and accompany you over hill and dale to seek your long-forgotten gold... er, treasure," he finished grandly.

Sam couldn't help smiling, nor did he miss the edge of concern hidden under his friends' cheerful lightness.  He felt himself beginning to weaken.  "I've work to do," he protested feebly.

"Oh, nonsense," Rose chimed in.  "The weeds'll keep for another day, and the rest of the Shire will just have to get on without you, hard as that seems to be these days.  Elly and I can have a good old fashioned girls' day with you out of our hair for a bit."

"Wouldn't you be coming with us?"

"I'd like to see myself!" she exclaimed, laying a hand on a belly rounded with six months' pregnancy.  "Tradition or no, Sam Gamgee, *this* Frodo's a bit young to be accompanying you blackberrying, and I don't mean to carry him all that way and back in this heat.  You three go on, and we'll help you with the cooking when you get home."

Sam hesitated, then nodded.  Slipping an arm around his wife, he bent low to kiss her bulging middle.  "Your time will come, lad, he said softly, with a smile at Merry and Pippin.  "It's a family tradition."

~END~