In the year 1434, Frodo was busy. He had been writing all the adventures down. All the good and all the bad. His uncles work may of seemed lighter and easier to read, than Frodo's work. "what a pain that is." Frodo thought. How can he make light of it? It was a possible end of the world scenario. Frodo battled this daily, some hurts were hard to describe and others still painful to revisit. Even after all these years, Frodo cringed when he thought of ring wraiths. Cold, deathly, dark, no life, everything taken away, these dark beings were terrifying to behold and yet Frodo couldn't get the description right. His hand trembled thinking about them. "A steady hand is a steady story." He told himself. "I need to keep steady.." He pondered back to the thought of wraiths...
A knock pounded on the door! Frodo was startled for a moment. 'Oh, the door.' He reminded himself. He got up and stretched his arms. "Bam bam bam..." The knock was louder. "I'm coming, I'm coming." Frodo said somewhat annoyed. Who would be knocking now? Who could it be... Frodo wondered as he started walking to the door.
He opened a door to the eldest daughter of Samwise Gamgee, Elanor. She was flushed and out of breath, " .. huff... my mother is... huff.. in labor.. Huff... My father sent me..huff... to tell you." "My goodness!," Frodo replied "Do you wish to come in a moment for a glass of water or tea. I'll be no help with any labor and you look exhausted, my little friend" "Sure!" Elanor replied in a huff.
"Come in, Come in" Frodo let the girl in. "How old are you now, Elanor, eight?" Elanor trotted in, following Frodo in. He guided her to the kitchen. "No sir! I be ten now!" She had caught her breath and almost seemed annoyed that Frodo had her age wrong. Frodo caught on to this sass in her voice. "I'm sorry little lass. It feels like yesterday you were just born. To me the years feel like weeks. Being an adult is odd, that's for sure." As he pulled a chair up for Elanor to sit. She sat down quickly and started talking. "Were you writing, ? Me dad is always telling me the adventures you two had. The good and some bad. Mostly the good. He tells me, you're writing that story down. So everyone will know what happened. That's a lot of work..." As Elanor talked and talked, Frodo wasted no time getting the tea ready. The water in his kettle was already warm from the cup of tea he made earlier. He grabbed two cups down from his cup board and poured in the hot water in the cups. Then he waited until he could catch a pause from Elanor.
Finally he asked "which type of tea would you like?" "oh, any type is good. I heard black tea is good. But sir, answer my question.
Frodo hadn't really been listening. He felt awkward. What should he say, 'that was rude' He thought to himself. Well, doing nothing wont solve anything. "I'm sorry. I didn't catch what your question was." "Do you need a helper?" "A what?" "A helper sir. I can do small chores and make sure you keep busy with your book. I can even answer the door and keep things tidy. I think it's wonderful that your writing the amazing story." Elanor waited with baited breath.
"I really don't ne..." Wait... what am I doing. I just wondered how things were to get done. He looked at his table. It was dusty. When was the last time I dusted it, he thought to himself. He looked to the sink and dishes had overflown. He started to feel odd. Maybe he did need a helper. Maybe he needed this to keep him on track to write his story. "Yes," he said. "Yes, I need a helper and I think you'll work just fine, little lass."
They drank their tea down. Chit chatting here and there. Mostly Elanor chatting about being exciting to help as well as getting a new sibling. When they finished their tea Frodo proposed they walk to her house and see if the baby had been born. He also would ask Sam if it was okay for Elanor to be a helper. This day felt like a good one. Maybe having a helper would help his writing.
To be continued...