Winnowing Time by Dreamflower
Oct. 23rd, 2012 08:09 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
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lotrchallengesAuthor: Dreamflower
Title: Winnowing Time
Rating: G
Theme: Harvest
Elements: chaff, give, above
Summary: It harvest time in SR 1420, and Sam muses on his bride...just a little vignette.
Word Count: 653
Winnowing Time
The grain had been gathered in, a fine harvest all things considered, and it was time for the threshing and the winnowing of the chaff. Farmer Cotton had a large winnowing barn. Sam recalled that it had been built only a few years afore he'd left the Shire with Mr. Frodo and Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin. He'd only been courting Rosie for a few months at the harvest that year. He'd helped with the barn raising, and then he'd come to help with the harvest.
Rosie'd been about the whole time, bringing water to the hired hands and the friends as had come to help. Her brothers weren't above trying to give her a hard time, teasing her about how she brought the water to Sam first and such. Jolly was the worst of 'em, being her twin and all, but Sam had learned not to try and defend Rose from her brothers. She took no sauce from them, and she'd give 'em back as good as they gave her--but she wouldn't thank Sam for interfering with 'em. So he watched and chuckled to see her turn the tables when Jolly got a bit above himself and she upended a ladle full over the top o' his head. Jolly made to go after her, but Rose timed her squeal just right, and darted behind her approaching father.
Old Tom had scowled. "Jolly, what've I told you about plaguing your sister! Leave her be--you've work to do. You shouldn't be a-tormenting her like that, and her bringing you cold water out of the goodness of her heart!" From her position behind her old dad, she grinned and stuck her tongue out at Jolly, and Sam (as well as Rose's other brothers) had laughed heartily .
The farmer had turned around and looked at her suspiciously, but she'd already wiped the smile from her face. "Thank you, dad," she said meekly.
" 'Tis naught, lass," he answered, and gave her a quick hug around the shoulders. "Come along back; your mam needs your help."
She'd turned to look back once more, to smirk triumphantly at Jolly, and to wink at Sam. The lads had all turned back to the threshing, flailing away at the grain. After the nooning enough of the grain would be threshed for the winnowing to begin, a task mostly done by the lasses and the wives.
And so it was he'd watched her that golden afternoon, she and her cousins and her mother and her aunts, the flat baskets filled with the grain that they would lift and toss the grain into the air, letting the breezes between the two doors of the barn carry the chaff away. She was flushed with exertion, stray curls escaping from her braid to plaster themselves against her face. She was laughing with her cousins and Sam thought his heart would burst from gazing at her beauty.
Last year and the year before, he'd been in Rivendell. The first, awaiting their leaving on a journey Sam hadn't've thought would be like anything he could've begun to think up--all things horrible and beautiful, mixed up together with terror and tiredness and sorrow and joy, too, at the end. And then on the way back, on the way home, all unsuspecting of the Troubles that had plagued the Shire while they was gone. He'd never forget how horrid it was to see all they'd left to protect being ruined by a bunch of lowlife Men. But they'd taken care o' that--the Ruffians had turned tail when Mr. Merry had blowed his horn, and Mr. Pippin had brought the Tooks. But it would all've been for aught if it hadn't've been for Mr. Frodo. And there was his Rose awaiting for him, as saucy and sweet as ever, and a sight for sore eyes!
This year was different. She was his wife now; she wore her hair bundled up beneath a scarf, yet a few curls had still managed to escape. Her figure was not so slim, for it was round with their first child. But Sam thought that she was even more beautiful than she'd been back then. She turned to look at him as she tossed the basket up with her cousin Rusty, and gave him that special smile, the one that made him think again that his heart would burst from joy.
Title: Winnowing Time
Rating: G
Theme: Harvest
Elements: chaff, give, above
Summary: It harvest time in SR 1420, and Sam muses on his bride...just a little vignette.
Word Count: 653
The grain had been gathered in, a fine harvest all things considered, and it was time for the threshing and the winnowing of the chaff. Farmer Cotton had a large winnowing barn. Sam recalled that it had been built only a few years afore he'd left the Shire with Mr. Frodo and Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin. He'd only been courting Rosie for a few months at the harvest that year. He'd helped with the barn raising, and then he'd come to help with the harvest.
Rosie'd been about the whole time, bringing water to the hired hands and the friends as had come to help. Her brothers weren't above trying to give her a hard time, teasing her about how she brought the water to Sam first and such. Jolly was the worst of 'em, being her twin and all, but Sam had learned not to try and defend Rose from her brothers. She took no sauce from them, and she'd give 'em back as good as they gave her--but she wouldn't thank Sam for interfering with 'em. So he watched and chuckled to see her turn the tables when Jolly got a bit above himself and she upended a ladle full over the top o' his head. Jolly made to go after her, but Rose timed her squeal just right, and darted behind her approaching father.
Old Tom had scowled. "Jolly, what've I told you about plaguing your sister! Leave her be--you've work to do. You shouldn't be a-tormenting her like that, and her bringing you cold water out of the goodness of her heart!" From her position behind her old dad, she grinned and stuck her tongue out at Jolly, and Sam (as well as Rose's other brothers) had laughed heartily .
The farmer had turned around and looked at her suspiciously, but she'd already wiped the smile from her face. "Thank you, dad," she said meekly.
" 'Tis naught, lass," he answered, and gave her a quick hug around the shoulders. "Come along back; your mam needs your help."
She'd turned to look back once more, to smirk triumphantly at Jolly, and to wink at Sam. The lads had all turned back to the threshing, flailing away at the grain. After the nooning enough of the grain would be threshed for the winnowing to begin, a task mostly done by the lasses and the wives.
And so it was he'd watched her that golden afternoon, she and her cousins and her mother and her aunts, the flat baskets filled with the grain that they would lift and toss the grain into the air, letting the breezes between the two doors of the barn carry the chaff away. She was flushed with exertion, stray curls escaping from her braid to plaster themselves against her face. She was laughing with her cousins and Sam thought his heart would burst from gazing at her beauty.
Last year and the year before, he'd been in Rivendell. The first, awaiting their leaving on a journey Sam hadn't've thought would be like anything he could've begun to think up--all things horrible and beautiful, mixed up together with terror and tiredness and sorrow and joy, too, at the end. And then on the way back, on the way home, all unsuspecting of the Troubles that had plagued the Shire while they was gone. He'd never forget how horrid it was to see all they'd left to protect being ruined by a bunch of lowlife Men. But they'd taken care o' that--the Ruffians had turned tail when Mr. Merry had blowed his horn, and Mr. Pippin had brought the Tooks. But it would all've been for aught if it hadn't've been for Mr. Frodo. And there was his Rose awaiting for him, as saucy and sweet as ever, and a sight for sore eyes!
This year was different. She was his wife now; she wore her hair bundled up beneath a scarf, yet a few curls had still managed to escape. Her figure was not so slim, for it was round with their first child. But Sam thought that she was even more beautiful than she'd been back then. She turned to look at him as she tossed the basket up with her cousin Rusty, and gave him that special smile, the one that made him think again that his heart would burst from joy.