|
Jinniver worked steadily at clearing the first of the borders all through the morning. She had made it her aim to finish weeding the borders and making them ready by the time evening came. With a little luck, the plants should arrive next day, and she was eager to make sure the borders were tilled and free of unsightly weeds. The work was doing her good, as she thought it might; she thought of little but the task at hand and whistled an aimless tune as she laboured.
As the morning went by, she found several little rose bushes which had been choked by the nettles and docks. She felt sure that even as she cleared the weeds away from them they began to stretch their heads up towards the sun; there were buds on some of them and she breathed in the faint but already heady scent hungrily. Jinniver had also uncovered some small foxglove seedlings, and transplanted them to the centre of the border where they would soon make a fine, tall centrepiece to the display as they grew taller.
Most of the border was now free of weeds, and just the few roses and foxglove seedlings remained. Jinniver decided to take a rest before she started to hoe the soil. Looking at her hands, she noticed they were covered in the black soil of The Shire and before she stopped to wipe them, she put her fingers up to her face and breathed in the scent of the earth. It was a rich and moist smell which she found comforting and she stood for a few minutes just breathing it in until she heard one of the hobbit lads in the cottage snorting with laughter. Turning around to see what the mirth was about, she saw he had been laughing at her strange behaviour and her face flushed red, all apart from the smut of black soil which remained on the tip of her nose.
The hobbit ducked back down from the window, equally embarrassed, and Jinniver scuttled off to the side of the inn where she sat down to smoke her pipe, unaware of the dirt on her nose and the twigs in her hair.
|