by Rabidsamfan
“A bit,” she said. “More thirsty, I think.”
“We’ll come back later, if you’d like,” Bilbo called, knowing that his presence might not be entirely welcome. Babes follow the first voices they hear, the gammers said, and some young mothers planned the baby’s first visitor as carefully as they planned a birthday party.
“Nonsense!” Primula called back. “Come in and say hello!”
Drogo threw the door wide and went to dip a glass of water from the bucket while Bilbo went over to look into the the darkened room. For want of a cradle they’d put the baby into a basket on the bed, and Primula was propped up next
to it, still tired, but triumphant. “Are you sure you don’t want
Hamfast to come in first?” he asked before he’d stepped past the lintel. “He’s far more respectable than I am.”
“Don’t be silly,” Primula laughed. “You first-footed Drogo, or so they warned me, and I like how he turned out well enough.”
Bilbo went on into the room and deposited his burden at the foot of the bed, going around to give his cousin-in-law a kiss on the cheek. “That’s all your influence, I’m afraid. He’s never been quite the same hobbit since he visited Buckland,” he teased gently.
“And he never would have visited Buckland if you hadn’t told him about the River,” Primula countered, just as she always did. Of all the wives and husbands that Bilbo’s young relations had brought home to Hobbiton and Bywater,
Primula was his favorite, and he was pleased to see that motherhood had not damped the mischief in her eyes. “That’s not the cradle you’ve got wrapped in that bundle of yours is it? Drogo led me to believe that it’s quite magnificent.”
“I’ll bring it in here if you’d like, Missus Baggins,” Hamfast said from the doorway. “I think it will fit in the corner like, if I move that chair first. Or would you like it at the end of the bed?”
“In the corner, please,” Primula said, pushing up. “So what is
in the bundle?”
Bilbo chuckled and brought it up to set it in her lap. “You can find out for yourself,” he said. “But don’t shake it up too much. It’s fragile.” He had to get up and get out of the way so that Hamfast could move the chair and wound up on the other side of the bed, next to the basket. “May I?”
Primula, momentarily overwhelmed by the arrival of her husband with a glass of water on top of directing Hamfast and investigating the bundle in front of her, nodded permission, even though she kept a wary eye on her bachelor relation until he had collected the swaddled baby with all the practiced skill of an experienced uncle before turning back to the bundle in her lap.