“Sam! Sam! SamSamSamSamSam!” Frodo cried out in his excitement. The younger hobbit was walking up the hill from his house to Bag End, carrying his father’s lunch in a basket. Frodo ran up to the brown-haired lad and circled around his best friend. “Guess what? Guess what?”

Sam stopped in his tracks. He had never seen Frodo so excited. “What, Master Frodo?” the ten-year-old grinned.

“I am going on an adventure!” Frodo bragged. “A real, honest-to-goodness adventure! And Uncle Bilbo is taking me! Isn’t it exciting?”

Sam blinked in surprise. “Where? Where are you going?”

“We’re going to find a lost city of the Numenorians,” Frodo said.

“Are those Elves? Can I come too?” Sam shyly asked. Master Bilbo had started including Sam on Frodo’s history lessons, and the youngest son of Hamfast and Bell Gamgee had quickly developed a strange longing to see the Elves.

“No, silly,” Frodo admonished. “They’re Men. And no, you can’t come with us. This is just for Uncle Bilbo and me.”

Frodo took the basket from Sam and the two walked up the hill to Bag End. The more Sam thought about Master Frodo and Master Bilbo going on a real adventure, the more excited he became.

“Why can’t I go too? I could carry something for you,” Sam said as he skipped up to the garden gate. “Like, your extra food, or a blanket, or pots and pans, or, well… whatever you want me to carry. I’m strong. I wouldn’t be much trouble. Honest!”

“You don’t even know where we’re going or how long we’re going to be away,” Frodo laughed as Sam opened the gate. “But I bet we could have some good fun if we ever did go on an adventure together. We could go see the Elves in Rivendell someday!”

Sam’s father heard their conversation, stopped his digging, and frowned. “Samwise!”

Sam came to a dead halt. “Yes, Da?”

“Why is young Master Baggins carrying your basket?” Hamfast scowled. “Remember you place, son.”

“Oh!” Sam squeaked out. He grabbed the basket from Frodo and backed up a couple of steps. “I’m … I’m sorry Master Frodo. I just forgot.”

“But … It was my fault, Mister Gamgee,” Frodo blushed and put his now-empty hands in his pocket. “I …”

“Now, young Master Baggins,” Hamfast interrupted, “Don’t go making excuses for something me boy should know quite well by now. I know you and Samwise are friends and all, but we all must remember our places.” Sam quietly walked over to stand slightly behind his father. “And I’ll ask you to not be puttin’ no notions into young Samwise’s head about adventures, if you please. ‘Taint natural for a Gamgee to even think about goin’ off and leavin’ his rightful place. Book learnin’ is right and good for them what can afford it. But I’ll thank you, good Master, if you don’t go tempting me boy with stories about places he’ll never see anyhow.”

Frodo’s face was brick red from embarrassment at the predicament he had caused his friend. Frodo knew that Hamfast Gamgee disapproved of Bilbo teaching Sam to read and write, but he had never heard the normally taciturn gardener lecture him about the social differences between their families. Frodo looked up the path and saw Bilbo standing in the doorway, arms crossed and a frown equal to Mr. Gamgee’s. Frodo sighed and lowered his head. “Yes, sir.,” he choked out to Hamfast.

“I think that will do for today, Mister Gamgee,” Bilbo nodded to his gardener as he walked down to stand behind Frodo, one hand resting on Frodo’s shoulder. Sam was quietly crying now; the tears leaving shiny tracks as they slipped down his dusty face. “I shall see you later tonight at the Green Dragon as usual, yes?”

“Yes sir, Mister Baggins.” Hamfast tipped his hat, picked up his garden utensils and took Sam by the hand. “Come along, Samwise.”

Sam took one long look at Frodo, sighed, and went with his father. They walked through the little garden gate and down the dirt road towards their house, never looking back. Frodo and Bilbo watched them until they disappeared around the corner.

“Come inside, Frodo,” was all Bilbo said.

When they were inside the kitchen, Frodo could no longer hold back. “All I did was carry his basket!” he cried.

“You carrying Sam’s basket is not the problem,” Bilbo said as he set the kitchen table for lunch, “and you know it. Mister Gamgee’s right about you putting foolish notions into young Samwise’s head about adventures and fairy tales and such. You weren’t thinking when you were encouraging him to think about such things.”

“What’s wrong with daydreaming about Sam and I going on an adventure together someday?” Frodo protested.

“Sam and me,” Bilbo automatically corrected. “And what’s wrong is that Sam will never go on any sort of adventure. Not now. Not in the future. And it’s wrong for you to encourage him to think that he ever will.” Bilbo poured some milk for the two of them and sat down. Frodo sat across the table.

“But why?” Frodo frowned. “Why can’t Sam have his own adventure?”

“Because of who he is,” Bilbo replied in a neutral tone. “We’ve been over this before.” This was a hard lesson for Frodo. Bilbo had discussed the various classes of hobbit society with Frodo repeatedly, but the boy didn’t want to learn this particular lesson. It wasn’t that he deliberately tried to cross class boundaries, but he frequently, and conveniently in Bilbo’s opinion, forgot them. “Sam is being trained as a gardener. His father is a gardener. The whole Gamgee family are working class hobbits who cannot afford the luxury of one of their sons going off on adventures. And it is not fair for you to make Samwise think he can do so. Now, I don’t want to hear any more of your complaints about how unfair this all is. It is the way it is, and nothing is going to change that.”

“I wish I had a magic ring that would make it change,” Frodo muttered, toying with the food on his plate.

“Now that’s complete and utter nonsense,” Bilbo replied. “There is no all-powerful magic ring which can make the world into what you want it to be. You have to live in this world and get along with your neighbors without the help of this mythical ring. So you better get used to the idea, Frodo Baggins.”

“Can’t Mister Gamgee at least let Sam have fun thinking about adventures?” Frodo asked. “All he does is work him. Like – like a mule or a pony!”

“Mister Gamgee can raise his boy as he sees fit,” Bilbo replied. “It is not our place to criticize how a person raises their own child.”

“Plenty of people criticize how you’re raising me,” Frodo countered.

Bilbo interrupted his eating to raise an eyebrow at his rather forward nephew. “Do tell.”

Frodo shifted uncomfortably under his Uncle’s gaze. There was no backing out of it since he had brought it up. “Well … Mistress Weatherby doesn’t like the fact that there’s no female here.”

Both Bilbo’s eyebrows climbed higher at that statement.

“I overheard her saying so to Mistress Underhill last time we were at market,” Frodo confessed. “And I know Aunt Lobelia and Uncle Otho don’t like it that you brought me here from Buckland in the first place. They’re always telling me that Lotho is supposed to be your favorite, not me, and I should go back to the wildlands where I belong. That I’m not proper Hobbiton born and raised.”

Bilbo set his fork and knife aside. “Your coming to live here with me is none of their business, Frodo. What matters to me is that you are happy. That is the ONLY thing which matters. That, and giving you a good, solid education. Now, forget about the nasty things your Aunt and Uncle have said. They are simply jealous.

“As to female companionship … well, now, that is my business and none of the Hobbiton gossip crowd’s concern. Those old biddies have been after me for years to marry one of their lot, and now they think they have a new justification to use against me choosing bachelorhood. Don’t you pay them any attention. As I said before, it is not our place to criticize how another raises their child, and we should never interfere.”

“You are teaching Sam how to read and write,” Frodo shot back.

“With Master Gamgee’s approval, I point out to you,” Bilbo said. “Though you may have jeopardized even that.” Bilbo stopped eating. “Frodo, I have been trying to talk Mister Gamgee into teaching his children to read and write for well-nigh twenty years or so. I tried to talk him into letting Hamson or Halfred learn, but Hamfast was dead set against it. ‘Not the Gamgee’s place, that booklearnin’ he said to me. I finally convinced him that it would make his own business dealings easier if he had a child who could do the paperwork for him instead of having me do all the reading, writing and math. He’s only now allowing his youngest to learn, and I was hoping to be allowed to teach young Marigold as well when she grows up. Don’t you go jeopardizing my hard work by putting fancy notions into Samwise’s head.”

Frodo couldn’t argue with his Uncle on this point, so he let the matter drop. But he filed this day away in his memory. If ever there was a chance for Samwise to go on an adventure, Frodo would do whatever he could to see that his friend went.