Smeric Greenacre, unlike most Hobbits, did not live in a burrow. Instead he lived in the old windmill atop the highest hill in the village of Songburrow. The windmill was quite adequate for him; there was a small room at the top that he had made into a combined bedroom and parlour with a small round window that had views of the whole village. Down below there was storage space for his tools and seeds as well as ample space for a small larder.
Smeric had been hard at work all day mending the fencing that encircled the fields in the village. As well as several broken fence posts there had been a lot of Hobbit sized footprints all over the field and the field’s owner had called a pair of Bounders to come and take a look.
As the day came to an end and the night closed in Smeric picked up a small bag of pipe weed and a bottle of ale from the merchants in the market square and made his way home. Hanging his hat and cloak on an old nail he climbed the ladder up to his room. Once inside he lit a candle pulled his favourite comfy chair over to the window and settled down to watch the stars with his pipe in one hand and a mug of ale in the other.
A few minutes had passed when there was a knock at the door, Smeric got up out of his chair and made his way down the ladder to see who could be knocking on his door at such a time of the night. Smeric was well known in the village but he never received visitors. Unravelling a length of string that he used to hold the door shut he looked outside into the night and almost fell over backwards with fright!
There in the door way was a tall figure dressed in black robes. The figure towered over poor Smeric and was looking down at him from beneath a heavy black hood. As the moon appeared from behind a cloud it illuminated the figure to reveal its face…that turned out to be an old rotten pumpkin.
Smeric reached for an old pitchfork handle and gave the figure a quick poke; the pumpkin rolled off and hit the ground with a thud. Pulling aside the robes Smeric found that the figure was in fact a scarecrow. It was then that Smeric heard a giggle coming from the nearby bushes.
“You come out here this instant” he called and he picked up a piece of the pumpkin and threw it into the bushes. There was more giggling and the sound a little footsteps running off into the night.
Smeric pulled up the remains of the scarecrow and threw it into a corner with some broken tools and slammed the door shut. Some little trickster had disturbed him in the middle of the night and nearly scared him to death. First thing tomorrow Smeric was going down to the Watch Office to report the matter to the Bounders.
