I think I'm comin' down with a case of the sniffles, and I'm worryin' 'bout whether I ought tell Lumina. She's got enough on her shoulders, what with the baby and all. She's gettin' to feelin' sick near every day now, and can't bear the movement of ridin' a horse, nor walkin' far, nor even goin' up and down stairs. Plus all that is makin' her emotionful. She gets upset and near to tears easy, and then another minute it's all gone and she's as sweet as honey. No one sees the other side but me, though. She keeps home when she ain't feelin' good, and that makes her feel all manner of lonely, but she don't want to see no one when she's like that neither. I keep tryin' to offer ideas for to help, but that only makes her cross at me, and none of them is any good anyhow. Couple day ago she went on a rampage bakin', makin' so many pastries as we had for to go into town to share 'em with Miss Cesistya and Miss Gustine, and none of 'em was even what she wanted, and she bought me three pies and I made myself eat all of 'em and a bit of pastry too to make her happy, though I felt like I were goin' to come over ill from eatin' too much, and still it weren't enough. I can't think what she might feel or do if'n I told her I was comin' down with sniffles!
Maybe I should just go ask Miss Cesistya about it. She can prob'ly give me somethin' for to treat it so I won't got to worry Lumina. Only I don't feel right keepin' anything from her. Not even when it's to keep her from havin' another thing to fret over. I can ask Cesistya when I see her to ask after readin'. She is tryin' to help me with gettin' better at it, and is goin' for to pick out another book, a little harder'n the one I read afore, but not quite as hard as the one about the tending of horses, to learn from. Only thing is, she always seems so sure I just need practice and I can't never convince her I been practicin' and it's not makin' anything different. Anyhow, I can ask her about my sniffles, and whether I ought tell Lumina about 'em.
Not heard back from Missus Nettle yet. I think tomorrow I'll ride up to Hengstacer and see if maybe Éogar heard anythin'. Might be she is askin' him about me (I said as she ought, if she wanted some assurance as I'm dedicated enough for't) and that's what's takin' some time. I were worried she'd try to find me while we was away in the Shire, and here we were gone twice as long as I reckoned and she ain't got back to me yet. Makes me worry.
Lumina and me talked a little about how I don't really even got to work. I don't right know how much gold Lumina got. It don't seem like it's any my business to know. But I reckon it got to be enough to keep us fed for a long while. She don't need me to be a bread-winner. (Always wondered why it ain't called a bread-earner. I mean, who ever won bread?) Some days, like a few days ago when it were pourin' cold rain while I was out tryin' to clear muck and straw from the yard afore it got too muddy, I wouldn't mind not havin' to work. I could be home, warm and dry, holdin' my Lumina, or later, playin' with and teachin' our littles. But I also feel like, I been workin' so long now toward this, it'd feel dumb, even for me, to stop when I'm so far along. Most my life, I were just lettin' days pass like a stream around my feet. My family despaired of me ever takin' anythin' serious. Then I got sent on the quest, and somehow the challenge of that, and seein' people from all other manner of places, and how they lived, and havin' to work alongside 'em to make my own way, changed somethin'. Now I finally got some sense of a thing I want to be good at, so goin' back from there, to bein' someone what just sits by the stream and lets it run over his feet again, would feel like goin' backward. But do it make sense to keep workin' so hard for somethin' I don't proper need no more?
Anyhow I don't think it were an idea even Lumina thunk as needed to be took serious. It does make me wonder, though. But maybe I shouldn't think no more about it. I'm already goin' to have ever'thing change come autumn when our little girl comes. Let me not think about other big changes afore then.
