You wouldn't know it by how things is around the house last few days, but when I think back on the couple months now since I stopped workin' for Master Rosewood, life was real quiet. I been keepin' home to care for Lumina and only go out two time a week, for my lessons with Missus Nettle, and most the time I don't even go nowhere else exceptin' maybe to market or over the Peaceful Peach for to get colcannon. I keep away from the west gate stable on account I reckon Master Rosewood is still none too happy with me. And I don't usual go by the Pony, or other places, exceptin' them days Lumina wanted for to visit, like to see Miss Cesistya. When I do, don't seem as I ever see any the folk I know anyway.
Leastways that's how it's been all summer and into autumn. Maybe things is about to change there. I mean, maybe things already has changed. Sure as ever'thing has! But maybe in more ways than one.
The big one of course is why the house ain't so quiet just now. Few days ago it were full of folk — Maddoct and Blida and a hobbit I hadn't never met called Finnric were a-bustle while Lumina were hard at work, all day and into the night, bringin' our baby girl Devi into the world. And now it's fair noisy on account of how much it takes for the care of a wee baby girl like her.
I know as it's all fair normal, how much she cries, sleeps, eats, how little as she can do, but it all seems so wondrous and worrisome. I reckon my worry is all askew on account of how much I done the weeks afore, when she were turned around, wrong way up. With cows and horses and such, a breech is awful dangersome. Most of 'em there's nothin' can be done and the foal dies and oft the dam does do. And that's with animals where there's room to reach up and turn the babe around and push it back, so you'd reckon it'd be worse for Men. But they tell me it's perilsome, sure, but maybe not quite as much. Or maybe that's just what they told me so I'd hush and get out the way.
What it were, though, was a long day of standin' around feelin' fair useless, fetchin' things as no one needed, and wishin' I could help, but knowin' best I could do is stay out the way. And thinkin' 'bout the pile of stones outside the house, and whether I could live another day if'n I had to put two more on that pile. Feels like death been followin' me ever since Miss Adri brung me the news, and when Lumina's old gelding Napi died (peaceable, from his years), it felt an ill omen, and a fearful one, so's when I hear about the breech I thought for sure, in the dark of middle night, that this were the end.
But while we sure put the guests to plenty work, Devi come out loud and healthsome and round and pink and pretty as her ma. I hope as she takes after her in all the other ways, like bein' so smart. Though she do got a bit of the color of my hair in hers. You can't tell by that, since hair gets darker as a baby turns to a child, but right now there's some red in't. It's too soon for to know if she'll be a fussy baby. It's weeks afore she'll even be able to see much, they tell me.
Of course the other part is what that means the Dwarves is back from their journey East of East, and in the nick of time, at that. So maybe when I do go by the Pony there'll be folk there again I know, now they're here. I wonder if'n they'll keep about a long while, or go on to the Blue Mountains afore too long. And it ain't just them. Byrge is back after finishin' his work on a mill, and his whole team, Tumunir and Brumirr and Tiarvi and maybe others, they's also back about town, except now they's mostly keepin' at our house. They moved the stable (with Heafoc's help) aside so's they can build us a proper big barn where it stood. We was goin' for to build a barn for cows, only then I thunk as it'd be good for it to be a better stable too, so it's twice the size it were goin' for to be, and have stalls for horses, and room for cows, and a hutch for rabbits (seems Blossom's goin' for to get a friend or two, it ain't good for a bunny to be alone), and there's a tortoise I found while collectin' arrowroot what we named Byrdlinge what they're buildin' a fenced-in area off the barn for, and I can't help wonder if'n one day we'll have sheep and goats and maybe an oliphaunt too, as much as Lumina wants for to keep every animal we find what needs help!
If'n the barn comes out good (it's like to take into the spring to be all finished, with a break when winter's at its worst) maybe in a year I'll be hirin' them to build a bigger one on the land other side of the cliff-drop to the lake, for to be my stable for keepin' horses in need of healin'. Only, I don't tell Lumina or no one, but I am thinkin' that ain't never goin' for to happen. Thing is, I do my lessons faithful with Missus Nettle, and Lumina reads me the book, and I study hard as I can, but I can tell Missus Nettle is gettin' impatient with me. No matter how hard I try I don't get no quicker at readin', not even when I try other tricks as Lumina and Miss Cesistya suggested, like singin' what I read. Singin' a thing helps me rememberize it, but it don't help me read it to begin with. There's just so much for to learn and I feel like it's right at the edge of what a feller like me, what ain't so smart, can learn. So then doin' it when I can't read at a speed as I'd learn at makes it so much the harder, maybe too hard. Only so far Lumina can go makin' it up by readin' to me. I'm fallin' behind little more every week and I don't see how I'm ever goin' for to make it up. Maybe, just like ever'one been tellin' me my whole childhood, I just ain't smart enough for somethin' like this.
I'm thinkin' that, come spring, when the barn is done, and we've moved Lumina back upstairs and Devi's crib there too, and maybe moved the crib down to the nursery, it'll be time for me to ask myself the hard question. If'n I still am strugglin', and Missus Nettle is lookin' ready to call the whole thing off, maybe I go back to Master Rosewood, or if'n he got a new journeyman by then, ever'one else, and beg for a journeyman's job again. Maybe one day I can become a master the old way, waitin' for one to retire, if'n my leavin' Rosewood ain't scuttled that chance. Or maybe I can just keep on as a journeyman; it's a respectable way to make a livin'.
Maybe I'm still full up with some the worry I had about the baby, and the breech, and some of it is fallin' into the question of study on account it got nowhere else to go. With the baby just come, I will be keepin' a fortnight or so afore I think about study again. I just got to shake off the worry thoughts, and keep my thinkin' on my family.
Well, that ain't right hard, really. When I look at either of 'em, I get to where I can't think of nothin' else, and both of them together, well, I reckon there ain't a person in the world so stone-hearted they couldn't turn all thoughts to love seein' them. If'n there is, I sure as don't want to meet 'em.
