A story set in the waning years of the Shire.

“If I Had It All Again To Do”

It was in the spring.

Why does the urge for wanderin’ seem worse then? What is it about the freshness o’ the world at that season that stirs the heart for change?

It was in the spring that I told my parents I was leavin’ home.

“You’re what, Robin?”

“Leavin’, Da. I’m leavin’.”

We stood leanin’ against the low stone wall that encircled our holdin’s. Twenty-five acres enclosed near ta the farm proper. A small part o’ the rough moorland upon which we grazed our sheep. Fine sheep. Producers o’ a fine quality wool. I had come ta hate sheep.

He was silent for a while, so like my Da, that. He looked out at the rollin’ land with it’s wind bent trees ‘n rocks showing through the turf like a babe’s teeth first comin’ through. I knew, he was weighin’ his words; tryin’ ta understand mine.

“Why?” was all he said.

What could I say? Could I say I hated the sheep? Perhaps say that I felt burdened by the years our family had been there? Da so loved ta boast that the Hillock family had settled the area ‘n he was the seventh generation that had our herds there. But that wasn’t quite the truth o’ it for me. Thin’s . . . life . . . the world was just . . .

. . . changin’.

I saw it in the town when we would take the fleeces ta market.

“I just want somethin’ more, Da. Somethin’ else, different. Somethin’ without sheep.”

He looked up at me ‘n simply nodded.

Mum ‘n Da ached with losin’ their lad, with not understandin’. Their tears ran freely as they waved me fare-you-well,‘n I turned my back on the low, wind-sculpted hills I had always called home.

It was across the river that I went, across the Brandywine. I went ta Bree, a goodly sized town of Men. Once ‘twas a smallish place with other hamlets nearby, but the hamlets were now just parts o’ Bree. And though there was a Chetwood Lane, ‘n a Chetwood Road, ‘n a Chetwood Park . . . there’s long since been no Chetwood. It built the town. Then I went from there ta the other towns that had grown up over the passin’ years. East Way, Northlands, Kingstown, Queens Valley. I said I had been sickly as a child so my bein’ short wouldn’t mark me in the cities of Men. I learned the weavers trade, havin’, as I did, a good eye for quality wool, ‘n I took my trade for my name. I met a lass and loved her dearly. It was the night before our wedding day that I first shaved the hair from my feet, for a wife would see her husband without his shoes.

They did not know. My wife did not know. I said the childhood illnesses were why I grew no beard. My children did not know, ‘n when two o’ the four o’ them grew sparse hair atop their feet, I told them ‘twas somethin’ sometimes seen in families in the far north from whence I’d come. It was sparse. Easily got rid of. I said no more.

For a while, I would see my father’s mark, my family’s mark, upon fleeces I would purchase. More ‘n more I heard the Men around me speakin’ o’ the new lands they were settlin’. Once, in Bree, I heard the name o’ Hillock spoken ‘n I listened ta the talk.

“I hear tell that none ‘o Old Nolo Hillock’s kin have stuck by the place.”

“Aye. Eldest left ta naught be seen nor heard from ere again. Rest o’ his lads just up ‘n did the same.”

“ ‘N his lass, she married a Boffin lad ‘n moved way south o’ the Great Road, I heard. Then they left ta go further west. Lot’s o’ their folk be goin’ further west these days, seems like.”

“Wonder how long he’ll be holdin’ on ta the place with all these ones ‘bout what don’t seem ta be mindin’ the laws o’ the land.”

I turned away. Time went by at its own pace.

She died well before I was really even old, did my Ivory. Her kind don’t live as long as mine. I’d not taken that inta my accountin’ o’ thin’s.

My lads ‘n lasses . . . well . . . they grew up like their friends. Not a good word to be said for those whose blood was half their own. My eldest, he took over a farm in the old South Farthing. My youngest lass married a Man who’s father owned what had once been Old Maggot’s place.

They don’t know who they are nor who their father is. They haven’t half their heritage. It was what I chose then, but now, I wish I had it all again ta do.

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The idea for this story came from the following song.

“If I Had It All Again To Do”
(Shawn Lane)
Performed by Ricky Skaggs and Kentucky Thunder

It was good enough for my Dad and his Daddy too
a cattle farm down by a little stream.
A child that was so happy became restless as I grew,
till it was no longer good enough for me.

It’s where seven generations made their livin’ and their life
I would be the first to move away.
I can still see Mom and Daddy as they waved me goodbye
and the painful tears runnin’ down their face.

The world was changin’ around us
I thought I had to follow too.
But I’d sure make a world of changes
If I had it all again to do.

The place just slowly ran down, as time passed on through
Dad just didn’t have the hands to make it go.
And all of my brothers soon went their own way too
chasin’ somethin’ they’d still never know.

The world was changin’ around us
I thought I had to follow too.
But I’d sure make a world of changes
If I had it all again to do.