A Father’s Work – Daisy

1 Lithe, 1383 SR
Michel Delving

Hamfast is 57, Bell 51, Hamson 18, Halfred, 14, Daisy 11, May 7, and Sam 3 (or about 36, 32, 11, 9, 7, 6, and 2 in Man years)

I pop into the confinement tent in the middle of the campgrounds and spot my Bell resting on a bench with a few other expectant mothers. Sammy’s playing at her feet with a few other faunts and don’t even notice when I approach them. Bell does though and she smiles gratefully and reaches out for the water skin I hand her.

“You feeling better, Bell?” I ask, apprehensive-like. I can’t say as I ain’t worrit. This pregnancy’s been a hard one on her and no mistake, coming so soon after her bout with the pneumonia this past winter. She’s still a coughing at times and she gets tired easy. Mayhap she shouldn’t of come with us to the fair, or we all should of stayed at home, but she’d hear none of it. It’s the only time of year she gets to see her relations and catch up on family gossip and she refused to be left out.

“I’m better, dear, just a bit winded is all,” Bell says and takes a long drink of water. “I ain’t had enough water is all; got overheated in that sun.”

“Summer’s a bad time to be pregnant, that’s a fact,” the missus next to her says.

“How’re the children?” Bell asks. “How’d Daisy do in the crafts contest?”

“They’re all scattered about playing with their cousins,” I answer and stoop down to pick up Sammy, who’s finally noticed me and is tugging at my trousers. “Daisy got just an honorable mention. You know as these judges don’t like for anyone to go home empty-handed, but she knows as it means she lost and she ain’t too happy about it.”

“It’s her first year competing and she’s only ten,” Bell says. “It’d be a wonder if she’d placed.”

“That’s what I told her,” I say but soon as I say it, I know I should of kept my mouth shut. Now Bell and the missus are glaring up at me, and if I’ve learned one thing after all these years, it’s that you don’t want to go upsetting expectant mothers.

“You told her that, Ham!” Bells asks.

“Well, it’s the truth, though I guess I could of gone about it differently,” I say, backtracking best as I can.

“I guess,” echoes the missus. She looks at Bell. “He guesses.”

“All right, I know I could of,” I amend.

Bell shakes her head up at me. “Ham, she’s just a girl. This was her first contest. She knows it’s unlikely, but she can’t help a hoping and there you go just crushing her when she’s already down. You better find her and make it up to her.”

“Yes, ma’am,” I agree and attempt to put Sam down.

“Na-huh,” Bell says. “I need to rest and he’s keeping me from it. You can take him for an hour or two. I’ll look for you all come teatime.”

I put Sammy atop my shoulders and he wraps his hands around my forehead and holds on tight. I leave the tent and start looking for Daisy, wondering just how I’m supposed to go about making this up to her and what I should say once I find her. Truth is, losing’s part of life and the sooner you learn that, the less disappointed you’ll be as you go. But she is just a girl, and a dreamy one at that. I’ll just have to figure something out when I find her.

I head in the direction I saw her last, playing on the green near the awards stage with her siblings and cousins. A good many of the Goodchilds turned up this year, more’n I can remember ever coming afore, and they seem to of brought near every Tighfield Gamgee and Roper along with them. This’ll be a fine Midsummer and that’s a fact.

“Look Gaffy!” Sammy shouts and lifts one of his little hands off my brow to point. As it’s the right hand, I assume that’s where he’s pointing. I turn my head that way and sure enough, there’s Hamson, Halfred and May dashing about playing keep-away with too many cousins to be counting.

“Good eyes, Sammy,” I say and head in that direction next, looking about every which way but not spotting Daisy among them. “Do you see Daisy, lad?”

“There’s daisies over there,” he says, pointing I don’t know where.

“Your sister Daisy, not daisies,” I correct as I approach the children playing. “Fred, Ham, May! Come here.”

“We’re in the middle of a game,” Fred protests.

“I don’t care. Get over here and don’t give me any sauce. The others can wait.” My children come and stand in front of me, each wondering what’s the matter.

“Where’s Daisy at?” I ask.

“She wasn’t feeling well, so she went back to the tent,” May answers promptly.

“You sure that’s where she was heading?” I ask.

“That’s the direction she went,” Hamson agrees.

“If you see her, tell her I’m looking for her and she’s not to leave this spot ‘til I come back,” I order.

“Do you need us to help you look?” Halfred asks.

“Only if I don’t find her in the tent,” I say, then pause. “Did she seem sad to you?”

“She were pouting right enough,” Hamson says. “She was making everyone gloomy.”

“She were fussing over not placing,” May says. “I don’t see what the matter is. It’s just a silly little ribbon as don’t do any good anyway. That’s no reason to be a Drooping Daisy.”

“It matters cause she were wanting it and she worked hard for it,” I say. “Don’t you go teasing her or being insensitive towards her, you hear.”

“Yes Dad,” they agree then go back to their game.

I head off for the tents and make my way through the maze of them to the one as we borrow from Mr. Bilbo every year. I put Sammy down and lead him inside, and sure enough, there’s Daisy sitting on her sleeping roll and staring down at her entry for the crafts fair. It’s a little rug as she made for one of her dolls; Bell has the lasses learn their stitching and crocheting and whatnot by practicing making things for their dolls or any bairns in the neighborhood. That way, they don’t waste so much yarn or thread when they make mistakes and have to start all over again.

“Daisy-lass, what’re you doing in here. It’s a fine day out,” I say and sit next to her. I pull Sammy into my lap and he occupies himself playing with the buttons at my opened collar. “Don’t you want to play with your cousins?”

“No,” Daisy pouts.

“Why not?” I ask.

“Cause.”

I flutter about for somewhat else to say and, failing that, I decide to just get right to it. I look at the little rug and finger it a bit. “It this your entry?” I ask and Daisy nods. “Well, then, let’s take a look at it.” I pick it up and squint at it in the dim light. “This is wool, I see. You dyed this all these different colors yourself?”

“No, Missus Rumble did it. I helped her jar preserves,” Daisy answers, looking at the rug in my hands and flitting her eyes up to me every now and again.

“So then you spun the wool yourself?” I ask next.

“No, Ma did that, and I helped her fold the laundry,” Daisy says.

“So Ma spun the wool and Missus Rumble dyed it for you,” I say.

“I made the rug myself,” Daisy says, her voice small.

“Aye, I know that right enough. I saw you working on this one night when I come home,” I say and Daisy nods. “How long this take you to make? A month? Two months?”

“Just a couple of days,” Daisy answers.

“You used one of them racks or looms or whatever they’re called? You know, to help stretch and set the wool in between the times you worked on it?” I ask next.

“Well, no, Ma said I was just to work on making the lines as straight as I could get them for now,” Daisy says, frowning a little now, but at least she’s looking up at me and speaking normal again.

“Ah.” I nod at this and hold the rug closer to my face to study the lines. “You’re just starting out, and whenever you’re starting something, it’s best to perfect the basics afore going on to anything too complicated. So you’re just doing lines now? No patterns or pictures or whatnot?”

“That’s right,” Daisy says. “I can’t do any of that other stuff yet.”

“These lines are rather straight and even,” I assess. “It’s a little bunched up here on this side though, see? And in the middle here, the line dips and wavers a bit. I thought mayhap that was intentional.”

“No, I just couldn’t quite get it straightened out there. I was hoping it wouldn’t matter none,” Daisy says.

“Well, this is a fine bit of work, and there’s no denying that, not one bit,” I say. “You worked hard on it, there’s no denying that either. It certainly was an honorable attempt and it’s worthy of an honorable mention.”

“But not a prize,” Daisy finishes resignedly.

“Those lasses and lads as won prizes today, they’re years older than you and they’ve a lot more experience than you. They’ve perfected their crafts. They can do all the complicated stuff and treat the material so it’s as soft or hard, red, orange or green as they want it to be. They deserve their prizes,” I say.

Daisy nods.

“But let me tell you a secret,” I say and hand her the rug back. Sammy watches the exchange and climbs over me to sit in Daisy’s lap to play with the rug.

“What?” Daisy asks.

“Every single one of them started out making little rugs just like this one,” I say. “In fact, I’d be willing to bet theirs weren’t even as fine as this rug here is. So the way I see it, you’re already ahead of them. You just wait a few more years, and work on perfecting your technique in the meantime, and I bet you there’s not one of them as can beat you.”

“You think so?” Daisy asks, perking up.

“I do,” I say but hold my hands up for caution. “But you got to bear in mind, when you’re competing, sometimes you’re going to lose. So if you can’t lose with grace and be happy for those as do win, then you’re not competing again, you hear me.”

“I can be graceful and happy,” Daisy insists. “I can. And I’ll work really hard and learn all those complicated things.”

“You also need to know as you can learn from everything. So instead of sitting here pouting, you should be out there asking those winners how they went about making their crafts,” I advise.

Daisy’s eyes light up at this and she bounces in her spot, disturbing Sammy enough that he climbs out of her lap and onto the ground, never once letting go of the rug. “I never thought of that!” she says. “Oh, Gaffer, you’re the smartest dad there ever was!”

I laugh. “That I ain’t, but I thank you all the same. Now put this away afore Sammy has it for luncheon and let’s go out and find your cousins. It’ll be easier to track down the winners at the prizing ceremony,” I point out.

She wrests the rug from Sammy’s grip and I pick him up to follow her outside. She’s skipping ahead of me down the aisle between the tents and she’s halfway across the grounds by the time I walk out of the maze. There’ll be no more Drooping Daisies at the fair this year.

GF 6/15/08