(Written for the LOTR Community Challenge's "Summertime" challenge) 

Holman judiciously snipped the blooms that were past their prime. The alba roses would soon be finished with their showy mid-summer display. Fragrant and white, they stood out against the dark stone of the garden wall. The eglantine roses--Maiden’s Blush--were blooming still, and would keep on doing so until the first light frost, and as long as he kept deadheading them they’d make a magnificent show. But that smaller bush at the south end of the fence he’d leave be. It was packed with blooms, and would be a good source of rose hips. Rose hip tea, rose hip jelly--they was all to the good. His Aunt Rose, what was married to Cotman down at Bywater was a healer, and she set a lot of store by rose hip tea to help keep away the sniffles in winter.

He glanced up at Bag End, where Hamfast was hauling water. It had been hot and dry for several days, and the sweet peas and hollyhocks and delphiniums was looking a mite peaky. But the water would perk them right up.

Ah, and here came Mr. Bilbo down the path for his morning stroll. The Master usually took a little walk most mornings, fetching up at The Ivy Bush for elevenses as often as not. Holman watched him exchange courteous greetings with Hamfast, and he bent to examine the salvia that had come into bloom, with a riot of scarlet.

Then Mr. Bilbo plucked a marigold, and put the bloom in the buttonhole of his weskit, before continuing down to the gate where Holman was working.

“Ah, Master Holman! The roses are looking magnificent this year! Do you plan to enter any of them in the Midsummer Free Fair next week?”

“I’d thought on it, Mr. Bilbo, I’d thought on it. The white’s is past their prime, I think, but the Maiden’s Blush will be looking their best--unless this dry spell don’t break.”

“Do you think it will?”

Holman pursed his lips. “It’s likely,” he said. “T’aint natural for it to stay dry for so long this time o’ year.” The Shire was used to frequent summer showers.

“True! True!” said Mr. Bilbo. “I’m sure we’ll have some rain soon--oh, botheration!” Mr. Bilbo looked past Holman and down the lane crossly. Holman turned. Oh! It was them Sackville-Bagginses--Otho and his wife Lobelia, and Mr. Bilbo’s Uncle Longo…

“Mr. Bilbo?” He turned back around, but the Master was nowhere to be seen. Holman shook his head; he’d noticed aforetimes that Mr. Bilbo could be pretty quick on his feet when he saw unwelcome kin headed his way. Mr. Bilbo was two years older than Holman, but he was as spry as a hobbit nigh on twenty years younger. Holman scratched his head--Mr. Bilbo weren‘t nowhere to be seen. Then he went back to his work, as the unwelcome callers continued in his direction.

Holman pretended not to notice they were there until Mr. Longo cleared his throat and said crossly, “My good hobbit! We have come to see my nephew!”

He turned around, and said “I’m sorry to hear that, Mr. Baggins. You just missed Mr. Bilbo. He’s gone for a walk.”

“What nonsense!” exclaimed Mistress Lobelia. “If he had, we would have passed him on the road.”

They pushed past him and went through the gate and up the path to the front door, where they spent several minutes knocking and calling to no avail. That Lobelia even went and peered in the windows! Holman watched them in amusement.

They finally gave up long after most hobbits would have--Holman had to give them credit for persistence--and stomped off angrily.

The dry spell broke late that night. Holman and Hamfast made their way up the Hill to Bag End in a morning washed clean and clear. The flowers were brighter than ever, and even the grass looked cleaner for its night-time shower.

He left Hamfast to see to the weeding of the herbaceous border, and took himself around to the back of the smial. The kitchen garden was in need of a bit of tending--the rain would have made certain that there would be some cucumbers and tomatoes ready for harvest, not to mention the runner beans. And he’d finished harvesting all of the radishes a week ago--time to sow something else. Perhaps he’d put out some more onion sets.

He checked things over, and then went down to the potting shed to find that box of onion sets he’d put aside. As he came back up the path towards the garden, he saw Mr. Bilbo, basket at his feet, plucking some of the ripe tomatoes. He grinned--the Master would probably grill a couple of those for his second breakfast.

The Master did not see him--the path was hidden from his sight by the trellises of runner beans, and he whistled a cheery tune as he harvested his treats.

Just then, both of them heard a strident and never to be mistaken voice.

“Halloo! Bilbo! Bilbo Baggins! I *know* you are home!” It was Lobelia, and she was coming towards the back of the smial.

Holman was watching the Master, whose face suddenly looked like thunder. Mr. Bilbo dropped the tomato he was holding into the basket, plunged his hand into his pocket…

“Bilbo!” came Mistress Lobelia’s ear-splitting screech.

He whirled, looking around in alarm; Mr. Bilbo seemed to have simply disappeared! There wasn’t a trace of him to be seen anywhere! He wasn’t behind the beans, and the path back to the smial was empty. No matter how spry, no hobbit could move that fast.

His head spinning, Holman crouched behind the beans and hoped that Mistress Lobelia would not spot him.

Perhaps he had just imagined it all. Mayhap Mr. Bilbo had never been there at all! But no, there was the basket of tomatoes, right where it had been a-sitting at the Master’s feet.

Lobelia marched to the back door, hammered on it, calling out a few times, and when no one answered, she let herself in.

But Holman could not for the life of him summon up any indignation. His heart was a-fluttering and a-pounding. There was something unnatural there, something uncanny. Either his mind was going, or Mr. Bilbo--well, he *had* been off in foreign parts alongside of that conjuring wizard friend o’ his, Gandalf.

He put his head on his knees. He couldn’t’ve seen what he thought he’d seen. Mr. Bilbo, vanishing, as it were, into thin air. He thought back to all the other times, when he though the Master had just legged it right quick to some handy hiding place. But not this time. And truth be told, probably not all them other times either.

He was getting too old for this.

His cousin, Long Hom, over to Bywater, he’d been asking Holman to come and help him get his new farm up and running. Maybe it was time. He’d been gardener at Bag End for nigh on thirty-five years now; young Hamfast was of age now--yes, indeed. It was time and more than time, and time enough.

But not before he showed them roses one last time at the Free Fair.