6. Journals

Now as it’s the following morning, Bag End’ll be swarming with folk coming to collect their inheritances and children hunting for buried treasure. I’ve got Robin’s gift with me, so he’ll not have to wait 'til he’s home to open it. I wait until we’ve ordered first breakfast afore giving it to him.

He shakes the bundle, makes his guesses, then opens the parcel. I imagine the look of wonder and shock on his face are the same as the other children’s when they open their gifts. 

I’d decided to give him the journals I’d kept as a child. He, more than any of the other children, enjoyed hearing about my childhood, would come and ask me questions about when I was growing up, before the War and the Troubles. What was Bagshot Row like? How big was the old Party Tree? Did I often go playing in the gorge? He liked hearing about my cat Nibbler and how my siblings and I conned Gaffer into letting us keep him. 

He looks at the journals and lifts the first one out gently. It’s the journal Gaffer’d given me on his birthday, just after I started learning my letters. Gaffer had resisted those lessons for a long time. It was Halfred who’d convinced him to let me learn, and when he gave me that journal, I knew as he had no hard feelings about it, no matter how much he complained. 

Robin opens it to the first page, where long ago I’d written my name in sloppy, too-large letters. He’s careful of the aging parchment as he touches the fading ink. He puts his nose close and smells its leathery scent.

“Thank you, Dad.” He speaks too soft for me to hear, but I can read his lips well enough.