Sometimes Rosie had to sit down and tell herself, over and over again, that she couldn’t do nothing about it.  It had been a hard lesson to learn, mostly from her mum, whether it was too much rain in the sky or Jolly sulking in his room.

But it was hardest with Sam (as Mum had said it would be).  He had told her everything he could—everything, she was fairly sure, but she hadn’t lived none of it with him.  And seeing as it had been naught but a month since Mr. Frodo had departed, Sam was managing remarkably well.  But Rosie still wanted to do more.

Only when she tried, that made things worse, because then Sam felt as he ought to be grieving, and then Rose felt as she ought to do more.

But this was a case where she couldn’t do nothing about it.  She’d already done all she could.

But if Rosie couldn’t do nothing about it, that didn’t mean that no one could.  So one day while she was at market, she had the posthobbit take a couple of letters for her, asking Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin if they couldn’t come by a night and take Sam out to the Green Dragon.

They didn’t even respond—they just showed up one night, a week later, with panting ponies.  She hadn’t told them why she wanted them to come and take Sam out, they just seemed to know.

Sam protested a little, but once Elanor began screaming and fussing (very rare for her!) and it seemed only Rosie could calm her down this time, he consented to leave.

She fell asleep before Sam came back, but in the morning he looked a lot better.

Sometimes, doing nothing was the best thing one could do.