[Nurumaiel]

Falco was pleased to be invited to play in their band that night, and he was interested in the young whistler. He would like to see her play... he should like to hear her play. It would be nice to see that there will still some in the Shire who took some honest interest in the 'old ways.' He couldn't say he had anything against the 'new ways' that were spreading about, but it was the fear of his heart that the old songs would be forgotten. Almost all the young people in his hometown were ignorant of them. How fine it was to see that there were some youthful hobbits who could still sing and play an older song with ease. And... Tomlin knew a new verse, and Fallon knew of the old one.

"Yes," said Falco, "indeed there was another verse that ended the tale happily:

"And ever since he's got her, he vows that he'll keep her,
and now she's in the arms of her black chimney sweeper.

"I never sang it when I was a lad, though, and so I'm rather out of the habit. Fosco, that old friend of mine, and I started singing it to tease my sister, who was well nigh reaching old maidhood. Very good-humoured she was about it, too! Of course, singing we were singing it for that purpose we couldn't add on the last verse, because we didn't think she would be married. At first she just laughed with us and said: 'You teasing boys! If there weren't some old maids in the world who would help the poor mothers look after rapscallions like you?' But, after a few years of patiently enduring our 'serenading' to her, she began to laugh as if she were laughing at us, and say nothing. Fosco got suspicious very quick, and it wasn't very long before those suspicisions were justified... a hobbit came sweeping out of nowhere and married my sister!" Falco laughed and shook his head. "She had two children, and she's as happy as can be. But we didn't give the song up there, or add the last verse, stubborn boys that we were! I had a younger sister who had no lad courting her and seemingly no hopes of her (that was what we said, though she was still young and pretty), and so we sang to her. For years we sang, but she was married two years ago. In my fits of boyishness when I don't feel quite the aged hobbit I am, I stubbornly determine to find another old maid so I won't have to add that last verse."

A little hand laid on his knee and he looked down into Marigold's shining eyes.

"Oh, Mr. Headstrong, I liked that story," she said.

"Story? Why... why, I suppose it was a story," he admitted, "but I wasn't trying to tell it as one. That is to say... well, to be completely honest, young lads and lassies, I had quite a reputation for a story-teller in my younger days as well as a singer and whistler... nowadays I just tell a story as a story... in old days I would sit in front of the fire and look at all the young ones with gleaming eyes, and tell a story as a story."

It didn't make very much sense, perhaps, but Marigold understood. Her mother had been that way. She would talk with the neighbours about all the little happenings in the town, and it would all be very commonplace, but at night, when she tucked her little girl in, she would tell her a story as a story, one that sent thrills through the eager little listener. How wonderful it was that Mr. Headstrong could tell stories, too! And it was almost as wonderful that he was being so nice and kind and cheerful now. He didn't talk of how everyone was going to get drunk and other gloomy things like that. And he hadn't said 'no doubt' in such a very long time!