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Cook and Miz Bella
All that talk about dwarves and mining and jewels had set Cook’s head spinning. It was more than she could wrap her thoughts around that this tiny, elderly Hobbit had led such an interesting . . . no, exotic life . . . She wished Mistress Piosenniel were here. ‘Like to see those two match story for story,’ she chuckled to herself. ‘Now that would be a treat!’ So wrapped up was she in thinking about the woman’s interesting life, that she nearly missed the next of the conversation . . . the real reason, as it were, why Miz Bella had asked to speak with her. Something about a ‘dame school’ . . . and thinking about settling down here . . .
‘ . . . I'm wondering if you have a school like that in these parts, or if you think there would be a need for such a place . . .’
Just looking at Miz Bella as she asked her question and laid out her proposition in that lovely, refined, and kindly voice took Cook back many, many years to the older woman who’d taught her and her siblings in the small parlour of her little burrow. Cook’s mother had made sure there was a small basket of fresh eggs once a week and during the month the family would send sometimes a generous wedge of waxed rind cheese or a plump rabbit from the family’s own hutches. Cook had labored over her slate learning sums and such and had learned also to write a well thought out letter in a fine, clear hand. Once a week there had been music and drawing. But best of all were the stories Miz Violet had read them . . . some true, some fanciful, and some a mixture of both.
‘To be quite honest,’ said Cook, warming to the subject of a teacher for Bywater, and Hobbiton, for that matter. ‘Miz Callie Proudfoot was our last teacher here in Bywater, and she’s been gone now these, oh . . . fifteen years or more. Moved off to be with her widowed sister in Budge Ford. Folk around here do what they can at home. But it’s a hit and miss project for most of the families, what with both parents working hard all day to put bread on the table.’ She paused for a moment, thinking on some of the young people she knew. ‘And it’s not just the little ones need the learning of letters and numbers, but a number of the tweeners and those a bit older, too, who’ve fallen through the crack, so to speak.’ Cook poured another cup of tea for herself and for Miz Bella, and offered the plate of buttered toast to her. ‘We’d be glad to take you up on your offer of schooling, you can be sure of that!’
‘The only problem is,’ she heard Miz Bella continue, ‘is that I have no burrow of my own. And I have no idea where I could find suitable lodgings for such an undertaking.’
‘Land sakes! That’s no problem at all, Miz Bella.’ Cook swept her hand about her parlour. ‘I know we put you in here last night, but that was only because it was convenient, and warm, and I could keep an eye one you. You looked so poorly! But we’ve got a nice set of rooms on the first floor, Hobbit sized, too. You could use a couple adjoining ones for your own living quarters and the sort of largish sized one that lets out onto the back yard of the Inn as a classroom.’ She looked the frail woman up and down. ‘Course, they’re a bit cobwebby at the moment and I’m sure the odd mathom or two has been stored away in them. But with a little elbow grease and a broom and feather duster, I think they can be set to right. There’re plenty of pieces of odd and assorted furniture in the attic that can be used. And I’m sure Mister Derufin, our handyman, can fix you up a small stove for cooking and heating.’
A loud knock at the door, and Ginger’s familiar voice on the other side stopped her from asking Miz Bella what she thought of the idea. Ginger rushed in all out of breath and began a story about a giant in the common room with a dog as big as a pony, and how he was asking for old Mister Bilbo Baggins . . .
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