[Linnahiril Tinnufinwen]

Asphodel watched her father smoke his pipe. It was not the most interesting thing to observe, but it was really all she had to do. Her cousin Tolman, who sat next to her, seemed indisposed for conversation. He turned his head this way and that, watching and taking in all that was around him. He was certainly a curious young lad.

Asphodel sighed and put her head and her arms upon the table. She hoped that her father would take her home soon, for it would be a long walk back to their farm. She considered joining her sister and aunt in the other room to listen to stories, but decided against it. She was not much in the mood for tale-telling. Asphodel had just given up hope of finding anything to do, when she was suddenly startled by a deep booming voice that came from behind her.

"Well, if it isn't Halfred Hamfast!" it said. Asphodel jerked her head up just in time to see one of her father's friends pull up a chair and sit next to him. It was not Pinto Goldburrow, Fastred Longfellow, or Gormadoc Chubb; none of the three that had been supposed to meet them. Instead it was Sigismond Proudfoot.

"Good evening, Miss Hamfast and Mr. Brown," said the man, inclining his head towards Asphodel and Tolman. "I just thought I'd come and have myself an ale at the Dragon, and what do I know but I find myself in the company of good friends. I'm as lucky a Hobbit as can be, I am. I didn't expect nothing, just to come and have myself an ale all by my lonesome. But then I come in the door and there you all was, just sitting and being merry, like any good folk would do."

Of all Halfred's friends, Asphodel liked Sigismond Proudfoot the least. He was a bit inclined to talk way to much about nothing in particular. His appearence, also, was a bit unseemly. Sigismond was an old bachelor who lived in Bywater but a five minutes' walk from the Green Dragon, and was a worker at the local watermill. There had been a rumor there-abouts that Sigismond Proudfoot had been decended from a hairy pig. It was a very silly rumor indeed, but Asphodel thought that it must not be far from the truth. As in the tradition of all the Proudfoots before, Sigismond had enormously large and incredibly furry feet. He was not very tall, though taller than Halfred, and he had a large belly and thick limbs, and a large mane of dark, tangled hair. He probably had much Stoorish blood in him.

Asphodel found Tolman, as Sigismond was engaged with her father, leaning over to her and whispering in her ear, "My mother could probably knit mittens out of the hair on his feet." Asphodel quickly concealed a smile.

<font size=1 color=339966>[ 6:50 PM February 02, 2004: Message edited by: Linnahiril Tinnufinwen ]