The Golden Perch Inn

[Envinyatar]

Jack folded up his dishtowel and hung it back on the rack where he’d gotten it. They were a neat and tidy lot, these Perch Hobbits, he surmised, looking about the kitchen. His glance fell on the cook, and he quickly lowered his eyes, hoping she had not noticed.

The woman scared him. Now that was the plain truth of it. She’d barked out orders at him as if he were some shave-tail mule needing to be broke in to harness. And well, he s’posed he was one, having never actually helped out in a kitchen before. But he’d done alright, he thought. Only one dish dropped when he was drying it. And how was he to know the tableware had their own little compartments . . . forks here, spoons there, knives there. He thought it quite amazing there was a drawer to keep them in in the first place, never mind the organizing of it.

Ah, well, he supposed he’d learn . . .

Now where had that thought come from? He shivered at the ridiculousness of it. He never stayed long enough anywhere to learn anything but where the good silver was kept, or the coin. Still, he had to admit, he was beginning to enjoy the camaraderie of those at the Perch. No one, at least to his face at any rate, had made an assumption he was up to no good. They kept offering him the chance to act like he was a normal sort of fellow, expecting he would do so. Make the right choice, act honest, help out before you help yourself. Have mercy! Just thinking about all this stuff was beginning to make his head ache.

‘Let’s take out the boat,’ Jack said, following Tollers out of the kitchen and through the yard. ‘I’ve a mind to do a little drifting on the Brandywine. Opportunity to try out a number of pools, eh?’ Clear my head, too he thought to himself.

‘So, what sort of pole do you favor?’ Jack asked as they crossed the road and headed down to the river. ‘Best one I ever had was one made of ash wood. Real light it was and had a good bend to it when a fish pulled on it. Used it to fish in the ponds back home. Big old perch there, hiding in the shadows and the root tangles of the willows what grew along the banks. But man, let me tell you those fish loved grasshoppers. And all I’d have to do was twitch one on the water surface, and those greedy fish would rise to it every time!’ Jack laughed at the recollection.

‘How bout the Brandywine? Never really fished it much down thisaway. What do they favor down here, these trout of yours?’