Rose and Sam

by Admiral Biscuit


Sam's House

Rose and Sam
Chapter 12: Sam’s House
Admiral Biscuit


Sometimes it was the little things that made a pony feel welcome, like neatly-groomed flowerbeds filled with pretty flowers. I didn’t have any of my gardening tools, or any flowers. I hadn’t even asked Sam what kind of flowers she liked

Would she have said something if she didn’t like roses? Or would she have been worried that I’d kick her out of our greenhouse if she admitted it?

I hoped she’d have the confidence to say what she didn’t like. What if I planted a new flower garden around her house and she hated it?

I was getting my tail in a knot. If she really didn’t like it, we could root it up later and plant something else. Sometimes it was the gesture that mattered the most. Her house should have a proper flower garden, and if Sam wasn’t going to do it, then I’d do it for her.

Without any of my gardening tools—I’d stormed off in too much of a hurry to grab them—I didn’t really want to completely strip everything out and start over. I didn’t have anything to start over with, anyway; I hadn’t brought anything with me but the fur on my back and the shoes on my hooves.

When I’d been a filly, I’d done plenty of gardening with nothing more. If anypony happened by, they might think I was being silly, or they might understand. I had good enough credit that I could go to the store and buy a new trowel and then when I was done digging, I could gift it to Sam as a belated housewarming gift.

That might not be what she’d want, or need. She might have a supply of them, maybe other ponies had seen the state of her garden and given her gardening tools so she could fix it, and maybe she just hadn’t gotten around to it yet.

I wasn’t getting anywhere just thinking it over in my head.

•••

After learning that Sam wasn’t a monster, I hadn’t really paid all that much attention to her house. It wasn’t something to be stared at or avoided, it was just another house on the outskirts of town on a street I rarely visited. I might not have even remembered that her flowerbeds were overgrown if I hadn’t overheard other ponies gossiping about it.

They weren’t as bad as I’d expected. I thought she’d still like them to be more personal, instead of what the last tenant had left behind, but they’d be presentable after a good weeding. Most of the flowers hadn’t been completely choked out by weeds yet. One of the flowerboxes needed a new plank, as well—it was bulging out and dribbling soil onto the grass. That was an easy enough fix; there were plenty of carpenters who could have it done in less than an hour.

Since I was there already, I walked around to the back, stood up on my hind hooves, and stuck my head over her back fence. I didn’t know if there was a garden back there—a lot of ponies kept their own vegetable gardens. We would have if we’d had more room, but the flowers took it all.

Sam had an outhouse in the far corner, a clothesline stretched across part of her yard, and that was it. I was half-expecting the backyard to be overgrown, but it wasn’t; it was cropped short with a few dandelions sprinkled around. Was she saving those for something?

There had been some in her flowerboxes, and I decided I should leave them where they were and see how she felt about them. They were good raw or steeped into tea, or could be made into wine.

I didn’t see a compost pile. Sam might have had somepony who came by and picked up her compostables, or else she just threw them in her outhouse.

For now, I could just leave the uprooted weeds piled against the fence, and when Sam got home, ask her what to do with them.

•••

I’d gotten so used to using tools, I’d almost forgotten what it was like to have my muzzle properly in the dirt, to dig around with my hooves and uproot the weeds one at a time. At first it was weird, and then it was like I’d suddenly remembered something that I’d been missing. Seeing her flowerboxes with all the weeds had felt almost daunting; I knew how long it would take to carefully root around with a trowel.

This took longer, but it didn’t feel like time was passing, and I must have gotten so focused on what I was doing that I didn’t hear or smell Sam as she approached.

“Rose?”

I jerked my head up and spit the weed out. “I was just neatening up your flowerbeds, I said I was going to.”

“I thought you were going to come over later.” She crouched down, resting her rump on her hind feet. I could smell the flour on her; she’d been working at the mill again. “After dinner.”

“That was the plan,” I admitted. “But I, uh, had some free time, and I thought I’d get started.”

Sam noticed my lack of tools and frowned. “Without a trowel or anything? You said that Lily would be understanding.”

“She will be, eventually.” I sighed and brushed some dirt off my muzzle, then shied back as Sam reached in with her paw.

“Sorry.”

“It’s okay.” I stepped closer and let her brush the rest of the dirt off. “You didn’t have other plans, did you? I can go away.”

“No, I didn’t have anything planned at all. I was going to change out of my work clothes and make dinner—have you eaten?”

“I ate lunch,” I said. “I don’t mean to be a bother, you weren’t expecting me until later, and I shouldn’t have started without you. Some ponies like weeds, I hope you don’t. I left the dandelions for you.”

She shook her head. “You shouldn’t be doing it alone, though, that’s not fair.”

“I don’t mind.” I looked at her hopefully. “You don’t have a trowel, do you?”

“No, not yet. It’s on my list of things to get. Do you want a drink? How long have you been outside?”

“Couple hours, not that long.”

“Come inside, have a drink, relax on the couch while I change into shorts that aren’t sweaty and covered in flour dust.”

•••

I couldn’t help but look around at the inside of her house as soon as she opened the door. I hadn’t been curious enough—or rude enough—to stand on my hind hooves and peer through the windows. Some ponies probably had been; I’d heard some secondhoof gossip about what she had in her house and what she didn’t, and from what I could see, it was accurate gossip.

There wasn’t much, and the house hardly looked lived-in. She had a worn-out couch that was set on wooden blocks to make it taller, and a small table with some library books on it—Twilight must have trusted her enough to let her borrow them.

She had a new wicker basket with some clothes piled in it, and a few beat-up pots and pans in her kitchen. A towel was hung over the top of a door, and a robe hung over the banister.

“Sorry, it’s not all that neat. And I’ve only got one clean mug, you can use that if you want a drink.” Sam snickered. “I don’t get asked to host parties.”

I’d followed her into the kitchen; she had a stove and a sink but no ice chest.

She got the mug out of her cupboard—which was nearly empty—and filled it before holding it down for me. “How hungry are you?”

“Not very hungry.” That was a lie, but I could see with my own eyes that Sam didn’t have much, and she was too skinny. It would be rude to eat any of her food.

My stomach wasn’t that good at telling lies, and it picked that moment to grumble. “I don’t like weeding on a full stomach.” That was true. “Not when it’s all overgrown and some of the weeds are tough and bitter.”

“I’ve got some bread,” Sam said. “How about we have a snack, do some more weeding, and then we can have dinner after?”

•••

It was nice to have company outside. I’d been lost in my own thoughts most of the afternoon, but now Sam was crouched down next to me, or sitting with her hind legs folded under her rump. That looked really uncomfortable, but she didn’t seem to mind.

She was quick to learn what were weeds and what weren’t, and her fingers were good at getting into the soil and getting the roots out. 

When she got to a dandelion, she started digging down around it. I didn’t notice until she started pulling it out. “You don’t like dandelions?”

“Aren’t they weeds?”

“Depends on who you ask. They taste good and the flowers are pretty and they make good tea. You can make wine out of the flower petals, too. I thought that since you had some in your backyard you wanted to keep them.” 

Sam giggled. “I thought you’d just missed them and I was going to be polite and not say anything, I thought I could get them later, after everything else was neatened up. Do you want them?”

“It won’t do anypony any good becoming compost.” I hadn’t eaten a plant fresh from the ground since I was a filly, but with my nostrils filled with the scent of the earth, why not?

Sam found another dandelion and tore a leaf off it, studied it, then stuck it in her mouth. “Kinda bitter.” She chewed on it some before swallowing it, then turned back to me. “We learned some wild plants that we could eat when I was a Girl Scout, and I’d never thought it would be all that useful to me. And yet, here I am, wishing I’d paid more attention back then.”

“It’s never too late to learn,” I told her. “Not everypony’s good at wild foraging, but if you really want to know about edible plants, Fluttershy knows a lot.”

“So does Berry. I’d help him forage in the woods sometimes, it was a good way to stretch the food we had. There weren’t too many dandelions in the woods, though.”

Most ponies didn’t really go for foraging, except as a light snack when working, or pegasi if they saw something tasty, and it bothered me to think that she and Berry were doing that to stretch out their food. Maybe it was just a donkey thing—I hadn’t seen her scrounging for food in town, and for all the gossip about Sam, nopony said she was searching through the parks for food.

•••

I hadn’t expected for our weeding to attract the attention of ponies making their way home, but it did. I should have expected it from the crowd that Sam had drawn at Ginger Gold’s woodlot. This time they’d decided that Sam was more approachable—most just walked by with a greeting, or slowed and watched as they passed, but a few ponies actually stopped to chat. There were a couple complaints about us leaving weeds out on the ground, where they might shed seeds, but that couldn’t be helped. It was my fault for not bringing a proper basket for them, and Sam didn’t have one we could use unless she dumped out her laundry basket.

Sam did pick up all the uprooted weeds and carried them out back, and from then on we left them in the flowerboxes until we had enough of a pile to carry off.

•••

We were still working when the rain came. I’d forgotten that it was scheduled, and hadn’t paid attention to all the pegasi flying around putting clouds in place. We’d gotten distracted in the routine.

I looked over at Sam—she didn’t look like the rain bothered her, and I didn’t mind it all that much either. It was a gentle rain, and for now the coolness was refreshing. She might have felt the same.

Before too long, it was going to be unpleasant to work in the flowerboxes any more. When the soil got muddy it wasn’t good to garden; the dirt really got down in the fur on my muzzle and legs and was hard to get out again. Until then—we had enough time to finish this box, and that only left one small one for later.

Was it strange that I was disappointed? Our conversation had tapered off as we both focused on our work, and it was just as peaceful as working in the hothouse or out in our flowerbeds.

The small cluster of ponies from before had all vanished, safe at home and out of the rain. A pair of fillies galloped by, and then the street was silent again.

“We can go in,” I said. “We don’t have to weed in the rain.”

“I don’t mind,” Sam said. “It feels nice. And we’re almost done with this flowerbox—is it going to get heavier than this?”

“A little, but not a downpour.”

“Then let’s keep going, and then we can rinse all the mud off in the rain.”

•••

The rain had picked up by the time we finished the flowerbed, changing from a drizzle to a good soaking rain. We should have called it quits sooner, but both of us were stubborn and meant to finish what we’d started.

Sam tossed the last batch of weeds over the fence into her backyard, and I wondered how many seeds had gotten on the ground and would sprout. It was too late to worry about that now.

I knocked off my hooves on the door sill as best as I could. Sam didn’t have a hoof-brush by her door like most ponies did, and there wasn’t much point in asking if she had a hoof pick.

“I’ve got a clean towel upstairs, hold on.” Sam trotted up the stairs and left me alone, my belly grumbling. The dandelions I’d snacked on had worn off, and now that I wasn’t moving around and focusing on weeds, I was starting to feel the chill. 

I still didn’t want to share her food, but it would be rude to refuse. We could go to a restaurant—we’d have to brave the rain for it, and she might not want to get her normal clothes wet for that. I hadn’t seen her wearing anything around town other than her work clothes, but I usually didn’t go around town in the evening, so I didn’t know what else she liked to wear.

Did she mean for me to come upstairs to get the towel? I put my hoof on the step and was about to start walking up when she appeared at the top of the stairs again, a towel in her hand. “Do you need me to dry you off?”

“I can do it myself.” That sounded more harsh than I’d meant it to. 

“Sorry.”

I could trust Sam. “But it’s easier if you help. If you don’t mind.”

“Here, give me a moment, my—” She paused and tossed the towel down to me, then vanished upstairs again. Had I offended her?

I could hear her muttering and opening and closing bureau drawers, then the creak of bedsprings, and then she was back on the landing with only her under-pants on. “Sorry, I forgot my robe was downstairs.”

•••

I was glad I’d had a snack—Sam didn’t keep her stove hot, so it took a while to get a fire going in it.

Some ponies didn’t in the summertime. The stove would make the kitchen too hot, and you were burning a bunch of wood for nothing. It would have been nice on a rainy day, though. Maybe if I hadn’t been weeding her flowerboxes when she came home, she would have remembered to start her stove.

She made pan-bread and sautéed vegetables, slicing them up very thin. I couldn’t help but stare—her paws were so dexterous. I’d thought her trouble with weeding was because her paws were clumsy, but it was obvious that they weren’t, that it was just a new thing that she didn’t know.

Probably Berry had thought she was clumsy at first, too, and then as she got used to chopping wood he’d realized just how graceful she could be. Maybe not enough ponies had seen that side of her, maybe a lot of them had gotten over their nervousness and hired her once and decided that a pony could do it better. “Do you have trouble finding work?”

Sam shrugged. “Nobody in town really knows me, so it’s understandable. The miller hires me a lot, and Ginger likes me working in her woodlot.”

“If—” We didn’t have enough flowers to justify a fourth, even if Lily would learn to be nice to her. Sometimes when it was busy, we could use an extra hoof or two, though.

“It’s okay.” Sam stirred the vegetables around. “I’m doing all right, and if things don’t work out, I can always go back to live with Berry.”