For Eyes to See as Can

Preface

       This, as a work of fan-fiction, uses the beloved characters brought into being by the imagination of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and, as is common, both seeks to fill in gaps and to postulate What if...?  I do not own the characters or the story on which this work of my own imagination is based.  I admit to having borrowed from as well as being inspired by other writers of fan-fiction, and in some parts my version of the narrative follows off plot devices crafted originally by those such as Baylor, Lindelea, Anglachel, Tom Fairbairn and others--I pray they will not be angry but flattered that I found their works intriguing enough to serve as springboards for my own meanderings, and a few of their OC characters of sufficient rightness to include here.

       This is a story told from the point of view of Samwise Gamgee, in his own words, told in my version of the vernacular he chose to use.  He is, in many ways, more complex that Tolkien’s Sam, just as Frodo is more complex than Tolkien’s Frodo.  He has been conditioned to see himself as working class, but has been given a gentleman’s educational advantages, being taught alongside and in part by the Young Master.  How would this conflict of roles have affected him?  How would, now and then, his unusual educational background have manifested itself, and how would it have affected how others, through increased exposure to his camouflaged intelligence and perceptiveness, come to change their attitudes and behavior toward him?  How would this lead in the end to his election as Mayor (although I don’t bring the story to that point)?

       I also consider Frodo’s experience as perceived by Sam.  How would the presence of as malevolent an agent as Sauron’s Ring as it reawakened have affected Frodo and his relationships with others and, ultimately, himself?  How would this be perceived by those who knew and loved him?  What would he have experienced in the wake of his return to the Shire, and in light of the growing realization he had been too drastically changed to find once again his place in Shire society?  If he found his body as well as his spirit is failing him, how would he have responded to it?  How would he have learned or chosen to attempt to exorcise the demons within?  If such attempts should come to light, how would others respond to them, to the revelations they bring?

       These two were not peers, and there was an extreme difference in their ages.  So, how would Sam go from being the gardener’s lad to Frodo’s best friend, dearer than brother?

       Then at the end I shift focus from Sam to Aragorn.  How would he have responded to the knowledge his Friend had finally chosen to leave Middle Earth, and then to the evidence of physical and mental anguish?

       The relationship between Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee is one of the most inspiring ever described in literature.  How it came to be is a matter of general fascination, as are speculations on what happened during the two years before Frodo left Middle Earth.  I have been exploring these situations as well as postulating what could have occurred between Sam and Gandalf and other characters along the way, how Sam might have been prepared for his own part in the quest and for his role afterwards.

       As Tolkien himself did in The Lord of the Rings I’ve kept to our own calendar names and titles for holidays, rather than using the calendar names from the appendices.  Not as fascinating for many, but I feel it is acceptable.

       That Bilbo might involve Frodo in copying as well as binding books I felt would be consistent with his and Bilbo’s interests in translation and study, particularly in a culture which has not yet developed movable type.  And that such items as caddis fly larvae and woolly bear caterpillars might worm their way into a story I’ve worked on is something that I’m certain would make my mother sigh with recognition.

       I hope this effort stimulates thought as well as entertains.

       No slash, but a deliberate level of angst.

       Mostly book canon.

B.L.S.

10/10/2004

<i>In memory of Lynn Bickford S.  Mom, this is for you.</i>

Grieving

       I’m not going to put this in the Red Book--what goes in the Red Book is about what he did, what we all did, to save the Shire, to save Middle Earth, and what it cost to do that, what it cost us. But especially what it cost him. What it cost Frodo. And it cost him so much. But I have to write it down--I got to get it out, and I can’t tell everyone about it, not now.

       Mr. Frodo, he showed me the way. When anyone else was bothered, they could always go to him, and he’d listen. He’d listen so hard, his eyes looking at you so kind, so interested. But when he got bothered, Frodo wouldn’t talk about it. Felt real responsible, he did, and decided he wasn’t going to burden anyone else with his problems. Used to drive old Mr. Bilbo to distraction, if you take my meaning. It would be obvious something was going through his head, but what it was he wouldn’t say. Mr. Bilbo would have to figure it out, ask questions, draw him out. He would come out into the garden sometimes while I was weeding, and he’d be running his fingers through his hair till it stood right up on end, so frustrated, and he’d always start, "Sticklebacks! Bother the lad!" And then he’d pace up and down a bit, and finally he’d go, "Don’t know where he got his reticence, I swear. Certainly not from the Baggins part of the family, or the Tookish part, either. Won’t say a word--plain as the nose on your face something is stirring him up, it is, but he won’t say what. Got to drag it out of him!"

       I’d just keep working and making noises like I was interested but not paying a lot of attention, and finally he’d start describing what he’d learned or figured out so far, and then he’d ask me what I’d seen that could be part of the problem. I’d try to say nothing, but Mr. Bilbo--he’d see whenever you tried to hide something, and he’d go after it like a dog digging after a badger. Once he’d started putting the pieces back together, old Mr. Bilbo would just keep at it, and then he’d go back to the hole and confront Frodo and finally drag it out of him proper. Or, if Mr. Frodo had decided to leave so as to avoid him, he’d just wait till Frodo’d come back, and Mr. Bilbo’d act like it wasn’t bothering him no more, he’d have something just ready to go on the table when Frodo walked in, and he’d just sort of slip it in sideways, what he’d figured out, like he was talking about someone else or whatever. And then Frodo would finally have to agree, to admit Mr. Bilbo was right.

       One day Frodo had had enough, and he got downright mad, he did, and asked why he couldn’t be allowed to just be bothered about stuff and nobody else meddle in it; but Mr. Bilbo, he just shook his head.

       "Can’t let you keep it all bottled up inside, Frodo my lad," he said. "Puts you into a right state, it does, and you don’t eat for days till it finally settles down or you figure out what you’re going to do about it. And that is not good for you, dear boy."

       Frodo was shouting, and I could hear whether I would or no, for I was working the garden just outside the kitchen and that was where they were, and the windows were open, for it were a hot day and the kitchen with its fire, small as it was in high summer, was still stifling if you tried to keep the windows shut up. Seems I would all too often hear what I oughtn’t to through the open windows of Bag End when my Mr. Frodo lived here....

       "But maybe what I know or suspect is my own business, or is private to someone else, Uncle," he said. "When Uncle Saradoc is troubled and has asked you for advice and it is a puzzler, do you tell me about it, or the Gaffer? Would you let me badger it out of you in that case? Or if it were a case where the Sackville- Bagginses were on at you about something private and were making innuendoes--"

       "Lobelia Sackville-Baggins does that all the time, but she never sinks to making innuendoes," Mr. Bilbo sighed. "She just outs with it, whether you would or no. No subtlety at all in Lobelia, as you well know, Frodo."

       I couldn’t see Mr. Frodo--just the top of Mr. Bilbo’s head for he was now standing just inside the window, and I knew that Frodo would be by the table, giving him that look he had as he ran his fingers through his own hair--he didn’t lose his temper often, just went away inside hisself and would get stubborn; but the few times Mr. Bilbo sent him into distraction his own self that’s what he’d do, just stand there shaking, his face going white where others’ faces would go red, but he could make his hair stand up as good as his uncle, I swear.

       Then Mr. Bilbo’s own voice went soft, strange soft as it could sometimes when he was talking serious to Frodo, and he said, "It’s just that I love you, boy, love you so very much, and it’s all I can do to keep still when I know you are troubled. You are so intense, and it’s not good for you to get that intense--when your heart starts going like a trip hammer it’s all I can do not to worry about you. You have to have some way of working it out before it eats your heart away from the inside!"

       I know my Mr. Frodo, he must have just stood there, his face white, his eyes enormous and shadowed, just giving his uncle that look. Others would turn away from that look, but not Mr. Bilbo--he’d just stand there, drinking it in, his heart getting full of it, full of concern and love for his lad, looking sad at the hurting look. Then he sighed, Mr. Bilbo did.

       "I’ll see what I can do," he said soft-like, then said, "You go out and get yourself a walk to the Water and back, it will help you settle it out or at least walk off your frustration." And Frodo did that. A moment later I heard the front door slam, and then there he was, walking off along the road, but not toward the Water but the other way, toward the fields and woods. He’d snatched up his cloak as he left and was fastening it as he walked by, his face all pale still, his hair still standing up but the breeze just giving it a combing as it did, his eyes enormous still. Didn’t need no cloak at all, it being right warm that day, but he’d grabbed it anyway. He’d get cold when he was troubled, Frodo would. Then Mr. Bilbo came out, soft footed, walked into the garden to look out after him, and sighed. "There he goes," he said, and sighed one more time. "It will eat out his heart if he doesn’t find some kind of outlet, that lad." I didn’t understand, so I looked up at him from where I was working the soil. Mr. Bilbo did look right worried his own self, he did, his forehead all lined, his eyebrows almost touching. "It will eat out his heart," he said again, and he went still. Quite still.

       A moment he stood there, looking out after where Frodo had disappeared, and then he shook hisself and went back into the smial. A few moments later he came back, his waistcoat on, his favorite wine-colored one with the gold dwarf buttons on it. "I’ll be back shortly," he called out to me. "I’m just going to nip into the village for a bit." Although why he felt he had to tell me, I didn’t know. I mean, it’s not as if I was family or nothing; but he’d always tell the Gaffer if he was leaving, or me if I was working alone, being polite like. That’s what the Gaffer liked about old Mr. Bilbo--always treated him with respect, would listen to him like his words meant something, acted like he was responsible enough to tell visitors the master was away when he was gone or didn’t want to be bothered by relatives or such. So I just nodded and watched him go, then went back to my bit of earth, turning over my thoughts as I turned over the soil.

       Anyway, Mr. Bilbo was gone about an hour, and he came back whistling, a large bundle in his hands, and he went into the hole, then came out and came to where I was weeding by the window of his study. "I need your assistance, Master Samwise," he said to me. He had me go with him into the old office where his mum used to keep the household accounts, and he had me take one side of the desk that stood there and help him carry it out of there and into Mr. Frodo’s room. I was embarrassed, I was, to be going into Mr. Frodo’s private room and all, but Mr. Bilbo just tutted like he would and had me help carry the desk over near the window and set it up there. There was a small table there already, but he just pushed it aside so we could place the desk, and then he carried it out while I settled the desk and straightened the rug under it and all, and came back with a bottle of oil and some cleaning rags. "Now here’s for it," he said, and he began to clean up the desk and rub it down. It had looked grey in the little office, but now its wood shone up nice, golden with its grain starting to glow. It was a right pretty little thing when it was cared for, don’t you know. And when he was satisfied, he had me take them cleaning things out of there and put them away again while he fetched the bundle from where he’d left it on Frodo’s bed, and he laid it on the desk and opened it.

       It were a wooden box full of stationery, a soft golden color shot with green threads, it was; and a second box with a funny lid, and when he opened it there were in it three bottles of ink, black and blue and green, I think. And a third box held several quills and a pen knife, and a fourth held fine sand and a silver sifter and blotting paper. He set it all out on the desk, then smiled at it, looking right satisfied, he did. And I looked at it, and went outside and cut some flowers and foliage and took them to the kitchen and got the old vase as stood there on the dresser, the one they never used much, and filled it with water and put the flowers and leaves in it, arranging them just right, and then took it into the bedroom and set it on the desk at the back, right where the light would hit it just proper to make the golds glow and the pinks blush and the blues shine a bit. And Mr. Bilbo, who’d just been standing there admiring the effect, he smiled, he did, and said, "Just what was needed, Sam," with approval like in his voice.

       Then he brought over the chair that had set by the table, but it wasn’t good enough. So him and me, we began to go through the other rooms looking for the proper chair. We found one he decided was good enough in the third guest bedroom, and he had me carry it in there to Frodo’s room and take back the lighter one from there and put it in its place, and he settled it under the desk, then pulled it out and set it sort of inviting like at a bit of an angle. The way he fussed over it would have been funny if he hadn’t had that look of satisfaction on his face, and I knew what he was feeling. Wasn’t nobody that loved Mr. Frodo more than old Mr. Bilbo, not even me, I think.

       When finally he decided the chair was the right angle to look inviting enough, he said, "Well, that’s done. What about some tea, Sam, my boy?" and we went into the kitchen. He let me stir up the fire a bit and set the kettle over it, although I could tell he really would have been happy doing it hisself. Then when it was all ready he poured it out for us and set out a small plate of sweet biscuits that he seemed to know I liked especial well, and he began to fill his pipe and all, then began to put some scones left over from second breakfast on a second plate and set them on the table with some butter and a knife, and a pot of my sister May’s currant jam and the silver spoon he always used in it. How he knew Frodo was just coming back I don’t know, but he always did, and they were set out with a fresh plate and mug at Frodo’s place when he finally came into the kitchen. He had taken off his cloak and waistcoat, and had his sleeves rolled up as if he’d been fishing up pebbles from the bottom of the stream, the way he sometimes did when he went out into the woods of an afternoon. He looked at his uncle with suspicion, then sat down and poured hisself some tea and reached for the sugar bowl.

       "I got you something this afternoon," Mr. Bilbo said, not looking at him directly. "It’s in your room." Frodo said nothing, just nodded a bit, and took a scone and split it, and after putting some butter on it he spooned in the currant jam. "On days when you don’t want me looking over your shoulder and prying," Mr. Bilbo continued, "you can use it. And I do expect you to use it, understand?"

       Frodo was beginning to let go the closed look, starting to be curious in spite of hisself. I finished my tea quick, and explained I had work to do in the gardens afore the Gaffer decided he’d go for me for not finishing the tasks he’d set for me that day, and they both sort of grunted--Frodo’d picked up the sound of Mr. Bilbo’s grunt when he was involved in one of his projects, and it were always funny to hear him sound just like his uncle like that. And I slipped out the back door and went back to where I’d been working under the study window while Mr. Bilbo had been gone. I finished up there as quick as quick, and then hurried to the window for Mr. Frodo’s room so I could hear what he had to say when they got to that. Didn’t take too long, and I heard the door inside swing open. I stopped with the lily I was working on, listened. I could hear the intake of breath, then the sound of Frodo coming near, him opening the box of inks, the sound of sand from the little sifter falling back in its box, and then him turning round back toward the door again. I was right glad, then. He gave a little laugh like he was right pleased, and I could hear it, I could. And Mr. Bilbo must have followed right behind, for I heard him laugh relieved like from over by the door.

       Then Mr. Bilbo got all solemn like. "I want you to use these when you are troubled, Frodo," he said. "I want you to use them. There’s a drawer in the box of stationery, and it has a key--it’s inside the drawer right now, and it’s yours. There’s no other copy of that key. When you get all bothered about something, I want you to write it out, and when you have it all nicely committed to paper, you put it in that drawer and lock it up. Then think about it. If you can figure out what to do about it, then write that out, too. Or, if after considering it for a while you decide to share it with me, come and tell me, or bring the papers for me to read if you think it’s better said that way. Do you understand?" Then after Frodo must have nodded, he continued, "You can’t keep things always bottled up, Frodo. It will eat your heart away, and you need your heart for loving things and people, not for being bothered.

       "Now," said he, all brusque now, "when you have the problem settled or decide there’s nothing you can do about it and the other will have to settle it himself, then you can either keep the sheets or burn them or simply commit them to the garbage, or even share them with me if you’d like. But I want you to use this paper and ink, and when you need more tell me and I’ll get it--or better yet, go to Boggins’s and ask him for more. I’ll let him know tomorrow to keep it on hand, or a different style if you find you like it better, and he’s to send the bill each month when you’ve bought some. But you need to get what’s bothering you out--it’s like being sick to your stomach, dear Frodo--better out than in. But I won’t let your troubles eat your heart away; and they will as long as you refuse to let them out into the light of day in one way or another. Do you understand, dear boy?"

       "Yes, Uncle," he answered him.

       And after that there would be days when he’d just sit for an hour or two and write furiously, then I’d hear the snick of that lock and after a while he’d come out all whistling softly like he always did, and he’d come out to talk to me and all, his heart lighter for not having the anger or concern bottled up. Some days he’d take the box to the study and write there near his uncle, and if he felt free to share once he’d gotten it clear on paper what was bothering him, he’d give a sort of clear to his throat that let Mr. Bilbo know he was ready to read it aloud. And Mr. Bilbo would stop, and then he’d fill his pipe slow like and look at Frodo and let him know he was ready to listen. I’d move away then, so as to not overhear--most of the time, of course.

       So that’s what I’m doing now--what Frodo learned to do--writing it out, like. Getting it out so it don’t eat my heart away.

Too Many Secrets

       There’s been too many secrets in this hole, too many eating at hearts and minds and souls. For sixty years old Mr. Bilbo tried to keep the secret of that Ring of his, that cursed thing as took us away from the Shire and almost killed us all, that destroyed the happiness in my Mr. Frodo. And for another seventeen Mr. Frodo hid it, keeping it secret, keeping it safe, the way old Gandalf told him to do.

       Then there were all the years that Mr. Bilbo would insist that Mr. Frodo wasn’t to do anything that would, as he kept putting it, eat the heart away of Frodo. He’d always say it that way, "You can’t let it eat your heart away, my dear boy." Neither of us understood why he put it that way. He didn’t say it like that to others when they was upset or troubled--just to Frodo. I didn’t find out why he said it that way until Mr. Merry began working on organizing the records in Brandy Hall for his dad over the winter, and he found one old letter from the healer from when Frodo was just a lad there, after his mum and dad died, drowning in the river the way they did. Mr. Merry just showed up on the doorstep one day, this paper in his pocket, his face pale, his eyes solemn; and he handed it to me, saying, "You’ll want to read this." And when I was done reading it, I looked up at him, and he looked at me, and he nodded. I think I nodded, too. Made too much sense.

       So I checked with Drolan Chubbs, the healer here in Hobbiton, to see if his gammer, who was the healer who used to see to Mr. Bilbo and Frodo when he first came here, had left any records on her patients. Took a few weeks of going through boxes of old papers stowed in one of the disused storerooms in the place--half smial, half house--where Drolan’s parents and gammer and he have worked from for three generations. But we found it. Gammer Laurel always wrote down what she did, what she found out about her patients, what medicines or treatments worked and what didn’t; but she’d write it down in a sort of code. With Drolan helping us, we figured it out, Mr. Merry, Mr. Pippin, and me. And it fit, too. More heartening, what she wrote, but it fit--helped explain. Then we had a long talk with Mr. Freddy’s healer, that Budgie Smallfoot, and got the last of it. Well, almost the last of it--I’m going to badger even Strider about it, quiet like, when he comes north. Doubt he’ll be able or willing to tell me much, but suspect if he cracks he’ll just confirm what we already know, if I can get him to talk at all. But then, maybe he didn’t notice. I mean, he learned healing from Elrond, in Rivendell. That’s Elvish medicine. Oh, he knows how to work on wounds, to stitch a deep cut, to wash a burn, to bind cracked ribs, to splint a broken limb, to amputate a foot that’s going into putrefaction, to call someone back from the doors of death, even. He can deal with broken bodies and, in part, at least, with broken spirits as well.

       But does he understand about just mortal problems? Do Elves understand-- really understand--how things grow strange in parts of a mortal’s body for no reason we can understand, how blood starts moving slower, how stomachs can stop accepting food, how hearts can sicken in their beating?

       And then there were the three of us, me, my Rosie, and Frodo, all trying to keep the secret from one another--and from ourselves. At least, I was working right hard at keeping it from myself--Mr. Frodo was fading, was close to dying. I didn’t want to believe it, you know. How could he be fading? He was so young, not even fifty-five. He seemed to be doing so very good once we woke up in Ithilien. Oh, he’d get sad and withdrawn sometimes, but then the Ring ate at his soul so. Of course he’d not be just as he’d been. There was not a serious sign things were bad for him all the way home--well, except for when we left Rivendell and he started going funny at the Ford and stayed that way till we got past Weathertop. That were the first real sign as he wasn’t as well as he seemed to be. But even then he seemed to be so much better afterwards. Budgie tried to explain, but I’m not sure I have the right of it to this day.

       Secrets can eat the heart out of you as bad as being troubled, I think. Too many secrets, too much trying to protect others--it just scoops the insides right out of you. And my heart feels so hollow....

       But I’m skipping through this part too much.

The Heart of the Matter

       Frodo was born right here in Hobbiton, he was. His mum and dad lived near Bag End, in Number Five, Bagshot Row. It was one of the first smials dug this side of the Hill, the traditional home of the Bagginses. Mr. Bilbo’s dad was born there. It were the biggest of the holes in the Row--four bedrooms, two parlors, two kitchens, five larders, two pantries. Right nice place. Frodo come early, and was tiny when he was born. Old Widow Rumble, who lives in Number Four, next door to us at Number Three, and who likes to take care of the Gaffer, told me about that time. She was prenticed to a midwife for a while, but she didn’t have the heart to do that work. Every time the baby would start pushing its way out of the womb and she was there to see, she’d become sick, and her mistress finally told her that she wasn’t never going to make a midwife as the last thing she generally saw in the delivery of a baby was the sides of the bowl she was retching into. Widow Rumble says she never regretted having her prenticeship terminated--she loves babies, but not the birthing of them, so she worked as a nurse to several families over the years, even after she was married to Mr. Rumble. Helped raise any number of other people’s children over the years, she did.

       Widow Rumble had quit trying to learn midwifery afore Missus Primula come to her time, but she was friends still with her former mistress, and she loved hearing tales of the birthings, so her mistress would stop by afterwards and tell her all about it. As long as she wasn’t seeing it with her own eyes, she was eager to know all the details.

       When her mistress came by after little Frodo’s birth, she was solemn and her lips thin and tight. Said the birth was easy enough, but only because since it was so early the baby was quite small and thin. Said the baby was blue at first, and it took quite a bit of time to get it to start breathing on its own. Finally it coughed out a bit of stuff, and then it started breathing more normal and its color started showing up on its cheeks and all. She said it wasn’t a good sign to be so blue when born, as it’s a sign the breath isn’t getting where it needs to go. She also said that it was probably just as well that Missus Primula had told her she wasn’t sure she’d want to have more children, as it looked like she wasn’t going to be able to carry another child to term. In the healer’s records at Brandybuck Hall, Mr. Merry found that she lost two more there, both born at least three months too soon, so looks like the midwife here were right on that one.

       Now, Missus Primula was a Brandybuck, and she’d been brought up in Brandy Hall; so living on her own was sort of lonely for her. Mr. Bilbo loved his cousins and had been in and out of Number Five frequently since Mr. Drogo and she got married and settled there, but I guess it weren’t the same as knowing that you could just walk down a passage and be sure of finding someone to gossip with. Having only Mr. Bilbo nearby as family just wasn’t the same, I guess--oh, there was Missus Lobelia and Mr. Otho, but that just wasn’t quite the same neither, don’t you know. If I’d have had to put up with that lot as family like they and Mr. Bilbo and Frodo had to do, I think I’d have dug me a new chamber in toward the center of the Hill, and caved in the passage to it so as to keep them away from me. They were right horrid in those days, those Sackville-Bagginses.

       Anyway, when the baby was about a year old, Missus Primula talked Mr. Drogo into moving them back to Buckland. He didn’t want to live in the Hall, at least not at first; thought it would be too crowded. So Mr. Drogo found them a comfortable place near the Brandywine River, not far from the Hall. I guess when they bought it Mr. Drogo thought he’d got hisself quite a bargain, for it was quite cheap. Didn’t realize what he’d got his family into, Mr. Drogo didn’t--turns out this hole was in the flood plain, and every few years it would get flooded out when the spring rains were heavier than usual. Plain foolish, if you ask me, not finding out what could have induced folks to sell a nice place like that so cheap. When Mr. Bilbo found out about it, I guess he just shook his head at the lack of sense of some folks.

       Old Mr. Bilbo, he doted on little Frodo. I guess he were often in and out, and that he learned how to dress the baby and to change it’s nappies and all. And little Frodo seems to have liked his grown-up cousin quite a bit in return. When Mr. Drogo decided to move his family to Buckland, Mr. Bilbo was devastated. The baby seemed to miss his Uncle Bilbo from the moment they settled in the new hole, and according to the Gaffer there weren’t no question Mr. Bilbo missed that baby! He’d go over to Buckland regular, he would, and he’d take it presents and all, and stay for a few days to help with things, and he’d take the baby out on his rambles. Once little Frodo could walk by hisself, he’d toddle after his Uncle Bilbo all over Buckland, and Mr. Bilbo would show him everything and all. And I guess sometimes Mr. Drogo and Missus Primula would come with him here to Bag End, but they stopped that when Frodo was about seven or so--the Sackville-Bagginses was getting right jealous of Mr. Bilbo’s care for his cousin Drogo and his family and was raising quite a fuss at the time, and it got to the point Missus Primula couldn’t face the constant rumors that Lobelia was putting out on her and refused to come back at all--and I can’t hardly blame her.

       A year after that, after the third time the hole by the Brandywine flooded, they moved smial again--bought a new hole in Whitfurrow. From the healer’s records Mr. Merry found in Brandy Hall, that appears to have been just after they lost another babe, and the healer noted the midwife had said this one was a girlchild, and that he’d had to give Missus Primula medicine for the sadness after. But there was one more note about Mr. Frodo--about how he went into a faint when he heard his mother crying out in grief when the baby came so very soon and was dead when it was born. The healer was worried about the little boy, that this wasn’t right. He was called over by Mr. Drogo, who was right upset, what with losing another babe and his wife weeping her heart out and his son gone all faint. By the time the healer got there Frodo was awake and seemed better, but was all too pale; the healer examined him, or tried to. Even then Frodo was a very private child, and didn’t like no one touching his body if it wasn’t necessary, and he got so stiff when the healer tried to listen to his chest at last the healer gave up, but he wrote that he’d ordered valerian tea for the child three times a day, valerian tea with a small infusion of St. John’s wort.

       But it seems Missus Primula wasn’t all too happy in Whitfurrow, neither, and they’d visit Brandy Hall right regular. She and Mr. Drogo would go there to stay for weeks at a time, and they’d often go out in those boats the Master keeps there. I member my Gaffer telling me when I was little about what happened the last time they were there, how they went out in one of them boats after supper, but somehow the boat tipped in the river, and they both drownded. The Gaffer could tell it right proper, he could, and put in all kinds of details, like when they found the bodies there was weeds in their hairs and fishes were swimming in and out of their mouths and all. Now I know that a lot of that was just his stories like, but when I was a little lad it spooked me proper. Then he’d caution me, "And let that be a lesson to you, Sammy my lad--Hobbits just shouldn’t ought to mess around with boats. It just ain’t natural, going about on the water, it ain’t. Don’t be no ninnyhammer, and leave them boats alone." And for years that’s just what I did!

       It was then, when Frodo, who was just a lad of twelve, got white and fainted again, and then wouldn’t talk at all when he came to, not for hours. They was sure it was just grief, they was--at first, at least; but then they changed their minds. My Gaffer told me that Mr. Bilbo went for the funeral, and that when he came home he was right upset. Of course, that was only natural, as Mr. Drogo was about the only relative in the Baggins clan who treated him with respect, and they’d been right close and all, and he did love both of them a lot, Mr. Bilbo had. But there was something about Mr. Frodo that had him real upset, too, though he’d never say what it was.

       Some folks had assumed he’d bring the boy back to Bag End with him as his ward--after all, he was Mr. Baggins of Bag End, and was now the head of the Baggins family; and certainly, for all his Took and Brandybuck blood, Frodo was still a Baggins. Mr. Merry has asked his mum about why Frodo stayed in Brandy Hall instead, and she told him they convinced Mr. Bilbo that it would be better if the boy had someone to stand as a mother for him, and that as he--meaning Mr. Bilbo-- wasn’t seen as respectable by most of the Shire folk, it would reflect bad on the boy to be raised by him.

       But it seems that that was when they first got wind of the fact that there was something not quite right with Frodo’s heart. Budgie Smallfoot, whose dad was a healer for some of the Boffinses, has explained to me how the heart is put together--seems there are rooms in it with doors between that only are supposed to open one way to let the blood through. Sometimes, though, the doors don’t seal right, and a bit of the blood can slip backwards, and the heart will make a slushy sound when you listen to the chest. There’s been several of the Boffinses who have had this problem, though it’s rarely seen in most of the rest of the Shire. When this shows up in a Hobbit child, usually it doesn’t mean a lot, and Budgie says that such children usually don’t have the sound once they get bigger, that in growing up the child’s heart fixes itself, or the doors just fit better or something.

       But sometimes, especially when the child is worried or really scared or upset, when the heart beats faster, the doors will slip worse, and then the blood will slip backwards worse, and for some reason it works against breathing somehow, and the child will often faint. This is what I don’t quite understand, and Budgie can’t seem to get it through my head how the heart does with breathing. Maybe it’s just that he don’t know, or I’m just too lacking to understand--I’m not sure which is right.

       Mr. Budgie says, though, that sometimes when folk get older, especially it seems if you’re real old or a Boffins, sometimes this will start happening in a grownup Hobbit, and then it can be real bad. This can be the sign the person’s heart is failing, and the person will probably die sooner rather than later, especially if they end up going through a bad patch. The heart will stop sounding just a bit slushy, but will start sounding really slushy more and more of the time, and the feet will start swelling, and other parts, inside the chest, will start swelling, too, and it can get right hard to breathe or move. People will feel like they just can’t take a breath at all, or like they’re out of breath after just a bit of moving.

       When the person is a child, as long as it’s just a bit slushy just part of the time, apparently it isn’t too worrisome. He says that exercise, as long as it’s sensible and not too strenuous, can help even things out, make the heart stronger. He says that walking is really good for the heart, as it keeps things moving but isn’t too hard on you. He agrees with what the healer said in that letter Mr. Merry brought to me.

       Now, Mr. Saradoc Brandybuck’s mum was a healer, too--only, I think Missus Menegilda was more a midwife than a full healer. But being the Master’s wife, she was often busy with family duties; so when another of the healers who had prenticed with a healer for the Boffinses married one of the Brandybucks as lived in Brandy Hall, they were glad to hear he’d agreed to live in the Hall with his new wife, as there would be someone able to be on duty when Missus Menegilda had to do with Hall business. He was the one who attended Frodo just after he found out his parents was dead. While Frodo was still fainted away, he listened to his chest and heard that noise in Frodo’s heartbeat. He told them about the slushy sound, that as Frodo was still just a lad there was a good chance he’d grow out of it still, but that it might still be a problem when he grew up. He told them that Frodo needed to eat lots of green vegetables and fish and chicken and other fowl, and about exercising regularly, and about not allowing things to get him too upset.

       Apparently they decided that going to the funeral would make him too upset, but he was even more upset that they’d left him out of it all, so finally Mr. Bilbo took him to the funeral after all, and I understand Missus Esmeralda was fit to be tied. She told Mr. Merry that Frodo was all still and quiet during the funeral, and all pale, but composed. After, I understand there was a row with Mr. Bilbo over why he had brought the boy anyway, and Mr. Bilbo tried to tell them that not bringing him was the crueler thing as he was tearing hisself in two, not knowing what was happening, but Missus Esmeralda was having none of it.

Growing Up in Brandy Hall

       When Missus Esmeralda found as she was to have a babe, she didn’t want Frodo to know, for she had lost other babes already; but you can’t keep such news quiet in a place like Brandy Hall, when the Heir’s Lady is with child, and of course Frodo found out. He was very excited over it all, it seems, and when the babe was due they couldn’t get him to leave the smial the way she’d intended, for he intended to know this baby from the time it was born. They had a time of it, Mr. Saradoc told me, trying to keep the lad out from underfoot, but he kept sneaking into the rooms around where Missus Esmeralda was having her confinement. Mr. Saradoc finally said to leave him there, as there seemed no way to keep him out, but the worry was that the excitement would make him take a spell again. It appeared, however, that he was indeed growing out of his problem. He was one of the first to greet the new lad, and was tickled pink with what he called his "brother-cousin." From what I hear tell he was as devoted to the babe as Mr. Bilbo was to hisself, and he would gladly walk the babe around and around the smial when it was fretful, would devise toys for its amusement, play peep-and-see-me for hours with it, and once little Merry was able to keep his feet for more than a few moments worked on teaching him to walk. Once he could toddle, Merry would follow Frodo everywhere.

       It was probably a good thing he had the babe to care for, for Frodo wasn’t allowed to do so many things. Wasn’t allowed to run much with the other bigger lads in or out of the Smial for fear they would make him do too much and it’d be hard on his heart; wasn’t allowed to play much with the littler ones for they might be too rowdy for his heart; wasn’t allowed to ride a pony for fear he’d lose control of it and it would be too much for his heart, wasn’t allowed to wander far from the smial for fear he’d go too far and his heart might take a turn, wasn’t allowed to work the whole day during the harvests for fear he might tire hisself.... You can see how it was. Many a lad would’ve been utterly spoiled from such coddling; but Mr. Frodo, he didn’t cotton to it. Felt he should be allowed to do his own share. Felt shamed because he wasn’t allowed to do, wasn’t allowed to play, wasn’t allowed to work.

       Mr. Bilbo would meet with all his younger cousins pretty regular, always had gifts for them, delighted them with his stories of giant spiders and dragons and Dwarves and Elves’ halls and all, but his favorite was Frodo. As Frodo got older and didn’t have no more spells, Mr. Bilbo got more and more annoyed at how the lad was being treated, for he felt they was protecting him too much, and would drive him away.

       When he was reaching sixteen, Frodo just rebelled something awful. They’d never told him why they didn’t let him do things, and he thought it was only because they felt sorry for him because he’d lost his folks and all. He started slipping out of the Hall at times and joining the other lads near his age.

       Raiding the farms around the Marish is what a lot of the bigger teens in Buckland do regular like. They’ll sneak into the fields and steal taters or carrots, maybe hit the smoking sheds and cut off a bit of bacon or ham, dip into the cool houses for some butter or cream, into the glass houses where the winter strawberries is grown--what all of us have always done when we was teens. We’d do it here, too; and we’d take what we’d stole out to the places in the woods where teens will go, or to the old empty Underhill place on the outskirts of Hobbiton, and we’d have us a feast. Teens seem to get awful hungry, more so than when we’re little lads and lasses, or when we get to be tweens.

       Frodo, maybe because he hadn’t been allowed to do so much for so long, got to be real involved in the field raidings in the Marish, and would plan some of the most daring thefts of all. The other lads stood in awe of him. Maybe it was because he was so smart--he was the smartest of the lads in Buckland even then; but he could plan things so no one would get caught by the farmers. He’d get some of the younger lads to play decoy, and then when the farmers and their goodwives was distracted trying to help some little lad who’s kitty had somehow gotten stuck in one of their apple trees, Mr. Frodo and his mates would be in the back fields picking baskets of raspberries as fast as they could. Or an older lad’s pony cart would lose a wheel at the entrance to the lane of a farm just as the farmer would be heading out to milk his cows, and by the time he’d helped reset the wheel and seat the linchpin, the lads from the Hall would have stripped the milk from the best cows in the herd. Or while a likely lad was offering the farmer and his wife the pick of a litter of puppies, the other lads would be raiding the mushroom patch. Mr. Frodo was that devious.

       It was the mushrooms as led to his downfall, though. Best mushrooms that grow in the whole Shire, both old Mr. Bilbo and Frodo said many a time, grow on the old Maggot farm. Farmer Maggot was constantly having to defend his stand of prize mushrooms from the lads, and not just the teens from Brandy Hall. But I guess my Mr. Frodo was the worstest of the lot. Had as true a passion for mushrooms as any Hobbit as ever was, and then some. He’d sneak over to the Maggot’s mushroom patch every chance he got, and he’d grab a good number each time. Got seen there several times, he did, and the last time Farmer Maggot actually caught him in the act. He’d set a careful watch on the patch and this time hadn’t fallen for the decoy one of the other lads had tried--left one of his oldest sons to deal with that. The Farmer hisself was actually hiding by the mushroom patch, and he let Frodo sneak in and start picking some of the mushrooms afore he sneaked up on him and caught him with a half a small bag. That was when he smacked Mr. Frodo across his bottom with his walking stick, and threatened him with his dogs. That finally broke Frodo of his mushroom raiding, I guess, as the farmer also went over across to Buckland to have a talk with old Mr. Rory and Mr. Saradoc and all.

       He’d set the dogs to chase Frodo off his place, and it appears to have scared Frodo real bad. Where Frodo went afterwards no one can say, but Mr. Merry remembers that day, how Frodo had sneaked off just after dawn and wouldn’t let him come with him or nothing. It was not long after noon when Farmer Maggot arrived at the Hall with his complaints about that Baggins boy of theirs; but Frodo didn’t show up till near dark. He was real white when he tried sneaking into the smial through one of the delivery doors near the kitchens, and the cook who caught him was concerned, for he seemed sort of clumsy or something. She thought at first he was getting ready to raid the first pantry, for that was just near where he was coming in; and there was a birthday feast planned for the next day, and they’d been filling that pantry all day with cakes and sweets; she was keeping a tight watch for fear the teens would raid the treats and leave nothing for the party. She wasn’t so sure once she’d caught him that he was intending to raid that pantry, but she was becoming concerned, for he didn’t seem right somehow. She took him to the Master’s study, and Mr. Rory was about to give him a strict lecture when he looked at the lad’s face and saw it was all off color. He sent him to bed, instead, and made out it was for punishment, but then he got Missus Menegilda to go see to him. Frodo wouldn’t say much of nothing to her, I guess; but as he looked only a bit pale by then and his pulse was steady--he wouldn’t let her listen to his chest--she couldn’t be sure whether or no he’d had another spell. She told him he’d been way too bold with the Maggot’s mushrooms and that he was to be punished for what he’d stole, but that the Master was so upset he didn’t want to deal with him till the next day. Then she had some special tea made up for him and had Missus Esmeralda take it to him and make sure he drank it--had some herbs in it to strengthen his heart, although nobody told him that at the time.

       They made him work in their own garden and the glass houses after that for a good month, part as punishment, but more to keep an eye on him. He knew he’d been caught fair and square stealing and he deserved to be punished--told me about it when we were in Rivendell after he started feeling better. He said it weren’t so awful bad as punishments go, and that they’d told him the stripe on his backside from Maggot’s stick and the scare from the dogs was almost punishment enough, but he needed to learn discipline. I guess they didn’t tell him that they was trying to make sure he didn’t stress his heart too much. He was just glad he was being allowed to do something for the Hall--it were almost the first time they allowed him proper work to do--oh, he got lessons and all, but those was easy for him. The other lads around his age all had tasks to do for the Hall--every week some of them had to work in the stables grooming the beasts, or in the gardens and fields scaring crows and other birds, or helping the gardeners or the farmers, or driving the horses during harvesting, or gleaning--the types of jobs lads can do easy, you know. Usually when a lad from the Hall got caught raiding at a time when raiding was not good, or if he was taking so much it was a strain on the farmer or goodwife he was raiding from, he’d get sent to the kitchen to turn spits and scour pots, or to the stables to muck out for a week or two, or to the smithy to work the bellows for a while to remind him to not get too greedy. So I can see where Frodo felt it wasn’t such a bad punishment to work at weeding and potting and trimming the edges of the gardens, even though that was usually just a regular task for a Hobbit teen his age.

       But when the month was over, they started keeping him close again. He told me that if it hadn’t been for little Merry he’d have gone mad--he was that bored and feeling useless. Couldn’t go out--couldn’t play with the other lads--wasn’t allowed a regular task except to keep an eye on the younger children.

       One good thing, I guess, was that old Mr. Rory did listen when the healer told him to let the boy to swim. They did live near the Brandywine, after all, and swimming was a skill most of the lads and even many of the lasses learned, as it could be right dangerous if they slipped into the river and had no idea how to float even. Mr. Rory hisself had taught Frodo how to swim when he was just a tiny thing, and as a lad Frodo had always been happy with water, till his folks drownded. Mr. Saradoc told me that usually Missus Primula could swim fine, but it’s a lot harder when wearing skirts and petticoats and all; and that when they finally found her body it looked like there was a nasty bump on her head. Said it looked like she’d tried to come up from the bottom of the river, but in the dark bumped her head on the boat and stunned herself, and that was why she drownded.

       Now, swimming was nothing I ever learned how to do, although I’ll have my own bairns taught it. I member following Mr. Frodo out into the water when he tried to leave the Fellowship on his own, and how helpless I felt when I sank in the water and almost drownded myself. I don’t want my children to not be able to save themselves or to be as helpless as their old dad, after all.

       Frodo was something graceful in the water, all the folk at Brandy Hall who remember his time there tell me. Missus Esmeralda has told me that even though he didn’t get afraid of the river after his folks died, Frodo did respect it more, was more cautious--just not afraid cautious. After he came to Bag End he’d take me to one part of the Water as was a bit deeper than the rest, and he’d swim there and I’d just watch. Oh, I’d paddle in the water when it was right hot, or wade in the streams and the like. But I was that afraid of water deeper than my knees--not even Frodo could make me go deeper than that, other than the time when he tried to leave me behind at Amon Hen. I’d watch him, though, and was amazed. He didn’t have no fear at all of water--would swim as graceful as an otter; would suddenly disappear here and then surface way over there, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he’d come up laughing with delight. But, he never took chances in the water; and that did give him something to do in the summer at Brandy Hall--he was charged with watching the other children when they were swimming and teaching the little ones. He was right good at it, I guess, and stopped more than one lad as old as him or older from doing something right stupid as would endanger hisself or a littler one.

       But when winter came, there wasn’t nothing they’d let him do cepting minding the bairns, and he started getting pale and withdrawn. The healer who’d married the Brandybuck wife finally got right perturbed after watching this year after year, as he couldn’t get them to see they was not letting the lad exercise or have any real responsibility, and he felt this was very bad for him. It would be better in the summertime, but when the swimming in the river was over, Frodo’d get even more quiet and withdrawn than ever. Finally he wrote a letter to Mr. Rory, and sent a copy to the Thain hisself as well as another copy to Mr. Bilbo. It was that, it seems, as made Mr. Bilbo decide that it was time to take Frodo in hand and bring him to Bag End. It was the Master’s copy of that letter that Mr. Merry brought to me that day.

Mr. Bilbo’s Ward

       I member Mr. Bilbo setting off for Brandy Hall with a pony cart he’d rented from the stable at the Green Dragon. Said he’d probably be gone a week or so, but that when he got back he expected he’d be bringing back his lad Frodo as his ward.

       Now, I’d never seen Frodo, although my old Gaffer had, of course, when Frodo was just a tiny thing. I’d heard him tell of the days when Mr. Drogo and Missus Primula lived just down the Row from our place, and how they’d visit Bag End from Buckland from time to time till Frodo was seven, and how clever the lad was, and how devoted to him his folks was and all. And I’d heard the pride in Mr. Bilbo’s voice when he’d get back from a visit to Brandy Hall, when he was speaking of his young cousin Frodo, how smart he was, how much promise. And, of course, there was the Gaffer’s cautionary tales he’d tell of how Master Frodo’s mum and dad had drownded that we all got to hear, and how boats and rivers was not to be trusted. Had no idea what this Frodo Lad of Mr. Bilbo’s would be like, but had a vague idea he’d still be about ten, same as me.

       I saw the tall, pale person first in Mr. Bilbo’s garden, and I thought for sure this had to be an Elf. He was a young tween, of course, but I was just a little one myself, and had no idea as how he’d had to have grown since he’d last visited Bag End with his folks. But he was so slender, his face so pale and his eyes so bright and eager in a way I’d never seen in a Hobbit afore, his expression sad and watchful, his hands so slender and like they’d never done more than handle beautiful things and all, his gaze so intent and intelligent--I just knew this must be an Elf visiting Mr. Bilbo. I knew that Mr. Bilbo went out walking to meet with Elves in the Shire, and he’d told me they often visited the Woody End and he’d sometimes meet with them on the way to Buckland; I knew Dwarves sometimes would come to visit Bag End, although I was too little at the time to remember the last time they’d done so; and I knew that the old wizard Gandalf was a frequent visitor since Mr. Bilbo’s adventure, although I’d not seen him yet, neither. So, when I saw this person in Mr. Bilbo’s garden I was sure it had to be an Elf come to speak with Mr. Bilbo when he got back from Buckland. I was in a fine dither, I’ll tell you.

       But then Mr. Bilbo hisself came out of Bag End, looking for someone, and when he saw the slender stranger, he said, "Well, there you are, then. Is it as you remember? It has been years, hasn’t it, my boy?" And only then did I begin to realize this must be Master Frodo.

       He wasn’t really all that tall--just the way he carried hisself and his slenderness made him look taller, it seems. But to me--even as I realized this was just another Hobbit like me--to me he seemed special and splendid, and....

       ...and fragile. Yes, fragile is the word. Something specially beautiful and precious and possibly easily broken and lost. And something in my heart went out to that feeling of fragile, something that said, This one, this Hobbit I will protect, because this is a beautiful Hobbit who shall not be broken if I can help it. We can’t lose this one. I can’t lose this Hobbit. I won’t lose this Hobbit. And when he looked about and saw me at the garden gate and suddenly gave me that smile of his, I felt as the Valar themselves had given me a sign. I had sworn myself then, just a lad of ten, to Frodo Baggins, and it’s a giving I will never, never, never regret.

       Mr. Bilbo saw where he was looking, over at me at the garden gate, and he smiled at me, too. "Ah, our lad Sam!" he said. "Frodo Baggins, may I introduce young Master Samwise Gamgee, son of our inestimable gardener, Hamfast Gamgee, a veritable master of growing things. Now, Sam, is your father on his way?"

       At that point the Gaffer hisself spoke up from further up the garden where he’d been working since sunup on pulling out some nettle plants that had taken over in the patch of garden he’d given to me to cultivate. I’d thought they was catnip and had left them grow, and only a painful encounter with the underside of their leaves had disabused me the night afore.

       "Ain’t no kind of young master, that ‘un," my Gaffer grunted, and then spat. He was wearing his long gloves to protect his arms as he pulled out the stinging nettles. "Not less’n it’s master of not knowin’ the differ’nce ‘tween nettles and herbs, like." He was carrying a pile of the plants to set in his barrow as he’d left near the gate.

       "Ah, nettles, eh?" Mr. Bilbo said as he looked them over after they was cast into the barrow. "Useful things, and young ones are quite tasty in a salad, you know."

       The Gaffer looked at him with his brows raised in disbelief. "Nettles in salad?" he asked.

       "Oh, yes, but only young ones, mind you. Learned that along the way to the Lonely Mountain. One very useful bit old Balin taught me--not that I’ve had a nettle salad since, of course. And the fibers can be twisted into thread in a pinch. But when you’re starving for greenstuffs because about all that’s been packed for food is cram and jerked meats, you’ll try about anything. Ah, many was the time we’d have dandelion greens and young nettles along with our meals."

       The Gaffer gave that grunt that he gave about whenever Mr. Bilbo mentioned his adventures, what said he was half-disbelievin’ and half-curious and couldn’t quite make up his mind which--not that he truly disbelieved Mr. Bilbo’s stories, mind; but some of the things he said was so far beyond the Gaffer’s experience he just couldn’t take it all in, if you take my meaning. He knew as Mr. Bilbo had really gone with Dwarves--he’d seen them the day afore he disappeared coming up the Hill to Bag End, and he’d seen them the next morning early on heading for the Green Dragon, then Mr. Bilbo runnin’ after an hour or so later on, his waistcoat all unbuttoned and his face flustered. He was just starting to work a bit with his uncle, who did Bag End’s garden in those days, and though he was just a lad at the time, he found the garden and the smial it graced both fascinating.

       But, that’s a different tale.

       "I’ll stick to lettuce and cabbages, mind," the Gaffer said.

       I looked at them nettles with more interest and stowed the information away in my head for study later. I brought the pail that had the food Mum had put up into the garden, not sure if I needed to be invited since the Master and his ward was there today, not that I ever stopped to wonder when no one was there--then the garden was my dad’s and mine, you know. Meanwhile old Mr. Bilbo was telling Frodo what kinds of remedies the Elves had told him for nettle stings--seems the stings don’t seem to bother Dwarves none, though Elves know a number of ways to reduce the bumps and itching. Again, I listened, and later that day when no one was around I tried one of them on my arms, and it worked--we had the comfrey there in the herb garden, and a bit of aloe, and my arm felt much better after.

       Mr. Frodo spoke up in a quiet patch amongst his uncle’s talking, and asked me, "Did your mum send that up for your elevenses?" I nodded. His voice was like him, beautiful and clear. He waited, and I saw he meant me to add on.

       "She sent us some bread and cheese, and some dried grapes from the arbor above our place," I told him. "Too early for fresh grapes this year." He nodded.

       "Does she dry them on a tray in the sun?" he asked. "That is how my Aunt Menegilda does it." I nodded. "I copied out her book of useful ideas for my Tookish aunts for Yule last year," he said. I think I just looked up at him, surprised. Oh, I knew Mr. Bilbo read and wrote regular, but I’d never met a tween who knew how to do it afore.

       "Uncle Bilbo has promised to tell me some of the dishes he learned of on his travels, and I’ll make them cookery books from Dwarvish and Elvish recipes for this Yule," he continued. "Would you like to help me make copies? Maybe your mum would like one, too."

       I must’ve gone all red or something, and I muttered that my mum didn’t know how to read, and he got all embarrassed.

       "Not to worry, Frodo my lad," Mr. Bilbo said. "You forget that a lot of Hobbits never learn to read and write--you’re just so used to it in being true in the Hall you have no idea it’s not universal."

       I didn’t quite understand all the words he used, but thought I understood the gist of that, and filed that away to think of, too. So, over in Buckland lots of Hobbits, even working Hobbits like my Gaffer and me, learned how to read and write? I’d have loved to learn how to do that, you know. Mr. Bilbo had let me visit him in his study one day when the rain suddenly poured down out of a sky gone suddenly dark, and he’d brought me into the smial to get out of the wet. I’d been fascinated by the books, and he’d started telling me about them, what they was about, where he’d got them, and that this one was tales and that one was about healing plants in the wild, and the one with the red cover and blue spine there on his desk was the story of the Great War against the Enemy, written in Elvish, and he was translating it into our speech. He picked up one of the pages he’d written and read it to me, then opened to a page in the book and read some of it out in Elvish. It was beautiful sounding words, yet dark and frightening. And when I said that, he told me that of course it was dark and frightening, for it were a dark and frightening part of the story, with Beren fighting against Morgoth and being vanquished and put down into the dungeons.

       Anyway, Mr. Bilbo said that as I’d brought our elevenses, maybe it was time for the two of them to have theirs, too, and he took Mr. Frodo back inside.

       Frodo was quiet and observant, like. Late that afternoon when the Gaffer had me cutting off the dead flowers among the pansies so they’d keep blooming, he was sitting on the ground nearby, reading a book and watching me at the same time. I had been rather pleased he was there, for I liked to look at him when I could. Finally he closed the book with a blade of grass inside it, sticking out between the pages, and set it on the bench he’d sat by, and came over and asked if he could help me. "I helped in the gardens at home some," he explained. I was surprised--someone like this special Hobbit grubbing around in gardens? But if he wanted to help, I guessed he could, as this was his garden now. Once he figured out what I was doing, he went in and got a short knife, then came out and started helping me. His hands was quick and gentle with the plants, and once I figured he weren’t going to cut any buds, too, I moved over and started with my scissors on the geraniums, doing the same with them. Then I heard him whistling. He could whistle like a songbird, and I’d never heard anything like it afore.

       Soon Mr. Bilbo came out and watched. He sat down on the bench, his hands in the pockets of his waistcoat, fingering whatever he had in the right one, watching and smiling at the two of us. I would give him a glance now and then to see what he was thinking of this, his cousin there on his knees in the garden cutting off dead heads off the pansies, but it was plain he was pleased enough with what he saw. Then the Gaffer came around from the turn of the Hill where he’d been working on the yellow rose tree he was trying so hard to get over an attack of rust, and his jaw dropped. Not but Mr. Bilbo hadn’t been known to take an interest in some of the plants hisself, mind you. He’d brought back some cuttings from his adventures-- plants from Rivendell--and he’d insisted on caring for them hisself for years afore he’d finally been sure they would not die if the Gaffer took care of them after that. But to see the Young Master working alongside me was a shock to the Gaffer’s system, seemed like.

       Mr. Bilbo stopped him afore he could do more than sputter, though. "I’m very pleased," he said, "to see that your Sam there has been teaching my young cousin some useful skills. And a very good job he’s been doing of overseeing Frodo’s education in how to keep the pansies blooming."

       Mr. Frodo looked up at the Gaffer rather shyly, and smiled at him, and not even the Gaffer could help being overwhelmed. "He’s letting me earn my keep, Mr. Gamgee," Frodo said. "He’s a very good teacher."

       Later he told me that both of us had turned red with pleasure, and he thought that was a right treat, he did. Of course, he already had an idea of what was needed, but he didn’t tell us that then. But he enjoyed cleaning out dead heads, although after an hour he’d become tired and his knees would be starting to bother him, so then he’d stop and leave me to it, but there usually weren’t a lot left to cut when he’d helped like that. Then he’d go back to his book, but often he’d start reading it out loud so I could hear the story as I was working.

       I didn’t work all day, of course, but I loved being with my dad in the Bag End garden, and I loved flowers. In the section that was mine to grow, I’d changed from trying to grow herbs to trying to start some of the seeds from the elven flowers. I’d also started an aloe plant there. This was a plant Mr. Bilbo said grew wild in the south, and that the Elves loved it for its soothing effects on the skin, so he’d brought a cutting from there. The aloe was thriving, but the flowers wasn’t doing so well. Oh, they’d come up okay, but then they’d shrivel and wouldn’t grow right, and I was trying to figure out why they grew where the Gaffer had them near the study window, but not here in this sunny patch.

       After watching me check them for the fifth day in a row, Mr. Frodo figured out what I was worrying over, and came over and looked down at those small, valiant seedlings. He asked me about them and where I’d gotten the seeds, and after I’d explained and shown him the grown flowers near the study window and all, he sat and studied on them seedlings for quite a while, then went and looked at the ones that was growing so famously by the smial.

       Suddenly he gave a laugh, and came over to me and said, "I think maybe I see the problem." He led me to the study window and asked me to describe what it was like to him. It took quite a lot of describing for me to suddenly realize what was wrong with my little plot--too much sun! They grew by the study window shaded the hottest part of the day by nearby trees and the honeysuckle vine that was trained around the window, but I had them out under the bare sun all day long, and she was just too hot for them. Once I understood I felt like a ninnyhammer, but at the same time I was pleased with having figured it out for myself, even if Mr. Frodo had helped me see.

       I went back to my bit of garden and gently dug them up, then took them over under the lilac and planted them there in a bare spot, and went back and looked at my now empty bit of plot and sighed. "I’d put sunflowers here now," I said, "but it’s too late for them to bloom."

       "How about nasturtiums?" Mr. Frodo suggested, and I felt happier. Nasturtiums will grow about anywhere, and they don’t take too long to grow and flower, so I went to where there was nasturtiums out by the front door, found some of their big seeds lying near the plants, and brought them around and put them where the elven flowers had been.

       When the Gaffer came by as I was watering the seeds, he wanted to know what had happened to the seedlings I’d started. I told him that I’d found out they didn’t do well in the full sun, and showed them where I’d moved them to and asked if he thought they’d grow there. He snorted, but it was with approval, I realized. He’d not said anything so I’d have a chance to learn for myself that some plants couldn’t grow in full sun, but if I’d not realized what was wrong soon he was going to move them hisself and then tell me what I’d done wrong. He was right pleased I’d realized what was wrong without him saying so. I didn’t tell him then that it was Mr. Frodo who’d helped me see what the matter was, for he didn’t tell me--he’d just figured it out by hisself and then helped me figure it out by myself. That was when I got sure Mr. Frodo was about the smartest Hobbit alive, next to Mr. Bilbo, of course.

Fealty

       It was Mr. Frodo who realized I wanted to learn to read. I’d finished with cleaning the herbaceous border one day and had nothing to do, and my nasturtiums didn’t need no more water or nothing, and I’d been sitting near Mr. Frodo as he read to me. I wanted to see the trick of it, how it was he could read, so I moved alongside of him. But I couldn’t see the whole book, so I sat up on the bench behind him where I could look at it over his shoulder. He was surprised when I moved behind him, but then he figured out just what I was looking at so he began to move his finger under the words as he read so I could see what it was he was reading. It were a story about a boy who tricked a fox into leaving his chickens alone. I’d heard it afore, of course--it was a common story to tell. I was amazed someone had written it down. But there it was, in a book, and there was other stories in that book, too, and I was dying to know which was ones I knew and which was new ones.

       The next day Mr. Bilbo came out while the Gaffer was trimming the roses and suggested I be taught how to read and write and figure. The Gaffer weren’t too sure about that, but at the same time he couldn’t say no--he was agreeing with Mr. Bilbo that I was right smart, although he rarely told me so. So, he just said he’d think about it.

       My mum was real pleased to hear Mr. Bilbo thought I was that smart, and she were all happy to have me start to learn, and finally the Gaffer told Mr. Bilbo to go ahead and teach me, as long as I wasn’t a bother and I had time to do my work in the garden.

       Mr. Bilbo started off teaching me and all. He was teaching Frodo Elvish then, so he’d set him off doing some translation or practicing the letters, and then he’d start with me on the letters for our speech. In a week I was writing simple words on a slate with a piece of chalk, and soon I was reading and writing sentences. I finally was able to start working on the book of tales Mr. Frodo’d been reading me out of, and I was as pleased as all get out. Began copying parts of it out on bits of parchment once I got to learning how to use a quill and ink, and then I’d take those bits of parchment home and read the stories to my sister Marigold.

       But then Mr. Bilbo got a new book of Elvish he was laboring on trying to read--I learned there was more than one Elvish language, and although they looked the same, they didn’t read or sound the same, and he was just really getting into this new language called Quenya, so he let Mr. Frodo take over teaching me. He would have me read and write, then he’d have me read some more and we’d talk about what I’d read, what it meant and all.

       Figuring was harder at first, but I soon got into it. After a while I got real good at it, and could figure out easily how many plants I could put into a garden patch of such a size. When the Gaffer was making decisions on what kinds of bulbs he’d need for the fall planting I figured how many of each kind he’d need, and drew out a plan of the garden on the slate they’d given me to take home to practice on and showed him how I’d plan it out. He was right impressed. I don’t think he’d realized just how useful figuring could be, for once he told me how much the different bulbs would cost, I figured out how much he’d need to ask from Mr. Bilbo to get them all.

       But it wasn’t just my letters I learned from Mr. Frodo. Mr. Bilbo was determined that his lad was going to exercise, so he sent him off on a walk each day, either in the morning or afore sunset, telling him he was to enjoy hisself in the woods and fields or exploring the villages.

       Tweren’t many lads near his age in Hobbiton--a few more in Bywater, but none of the gentry like, who’d feel fine talking to such as Frodo Baggins. So Mr. Bilbo talked the Gaffer into letting me go with Frodo once all were clear he liked having me with him. He explained to me he was used to caring for the younger lads and lasses in Brandy Hall, and that he missed his little cousin Merry something fierce. He’d take me to the stables and explain about the ponies, and the hostelers let us stroke them and help curry them and all, those as were gentle, of course. We’d go down to the Water and he’d swim. We’d go out into the woods and poke around in the stream. He found a worm that builds itself a shell out of whatever it finds to protect itself, so we brought a few home and took them out of their shells and gave them colored sand and sticks and small beads to see what kinds of homes they’d fix for themselves. Mr. Bilbo let us put jars of water with these worms on the window sill of the dining room, and we saw all kinds of shells built, some of them right pretty. Then we’d watch them crawl up the stems Mr. Bilbo said we had to keep in the jars for them, and they’d turn into flying insects after making themselves a different kind of case around them.

       One day we came home with caterpillars we’d found that were big and brown with a wide stripe, and we fixed up a box for them with dirt and grass and twigs and some leaves we’d change every day. And when they made cocoons we watched with delight till the cocoons opened, letting moths out.

       As fall came, Mr. Frodo got more lonely for his cousin Merry, and finally Mr. Bilbo said he could invite him to come for a visit for their birthday, that they’d have a big party at Bag End, and they’d invite Aunt Esmeralda and Uncle Saradoc and little Merry and Uncle Paladin Took and his family, too. But both insisted Marigold, May, and me were to come for the party, too, as their guests. My folks was all in a dither, but there wasn’t no way of saying no without being rude, so we was allowed to go on the big day.

       The company came three days ahead of time. My sisters May and Marigold came in to help, as did Mrs. Rumble--she weren’t a widow then, yet. They cleaned that hole from back to front, and the windows sparkled and so did the glasses and the bottles of wine and such. I helped some with the airing of the rooms, and my mum and me did arrangements of flowers for the guest chambers.

       I’d not seen the Brandybucks afore, although the Tooks had come for a visit now and again in the last few years. The Tooks came in their carriage, and the Brandybucks rode over on ponies, and the Bolgers even came from Budgefield. Mr. Frodo was happy to see his family again, and their expressions when they saw him were a treat--were all surprised to see how much different he was than they’d been thinking. He was filling out some, and his eyes weren’t so hollow any more. The freedom he’d found to wander about on his own and with me had hardened his muscles, and his eyes had a sparkle to them now. I tried to see him as they did, membering how he’d looked when I first saw him. Mostly, there wasn’t the deep sense of sorrow I’d seen when first I saw him in the garden. His voice was calmer, getting deeper, more cheerful. His smile was less rare, and he didn’t always look over his shoulder as if to ask if it was all right for him to do this and that. He was happy now, and they could all see it.

       Mr. Freddy was my age, and Mr. Merry was about two years less than me, but boy, was he a scamp. Mr. Frodo was that pleased to see him and all, but it was soon obvious this was a child who didn’t know the meaning of the word "No." He was into everything, and Mr. Frodo was all in a dither trying to keep him from upsetting the drying sand on Mr. Bilbo’s desk or using all the blotting paper to make paper boats out of. He calmed down when we went outside and I showed him my bit of garden and all. He knew lots about plants, and explained with pride that he got to help in the glass houses at Brandy Hall now, and he was learning about herbs. Was right interested in the herb garden out around the Hill from the kitchen door, and could name most of the plants. Mr. Frodo and him and me spent some time collecting seeds from the poppy heads, and we took some up the Hill to plant there to grow a bit wild.

       Mr. Frodo nipped back into the hole to get us some elevenses, and we ate up on the hill, looking one way into Hobbiton, then to the Water, then into Bywater and across to where the Cotton’s have their farm, then back towards the woods and fields where Mr. Frodo liked to ramble during his walks, then down toward Bagshot Row where I pointed out where I lived to Mr. Freddy and little Merry. And Frodo told us stories like Mr. Bilbo told him in the evenings of the lands out beyond the borders of the Shire, of Bree and Rivendell and the Misty Mountains where Bilbo and the dwarves were captured by goblins and he saw Gollum. That was the first time I ever heard tell of Gollum, and he sounded such a funny creature, hiding in the roots of the mountains on his rock in the middle of an underground pool. That one day I’d not only see him myself but learn to loathe and fear him--and pity him as well--I never dreamed.

       On the birthday day, Mum made sure that May and Marigold and me were all special dressed up and our hair on our heads and feet all brushed neat, and she gave us a basket of bread to take up with some pots of jam she’d made, a bowl of mushrooms the Gaffer had ordered from Farmer Maggot’s and Mum had made into a warm stew, and a small basket of brambleberries she’d found Mr. Frodo especially liked. She said that even though we was guests, we should contribute to the feast.

       It was funny to sit at a table with Mr. Frodo and the other guest children. Mr. Bilbo had toys from Dale for all of us little ones, and I got a lovely dragon carved all of a green stone. Its legs could move, and its tail swished from side to side when you moved it. Marigold got a wooden doll all dressed in lace, and for May there was a lovely work basket with a bird perched on top that made music when you tapped its head. Mr. Freddy got a dragon, too, only his was purple, and the younger Took girls got dolls while Miss Pearl, who was the eldest, got a bigger bird who also played music if you tapped its head, and its wings would flap. And little Mr. Merry got a wooden dog on wheels he could pull across the floor, and its head would go up and down.

       Mr. Frodo had collected stones of various kinds and put them into a slotted box for Mr. Merry, and gave Mr. Freddy a bag of sweets. There was pincushions for May and Pearl, and a pinecone doll he’d made for Marigold, who seemed to love it as much as the fancier one she’d had from Mr. Bilbo, and bead necklaces for the other Took lasses. For the men he’d carved pipe rests, and for the ladies he’d copied poems from a book for each one and put them into a fancy cover he’d made. And for Mr. Bilbo he’d bought a book he’d found in a stall at the market, and it made him right pleased. But for me he set a package wrapped in cloth by me, and it turned out it was a story he’d written just for me, sewn into a book and with pictures he’d drawn hisself. I have it still, "The Story of a Garden" by Frodo Baggins. It’s one of my most treasured possessions. Wonder if he members making it?

       The food Mum sent was part of the feast, and Mr. Frodo was tucking into the mushrooms like wild until May said our dad had got them from Farmer Maggot. Then he stopped eating them. But then Mr. Bilbo looked over at us and noticed something was amiss. When he said he was going to get a bottle of Old Winyards to have when the supper was over, he stopped by the lower table and spoke real soft to Mr. Frodo, who spoke real soft back to him. Then Mr. Bilbo laughed out loud, and said, only a little louder, "Don’t you dare leave those mushrooms, my dear lad. They came fair and square this time, and you deserve them--the best mushrooms in the Shire." And suddenly Frodo laughed out loud and started eating again, and the other adults looked over at us to see what the laughing was about, then forgot about us when they couldn’t figure it out.

        After dinner we younger ones went out onto the Hill to play, and Mr. Frodo did his best to make us all laugh and have fun. He didn’t let any of us lord it over the rest, and we played Statues and Tig and Hot-and-Cold, and we told stories, and then Mr. Frodo told us more stories till it was time for tea.

       But when we went back in, he was holding Mr. Merry’s hand in his right hand, and mine with his left. And when I thanked him again for the story, he smiled like I’d just given him a jewel from a dragon hoard.

       When the guests left the next day, I stood there by Frodo to wave goodbye. And he smiled at me and told me, "I was so glad to see Merry again, but it’s so good he’s off home and I don’t have to pull him out of Bilbo’s desk one more time! Now it’s the two of us again." And the way he said it, I knew he meant it, that he was truly glad it was just the two of us again. And when he was sent off to the market in Hobbiton to get his uncle some pipeweed and some seeds for the Gaffer, I went with him to carry the basket. No one would ever doubt I was Frodo Baggins’s man.

Meeting the Wizard

       A few days later there was another guest at Bag End. I had finished my lesson with Mr. Frodo and looked out the window and saw there was a huge shadow on the lawn. It was one of those very bright days one gets as the summer lets go and the rains and winds and storms prepare to set in. I got up to try to see what was making the strange shadow, and saw a Big Folk for the first time in my life. He was so tall, I felt he was as big as the oak in the field down the hill and across the road. He wore grey robes, and had a grey beard and hair like silver and eyebrows that stuck out like anything. And his hat was blue, and tall and pointed. In his hand he carried a staff with an end that looked like a knot of roots, and around his neck hung loose the ends of a silver scarf. He was looking down at my bit of garden and the nasturtiums, and he was smiling large as hisself.

       Mr. Bilbo looked up from where he was working on his book and asked what had caught my attention, and Mr. Frodo looked up from where he was cleaning up the papers I’d left on the table where we worked. I couldn’t answer, but pointed out the window. Suddenly old Mr. Bilbo was up and dancing around with pleasure, calling out, "Gandalf!" and hurrying for the door. And I found out that there was indeed a wizard named Gandalf the Grey.

       Mr. Frodo was as shy as I was about this guest, for he’d never seen the wizard, neither, although he told me later he’d heard all kinds of stories about him, and some of them from his Brandybuck cousins and the Sackville-Bagginses not pleasant nor flattering.

       Mr. Bilbo led the wizard into Bag End and brought him into the study--and suddenly, as he looked at Frodo and me he stopped still and looked at us with a funny gaze in his eye, like he was seeing us but something else as well, something that was a big surprise, a mixed sort of surprise. He blinked several times, and for a second he looked at Frodo and--what? What could I call it then? Hadn’t seen that look afore, and didn’t know what to think about it. Today, I know the word--compassion. He looked at Frodo, and he had compassion in his eyes--just for a moment. Then he looked at me, and I knew that look, for I’d seen it growing in the eyes of Mr. Frodo as he looked at his Uncle Bilbo; but didn’t understand it at all now, not toward me. Why was he looking at me with respect? Then he smiled and laughed and said, "Why, Bilbo--I stay away for a year or two and find suddenly you have a family! What on earth has happened here?"

       Gandalf stayed for several weeks, and it quickly seemed like there had always been a wizard in the garden. He liked to spend the days outside where he could stand without worrying about hitting his head on beams and chandeliers. He and Mr. Bilbo’d get into competitions to see who could make the most smoke rings--only Gandalf’s would change colors suddenly, or would take on other shapes than rings, or would dart through the shrubbery like living things afore suddenly they’d just fade away the way smoke rings do. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him.

       Then the weather changed, and the wet came. He and Mr. Bilbo would stay holed up in the study for hours on end, talking. He brought letters with him from people Mr. Bilbo had met on his travels, and together they’d talk of how the world was changing outside the Shire. Frodo and I were doing our lessons in the parlor, but we could hear the voices from the study, and now and then we’d hear talk of goblins in the mountains, of Dwarves traveling freely from the Lonely Mountain to the Iron Hills, of how the Shadow was growing again south and east, of Eriador and Arnor and Rangers and hints of Gondor and Rohan and Mirkwood the Great. And Bilbo spoke of how he’d met Elves now and then in the woods of the Shire heading west, west to the Grey Havens and beyond, going out of Middle Earth. And Gandalf would sigh, and say that the Third Age was coming to an end, and that if there was a Fourth Age it would be a different world altogether.

       And now and again I’d catch Gandalf looking at Frodo with a puzzled look on his face, or that look of compassion. He began to talk to the boy, and to quiz him of what he knew of the outer world or what his childhood had been like in Brandy Hall. The shyness Frodo’d felt had started to melt away, and soon the wizard was telling him the most outrageous stories of what the Old Took had been like and some things Mr. Bilbo had never told him about hisself yet, while Frodo told him about his discoveries in Hobbiton and about the worms who made shells of pebbles or sticks or beads, and the caterpillars and their cocoons; and he told how he’d taught little Merry how to swim and watched over the other young ones from Brandy Hall swimming in the Brandywine, and how some of the others and he, when they were still teens, used to set up raids on the pantries of Brandy Hall, of his reading, of his studies in Elvish, and how he was helping to teach me, and the like.

       Then Gandalf made a point of talking to me. I didn’t know how to act, really, but he was insistent I just be myself. He asked me about what Mr. Bilbo and Frodo had been teaching me, and about the elven flowers he’d seen growing under the lilacs, and which flowers I’d planted myself in the garden, and what I knew about Elves and the outer world. He got down one of Mr. Bilbo’s books of tales and read to us out of it, reading the story of Luthien and Beren One-Hand. And when I asked what a Balrog was, he shivered as he said it was a demon of the ancient world, and with luck I’d never have to meet one.

       One day when it was fair and I was helping the Gaffer clean up some of the damage in the garden from the rain, I overheard Gandalf and Bilbo talking in the kitchen, talking about Frodo.

       "Of all my assorted cousins, old and young, he’s the best of the lot," Mr. Bilbo was saying.

       "And on what do you base this assessment?"

       "He has spirit, a fine intelligence and curiosity, and a will of iron. I don’t think he knows yet just how strong his will is, but I’m beginning to see glimpses of it. To come through his childhood as fine as he is, after all he’s been through, he had to have a strong will. I’ve a strong suspicion he’ll do great things one day--maybe even make Mayor."

       Gandalf laughed. "Mayor?" he said. "I’ve been expecting you to become Mayor for decades, my friend."

       "Hmmph. Not likely. Who would vote for old Mad Baggins? And you can be assured as surely as that is how I am known throughout Hobbiton and Bywater, that if I dared to run Lobelia Sackville-Baggins would make certain the entire Shire would know just how mad I am. Not, of course, that they don’t already gossip about it.

       "But as for my lad there--he’s quite a different sort from me. Has compassion, deep compassion. Probably from seeing his parents die when he was at such an impressionable age. And a love of beauty, and for our people. And intelligent? I must tell you the story of his history of farm raids in the Marish when he was a teen." And he told how he led the other lads in setting up raids, how he’d get them cooperating and the littler boys involved with the diversions, and how he’d finally been caught one too many times in Farmer Maggot’s mushrooms. And the peals of laughter I heard from the wizard were enough to rock the Hill.

       "But why have you let this fine mind languish so long in Buckland, Bilbo?" he finally asked when the laughter passed.

       Mr. Bilbo sounded disgusted. "I let myself be persuaded that my passion for adventures and study would work against the boy, Gandalf. But they were coming close to killing that fine lad with kindness, kindness not mixed with understanding. I’m hoping that he’s outgrown it, but he was fragile as a child." And there was the word I knew what I’d wanted to use when I was first seeing Frodo in the garden at Bag End--fragile. "Too close a hand kept on him after his parents died, not letting him do much of anything, followed by not watching him at all in his late teens, and then back to swaddling him in wool again when the least hint of the old troubles looked to be returning. I finally had to get him out of there. He was eating his heart out from enforced idleness and lack of sheer empathy. Oh, they loved him, right enough; but they didn’t know how to encourage him at anything."

       "He looks happy enough now, Bilbo."

       "He’s happier, certainly--and healthier as well. I encourage him to walk as much as he can, and to swim in the Water, and to assist young Sam when he wishes. And he’s not only showing an aptitude for study, but for teaching as well. Gaffer Gamgee is bragging how I’m teaching his son to read and write, ‘not meaning anything ill from it, mind you;’ but the one who’s doing the lion’s share of the instruction is Frodo himself, who’s finding himself reveling in the fine mind the gardener’s lad has."

       "A very fine lad indeed, young Samwise. Not aptly named at all, though, I fear. ‘Half-wise’ indeed! Very intelligent child. And he, too, will be a force to be reckoned with one day." Now that, I must say, was one thing I’d never looked to hear about myself. I was smart enough to learn to read and write and all--but a force to be reckoned with one day? How did he figure that? I was a gardener’s lad, and one day would be a gardener myself, I reckoned. And I doubted that "fine mind" Mr. Bilbo spoke of. But it was nice, I’ll admit, to hear such compliments.

       There was silence for a while, and I was thinking of moving to the next bed when Gandalf spoke again.

       "Bilbo, I’ve spoken of the Shadow that is rising again. I have a feeling that just as so many of your folk have gone on to quiet glory in the past, that in the time to come something will draw more into the affairs of the outer world, perhaps these two likely lads." Again there was a silence. Finally he added, "I don’t know for certain what’s coming--Eru alone knows to what end this age will come--but things look very black, very black indeed. Yet hope I am finding hidden in odd corners, in the vale of Imladris, and hints of it here in the Shire. Hidden, in some unfathomable manner, in the hearts of two Hobbit lads."

       "I don’t want any grief falling on my Frodo," Mr. Bilbo said with a fervor I agreed with. "I wouldn’t let the Brandybucks kill him with kindness, and I’m not going to loose him to the ungentle mercies of the outer world if I can help it."

       "When his time comes, will you be the next to pad him in wool, Bilbo?" There was such a note of--gentleness--in the wizard’s voice. And then he said, "What about a cup of tea, my friend, and tell me about this plan you have for improving the yield of potatoes in the Westfarthing?"

       "Oh, it’s not my idea--it’s due to observations and experiments run by my dear friend and employee, Gaffer Gamgee. One of the truly knowledgeable about growing roots, and a canny mind in his own right." And I could hear the noises of Bilbo setting the kettle on the hob and preparing to scald the teapot.

       I stole off then, thinking on what I’d heard.

       The grey wizard stayed a week longer, and began to watch the lessons Frodo was giving me. I was right proud to show him how I could read, and then he asked me questions about what I’d read and what I’d thought about it. I was surprised to hear myself telling him just what I thought.

       We’d been reading about Turin and Nienor, how he’d loved this girl he’d found who had no memory of who’d she’d been, and he married her and all, only for it to come out she was his sister who’d been trying to find him to give him a message of warning, but got caught by agents of the Enemy and had a spell of forgetfulness put on her. Then both of them got real tragic and allowed themselves to die, because brothers and sisters ain’t supposed to love each other that way.

       Well, I thought it was a right shameful thing for them to let themselves die like that. It were an honest mistake, right? And they’d not seen each other since they were bairns and all, and she’d lost her memory like. How was they to know they was brother and sister? And I told Gandalf that, that they ought to have been allowed to just apologize and have the marriage set at naught or something like, for it weren’t their fault, after all. I thought it was all just plain wasteful, don’t you see? Gandalf had a smile on him; I could tell Frodo was surprised and a bit embarrassed and all; and Mr. Bilbo, who was listening to all this, was trying his best not to laugh out loud.

       Now, mind you, I was still just a little one, and I didn’t know about what it was the folk who is married do with one another, you know, when they’re alone and all. Had no idea as that was how babes is born. Still thought mums just ended up having babies because they were married now, and that dads and mums just got together because they loved one another and thought they’d help each other out. Now I know I was a rank innocent if there ever was one. But it seemed that Gandalf agreed with me about Turin and Nienor, and he told me that I was obviously a very practical and straightforward thinker, and he also felt their reaction was a bit too dramatic. Didn’t know what "dramatic" meant, but got the gist of what he was saying, and I just nodded my head sagely. (I liked that sentence when I read it for the first time--"He nodded sagely." I thought it was right poetical when Mr. Frodo explained what it meant, and I always tried to nod my head sagely after that. Not only practical--I was trying to be above myself, too. Ah, Samwise Gamgee, not a ninnyhammer, maybe, but you had a tendency toward the pompous even then.)

       Now don’t ask me how we’d went from "The Boy and the Fox" to Turin and Nienor so quick--I don’t rightly remember. I think, actually, that this was from a book of Elvish stories Mr. Bilbo hisself had written up and bound for Frodo when he was younger, for Frodo also really loved tales of Elves and the old days even when he was little. So Mr. Bilbo had tried to tell some of them in short chapters and simple words. Both Mr. Bilbo and Frodo knew I was really keen on stories of Elves, so after we finished the other book of tales Mr. Frodo must have brought this old book of his out to try me on next. However it was, I was loving to read those tales and was a fair way through the book by that time.

       Afore he left, Gandalf had him a long talk with Mr. Bilbo about not letting Frodo go back to live in Brandy Hall, how he was to watch out for him and all; and how maybe they start teaching me about breeding ponies or cows. They was in the study again, and Mr. Frodo had gone off to Bywater to have fittings for a new suit for Yule. I’d dumped some weeds into the compost pile for the Gaffer, and then had come into the Smial to finish doing some figuring practice for Frodo. They’d had the door open, but then Gandalf walked out into the hall to see where I was, give me a look and a nod, then went back in and shut the door. When they came out, Mr. Bilbo looked a bit perturbed and was saying something soft, and he had his right hand in his pocket, fiddling with what he had there like he always did. Gandalf looked right serious, and said, "You’ll do what you please, I know; but such things are best used absolutely as little as possible. You have no idea what mischief some of them get up to."

       I looked up, for I thought he was speaking about us lads.

       "You’ve no right to nag me about things as if I had no experience at all, or as if I were no older than Samwise there," Mr. Bilbo said, his face angered like I’d never seen.

       Gandalf stopped and turned to him, suddenly very stern, stern and frightening, like he was being totally serious for the first time since I’d met him. "I beg to disagree, Bilbo Baggins. I, unlike you, know by what craft such things came to be. Do not presume to know more than I about the focus of my tasks here in Middle Earth."

       Mr. Bilbo just backed up, but although there was surprise at this way of speaking from Gandalf, the anger was still there at the corners of his face.

       Gandalf looked at him with that stern, truly wizard gaze for a few seconds till the old Hobbit dropped his eyes and mumbled what sounded like an apology, but one he didn’t fully mean. Only then did Gandalf turn away and sweep into the guest room where he’d been staying.

       Bilbo’s anger died away, but when the wizard came out with his small bundle, they spoke rather stiff and formal for several minutes afore it all seemed to die away and they were friends again. Mr. Gandalf looked a bit sad, but brightened up when Frodo came back in.

       "Good!" he said, "I’ll have a chance to give you a proper goodbye then. I must be off now, so I’ll wish you a fine Yule, although I know it’s months early. You will keep up with your studies in Elvish, won’t you, Frodo? I have a feeling it will stand you in excellent stead one day."

       Frodo was right sad to see the wizard go, but promised to keep practicing his Sindarin, and then he was agreeing to it to make sure I have a bit of stock keeping added to my studies, and he blushed and I didn’t understand why. Oh, but I was an innocent! I stood up with my slate and my chalk in my hand to say goodbye, and felt a bit out of place.

       Then the old wizard did something I’d never have expected in my life--he knelt down to look me in my face and said, soft and low, and as solemn as if I were an adult being charged to care for a child, "And you, my fine young gardener, I’ll tell you this: you will be charged with safeguarding the hope of Middle Earth one day. I see you are full worthy of it. Promise me this, to never lose your master. You will not understand the meaning of what I say fully for many years, and I hope indeed that things will never come to the point I now foresee. But it is very, very important that you realize you must never, never lose your master."

       And, looking into his eyes, seeing how serious and concerned he was, I knew first that he was speaking of Frodo, and second that this was what I’d already seen when I first saw what I’d thought of as an Elf in the garden, and I nodded, and answered him just as low and solemn: "I already made myself that promise, sir." And he gave me a searching look, a deep searching look, then he rose and straightened, and then he bowed to me! Then he turned to Mr. Frodo, and he bowed to him, too. Frodo was surprised, but he bowed back, low and solemn.

       Then the wizard looked at us both with a look of care on his face, then a smile that lit his eyes, and he took Mr. Bilbo by the shoulder and led him down the passage to the door, saying, "And you, my dear, beloved friend, you take excellent care of these two scholars of yours. And I hope they continue to be honest in their convictions for you." And he and Mr. Bilbo were laughing again as he took his hat from the hooks and his staff from where it stood against the wall. They said something more as they went out the doorway together. Gandalf went down the steps to the lane, then turned and looked up at us all, for Frodo and I’d come to look out the door on either side of Mr. Bilbo, and he gave one more deep and reverential bow to all three of us, then turned and walked decidedly away. And suddenly we had lost sight of him as he made his way swiftly toward the east.

Lung Sickness and Yule

       Two weeks later the constant changes in the weather from rain to sun to cold to warm to storms began to lead to folks getting sick. There were colds and ague and various degrees of the lung sickness breaking out all over Hobbiton and Bywater. I caught a nasty cough and was kept at home in bed for several days, and then my sisters and my mum caught it, too. But it was worst for my mum, and went into the lung sickness, the worst type. She was sick for weeks, and the Gaffer kept care of her something tender; so when there was work to be done up at Bag End it was me (once I was over my cold) or my brother Ham, who took time off from his prenticeship to come home and help, who would have to see to it. I could do a lot of the lesser stuff like carrying out the refuse and covering the flower beds with straw for the winter; but Ham did most of the splitting of wood and any heavy hauling.

       It seemed Bag End itself would be spared, but then finally Mr. Bilbo took a cold and was in bed for three days, and Frodo took care of him well. But just as the uncle was getting better, Mr. Frodo caught it, and he caught it hard. Like my mum, it went into the lung sickness, but where my mum was weak and feverish but mostly lucid and it lingered for weeks and listening to her try to breathe was a torture, for Frodo he got a high fever and went delirious. That fever just went up and down, and finally the Gaffer told me off to go stay there in Bag End and see if I could do anything to help. I stayed in the room where Gandalf had slept when he was there, and I’d trade off sitting with Frodo while Mr. Bilbo’d fix up broth or tea or whatever medicaments the healer suggested. Mrs. Rumble would come over, too, every day, and fix a couple of meals for us, and she’d do whatever marketing needed to be done, and when we was both needed to do something else she’d sit by Frodo’s bed till one of us was able to take over again. Frodo sounded awful, and Gammer Laurel seemed to be in and out at all hours. Got so she’d just knock at the door as she was opening it to come in.

       For five days I was there while the fever continued, and it was constant potions and medicaments and poultices and rubs and putting pots of water over the fire to fill the room with steam with different herbs in it to clear the humors or to soothe the lungs or to calm a cough or whatever. Finally Gammer Laurel thought of an old treatment she’d heard tell of, and she came in with some kingsfoil and put it into water to boil for vapors, and made some into tea along with willow bark and had us give it to him. Mr. Bilbo could do it all by hisself--support Frodo and get him to take the tea and all; but when it was our turn Mrs. Rumble and I figured out how to do it together. She’d hold Frodo sitting up, and I’d hold the tea to his lips and feed him sips, and she’d rub his throat to help him swallow. The combination of the steam vapors and the tea seemed to work, and finally the fever broke and he began to recover. It was the first time I ever heard of using kingsfoil as a healing herb, and the only time for a long while, till years later and Strider disappeared from our camp by Weathertop looking for some to treat Mr. Frodo’s shoulder with. But I didn’t think back to when Frodo had had the lung sickness until after we got to Rivendell.

       While Frodo was sick, Mr. Bilbo and Gammer Laurel had long talks about Frodo, and it seemed to me she was listening to his chest more than to his back, while with my mum she was always listening to her back more. When the fever broke finally, she was listening to both, but as his lungs cleared it was his chest she listened to more and more, even after he stopped coughing. Each time she’d listen to his chest she’d look at Mr. Bilbo and shake her head, but she’d smile as she did it, and she told him finally, "I ain’t hearing no noise anywhere in there. I think it’s no longer a problem. They can grow out of it, you know."

       That confused me a bit, as my mum hadn’t growed out of it none, but then I didn’t realize she was really trying to make sure his heart was working right as much as his lungs being clear.

       She tried kingsfoil vapors on my mum after that, and it seemed to help her some, too, and she finally began to get better, too. But both had a long convalescence, and it looked like Yule would be nowhere near the celebration for nobody that year. We could rejoice folks was starting to feel better, but fixing up our holes with greens and finding time to do a lot of special baking seemed like it was going to be too much bother, all of us was that tuckered out from being sick or nursing someone who’d been sick or both.

       I don’t know when Mr. Bilbo wrote to Miss Dora Baggins and asked her if she’d come to help out, but she arrived the day after the fever broke for Frodo, and she was a tartar, let me tell you. Had me fetching and carrying and cleaning and dusting, and she went through every pantry and organized it, and went through all the linens and cleaned and pressed them and all. So many who did laundry like my sisters and mum had been sick, so there was a lot of linens all over Hobbiton and Bywater that needed caring for. Well, Miss Dora got her out a laundry kettle and had me help her do her a cleaning fire right there near the kitchen door, and she herself washed all the clothes and linens needing it in the smial. Then she found some old irons that Mr. Bilbo’s mum had used in a back storage room, and she scoured them of rust and began ironing clothes and linen on the old work table padded with towels. She knew how to clean and care for each item, and when she found several of Mr. Frodo’s shirts was missing buttons or had small tears, she tutted something fierce, and of the evenings she would sit in the parlor and have Mr. Bilbo read to us while she mended and Mr. Frodo lay on the couch drinking broth and herb teas and I brushed out cloaks and hoods and packs and hung them up neat, or carefully stacked Mr. Bilbo’s books and papers neater than he’d left them and set them orderly like on his desk and tables, or blacked the tender. I was right glad when I was allowed to go home of nights again, but I also missed being close at hand to hear if Frodo needed a glass of water. His eyes when he’d sup of it was always so grateful.

       Once Bag End was sparkling again, she set out to decorate, and again she ordered me from the Gaffer as if she had all the right in the world, and I went out to the woods with her to help gather the greens. Then she had me help put them over the mantels and doors and windows, and then she took the remainders to Number 3 and had me help put them up there. Said our family did enough for her cousin and nephew, so she was going to make sure we didn’t want for a proper Yule, and then we did for the Rumbles, too! She was stern in her voice, but I learned she had a heart of gold. And there was baking going on in all three holes, and I was always carrying something from one to the other and taking other things back in return.

       By Yule both Mum and Frodo was able to sit up and walk about some, but where Mr. Frodo was getting his color back and was definitely getting stronger, Mum wasn’t recovering as well. Farmer and Missus Cotton sent chicken stock and hams and apples, and Mr. Bilbo ordered some of the last of Farmer Maggot’s stock of mushrooms, and May sent over some of the strawberry preserves she’d put up in the summer, and for Yule it were a good feast for all of us whichever smial we was in. Not all the presents we’d started for one another had gotten done yet, but in the week afterwards, when a deep snow fell that kept all indoors except when the Gaffer and Ham and me went out to dig out the lane and the walks along the Row (and Mr. Bilbo helped, too--he proved right good with a shovel), we all finished up what we’d started and saw them properly distributed.

       Mr. Frodo’d indeed made cookery books with Elvish and Dwarvish recipes in them for his aunts and grown up lady cousins, including his Auntie Dora; and he’d drawn portraits of his uncles and men cousins and put them in frames that Ham had made for him. He sent over a herbal, a book with pictures of plants and their names and uses, that Mr. Bilbo’d found for him to little Master Merry, and a little dog made of soft wool for the new Took cousin born just afore Yule, and he and Mr. Bilbo sent tops or Dwarf-carved pipes to the other boy cousins he wanted to remember, depending on whether they was lads or tweens, and pins to the girl cousins. And they did the same for my family, and they gave Mum and the girls lengths of fine cloth for new dresses; only they gave me a copy of a book of Elvish tales as well as a top, and Mr. Bilbo gave me a gold piece all for my own, because I’d worked so hard and helped so much when Mr. Frodo had been ill.

       Mum could still knit although she was too tired to get up and do much around the hole, so she’d knit scarves and mittens for both Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo and Mr. Rumble, and a shawl for Mrs. Rumble, and a beautiful shawl in fine wools for Miss Dora Baggins, and May sent over pots of cherry conserve and Marigold pincushions she’d made for everybody, and the Gaffer gave them in Bag End and Miss Dora a bushel of his finest roots. And Mr. Bilbo sent down to him and my older brothers a fine keg of ale from Buckland, and all agreed it was a right merrier Yule than any of us had looked to have.

       Only Mr. Frodo put the story I wrote for him for Yule on his bedside table, and he read it, he told me, every night; and I saw him, when we was packing when he left the Shire for good, putting that old story in the cover I’d made and decorated for him, in his saddlebags to take with him. I called it "The Elf in the Garden." Funny to think a story I wrote is now in the Elven Lands, way west over the Sundering Sea, with him.

Growing Older

       When I turned twelve my dad officially prenticed me to hisself. Didn’t have time for much in the way of lessons now, but on Highdays or when there wasn’t much to do I’d be allowed to go off with Mr. Frodo on his rambles like afore. Once spring came that first year Mr. Frodo was with him, Mr. Bilbo took up wandering the Shire again on his walking trips, and he’d take his lad with him usually, now he was sure he was strong enough to handle it. Mr. Frodo’d beg for me to be allowed to come with them from time to time, and once in a while the Gaffer’d let me go with them, too, once he was assured it didn’t interfere none with my work. Not even he could resist it when Mr. Frodo’d ask him special like to let me go along.

       Frodo was reading and writing a good deal, and he could write a beautiful hand. Often he’d copy out books and scrolls for Mr. Bilbo he needed to send back to Rivendell or that he wanted to make gifts of for his relatives. Don’t know if old Mr. Rory or Mr. Saradoc or Mr. Paladin knew quite what to do with all the volumes they got from Hobbiton, but along with Mr. Bilbo they must have had the most diverse libraries in the Shire. And Mr. Bilbo taught Frodo how to bind the pages into books on the old worktable they kept in the old cold room in the depths of Bag End. Sometimes they’d have me help them, too, and I learned how to sew pages together and to make bindings and glue in end papers and extra pages. I wasn’t sure exactly how the correspondence with Rivendell was handled, but figured it was through the Elves they’d meet up with in the Woody End. For Frodo told me that they did meet up there with some Elves regular, and most seemed to be folks who came over special from Rivendell. Don’t know how they got into the Shire.

       Then I learned they also met with Dwarves on the West Road as runs through the Northfarthing and along Buckland, and this seemed more regular than when they met with Elves. There was regular coming and going between the Iron Hills and the Lonely Mountain from what Frodo would tell me when they’d get back.

       I’d spent part of the last summer in Tighfield with my brother Hamson and our Uncle Andy, seeing if I’d like to prentice alongside Ham to roping. I’d liked it well enough, and Uncle Andy said I had a right knack for it; but although I took to twisting and doing knots, I simply wasn’t ready to stay away from Hobbiton. And afore anyone knew it, I’d be out front of Andy’s place, cleaning out the flower beds, humming an Elvish song I’d learned from Mr. Frodo as I thinned the violas and deadheaded the roses. But I did ask Uncle Andy about what Mr. Bilbo had said about nettles and them being a source of fibers, and he admitted Mr. Bilbo had the right of it--you can get fiber from nettles, but it’s a tiresome job beating it out of the stems, and he favored using hemp and flax, hisself.

       Ham brought me home to Bagshot Row, and I’d brought some heavy rope I’d twisted myself for the Gaffer and finer line I’d done to hang out clothes on for Mum and the lasses. Uncle Andy’d sent word that if I was ever willing to give up gardening, he’d take me on in a heartbeat, but he figured my heart was with growing things and flowers, not fibers and twists. It was a good report to bring to my dad, who’d always hoped one of his boys would follow him; but he told me he’d only wanted to let me see if there was anything else I’d like to turn my hand to besides gardening.

       While I was gone Frodo was getting new lessons, too, in riding. Mr. Bilbo didn’t keep a pony or coaches or nothing of that sort, but would rent what he needed from the stable at the Green Dragon the few times he needed one or the other. But he said that riding was a skill that came in handy for a gentlehobbit, so he insisted Frodo study that. Frodo took to it pretty well, once he finally got over his surety the pony wouldn’t listen to orders, and he began to meet some other tweens whose folks kept ponies at the Green Dragon or who rode the trails near Hobbiton and the Water. When we went to see my mum’s folks the other side of Bywater I got to ride the ponies Farmer Cotton kept, alongside Tom and Jolly and Nick and Nibs and Rosie, so although I never learned to ride elegant like, I suspected I could at least ride practical, and probably as good as Mr. Frodo, which turned out to be right. Mr. Bilbo even talked about maybe getting a pony for Frodo to ride regular, but Frodo just laughed--said riding was fun, but caring for the animals wasn’t what he wanted to do unless he found a special pony that he came to love. But he didn’t ever find that special pony till we was in Minas Tirith, where King Éomer, on the request of Aragorn, came up with a lovely bay gelding as caught Frodo’s eye, and he accepted it as a gift from the King and named it Strider. But that wasn’t till years later, of course. Now, I’d have loved to have had a pony, myself, but we didn’t have the wherewithal to provide for its keep.

       My mum’s health hadn’t been right since she got the lung sickness that first autumn after Mr. Frodo came to Bag End. Gammer Laurel would drop in to see her about once a month, and as the third winter set in, she let us know, gentle like, that this was like to be the last winter for our mother. It were right hard to see that was true, and when she finally died as the spring was coming in it were a real wrench. Frodo would bring down soups and broths him and Mr. Bilbo fixed for her, or some of the Baggins seed cakes, or pots of mushrooms. (Mr. Bilbo had begun ordering mushrooms regular from the Marish, and I think he took especial delight in seeing his lad eating them legitimate.) And when she died they sent down flowers and foods, and Miss Dora would send over plates of cakes and basins of rich stews and loaves of white bread and pots of butter and cream.

       But the best was that when I felt grief, I could count on Frodo being there for me. He wouldn’t say much, but would just be nearby, waiting to see if I needed him. And the first time I really let go and cried, he held me gentle like till I was cried out and gave me his handkerchief to use. And he told me how much she’d meant to him, how she made him feel welcome when he was new and everything felt strange, and the sweet way she had of smiling at us young ones that made him remember his own Mum and how proud she’d been of him, and how when he tripped over something outside our gate one time she’d come out to check on him and had given him some of my other brother Hal’s old pants to wear while she darned the tear in the knee of his, and they’d talked of spring and summer where they’d grown up, and she’d told him of growing up on the farm, and how proud she was of all us children, and how proud she was of me, being able to read and write and figure and knowing about history. That seemed to awe her, that I knew about things that had happened in the world afore, and how those things meant as much to Hobbits as they did to Men and Dwarves and Elves, for the world wouldn’t be as happy as it is if there hadn’t been those willing to fight the Enemy for it, or to keep off those who hate seeing folks happy.

       I hadn’t thought of history afore, but I thought of it now, and I asked Frodo if when he brought books out to read out loud when I was working in the garden if he’d please bring histories mostly, for my mum. And he gave that special smile to me, that one that made me feel like the Sun had just rose and the Moon was shining in glory, and said, "Sure, Sam--I’ll be honored to do it for memory of your mother."

       The Gaffer wasn’t sure at all what to think of it. I’d be kneeling in the dirt with a trowel in my hand, pulling up weeds and throwing them into the basket I used for such things, and I’d be stopping to ask some particular question about Beren or Huor or Gondolin and such, and Mr. Frodo’d think on it, and he’d answer me back real serious. Then I’d go on weeding, and sometimes he’d get down to help me, and as we worked we’d keep up the discussion.

       "Elves and Big Folks," the Gaffer said one time, "and whether or not some plain fool ought to have hid out in a crack to kill a dragon or if it would’ve been better to face it head on! I never in all my born days heard such talk! And what all good’s going to come of answering such questions, anyway?"

       "But, Dad," I answered, "Mr. Bilbo met a dragon, although it was someone else as killed it, and with a bow and arrow, not a sword. Who’s to say as I might face one some day?"

       "You, face a dragon?" he said, shocked like. "And what dragon is ever going to come into the Shire? We ain’t Elves or Dwarves to keep jools and gold settin’ around to attract such things." He shook his head, which was a lot greyer since Mum left him. "It’s plum foolishness to plan fighting dragons when you ain’t likely to see one in all your life. It’s roots and stalks for you and me, lad, and earning our keep, and not fighting dragons."

       I wish now we had fought a dragon. Would have been cleaner and far easier than what we did do, in the end.

Counfounded Relatives

       I ain’t said nothing yet about the reactions of the Sackville-Bagginses to the changes in Bag End, but it’s not because it didn’t happen. Oh, they found out right quick that Mr. Frodo’d come to stay as Mr. Bilbo’s ward, and they was right put out, let me tell you. Were over there within three days to look him over and all, and they plainly didn’t think well of him from the first.

       He was in the front garden with the Gaffer and me, watching how the hedge was trimmed, and here they come stalking up the lane to the gate as if they belonged there and he was the unwanted guest. Missus Lobelia stopped and looked him up and down as if he was just a strange plant she was wondering if should be tossed into the compost heap or dug out and chopped up or maybe burned with the fallen leaves.

       "So," she said, "I take it you are Frodo?"

       He was surprised at her tone, and I don’t know if he had any idea who she was. "I beg your pardon?" he replied.

       "Silly child," she said to her husband, and Lotho, who was following behind them, snickered. She turned back to Frodo. "I asked," she said slow and loud, like she was talking to someone foolish or deaf, "if you are Frodo?"

       "Of course I am Frodo," he answered, and his face started to go closed up, which in time I learned to know meant he was beginning to be angry. "And whom do I have the honor of addressing, if honor it is?"

       Missus Lobelia was real took aback by that, I’ll have you know. "We are the Sackville-Bagginses, young Hobbit," she said, her nose rising in the air and her voice rising with it. "We are part of society here, whatever you might be."

       Frodo looked at her, appearing awful polite. "I see. I fear I have little idea of how to act with important folk, for the only ones I’ve known with pretensions of being important in society were my uncles, the Master and the Heir of Brandy Hall and the Thain and his Heir--, oh, and my aunts, their wives. But they were very rustic, I suppose, compared with you." What put it into his head to give her such a speech I have no idea. But she turned first white as a dishcloth, and then redder than the apples in the orchard on the woods side of the Hill. Her mouth worked, but no words would come. "I shall go in and tell my cousin that the Quality have arrived, shall I?" And without waiting for a response he went on into the smial. A moment later Bilbo arrived outside, his hand in his pocket fingering the things he kept there, looking both amused and wishing he were miles away at the same time. The Gaffer had continued on with his hedge trimming as if he hadn’t heard a word, but I noted he was continuing to trim the same section of hedge he’d been trimming on since their arrival, and if it went on he’d have it down to its very roots. I hit him on the kneecap and pointed to what he was doing, and he give me a look, and I knew that he was trying real hard not to laugh at the old bat. I was just glad I was working down low picking up the cuttings as fell inside, and hoped she didn’t notice I was there, even. I could see out through the branches, but I don’t think she or her menfolk could see me.

       "Why, Lobelia and Otho, and dear little Lotho," he said in that too cheerful tone he used with only these three. "I understand you’ve met my young ward for the first time since he was a little lad."

       "Oh, was that Frodo?" she asked. "Whoever he was, he was so rude as to be inexcusable. And, pray tell, what made you bring the child here?"

       "He’ll soon be twenty-two, Lobelia, and is definitely not a child. He is a Baggins, and Drogo’s son and heir. Shall he be forced to remain forever in the wilderness of Buckland and not know what it means to live in the Shire proper, much less what it means to be a Baggins?"

       "And who are you, pray, to teach anyone the meaning of being a Baggins, Cousin Bilbo? Or are you going to convince him that disappearing for a year at a time instead of settling down and marrying the way sensible Hobbits do is a right and proper way to live?"

       Well, you can see how it was with that lot. I can’t remember how it went from there, to be exact. The Gaffer moved down the hedge a bit and continued working on trimming it back and not looking at the Sackville-Bagginses, but I could tell from the trembling of his old yellow pipe he had tucked between his teeth that it was all he could do to keep from laughing out loud. I know that Mr. Bilbo managed to say everything all polite like, but still with such double meaning it was a right insult --though if she or Otho were to repeat it it would sound perfectly innocent and friendly. Finally they left, and when they was finally out of sight, Mr. Bilbo just sort of collapsed on the ground, his back to the hedge, and pulled out his handkerchief and wiped his face. "Well, now," he said, trembling, "that was a beginning, wasn’t it?" He rose finally and said, "I do think I need some tea--some strong tea."

       The Gaffer snorted, "Better put a drop of Ponto’s home brew in it, too, Mr. Bilbo, sir. It will help with the fortifying."

       Mr. Bilbo gave him a grateful look and said, "I will undoubtedly do just that, Mr. Gamgee. Will you join me? I’ll bring it out to the garden bench by Sam’s plot, if you’d like." They looked at each other for a second, and I saw a bit of a glow in the Gaffer’s eyes, and Mr. Bilbo nodded and said, "Well, then."

       He disappeared indoors and come out the kitchen door a few minutes later with two mugs and a plate of biscuits. The gaffer walked around there and accepted the mug and they sat down together on the bench and drank thoughtfully, side by side.

       Frodo looked out just after, and looked about carefully, and mouthed at me, "Are they really gone?" When I nodded, he brought me out a glass of apple juice, and we sat down near each other on the grass and looked at each other as we drank our own drinks. I was just a lad, and he was working on becoming a grown Hobbit, but we were comrades who’d just faced down the enemy then.

       That were just the beginning, though, of the war between Frodo and the Sackville-Bagginses. He changed tacks, and was just as polite as polite could be to them, but what he said could have a real bite to it for all its polite words. But he refused to allow young Lotho to be rude to him when they met in the village or near the Water. And that pipsqueak did try--oh, did he try. Frodo could freeze him out with a look, and where exactly he got that look I didn’t know, although the Thain related it to the Old Took.

       When they got too rude, he’d look at them and say, as gentle as can be, "Oh, Cousin Otho, what could you ever mean? I must ask Uncle Paladin what he thinks of that," or "Cousin Lobelia, I must share that with Aunt Menegilda and see if she agrees with that estimation," and he’d give them his closed look but with a smile as polite as he could, and he’d turn and walk away. What could they say in return? "Oh, but I meant indeed to call you a thoughtless Brandybuck," or "Your Uncle Bilbo is a prime fool, you know"? He was not just a Baggins, he was reminding them, but had blood ties to the Master and the Thain as well, and that could possibly lead to Repercussions. And they took thought of possible Repercussions. But it didn’t stop their attempts to blacken his name in Hobbiton.

       Trouble was, though, that everybody agreed that Mr. Bilbo was an odd sort and probably half mad; but everybody liked young Frodo. He was one of the sweetest young Hobbits anyone had ever seen. The mums all wanted to feed him up and see him fill out, the dads all wanted their sons to grow up to be that respectful and handsome, the lasses thought he was all romantic, what with his folks dying when he was just a lad and now he was so good looking, and the lads all realized he was not only smart but a fount of tales and good for a race any time, and when he won he didn’t lord it over them, and when he lost he didn’t take it bad but congratulated the winner as if he’d done something special. And he’d give the teens tips, quiet like, how to do their raids so they didn’t get caught, and the tweens found he would listen and not laugh no matter what they said to him about themselves or what they hoped to do with their lives, and the lasses he’d smile at and talk to (as long as they didn’t just giggle and make moon eyes at him) as if they had brains in their heads. And the little ones just adored him, and found out he kept his pockets full of humbugs and horehound drops just for them, and he’d play Tig or tell them tales or ride them pickaback just for the asking.

       Frodo was finding hisself fitting in in Hobbiton in spite of not having that many gentry folk near his age, and he was happy here. And the folks of Hobbiton knew the Sackville-Bagginses all too well, and they didn’t bother to listen to old Missus Lobelia’s gossip or Mr. Otho’s constant complaints about how that boy was rude--they’d seen Mr. Frodo Baggins, and they had never seen him rude, no, not ever! And the only boy who’d listen to Lotho was Ted Sandyman, as nasty a brat as ever was born. But not being listened to didn’t put a stop in Missus Lobelia’s stream of nastiness.

       Somehow she learned that Frodo was fragile as a child, and she kept on how sad it was that such a likely lad was probably doomed not to live a long life. But the folk in Hobbiton saw how Mr. Frodo Baggins would run with their lads and his eyes would sparkle whether he won or lost, and he rarely got even a stitch in his side, and they’d raise their eyebrows so polite but so not believing. I thought at the time she was just making it all up--it wasn’t till after he left that I learned it had been the truth. And Lotho would tell how he read all the time and was lazy: and the local folk would pass by Bag End as we was harvesting apples and see him up in the trees with a bulging collecting bag and waving to them, or helping a gammer carry her purchases home from the market afore he headed home with those things he was getting for Bag End, or they’d see him keeping their little ones entranced with stories so they could get some work done without having to trip over children, or he’d hear tell of a person who’d been hurt and he’d come to their house with gifts of food from Bag End and help put up shutters or clean chimneys; and Lotho would get back looks that named him a liar without saying a word. And the dismissal of what they had to say just made Missus Lobelia that much more determined to make out Frodo was all wrong.

       Mr. Frodo was also teaching other lads how to read, and such lasses as wanted to learn, too, when he and they had time. And he’d make them gifts of some of the books he copied, some picture books and some histories and some just books of riddles or tales. He was starting to draw more, and his pictures had something about them as made you smile to look at them, and those made it into his gifts. I don’t think many mums and dads realized their little ones were learning such an odd skill until they found their children with one of Mr. Frodo’s little books, reading to a younger child as he read to them, or sitting and enjoying a tale by themselves or looking at the pictures. But as he’d often stop and help a lad or lass finish a task or praise them for working hard, how could they fault him when reading wasn’t taking away from their responsibilities? And Mr. Bilbo watched with a satisfied smile as his lad settled in.

       But when he was upset, oh, then it was plain. When Missus Lobelia managed to push too far, she would get the look, that look that stripped away all your pretendings and your pettiness and showed you had no shame, and then he’d just turn away from her and freeze her out. I think she got to be afraid of him a bit, myself. But, instead of becoming more careful what she said, she’d get nastier, the old cow. And if he saw someone hurting someone weaker, you’d better watch out. He’d go all white, and he’d look at them, and suddenly they’d wish they’d never thought of doing more than just telling them off. His look, when he gave it, would just set you on the wall of shame and keep you there till he turned away. Seldom said anything when he was angry, but nobody wanted to get that look. Not even young Lotho, and he had the sensibilities of an especial stupid rock.

       And nobody’d better hurt an animal or a child if he was around. Don’t know who taught him to fight--maybe the teen cousins in Brandy Hall when he was a wild teen hisself--but he’d step right in and make a single blow and you’d be down on your back in the dust. And he’d pick up the animal and comfort it, or the child, and if it was an animal he’d carry it away and find a home for it, especial if it were yours to begin with. Now, he didn’t particular like dogs, especially not big dogs, but he wouldn’t stand for mistreatment no matter what kind of beast it was.

       Actually, if you understand me, he didn’t really fight. Most times people just never thought of him as the fighting kind, and so when he moved in and struck they’d be took by surprise, so took they’d be knocked down with just one blow. And the only one fool enough to try to take him to the Shiriffs, old Sandyman the Miller, was surprised when the response was, "Well, whoever you was hittin’ on will get to bring you before us if you try to bring Mr. Frodo Baggins before us, don’t you know." That shut his mouth, let me tell you.

       But as long as Mr. Frodo lived in Bag End, he had to put up with the Sackville- Bagginses, same as his Uncle Bilbo, and I suspect a lot of the pages that went into the drawer in his box of stationery had to do with them.

Uncounfounded Relatives

       The Tooks and the Brandybucks began to visit regular starting the first spring Mr. Frodo spent in Bag End, and Mr. Bilbo and he’d visit them, too, usually taking a walking trip to get there and back again. I guess often they’d meet their Elves or Dwarves along the way to Brandy Hall or on the way back home again, or maybe both ways for all I know for certain. The one thing I do know is that visits to Bag End by the young cousins increased once it were certain Frodo belonged there now.

       At Midsummer Fair in Michel Delving that second summer, Mr. Bilbo adopted Frodo official as his heir, although he didn’t announce it real loud, mind you. But it seemed that soon everyone in Hobbiton and Bywater knew that Mr. Frodo Baggins would be the Baggins of Bag End when he come into his inheritance, except for the Sackville-Bagginses, who it seems never got to hear that bit of news. Twere a big shock for them, that last big birthday party when old Mr. Bilbo turned eleventy-one and went off again with a bang and a flash, and Otho and Lobelia and Lotho Sackville-Baggins found themselves continuing on as just them other Bagginses.

       Now that Mr. Frodo was officially adopted, Mr. Bilbo was given control of Mr. Frodo’s inheritance from his dad and mum, which consisted of the smial in Whitfurrow and all its contents, an interest in a farm in the Marish that Mr. Drogo and Missus Primula had bought shares in, and a bit of money--not a great deal, but enough to have kept him comfortable for several years, mostly income from the farm and the hole, which was let to a family of Boffinses. Kept the place right up, they did; and on consultation between Mr. Frodo and Mr. Bilbo and old Mr. Rory Brandybuck, they decided to sell them that hole, if they’d have it, which they decided they did. Got a right good bargain on it, too, for Mr. Frodo didn’t want to make too much more of a profit on it seeing as he’d been receiving rents on it since not long after his folks drownded, and he didn’t ever want to live there again hisself, not that he’d need to now as he was Mr. Bilbo’s heir and would be able to live in Bag End. They only kept for Frodo some of the old furniture as meant the most for him, and put most of it in storage and brought a few pieces into the smial. Oh, and all of their books and a few odds and ends. And Mr. Bilbo had the money saved in trust for when Frodo come of age.

       But the income from the farm they turned around and invested in more shares, and Mr. Bilbo studied the lands and crops about, and give advice to the young farmer who let it on shares, and soon that farm was doing far better than it had afore, and Mr. Frodo’s income increased more than double. It were years afore I learned to what they turned most of that income--seems Frodo had it going to a banker of discretion in Buckland, and had him look for likely lads or lasses who was short on money to be prenticed and help pay their fees. Or if a young lass was looking to get married but she didn’t have a good enough dowry (or a likely lad couldn’t afford a good place to take his bride), suddenly her folks would be notified there was an anonymous bequest to her from an elderly relative on their grandmother’s side in the lass’s favor--but nobody ever figured out which grandmother’s side it were from, if you take my meaning. Seems this banker of discretion had a right romantic side, although he kept immaculate records, and he enjoyed the search for likely recipients for Mr. Frodo’s bequests with a glad heart.

       The rest of the income got invested in small businesses here and there about the Shire, and many a lad with a desire to become a merchant found he had a silent partner who helped get the business going for a share, and once the business was sound, he was willing to be bought out modestly, and that money would go into a new business somewheres else, or maybe into shares on a different farm. And a few lads who was found to be particularly bright would be asked to join the staff at Brandy Hall or the Great Smials where they’d get an education as well as a job, and then they’d be encouraged to start a business with a silent partner once they come of age and decided to strike out on their own.... Don’t know how many folks Mr. Frodo and old Mr. Bilbo had helped in this way, but it must have been a right good few over the years, and the whole Shire benefited as we got more merchants who knew how to read and write and figure good and to keep records, and more businesses that worked right well. I’m only just starting to go over that banker of discretion’s records, myself, now as I’m the Master of Bag End.

       It was just after our mum died my sister Daisy come back home to Hobbiton from her prenticeship to our Auntie May, who was a seamstress and broiderer in Tighfield. Daisy was right handy with a needle, she was, and could do about anything with cloth. Since she hadn’t yet seen a lad or gentlehobbit she fancied, she moved back home with us, and she quickly began teaching her skills to Our May. May had taken on the laundry work Mum and she used to do together, and she started doing repairs now and her business began to improve.

       Old Mr. Bilbo used to use the services of the Goodbody’s tailor shop in Hobbiton to make his clothes and those for Frodo, but after young Arto Goodbody entered the business he stopped that. I don’t know why old Mr. Holman felt his son would be an asset to the shop, but he did try to give Arto every chance. But Arto just wasn’t cut out to be a tailor, I suspect. He didn’t use a proper pattern, for one thing--was sure he could just look at a body and use his eyes to cut the pieces and put them together. When Frodo had some new shirts made, he came out to show me what he’d got, and we both laughed fit to bust--one sleeve stopped short well above his wrist, and the other, which was so tight it cramped his arm, hung past his fingertips. And the buttons and the holes on the placket didn’t match at all, neither. Mr. Bilbo was that upset--he decided to change tailors, and he had May and Daisy make the new shirts.

       Mr. Bilbo adored clothing, and had closets full of vests and jackets and shirts and pantaloons, and he just didn’t understand Frodo and how he was happy with only about seven of each. They’d had a row or two over that--Mr. Bilbo decided once that Frodo needed a new waistcoat and Mr. Frodo didn’t want it, preferred his older, comfortable ones, and they had a real set to. For three days Mr. Bilbo was sweeping around the hole trying to make Frodo go get the fitting done, and Mr. Frodo wouldn’t say nothing, just give him that look once he’d had his say that he didn’t want a new waistcoat, and certainly not one that was violet. Bilbo would glare at Frodo, and Frodo’d stand there all white and closed in, defying him to order him to go, and both were right put out with one another--until one day there was a knock at the door, and it was Gandalf again. He took one look at the two of them glaring at one another, and he demanded to know what on earth they was going on at. Mr. Frodo wouldn’t talk, just wanted to keep on glaring, but Mr. Bilbo wanted someone to agree with him, so he told the tale; and then if Gandalf didn’t start laughing, laughing so hard it was impossible for me to keep from joining in. Then finally our laughing cracked Mr. Bilbo, and he began to grin and then laugh, too. Then I saw Frodo’s face was starting to get some color back, and he could barely keep the corners of his mouth from twitching, and that made me laugh harder, it were so comical. Then finally Frodo couldn’t stand it no more, and he laughed, his eyes bright with merriment, and if he and old Mr. Bilbo didn’t just about fall all over each other laughing and holding each other up! You want to stop two stubborn Bagginses from quarreling, you call in Mr. Gandalf--he’ll make ‘em see how foolish both of them are being.

       They agreed on a compromise--instead of a silk, purple waistcoat Mr. Frodo got a nice new green one of heavy linen which was a lot more practical and better suited his coloring, and a new cloak because the old one was miles too short, although Frodo’d have been happy wearing it forever, as it had come with him from Brandy Hall. The cloak was green, too, and good, soft wool; and my sisters made it for him and lined it with a golden linen. But after that Mr. Bilbo didn’t insist on any new clothes unless he were positive his lad had outgrown his old one or it was so worn that even Frodo’d have to admit it needed replacing.

       Now that Frodo was a fixture at Bag End, the Brandybuck, Took, Bolger, and Boffins cousins began to visit right regular. It were interesting to see how young Mr. Merry had changed. He and his family had been visiting the Great Smials when Missus Eglantine gave birth to little Mr. Peregrin, and Merry took to Pippin the way Frodo took to Merry, the way Mr. Bilbo took to Frodo. Something about these Baggins-Took-Brandybuck menfolk, how they just become infatuated with babes and bairns and will do about anything for them. But Merry had begun to settle down, now as he saw what it was like when he’d been younger and on the go. He was the one trying to say No now.

       Little Pippin grew up right quick, and it seems that young Merry-Lad was over at the Smials or the farm at Whitworth more often than at home, looking after the wee thing. Once Pippin took to his feet, he begun to run his cousin off his, he was that active. Now and then his folks would pack Merry off to Bag End just to give the lad a bit of peace, but it seemed that he just wasn’t happy without knowing what his infant cousin was up to. And when the bairn began to talk the first words he spoke was, "Where’s my Merry?"--or at least that’s what Missus Eglantine insists is true. Knowing how close they was to become, I guess I don’t doubt her none.

       The second time Gandalf came, Pippin was three, and his folks had to go outside the Shire to Bree on some business, so they’d tried to get Missus Esmeralda, as Mr. Paladin’s sister, to take care of the lad and his sisters. She, however, was going to be in the Westfarthing attending the wedding of a friend, so she volunteered Mr. Bilbo. Why he agreed I don’t know, but suddenly we was inundated with lads and lasses, including Pippin, Merry, Mr. Freddy, and Mr. Folco Boffins. And this was just after the fight over the waistcoat.

       Frodo agreed to keep the watch on the lads, and for the most part he did right well. The lasses spent most of their time down at Number 3 with my sister Marigold, learning to embroider under Daisy’s watchful eye. Miss Pearl had a good eye and steady needle, and she took to the work right handy. Miss Pervinca wasn’t really interested, and she kept convincing Marigold and Miss Pimpernel to sneak up the hill and spy on the lads. I was kept busy working in the garden, but I found Merry was now willing to help with a right good will, and he did his best to try to interest little Pippin in the work, but it were a lost cause. I gave the child a toy trowel my dad had give me when I was a tiny lad like him, and showed him a place where he could dig that it wouldn’t do no hurt; but in no time he were bored there, and I found him digging up the elven flowers under the lilac. Then Merry found hisself having to take the little one out of the garden altogether, and they went off to the woods in search of Frodo, Folco, and Freddy.

       Pippin got bored with what Mr. Frodo was showing the older boys about the fingerlings in the stream, and he wandered off and got into the nettles, and then into the brambleberry vines and got stuck. Took a while to find him and get him unstuck, and I guess he were wriggling so they all got right scratched up afore they was through. He were crying hard when they brought him back, and I was right glad my aloe was doing well and that we had plenty of comfrey, and I ended up using a lot on all of them. And while Mr. Bilbo was off with Frodo and the bigger lads looking at where Pippin got lost from and to, old Gandalf found hisself taking care of the little one. Mr. Bilbo come back and found that Gandalf and Pippin was playing with Pippin’s wooden animals in the dining room, and were using his china to make them farms and the silver to make paddocks and pens. Mr. Bilbo got kind of white with worry about his china, but none of it got damaged--oh, I guess there was a bit of a chip in the lid of the butter dish, but that may have been there afore. But when he played with Gandalf that bairn was the quietest he could be, and I figure that, in his own way, wizards is as likely to become besotted with little ones as any Baggins, Brandybuck, or Took.

       The next day I come in with a bunch of thin rods I’d cut for propping up young plants till their stems could support them, and slats from the roof of an old shed they’d torn down at the Cotton’s farm and that we’d brought home from one trip to use as kindling, and from then on when Mr. Gandalf made barns and byres and paddocks with Pippin he didn’t have to make do with the good china off the dresser. But we found that when little Pippin was ready to wear us all out, we could count on Gandalf to get him quiet and interested.

Wizards and Worries

       Again Gandalf stayed on some weeks after the children left. He were right glad to hear Frodo was adopted proper, and that was when I overheard tell of the banker of discretion the first time. And he seemed glad to hear how popular Frodo was with the folk of Hobbiton and Bywater (cepting, of course, the Sackville- Bagginses). And Mr. Bilbo told him about the riding lessons and the box of stationery with its key and locked drawer, and showed off his work as a copyist and book binder. Mr. Frodo was down at the Ivy Bush to have a half pint with an older Took cousin as had ridden over from Tookland for the day, and I was taking advantage of a mild evening to run some string for the sweet peas to wind around near the kitchen. They didn’t seem to notice me out there as they talked.

       Then the talk changed to memories of Mr. Bilbo’s adventures, and his time in the home of the Elven King in Mirkwood when he had to wear his ring to keep invisible, and Gandalf was asking him how things looked while he wore it. Mr. Bilbo had to think on that a bit afore he could answer.

       "Different," he said at last. "Things get sort of hazy when I wear it, and I can’t see people’s features clearly. But what I need to see I will, like when I needed to see the keys to get the dwarves out of their cells. But there was one time when almost everything was obscured for some hours--and then it was frightening. I felt like I was about to be discovered, but how or by whom I had no idea. I slept mostly in a linen cupboard they only seemed to open once a fortnight, and they’d already been into it that day, so I hid in there as I had no fear of them coming into it and encountering me. But I covered myself with sheets and shivered, sure someone was turning an eye my way--but then...

       "It was most remarkable, really: the feeling passed completely, and my heart felt so much lighter, as if the one seeking me had suddenly been pulled aside and sent in a far different direction. I found myself singing, then quieted when I realized I could perhaps be overheard. But even the Elves around the place seemed more lighthearted than usual, and that was just before they began to prepare for the feast. And that was when I realized I could see almost clearly. It wasn’t anywhere nearly as hazy as it had been."

       Gandalf seemed to ponder this, then asked him if he’d talked to Frodo about the ring and finding it.

       "Yes, right after you were here the last time--and, yes, it was the full story. Wasn’t going to have you disclosing it all." Then, after a moment he added, "I try not to keep secrets from the boy. He’s become my lifeline, Gandalf. Keeps me grounded, he does. And he’s about the most decent individual I’ve ever met, don’t you know." Again he paused. "Dotes on the other lads, young Merry and Pippin and Freddy and Folco and Sam. Keeps a good eye on them all, and would fight any number of dragons for them. He’s loyal to a fault, and oh, so dear to me. If it weren’t for him I’d have left the Shire years ago. For the wanderlust has been growing upon me. I feel the urge some days just to throw it all to the winds and just take off along the road once more. But not till Frodo is of age and settled--I had to promise Rory and Saradoc and Esmie that before they’d let him come to me."

       "Any hint of romance in his life? Any lasses throwing themselves his way?"

       Mr. Bilbo laughed right out, gay as gay. "Only about every lass in the area, as well as Pimpernel and perhaps Pearl Took, and I think May Gamgee--only lately another lad has been looking her way and she’s realized it’s a more likely match. Oh, I’ve seen the looks they all give him, watching him as he passes, coming out with glasses of cider for him and coy smiles. And he is starting to enjoy the attention. Ah, yes, he could enjoy himself immensely if he allowed himself--and if he were a scoundrel. At the feasts he dances and never wants for partners. And the mommas watch to see if he’s looking at their daughters, and not with concern but with anticipation."

       Gandalf laughed. "And our young Master Samwise?"

       "Ah, he’s been spoken for for some time. Rosie Cotton has had her eye on him since she was a wee lass. I’d hate to be the one to come between the two of them." I felt my face go warm, for I’d felt that way about her since she first sat on my lap when she were tiny and told me I was her Samwise and no one else’s.

       Gandalf laughed again, but it were for heart’s joy, not in fun of me. "Good--it can be steadying and heartening, the love of a good lass for such as Sam. And she’ll keep him grounded, as Frodo does you."

       They both laughed and filled their pipes and drank their ale. I finished the last string and turned toward home, studying on what I’d heard. I felt that what they’d talked about, about that ring and feeling looked for, was important somehow.

       There were rumors growing about dangers and strangers. The Dwarves who traded along the West Road told of darkness growing in southern Mirkwood once more, where it had faded long ago when the White Council drove the Necromancer out of Dol Guldur. No one was sure what these names meant, so a few days later while Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo were around the hill checking out the state of the orchard with my Gaffer, I asked Gandalf what Dol Guldur was and who the Necromancer was and how he got driven away and what the White Council was.

       He looked at me with surprise. "And tell me, Master Samwise, how have you heard of such things?"

       "Well," I told him, "my Uncle Andy and my brother Ham were home for Daisy’s birthday, and they met with some Dwarves at the Hog’s Head along the West Road along the way from Tighfield. The Dwarves was speaking of Dol Guldur and the Shadow and the Necromancer. And I wanted to find out what it means. Seems I remember something about Dol Guldur and the Necromancer from Mr. Bilbo’s stories, but I don’t know what they were--or are. They said it was all in Mirkwood, and that was in Mirkwood, where Mr. Bilbo and the Dwarves went, and they fought the spiders and Mr. Bilbo wore his magic ring to hide from the Elves."

       He nodded slowly and looked at me closely, like he was deciding something. "All right, then. Now, tell me, what do you know about Sauron?"

       "He was a servant of Morgoth, him who stole the Silmarils and threw Beren into the dungeon and all. And he was beaten by Elendil and Gil-galad, and Isildur cut his finger off and took his Ring. But they beat him, didn’t they?"

       "Yes, they beat him--for a time. For a time. But what are three thousand years to the Valar, or to the likes of Sauron? The Shadow is defeated for a time, but always it regathers its strength and returns." He sighed, his face sad and his look distant.

       "For almost three thousand years Sauron has been quiet, but he was not destroyed. He has been quietly rebuilding his strength. Do you know what necromancy is?" I shook my head, "It is one of the means by which those who are opened to power may build their strength. It is by feeding on the life forces taken from the living as they are slowly killed that such build their power. It is a slow, horrible process, for it takes the lives of hundreds to regain only a portion of the power which was lost.

       "No one knew for certain who or what the one we have called the Necromancer was, only that he appeared out of obscurity and took the southern forest for his own and built for himself the fortress of Dol Guldur. He was found to be capturing Men, Dwarves, Elves, and beasts, and slowly destroying their lives so as to harvest their life force for himself. He was finally exposed as Sauron, and the White Council met to discuss what must be done with him. Long had Saruman, head of the White Council, counseled us not to move against Dol Guldur, but at last he changed his mind. I do not know why, what caused the change in his resolve. Saruman has long been subtle in his thought, secret in his intent. Oh, we cast the Enemy out of his stronghold of Dol Guldur, and the darkness over Mirkwood was lifted--again, though, but for a time, and but for a very short time. For Sauron did not flee--he went only as far as Mordor, back to his fortress of Barad-dur, which had been rebuilt in his absence. The forces of Elrond and Isildur had destroyed the Tower, but as long as the Ruling Ring continues to exist the foundations remain, and it takes but a little to raise the walls again.

       "Orodruin awoke, and its torment has been visible from the White Tower of Minas Tirith for the past fifty years. And now the Shadow is creeping back into southern Mirkwood, and the great spiders, which had seemed to have disappeared from the great forest, are multiplying once more; and orcs and trolls are breeding in the mountains. And fear awakens across Middle Earth."

       He looked deep into my eyes, searching me, it seemed. "I rarely speak of such things to Hobbits or to ordinary folk, but you of all people, I think, need to be forewarned. And, again, I am not certain why. I don’t know why some are drawn out of obscurity to fell deeds."

       It made my skin crawl, it did, to hear such things. Fell deeds? Me?

       As if he’d heard my thoughts, he continued. "No, not fell deeds--or, not too fell, at least. But fealty must be true."

       "You told me, the last time, I must not lose my master."

       "Yes, I did."

       "I don’t mean to. You know that." And he nodded. "But I don’t understand."

       He looked very sad and tired. Finally he said, soft and low, "Neither do I, Sam. Neither do I. I am limited in what I know, for there are bounds set to my own power and knowledge, and for good reason. But at times I rattle the bars of the cage of my spirit, wishing to have my memory, my knowledge, opened so I can understand, although I sense that that would be to open myself to despair." Again he sighed, and looked away from me, toward the west, and his expression softened. "But I know I must trust those who sent me and the one who guides even them, and that they will not send more than their servants, who must be their tools within Middle Earth, can bear. It can be hard, watching, but I know it will be for the best for all, including their tools."

       I can’t say why this comforted me, for it wasn’t really comfortable words and I certainly didn’t understand it, but for some reason I felt better. Then he reached out his hand to my shoulder.

       "You’re just a teen, Sam, and a young one at that, but you have the soul of a man of your people within you already. Now, I will counsel you to let this concern fade from the forefront of your mind, for to dwell too long on dark thoughts can taint the act of living--and you are meant to live, my dear boy." He smiled, and turned me to the elven flowers under the lilac. "Now, tell me, lad, how you managed to coax this poor plant into remaining alive. It is quite remarkable, considering the damage inflicted by young Peregrin. Another formidable Hobbit in the making, I fear."

       I found myself explaining how I’d tried to comfort the plant for the insults done on it by that active child, and how I felt I’d convinced it that this was but an infant yet, and it had decided perhaps it would give us another go. And for a while the whole gist of what we’d said to one another did seem to slip deep into my mind, not hidden, mind you, but not in the open, neither. Sort of waiting, if you take my meaning.

Preparations for Departure

       The last year that Mr. Bilbo stayed in the Shire was a time of trial in many ways. It were plain he was restless, plain restless, and that he was staying only for Frodo. He’d go through maps and his old diaries, and he’d write in his Red Book--when he wasn’t having to deal with the Sackville-Bagginses, that is. They was getting very tired of waiting. They still didn’t know that Frodo’d been adopted as Mr. Bilbo’s heir, so they thought that when Mr. Bilbo died Mr. Otho would inherit Bag End. But it certainly didn’t look like Mr. Bilbo was intending to die any time soon. He still looked the same as when I’d first seen him, in fact, while Mr. Otho looked far older than his years. They’d come to the house almost every day, as if by sheer persistence they could convince him it was time to get as old as he was. Must have torn poor Mr. Otho right apart to see Mr. Bilbo still hale and spry as someone only sixty years old, and hisself so many years younger looking like he was so much older. Missus Lobelia was becoming even more spiteful the older she got, too. And the things she’d say about Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo! Most nasty, and a lot of them plain silly, if you ask me. But she never had a nice thing to say about either of them, not to their faces nor behind their backs.

       It had looked a couple years back like maybe Mr. Frodo’d found a sweetheart, for his cousin Pearl had begun to dote on him and it looked like he was starting to dote back--but then one day it stopped dead, and nobody could say exactly what had happened to the romance. Missus Eglantine and Missus Esmeralda was both very disappointed, for they’d both set themselves on the match, apparently, long ago when both Frodo and Miss Pearl had been children. But something came between them, and I thought--and now know--that something was Missus Lobelia. I just found out a few months ago, talking with Miss Pearl, that she’d never heard the stories of how when he was a lad Mr. Frodo’d had fainting spells and that his heart had been questioned; and when she was visiting in Bag End with her family, she got waylaid at the market in Hobbiton by the Sackville-Bagginses who insisted she join them for tea, and got an earful from Frodo’s Hobbiton relations. Suddenly she was faced with an image of a Frodo who was weak and pathetic and like to die if he had to do anything strenuous, and how his children was like to have weak hearts, too, as it runs in families....

       The long and short of it was that for once Missus Lobelia managed to find someone who was open to her stories and easily swayed to wavering, and she relished it and did as much damage as she could. And Miss Pearl hung back, she did, and left poor Frodo wondering what on earth he’d done wrong. The other lasses tried to fill the gap in his heart, but he was still too hurt to look at someone else.

       Mr. Frodo knew that his cousin Bilbo Baggins was planning to leave the Shire, but not till he’d come of age and could own Bag End without interference from the Sackville-Bagginses, and it tore his heart right in two. He loved the old Hobbit, and he didn’t want him to go away. But neither did he want to make him stay when he knew in his heart that Mr. Bilbo was dying to see a bit of the world again afore he left it. He wanted so to go back to see the Lonely Mountain again and visit Thorin’s tomb, and see his old friends once more if he could. And he wanted to go back to Rivendell once more, and stay there and learn more about the history of the world from some of them as had lived it.

       Mr. Merry, Mr. Pippin, Mr. Freddy, and Mr. Folco was in and out all the time, it seemed. And Mr. Merry figured out that Mr. Bilbo was leaving and was determined to make sure that Frodo didn’t go with him. And one day when Mr. Pippin had managed to dismantle the clock that set over the fireplace in the parlor and Mr. Bilbo was right distracted by concern and fury and frustration to get it put back together, Mr. Merry sneaked into the study and read a good portion of the Red Book, which only Mr. Bilbo and Frodo (and me, part of it, when it were left out, like) had read afore. And he managed to talk Mr. Pippin into continuing doing something outrageous every day after that so as to have more chances to keep reading on in it while Mr. Bilbo was off dealing with the new crisis.

       Finally Frodo figured out that each time Pippin created a new disaster Mr. Merry wasn’t around, and he laid into him about failing in his responsibility to keep Pippin’s behavior somewhere in the area of acceptable. Merry said something back, and though Merry didn’t leave, they didn’t talk for two whole days, and Frodo stayed in his room with his door shut scribbling page after page after page and locking them into the drawer in his box for his stationery.

       In the middle of this a Dwarf arrived to visit, Dorlin, the son of Mr. Bilbo’s friend Dwalin. Suddenly Mr. Pippin had a new focus for his fascination, and he began to follow the Dwarf around like a puppy. By that time I’d met a few Dwarves who came to visit every few years, it seemed. Dorlin looked at the clock and its parts, which Mr. Bilbo had put all into a box as he hadn’t figured out exactly how to put it all together again, and he took it to the worktable in the cold room with several candles and lanterns lit, and he had it put back together, cleaned, oiled, and adjusted--and working--in far less than an afternoon. And when Pippin had tried to get into the midst of the work to see how it went together, the Dwarf had him settled in less than a minute with the idea he’d best look on from where his hands couldn’t reach to touch. It were a right treat to look into that room and see Pippin actually sitting still for a change!

       The Gaffer had mostly given over the job of keeping the gardens at Bag End to me, as his joints just couldn’t take all the kneeling any more. Also, his love was growing his roots and vegetables rather than flowers any more, so he had mostly cared for the kitchen garden at Bag End and the hedges for the past few years anyway. I liked being my own master, and I’d spend hours longer than I needed to making sure that garden was always at its best. Dorlin, after he’d finished with the clock and he’d restored it to the parlor mantel, came out into the garden to have a smoke and look out at the sky, and he watched me for a while as I fussed over a lantern flower as had started having difficulties.

       He finally spoke. "You have a feel for the earth, Master Gardener, for the earth and growing things. That is a good gift. You make it peaceful here." I thanked him. "You and your father have made things pleasant for Bilbo and his young cousin. And I know they hold the two of you in high regard. It is an honor to watch you at work. It is not the kind of work my people tend to do well, so I can watch without fear of stealing your secrets and cheapening the effect of your labors."

       "There ain’t no secrets for growing flowers, Mr. Dorlin sir," I said. "Just give them good soil, the right sun, some feeding from time to time, make sure the water is right, and love them, and they will bloom."

       "You love the products of your labors?" he said. "Ah, then we do have that in common, then. What one loves is always more likely to end up beautiful, whether it is cutting and setting a gem, crafting a weapon, carving a pillar or creating a goblet--or in coaxing a plant to open its blooms. You are indeed a master in your craft, as young as you are." And he bowed deeply. "Dorlin son of Dwalin, at your service," he said, all solemn.

       "Samwise Gamgee, son of Hamfast, at yours and your family’s," I said back, bowing back to him as best I could from my knees. And we smiled at one another. He then looked over my tools, asking me how they was used and all, and having me demonstrate. And I showed him through the garden and asked him about what it’s like to live in caverns, and how they lit them, and where they got their foodstuffs. And Merry, Pippin, and Frodo came out to see where Dorlin had got off to, and joined in the conversation, and then we was all in the kitchen drinking ale and cider and having a bit of a fry up. When Mr. Bilbo got back from business in the village he joined us, took away a mug of ale Pippin had tried to sneak for hisself and made sure he had cider instead, then did the same for Merry and me. I’d had half a mug, which was all the Gaffer would allow at my age, and I think Mr. Merry’d had a bit more than that, but we knew that Mr. Bilbo didn’t hold with teens drinking--said our brains was still growing, and it wasn’t good for a growing brain to befuddle it with liquor.

       Dorlin was one of those who later came for the Party, bringing a cartful of items purchased from Dale and the Lonely Mountain folk. They didn’t have a lot to do with the Hobbiton folks, although they did go to Bywater to the Green Dragon with Bilbo, Frodo, my Gaffer, and Daddy Twofoot one night. Merry wasn’t allowed to go along, nor Mr. Freddy, who was there at the time, much less young Pippin. I was sort of in charge that evening, making sure nobody got up to no mischief or tried to get into the stuff the Dwarves had brought. Their parents and sisters would be over in a few days with the rest of the folk from Tookland, Buckland, Budgefield, and so on who was invited to the Party, although only the lads was staying in Bag End--this time with the Dwarves as house guests already, it had been decided those traveling over would stay either in tents near the Water, or they’d take rooms in the Ivy Bush or the Dragon. It were a relief for Frodo, who wasn’t too sure how he’d handle things if he had to be polite to a houseful of relatives once Mr. Bilbo was gone, for he’d let Frodo know he was going to leave in the midst of the party.

       Although the parting hadn’t happened yet, Mr. Frodo was already starting to grieve--you could see it in his eyes. He’d hardly let Mr. Bilbo out of his sight for hours at a time, and then suddenly he’d be out of the smial and off into the woods on his own, or up to the top of the Hill, which had become his private place over the past few years.

       I’d noted he spent a lot of time up there, sitting and reading, or at night lying on his back and watching the stars, sometimes writing or drawing or painting a bit; so I’d taken to bringing in wild flowers and covering the hill for his pleasure. There was paintbrush, daisies, strawflowers, wood anemones, violets, several different star flowers, bluebells, several different varieties of poppies, and all kinds of different blooms so that from early spring to the start of winter there was always something blooming, something alive and growing, something beautiful. Frodo reveled in beauty (that were another phrase I found in a book he’d lent me, and it’s a lovely one), and I was intent on seeing he had it around hisself.

       He gave me some of his paintings and drawings from time to time, and he’d done many studies of my flowers, and of birds and trees. But my favorite was one he did of the waterworms in the jars who made their shells out of what they found around them. He would still get some every year and give them different things to make their shells out of, and after they left their shells to become flies he’d dry the shells and keep them. One had made its home out of colored rock bits. Frodo had gone about finding the most beautiful colored stones he could, then ground them against each other to make small chips, and filled the bottom of one of his jars with the chips. The shell it built was beautiful, and when the worm was still in it, Frodo did a painting of it and some others, and my brother Ham made a frame for it, and he gave it to me his last birthday afore the Party, when he turned thirty-two. He kept those shells for years, but not long afore we went on our adventure he made to throw them away. But I took them, and kept them, and once when we was in Minas Tirith I told Gimli about them and how beautiful they were, and he sent me, last year, a crystal case to put them in, to protect them. I look at them and that painting, and it reminds me of him, of how beautiful he’d made the world around him (or maybe, how love for him made us build that beautiful shell for his keeping), and how, like them worms, he’d then slipped out of the shell and gone off, to become something quite different.

       Anyway, Frodo was grieving for his uncle’s leaving afore he’d even left, and I was intent on making it easier for him. The cousins had an idea what was coming up, but wasn’t sure, for Bilbo’d sworn Frodo and me to secrecy. He’d figured out I about knew everything that anyone said or did at Bag End, and he just assumed (rightly) that I already was aware of his plan. So no matter how Pippin’d beg, I wouldn’t answer him yea nor nay, and he was driven to distraction, which was a nice change, don’t you know. But I let the cousins know that after the party was over, they was to do what they could to fend off the Sackville-Bagginses and anyone else likely to try to complain. In the end Bilbo hisself let them in on the fact that, yes, he was leaving, and he had them help in tagging the special gifts he was leaving behind (although he’d already tagged theirs and had them hid in one of his closets). Pippin actually kept at it with a will, but I could see he was sometimes wiping his eyes with the back of his sleeve, so I slipped him a few extra handkerchiefs to carry, which surprised and insulted him (No, he told me, it was just he had something in his eye), but at least once he had them he used them. He were so small and lonely looking right then. The Dwarves who was keeping track of the items and the tags was right gentle with the lad.

       Once Gandalf got there the final preparations went at full swing. I’d done boxes of flowers for the Party field, and my sisters had made lanterns to hang in the trees, and my brother Ham sent ropes for the tents and pavilions, and Hal sent some shrubs in boxes from his nursery he was keeping. The Cottons brought over trestle tables they used during harvesting when relatives from all over the Hobbiton area would come out to help bring in the crops. Frodo helped for a while, but finally he got into the way of Daddy Twofoot, who thought of hisself as the organizing kind, and he shooed him away. So Gandalf snagged Frodo by his jacket and got him to help organize the fireworks, then gave him a poem in Sindarin to translate for he wanted to give it to Bilbo as a going-away present, or so he said. Frodo took it and a lapdesk up to the top of the hill, and sat under the oak as he read and wrote, and when I took him up tea and a plate of scones, butter, and May’s currant jelly he looked up in surprise to see me.

       I didn’t have time to stay, but after a time Merry and Pippin came up, then Mr. Freddy and Mr. Folco, and there they all sat, the three teens, the lad, and Frodo, who would be of age on the morrow, singing quietly as they watched Frodo finish his translation, then copy it around the edge of a new paper, and illustrate it in the middle.

       Evidently Gandalf did give that to Bilbo sometime during the next day, for when we got to Rivendell it were there, framed and hung on the wall of his room, Frodo’s picture of Turin (who looked a lot like Mr. Bilbo hisself) and the Dragon in the midst of that careful, graceful lettering.

       Where Bilbo hisself was throughout the day I have no idea, but when they came down the hill and I came up from the Party Field where I’d had to redo some of Daddy Twofoot’s organizing (fool had tried to put the kitchen upwind of the main pavilion, and all the ale barrels outside it), he were in the kitchen singing with the Dwarves as they finished up preparing the meal. Frodo’d slipped off to the garden first to give the poem to Gandalf, then both came in together, stopping at Gandalf’s room for a second, then into the dining room to join us. It were a jolly meal, and I don’t think I was to ever hear so many stories told at Mr. Bilbo’s expense ever, and he laughed as hard as any, as did Frodo.

       The teens was assigned the washing up, while Frodo and his uncle went out one last time to walk together, Gandalf and me following behind at a respectful distance. We didn’t hear all that was said between them, but at one point, down in the wood, they stopped in the shadows and said something, and then held one another close. They stayed that way a long time, then finally turned and walked back up the hill toward the house, their arms around one another’s shoulders. And Gandalf and I, still not saying nothing ourselves, walked behind them, still at a respectful distance.

       I was to stay up in Bag End that night so as to be on hand for the morning, so once the rest of the household was in bed I followed after. But in the night I heard a noise in the hall, and got up to see Frodo slipping toward the back door, so I grabbed the two blankets from the bed and followed him. He went out and around the hill to the way he usually went up to the top, and again I followed after, but stayed away to let him have some privacy. But when I heard the sobs I went on, sat aside him, and held him to my shoulder, and I cried with him, both for I’d be knowing my own loss and for his. Finally I wrapped the one blanket about him, and the second around myself, then held him to my shoulder again till sleep took him, so I laid him down and sat near against the tree, and leaned back, watching him rest till sleep took me, too. And we stayed together there through the night.

Aftermath

       Morning came early enough, and I awoke with Mr. Frodo shaking my shoulder as the dawn was just lightening the sky. "Thank you, Sam," he said softly, then I got up and stretched, and we rolled the blankets and went down the hill and slipped back inside, him to get a bath in afore the rest of the guests arose, and me to get my clothes and then to the kitchen. But Gandalf was afore me. Didn’t say nothing, just looked up with the question in his eyes.

       "He were weeping," I said, "and didn’t want any others to hear. I took him the blankets off my bed, and he slept the night away up near the oak atop the Hill."

       "And your own weeping?" he asked, gentle like.

       "It’s over for now, I think," I said, and he got up and said he’d assist with breakfast.

       Rousing the cousins was difficult. Young Pippin wanted nothing but to roll up in his blankets and cover his head with his pillow, but his cousin Merry wasn’t having none of that. "Best get up if you want to join your mum and dad for second breakfast at the Ivy Bush," he said. "And then presents!"

       "But I haven’t had first breakfast yet," he complained as he finally unrolled hisself.

       Frodo laughed from the doorway where he was buttoning the placket on one of the new shirts May had made for him, "Then you’d best rise quickly, or the Dwarves will have it all eaten before you get there." Now, that got the scamp moving.

       After the cousins had headed off to Hobbiton and Bywater to meet with their parents, it were a bit quiet in the Smial. Bilbo turned to Dorlin and his fellows, and asked them once more if they was coming to the party, and again they said no. "We brought enough for our own feast, and once you’re gone they will blame us if we go with you now. Best the rest of the Shire thinks you’re just going off alone, don’t you think? No, we’ll remain here until you are ready to set off." And Bilbo nodded. Didn’t think they’d have changed their minds, but wanted to give them the chance.

       It were a great party, even for those of us like me who was doing a lot of watching to make sure that the guests stayed in the field and didn’t try sneaking into the smial rather than spending the whole day in partying. Frodo even smiled, and once again wasn’t short for dance partners. I saw Missus Esmeralda watching with satisfaction as he danced twice in a row with Miss Pimpernel, but then he danced two more with one of his Brandybuck cousins and then with a Bolger cousin, and then with a lass from the Marish and any number of others. Looked like his broken heart was mending at last, and his smiles didn’t seem forced. And Miss Pearl danced with a likely lad, one of the Bolgers, I thought, so looked that she was finding other companionship, too. When I was free to dance Rosie Cotton claimed me the most of the time, releasing me only to dance with my sisters. She were just a teen now, but I knew I was going to have her for my wife one day, if her dad would let me, when she and I were of age, of course.

       The family feast was everything old Mr. Bilbo had planned for and more, and his speech and disappearance was enough to shock the whole pavilion, including me, as Gandalf had thrown in an extra firework to distract the crowd and hadn’t bothered to tell a soul. I stayed as near Frodo as I could for the rest of the time he was at the party, but there was little I could do to help him. When he gestured to those as was serving the ale to refill the cups at the tables I did my best to see that all was served swiftly, and that the little cakes I’d told them to hold back were now distributed, and it seemed to distract a good many. But there was a lot of "I do believe Uncle Bilbo has decided to have a little joke, and has decided to go off on another adventure. Can I interest you in a pudding?" and "Oh, but I’m sure all will be made clear in the morning--have some of this wine--it is excellent." Finally they pulled off him for a bit, and Frodo had a second to sip at his own drink. I saw him raise his glass to Bilbo and drain it, then turn and slip out of the tent. I stayed behind to divert any who might have been of a mind to follow, but those most likely to have done so had already taken their leave, with the Sackville-Bagginses stalking out, Missus Lobelia dragging young Lotho, much against his will, behind her, shortly after the disappearance. 

       Took some time for the word that Mad Old Baggins had disappeared and gone off to unknown parts to circulate through the crowd who hadn’t been in the family pavilion, but it finally made its way through all and sundry, and I heard a lot of laughter and speculation as to where he was off to now as they started to leave as midnight approached.

       When I was able to let those hired for the job to know it was okay to trundle those as had passed out or decided to take their rest under the tables off to their homes or the inns in barrows rented for the evening, I finally slipped up the hill myself to see how things was. The doors was locked, but Gandalf was keeping watch and let me in. He was readying his things for a hasty departure and was taking his hat as I entered. "I find I must be off," he murmured as I came in. "Stand by him, if he’ll let you." And he left swiftly. I found Mr. Frodo standing in the parlor, a thick envelope in his hand. He saw me enter and stuffed it into his pocket, then told me in a strained voice that he didn’t require me any more tonight, and that he really wanted to be alone.

       In the morning the kitchen door was unlocked, and I went in and found all neat and tidy, so I set the fire blazing and started cooking a light breakfast. I heard knocking at the front door but decided they could wait till a more decent hour to come disturbing the Master, and started setting out plates on the table. I knew Mr. Freddy and Mr. Merry was coming back to help deal with the visitors, and they’d know if the front door was locked to come to the back, so I set out plates for them in case they got there that early, and then I made sure the fire under the boiler in the bathing room was stoked in case the Master wished to bathe afore he ate.

       Apparently the first flurry of knocks wasn’t the cousins, but they appeared soon enough. "Mum says she understands," Merry said as he entered the kitchen and filled his plate with sausages and eggs. "Apparently there was an understanding when he took Frodo that Bilbo’d remain at least till Frodo came of age, and she said he certainly kept his word. Pippin was wild to come, too, but his mother has decided this time the older cousins don’t need to have to keep an eye on him while dealing with the likes of Lobelia and Otho. My dad says he and Mum will come day after tomorrow to retrieve us, but he’s sending over the lawyer who drew up the documents of adoption and the transfer of Bag End, as well as the Mayor, to attest to the legalities of it all."

       Frodo didn’t come out of his room till just afore second breakfast. He was neatly and soberly dressed, and his hair on his head and feet nicely brushed, and he was wearing a new watch chain across his chest, on which he’d hung his silver key for his stationery box as a fob. I looked at it, and he shook his head. "He left it for me on my dresser," he said. "It’s brand new, made just for me."

       He was a bit pale, but didn’t look ill, just sad. And he had his hand in his pocket, fiddling with something, just as Mr. Bilbo had always done as long as I’d known him. He did indeed look to be the Master of Bag End.

       Once he’d eaten, he took a mug of ale and went into the parlor, then give me the signal to open the door. The first to enter, of course, was Missus Lobelia with Mr. Otho in tow, followed by a Hobbit who’d been in and out over the past two weeks and who whispered he were the Brandybuck lawyer. Frodo was showing the papers to the Sackville-Bagginses, and Missus Lobelia was quite shrill that there had to be some problem with them, until the lawyer came over and started pointing out the names and reciting the credentials of each of the witnesses; and when the Mayor arrived and agreed with him and attested that he’d seen the signing of each and every name, Lobelia was sputtering.

       Then Mr. Frodo was dragged by the Mayor off to the study to sign some more documents, witnessed by the lawyer and my Gaffer, who’d just arrived, and a couple of Bolgers and a Took cousin and Mr. Saradoc’s brother Mr. Merimac, and Farmer Cotton, to finalize his title as Master of Bag End and official head to the Baggins family, and while he was gone Missus Lobelia found a box of spoons with her name on it, opened it to see what they were and to read the message, and took the meaning--and the spoons as well, of course. Otho was given the spoons and left, and as I dealt with other folk at the door I lost sight of Lobelia and her umbrella and thought as she’d left, too. Soon Frodo was back, and the Gaffer was headed off home with a barrow of seed potatoes and a few gold pieces, and bolts of fine cloth for my sisters, and tears in his eyes. Mr. Bilbo had been a good employer to the Gaffer, and I knew my dad would miss him right bad.

       The visitors came, and kept coming. Unfortunately we couldn’t keep a watch on the door at all times, and all kinds of folks was slipping in as wasn’t welcomed, and we found ourselves having to check the pantries to find young local teens and tweens who were convinced that there was hidden tunnels behind the walls, all full of jewels and gold. And when Frodo’s Cousin Merimac found Miss Lobelia in Mr. Frodo’s own bedroom checking over his possessions, we shook out her umbrella and found several items from his dresser and from Mr. Bilbo’s room, and a silver pen stand from the study and a pair of small candlesticks from the parlor, as well as a ladle and salt cellar from the dining room dresser. Mr. Merry and Mr. Freddy and Mr. Merimac then physically picked her up and carried her out the door and dumped her on the stoop, tossing out the umbrella after her. Only then did she finally leave, but then only because my Uncle Andy and my brothers saw her down the lane to Hobbiton.

       By the late afternoon we were all tired, and Mr. Frodo’s face was white with tension and exhaustion. When he gave the order to lock and bar the doors, Merry complied with all speed. Then we had to unlock them again in order to eject two more young treasure hunters. Many of the gifts had had their tags removed from them, but Merry found the master list and set about fixing them as best he could, including some as had been taken off some folks who had tried to take things as had been intended for others, or had been intended to remain.

       The next day wasn’t much better, but by the third we’d begun to see light again. And after a week only one or two was showing up at the door a day, and then even the most persistent finally gave up. And finally the entire Shire accepted that Frodo Baggins, son of Drogo Baggins and Primula Brandybuck as was, and cousin to Bilbo Baggins, was now Master of Bag End and was not going to give over to any other. 

The Between Years

       It took a surprisingly short time for Mr. Frodo to accept his new place. He still missed his Uncle Bilbo, but the grief wasn’t as intense, particularly once the message came that the old Hobbit had made Rivendell and was on his way to Erebor. Mr. Frodo settled into his new life, as did I. I was still a tween, but I was now the gardener for Bag End, as the Gaffer had declared hisself fully retired. I was also major caretaker for the place, as well as primary cook. Oh, Mr. Frodo could cook well enough, but his love of study had grown, and he’d lose hisself in a tricky translation or one of the books that kept arriving from Rivendell either as gifts or to be copied and returned, and whatever he’d put on the fire would burn, or go cold as the fire died.

       When I turned twenty-five, Mr. Frodo took me to the Green Dragon with the Gaffer and my brothers, who was down for the day, and gave me a pipe made by Dorlin what was sent over to me. I told him it wasn’t normal to give presents to me as it was my birthday, but he said it wasn’t a gift from him but from Dorlin, who when Mr. Bilbo left had also left me a set of tools for the garden he’d made for me. Those were the best tools I’ve ever held, and their balance was perfect. I found they fit my hand, and they don’t go blunt. I still have them and use them. And this pipe was beautiful, carved of a white stone, decorated with inset silver in the shape of roses, and with a circle of silver about the bowl.

       "Mr. Frodo, can I send a birthday present to Mr. Dorlin in Erebor?" He looked at me with question. "I mean, he’s sent me gifts and made those tools for my gardening. I’d like to send him something I’ve made."

       "I think we could send something via the Dwarves who travel the West Road, although there are fewer now than there once were. With the multiplication of the orcs and goblins in the Misty Mountains it’s much more dangerous than it used to be to travel from Erebor to the Iron Hills and back, and fewer seem to make the journey each year." But with Mr. Frodo’s promise to carry the gift to the Road in search of someone to take it on to the Lonely Mountain I was heartened.

       That was my first time to drink more than a half a mug at a time, and I found it wasn’t as much fun I’d thought it would be. I liked a good mug of ale, I found, but more than two made me feel sick. I noted that Mr. Frodo also didn’t drink a lot, although when Mr. Merry showed up he quickly downed three and began to be merry indeed. But he seemed to love the present I gave him, a leather pouch of Old Toby leaf, and he bought me a mug of ale, which in the end I slipped to the Gaffer, who smiled at me.

       We sent the present to Dorlin, a basket I’d made of woven rope that I’d also made, full of fruit from the orchard. Mr. Frodo carried it to the West Road for me, and found an Elf who agreed to carry it to Rivendell and send it on to the Lonely Mountain, and who brought a message from Mr. Bilbo. Such came rarely, and were short but well received by Frodo. He showed it to me after he assured me the gift was on its way to Dorlin now. It seemed so odd to see that spidery writing again, as it did with each rare letter that came to Frodo. Where he was and what he was doing he did not say--only that he was well and that he missed his lad. This was what almost all the letters said, in fact. And when Gandalf during one of his brief visits was asked why the letters were so short, he answered that it was so that if one should go astray it would not tell the Enemy where Bilbo was. Although what enemy it was and why he would be wanting to know where Mr. Bilbo might be no one would say.

       The first few years Frodo was Master of Bag End Gandalf visited frequently, and always he seemed to be worried about something, though he wouldn’t say what. He took me aside in the garden the third time and asked me if I’d noted any strange behavior in my master, if there were changes in his temper, if he seemed to have times when he seemed to be listening to things no one else could note. He wanted to know also if strangers came near the Hill, if I’d noted any times when I felt uncomfortable or scared with no reason, or if I’d seen birds or beasts acting unnatural about. "Especially larger birds, particularly if you see them in numbers when it is not in season. Crows and the like are the most likely to be questioned."

       "Crows?" I asked. "I’ve seen a few, of course, and mostly in the farm country over past Bywater, like at the Cotton’s farm. But they was not behaving peculiar--just the way crows always do, watching greedily for the chance to steal a bite."

       "Well, that fails to sound dangerous. No, it would be birds or beasts that are acting oddly, suspiciously, that I would look out for. If you see anything of the kind, head for the Road and look for someone you can trust headed east toward Bree or Rivendell or Erebor--Dwarves, Elves, or perhaps the Rangers."

       "Never heard tell of Rangers," I said.

       "They’re Men, Sam. Usually wear silver, grey or green cloaks fastened with a brooch shaped like a silver star when they are working officially, although not always. Almost always tall with grey eyes. Usually well mounted on swift horses. Mostly they come out of the emptier wastes to the north, although they watch over all the settled lands of Eriador. They often speak the common tongue with what would sound an odd accent to your ears, but will speak Sindarin or Adunaic fluently."

       "Don’t know no Adunaic, Mr. Gandalf, so I wouldn’t hardly recognize it if I heard it; and my Elvish is no great shakes. Oh, Mr. Bilbo and Mr. Frodo taught me some, but it’s been years since I learnt it, and I hardly get no chance to practice. It’s not like I ever saw an Elf--the only one I was sure at the time was an Elf turned out to be Mr. Frodo, you know. I think I might have spied one one time when I was on a walking trip with Mr. Frodo and Mr. Bilbo when I was a lad, but as neither of them as seen it, too, I never found out if I did or no."

       "You mistook Frodo for an Elf the first time you saw him?"

       "Well, you see, I was but ten years, and Mr. Bilbo, he’d told me Elves was passing fair."

       He laughed, and for the first time since he’d begun speaking to me he relaxed a mite. "Surpassing fair--yes, I can indeed see. Yes, for a Hobbit Frodo does have an Elvish air. But once you see a real Elf I think you will understand why I may have seemed apt to laugh." He smiled, a warm smile indeed.

       "But if I send a message, sir, how am I to address it?"

       "Address it to me. If the messenger is only going to Bree, send it care of Butterbur, the innkeeper at the Prancing Pony. He’ll see to it it goes on to me. But if you can find an Elf or Dwarf going east, be certain the messenger is planning to go to Rivendell and send it there directly. If it’s a Ranger, he will see to it that it gets to Elrond to be held in trust for me."

       "Do you live in Rivendell, then, Mr. Gandalf?"

       He sighed, "No, Sam, I have no home. I am the Grey Pilgrim, and I live mostly on the road, betwixt one endangered site and the next. But at the moment there are a few places where I feel welcome, only a few, and here, Bree, and Elrond’s home are among the few places you are aware of where I feel I can rest and lower my guard at least a trifle. The Shadow is growing, is starting to loom nearer. My time is at hand, and the Enemy seeks always to find and trap me. But Elrond is the one ally at this time you have heard tell of that I know I can count on. I will give him permission to open any missive from the Shire addressed to me so that if I am delayed he can deal with it as he sees fit. Can you understand that, Sam?"

       I nodded. "Mr. Gandalf, sir, what are you afraid of?"

       This sigh was long, and he shook his head, perplexed. "I’m still not certain, Sam. My suspicions are rising, and if they prove true it will be very dangerous for Frodo and all who surround him. But so far I have no way of knowing for certain, and I will not raise fear unfounded. I have been seeking answers, and will continue seeking answers."

       "But what is there as would threaten Frodo? Why?" I was starting to feel frantic.

       "Now, now, Sam--what danger there might be is only a hint at this time. It is not focused on him now--it is a future danger I seek to turn aside if I may.

       "You have to understand, Sam, that no matter how peaceful things appear, for the world at large danger is growing. I keep saying it--the Enemy is no longer seeking to hide himself. No longer is he a hint of vague fear in the dark places of Middle Earth, nor is he disguising himself any longer as when he was known as the Necromancer in Dol Guldur in Southern Mirkwood. He has returned to his own land and has, by the reawakening of Mount Doom, declared himself openly.

       "Three thousand years ago, before the return of the Sea Kings from Numenor, he followed the example of Morgoth and covered much of Middle Earth with his darkness and terror. And he seeks again to become lord of all lands, to hold all in bondage to himself, to direct the lives and actions and choices of all, and to destroy them at his will, and to smash all opposition to his power. He has no delight in lightheartedness nor beauty save to blot it out in envy, for he can no longer rejoice in it. Your land and people would be seen by him as a gross offense, for he cannot tolerate joy and peace. Given his way, your land would be utterly destroyed and your people slain or enslaved. Not that such a fate would be in any way unique. All free lands and peoples are equally at risk, if for different reasons. Some he would destroy for the power they represent which one day might rival what he sees as his own and his due; some for the example of freedom, some because they have always defied him, and some simply because they exist and have no thought to care for him one way or another."

       Well. That, at least, were plain enough, though I still couldn’t see what all that had to do with a special interest in Bag End or Frodo in particular, and I said so. And he shrugged.

       "I will not say more until I am certain, Sam, and I must rely on your discretion, which I already know to be to be greatly treasured. Sometimes you must face your fear by declaring and describing it openly; but sometimes doing that only increases danger needlessly. And this is one of the latter times. Can you understand?"

       "No, I can’t understand, but I can accept that you feel this is true and I can trust in that."

       He smiled in relief. "That is enough at this time, Samwise Gamgee. I always did think, by the way, that your father misnamed you."

       I felt my face grow warm. "Don’t know about that, sir. But I do want to protect my Mr. Frodo."

       He searched my face closely. Then he said, very softly, "Yes, all who truly know him seek that. Frodo Baggins, for some odd reason no one has yet been able to isolate nor name, inspires love and loyalty. I have been given little grace to know what may or will be, Sam; but I fear there is a reason why this is so, and that he will need that loyalty and support. But, I don’t know why this is so, nor why it will be important--not yet." He straightened, looked back toward Bag End’s windows. "I must go in to him now. I will not burden him at this time with the fears I have shared with you. Please try and understand."

       I nodded. "I think I do, sir."

       He smiled. "I keep saying it--Hobbits are such amazing creatures." And he gave me again a bow of respect, which set my face aflame once more, and he went inside.

       More years passed, and we didn’t see hide nor hair of Gandalf for a powerful long time, and although we got a note of thanks from Dorlin which Frodo had to translate for me as I had no experience at all with dwarf runes, we got no more letters from Bilbo, and Frodo came home from his walking trips to the Road or Buckland feeling frustrated. Now and then he’d comment he’d seen wood Elves in the wild parts of the Shire, but only at a distance; but he only seemed to find Elves from Rivendell once every year or so.

       Books still arrived from Rivendell now and again, but they came through the quick post, with comments that a Man had come to the Brandywine Bridge and set an addressed package in the hands of one of the Bounders or Shiriffs on duty there. There were none to be returned, and rarely was there more than, "For a gift to the Master of Bag End" as a message.

       At first Frodo was active in the events of the Shire, attending banquets and parties and such, and he never missed the Free Fair at Michel Delving. He was often away to the Great Smials or to Buckland for this celebration or that, for weddings and birthdays and a few of the holidays. He were still a lithe dancer and popular with the ladies as ever. But it seemed his interest in return was fading. Where once the look a lass gave him or the movement of her hips would spark a smile of appreciation, now he seemed to note such little, and there came the day when one year, after his thirty-ninth birthday, when he even commented on it aloud. He’d given his party in the Party Field and with lanterns once more in the Party Tree, but the invitations had been far more limited than Bilbo’s last party, and the celebration limited to an evening meal and music and dancing. He’d danced only a handful of times, and after the others had left and only the younger cousins and me remained and we was now gathered about the kitchen table in Bag End with plates of leftovers from the party, Mr. Fredegar, who’d been earning his nickname as Fatty, commented on that.

       "Time was, old Frodo, when you’d dance the whole night through, and the lasses would be fighting openly to catch your eye. But tonight, I ask you! What led to this pitiful situation?"

       "I don’t know," Frodo replied. "I really don’t. But it seems I just don’t notice much at all about how lovely a lass or a lady might be any more. And, oddly enough, I miss the excitement of admiring a beautiful lass." And there were real regret in his voice. But then he raised a toast to Bilbo, and we all joined in. But I put away the situation to study on.

       He’d given me a book, and I found it was one I’d not read afore, on the life of Tuor. I read it that night for hours, and I found myself wishing I could have lived in those brave days, and again I felt the desire to meet a real Elf.

       More years passed, and rarely did word come from outside the Shire. The Dwarves traveling the Road rarely stopped inside the Shire no more, and those who stopped when hailed by Frodo were guarded, but would talk with a bit of freedom once they learned this was the heir to the Honored Burglar Bilbo Baggins. It was becoming terrible dangerous to get across the Misty Mountains now, and Elrond’s folk ranged through the passes and over the roads surrounding Rivendell attempting to keep them clear of orcs and trolls and such. Once he got a letter from Gloin, and a few times we received notes from Dorlin and Dwalin. But of what was passing with Mr. Bilbo or Gandalf or in Rivendell we heard nothing, just the arrival of the odd book or document.

       Frodo didn’t seem to change physically at all, although he finally began to put on a bit of weight, although far less than one ordinarily sees in Hobbits. But he accepted fewer invitations to dinners and parties and banquets, and went to weddings and funerals only when they was family. Nor was he receiving as many invitations as he once did, once it became obvious he wasn’t looking at any lasses or young ladies. But he’d visit the inns in Hobbiton and Bywater about once a month, more often when Merry and Pippin and Mr. Fredegar and Mr. Folco come to Bag End, which was frequent. And, as the years passed, he was becoming more and more restless, much as had been Mr. Bilbo at the end.

       Once a quarter he met with the banker of discretion I mentioned afore, and he saw the Brandybuck lawyer a time or two each year, mostly, I’ve learned going through the estate records I’ve inherited from him, when selling or buying interests in new businesses or farms. When he give it out that he was coming to the end of Mr. Bilbo’s treasure as he did, he were lying, plain and simple, and the Brandybuck lawyer and the banker of discretion could have declared the lie, if he hadn’t have forbidden it.

       Frodo still did a bit of his own marketing in Hobbiton, and let any kind of disaster come to his attention--a death, an injury, an illness, damage to a house or hole or shed or barn due to weather or fire or neglect, and he’d be there to lend a hand however he could. And anything to do with the Bagginses themselves he was right there on, even with the Sackville-Bagginses. When Mr. Otho became ill he sent over food from Bag End regular, and this he usually prepared hisself, taking more care than when he was fixing for hisself; and his letter of condolence to Missus Lobelia and young Lotho when Otho died was heartfelt--even Missus Lobelia admitted that with an odd hitch in her voice. Mr. Lotho, now, was sneerings when he referred to that letter, all but openly accusing Mr. Frodo of really rejoicing his dad was dead.

       He continued to spend time alone atop the Hill, reading, writing, occasionally drawing or painting, watching the stars of a night. He still walked daily, and went on regular walking trips about the Shire, and although I was always invited to go along, I rarely did unless he were planning to stay close to Hobbiton and Bywater. For during my free time I was a lot with my own kin, particularly the Cottonses, especially Young Tom and Rosie. I got regular invites to the farm, and as time went on they’d extended the invitation to include Mr. Frodo as well. He would come usually once or twice a year, mostly for Rosie’s birthday, and I know it was mainly for my sake.

       And when I come of age, he threw the biggest party for me in the Party Field I’d ever had, and all of Hobbiton and Bywater was invited, as well as lots of his cousins and friends. All I had to do was provide presents, and he give me access to some of the mathoms he and Bilbo had got over the years to aid in dealing with that. As Rosie and I danced, I suddenly caught sight of his gaze as he sat at his table, an almost untouched mug of ale afore him, smoking his pipe, and I realized he was looking at us with joy for me, and with regret for hisself. He still couldn’t understand why he had no interest in lasses and lady Hobbits no more.

       I now wondered--was it because of the Ring? I knew by then that that was what he carried in his pocket and fiddled with as his Uncle Bilbo had done, the Ring Mr. Bilbo’d found in Gollum’s cave, the one he’d wore to make hisself invisible. Did possession of the Ring burn out the interest in others, the ability to love one other especial?

       But he still kept humbugs and horehound drops in his pockets for the children, and he’d still stop to praise a child he saw working diligently around Hobbiton or Bywater, and he kept an eye out for likely lads and lasses who needed a hand up, and he’d tell tales to groups of bairns on market days and at the Free Fair at Michel Delving and when he was in the Great Smials or Brandy Hall for festivals or holidays or weddings or funerals, and they flocked to hear him and to be with him. And no one dreamed of abusing any child or beast anywhere in the area, or not openly. Nobody wanted the ire of Mr. Frodo Baggins brought to bear on them--nobody.

Restlessness and Conspiracy

       As Mr. Frodo began to close out his forties, his restlessness increased. His walking trips increased in number, and like Mr. Bilbo hisself, he began to get out maps and books of travels and studied them. The old map of the Lonely Mountain Mr. Bilbo brought back from his own adventure he took off the wall and looked over every day, and the one the old Hobbit had tried to construct of the way to Rivendell Mr. Frodo went over again and again. He started making lists of what he’d take if he were to set off on a trip, and when he went out walking he kept a close eye out for Elves and Dwarves.

       There’d been no letters from Mr. Bilbo for many years, no word of Gandalf since his last visit, and nothing from the Lonely Mountain for five years. Rumors grew of Men on horseback seen close to the Hay and the borders of the Shire, tall Men who were doing their best to remain quiet and unnoted, men with shining swords and bows as had seen use. Rumors there was of other men on foot seeking to enter the Southfarthing, loud men who acted as if those they met were children and without understanding. Rumors from passing Dwarves were that the far mountains were fair teeming with goblins and trolls and mountain giants and the great wolves. Folk started saying they’d seen strange things here and there across the Shire--one of my own cousins swore he saw a creature like an elm tree walking through the fields far to the north and west of the Shire--told me about it when we met at the Free Fair in Michel Delving. There were talk in Buckland of the trees of the Old Forest becoming restless, and signs they was contemplating attacking the High Hay again. Hardly nobody wanted to travel out to Bree no more.

       One package of documents and books arrived at Bag End from Rivendell that year, but it held more than had been sent at a time for many years, and it included, to Mr. Frodo’s delight and our concern, a couple of maps of the regions of East Eriador.

       Mr. Merry had become concerned about Frodo, and had convinced hisself that once Frodo turned fifty he would do his best to have his own adventure, and he began nosing about during his visits. He arrived one day as Frodo was in his study with his new maps, comparing them to the one Mr. Bilbo’d made, making notes on Mr. Bilbo’s map with a stick of graphite he’d bought off a Dwarf one time and he used to make notes he might need to change. Sometimes he used charcoal for such notes, but it smudged worse and was messier, and he once told me such were fine for drawings, but not so good for writing, and he preferred the graphite.

       Anyways, Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin arrived early one afternoon while Frodo was studying these maps, and Merry watched Frodo’s face and noted the eager expression on it as he checked it out and made calculations. Rivendell wasn’t on either map, but the Bruinen was, what Mr. Frodo said translated to "Loudwater" in the Common Tongue, and Frodo was trying to locate where Rivendell might be along the river from comments he’d remembered from Mr. Bilbo’s tales and comparing the maps. Pippin had sneaked into the cool room to get some of the apples from the last harvest, and come in eating one and another in his pocket, and started looking through the new books Frodo’d stacked on the mantel. I had fixed tea for us all, and settled on the small sofa with a book of Elvish tales in the Common Tongue as was part of the bunch and Mr. Frodo had immediately suggested I’d like, but I was watching the others more than reading. Merry was asking questions on how long Mr. Bilbo’d said it took him to make his way to Rivendell, and whether he’d gone by foot or pony--said he didn’t member which, and couldn’t think why Rivendell might not be on an Elvish map. I didn’t understand what Mr. Frodo meant as to why they didn’t mark it down, that if they did and the map fell into the wrong hands it could be used to lead enemies to it. Now I do, now as I know just how strong was the hatred Sauron held for those as stood up to him, and I’ve seen what his folk would do.

       'Twere then as I realized at last that Mr. Frodo didn’t look a day older’n his cousin Merry, nor me. He was twelve years older’n me, fourteen years older’n Mr. Merry. He still looked young, and as fair as a young Elf. And my hair stood out from my head, it did, as I realized that what as had been said by everyone else was true, that Frodo seemed as free from aging as had been old Mr. Bilbo. It weren’t natural, and I knew it.

       I lost track of the gist of what was said as I studied on what I was seeing, until suddenly I realized Mr. Pippin was in front of me, peering into my face as he shook my shoulder and called my name. "Sam?" he said, must have been the fifth or sixth time. "What’s wrong? Are you all right?" I looked up, and must have seemed daft as could be as I tried to say I’d just been thinking, and he looked right shocked hisself. "Thinking? Whatever for?"

       But then there was another knock at the door, and when I went to answer it, it were one of the messengers of the Post with a note from the Mayor about the meeting Mr. Baggins had agreed to attend in Hobbiton that afternoon at the Ivy Bush. Old Will Whitfoot had decided to talk the heads of all the important families of the Shire into sponsoring the repairs being done at the Council Hole in Michel Delving, and that, of course, included the Bagginses as well as the Chubbs, Bolgers, Tooks, Brandybucks, Boffinses, and Proudfoots--and the rest. Mr. Frodo were right put out as he’d plain forgot all about it with his excitement over the new maps, but he rushed to his room to change to his Head of the Family outfit, as he called it, and to run a brush over his feet and head, and hurried out with a warning to Pippin to stay out of the first pantry if he wanted to live to come of age. Mr. Pippin didn’t seem yet to have outgrown the teen tendency to raid pantries at all times of the day and night, and there was a fine bunch of seed cakes my sister Marigold had baked for him that morning, and Mr. Frodo’d become quite partial to having them as part of his tea.

       "Good!" said Mr. Merry as soon as the door was shut behind him. "Now that Frodo’s out of the way, it’s time to get down to business."

       And the Conspiracy was born in the study at Bag End while Mr. Frodo was off at a meeting he didn’t want to attend. Mr. Merry explained his certainty that Frodo would really try to sneak out of the Shire by hisself once he turned fifty, and the feeling that had been growing in him that wherever Frodo went, he must not go alone. "The world is growing dangerous out there, lads, and no Hobbit should face that alone.

       "Frodo’s been pining for Bilbo ever since he left, and as he gets closer to the age Bilbo was when he went off with the Dwarves it’s been getting worse, and you both know it. Look at him today, going over those maps, trying to pinpoint where Rivendell is. And I wouldn’t be the least surprised to hear tomorrow he’s taken them up on the Hill tonight, to look at them under the full moonlight, then two weeks from now again when the moon’s waned to look at them under pure starlight, if he sees nothing on them tonight. Wait and see if I’m not right about all this! The restlessness is growing in him, is beginning to drive him mad with anxiety, especially since we’ve had no word from either Bilbo nor Gandalf for so long."

       "He can’t leave the Shire on his own," Pippin said, suddenly. "You’ve heard the stories that are going around--Big Folk trying to get into the Shire on all sides, the tales of wolves at the borders of the Northfarthing where there’s been no sign of them for almost two hundred years, strange creatures like nothing anyone’s ever seen before in the Westfarthing, the tales the Dwarves bring of those goblins in the Misty Mountains breeding like rats among garbage. And I won’t have it--for all you’re my favorite cousin, Merry, Frodo is the one Hobbit in all the Shire who needs protecting. He’s the best Hobbit I know, the gentlest and the loneliest--and the least practical. And the dear old Hobbit won’t ever accept just how dear he is to the rest of us."

       Mr. Merry turned to me. "Here we must trust in you, Samwise Gamgee. We can’t be here all the time--my Da’s counting on me to be by his side, learning the running of the Hall now as I’m of age at last, and he won’t let me run over here every few days as I’ve been able to up till now. As for Pippin--sorry, Pip, but you just could not be discrete if your life depended on it, or at least not yet. Now, don’t get insulted, it’s true and you know it. You get a thought in your head and you act on it or blurt it out without thinking things through. It’s just because you are so very much a Took."

       "Humph," Mr. Pippin snorted, his nostrils flaring like. "You and Frodo are about as much Tookish as I am!"

       "I may be, but for Frodo there’s that strong streak of stubborn Baggins in him that doesn’t confide in others but seeks to protect them, plus the responsible Brandybuck side."

       "Now, I ask you!" Pippin interrupted. "There’s not one whit more tendency toward responsibility in the Brandybucks than there is in the Tooks, and you know it, Meriadoc Brandybuck! And if you want to know where Frodo gets his, I think that comes from the Baggins blood more than either of our sides. It’s the steadiness of the Bagginses coming out in him, I say."

       "But when he decides to leave, that will be the Took coming to the fore at last; but he’ll act on it in typical Frodo fashion, which will be designed to leave all others no whit the wiser in order to protect them--to protect us in particular." He turned back to me. "I hate to ask you to spy on your master, Sam, although I already know you do--and don’t you try to pretend you don’t." My face was getting right warm, and I knew they both could see the blood rising in it. "You watch out for him all the time, and we love you for it. We do it, too, as best we can. But you can get away with it because you’ve done it for so long, and he just takes it for granted you are trying to anticipate what he’ll need next. You have to be our eyes and ears, and alert us as to what you see or hear about any plans he’s putting together to sneak off on his own. We won’t allow it, Pippin and I, and I know you feel the same. So, since all three of us are willing to lay down our lives for our dear old cousin, we should work together."

       It took some powerful persuading, but at last I agreed.

       One of the guest rooms was the room I stayed in when I stayed up in Bag End, which I was starting to do more and more, particularly in winter when the lane was slick. Between the Widow Rumble (her old husband had died two years past) and my sister Marigold, and with Daisy in and out at least once a day now as she were married and living in Hobbiton proper where she and her husband, as was a weaver, had their tailoring and embroidering shop, I knew the Gaffer was took care of proper even if I wasn’t there to keep an eye on him. That night I worked late in the gardens, and I then came in for a supper Mr. Frodo’d put together after his meeting and lingered with him in the study as he wrote and I read the book of tales as he’d lent me. Finally he suggested, as I’d known he would’ve done, I stay there of the night.

      Mr. Merry was right about the sneaking up on the hill with them maps, and near midnight he tried sneaking out of the kitchen door with them. Well, I’d already sneaked out of the front door and was sitting in the shadow of the lilacs, watching and waiting; and when he started up the Hill I slid after him.

       He’d brought a rug and a blanket with him, and I saw as he’d decided to spend the night up there anyways, watching the moon and stars, if there was no secret signs on the maps. Or maybe as he was planning on trying to stay awake the whole time so as to view them at different times of the night--I member’d as old Mr. Bilbo’d said that the moon letters could be spelled to be seen only under the phase of the moon or stars under which they’d been written, or at only a particular time of the night or the year. What if he saw nothing tonight or when the moon wasn’t showing? Would he start coming up here every night till he saw something? I had an old rough cloak as had been my Gaffer’s when he’d worked at Bag End, and it were warm enough for tonight; but it would be miserable when the weather got colder. Fall was in the air, and it were almost Mr. Frodo’s forty-ninth birthday; after that the nights could get powerful cold, and I knew it. I sighed and huddled close to the trunk of the old oak tree as he laid out his rug in the open under the stars and wrapped the blanket about him, then pulled out the maps and unrolled the one and unfolded the other.

       Laying those maps on the ground, he set hisself to wait, and so did I. He’d look them over, and sometimes he’d mutter Elvish words over them as I was sure he’d been taught by Mr. Bilbo of what Mr. Elrond had said when they looked at the dragon map in Rivendell. But apparently he was getting tired, and finally he huddled down aside them, sort of cuddled around them, and afore he knew as what had happened, he’d fallen asleep.

       I’d been tired when I first followed him, but now I seemed to be growing more and more awake as he slept. Finally I crept forward and looked at them maps myself, but I saw nothing in the moonlight. But I could see the half of his face as was lit up, and it looked so peaceful and young. When he was still, you’d see a glow in his face from time to time--I think as this was what those of us as loved him so saw and wanted to protect. I sat near to him, and watched him for a while, then looked up at the stars, and the moon as he drew off westward. Some clouds was creeping in from that direction, and the night grew darker as the moon was hidden. And then I heard Frodo growing restless. I looked down, and as best I could see, his face was scrunching up in his dream, and his hand suddenly flailed out and hit me. That startled both of us alert.

       He sat up in shock, blinked hisself awake, and looked at me, his eyes wide. "Sam!" he said. "What are you doing here?"

       "I was having trouble sleeping, Mr. Frodo," I told him. "Then I heard something, and looked and saw you leaving Bag End, and I followed you, sir. There’s been so many stories of odd and evil things, I felt you shouldn’t be out by yourself after dark, like."

       He looked at me, then suddenly laughed. "Dear Sam," he said. "We are in the heart of the Shire itself. I don’t think anything dangerous has come this far in, if anything has at all."

       The Moon crept out of the clouds and shone out on us again, and in his light Frodo looked at the maps, and suddenly he gave a sigh of satisfaction. "Oh," he said, "then there are indeed the moon letters on this one, at least!" And in the light I could see lines and letters starting to shine out on it as hadn’t been there afore. He reached inside his pocket and brought out the stick of graphite, and with it he began to trace the lines and the letters, trying to get them marked afore they faded, as they might not stay visible long. He paused and looked at the face of the moon, making calculations, then brought out his pocket watch and checked it. "Full moon of September, three hours before dawn," he said, jotting down a note in a bare corner, then finished tracing the remaining letters. Satisfied at last, he stowed the graphite and sat back, a slight smile on his face.

       Then he looked back at me. "I know you try to watch over me, Sam, but there’s no need, you know."

       "I don’t know that, Mr. Frodo," I told him. "The world is changing, it seems, and it looks as if it’s not necessarily changing for the better. At any road it’s getting worse afore it can hope to be better, if you take my meaning."

       He sighed. "If you say so, Sam. But why did you come so near me? When I suddenly touched you, I about jumped out of my skin."

        "I thought as you was having a nightmare, Mr. Frodo, sir. You was making some noise, and starting to roll your head, and then you reached out like you was fending something off. I was trying to make sure you was all right. If’n you hadn’t had the bad dream, I’d have just slipped off afore dawn and left you to yourself, like."

       He shuddered. "Oh, yes, that dream." He shuddered again, and in the pale light I could see there were a hint of fear in his eyes.

       "You have such often, Mr. Frodo?"

       He started to nod but stopped hisself, then looked at me, and sighed, then said, "I’ve had it before, a time or two."

       "What is it about?"

       He took a long breath, and I began to think as he wouldn’t answer, but at last he did. "I don’t know, Sam. I start out in Bag End, smoking in the parlor or writing in the study. Suddenly, I’m aware someone is looking at me--no, not at me, but for me. I can’t see who it is--he’s far away, toward the south and the east, far away. But I know I must not let him find me.

       "Then the dream starts getting muddled. Sometimes I’m running through Bag End, and sometimes I leave the room where I am and I find myself rushing through the passages of Brandy Hall, looking for a place to hide. But sometimes I’m in a different place--maybe in woods such as don’t grow in the Shire at all, like the Old Forest but stranger; or I’m on a mountain top surrounded by snow and cold; or a dark tunnel with a glow of fire in the distance, and that fire is a different terror--it’s not a fire from a fireplace, but something else, something more. Sometimes I’m being pursued by orcs or something big and terrifying--it’s not always the same thing chasing me, and it’s not always the same tunnels or passages I’m in." He shivered again, and even in the moonlight he looked pale.

       "That sounds as if you’ve had that dream more than a couple time afore, Mr. Frodo," I said.

       He shook his head. Again he was quiet for a while, then sighed. "You’re right, Sam--I’ve had it many times. It started not long after Bilbo went away, but I’d only have it once or twice a year. I had one when Gandalf was here that last time, and he apparently heard me and came into my room to waken me. I wouldn’t tell him what the dream was about, but he seemed disturbed when I admitted I’d had the same nightmare before.

       "These past three years I’ve had it more and more often. And it’s frightening, Sam. Now I seem to catch the glimpse of an eye looking my way. Sometimes it’s actually two eyes--glowing eyes such as Bilbo described on that Gollum creature, and that’s bad enough. But when it’s the other eye--I feel terrified, Sam. And lately I’ve had the urge to put on Bilbo’s ring and disappear when I have that dream. I never really see the eye that’s looking for me, just know it’s there, although I seem to see the two glowing ones, Gollum’s eyes, when they’re the ones in the dream.

       "Have you ever used Mr. Bilbo’s ring, Mr. Frodo?" I asked.

       "No, I haven’t. I’ve been tempted, I’ll tell you, particularly when I see Lobelia or Lotho headed for the door of Bag End; but I never have. Gandalf warned me not to, said it could be more problem than it was worth, even said it could be dangerous. He advised me to keep it secret and safe, and not to use it, that in the dark times we’re entering it could possibly bring evil to the Shire."

       My hair started creeping again, let me tell you. That Mr. Gandalf thought the Ring could bring evil to the Shire? What did that mean? I wondered.

       He was looking at me, and sensed as I was disturbed. "Oh, Sam, it is but a dream, after all," he said, trying to reassure me. "I think I’m getting cold as dawn approaches. Let’s go in and get some tea, and then finish the night in bed." And he got up, rolled the rug and the blanket, and taking the maps led the way back into Bag End.

        A few nights later I met with Mr. Merry at the Green Dragon, and told him as I’d promised. About both the moon letters on the map and the dreams, I mean. His face was worried, but he nodded. "Thanks, Sam," he said. "This could be important. Keep watch."

        The night of the dark of the moon I stayed again in Bag End, and sure enough Mr. Frodo slipped out again with the maps. I waited a while afore I slipped after him this time, and I don’t think he saw me. He sat a long time on top of the hill with the two maps open in front of him, smoking his pipe and watching the stars when he wasn’t watching the maps. But if there was any more hidden things on either one, they didn’t show themselves, and just afore dawn I slipped back into the smial, as I’d told him afore I would. I were cuddled in the midst of my blankets when I heard him look into my room, then chuckle and close the door as he slipped off down the passage. After a while it were my turn again, and I got up, but found instead of his room he were in the bathing room, sleeping in the tub surrounded with warm steam and the scent of soothing herbs. I quiet like stoked the fire, building it up again, and carefully added a bit more warm water to the bath for him, made sure the towels was sitting near at hand, and slipped out again and went and checked the kitchen fire and the one in his room afore I went back to bed, leaving the kettle keeping warm just off the fire, and a plate of bread, cheese and jam covered with a cloth on the table with a mug and the tea pot and the tea caddy in case he decided to get a bite afore he finally went to bed.

       Merry was right about not coming as often, but Mr. Pippin made up for it. He and Mr. Fredegar and Mr. Folco seemed to always be to hand, often dragging Frodo and sometimes me, too, out to some thing or another, or at least down to the Ivy Bush or the Green Dragon for a mug and a bite of an evening. And somehow Mr. Pippin would always manage to leave something behind he had to come back to Bag End for if I’d not gone, too, and I’d tell him what more I’d learned, which at that point was nothing.

       Mr. Frodo was often fingering the Ring in his pocket now as he sat talking or reading, far more than he’d ever done, and it wasn’t just when he were worried or had seen Mr. Lotho or Missus Lobelia heading his way. I don’t think he realized just how much he did this, but Mr. Pippin, Mr. Merry, and I was all aware, and all worried. It seemed to me that after learning Mr. Gandalf was worried about this Ring somehow that we was all focusing on it, all growing more and more aware of it, all coming to see it as--I think the word is sinister. And when Mr. Merry told Mr. Pippin about the dreams as Frodo’d been having, he got all white and concerned. "That’s not right, Merry," he said. "Imagine dreaming of being chased all the time like that, of wanting to hide all the time. Poor Frodo. I’m sure those dreams mean something."

       At Yule they dragged him to Brandy Hall for the celebrations there, but he’d left us gifts and a great deal of food to share out in Number 3. We invited Widow Rumble to join us, and the Cottons came for the day of Yule, and we had a right feast--the last Yule afore we went away. Only one thing bad about it--I know the Cottons was hoping as I’d speak for Rosie, but I couldn’t--not till we knew for sure what Mr. Frodo had decided as to do. Young Tom was getting right upset by the time they left, but I’d managed to get Rosie alone and give her a kiss neither of us is likely to forget, and I know she knew I’d ask when I felt it were time. And as they left she gave me a smile that let me know I’d been forgiven for not speaking yet, by her, at least.

       When Mr. Frodo came back Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin both came with him, and Pippin told me excitedly as Frodo’d had his dream at least three times since he’d been gone. Later I caught Mr. Merry’s eye, and he nodded as if to say, yes, that were the way it happened. And Mr. Frodo was more restless than ever, and looked as if he weren’t resting right.

       But it weren’t till April that things began to come together. I come in to stoke the fire of a morning, and there was Gandalf, sitting at the table, smoking, his face worried. He looked up at me and nodded, but didn’t say nothing. I got breakfast cooked and left it to stay warm till Mr. Frodo got hisself up, and told Mr. Gandalf I had something to pick up in Hobbiton and slipped off to the village. I got to the market and quickly wrote a note to Mr. Merry, and gave it to a Post messenger to take off to Buckland. I got some flour and tea and a pot of honey and went back to Bag End, put them away in the second pantry, went about opening windows to air the hole out after the dark of winter, and went out to work in the garden, making sure to stay near whatever window they would be near. It were among the first real warm days as we’d had, and I was glad of that. Mostly I didn’t have to be quiet. As long as they heard my clippers or weeds hitting the basket, they’d not think of me overhearing--or so I hoped. And of what I heard, well, that’s in the Red Book.

       'Twere very hard indeed after getting caught by Gandalf hisself listening at the window to carry on in the Conspiracy, but Mr. Merry worked on me right hard, and finally I told them some, just not all. But enough for them to know that yes, Frodo was planning to go on an adventure, but that it wasn’t going to be a necessarily pleasant one, that it was likely to be very dangerous. Merry figured out on his own that the problem did indeed lie in the Ring, and I couldn’t deny it, although I wouldn’t say anything to say yes, neither. And Merry decided that Pippin wasn’t going to go along after all when him and me followed Frodo out of the Shire, and Pippin let him know in no uncertain terms that, yes, he was going to go along, whether Merry approved or not.

        "Our dear old cousin is not going to want to allow you to come with him, Merry; he’s going to try to sneak away without you. And I know you will follow anyway. Well, I will follow anyway, no matter what you do, and that’s final."

       "But your family...."

       "My family will be no more put out than yours, Meriadoc Brandybuck. I’m just little Pippin to them, and they don’t think I have any sense at all. Well, maybe I don’t, but I love my cousin Frodo, love him with all my soul, and I’m not going to let him go off to face danger and darkness without me along. I can’t let him go alone or just with you, Merry. What would I do without him, or without you? And he needs me, Merry. Sometimes I’m the only one who can make him laugh, and I fear that if he goes on this horrid adventure he will forget how to laugh. I don’t want him to lose the ability to laugh, Merry."

       Merry looked at me, and saw that I was in tears at this, and realized that what I wasn’t saying indicated that Pippin was on the right track, and he turned almost as white as Frodo could get. "Oh, the Valar preserve us," he whispered, and he searched my face. "It can’t be that bad, can it?" And I nodded.

       I’d sworn not to speak, but I did show him how to listen at the windows, and what he heard of Gandalf’s and Frodo’s talks--and mine, for Gandalf had me come in for the planning from time to time as well--gave him too much to think of. And when he learned Frodo had sold Bag End to Mr. Lotho and his mother--he was livid. "What kind of Tom-fool act is this?" he asked me, and all I could do was shrug.

       But when Frodo approached him about finding some kind of place out of the way like in Buckland to move hole to, Merry already had the perfect place in mind. Tweren’t a hole, strictly speaking--it were a house called Crickhollow as belonged to the Master of Brandy Hall, and it were usually used by folk from the Hall who wanted to get away for a while. But when Master Seradoc found out his cousin Frodo was almost come to the end of his money and wanted a secluded place to settle to, he agreed to sell Crickhollow to him. He’d have rather of had Frodo move into the Hall, but Merry convinced his dad that that would never work for Frodo.

       "He’s been living in Bag End all these years, Da," he told us he’d said. "He’s not going to be able to take living with the full presence of the Brandybuck family day in and day out. He lived only with Bilbo, then alone. He is happy to see us come visit him, you know; but he’s happier, I think, when we go away again. Look at how he was when he was here at Yule--quiet, withdrawn--and those nightmares, Da! You think he wants those discussed all day and night? No, he’d never be happy here in the Hall when he’s been Master Baggins for so long."

       And his dad agreed to sell the house to Frodo.

       One thing Mr. Merry had us all do was to write letters to our folks and give them to him, explaining we was going away with Mr. Frodo for a time, that it was important that we do so, but that Frodo had get away privately and without others knowing. We were to tell them how much we loved them and grieved at not telling them afore time, but this were the most important thing we could do right then. And we wrote that if we sent no word in two years, they should probably accept that the worst had happened, and they should then accept that we was dead. And Merry put the letters into a packet and gave them to the banker of discretion to keep for two months after Mr. Frodo’s birthday--then he was to give them to the Master of Brandy Hall.

       Meanwhile Mr. Frodo was meeting with the Brandybuck lawyer, and for more than just writing up the bill of sale with the Sackville-Bagginses. He was writing up his will, and letters to various relatives and a few friends. And he was preparing for the possibility he wouldn’t never come back again.

       He were getting right grim, but at the same time he was also getting impatient to leave, to follow Bilbo at last. I was watching him right hard--there was always the possibility that he wouldn’t wait till the Birthday to set out, after all. We’d set up signs for me to alert Merry and Pippin and Mr. Fredegar (who’d joined the conspiracy to keep watch at the house at Crickhollow till Mr. Frodo was well clear of the Shire, to hide the fact that he wasn’t in the Shire at all) in case Frodo suddenly tried to bolt alone or if Gandalf sent word to go early. They became fixtures at Bag End, it seemed, and Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin went with Frodo on his walking trip to Buckland as he looked over the house and met with the banker of discretion and the Brandybuck lawyer to safeguard his interests while he was away and again to settle what was to be done if he didn’t come back.

       There was some kind of last talk between Mr. Merry and his dad, I think, in which he gave him some kind of indication there was a need for him to leave. Certainly when we got back there wasn’t the problems between him and his folks as there was between Mr. Pippin and Mr. Paladin. The letters we left got delivered to the Master, I understand, and he managed to get the one Mr. Pippin wrote to the Great Smials, but that didn’t smooth things out. But the one I wrote to the Gaffer didn’t get delivered--by the time the Master tried to send it on, Mr. Lotho’d seized control of the Post, and he didn’t dare send it that way; and folk from Buckland, who wasn’t having no truck with the Chief, wasn’t allowed into the Shire, and communication with Hobbiton was cut off.

        The one thing Frodo would not do was to transfer the title of Master Baggins to Lotho, which annoyed him no end. Truth was, there really wasn’t hardly any of the name left, excepting him and Mr. Lotho--the rest of the family were children of daughters, and were Bolgers, Goodbodies, Proudfoots, Tooks, Brandybucks, and the like. And since he’d never married and Mr. Bilbo’d never married and Aunt Dora Baggins had never married, neither, they didn’t have any children to carry on the family. Oh, there was a few distant relatives who had the name, but they were few and far between, mostly closer to the Boffinses than to the Bagginses of Hobbiton.

       It’s hard to accept, the end of a family like that. And Mr. Bilbo was wrong when he once commented that there’d always be a Baggins in Bag End, although I think there will always be a Frodo there now--a Frodo and a Bilbo.

       I can’t bring back the Bagginses, but I can keep alive their memory, here in our land they gave so much to save.

Out of Fear, Toward Worse

       I’d never gone further away from home than Michel Delving, save for the summer I spent in Tighfeld with Ham and our Uncle Andy. Now I was leaving the Shire, and most like wasn’t going to return.

       The Red Book tells most of it, the walk which turned into fleeing when the Riders come after us. We had no idea what they was, although Mr. Frodo figured out right enough they was from Mordor.

       Huh. I say and write the word easily enough now, but then I’d barely heard tell of it, and it were a name of terror on the edge of stories of the worst darkness. Mordor. What we didn’t know of it then! 'Tweren’t real to us, you know--but even though I knew Mr. Bilbo’d been there even Rivendell didn’t seem quite real, neither, nor even Bree, and I’d known several as had been to Bree, when I was a lad, at least.

       But now we was leaving the Shire, and it were like going into a horrible dream by choice.

       Then we found ourselves having to trust this dark stranger in Bree, this Man called Strider. And I were so suspicious of him, with his hints of danger and his knowing too much and the sheath at his belt. I’d never seen no sword save Sting, which Mr. Bilbo’d hung over the fireplace in his study, till he went away, at least. Then I knew he must have took it with him, as it were gone and that dragon map hung where the sword used to be. We had the long knives from the Barrow which old Tom Bombadil gave us to carry, and Pippin insisted we call them our swords, but they wasn’t, not really. The sheath Strider wore--now, that were a proper sheath for a sword, and it made me proper terrified. They thought I were powerful brave, speaking up to challenge this Man, but it were just the way my fear came out in me. I was so afraid of that sword he must have in that old sheath--and you could tell it was an old sheath, very old and worn and well cared for, and once it must have been passing fair, wound with silver wire--but now I know it wasn’t silver, but mithril--and fair gems, and runes of protection, like out of the old tales.

       But this were no Elf lord out of the old legends--this was a Man, a Man who’d admitted to overhearing us on the road by the end of the Barrowdowns, who’d followed us in stealth, who knew Mr. Frodo’s right name, who needed a bathe worse than we did, who had a stubbly beard on his chin and suspicion neath his brows, and who looked on us with the same caution as we felt toward him. And his voice changed as we spoke, from coarse to fair-spoken, from warning to authority. And I didn’t know what to think of him.

       Then he pulled the sheath from his belt, pulled the hilt of his sword from it, but it were broke off short, and then spilt out onto the table the rest of the blade--I didn’t know what to think. Why was he wandering the wild with a broken sword? It made no sense at all, though Mr. Frodo seemed to know more about it than I did. There were a sense of recognition in his eyes when he saw that blade, though he weren’t yet completely certain what it meant. But he’d read more’n I’d ever done of the Second Age of Middle Earth. I’d studied the First Age, which was the age of the great Elves. I had no idea at the time that the sword Strider carried was the one given to Barahir and then carried by Beren and later Elros son of Earendil the Mariner, Elros who’d chosen to live as a mortal as his grandmothers had chosen. But I kept thinking, if we’re out in the wild and those Black Riders come on us, what use will a broken sword be? And the terror grew. I didn’t really start to trust him till Glorfindel came to us and knew Strider and gave him words of warning--it were almost the first Elf as I’d ever truly seen, and I membered what Mr. Gandalf had said to me of having mistaken Frodo for an Elf the first time as I’d seen him.

       I barely realized we’d got finally to Rivendell. Once Glorfindel’s horse carried Mr. Frodo away it became a blur, a horrid blur. I member the kindling of the fire and the run forward with burning sticks to frighten the black horses and their Riders into the river as it rose to overwhelm them and carry them off--but that memory is twisted. Over the river, right on the edge of the water, Asfaloth stood over a crumpled shape, and the water swept toward it, and I feared it, too, would be carried away. And I’d swear I saw the water touch the shape, then draw back as if recognizing this was not an enemy, encircling it and the Elf’s horse to guard them till we got across.

       I don’t member crossing the water, but I member Strider gently lifting Frodo’s body from where the water circled it, the fear for him. And I realized then that Strider, too, had come to love my Master, saw the glow of him. Pippin were wild with worry and insistent he be allowed to see till Glorfindel calmed him, and Merry’s face was white with fear and marked with soot and smoke. And Strider ran with Frodo’s body in his arms, singing a healing song as he’d done neath Weathertop, as he’d sung from time to time as he sat on watch during the days we struggled through the hills betwixt that place and Rivendell. Whenever Frodo’d manage to sleep Strider’d sung that healing song, and I’d recognized some of the words, and now I knew it, a call to Estë and Lord Ulmo and Manwë and the Lady Elbereth herself to guard him round, circle him with might and the cleansing of water and the light of stars and the healing of rest. I’d seen those words years ago in a poem old Mr. Bilbo’d been translating and as he’d had Mr. Frodo copy at the front of a healer’s herbal he’d been translating for his cousin Missus Menegilda Brandybuck, Lady of Brandy Hall. Now as I realized what it was as Strider’d been singing, all my lingering fear fell away of me, and I hurried after, leading Bill as Asfaloth followed after his own master, left to ward us as Strider ran forward with Frodo in his arms.

       They came out with a stretcher, and gently Aragorn laid Frodo upon it, covering him with a soft, warm blanket which had been brought as well. And with those who met us was a woman, tall, dark haired, an Elf maiden of such loveliness as I thought would stop my heart with awe. And she and Strider spoke as they hurried forward, the woman on one side, Strider on the other, both with hands on Frodo as he lay still, his eyes half open but seeing naught about him. And we followed after. Someone took Bill’s bridle from my hands, and I ran to try to keep up with the bearers, who moved gently but swift as racers.

       I couldn’t take it all in--the Lord Elrond at the door as we arrived, his face still yet filled with concern, the Elvish pouring out of Strider as he came within hearing, and one word I remembered from my lessons long ago from Mr. Bilbo and Frodo--Adar. Strider was speaking to the Lord Elrond as if the Elven Lord were his father! And the Elvish Lord beckoned for Strider to come with him as they led the way into the Last Homely House. And suddenly there was another Elf following a small figure as was hurrying forward, its face white as its hair--it were Mr. Bilbo, coming forward to meet his lad at last!

       They couldn’t move me from Mr. Frodo’s side while they probed and prodded. Strider brought out that horrid, black knife hilt again, and just as Strider had done at Weathertop the Lord Elrond sang over it, and a mist seemed to rise over it and he looked into it as if he could see something there. Then he signed for Strider to wrap it up again, had them bring a wooden tray and lay it upon it, and told them to take it outside the valley and burn it. I didn’t member the mist showing over it when Strider’d sung over it, but apparently this was some kind of Elf magic as could tell them about the foul thing. And after they’d poked and prodded and Elrond opened the wound again to try to probe to find the splinter they seemed sure was still inside, suddenly Strider started to fold, his face almost as white as Frodo’s and Bilbo’s. And I heard Lord Elrond call out, "Estel!" in dismay, and Elves came forward to help Strider stand and to take him out. Estel means hope, I thought, membering again the lessons I had from Mr. Bilbo when I was a lad. What a funny thing to cry out, I thought, when you see someone start to fall, and then someone was scooping me up and sitting me in a chair, and bringing me some more of the miruvor cordial to sip. I didn’t even realize just how done in as I was until I found Bilbo afore me with a cup of broth in his hand, insisting I sip it but sip it slowly.

       They fixed a pallet over to the side for me when they realized they couldn’t make me leave, and Mr. Bilbo and Gandalf stayed when they’d left herbs steeping in a kettle of water over the fire, after they’d washed Frodo and cleansed the wound, and the Elves left the room. They sat on either side of the bed where Frodo was sleeping, and Frodo called out after a while as if he was hurting, hurting bad. Lord Elrond came back in the dark of the night and leaned over Frodo for a bit, and sang the song Strider’d sung on the road, but with more power. Then he were leaning over me, looking into my eyes, smiling down on me, and bade me sleep. And I slept.

       The dreams came and went for Frodo. I couldn’t make out what he was saying much of the time, but Gandalf seemed able to do so. And I’m sure at least one of those dreams was of the Eye searching for him; but Elrond came and sang a different song, facing south and east, a song like the running of water such as that we heard all round us outside, and Frodo calmed.

       'Twere a few nights afore Lord Elrond felt Frodo was strong enough for him to probe the wound one more time, and this time he found it, the splinter. He had Strider aside him, and Glorfindel, and Erestor and other Elvish lords of one sort or another, and together they sang over Frodo as Elrond and Strider cleansed him one last time, then wound a fresh bandage about his chest. When they was done, I come forward and looked into his face, and it was clearing at last, and the pain was gone, and a hint of pink was starting to show in his lips, which had gone more and more blue over the past week. And I knew he was going to be fine.

       A few days later, after the Council, while Mr. Frodo and Mr. Bilbo were talking in Mr. Bilbo’s rooms, I found Strider sitting on a balcony, looking down. I was all confused, and needed to talk. He was quiet, his pipe in his hand. He was dressed in his leathers again and his stained cloak, and I wondered if he’d just been out riding, but he said that no, he was going to go out soon with the sons of Lord Elrond to seek knowledge of what had happened to the Black Riders after the water swept their horses away.

       "I’m sorry, Strider," I said, "sorry I couldn’t trust you afore."

       He just smiled and leaned forward, touching my shoulder and then turning my face up to look into his eyes. His eyes were a dark grey--maybe a hint of blue and green to them, but mostly grey. "Sam," he said gently, "you only acted and spoke out of your deep love for Frodo, whom you plainly cherish. How can I fault that?" He sighed, and looked toward the part of Rivendell where Mr. Bilbo’s rooms was. "He is healing so swiftly, now that cursed thing is out of his shoulder. I am still amazed, Sam, that he wasn’t overcome. I couldn’t have borne it that long, I fear."

       "You love him, too, Strider," I said.

       "Yes, I do. As, I think, I do all of you." He were quiet a bit, then whispered, "As I was singing the hymn to Estë, Ulmo, Manwë, and Elbereth over him I felt I perceived a light shining from his heart, Sam. I’ve seen something similar in the greatest of the Elves, and a few times, when he has come close to uncloaking himself, in Mithrandir--that’s the Elvish name for Gandalf, Sam. But never before had I seen such in a mortal.

       "Frodo son of Drogo is a most unusual individual, Samwise son of Hamfast. I cannot begin to understand what the Powers have graced him with, but he draws love and honor to himself as a lodestone draws iron shards." Then he looked back into my eyes, deep in, if you take my meaning. "I would do anything within my power to aid him. I will do anything to protect him, if I am allowed."

       We finally turned away from each other and looked out over the waters and the falls that fill the vale. Then I asked, "Begging your pardon, Mr. Strider, but why did you call Lord Elrond ‘Father’?"

       He laughed. "My father died when I was only about two years old, Sam. He was the Dúnedan, the Lord of the descendants of Numenor remaining here in the ancient realm of Arnor. He was Arathorn, the heir of Isildur and Valandil, and would have been King of Arnor, if the realm had not fallen to ruin in the days of King Arvedui, our ancestor.

       "The Enemy has long tried to destroy the descendants of Elendil here in the north kingdom as he managed in Gondor, and my mother brought me here for protection. All my ancestors have been fostered here from the days of Valandil, taught to rule and lead, to fight and heal, to speak many tongues and to understand the motivations of many peoples so as to protect what is left in this land that is still green and growing, still capable of flowering and bearing fruit.

       "I came here early, for the search for me by the Enemy was intense, and many were dying to hide and protect my mother and myself. So she gave out that I’d died of fever, and they brought me here in secret, and the Lord Elrond raised me as his own son and gave me the child’s name of Estel."

       "Then it were your name he were calling out when you started to fall the other day, just after we arrived."

       "Yes, Sam. When he saw I was falling down from exhaustion he called me by my child’s name. He almost always calls me by my rightful name now, but when he fears for me he still names me as he did when I was a boy and thought of him simply as my Adar."

       "And you’re really named Aragorn?"

       He nodded. "Yes, Aragorn son of Arathorn, heir of Elendil, Isildur, and Valandil. I was twenty years when Adar told me my true name and heritage. And I have wandered far throughout the ancient bounds of Arnor and beyond, learning the ways of those who will be my people, my allies, and my enemies, if we win through the coming war. Many names and titles I’ve borne, and there will be a few more ere all is finished."

       "Do you mind if I still call you Strider? I mean, it’s how I’ve thought of you for so long now, and my mind doesn’t wind its way around changes in how it thinks of folks easy."

       He laughed. "I’d be honored if you would choose to do so, Sam."

       "I hoped you wouldn’t mind, sir. I mean, when you’re king and all, I suspect I’ll still think of you as Strider even then." I had a thought and started to laugh. "Can you imagine the face of old Butterbur when he realizes the wicked Ranger Strider as he’d warned us about is now his king? Bet he’ll about choke of shock!" And we both laughed. He has a wonderful laugh, Strider has, deep and filling. Just wish he had more chance to let it out.

       Maybe he does, now.

       The talk with Gandalf was longer. He, too, told me of the light he saw shining from Frodo, specially his left arm, as where he’d been stabbed. And he warned me that the wound would never really heal, that it couldn’t heal here in Middle Earth.

       And he said a funny thing, that he’d had a vision of Frodo as a glass filled with light as with water, for eyes to see as could.

       But it seemed to me that he was well enough--more solemn, but still Frodo, still my beloved Master. 

Lady of Light

       What can I say of our time in Lothlorien that isn’t already in the Red Book? Mr. Frodo asked all of us about that time, about our thoughts and what we membered and all, and even Strider answered some of his questions afore we left Minas Tirith.

       Here was Elves of a different sort from those we’d seen in Rivendell, Elves who was more removed from the outer world. It were the most Elvish place I’ve seen, and the thought it is fading now is a grief to me. Some day, maybe, the Mallorn tree now growing in the Party Field will be the only memorial to what Lothlorien once was.

       Frodo was quieter than he was afore, after he was stabbed by the Black Rider; after Gandalf fell he were in shock for some time. He barely spoke, didn’t want Strider to check his bruises or see the mithril shirt, was reluctant to be touched. It were as if he were afraid he was infected with bad luck and it were catching. No, not bad luck--as if the evil of the Ring could get loose and destroy the rest of us if we came too close.

       I still don’t know what image he saw when the Lady Galadriel first looked at him that first night in her city. He never told anyone nor wrote it down anywhere as I can find. But something in that look eased a bit of his hurt, as did the rest in Lothlorien. He finally worked on his own song of grief for Gandalf, and it were a beautiful one. One of the Elves who brought us our food brought me some ink and parchment and all when I asked it of him, and I wrote the poem down and put it in my pack. I missed it when I emptied out the rest of our things in Mordor, and I found it when we was in Minas Tirith, and I gave it to Mr. Frodo. And he wrote it into the Red Book, and it’ll never be forgotten. And I gave the rest of the parchment and the ink and the quill to him, but he didn’t take it with him when we left Lothlorien, said he’d have no chance to write in the wilderness, nor any way of caring for the ink.

       Afore we left, during our last meal together, Galadriel took me aside, quiet like.

       "We honor your master for what he does for the sake of all free peoples, Samwise Gamgee," she said, "but you, too, are worthy of great praise. I can give you nothing great enough to reward you for what you have done and will do, but I would have you know that it does deserve the greatest of honor.

       "May the Valar and all Powers for Good protect you and your Master on your long journey. But I will warn you now, it has already cost him much and will cost him more ere he comes to the end. The wounds he bears already will not heal within Middle Earth, and to what his burden will bring him cannot yet be told."

       And then she touched my forehead, and looked sadly into my eyes afore we returned to the rest. Boromir noted our walking away, and looked at me with suspicion as I came back; and Legolas noted it, too, and gave me a smile as I sat back down. I think perhaps Strider saw, too; but he said nothing. Gimli and Mr. Frodo and the others didn’t seem to notice at all.

On Memories

       From what I could tell, Mr. Frodo had almost no memories of his own left of our journey from the Crossroads on, and much of the time we was in Cormallen and in Minas Tirith was also a blur for him. When he went to write that part of the story in the Red Book he’d ask me what I membered, and that’s mostly what he wrote down. His memories from afore were fine, once the Ring was gone; but that time when the Ring was at its worst and just after we awoke....

       When he asked me questions of the time he didn’t member hisself, he’d take notes of it as if it were of some other body altogether I was telling, not of his own person. It were as if he were standing aside of hisself, as if some other Frodo Baggins was writing this story of how he’d been dying of thirst and starving and torment rather than the one sitting with the quill and pages in his hand. His eyes was curious, but like it had nothing to do with him. It were right odd. And it didn’t make no difference whether the memory was of agony or beauty--it just didn’t touch him--at least not then. Not when I told him of his falling as if he’d been struck by a hammer when the Eye looked his way on the Plain of Gorgoroth, and not when I told him of the light shining of him when we rested at the top of the stair of Cirith Ungol and he were sleeping.

       He and I both membered how heavy the Ring was once we approached Mordor. I didn’t realize, though, till I saw him naked in that orc tower how its weight had cut into his neck, even. How something that small could bow you down is a terror. But it were full of the hatred of the Enemy, and as we got closer to Mount Doom it grabbed onto that hatred, and magnified all the pain and horror, and filled itself with it all, and turned it all into a weight that could be felt. By the end, Frodo felt as if he was carrying the full weight of Barad-dur itself about his neck.

       I’d often grabbed his hands as they strayed toward the Ring, when the nightmares filled him, when we’d hear the crying of the Black Riders afar off, when the Eye was looking our way. The Ring tried so hard to command him, and when It succeeded it were the awfullest ever. I’ll never forget the look on his face as he claimed It, that terror, the plea in his eyes to me to hold his hand again to stop It from taking him, then the sneer when It got its will at last. That weren’t my Master then, that were the Ring Itself plain and simple. I realized he’d intended to leap into the Fire to take the Ring with him, but once he had It on the Ring perceived his plan and made him turn around.

       And the sheer joke of It being took off by that Gollum, and the Master’s curse on that craven creature coming true--that if he as touched him again, his Precious would command him to leap into the Fire hisself, and he did----

       The Ring had to follow its Master’s commands; and for that one moment as Frodo Baggins pronounced doom on the creature who once was Sméagol of the River Folk, at that moment, though he didn’t have It on his finger, he was Its Master. And It did the Master’s will, and so doomed Itself. Ironic, the word is--Its own will to destroy others brought about Its own destruction.

       "Oft evil will does evil mar." One of the others membered someone saying that, and that was the way of the Ring.

       When we was in Edoras for the funeral of Théoden and the making of Éomer as King of Rohan and the handfasting of Éowyn and Faramir, I got Strider aside to ask him about the memories. I member asking, "Why can’t he member that time, there in the Black Lands?"

       He looked off and sighed. "It’s often this way, Sam," he said. "Some pain is so deep that to fully remember it would destroy the person who bore it; so the Valar give the person forgetfulness as a gift, that the joy of life not be lost through the memory of agony. Few women would agree to bear a second child if they held full memory of what the birth of the first cost them in pain. And many warriors who have lost arms or eyes or worse have no memory of the last fight, or remember it as if it happened to another and not themselves."

       Well, I could see how that could be true, how it must be true of Frodo.

       "But what if he starts to member hisself?" I asked.

       He shook his head. "I don’t know, Sam. Maybe it would be as if it happened to someone else, or maybe it would bring it all back completely. No one can say how it will be with any one soul.

       "I have to warn you, though, that although the memories are hidden from him now, they still remain there, and they can come out in odd ways. No one can say for certain how they might manifest themselves ahead of time. He was badly wounded, Sam, in body and spirit, so badly the scars cannot be ignored. And they will show, and probably at the worst times of all. They are scars, deep scars, Sam. It can never be as if his finger weren’t bitten off, or as if the weight of the Burden hadn’t cut so deeply into his neck, or as if the Morgul knife hadn’t struck deep into his shoulder, or the Spider’s poison hadn’t coursed through his veins. Nor can the scarring of his soul be as if it hadn’t happened. He is likely to have part of it come back at times, and when that happens who can say what it will cost him? And perhaps he is now only in the numbness of first healing--when the numbness wears off, as the feeling in his arm began to return in Rivendell, he is likely to feel pain, and it will grow worse before it grows better." He sighed again, tipped my head up to look into his eyes, and I saw the grief there for Frodo. "He can never fully be as he once was, Sam. Evil did its best to possess him, to turn him away from himself."

       Then he looked off to the West, and said, full soft, "There is a light within him, Sam. I’ve seen it, and you, and Gandalf, and Elrond, and Galadriel, and my beloved Arwen. At first it was hidden by his mortality, by his very being as a Hobbit of the Shire. But so much of himself was burned away by his burden." He looked back at me. "I don’t know why Eru or the Powers give such light so some, but it is there, and it has grown stronger as there is less to veil it.

       "But I now see a light within you, too, Sam. It is a strong light, similar to that in your Master, but at the same time, warmer, more comforting. Frodo’s light has always drawn to him those who have eyes to see it, and the same is true of you as well."

       "I’ve seen the light in Gandalf, Strider," I said. "I think it was there afore, but now he’s come back it’s only just below the surface, like. Is that what you see in Frodo?" And he nodded. And he held out his hand and put it around my shoulders, then pulled me close to his side. And he was looking to the West again, and I looked up and saw he were weeping, weeping without making a sound. And I realized I was weeping, too. And I pulled from my pocket a couple of handkerchiefs and gave him one.

Shadows of the Past

       The first time Mr. Frodo had a return of the bad times was as we left Rivendell. As we was come to the Fords of the Bruinen he became distant, lost, membering the day a year afore when he was stabbed near Weathertop. He was membering the crossing of this ford, the threats focused at him, the pain of his wound. It was a reawakening of the memories. He was shaking, lost, white, his left shoulder and arm and hand cold when I drew near him and tried to comfort him. And, when later as Gandalf found a place where he said we’d rest for a while, Frodo almost fell from his pony as I hurried to help him, and as my hand brushed his chest, his heart were beating fast; and when Gandalf felt for his pulse his face went grim.

       Strider had said it could happen, that something could awaken the memories, and we couldn’t see ahead of time how it would affect him. But now we was seeing.

       He were more hisself the next day, but quiet and a bit distant, and his face was pale, though not sickly. Again we stopped a bit early, and after I saw him settled, I began to look about a bit. And near the foundations of an old house I found kingsfoil growing as if it had once been in a garden, so I studied it a bit, and then cut some leaves and dug some of it up and wrapped it in a handkerchief, and put it in the special pack as Strider’d had made for me in which to carry home flowers and seeds and plants and cuttings as I’d decided to try my hand at once I got them home to Bag End.

       And when Gandalf got out the tea as Lord Elrond had given us for our provisions, I took the cup I was preparing for Mr. Frodo, and bruised a kingsfoil leaf and added it to the tea as was steeping there, and Gandalf watched me, curious, then nodded as I took it to my Master, murmuring the poem to Ulmo and Manwë and Elbereth and Estë as I walked, best as I could member. Mr. Frodo was sitting, leaning against a tree, listening to Merry and Pippin’s jokes with a smile on his face, but his lips was still too pale. I held the cup below his face to let him breathe the scent a bit, and he looked down, surprised.

       "A full leaf in my tea, Sam?" he said, looking up at me.

       "I found an herb as I wanted to try in the tea, sir, but there wasn’t time to dry it proper and all, so I just set it to brew in the cup. Learned about it from the Lord Strider. Now, let me as pull it out, and you drink up."

       He gave me a look of amusement, and then he took the cup after I’d fished out the kingsfoil leaf and drank, and then sighed and looked a bit surprised, but the color were coming back to his lips, and the lines on his forehead relaxed, and he rubbed his shoulder like, and said, "I think it’s better this evening, at least. The ride has allowed it to ease, apparently."

       Well, if he wanted to pretend it were nothing, that was fine by me. Just as long as he were feeling better. And I went out afore the dark fell and found some willowbark, and began to brew some willowbark tea with some of the kingsfoil in it while I murmured that poem. Gandalf came near, and listened. When I was done with the poem, he leaned down and asked, very quiet, "Where in Middle Earth did you learn that Invocation, Sam?"

       "Is that what it is? Mr. Bilbo had Mr. Frodo copy it at the front of a herbal book he was sending to his cousin as was a healer, Gandalf, and I saw it and learnt it off, as I liked it. Then, last year after that Rider stabbed Mr. Frodo, Strider would sing it, but in Elvish, whenever he washed the wound, and often as he watched over Mr. Frodo of a night as he were sleeping. I didn’t recognize it then, although I picked up on a word or two that minded me of something--not till we got to Rivendell. And when I was sitting by my Master in Rivendell, and Lord Elrond came and sang it over him, too. And then I could seem to understand it. I recognized it, membered enough Elvish to recognize it at the last. It’s a prayer, isn’t it?"

       "Yes," he said, "it’s a prayer to the Lord of Waters, the Lady of Healing, the Lord of Might and the Lady of the Stars to comfort, guide, and protect the one who suffers. It is a very old Invocation, and I believe it will aid him." He looked over his shoulder where Frodo and Merry were talking quietly, Frodo lying wrapped in his bedroll, Merry sitting wrapped in his cloak and smoking his pipe, Pippin asleep with his head in Merry’s lap. Mr. Frodo was fingering the white jewel he wore what was given him by the King and his Lady afore we left. He looked tired, but not in pain now. "It won’t ever really heal, Sam, not here in Middle Earth. And I see that just the date is enough to bring it back to mind. But he appears able to bear it, and it is better today."

       He gave me a searching look. "And I see, too, that you picked up on athelas and its uses. It is most potent when one of the blood of the Eldar blesses it, or one of the line of Elros as Aragorn is. But it appears to be responding to your hand. I think the Powers are guiding you, dear Sam. But with the willowbark you’ll need some honey added."

       Then he got into the extra supplies and found me the honey and a couple new waterskins as hadn’t been used afore, and aided me in filling them. And three or four times a day as we traveled I’d fill a cup from one and give it to Frodo to drink of, for his shoulder still was aching him a bit, and he’d rub of it, then he’d finger the gem and seem eased. And always after he’d had the tea his color would be better still and for a while he’d ride easier and smile.

       He’d almost forgotten the pain when we came into sight of Weathertop, and suddenly he stopped, looking at it, and we could see the color drain from his face again. He went all quiet, lowered his face, and rode on, and Gandalf hurried us right past it. I couldn’t get Mr. Frodo to tell how he felt, he’d only shake his head. When the hill was all out of sight Merry found us a camping spot and took over unloading the ponies, and Pippin got the fire going as I helped Frodo down and to sit on a flat stone like a bench, wrapping his Elven cloak about him. He was fingering the gem again, and I stood behind him and rubbed the shoulder, and it were tied into knots. His heart was beating fast, but was beginning to slow finally. Then Gandalf came over, and I had him continue the rubbing while I went south of the road and found more willowbark, then brewed up more of the tea, whispering the Invocation over it as it steeped. He accepted it gratefully, and as he started to ease he tried to make light of it, of not being able to bear the sight of the place; but I could see that this disheartened him, that he’d truly not expected for just the sight of where he’d been wounded to reawaken the pain again.

       Once he’d slipped into sleep I took one of my new pans--when they’d learnt how I’d dumped my old ones into that crevice in Mordor, Legolas and Gimli’d talked to one of the Captains of Gondor, and had found me a new set of camping pans and gear such as the Rangers carried, and I’d found them with my things as we was preparing to set out; maybe it was the Lord Faramir himself as had gotten them for me--wouldn’t be surprised to learn that was true, in fact--and I filled it with fresh water and set it to boil, then took one of the athelas leaves, and bruised it and steeped it as I’d seen Strider do, speaking the Invocation over it. Then I brought it near where Mr. Frodo was sleeping and lay it near his face where he could breath the steam, and I saw his face ease, and a small smile graced his mouth. And the next day he woke feeling much better, smiling and laughing, and joining in the singing as we continued on our way.

A Sad Homecoming

       None of us was ready for what we found in the Shire as we got home--none of us. Inns closed, gates raised, ugly Shiriffs houses, bully boys and scoundrels ordering around our folk, trees cut down, the old water mills replaced by monsters that poured out foulness and stink into the air and waters, our people frightened and confused and rising to anger. When Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin set out to raise the Shire, it were like a fresh breeze were shaking a tree where the leaves had failed to fall, and now we could see the green new buds opening in hope where all had appeared to be dying out. Mr. Merry didn’t understand why his cousin wouldn’t join in the fighting, though, not till afterward as he realized how hatred had begun to fill the hearts of some of our folk and they was speaking of attacking Bree to chase away the Men there so as none would remain nearby to disturb us again. Only when he realized how Frodo was stopping our folk from learning hatred and vengeance from such as Lotho had brought into our land did he begin to understand. And he saw as Frodo and I was mostly working on treating them as was hurt, Men and Hobbits, and he saw that in the eyes of a few of the Men there was beginning to grow respect as they realized only surprise and lack of a habit of caution had allowed the Shire to be taken, but that we’d not hurt them as wasn’t trying to hurt us. And then his confusion let up at last.

       When all was over, the Cottons had agreed to allow us to remain with them until things was settled and we knew what needed to be done to fix as much of the damage done by Lotho and his toughs and Sharkey and all. Mr. Frodo was calm, but was a bit pale and fingering the gem, so I drew him a bath and set a leaf of kingsfoil and some lavender and rose oil in it, then coaxed him into it. When he came out he looked much better, and fell into the bed which the Cottons had fixed up for him and fell asleep. But I settled a pallet in the room, and that night the old nightmares came back, and I woke him up just enough to give him chamomile tea steeped with kingsfoil and then coaxed him back into sleep again.

       All of us had nightmares from time to time--and we’d been warned by the King as it would be likely so. I don’t know as how many times in my dreams I found myself fighting old Shelob or running up endless tower steps in search of my Master, or watching as Gollum bit off Frodo’s finger and there was nothing, nothing I could do to stop it, or hearing Frodo’s cries in a room I couldn’t find as he was being beaten by an orc, and I couldn’t find the door in to save him.

       Mr. Merry membered facing the Witchking of Angmar and stabbing him, saw again and again the death of Théoden King and the collapse of Éowyn, dreamed of wandering through the Barrow Mounds dressed in pale linen, his sword hand cold and dead much as Frodo’s left hand’d been after the same Black Rider’d stabbed him, and he thought as his family’d come to bury him alive in one of the mounds. Both him and Mr. Pippin had dreams in which they was being dragged through Rohan toward Fangorn by the Uruk-hai, and being swallowed by Old Man Willow, although in that dream they both said they was always saved by Treebeard, only Treebeard would be wearing yellow boots and a feathered cap. Funny as they should have the same nightmare and the same saving, that.

       Pippin’s was of losing Merry or Faramir and searching for them, or seeing that beacon over Minas Morgul off across the River, followed always, he told me, by seeing great forces of evil things roiling around the foot of a tower--sometimes the citadel of Minas Tirith, sometimes Orthanc, sometimes a white tower he’d never seen in life but he said he was sure was Amon Sul, with the Nazgul flying over with their terrifying cries. Or he’d be looking into the Palantir of Orthanc, and a Nazgul would be flying right toward him, and then he’d see the Great Eye wreathed in flame seeking him out.... And he couldn’t bear a bonfire for two years--even the first campfires bothered him when we left to Edoras.

       I already knew what some of Mr. Frodo’s was of, and now he would call out to me to run, to beware the great spider, or to run so as not to be beaten by the orc captain, or to warn me of the pale king.... And he’d reach for the Ring, and hold onto the gem as he’d got in Minas Tirith and calm.

       Opening the Lady’s gift was one thing as aided me in calming, I found, once Sharkey was dealt with and those awful sheds in the garden of Bag End torn down and work had begun on restoring Bagshot Row. Finding there was something I could do to help restoring the trees of the Shire made me feel better, much better.

       The garden of Bag End was the worst nightmare for me, though, for it were almost completely trampled to nothing again. Imagine my amazement, then, when I realized those dried sticks which had stood up between two of them sheds was the remains of the lilacs, and they was still wick! And when spring came, under them began to grow those Elven lily flowers, tentative like at first, then with joy as they realized they was greeted by me as loved them so.

       Again and again I found the old flowers of the garden had merely hidden themselves down to their roots, but was now peeping up to see as if it was safe. And I began tending them, with my brother Hal and my sister Marigold to help me, with the Gaffer sitting on the new garden bench as was given to Mr. Frodo as a gift from Widow Rumble, watching us work and giving directions.

       But I had to do a whole new herb garden, and near the back door I planted the kingsfoil, and later planted some with elanor and niphredil and violets and elven lilies under Mr. Frodo’s window. And I put a grain of the silver dust in each bed as I prepared it, and dug a grain into the soil under the lilac roots....

       I don’t think Mr. Frodo realized I was preparing for if he’d get sick in the springtime, but any time as I’d get ready to leave to work on the planting, I’d always leave willowbark tea steeped with kingsfoil prepared for him, and orders to crush the leaves into boiling water over the fire in his room if he seemed distant or ill, and to put some into the boiler when preparing a bath for him if he was stiff. They all thought as I’d gone daft, but they did as they was bade, and he fared right enough, although it wasn’t till after he left I learned he’d had a right bad turn in April, but that he’d seemed almost all right after the first day, and seemed recovered when I got back. But Rosie’d made sure he got his special tea and put the leaves in his bath, and she said as he’d always seem to feel better after, and I was so grateful to her and her dad and mum for the care they showed to him.

       I got him back into Bag End in the spring, and he seemed very relieved to be back at home, particularly when Merry and Pippin brought back that furniture as they’d moved to Crickhollow, and we brought in many of the Baggins family pieces from his parents to fill out the rest and replace much as had been destroyed by Lotho’s Men. I’d not allowed him to sell the Sackville-Bagginses Bilbo’s bed nor his, and now they was right where they belonged once more, and with a new dresser in Bilbo’s old room and all. And the study desk had been brought back from Crickhollow, and the dresser and tables and chairs for the dining room, and the little sofa in the study and the chairs from the parlor.... And I had repaired the old settle with the hooks for the entryway, and replaced the chandeliers. And when I put the mantel clock back in place over the fire in the parlor, I saw Mr. Frodo smile big and relieved.

       Frodo’d never changed rooms after Mr. Bilbo left. When Gandalf visited, he’d been given that room to sleep in; but now it were empty again. Afore he sent the furniture off to Crickhollow, Frodo’d gone through Mr. Bilbo’s dressing rooms and had finally found homes for his countless shirts and vests and jackets and dress cloaks and boots and pantaloons and all. Funny as how when he lived in the Shire such things had been important to Mr. Bilbo, but when he left he took only a few of his oldest and most comfortable clothes. Now the room seemed almost empty and stark, what with new curtains that was nowhere as rich as those as had hung there since old Mr. Bungo’d dug the smial for his bride, and much of what had been there gone from while Mr. Lotho’d slept there. Mr. Frodo’s room was almost fully restored, for all his furniture was back, although he had me put that desk of Missus Belladonna’s into Mr. Bilbo’s room instead. His old box of stationery was set with the box of ink bottles, the box of drying sand with its silver sifter and the blotting paper and the box of quills and pen knives on top of the desk in the study, and when he received a visit from the banker of discretion, he opened an envelope he’d been given and took out the watch and watch chain and put them back in his vest pockets, and I could see the little silver key hanging as a fob as it had ever done.

       There was a sense of relief in my Master as each bit of his life was restored to Bag End, and as he saw a new piece placed to honor that which had been lost during that lost year.

       And, when we married, Rosie and I came in to Bag End to find ourselves in the Master’s room, while Mr. Frodo kept to his usual one, seeming relieved to find as the room next door was no longer empty.

       And, often of the nights when I’d hear him restless or calling out soft, I’d go in and still the nightmare and put leaves of kingsfoil in the small kettle I’d set permanent like on the hob I’d had fixed into the restored fireplace. And sometimes he’d hear me, and come in and aid Rosie in soothing my night terrors. And the athelas grew in the garden and under his windows, and the wholesome scent of its leaves and flowers blew in through the open windows. And I wrote Lord Elrond and sent it of the Elves of Rivendell who once more walked abroad in the Woody End and begged him to send me seeds of athelas and niphredil and elanor, which he did. And I planted them in a circle around the new oak tree I planted atop the Hill. Except for the tree having been cut, there’d been little damage there, for which I praised Yavanna. For I was beginning to study on the tales of Aman and the Undying Lands, and of the Valar. And during that summer he would sometimes slip out to the top of the Hill and lie out there of a night as afore, with his rug and a couple of blankets I made sure were placed to hand on a shelf in the wardrobe, and he’d watch the stars of Elbereth and rest and find healing for his heart.

Easing His Heart

       Mr. Frodo would walk out every day, but not like he’d done afore. He was treated with respect by those as lived in Hobbiton and Bywater as always, but now they’d look at his maimed hand and search his face for the reason, and he couldn’t speak of it. And they’d look into his eyes and see the changes there and ask if he felt well, and he’d declare he was well enough and turn the talk to themselves. And the children would come and sit at his feet in the marketplace, and he’d tell them tales, but now they were the softer tales--no more would he tell of spiders and dragons and shining swords, but instead of small folks whose courage was stronger than spears and whose steadfastness more important to life than the courage of great warriors. And he described Lothlorien and Rivendell, the beauty of Ithilien and the sunset on the shining curtains of Henneth Annun, and the sapling of the White Tree growing by the fountain in the courtyard before the citadel of Minas Anor, and of the beauty of the King’s Lady, and the courage and grace of the King Elessar, who would one day ride with his folk north to see how his northern lands fared, and how they’d come to the Brandywine Bridge to see the worthies of the Shire and to be seen by all who cared to go to see him. And he told of the glory of the horns of Rohan blown in the morning air as told to him by Pippin, and the joy of the silver trumpets blown when the Lord Aragorn was crowned King of Gondor and Arnor before the broken gates of Minas Tirith. And he spoke of the sea longing of the Elves, and how now it would grow so great that it would draw them away across the Sundering Sea to their own place in the Undying Lands.

       He presided at the banquets and birthday parties, and heard the vows of those as was married that year, and signed all the documents of marriage, birth, sales and acquisitions, and saw to the distribution of the extra foodstuffs and all found hidden here and there throughout the Shire, especially in Michel Delving, the caves near Stockton, and the sheds and barns on the countless lands Mr. Lotho’d acquired. He paid out reparations for losses incurred by the good folk of the Shire, and heard the cases brought against those who’d collaborated with Lotho’s Men and Sharkey and dealt with them with great fairness, judgment, and mercy. I know he said in the Red Book as he’d done little, but as usual Mr. Frodo was being far too modest.

       And the folk of the Shire didn’t know how to take him--they didn’t at all. He was not jolly as was old Will Whitfoot--he’d become quiet and solemn. They couldn’t call him cracked as they’d done of old Mr. Bilbo, for it were plain as day that wasn’t true; but he’d learned to be still, and was often distant. And when he counseled, it was with a depth of compassion they wasn’t prepared for. He wasn’t shining and splendid as were his cousins, who rode out still with their swords and bright mail, and who’d tolerate no incursions into the Shire by brigands nor wolves (which had begun to creep in during the last winter), and who sang loudly and joyfully and who threw the most splendid parties. Mr. Frodo still smiled, but no longer did his eyes sparkle with simple joy of life. He would laugh, but it was different, fuller, deeper, and less frivolous. He still loved the folk of the Shire fiercely, but he no longer appeared protective the same way. Now, when he caught someone being cruel, instead of giving them his old look that stripped them bare, he’d look at them with great sorrow that hurt them far worse still. And then he’d finger that jewel of his, and folks learned to fear that in a way I’d never have believed if I didn’t see it, day after day.

       But when he sang the old Elven ballads at the Free Fair at Michel Delving on Midsummer’s Day, all crowded round to hear, and many had tears in their eyes after. And when Pippin and Merry followed those with the burial song sung when Théoden King of Rohan was laid to rest, their eyes opened with surprise. And when together all three sang the hymn to Elbereth as had been sung at the wedding of the King Elessar to the Lady Arwen Undomiel, all sighed with awe and delight. And then I sang the Lay of Gil-Galad, and they shivered.

       And then all were surprised, for there were two who came to the Free Fair that year as no one had expected, for Elladan and Elrohir of Rivendell had come in quietly and unobserved as only those of Elf-kind could do, and they bowed to Frodo, and told him before the folk of the Shire as how they’d heard tell he had served his people as assistant Mayor for the last half year but that he had given back the honor to the rightful Mayor, and they’d come to bring him messages from the King of Gondor and Arnor and from the Lord Elrond of Rivendell and the King Éomer of Rohan and the Lord Celeborn and Lady Galadriel of Lothlorien, and they gave into his hands scrolls and envelopes. And they bowed to him and declared before all our folk that this was the King’s Friend and an Elf Friend of great Renown, and they begged leave to sing also before the folk of the Shire.

       And they sang the Lay of Frodo of the Nine Fingers, but they sang it in Elvish; and although our people listened with awe and joy for the beauty of it as sung by clear Elvish voices, few picked up the gist of it or understood it were about our own Mr. Frodo. And although he and Merry and Pippin and I sat listening with tears running down our faces, few dared afterwards to ask what it was all about. And they looked at Mr. Frodo with all his messages lying about him as if they wondered what kind of being he’d become.

       Mr. Frodo’d begun to write our story for his Uncle Bilbo while he stayed with the Cottons during the months of restoration at Bag End, but it weren’t a lot he finished. Once he was back in Bag End he was often held busy by the duties of assistant Mayor, and counseling with the Thain and the Master of what the new order outside the Shire would mean to those of us as dwelt within. The first time he went to Buckland to visit Brandy Hall he walked as he’d always done, but he took longer to get there than any had planned, and Master Saradoc hisself rode out to find him, and learned he’d become fatigued near the Marish and had stopped at the Maggot’s farm to rest. After that he always rode Strider, who was cared for at the stables of the restored Ivy Bush in Hobbiton; or he’d rent a cart from the Green Dragon in Bywater.

       In the autumn he went to visit with his cousin Mr. Fredegar Bolger, as had been rescued from the Lockups in the tunnels at Michel Delving, and I believe he was sick at the anniversary of the stabbing again, but he wouldn’t speak of it nor tell me.

       Mr. Fredegar had living with him Budgie Smallfoot, who was a healer who’s father, also a healer, had worked with the Boffinses. Budgie and his wife did for Mr. Fredegar as Rosie and me did for Mr. Frodo. Mr. Fredegar’d led one of those groups of rebels who as tried to defy the Big Men during the Troubles, and he was deeply respected by those as had gotten food or extra clothes from him, taken from the stores taken in the Sharing and Gathering the Men had practiced. Mr. Fredegar was much thinner these days, and also didn’t do as much as he’d done afore. Word was his heart had been damaged by the starvation he’d undergone in the Lockups, and that was as why he’d took up with a healer to do for him, and I know now this was true. As long as Mr. Frodo’d be there with a healer, I didn’t worry too much about him, and he’d seemed to be fine after last spring, so maybe he’d be little hurt this fall, too, so I didn’t worry too much about him. I sent over the tea of kingsfoil and willowbark I kept made up for him all the time now, and a few leaves I suggested he use in his bath while he was there, and he gave me a smile and agreed.

       He truly began to write when he came back from that trip, and said he’d promised Bilbo, and if he didn’t get it done now, Bilbo’d as like be gone when he was through as anything. He’d write and then lock it into the drawer of his desk the way he used to write and lock it into the drawer of his box of stationery. And he’d ask me what I membered, particularly of those times in Mordor that were almost lost to him, and he asked Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin of what they’d been through, and he’d write it all down. He let me read much of it, and together we read some of it to Rosie; but much of it he would just write down and lock away, although he were sending it all over to Mr. Fredegar to critique, like.

       Once he had it to his and Mr. Fredegar’s liking, he’d copy it out in the Red Book, and slowly it began to fill up. The pages of notes and draft pages and the like he’d burn, or so I thought--I found some after, and I’ve stored them away.

       I had to make him take some exercise, to get up and go out. Now he wasn’t assistant Mayor no more he’d taken to staying more at home, although when we learnt as Rosie was expecting in the spring he’d begun to do the lighter marketing again. He was so excited to think of children at last perhaps filling the rooms of Bag End, and began to talk of the days when they’d come out to their Uncle Frodo and he’d take them on his knee, and he’d give them of the humbugs and horehound drops as he’d keep in his pockets again just for them. He’d go out and sit in the garden, even on cold days, smiling at the peaceful place it had become once again. He’d often walk down to the turn in the lane where there used to be a bit of wall where the Gaffer and Mr. Bilbo’d meet to share a pipe and a talk, and he’d sit there on the bench I’d set in its place, and the children of the Row would come out to see him and beg him for stories and poems. He didn’t carry horehound drops and humbugs now, but would tell them tales as they asked, mostly tales about Elves, but many about Hobbits as well. And he’d tell about the Shire afore the troubles, the time the roof fell in on Old Will Whitfoot and he’d earned the name Old Flour Dumpling from all the plaster dust, about dances and festivals and fairs and parties, about raising barns and bonfires and how their aunties and uncles had met, and the weddings of their folks.

       And sometimes he’d tell of the fair places as was going to fade from the world, and then his eyes would be sad. One little lass whose family now lived at Number Five, little Cyclamen Proudfoot, whose daddy Sancho had been one of the treasure hunters we’d thrown out of Bag End the day after the Party, would crawl into his lap as he told his stories, and hold his hand and rub her fingers over the place where the finger wasn’t no longer. And when he was looking sad, she’d reach up to touch his cheek and tell him, "It’s okay, Mr. Frodo. We are still here, and will stay with you." And he’d smile that smile that made you feel the Sun raised her head to shine just for him and the Moon lit up the night just for the same reason, and he’d hug her close and say nothing more, then put her down after a while, wish them a good day, and return up the Hill.

       Mr. Fredegar and Budgie Smallfoot come to visit in April while Rosie and I went to see her folks for a week. Mr. Frodo insisted, and I went, reluctant. I did make up a fair amount of the tea and left him several leaves of Kingsfoil I insisted he put into boiling water if he felt the least bit off, and afore I left I took Budgie aside and tried to explain as I’d learned about this treatment while we was in Gondor, and it had helped Mr. Frodo during some of his bad times, and I hoped he’d make sure he used it awhile we was gone, and he said as he would. I don’t know as he did, although a fair amount of the tea was gone when we come back. But it didn’t look like he’d used the leaves as I’d left. But I was right busy now, as Rosie was coming to her time, and I was almost frantic with concern. Mr. Frodo was staying out of the way, mostly, as the midwife was in and out and talking of false labor and all. I could see he was fingering his jewel, so I made up more of the tea and got it to him, and would sneak into his room of a night to put some of the leaves to steep in the kettle, for his dreams was troubling him of a night.

       But he wouldn’t tell me of them, for he said I had my hands full worrying about Rosie and the bairn as was coming; and he wouldn’t admit as he felt bad. He helped with the cooking some, but when he burned his hand one day as he stumbled at the stove, I hired my sister and the Widow Rumble to come in and help. But they wasn’t watching him as I would have done, and I don’t think he drank all the tea as I carried in to him, for I fear they’d find a cold cup and throw it out and just brew more plain tea.

       It were a relief when the babe finally came, and I was just over the Moon over her. And it were Mr. Frodo as named her, and both Rosie and me agreed that Elanor was as beautiful a name as could be for as beautiful a Hobbit lass as had ever been born. Mr. Frodo was lying on the sofa in the study when she came at last, a blanket pulled over him, as he said he were feeling a mite cold that day. And when I came to tell him, he smiled up at me so very glad to share the joy! And I didn’t even notice his lips were bluish. Only later, when the bairn were all cleaned up and wrapped in a soft blanket as had been sent from Gondor for our first child and I brought her for him to see for the first time, did I realize just how pale he was, and I went out and fixed up some of the tea fresh and brought it in and insisted he drink it down right then, and finally some color began to show up in his face. And that night I drew him a bath with kingsfoil and lavender and rose oil in it, and he slept well for the first time, I think, in days.

       He went off for a walk every day, but he never went far now. Usually he’d end up just inside the woods and stay there for a while, or he’d walk down to the bench at the end of the lane and sit for a while and then return after he’d met with the children. He went up to the top of the Hill rarely now.

       One portion of the garden he’d asked me not to trim the hedge on, and he took to sitting there of a morning. There was a comfortable chair I’d bought for him for my last birthday, and most days I carry out a table for him, and he’d read, do translations, or work on his drafts there. After luncheon he’d take a nap, or at least go into his room and have a lie down. I made sure he had his tea every day, and I made sure he’d drink it. He ate only small meals, and both Rosie and I worried about him, as he were once again too thin.

       One thing he insisted on, that when he laid down he took Elanor-Lass with him. She’d sleep her nap so well with him, and I’d walk by the room and hear him crooning an Elvish song to her, and see her lying with her head pillowed on his arm, and he’d look right peaceful and fully happy.

       Late afternoons he’d start to write serious like in his study, although he’d gladly stop to take Elanor and dandle her or walk with her so her mum could get the meals fixed. Then Rosie’d take her back, and he’d go back to writing. I insisted he join us for the meals when he didn’t have company, which was rare any more. Oh, the Travelers, as Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin was called now, came over frequently, but they didn’t stay as often. The two of them had taken to living in Crickhollow together, but Mr. Merry were pretty busy working with his father on Hall business, and Mr. Pippin was working on establishing to Mr. Paladin that he were not a child and needed real work to do and real respect, or he weren’t going to come home any time soon. Finally Mr. Frodo went over to try to work things out between the Thain and his son, and ended up staying some days in Budgefield with Mr. Fredegar and Budgie Smallfoot.

       Letters now came and went again between Bag End and Rivendell, and Frodo would read them and share them at times. Each letter he got he’d smile and take into the study, and some he’d end up locking away in the drawer of his desk.

       Late August he went to Buckland for a week, and when he come home he was quiet and thoughtful. Little Elanor was tickled pink to see him come back to her, and stood up and took her first steps to go to him. His face was so intent with delight, and his cheeks so pink with excitement and awe, that she should walk so early for him, and he held her long in his arms and spoke to her in Elvish, telling her as how clever, how beautiful, how loving, how delightful, how wonderful she was--all the things her mum and I told her in the Common Tongue every day.

       He accepted his tea and drank it down, smiled at me, and then went into the study to write. I looked in after a while to find him sleeping with his head on his arms, and went in and coaxed him half awake and into his own room, put a basin of boiling water with a kingsfoil leaf, fresh cut that day, in it by his head, and closed the curtains and left him to sleep.

       He were right quiet after that, and was doing a lot of writing. The Brandybuck lawyer and the banker of discretion came to see him several times, but he took them into the cool room for their talks and shut the door--said it were too hot to meet in the study, and not private enough in the garden. I ought to have known he were trying to spare me, and that he knew that the open windows of Bag End told me secrets.

       I thought I knew as what was happening, that he was getting ready to go to Rivendell to stay with the Elves. We knew Mr. Bilbo was still alive, and the last letter I knew of from Lord Elrond indicated that, as things stood, he’d most like live till Yule at least. I also knew Mr. Frodo wouldn’t come back. I could see it in his eyes. He was tired too easily, his eyes held a distance to them. It wasn’t the restlessness he’d known afore our adventure, but he were saying goodbye.

        But every afternoon he’d take little Elanor with him as he took his nap, and each evening after supper he’d sit in the parlor or the study with her in his arms, singing to her, talking to her in Elvish, reading to her, drinking her in with his eyes. And he’d sit with us after she were in her cot, and talk with us of simple, inconsequential things, and of the doings of the Row as told to him of the children, and then he’d go into the study with the cup of tea as I’d fixed him and close the door.

       And I knew as I would soon lose him. And I did everything I could to convince myself this wasn’t true.

Family Problems

       Nine days afore the Birthday I awoke afore dawn, hearing talking in the passage. I got up to see what the problem was and shut the door behind me. In the kitchen at the stove I found Mr. Frodo in a dressing gown over his nightshirt warming some of his tea in a shallow pan, and Mr. Pippin, his Elven cloak about him, with no sword nor mail to be seen, sitting at the table.

       "I was heating some of the tea you fix for me for Pippin, Sam. I trust that it will do him no harm?"

       "Oh, no, sir," I answered. "What seems to be wrong? Is he hurting?"

       "Oh, only my pride," Pippin said, and sighed, running his hands through his hair.

       At that moment I heard little Elanor waking at the odd noises, and hurried to get her and hurry her into the kitchen so as she didn’t waken her mum. Mr. Frodo’s face lit as it always did to see her, and he gave her his Elvish greeting as he poured the now hot tea into a mug and gave it to his cousin. Pippin accepted it and sniffed at it, then looked up at me. "You put athelas in this?" he asked. I felt my face go warm as I nodded. He looked up at Frodo and said, "I think the King was giving him lessons. At least I know he’s doing his utmost to keep you as well as he can."

       Mr. Frodo gave me one of his smiles, although there were a hint of sadness to it. "I know, Pippin. I know. And I am so grateful. Well, you drink that up--I know it always bucks me up when he feeds it to me, and I’ll swear he recites a healing invocation over it as he brews it." I know I must have gone redder at that. So much for caring for him quiet like--he knew as much about me, I think, as I did about him. "Once you finish that, off you go back to Crickhollow. I’ll do what I can to sort out the Thain."

       "But Frodo..."

       "You heard me, Pippin. He won’t listen to you and he won’t listen to Merry, but hopefully the little I told him when I was there last got through to him, and he’ll now listen to the rest of it from me. I think I’ll probably be the only one he’ll believe it from at this point."

       Shortly after, Mr. Pippin was out the door and back to his pony as the King had given him, which was waiting in the lane. I let him out and watched as he headed down the lane and turned northeast back to Buckland, and went back into the kitchen where Frodo was trying to feed Elanor some root biscuits soaked in milk, only she were intent on trying to catch hold of his hand instead. Both of them was splashed with milk, and Elanor looked right happy and he were smiling in spite of his worries.

       Finally he looked up at me. "Sam, I’m going to invite Uncle Paladin and Aunt Eglantine to join us when Uncle Saradoc and Aunt Esmeralda come to dine with me in three days. Do you think you and Rosie can fix up a fine meal and be ready to assist me in entertaining them?"

       "Me and Rosie, eat with the Thain and the Master and their ladies, and entertain them?" I asked, amazed.

       "Yes, you and Rosie."

       "What were Mr. Pippin doing here so early this morning?"

       He gave a sad laugh. "Running away, really."

       "Running away?" Now, there were a time when he were about eleven when young Pippin’d run away from the Great Smials right regular, usually ending up either with his Cousin Merry or here at Bag End. But he would be of age soon. "But he don’t even live in the Great Smials now--he’s been living in Crickhollow with Mr. Merry!"

       "Yes, but he agreed to spend a week with his family, and it has been a disaster. He had one of his nightmares last night and apparently woke half the household, and his father had words about responsibility and putting childish things behind him...."

       "Oh, dear," I said, feeling angry for young Pippin. "As if he didn’t have the right to have as many nightmares as he’d care to entertain! It’s not like he’s asked for them, after all."

       "I know, Sam. And as I have the worst of all, and you certainly have your share as well, I think maybe you and I will be able to get him to realize he’s not treating his son properly. After watching Lord Denethor and Captain Faramir, Pippin does not need a repeat here at home."

       The visitors arrived three days later, the Tooks soon after luncheon and the Brandybucks an hour later. Mr. Frodo was in his Master of Bag End clothing, the watch chain across his chest, his hair, which now had threads of silver in it, neatly brushed on head and feet. He were a bit pale and I’d made him sit down in a chair afore the fire with a rug across his lap and a mug of his tea aside him. The Thain and his lady were watching him with caution from the settle he had from his own folks, each with a glass of wine. Now the Master and Missus Esmeralda joined them, they shared their greetings, and accepted wine in their turn. Tweren’t the Old Winyards as old Mr. Bilbo’d serve, but it were from Gondor, sent up as a gift at Midsummer by the King and his Lady. Rosie’d been working at preparing the meal, assisted by my sister Marigold, and now she came in carrying Elanor who immediately reached out for her beloved Uncle Frodo. He held her in his lap after sharing a kiss with her, then turned to look at his guests.

       "I still can’t understand, Frodo, what needed to be said that couldn’t have been said next week when we gather for your birthday," the Thain said, continuing on what he’d been working on afore the new arrivals.

       "I won’t be here for my birthday," Frodo said as if it were no big thing.

       The effect was immediate. "What, no party this year?" asked his Uncle Saradoc.

       "I will be celebrating it with Bilbo," he told them.

       The Thain snorted. "How do you know he is still alive?"

       "I had a letter from him yesterday, telling me how pleased he will be to see me on our birthday."

       "So, you are going off on another adventure, then?"

       "I wouldn’t call it that, Uncle. More like a state visit, I fear. He’s looked forward to this birthday for so long--he’s been intent on passing the Old Took for years, you know."

       "I am still not sure how it is that he’s still alive," Missus Esmeralda said.

       Frodo smiled. "When you live with the greatest healer in Middle Earth, it’s perhaps a bit easier, Aunt."

       "The greatest healer?" the Thain snorted.

       "Certainly," Frodo answered.

       "And what makes you think that, Frodo Baggins?"

       'Twere the first time I’d seen Frodo give someone that look since afore we left on our adventure. Mr. Paladin was getting the full force, too, and looked taken right aback. For several moments no one said nothing, and then finally Mr. Frodo spoke.

       "I think that, Uncle, because I know that. Several people saved my life along the way while we were gone, including Sam here, the King himself, and Lord Elrond of Rivendell. The King Elessar is a great healer in his own right, but he could not stop the wraithing process once it was begun. Only Lord Elrond had the skill, knowledge, and power to bring me back from the brink of the shadow world at that time."

       "Wraithing process?" The Thain was trying his best to remain skeptical.

       Frodo was almost white, and he reached up and unbuttoned his vest and the placket of his shirt deliberately. "Come here, Uncle Paladin," he said, a command. Reluctantly his uncle stood up and went to him, and looked as the Ringbearer bared his shoulder. "Look at this scar, Uncle. Do you see it? It was caused by a Morgul blade, intended to not kill me, but to plunge me into the shadow world as a wraith under the domination of the Dark Lord. The Witch King of Angmar himself stabbed it into my shoulder, almost three years ago now, three years minus only a few weeks. I bore that splinter for over two weeks, and when it was finally removed it was only the breadth of one of little Elanor here’s fingers from my heart. I came that close, that time, Uncle, to not returning, or returning only as a torment to the Shire. Do you see the scar, Uncle, how it is still red and inflamed looking? Oh, it doesn’t always look like this, but when I am tired or ill it reddens and causes me great pain.

       "Lord Elrond of Rivendell removed that splinter, and then he and the Elves of his household did their best to heal me, as well as they could. I would not be alive today--not properly alive, at least, if it had not been for Lord Elrond. Do you understand?"

       He straightened his shirt, buttoned it again and the waistcoat.

       The Thain retreated to his settle, aside his wife. He shivered, picked up his glass, drained it. I refilled it, and Rosie and me sat on the chest as stood aside Mr. Frodo’s chair. We watched the relatives as they watched their nephew.

       "The other scar, the one on your neck..."

       "Oh, that. Not that that’s the only other one I bear, Uncle. I have several, you know."

       "What caused that one, Frodo?"

       "The weight of the Ring, Uncle." Frodo turned his face away, deliberately looking at the fire. Again for a few moments he was quiet, and no one else would break the silence. "I don’t like to speak of it, for the memory has been a torment for me, for all of us, Uncle. But," he said, turning back to his uncle Paladin, "I will make an exception in this case.

       "Do you or Uncle Saradoc realize what I brought with me in my pocket, each time I visited you after Bilbo left the Shire? Do you realize what he brought into your homes, the thing we casually fingered and played with as we sat by your fires and endured the inane conversations of our least relatives? Do you understand that we carried Isildur’s Bane into the Great Smial and Brandy Hall, the great Weapon of the Enemy, as if it were a mere trinket? Do you realize the power of those who sought this thing that we bore as if it were nothing more than a simple band of gold? Great lords and wizards have fallen over it, and even greater refused to even touch it, for fear it would corrupt them utterly!" He covered his face with his maimed hand. "And I carried it in my pocket, like a pen knife or a key or a length of twine." He shivered, and I got up and fetched the blanket from the back of one of the settles, laid it about his shoulders. I put the mug into his hand and gave him my own look. He glanced up, and drank it. I took the mug and fetched the pot from beneath its cozy, poured him some more. Again he looked at me and gave me a small smile, a tired smile, and accepted it, wrapped his hand about it to warm it.

       Finally he spoke again. "Have you seen Pippin undressed, Uncle Paladin? I doubt it, for he does not like to show his scars any more than I do. He has scars on his back, dealt by the orcs who dragged him across Rohan, intent on delivering him to the traitor Saruman. He has others on his wrists--you may have seen those, from when they bound him so tight it cut into the flesh. Or the ones on his ankles. I’m sure," he added, turning to his other set of relatives, "you’ve seen those on Merry, for his were deeper than Pippin’s, and he has the scar on his forehead as well. More dashing than the one Sam here has from his first encounter with an orc in Moria." They all turned to look at me, and I felt my face grow warm. Rosie looked at them, proud and defiant, and lifted up my hair to show my scar.

       "Have you run your hand across his chest, Uncle? You will feel knobs under the skin, where his ribs were broken when the great troll fell on him. Gimli was certain he was dead when he was found. Aragorn barely called him back--barely called all of us back."

       "Aragorn?"

       "The King Elessar. He was born Aragorn son of Arathorn, the Dúnedan, Man of the West, heir to the chieftainship of the Dúnedain of the North, heir to Isildur and Elendil, high Kings of Gondor and Arnor. I’ve tried counting all the names and titles he’s borne, and rather lost count at about twenty, I think. Back to Pippin--his leg was pulled out of its socket, and Legolas, Gimli, and Aragorn needed the aid of two more healers to ease it back into place, which is why he has a mild limp when the weather is damp and cold. You may have noted the scars on the back of his sword hand and arm and chest--Pippin learned to wield that sword he bears, you know."

       Again all were silent for a time. Frodo looked at Rosie. "Is the meal prepared, Rosie? Good. Shall we all go in to the dining room?" I took Elanor and handed her to Rosie, then took the blanket and rug from Mr. Frodo and set them on the chest. He swallowed a sip of his tea and handed the cup to me, saying, "Thank you, Sam," and led the way down the passage.

       After the Standing Silence, we sat down, and Rosie passed the dishes to the Thain’s Lady to start the service of the meal. As the plates and dishes were passed, Mr. Paladin asked, "Why do you do that at the beginning of a meal--stand like that and look off? You do it, and Merry and Pippin do it."

       "Oh, a habit we all adopted in Gondor, Uncle. It is a mark of respect to the Valar. Sam and I were first introduced to it by Captain Faramir in Henneth Annun; but after we were reunited with the rest we became accustomed to it. Pippin had been seeing it at each meal for weeks by then, of course. And I suppose that, as a member of the Guard of the Citadel, it would be expected to be a part of his daily routine."

       "What did you mean," his Aunt Eglantine asked, a while later, "when you said Pippin had learned to wield his sword?"

       Frodo looked at her with surprise. "I meant what I said, Aunt. He has learned to use that sword. Of course, for a Man Troll’s Bane would be but a long knife; but it is an extremely serviceable blade for a Hobbit."

       "But how did he learn?"

       "He was taught, of course. Boromir began teaching all of us as we started south from Rivendell, and often Aragorn worked with us as well. Pippin was very impatient at learning at first, but he stayed with it and was doing fairly well by the time we left Lothlorien. Merry was better at the time, though."

       "And who is Boromir?" asked the Thain.

       Frodo’s face clouded. He looked at me, then turned back to his uncle again. "One of our companions, the son of the Steward of Gondor, older brother to Captain Faramir, who is now the Steward as the Lord Denethor died during the battle before Minas Tirith."

       "Do titles pass to younger sons in Gondor?"

       I spoke up, as I knew this caused my Master grief to recall. "Boromir died fighting Saruman’s Uruk-hai after we left the Fellowship to head to Mordor. Captain Faramir saw his brother’s funeral boat on the Great River and told us of it."

       All were quiet again. "They put bodies in boats on the river in Gondor?" asked his Aunt Esmeralda.

       "No, Aunt, not usually," said Frodo. "But Aragorn and Gimli and Legolas had no time to bury him properly, nor did they have proper tools. They needed to follow after the Uruk-hai, hoping to rescue Merry and Pippin." Frodo looked down at the food remaining on his plate, took another bite, then put down his fork. "I am sorry, Rosie," he said to her, "that I cannot do justice to your meal." And his face let it be known as this was true.

       "Are you ill, Frodo?" asked his Uncle Saradoc.

       Mr. Frodo shrugged. "I suppose I’m as well as I was as a child, Uncle. Sometimes I can eat a normal amount, but often I can’t. But I’m well enough. It’s only that I have a tendency to grow tired easily, and cold." His relatives all exchanged uneasy glances.

       His Aunt Eglantine returned to the former subject. "You say you were all taught to use swords along the way. You also, Frodo?"

       He shrugged again. "Well, they tried to teach me. Sam here actually managed to kill an orc or two, but I think I was an abject failure."

       I laughed. "Your score was rather bad, I must say--you stabbed that troll’s foot in Moria, and killed a cloak."

       They looked startled. Frodo laughed out loud. "Ah, yes, the cloak on Weathertop! How embarrassing! Although you must not forget I managed to hew off part of Shelob’s claw. That and the barrow wight were the closest I came to actually defending myself or others, I fear."

       "I forgot about the wight, Mr. Frodo--but then I wasn’t awake to see it."

       "I’ll never forget Tom Bombadil stomping on the thing’s hand, once he got the barrow opened up to sunlight, Sam." He shuddered again.

       "There was one other time you saved me, Mr. Frodo--when you held Sting’s point to Gollum’s throat as he were trying to choke me."

       His face shadowed again, and he looked away. "Not exactly swordsmanship, though," he finally said. "He was so intent on throttling you he’d almost forgotten about me at all." His relatives all looked horrified. He looked at them all with compassion. "We have to laugh at it, Aunt Eglantine, or the horror of the memories would just destroy us. The cloak I ‘killed’ was worn by the Ringwraith that stabbed me with the Morgul knife. I struck out at it, but caught only its cloak. Aragorn had to chase it away with torches. Another time I came close to killing myself and everyone else with my stupidity." He started to tremble.

       "When you stabbed the troll’s foot, Strider thought that was well done, sir."

       He gave a weak laugh. "How could I miss, Sam--he had the thing’s foot caught in the door!" I saw he was still trembling, so I got up and went out and fetched the blanket and settled it on his shoulders again. He looked up and smiled. "Thank you, Sam," he murmured, clasping my hand for a moment. Finally he looked directly at the Thane’s Lady. "Aunt Eglantine, Pippin became a fine swordsman. He has earned his place in the Guard of the Citadel many times over. Once his offer of service to Gondor was accepted, he had to practice at least an hour a day, which training continued until he was granted leave to return home with me--as part of my guard, actually, according to what his record reads at this time."

       His Uncle Paladin was looking at him. "Who was this Strider?" he asked.

       "Another of Aragorn’s many names, Uncle. It was how we were introduced to him in Bree. The Dúnedain who protect the bounds of the weaker lands do not usually tell people who and what they are. They are simply referred to as Rangers, and the peoples among whom they move give them names that they feel describe them. Aragorn is very tall and lean, with dark hair and eyes grey as the sea. He can walk very quickly, so the people of Bree called him Strider."

       "But if he’s King of Gondor--"

       "He’d not been crowned yet, Uncle. He was still the Chieftain of the Dúnedain then, but not more in the eyes of the world. He had to prove not only his claim, but also his right to take the throne. And he did, many times over. Many years ago he fought for Rohan and Gondor, known then as Thorongil, the Eagle of the Star. But he would not advance his claim to the throne until he was certain the people of Gondor would accept him."

       "The letter I received from him--you know of it?"

       "Certainly, as I helped to draft it, sir. He asked me to aid him as he knew I knew the ways of the Shire and its leadership as he did not."

       "And what he says is accurate in that letter?"

       "Of course."

       It got quiet once again.

       "I doubt this King Elessar has nightmares to disturb his castle."

       "Do not be so certain, Uncle." He looked straight into Mr. Paladin’s eyes. "He, too, has known fear and horror and grief as well as joy. His father died when he was a young child, and he has heard of the terror of that time. His beloved cousin Halbarad came south to aid him in the war, and died by his side in the battle of the Pelennor. He looked into the Palantir of Orthanc, and wrested it from the control of Sauron to his own purposes, and that wrenching was terrible. Gimli told me he looked years older when he came down to them again. He went through the Paths of the Dead to come to the battle in time.

       "Are you so certain that only cowards have nightmares? Why? What do you think courage is--the inability to feel fear? That is not courage--it is a terrible weakness. Boromir of Gondor was one of the bravest people I ever met, and he was brave because he fought his fear, faced it and went on. And, if you want to know who is the bravest individual I have ever met, he sits there," and he indicated me. I know I must have flushed, for my face felt downright hot. "You cannot believe what Sam faced to aid me, much less what I put him through. I tell you in full truth that I would not be alive today if it were not for his courage and perseverance. He held my hope for me when I was too weak to carry it for myself. And when I sought only to lie down and die, he made me get up and move on, take the next step and the next, and in the end brought us both to where others could find us when we both thought we were dead.

       "He has nightmares, Uncle, terrible ones. And I have worse. For I failed in the end, and was saved only because another died in my place. And he died by my curse, Uncle, by my curse made on that cursed thing I bore. The one death I was truly responsible for, and I killed not in defense of anyone, but through a curse." He was trembling once more, and I stood and moved behind him, put my hands on his shoulders, willed as my strength should fill him.

       "Marigold," I said to my sister, "put his mug of tea by his hand, please." And she did. "Drink it, Mr. Frodo," I said. He reached for it, but it trembled in his hand. I reached down and took it, raised it to his lips. He sipped gratefully, then took it and drained it.

       "What is in that drink?" his aunt Esmeralda asked.

       "Willowbark and an herb shown him by the King, Aunt Esmie," he answered. "And chamomile, I think. It has eased me often during the last two years."

       "The King taught you how to make this?"

       "No, not really. But I figured it out from watching him, him and the Lord Elrond, Mistress. And Gandalf as good as said that it were the right thing to do."

       Mr. Frodo laughed. "Ah! Poet, jester, defeater of spiders, hope indomitable, and now apothecary!" As I sat again, I saw a tear sparkling on his face, but he were looking at me with pride behind the tears. He closed his eyes for a moment, then as he gathered hisself he looked to me.

       "Sam, will you bring me the Red Book, please? I left it on the desk in the study. I think my aunts and uncles need to know precisely what their sons have been through."

The Cost of Victory

       Rosie cleared off the place afore him as I fetched the book and gave it into his hands. Again he thanked me, and he set it down, then opened it to a marked place. And then he began to read, read about the battle on Amon Hen and the chase through Rohan, and the meeting with the Ents. He read about Pippin realizing he could partially free hisself and the ruse of the loops, and the sacrifice of the brooch from Lorien. He read about Pippin picking up the ball of stone thrown out of the tower of Orthanc, and his looking into it. He read about Pippin telling what he’d seen there, and the decision by Gandalf to take him to Minas Tirith. He read about Pippin swearing fealty to Gondor, of his seeing the madness growing in the Lord Denethor, and his saving the life of Captain Faramir. He read of his choosing to stand in the front row at the battle before the Black Gate, and what he’d thought was his dying thought that the coming of the Eagles was from a different story altogether.

       Then he backed up a bit, read about Merry being wounded and being healed orc fashion, Merry telling Treebeard about the need for aid for Rohan, about him being left behind by Gandalf, then by Aragorn, Gimli, and Legolas, and of his respect for King Théoden. He read about Merry presenting his sword to the King of Rohan, of his shame at being left behind once more, of his being taken to the battle by Dernhelm, of his stabbing the Ringwraith, of his being found near death, of his being healed by Aragorn in the Houses of Healing. At last he ended and closed the book, then closed his eyes.

       We all was quiet for some time. At last he raised his face and looked again at the Thain, whose face was as pale as his own.

       "Do you still think your son is a coward, Uncle? He is no longer a child, you know. He gave up being a child when he accepted the responsibility of an adult, to make a vow and stand by it, to do whatever he could to aid others, to face death quickly when he could have run away or hidden behind others, and to seek to spend himself in protecting others as he could.

       "Do you think that black tabard is only a costume he puts on to make himself appear important and mysterious? I assure you it is not. His oath was received by the Lord Denethor while he was still sane, and was confirmed by the King Elessar himself. He is a member of the Guard of the Citadel of Gondor and Arnor, and my first glimpse of him on my own awakening was of him serving the King. When he is on duty he stands guard before the throne of the King itself, or stands before his chambers. He is even charged with instructing younger recruits in how to handle their swords, as the King and Boromir once schooled him.

       "Why are you angry with him--that he left without warning or waiting for permission to go? He felt strongly he was meant to go with me, to aid me however he could. And as long as he could he did so, and when Sam and I left to continue the journey to Mordor alone, his courage and quickness of wit saved countless lives, starting with that of Merry.

       "You are the Thain of the Shire, the one who by tradition represents the Shire to the King and the will of the King to the people of the Shire. Do you not see that your son will be the most appropriate Thain we have had in the history of the Shire, once his time comes? That his dual position as your son and heir as well as being a member of the court of Gondor fits him to advise both sides, allows him to communicate more clearly with both King and our people?

       "It is of little importance that Pippin has not yet come of age, Uncle--he is seen to be an equal to the Men of Gondor, the Elves of the Woodland Realm, and the Dwarves of the Lonely Mountain. And when the King comes north, as he will, Pippin will be called out of the Shire to fulfill his duties to the Lord and Lady of Gondor and Arnor in their palace at Lake Evendim.

       "Your son has nightmares, Uncle, terrible nightmares, for he has looked into the heart of the Enemy himself. He bears scars upon his body, and they are, at least, honorable ones. Worse are the scars that cannot be seen or felt, the scars upon his spirit--yet he remains joyful and true in spite of all that. Be grateful that he was not burned out by his experience, Uncle, as I have been." For several minutes the two of them just looked at one another.

       Finally Frodo looked down and sighed. "I don’t like talking about what we went through, but I have to try to bring peace between the two of you, both of whom I love. He saw the madness of the Lord Denethor almost kill his son. Do not repeat that error, sir."

       At last his Aunt Esmeralda spoke again. "I don’t fully understand what the whole thing was about, Frodo."

        He was still, then answered, "Gandalf learned the Ring that Bilbo found in Gollum’s cavern was the one the Enemy lost three thousand years ago, that Isildur cut from Sauron’s hand when he was defeated before. Gollum was one of the River Folk, a Stoor, apparently. He was related to us, Aunt. His cousin Déagol fell into the River Anduin and found it, found Sauron’s Ring lying on the bottom of the river, and Gollum killed him to take it. And he left his people and hid in dark places while the Ring destroyed and transformed him. And when the Ring wakened enough to realize it was being sought by its Master, it abandoned him, probably expecting to be picked up by a goblin and taken further east and south to Mordor. But instead Bilbo found it and stuck it in his pocket. He used it to become invisible, and kept it until Gandalf realized it was beginning to take him as it took Gollum, and he convinced him to leave it to me.

       "Once we knew what it was, would you have had me keep it here to destroy the entire Shire? We were almost too late leaving, and the Ringwraiths pursued us from Hobbiton all the way to Rivendell.

        "The Council met to decide what to do with it. It corrupted all who touched it, and some who did not. It was decided the only way to defeat the Enemy was to send it to be destroyed. And I, Frodo Baggins of the Shire, volunteered to take it to Mount Doom in Mordor to destroy it. And I took it, Aunt, all the way to the Mountain, all the way to Sauron’s own Place. And it took me, in the end.

        "I have no memory of much that happened, Aunt--Sam has had to tell me what I did, and what was done to me. I wrote it all down, what each said and did and accomplished.

       "But I remember what I felt, the terrible weight of it, the vision of it as a Wheel of Fire, of its constant eating at my will, its constant blandishments, its constant threats. I remember the lies it told me, the beauty of it that was itself a corruption. And I carried it, knowing I would go mad if anyone were to try to take it from me. I’d been warned by Gandalf and Lord Elrond this was true, and when my possession of it was threatened, I felt the truth of the warnings. Boromir tried to take it from me, and Gollum more than once, and the Enemy was always seeking for it--I felt his Eye upon me--" He was again shaking pitifully. "Sam thought I was dead at one point--he took it to complete the quest. Then he learned I wasn’t dead after all, and he came to rescue me. And I grabbed it from him, saw him as an orc showing it to me as a torture. I cursed at him, at my best friend, my dearer than brother! And I thought I could just let it go once I reached the Cracks of Doom?"

       Suddenly he laughed. "And the Ring in the end destroyed itself. One more time Gollum tried to take it from me, and I, holding it in my hand, cursed him--if he touched me again, the Ring would force him to fall into the Fire himself. And I went on. Oh, I was going to finish the quest, even though I knew by then I could not give it up! I was driven mad by the Ring after all, and didn’t need to have it threatened any more.

       "And Gollum followed after me, struck down Sam and almost killed him--and he did it--touched me one last time. He took the Ring from me, and the curse I’d spoken took him. He fell into the Cracks of Doom with the Ring in his hand. Both were destroyed." He hid his face in his hands. He whispered, "I never struck the one I killed--he died of my curse."

       No one said any more for some time. Finally Frodo asked me for a glass of wine, and I got up and poured some for him. He drank it slowly and deliberately. Then Elanor started to babble to let her mum and me know she needed changing. She’d been sitting in the high chair that Frodo had gifted her with, playing with root biscuits and looking across the table at Frodo. Rosie moved to her and swept her out and away to clean her and change her nappie. Frodo looked out after her, smiling again softly.

       "That is a beautiful old chair," said his Aunt Eglantine. "Tell me, Sam, wherever did you find it?"

       "It was mine," Frodo said. "Bilbo gave it to my parents for me. I think Uncle Bungo may have first purchased it for him, in fact. Now it is Elanor’s, and it will be the chair for each of her brothers and sisters in turn. When they sold the hole in Whitfurrow, Uncle Rory and Uncle Bilbo kept much of the furniture for they hoped one day I would pass it on to my own children."

       She whispered, "But you never married."

        He shook his head, not looking at her. "No, I didn’t. Once I received the Ring, it destroyed my interest in anyone else as a lover or wife. I could no longer see the charms of a lass or lady. I could no longer share my interests in anything that might become its rival. Elanor is now the closest I’ll ever be to having my own child."

        "You aren’t too old to marry now, Frodo."

       He just shook his head. "I am burnt out, Aunt. I have nothing left to offer a wife."

       "You are a beautiful gentlehobbit, Frodo. You are intelligent and gentle and kind. You have breeding and honor. It could still happen." He merely smiled sadly and shook his head.

        "You said, Frodo," his Uncle Saradoc said at last, "that you have other scars, beside the one on your shoulder. What are they like?"

       Frodo looked off into the distance, sighed. "The one around my neck from the chain on which the Ring hung from Rivendell on. The chain dug deep into my flesh ere I was rid of it. On my back where I was repeatedly whipped while orcs sought to learn why I was seeking to enter Mordor. On the back of my neck where the great spider bit and poisoned me. The back of my legs where I was beaten by an Orc who thought Sam and I were deserters from the army of Mordor, and he lashed us there constantly, almost every other step, to punish us for thinking of deserting. My chest, where a spear caught me and drove rings from my dwarf mail into my flesh." He rubbed his chin, then looked down at the place where a finger was missing. "And this, of course."

       "How did you get that?"

       He laughed softly, sadly. "It’s from when Gollum took the Ring from me. I put it on, you know, when I claimed it--or, when it claimed me at the last. I put it on, and he had seen where I stood and leapt on me. He found my hand, brought it to his mouth, bit off the finger bearing the Ring...." He looked at it, and sighed. "I am sorry, very sorry, but if I don’t go lie down, I fear I will embarrass myself. Please forgive me, I beg of you." He rose, almost fell. His Uncle Saradoc caught him and supported him into his bedroom.

        The others looked at me and at each other. And at last Mr. Paladin said, "I think we’d better go, my love. Frodo looks very tired."

       But his wife looked at me, asked me her last question. "This story is so horrible. Did he write all that down in that book, too? Why?"

        "Long ago Mr. Bilbo taught him to write down the things as was bothering him or worrying at him, Mistress Took. He said he had to get it out of him somehow, or it would eat the heart out of him. Those were his exact words, Mistress. But, also, so things won’t get forgot. The One Ring is gone, and the Nine as was given to Men--they’re gone, too, the Ringwraiths are destroyed at last. The Seven Dwarf Rings was destroyed or taken long ago, and the last went in the fall of the Tower of Barad-dur. And now the Three the Elves kept for themselves--they don’t work no more, or won’t continue working long, if you take my meaning. The Elves are going away, and in a few generations there won’t be no Elves in Middle Earth--or at least none of the High Elves. Their wisdom and their beauty will be gone, over the Sea to Eldemar."

        And Missus Esmeralda looked at me and nodded, as if she understood something at last. Her face was pale now, too, and she looked full of grief and compassion. "I see, Sam. Thank you, Mr. Gamgee, for your courtesy and your honesty, and for the love you bear my young cousin. He has been very lucky to have you as his friend."

        "I’ve been Mr. Frodo’s man, Mistress Brandybuck, since I first saw him in the garden out there when I was but the gardener’s lad and he come here as the young Master."

        "And you went with him, the whole way."

        "I followed where I could, Missus Esmeralda." I tried to find the right words. "Mr. Frodo Baggins is one of the ones who is born in the world, I think, to teach us beauty. And almost everyone who knows him loves him. But I’ve seen that there’s all too often a terrible cost for us to have such among us, and he’s chose to pay it hisself.

       "Your sons, and Mr. Fredegar, and Mr. Folco, they have been Mr. Frodo’s men, too. They saw the light shining in him, too, and give themselves to it as they could. And they’ve helped keep it shining. And the King sees it shining--he recognizes it because the same light shines in him, too. You’ll see when he comes north. He had to hide that light for years, for the Dark Lord didn’t want any with such light anywhere in Middle Earth, ready to tear the shadows in which he hid hisself away, and show him as he was, a pathetic but powerful bully. But the months we traveled together, he begun stripping away the disguises, Strider did, letting his light out to shine aside Mr. Frodo’s. I didn’t see it at first, but I learned to."

       "Who’s paid for him to have his light here?" asked Mr. Paladin.

        "He’s paid some, and his dad afore him, and his wife, the Lady Arwen Undomiel and her dad--they are paying the price of it now, and her dad will until Arda ends. And his kin and all who follow him--they all pay, and gladly. And your son has given hisself to him, now, as well."

       "I see." He looked down, then to his wife, and they exchanged words as wasn’t said aloud. "We will need to leave now, I think. I thank you for your hospitality, Master Gamgee, yours and that of your wife." Rosie came in at that moment with Elanor all clean and smiling in her arms. Elanor looked around for her Uncle Frodo, but when she didn’t see him, she reached out for me, and I took her in my arms. "The meal was superb, Mistress Rose, and I thank you for it. And, as my sister just indicated, we all thank you for the care you lavish on our young cousin Frodo."

       "Thank you, Mr. Took," she answered him. "But it’s no bother caring for such as Mr. Frodo, you know. When he smiles, it lights the world, and it’s worth anything to bring that smile about. If only he could stay with us forever, but that’s another story."

       "I’ll see you out the door, then," I said, and led the way down the passage. They gathered their cloaks. "Give my respects to Mr. Pippin then, please, when you see him," I said.

       "Does he know that Frodo is not having any celebration here, Sam?"

       "He knows Frodo is not going to have a party this year, and that he wants to be away from others. He doesn’t know he’s going away, I don’t think. Mr. Frodo’s doing his best to hide it, don’t want no one to pay but hisself, you know. He’s always been that way, the whole time I’ve known him."

       "Then I won’t discuss that with him."

       "I don’t know what you’ll be able to get Mr. Pippin to tell you, Mr. Paladin. Twere a hard, bitter time for all of us in so many ways. But, at the same time, it were a shining time, too. But he’s not a lad any more. He’s a soldier of Gondor, and the King’s man now. And the training he got from Strider and Boromir and the trainers of the Guard helped prepare him to save the Shire, you know."

       "Yes, we know. Thank you again." And they went down the lane toward Hobbiton and the stables.

       When I got back to the dining room, Rosie was bringing in a great cake as she’d baked. "I’m sorry they didn’t stay for it, but I can see why they wished to leave now."

       Mr. Saradoc came back in and sat down where he’d been. He run his fingers through his hair--did all of those in Mr. Frodo’s family do that, and not just him and his Uncle Bilbo?--and looked up at me. "I got him into a night shirt and lying down. And I saw that place on the back of his neck where he was bitten. It is horrible! Does he know how bad it looks?"

       "I’m not sure, sir. I haven’t held mirrors to show him, but he’s seen my face when I’ve cleansed it, and he can feel it, and he knows it’s not pretty."

       He shivered. "And the scars where he was beaten.... It makes me livid! That dear lad, going through that!"

       "Believe me, sir, I was not the least unhappy when that nasty beast fell over the ladder head and fell down through the opening and broke its neck." I took a deep breath. "I’d been searching for him for hours. Had no idea how to get into the tower, at first. I tried one way, but got there just as they slammed the doors and barred them--and then I had to find another way. I finally found it, but there was statue things that was yet alive somehow, and they closed the way until I lifted the Lady’s Starglass and the light made them quail and drop their guard. Then I could get through.

       "There was orc bodies all over. The two leaders was fighting over the mithril shirt, and the fight spread to all their folk, and they almost all killed one another."

       "Mithril shirt?"

       "Yes, Master. The dwarf mail shirt Mr. Bilbo brought back from his adventure, the one as hung for so long in Michel Delving."

       "But that disappeared years ago!"

       "Mr. Bilbo got it back, afore he went off the second time. Took it with him, he did, and gave it to Mr. Frodo when we was waiting for word it were safe to go on while we was in Rivendell. We didn’t know he was wearing it, but it saved his life in Moria when that thing tried to run a spear through him. Strider explained the mithril shirt deflected the spear and it ran down his side instead of going through his chest. But it fair knocked the wind out of him, and he fell, and we was all sure he were dead. When he spoke up, Strider almost fell over with shock, let me tell you. And when he saw the shirt at last and understood at last how the trick was played, he were right glad. And Gimli, he were tickled pink his folk’s work saved the Ringbearer."

       "Ringbearer?"

       "Yes, that’s Mr. Frodo’s title in the outer world, sir." I got up. "If you’ll pardon me just a moment, I want to get some herbs brewing for him, to ease the sadness, like."

       "The kettle ought to be boiling now, Love," my fair wife told me. I kissed her and handed the baby to her as I sidled out of the room, but Mr. Saradoc, he followed me.

       "I’d like to see," he said.

       He watched as I poured the boiling water into the basin Rosie’d made ready for me, and as I got some of the leaves as I’d culled earlier in the day, bruised them as I’d seen Strider do, and put them in the water with that Elvish prayer. Then I saw Missus Esmeralda had followed, too.

       "But that poem is at the front of Menegilda’s herbal," she said.

       "I know," I said. "I member when Mr. Frodo copied it out for his uncle years ago, to send it over to Brandy Hall. I read the poem and liked it and learned it off by heart. But I learned on my travels it is a prayer to the Valar. Mr. Strider’d sing it over Frodo’s shoulder after he was stabbed, and he’d sing it over him when he was so sick along the road, when my Master was asleep. And again when he was cleaning the place where the spear hit him and left that awful bruise, and over my forehead as he cleaned it, too. And Lord Elrond sang it, too, when he was working over Mr. Frodo when they was trying to get that splinter out of his side. And I think the King sang it over us when we was asleep after the Ring was destroyed, too. I seem to member it, I do."

       I looked down at the basin, picked it up, and carried it down the hall to Frodo’s room. He lay in his bed, a white figure sleeping surrounded by white sheets. And I set it aside his bed on the chest there, and gave my thoughts to the star as had shone on us in Mordor, and the one on the Lady Galadriel’s hand. And I saw the Starglass was lying on the chest, and the star gem on his breast, and his hand was resting on it, gently. And I smiled on him and brushed his forehead, and he turned his face to the scent of athelas, stealing through the room.

       They’d followed, watched from the doorway. Then I led them back to the dining room, and we sat down, all looking to one another.

       "Merry tried to tell us about it all," Mr. Saradoc said at last, "but it was so hard to take in or understand." I nodded. Finally he continued, "He’s not as well as he was when you got back."

       "No. But he’s getting on. Some days he’s better, and some he’s worse."

       "And you care for him."

       "As I can, sir."

       "He’d have been dead without you, he says."

       "We’d both have been dead hadn’t Gandalf and the Eagles found us, and if Strider hadn’t been able to call us back. Almost didn’t convince Frodo to come back after all, I guess. But he did."

       "What do you mean, come back?"

       I gave Rosie a look, for I’d not said a lot to her about all this. I took a deep breath. "We was at the point of death, Mr. Saradoc. I mean, that close to being dead, right dead all through. And it were worse for him, you see, for he’d been carrying that thing almost the whole time, like. We didn’t have much in the way of water--I had to use water from cisterns along the orc roads, and it were foul, dirty from their hands and slimy with green, about the only green in all Mordor. I’d not been able to find more for two days, and we was getting by with only sips at a time, and I was giving most of it to him.

       "The air in Mordor’s bad anyway, and it were even worse then for the Enemy’d been forcing the Mountain to make great clouds of ash to darken the sky to make it comfortable for his armies of orcs to move. We couldn’t hardly breathe. The sky was dark and filthy, and so was the land. Boromir’d warned us afore that the air itself in Mordor’s a poison, and perhaps if we’d been as tall as a Man it’d have killed us. But, short as we are, we was able to stay down low, beneath a lot of it."

       "There were several days that spring you were gone when the sky was dark, especially to the south of us," Missus Esmeralda said.

       "It were brown over us, Mistress. All brown and dark and drear. We could hardly see to tell if it were safe to step, as there might be a chasm in the ground and we wouldn’t see till we fell into it. I don’t know how we made it at all.

       "Frodo was drug down by the weight of the Ring, drug to the earth. Got to the point he couldn’t stand any more, and he’d crawl. Some of the time I were that tired and sick, too, as I’d crawl right along side of him. But once we got onto the mountain, we was able to climb above the murk, and then finally the air was a bit better, and I could stand again. And I carried him up that mountain on my back. He was sick and weak and dying, plain dying, and I knew it. Only food we’d had for days was Lembas, Elvish waybread. It were right good, until that was all we had to live on for all the other food was gone. And we was rationing it, trying to make it last, so we’d only eat bites at a time. Both of us were totally dry, both of us weak, both near starving.

       "And then the Ring took him. It took him. He looked at me, and it wasn’t his eyes, and said, ‘I don’t choose to do what I came to do. The Ring is mine.’ And his eyes suddenly was his own, and I saw terror and a call for me to come stop his hands as I’d done on the mountainside when the Eye was almost on us, and the Ring was insistent he put It on, put It on and reveal hisself, reveal hisself and It to Sauron. He looked out of his own eyes for a second, then the Ring looked at me again. It had him and It were right pleased, right pleased to finally have him for Itself at last. No one had ever stood up to It for so long afore, ever. It took him and he put It on his finger--"

       I couldn’t go on for so long. "But then I got hit, and fell. I member looking up, and it were the strangest sight anyone could see, Gollum wrapped about a body as I couldn’t see, swaying over the Cracks of Doom. And then he bit something, bit hard. His teeth was sharp--he bit me twice, and it bit right through my shirt, it did, cut it right up. He bit Mr. Frodo’s finger right off him, and there he was, holding his hand which was bleeding, crying out in agony. And then that creature fell, fell into the Cracks of Doom hisself." I was whispering. "Gollum fell, and took It with him." I think I was shaking.

       "And at last I could rise, and I picked him up--he hardly weighed nothing at that point, and carried him out through the door, and we stood on a high place on Sauron’s road as he’d carved on the mountainside. And I had to lay him down, almost fell myself. And he spoke, and he was my Master again. And I talked him into trying to get away some more, and he finally agreed to do so. It were hard to see where we was going, for blood from the new wound on my forehead was in my eyes, and there was ash and smoke and cinders and clinkers and fire and clouds all round us. But we found ourselves on a little pile of ash and stone near the foot of the mountain, and then there was no place else to go. The lava’d come by then, and cut us off, was making fair to wash that hillock away. And finally we fell, out of awareness. The poison of the air took us.

       "Frodo had realized he would have to die to destroy the Ring, thought as he’d probably have to jump in hisself with it, I think. He don’t tell me what he was thinking then, won’t share that horror. He was expecting to die, though; and then he wanted to die. He were so weak, so sick, so shamed.

       "Strider didn’t say much to me what it was like to call us back. He has that strength, that power, to go right to the doors of death after you, and call you to come back. He’s of the line of Elros, after all. Guess it’s the bit of Elvish as he has in him. But he wept over Frodo as we was parting, for he didn’t think he’d ever see him again, and he were grieved as he couldn’t heal him completely. He’d have given crown and glory and all for Frodo to be happy. He loves Frodo, too, you see."

       "The King wept for Frodo?" I nodded. "Bless us."

Last Riding

       The next morning I walked down the Hill to the woods, walked into it to the stream where we used to find them worms that make shells of sticks and stones. And, as I stood there, suddenly I realized I was not alone. An Elf stood nearby, Erestor of Rivendell, I thought. He held a great bundle, and when he realized I saw him he gave it to me.

       "For you, Little Master, and the Ringbearer. Namarië." He bowed and turned and disappeared as only an Elf can.

       I took the bundle back up the Hill, back to Bag End, and I knocked on Mr. Frodo’s door and entered when I was bade. "Lord Elrond sent this, Master," I said.

       He sat up in his bed, took and opened it and took out a letter, then read it. He then searched through it until he found a leathern packet, and took it out, opened it and looked inside. He then handed it to me, and told me, "He says you are to add this to my tea, Sam." I nodded, and headed for the kitchen. I set some water as to boil, then went out to cull some more kingsfoil. When all was ready I finally opened the packet and found it were full of different leaves and some berries. I took out a portion of it, and added it with the athelas, chamomile, and willowbark to the water, let it all steep. I then strained it all through cloth as I used, and squeezed it to get the final good from it into the pot as I spoke the Invocation. I added honey, then poured him a mug and took it to him after covering the pot with its cozy. He drank, and looked much better very quickly. He looked a bit surprised, even. "I didn’t know your tea could be improved upon, Sam, but this is excellent." And he smiled a full smile, the first in some time. He was better as he rose and dressed.

       He was off for two days to Michel Delving, then back again. He seemed stronger and happier than he’d been for some time. And then he was showing me papers, documents, the Deed to Bag End made out to me and Rosie, the keys. And he asked Rosie if she could spare me for a fortnight. And we were packing our saddlebags.

       Oh, I thought I knew where he was going--I thought I knew. But I was so wrong. We camped together neath the stars as we used to when we was younger, and he lay there long, looking up, his eyes shining. And he sang the song as I’d sung when I was seeking him, soft, under his breath.

       "...The Elven stars as jewels white amidst their branching hair." And he continued to sing the rest, then to hum the tune. Finally he went quiet. "The Elven stars," he whispered at last. "They give us hope."

       "Yes, Mr. Frodo," I murmured back. "I member that one I saw in Mordor, when for a second the murk pulled away. It did give me hope."

       "At least we have this, Sam, that we both see the same Elven stars, no matter where we might be." He sighed, and finally his eyes closed and he slept.

       It were a different tune he were singing as we met the Elves and Mr. Bilbo the next day, their Birthday. And they was singing a hymn to Elbereth, like as when we first met Gildor and his folk when first we left the Shire. And now, finally, I knew he weren’t just going over to Rivendell. There’d be no two-month’s journey to see him and back home again for me. He were going where I couldn’t follow, not for a powerful long time. For him I tried not to weep; but I did. And Galadriel rode by me, and once laid her beautiful hand on my head, and I looked up and saw that through her joy she, too, was also weeping--weeping for my grief. And I had to smile for her joy as I continued to weep my loss.

       He talked a bit as we started out, but though he asked me as to ride with him, he were pulling away as we rode, riding by Bilbo, who rode by the horse of Lord Elrond hisself. Together they kept the old Hobbit seated as they rode, for he slept more’n he were awake, and it took all they had to keep him from falling at times. He were old and frail looking, and aside him Frodo looked strong and healthy by comparison, in spite of the fact his face was pale as niphredil.

       They honored them so, the Elves did. And Elrond prepared the tea as he’d sent me, adding in athelas leaves as it steeped, and sang invocations over it as he fixed it, and gave it to both Frodo and Bilbo, but stronger, I saw, to Frodo. And more color came into his cheeks after he’d drunk it. And he laughed with the Elves, then drifted into a trance, I think, as they sang about him.

       That night they fixed a bed for the two of them, protected by living shrubs and roofed with the leaves of a linden tree. And for me they fixed a pallet near the opening, but it were long afore I could lay me down. Lord Elrond hisself finally came to me and sat by me, where I sat, looking out over the land of the Shire that could be seen from where we were.

       "You weep still, Sam."

       "Yes, sir, I do. Can’t seem to help it. I don’t want him to see it and have it hurt his heart no more, sir."

       "He’s been very ill, Sam. You know that."

       "Aye, I’ve known that. Didn’t want to accept it, but I’ve known it. Why else would I make him all that tea, grow athelas about his window, whisper the Invocation?" And he put his arm on my shoulder, drew me to himself. I was surprised, for I’d never seen an Elf embrace a mortal afore. And I felt his tears falling on my head, and was healed by them, but looked up to see him smiling sadly down at me.

       "So many mortals I have seen come and go in my lifetime, Samwise. So many I have come to love, and had to allow to leave. And, finally, I am the one leaving, and taking with me one whose Light has given joy and life to the entire world of Arda. And I cannot spare you your pain, any more than I could spare theirs or my own."

       He sighed. "If he remained, it would be for only a short time, Sam. The pain in him is to the foundation of his soul. The self-loathing is intense. He wishes to spare you the bitterness of his ending."

       "Will he die there, in Elvenhome, Lord Elrond?"

       "When it is his time, yes, Sam. No matter what Ar-Pharazon chose to believe, mortals cannot know our life, any more than we can know your death."

       "Cepting if you choose it."

       He was quiet for a time, and his voice was sad and full of regret as he agreed. "Yes, excepting when we choose it, as Lúthien chose to become mortal to be with Beren, and Idril with Tuor, and now Arwen with Estel--with Elessar." He sighed again. "As my brother Elros chose, as well.

       "You have cared for him well. He has had time to see what his life will come to if he stays, time to accept the love and honor he deserves, time to see that those he loves are cared for, time to choose. He has chosen. He hides the pain he is under, seeks to hide the weakness and the grief, the bitterness. His writing has allowed much of that to be released, but not all. He still needs healing, Sam. The three Rings are shorn of their power, and although our personal power is still great, it is a mockery when we see that which we wrought with the power of the Rings fading. I could keep him alive here, but not give him the full healing he needs, that he deserves, for I am but an Elf in the end, and what he needs cannot come to the Mortal Lands.

       "Do you understand?"

       "I think so, sir."

       He rested his chin on the top of my head, and I felt my body soothe in spite of myself. "He will await your coming, I think, Sam. If you choose to come in your turn. But he will not be as he is now, perhaps. I cannot foresee clearly. But this I can say, his love for you, and little Elanor, for your wife and your family to come, for his cousins and the Shire and Elessar and Arwen and all Middle Earth will not perish, but will be fulfilled. That is the one promise I can make you." I nodded. After a time I was picked up and placed on my pallet, and an Elf Lord sat by me through the night, singing softly, the song mixing in my dreams, showing me the scattering of the stars by the hands of Lady Elbereth.

       And then there we was, at the Grey Havens, looking at the Ship standing by the quay. I’d not seen the Sea afore, and I were amazed. But the fear I’d felt on the River I didn’t feel here. This was a different water’n what I’d always known, and I knew it would take the heart of me as I’d always given Mr. Frodo, but that it would deal right gently with it.

       Gandalf was there, preparing to leave, too, and I understood why he’d put off the King when he’d talked of him staying and ruling us all. No, he couldn’t remain here, not without running the risk of taking Sauron’s place, he couldn’t. Don’t know why I understood that, but I did. He was going back to be whatever he was over there. For I don’t think it would just be to be an old man in white.

       It were such a relief when Pippin and Merry arrived. And at least we all got to say goodbye; and Frodo, too, was relieved that Gandalf had gone against his wishes and summoned them here. And I wouldn’t go back on my own, knowing only the loneliness and loss. I was grateful, and jealous they’d share the goodbye.

       Not only am I pompous, but selfish as well, it seems.

The Will

       Two days after I returned home I sat in the parlor reading a letter as I’d got from my brother Hal, and there were a knock at the door. I was surprised to see the Brandybuck lawyer and the banker of discretion standing there on the doorstep, both together for a change. They explained as they were charged with the reading of Mr. Frodo’s will, that he’d ordered that it be read here at Bag End on this day, and that others would be coming soon to hear it also.

       Will Whitfoot, the Mayor, was the next to arrive, then Mr. Folco Boffins, Mr. Fredegar Bolger accompanied as always now by Budgie Smallfoot, Mr. Freddy’s sister Estella, his folks, the Thain and his wife and daughters and a cousin, the Master and his wife and brother, the Proudfoots from Number Five, the Gaffer and my sisters and brother Ham, the Widow Rumble, a few assorted Brandybucks and Tooks, the Cottons and Farmer Maggot, Missus Lobelia’s niece from Hardbottle as the old lady’d stayed with after her release from the Lockups until she died, and finally Mr. Merry and Mr. Pippin. Both was wearing the clothing they’d worn during our travels and the Lorien cloaks, and they carried only their swords. Then arrived folk from the Ivy Bush with food and all, who went in and took over the kitchen and dining room, for I learned this was to be a catered affair.

       I’d never heard a will reading afore, for my folk don’t usually have such things. But the long and the short of it was that what he’d told me was now confirmed, he’d adopted me as his heir and left it all to me, to own or manage in his name, and then my own. I was now Master of Bag End.

       If old Mr. Rory Brandybuck had been amazed to learn how devious could be Frodo Baggins in the days of his directing the maraudings of the Marish when he were a teen, it were nothing like what I faced now. The ins and outs of the business connections are still a marvel to me, and I don’t think the banker of discretion will ever help me sort it all out in my lifetime. Although his son is now starting to handle more of it, for his dad is getting on now.

       A good portion of his invested estate was to go to funding the founding of schools for Hobbit lads and lasses, so that any youngling could learn to read, write, and figure, and about the ways and history of Middle Earth, and to study the languages and ways of other lands beyond our borders and how they was related to us and us to them.

       The bequest made by old Missus Lobelia hadn’t all been spent, and much of it were invested in farms and businesses as had been deeply damaged in the days of the Troubles, and I was to see that as more damage was uncovered reparations would continue to be made. And a library was to be founded in Michel Delving for all Hobbits throughout the Four Farthings, Buckland, and beyond the borders of the Shire, so as all could have access to the books which we was told would be presented to the Shire by the King and from other centers of Learning (which I was to find out meant Rivendell, Lothlorien, and the Woodland Realm in especial--I guess as Frodo and the King between the two of them set a lot of this up while we was still in Gondor, after the wedding while the Lord Elrond and the Lady and Legolas was all there to help in the planning).

       There were presents for all, as the will indicated this was to stand in the stead of the Birthday Party to which the Shire had become accustomed. Once again, he said Sting was mine, now and for the rest of my life, and for once I couldn’t give it back. And all laughed, including me. And he’d had my sisters and brother-in-law make me two suits suitable for the Master of Bag End, and there was a box wrapped in ribbon which, when I opened it, held his watch and chain with the little silver key hanging from it. I took it out and held it to me and wept, and all wept with me. And he’d had made for me a silver teapot, suitable for serving athelas tea to the King of Gondor and Arnor, he wrote me. Again we all laughed through our tears.

       He had similar gifts for all. Some of the books of his and Mr. Bilbo’s were to go to this one or that, or to the library to be built; but most was now for me and Rosie and our children. The binding supplies was to go to the library, he said, although he hoped as one of my children might one day take an interest in it and assist in the making of more books. A whole set of silverware made by the folk of the Lonely Mountain had been commissioned for the Bracegirdle niece in loving memory of the change of heart Missus Lobelia had undergone. An assortment of cloth was being sent to May and Daisy, and new looms for Daisy’s husband and the Widow Rumble, who liked to weave of an evening. And for little Cyclamen Proudfoot, he asked the book of Elven tales as I’d learnt to read from be given to her for her very own; and seven pieces of gold as had come from the King with the wine at Midsummers was to be given to her daddy, in memory of the day when he thought to find gold and jools ahind the walls of the larder.

       Among those who received books was Budgie Smallfoot, who received a copy of the herbal Frodo’d copied for Missus Menegilda so long ago, other books on healing and the body as he had in his library, a special small book sent with thanks from Lord Elrond which explained the herbs he used in healing, and a supply of herbs such as Lord Elrond had sent to be added to the tea I fixed for him. And Lord Elrond sent also seeds for many of these plants, with a request I found a special herb garden for healers near the Three Farthing Stone for all to use, to be worked by myself, Mr. Smallfoot, and any other healer as cared to take part in the project. Turned out a lot of this’d come in that bundle I’d been given by Lord Erestor.

       Mr. Frodo’d also asked that the Red Book be copied and shared throughout the Free Peoples, and that it be read regular that all might know at what cost our freedom and happiness had been bought.

       At the end he wrote: Now, a word to the Conspirators, Fredegar, Sam, Pippin, and Merry--to you I leave my frustration and fury, that every time I sought to protect you you refused to allow it. You would not let me keep my secrets, nor allow me my journey alone to Death. Each and every time I sought to spare you, your obstinacy put you in harm’s way in spite of all I could think to do. And now, at last, I find myself able to let loose on you the rage of the Wronged Cousin!

       Yet, the fact remains that you were right, and I was wrong. In my pride I thought I could bear the burden alone, make my way alone, save the Shire alone. I humbly beg your forgiveness for the unspoken curses I formulated as I foresaw every disaster you would face that you refused to allow me to bear for you. For what did I in the paucity of my imagination know of what Terror is? You proved stronger than I, all of you, even you, Freddy, who feared to leave the safety of the Shire but who proved yourself, to your own amazement, as brave and as dedicated as any. Each of you went through trials I still cannot imagine, and all have earned every honor ever bestowed upon you. I bend my knee in respect to each and all of you, and beg you forgive me for this, my last betrayal, for not telling you I am leaving. I remain a coward, and weak. I am, I know, physically weak now, and I could not bear seeing your final grief. Please, please forgive me.

       I know now that not all the darkness I perceive is due to the taint I carry, that much is brought on by physical weakness and illness. But I still see that darkness, and it feels as if it is coming to devour me at last.

       Strictly speaking, I am not yet dead, or at least I don’t believe my end will come before this will is read. But I could no longer remain in Middle Earth as I am. My end would have come soon if I’d stayed, probably as the result of the fragile nature of my body, but perhaps by my own hand. For I have borne much grief and more pain, and in spite of the love I bear all of you and the whole Shire and much of the world outside its bounds as well, I have been sore pressed to remain with you this long. If I am to find any rest at all from the burden of pain and grief I have borne since I took up the Ring, I cannot remain longer among you, for fear I will do myself or you--or both--injuries none of us deserve.

       I beg all of you to accept my apologies for the pain and grief that I have given you, wittingly or unwittingly, as I have fought my own long defeat. And I ask that you remember gently your cousin and neighbor and one-time friend,

Frodo Baggins, son of Drogo and Primula

Dated this eighteenth day of September, 1421 S.R.

In Bag End, the Hill, Hobbiton, Westfarthing, The Shire

in Eriador in the Kingdom of Arnor under the rule of the King Elessar

Middle Earth

Post Script: Please, on our Birthday of September 22, may you always raise a toast to Bilbo and myself, and if I remain within the bounds of Arda, I will do so to you. F.B.

       We was all weeping, and I saw the Thain reach out to his son, run his hand down his chest, then take his sword hand and examine it, and finally embrace him, whispering into his ear through his tears. And Estella Bolger reached out to take Merry’s hand, as he were sitting aside her, and held it in comfort.

       The Master begged Rosie and me to come with them to Brandy Hall, and we went. And as we rode we talked and shared, and Missus Esmeralda and Master Saradoc told us about the fear and the love they’d held for their beloved young cousin and foster son, almost-brother to Merry, and all they’d tried to do, and the failing and the succeeding.

       The next day after our arrival, during first breakfast, there was a knocking at the door, and the housekeeper came into the dining hall to say as there were a Person outside who wished to speak with the Master of Bag End. Rosie had to punch me to remind me that that was now me.

       It was an Elf, and he put a letter in my hand and said as he’d wait for me. I opened it, then went in to tell them I’d been called outside the Shire, toward Bree, and I hoped they’d forgive me, but I must go now but would return the following day at the latest. And I asked if they’d get Bill ready for me.

       Merry and Pippin were waiting with their ponies aside Bill, and I saw as I wasn’t going to be able to go alone no more than the last Master of Bag End had.

       We saw the campfire aside the road, among the trees across from where the Barrowdowns ran, and we turned in there. A figure sat aside it on a fallen log, his hood over his head, which was bowed with tiredness. Behind him stood the sons of Elrond and the Lord Glorfindel, so I could see he wasn’t unguarded, wasn’t alone. And the Elf who’d brought us bowed and slipped into the shadows. Asfaloth and the horses of Elladan and Elrohir raised their heads to greet us, and aside them a grey shadow moved forward, and I thought at first it was Shadowfax.

       "We’re here, Strider," I said, and he raised his head, his eyes sad, but accepting.

       "Almost a month ago," he said, "Arwen suddenly woke me in the night, telling me, ‘He has chosen. He has chosen to take the Ship. Go to him, Estel.’

       "I left matters in her hands and those of the Lord Faramir as Steward, and set out immediately, but Roheryn suffered from my haste, and turned his ankle as I entered Rohan. I’d walked, leading him, for five days before Éomer found me, leading Olórin here. I could not go faster without fully laming Roheryn."

       "I thought Gandalf had come back at first, when I saw him," Merry said, looking at the great horse.

       "He is second son to Shadowfax." The horse moved to him, and he rubbed its neck. "Éomer said he wished to gift me with one of the Mearas, if it would bear me, as he thought it would. Olórin brought me here, but too late. I felt the Ship leave as we were on the way. I felt Adar and Galadriel and--and Frodo leave Middle Earth.

       "I went first to Imladris, and together we finally came here. What can you tell me?"

       So, we told him, and I gave him my spare handkerchief once more, and he laughed through his tears. I’d not told Merry and Pippin what the ride to the Havens was like, but I told the King, told him of the withdrawing, of the quietness overtaking his Friend, the caring focused on Bilbo, the final embrace and kiss of blessing he’d given me. And I gave him the will to read, for I’d carried it with me.

       "He’d barely speak at the end, sir. He was almost past it, I think."

       "Alas, that he could not return to full health!" he said.

       "Lord Elrond said it were enough, enough for him to choose. He was growing weaker. If he’d been there on the anniversary of when he was struck again, it would’ve killed him. He couldn’t take no more. He was fading."

       He nodded.

       There was food prepared, and he looked surprised when Glorfindel set a platter on his lap and a cup in his hand. And after we ate, he spoke with Merry and Pippin, returned the will to me, embraced us all, and turned to Olórin.

       "Shall I accompany you, my Lord?" Pippin asked.

       The King turned, laughing. "No, my beloved Ernil i Pheriannath. Your leave is not up, not yet. But be ready when I ride north." And the Guard of the Citadel saluted his King as Aragorn Elessar leapt onto his horse, and we went to mount our ponies.

       I rode forward, saw as there was no bridle nor saddle. "Like his father, I see," I said. Foolish things we say, no? And he laughed. "Olórin--that was one of Gandalf’s names, wasn’t it?"

       "The wisest of the Maiar, Sam." He leaned down, holding Olórin’s mane. "At least we know Frodo was well protected on the voyage, Sam." And he laid his hand on my head, and I thought as I heard an Elvish blessing, and the King rode out onto the road, heading south, the sons of Elrond following him; and Glorfindel and the other elf accompanied us back to the gate at the Brandywine Bridge.

       It is spring now, and over the winter we’ve learned much that Frodo son of Drogo Baggins held secret. We’ve learned of the weakness of his heart when he was a lad, and of its gradual failing as he’d known since his waking in Ithilien. We’ve learned of secret plans to help many here and there throughout the Shire, and how some as were moved by love and pity and compassion, and some set in motion in horror brought on by his own feelings of anger and disgust toward this one or that. We’ve seen also how the many small kindnesses he did over the years, open or hidden, have worked to make this land in which we live more beautiful and kind.

       The stationery box wasn’t on the desk when I arrived home from the Grey Havens, and I thought as maybe he’d taken it with him, or given it quietly to another, and I was sorry, in a way. But then I found it, sitting on the floor under the little work desk as he had insisted be placed in the master bedroom when Bag End was restored and refurnished. I’d not seen it for the chair hid it, and over the chair was draped the cloak given him by the King afore we left Gondor. He’d laughed at the time that he were certain as that cloak had been intended for either Strider hisself or me at the beginning, as it were a bit large across the shoulders for him, and now he’d left it for me. And it did fit me, very well indeed. I’d taken over a week to gather my courage to take it, for things brought tears far too easily to me.

       Then, there as I stood wearing that foolish cloak, I saw the shadow of the stationery box sitting there, and I crouched down to look at it in wonder, then finally took it up. I got the watch out of my pocket, and took the key and used it to open the little drawer, and in it were many papers. There was drawings he’d made, drawings of me, of the Gaffer, of Bilbo (how young he looked in those drawings), of Rosie and Elanor among the later ones. There was even one made of Strider as he’d looked sitting as part of the Council of Elrond, and one of Merry and Pippin leaning over Bilbo’s shoulders in the gardens of Rivendell. And one made in Lothlorien in the ink as they’d given us, one of me, looking into the Mirror of Galadriel.

       But there was dark drawings and paintings, too--Gollum and bones and an orc with a whip--and Eyes against darkness; and one of a Wheel of Fire. And one last one--his hand, as it was now, with the scar where the Ring was bit off of him. And at the bottom, but not in his usual graceful writing: For your hand’s fairer without it.

       And there was a letter.

       I won’t copy it, for it’s very private. And I read in it the anger and the grief and the frustration he felt as his body was failing, and as he felt toward all of us as sought to wrap him up in wool batting and tried to preserve him as wasn’t worth preserving--that’s how he wrote it. And I read the longing for the happiness I’d been able to find, and the joy as I’d found it at least, and the desire as I’d live for both of us, as I’d held the hope for both of us when he was so close to dying in those dark days in the Black Land.

       I read his rage and his love, his joy and his grief.

       But mostly it were of his love, even in the depths of his greatest anger, it were of his love--for his family, for his home, for his people, for his King, and for his best friend, dearer than brother.

       One day I’ll take that Grey Ship, but not till after Rosie is gone, and of course, only if I live past her. I only hope he will remain--I hope he survived the crossing, in fact. For the anniversary was coming of the day he was stabbed by the Morgul knife, and that were always a hard one. And I doubt he could hide the pain among so many of the great ones with whom he traveled. Could he make it past that day? Could the Elves with him and Grey Ship on which he sailed hold the pain at bay, hold him for healing? But Gandalf was with him, and Elrond, and the Lady.

       And once I make it, will I recognize him? Or will he be as old Gandalf saw, a vessel as of glass filled with light for eyes to see as can?

       I hope you’ll wait for me, Frodo Baggins, Iorhael. For you are to me also dearer than brother.

The Court of the King Elessar at Lake Evendim

       I’m not sure what I expected. We received word that Mistress Rose had died in the summer past, sent by the Lady Elanor; but though I sent messages to Sam, I received no word in reply. When we arrived in the North in early April to sit at court here in Annúminas, I hoped that when we stopped at the Brandywine Bridge I would see him there, but not only was he not present, no one would speak to me of him. Only the Thain told me that the Lady Elanor Fairbairn had hoped to attend my coming but had been delayed, but that she had sent word she would come with her family to the Court within the month.

       They arrived yestermorn, attended by Merry and Pippin. She is still as beautiful as ever, small, delicate in appearance--far more than is usually seen among the ladies of the Shire. Her hair still shines like spun gold in the sunlight, although I saw silver there near her temples. She came with her husband Fastred and their children and at least one grandchild, and with her brother, Frodo.

       Frodo Gardner is unlike his namefather, for he is fairhaired where my Frodo was dark, and his skin has the pleasant golden glow of his profession that his father bore, not the porcelain I knew and cherished. He is not as broad as his father, but more plump than my Friend. His eyes are hazel, not blue as my Frodo’s were nor brown as his father’s. His features are finer than Sam’s, closer to those of his Aunt Marigold, whom I’ve met at the Bridge. He has his father’s sense of responsibility, but more refined. His speech is also cultured, little given to the rustic usages affected by his father--there, at least, he does resemble his namefather more. His expressions resemble those of his father, but come more, I think, from his mother. But that responsible stance--that was pure Sam. Ah, it is so very long since I last saw him.

       I’d forgotten how formal the Shirefolk can be when the mood is on them.

       They looked to be uncomfortable when Arwen and I rose to greet them, as if they’d been denied the requisite bowing and curtseying that they feel due to those in Authority (that makes the visits at the Bridge take a good long time, I’ve found). I could see Merry and Pippin watching their discomfort with that glint of mischief that still lurks within them, as venerable as they’ve become. But the youngest of them were too busy looking at us with eyes wide with wonder to be awed or uncomfortable, and when I looked down at one of the little ones, she came up to me quite close and asked in a solemn whisper if I was truly her Gaffer’s Friend and King, and when I said I was she turned about and exclaimed, "Then this is the right room at last!" And Pippin and Merry’s laughter filled the hall as my courtiers looked scandalized--but the formality fell at last--almost.

       The Lady Elanor had prepared a speech given by herself and her husband welcoming me back to the Northern Lands and forwarding the respects of all those who live in the Marches. And then her brother stepped forward to ask if we might meet privately, to speak of their parents.

       Once the formal audiences were over and I’d given proper greeting to the Thain and the Master, I gave word that they were to be brought to us in the herb garden once they’d been allowed time to be refreshed, for I thought, rightly, that Sam’s Frodo would be most comfortable there. He actually was there before my own arrival, sitting on the curb of the fountain, evaluating the plantings just as his father would have done, recognizing old friends and discovering some surprises. Arwen and Eldarion and Idril were also there before me, sitting on a bench, allowing our guest to have a quiet chance to become comfortable.

       He was dressed very formally, in what Frodo had once described as "the Master of Bag End" fashion, much as Bilbo chose to wear most of the time in Rivendell. A chain reached across his chest, and from it dangled a silver key, much worn. As he sat, he fiddled unconsciously with whatever it was that lay in the right pocket of his vest, and there I found myself seeing, at last, Frodo Baggins--as well as Bilbo--reflected fully. So often on our journey between Bree and Weathertop had he sat thus, as he’d done that first night in Barliman’s parlor. Only later did I learn that this was where he and before him his uncle had usually carried the Ring to that time, and that it had become a habit to touch and roll it between their fingers as they sat; and the habit had continued in Bilbo for as long as I’d known him, rolling then instead a smooth stone he’d drawn once from the Bruinen and that he carried with him always.

       Beside him on the curb of the fountain sat a wooden chest with a tray atop it and a drawer beneath, as well as a large packet wrapped in brown oil cloth and tied with a fine cord. I paused, not wishing to break his quiet, which was very unlike that seen in his gentle mother or his father, for this quiet, too, reminded me of my Frodo--a comfortable relationship with stillness. And I could see now in his eyes the traces of a healing grief.

       They were leading in now Elanor and her husband, and Frodo rose to greet them, and then all saw me, where I stood in the archway from our quarters, and all turned my way, now sure they’d failed to fulfill their duty by acknowledging my arrival, and I wanted to laugh.

       "Please," I told them, "sit and be comfortable." Frodo resumed his seat by his chest while his sister and her husband sat on the bench nearby. A guard appeared with my garden stool, and I noted that it was Pippin--it would be he, I realized. Must have bullied the Captain into allowing him to take up his duties immediately, as he did when he was with the court. He then withdrew to stand at guard toward the archway through which the others had come as if to give us privacy, but not far enough, I noted, to avoid hearing our conversation. I gave him what was supposed to be a royal look of disapproval, and found myself instead smiling into eyes still impudent in spite of the age reflected in the wrinkles surrounding them. A servant came in with the wine and the pitcher of ale I’d ordered, and with goblets and cups, and set the tray on a table carried by a second servant, while another came bearing a plate of seedcakes such as I’d learned Hobbits love. I noted I’d need to talk to young Druinen about not stinting our guests--few here for many years have had first-hand experience with the appetites of Hobbits, and although the number of cakes on the plate would have been sufficient for twice as many Men, even this small group of Shirelings would have it gone in a few moments, I knew. My wife, son, and younger daughter now came near us, and dropped gracefully to sit in the grass at my feet, Arwen leaning back so I could run my fingers through her hair. And, after I’d determined the preferences of each and urged themselves to accept a drink, I gestured that they might begin.

       "Your father did not reply to my last letter," I said, and waited.

       It was apparently Frodo’s story to tell, for they looked at him to respond.

       After a moment he finally spoke. "You know that our mother died last summer," he said, "for Elanor sent the letter, I know. Da started to write, several times, but then would leave off and feed what he’d done so far to the fire. Then one night he retired to the study and closed the door, and I thought at last he’d found the words to send to you.

       "The next day he began to meet with lawyers and bankers and the Master and the Thain and the new Mayor, and I realized he was clearing up his affairs, setting them in order. He allowed me to ride with him at the end to the Road, but no further, said he needed to do the rest alone, although I don’t believe he was actually alone--I am certain I saw an Elf watching from the border of the wood there, and he bowed to me as if to say he’d watch after my father. I’ve not seen any Elves for so long, not since I was a young lad, but I’m certain I was not mistaken."

       "And that was when?"

       "Last fall, sir." He fell still again. Finally he resumed. "He arrived at Elanor’s a few days later, apparently alone. He gave her the Red Book, and told her he had chosen, and that he was going to accept the offer to go on one of the Grey Ships, and he was going to follow his Master. Said he’d made that decision long ago, in fact, but that he’d vowed not to go while our mother was living.

       "On October eighth his lawyer and his banker of discretion arrived, saying they’d had direction to come on that date to do the reading of his will." He paused again, and drank deeply from his mug. "I’d already been given the Deed to Bag End and the keys and many other documents, but this reading was quite formal, confirming what I already knew, that I am now Master of Bag End. And he had had made for me this suit and another, and left this for me in a box tied in old but beautiful ribbon." And he pulled out a gold disk from his pocket, a dwarf creation they called a watch, such as old Bilbo had always carried. It hung from the chain that stretched across his chest. "He always carried this, my Lord, always carried it and treasured it. When the Dwarves came to call they would care for it for him, cleaning it and checking to see its workings were in order."

       "Dwarves called on you, Frodo?"

       He nodded, as did Elanor. "Master Gimli came from time to time, as did a younger Dwarf named Dorlin. I found that my father had known Dorlin from his own childhood, and that it was Dorlin who made for him the gardening tools he loved the most."

       Again he drank from his mug and then looked at the cakes, which I indicated he should feel free to take part in. Immediately the others, feeling this had given them permission as well, reached forward with relief, and Arwen accepted one as Elanor held out the plate to us.

       As he ate, Frodo continued to contemplate the watch, and at last he slipped the chain from its fastenings and handed it to me to examine. "I learned that this belonged to my Uncle Frodo, and that Mr. Bilbo had had it made for him before he left the Shire, in token of the fact he was then Master of Bag End. It was presented to Da when Uncle Frodo’s will was read, and he left it to me in the same way.

       "The key belongs to this, sir," and he indicated the chest. "It held stationery on his desk in his room, and when he was angered, he would go into his room and shut the door and write. And, when he was done, he’d slip whatever he’d been writing into the drawer and lock it up. We always rather feared this drawer, and wondered what secrets it contained, but then I realized that he’d go in after his anger was finished or he’d solved a problem, and he’d take out the papers he’d put there, and usually he’d then burn them, although one time he used them to wrap fish in before he disposed of it--that was when he was Mayor and had been having to constantly deal with a family in the Eastfarthing that appeared to be always in difficulties of their own making." I found we were all beginning to smile, and glancing at Pippin, I saw him nodding his head as if he knew what the matter had been about.

       "Da had a cloak, sir, which he said you’d given to Uncle Frodo, but it had been too wide across the shoulders for him. He said Uncle Frodo always joked it had obviously been originally intended for either yourself or Da. He’d wear it for formal occasions, although I know he preferred to wear the other one, that beautiful grey-green cloak from Lorien with the leaf brooch." I nodded--I, too, preferred my own cloak from that time.

       "Did he leave you that, too, Frodo?"

       "No, sir, he didn’t. He wore it when he left." I felt the tears gathering in my throat, and nodded again, glad, somehow. He continued, after refilling his mug, "Uncle Frodo left that cloak draped over the back of the chair to Da’s desk, left it for him. I found the same thing when I arrived back home after seeing him off--the cloak across the chair. I couldn’t bear to move it for several days, and when I finally did, I saw the stationery box was on the floor under the desk." He untied the cord on the bundle, and I leaned forward to examine it.

       "Unusual fiber," I commented, and he nodded.

       "He twisted it himself, my Lord. When I was a lad he and I went down to the woods near the foot of the Hill, and he gathered, of all things, nettles--said he’d always wanted to try something old Mr. Bilbo’d mentioned as when he was a lad." I smiled as I heard Sam’s own voice reflected in that of his more cultured son. "He beat out the fibers, and twisted them into the cord."

       I remembered his talk from Lorien, that ropemaking was in the family. I’d quite forgotten till now, and found myself slipping it free and running it between my fingers. Meanwhile Frodo was bringing out a stack of paper and fitting it into the tray on the top of the chest, a golden paper with green glints in it. Still in the cloth was a green-bound volume lying atop some documents.

       "This is the way the box has always been, sir. Like this." He straightened an edge. "This is the way I found it. Naturally I decided to solve the mystery of the drawer, so I opened it." He held out his hand for the watch, which Eldarion had taken from me when I reached for the cord, took the worn key, and unlocked the drawer. "Inside were these, and another key, the key to the drawer in the desk in the study which was always his and his alone." He handed the chest to me, and indicated I should open the drawer. I looked at his hands as I accepted the chest--they were the hands of a gardener, but finer than those of his father, more slender, more similar again to his namefather.

       Eldarion twisted around to watch as I slipped the drawer open. Inside were papers--poems and drawings, mostly; and I recognized the handwriting on the poems. Frodo’s graceful script. I took one out and found it was in Quenya, and was a praise to the beauty of the Lady Arwen Undomiel. I read it as the tears fell, then handed it to my wife, who looked at it with wonder. I heard her intake of breath as I looked over the rest. Another was addressed: To the King’s son, and it was a description of me, as Frodo had seen me. I glanced through it and handed it to Eldarion.

       "He apparently wished you to know me as he did," I said, my voice thick.

       Idril had stood and come behind me, looking over my shoulder into the drawer. When I nodded she slipped out a few of the drawings, and stopped as she found one of me. I had no idea Frodo was an artist as well as a writer, but the likeness was wonderful. She examined it carefully, then handed it to me, and I passed it on to Arwen to see, and I saw her smile with recognition.

       "The day of the Council," she whispered. "I remember how formal you looked that morning."

       Idril was going through more of the pictures, when suddenly she stopped and her face paled. She held the picture still, then held it out to me. It was the Eye--several renditions of it, against a black background. I realized what this was--it was one of the evil dreams that had recurred frequently as he lay in healing sleep, one that Gandalf and I had repeatedly reproved. I looked at my Friend’s namesake, and he answered me, "Yes, I have looked at all of them, my Lord. That one appears to be of his memory of being sought after by the Enemy." I could only nod.

       The drawings and paintings were of many subjects, and most were of Sam or of Sam’s flowers, or Bilbo, or his cousins. Pippin had come forward, and was looking at each picture as Idril revealed it. He held out his hand for one done in ink. "I remember that parchment and Frodo doing that, in Lothlorien." He took it. "Sam, and that must be him looking into the Mirror of Galadriel." Then he looked at the next one Idril was examining, and paled. "Oh, no," he said.

       I took it, and my hand shook as I read the inscription. His writing on it was--violent: For your hand’s fairer without it. Arwen reached for it, and I saw the compassion fill her face.

       There was such a contrast between the fair pictures and the ones which reflected his black memories.

       And then I saw the worst of all--Gollum--except it was not Gollum, not when you looked closely. For the brow line was different, the chin cleft, the eyes with a malevolent intelligence to them beyond what Gollum could command. I took a deep breath before I faced Arwen with that.

       "May the Valar ease him," she whispered as she saw what I saw.

       "What’s wrong, Aragorn?" Pippin asked. "That’s just Gollum, isn’t it?"

       I shook my head, took it back and passed it to him. It took several moments before his face paled, and I thought he’d collapse. "Eru preserve him," he finally said in a shaky voice. "Is that what he saw himself becoming?"

       Frodo was looking at us with consternation. He was holding the green volume in his hand as he searched our faces. "What is wrong?"

       Pippin looked at him with grief filling his features. "This one is Gollum, but it isn’t, Frodo." He drew a shaky breath. "It’s himself as Gollum." The younger Hobbit’s face paled, as did those of the other two.

       I poured another cup of ale and handed it to Pippin, who drank it off as he handed the picture back to me. He wiped his face. Elanor took the picture, and I saw pity fill her lovely eyes with tears. "Poor Uncle Frodo," she whispered.

       At the bottom of the stack of pictures Idril held was a letter, and this one was not written by Frodo, but by Sam. I took it.

Dearest Strider, my Friend and my King,

       You have heard that Rosie is gone, and by the time you get this, I’ll be gone, too. Not dead, but over the Sea, after my Master. They told me as I could go, when we were at the Havens.

       I’ve tried to write so many times, but it wouldn’t come. But I think you should know what it was like for him at the end. It weren’t very good, not as good as I’d thought when I saw you on the road to Bree that time as you came on Olórin.

       After I saw you, I found this. He left it for me. I thought you would need to see, some day. But I couldn’t show it to you, couldn’t show you the good nor the bad. I was selfish, but I was also trying to protect you, too. Don’t know why as I’d try to protect you, for you have seen far worse than me, after all--you looked into that palantir when He had the other one, and wrenched it from Him, and Gimli said you looked like you’d gone right near Death yourself.

       He loved you very much. sir.

       Please forgive me I’ve waited so long to give this to you.

       I have a book there, too, as I’d like you to see. I wrote it long ago, the spring after he left. I had to get it out, for it was eating my heart away. But one thing I didn’t write out, was when I looked again at the picture of Gollum, and saw what he’d really done, what he’d really drawn. And, when you look at the picture of the orc and the one of the bones....

       I can’t stand it, Strider, that he’d see hisself like that.

       Know this, I’m happy. I’m old, and I’ve had the best life I could have. Had to--he begged me to live for him, too, and now, the Powers permitting, I’ll be able to tell him about it--if he’s still there, of course, and if I can still see him.

       Tell Lady Arwen how much I will miss her, and I’ll let her Adar know how she and the children are faring. Don’t know how long I’ll be able to stay, for I’m now an old Hobbit, after all, but I’ll try to give her folks joy of her, and of you.

       My love and respect always, my Lord Strider.

Your Sam

       I passed the letter to Eldarion, who read it, whispered, "I’m glad, Adar," as he passed it to his mother, who began to smile through her tears.

       "May I see?" asked Fastred from his place beside Elanor.

       Idril turned to me. "Do you think, Adar, that I should summon Master Meriadoc?" I nodded, and she slipped away to fetch him.

       Elanor sighed. "I hope the older children will keep the younger ones in line, my Lord, for Merry had agreed to watch them as we came here. But, he should see this, I think."

       I looked at one of the writings, and found it was in Sindarin but was not a poem. It was simply words, mostly dark words, painful words, although as it turned over to the back side the writing, which had been labored, eased, and more pleasant words appeared, ending with King, friend, Elanor, Sam, and Elessar. Merry arrived, and Pippin whispered quietly into his ear as Fastred poured a cup of wine and handed it to him. He sipped, then began to examine the drawings. When he got to the one of the hand, he paused.

       "Sweet Valar," he said, paling. "What Tom Bombadil said to him, Pippin!" Pippin nodded. I looked up.

       Pippin explained, "When we were going through the Old Forest and stayed two nights with Tom Bombadil, Tom asked to see the Ring, and placed it on his finger, and it disappeared, but he didn’t. He gave it back to Frodo, and after a bit Frodo slipped it on himself and tried to creep away. But Tom could see him, and he said that to Frodo, and Frodo took it off and put it back in his pocket."

      Pippin reached into the drawer and took out the rest of the drawings, then stopped at one of an orc with a whip, then said, "Oh, no!"

       I took it and looked, saw nothing at first--then saw the face on the orc was again Frodo’s but distorted, and that lying beyond him was Sam. Then there was one of a pile of bones--but the bones, I realized, belonged to me, for lying over a thigh bone lay the sheath of Anduril, and beside them the Elfstone.

       I remembered the closing words of his will, and shuddered.

       At the very bottom of the stack was a message, again in Quenya, addressed to me. It said simply, I am sorry, Aragorn Elessar, my friend, my healer, my liege and my King--I can no longer find joy in the gift you tried to give me. Forgive me.

I hurt so.

I love you so, my friend.

       On the backside, in Sindarin, was a note.

I am sorry I wrote what I did yesterday. I almost killed myself. The pain was too great. Please forgive me, if you ever see it.

       Under that, in a weaker hand and in different ink,

Tell the Lady Arwen I have finally chosen. Thank her for me.

       It seemed to me this paper smelled of athelas. I handed it to Arwen, who took it, read it, smelled it, then smiled.

       Frodo took up the green volume that he’d set down beside him as we went through the last of the papers, pictures and writings, and handed it to me. "The markings Da put there, sir."

       I opened it to the furthest marking, and read about the letter. Then I backed up to the next-to-last one, and found myself reading about a dinner with the parents of Merry and Pippin. I stopped, and said, "This concerns you," and read it aloud.

       Merry nodded. "My Da told me about it."

       Pippin sighed and helped himself to the last seedcake. "Frodo told me he’d sort out the Thain, but I didn’t realize how it drained him." He stopped, looked at the cake he held in his hand, then broke it in two and handed half of it to his cousin.

       Arwen had reached into the cloth wrapping and took out the top paper. It was a painting, a portrait of me, unfinished. Underneath were copies of Frodo’s will and Sam’s, and then Bilbo’s. Then a formal letter thanking me for the gifts I’d made to the founding of the Shire schools, again unfinished. And a picture of Bilbo facing Smaug, a droll thing, full of humor, with a poem around it about the Little Hobbit fooling the Big, Bad Dragon. I remembered a picture Bilbo had hanging on the wall in his chamber at Imladris, one he’d said had been given him by Gandalf, very similar, of Turin and the Dragon surrounded like this with a fragment of the lay, and realized at last whose work it had been. I’d always thought Turin looked quite like the old Hobbit.

       At the bottom was a framed painting. I wasn’t sure what it was, although the colors were lovely. I looked at Frodo, but it was Elanor who anwered my unspoken question.

       "Uncle Frodo did that for our dad, before they left the Shire to meet you. They used to get water worms out of the stream in the wood at the bottom of the Hill, and the worms build shells for themselves out of twigs or gravel, and they’d take away the shells and give them different things to build new ones of. That’s of a few that Uncle Frodo gathered, and gave them chipped stone to work with. Sam-Dad hung that in the study, and kept their collection of the shells they left when the worms turned to flies there, in a box Gimli gave him."

       Frodo added, "Da wanted you to have it, sir." Then he brought out what he had held in his pocket. In a small crystal box was the original for the painting, and he gave it into my hand. Something quite other than that which Frodo had fingered, so long ago.

*******

       I am back in my own rooms. I look to the wardrobe where my old leathers hang, and I long to take them out and ride throughout Eriador until I can shake the grief. I rejoice that Frodo accepted Arwen’s Gift, although I realize it wasn’t exactly hers to give. But I thank the Valar they granted that one this Gift, granted Arwen’s plea for him.

       We read the book together, Arwen, Eldarion, and I, all through the night, taking turns. Eldarion read the most, for my voice was often stopped with grief. At the back was one more picture Frodo had done, one which I recognized. I’d not thought he’d seen us, when Sam and I talked in Rohan as my beloved Arwen and her Adar took leave of one another, but he apparently had, for it was of Sam and myself, looking off to the West, my arm about Sam, Sam’s spare handkerchief in my other hand. It was inscribed in Sindarin, My Friends, Greatest of the Great. I will give the book tomorrow to the Thain of the Shire to share with the Master of Buckland and the Warden of the Marches and the Mayor.

       Tell him for me, Sam, how much I love and miss him, and scold him for not giving me the chance to say goodbye--yet, if he’d lingered, he probably would have ended before I arrived, anyway.

       Frodo Baggins. My friend. My brother. My Light in the Darkness.

       And I look at a picture that stands now on a chest, a picture of water worms that build a shell for themselves until they change to winged things and are ready to fly away, their wings sparkling in the Light.