Side Trip to Brandy Hall

S.R. 25 Winterfilth, 1388

“I leave you here, my friend,” the wizard said at the gate to Bree.  “I go to the northern aeries to confer with Radagast.”

Bilbo Baggins looked up at Gandalf’s face.  Behind the thick brows and beard he saw signs that the wizard was almost reluctant to leave his company.  Bilbo liked to think it anyway.  He and Gandalf had partaken in several short trips since the episode of the dragon at Lonely Mountain and Bilbo harbored the notion that Gandalf actually sought him out as a preferred traveling companion.  And right that should be, Bilbo reasoned, since hobbits were the best of companions and he the most spirited of hobbits.

“I should hope you’ll stop by for a bit of Longbottom Leaf when you are through,” Bilbo suggested.  “You are always welcome at Bag End.”

The old wizard smiled and a twinkle graced his eyes.  “Yes, I should plan that,” he answered, stroking his long beard while mulling it over.  “Yes, yes, indeed – look for me… on November the fifteenth, in fact.”

Bilbo grinned accusingly.  “You planned to arrive anyway, didn’t you, Gandalf?  Even had the offer not been extended?”

“The hospitality of hobbits is legendary, Bilbo Baggins,” Gandalf rejoined.  “As I recall you, yourself, welcome strangers as readily as old friends.”

“And I should have learned better after once graciously making a luncheon offer to a dusty old wizard passing my doorstep one good morning.  I invite one and he invites thirteen!”

With a shared laugh and a handshake in truce and farewell they parted company, Gandalf atop his cart heading north and Bilbo upon his feet heading west – toward home.

*

The road from Staddle to the Brandywine River was reasonably well traveled, although generally only by hobbits from Staddle.  Trade was frequent, but the Shire folk were of the notion that the need was entirely on the side of Staddle.  In fact, Bilbo was the only hobbit he knew of who ever initiated the trip from the western end.  He prided himself on the matter, staunchly ignoring the truth that he had been none too keen on it himself one abrupt morning some forty years prior.  That upstanding and unadventurous Bilbo was now but a distant memory to him.

Not that he was disrespected in Hobbiton these days.  People there respected him a great deal – for his wealth.  They just considered him an eccentric – and not one with whom they trusted their children.  He might sway their imaginations, after all, and spirit them away on one of his adventures like he had with young Drogo Baggins a number of years ago.

‘Drogo,’ Bilbo mused to himself.  ‘Full of promise and yet made it no further than Brandy Hall.  Got all wrapped up in some pretty lass of a Brandybuck and dropped right out of his first ‘venture to get married.’  Bilbo had not seen him since.  He had come to have very little interest in relations who conformed to the hobbit perspective of respectability, the consequence of which being that he had come to have very little interest in any of his relations whatsoever. 

The thought of Drogo, however, made Bilbo consider a stopover at Brandy Hall.  Center of Buckland, the eastern periphery of the Shire, Brandy Hall was the definitive of hospitality. Bilbo knew that was due in large to the fact that there were always so many Brandybucks coming and going there that no one ever inspected a face closely enough to discern whether it might not belong there.  The table at Brandy Hall was always overflowing – as were the tankards.

Bilbo was going to be passing almost near enough to Brandy Hall on his way home to see its many chimneys.  ‘Perhaps it’s time to check in with the Master,” he thought.  Naturally he would make sure that he would arrive at one of the many mealtimes.  ‘I can stay the night in a chair by a fire.  It will be better than in a sack on the side of the road.’

*

Brandy Hall was indeed bustling.  Master Rorimac Brandybuck (‘Old Rory’ to most) received Bilbo with an eager ear.  “Sup for stories, my dear Bilbo,” he laughed. “Tis much too long since you’ve entertained us with one of your tales.”

Bilbo grimaced.  Although he knew full well that hobbits the Shire over regarded his sagas as the elaborate yarns of a far too active imagination, he didn’t appreciate the pointed reminder.  The pastoral folk knew well enough of the existence of dwarves and men from their encounters with Bree-folk, but in trolls and dragons and even the elusive elves of lore none but the children believed.

Drogo Baggins had believed, though, even as an adult.  It was his whole-hearted infatuation with Bilbo’s accounts of going to the Lonely Mountain that had brought him as far as this folksy dwelling on the Shire’s edge some thirty or thereabouts years back. 

“Well, then,” came a gruff matron’s voice from behind.  “As I see it, if there’s a Baggins come within Brandy Hall, then a Baggins should see to the punishment of this rascal, here...”  She pushed her way visible, dragging a not-quite- adolescent lad with her by the point of one ear.   Without further introduction, she threw the hobbit onto the floor in front of Bilbo and addressed the Master directly.  “He’s been into the mushrooms again, with no regard at all for Farmer Maggot owning the land where he found them.  I heard Maggot’s dogs baying in the lane and looked up to see them nipping at the scalawag’s heels.  Never saw a lad run so fast in all my life.”

Old Rory caught his guest’s confused expression and motioned Bilbo aside.  “You mustn’t have heard of the accident, then?” he asked gently.  Bilbo shook his head.  “Your cousin Drogo and his good wife, my dear sister Primula, went boating one night a few years back whilst visiting here and went down into the Brandywine.  When we fished them out, they had both departed.  Their son – Frodo is his name – was twelve at the time.  He’s been a bit of everyone’s business ever since.”

Bilbo was shocked.  “Drowned? How is it that no one sent word?” 

The Master frowned.  “We feared it would cause a hullabaloo throughout Hobbiton should it get out.  After all, we know your townsfolk’s opinion of boating.”

“I do not hold that opinion, Master Rorimac,” Bilbo countered, offended.  “You know that I don’t.  Or haven’t you listened to my accounts of rescuing my dwarf companions by secreting them across a lake in barrels?”  Again it was apparent to him that Old Rory shared the commonly held belief that Bilbo’s adventures were mere fantasies.

Indeed, it was not the idea of boating that bred the horror that Bilbo did find himself feeling in the depths of his belly.  It was rather the thought that the tatterdemalion sprawled in front of him was an orphan that caused that shudder.  Hobbits were such a robust, salubrious folk that it was extremely rare for a child to lose a parent before coming of age.  Losing both was simply unheard of in the Shire. 

His host, in the meantime, had returned his attention to the delinquent at hand.   “This mischief can go on no longer, Frodo.”  His voice grave and reproving, he passed his verdict on the twenty-year-old.  “You disgrace this house.  In retribution you will tend to your kinsman, Bilbo Baggins, while he is here.  Whatever his wish, you will see it done.”

Shamed though he was, Frodo gaped up at the visitor into whose service he had just been sentenced.  In all his life there had been Brandybucks – great numbers by that name – and more than a few Goolds, Burrows, Boffins and Banks.  He had always been the only Baggins.  As he regained his feet, Frodo suddenly faced the realization that there were other Bagginses in the world – and this one in particular seemed to be well regarded by the Master of the Hall.  It left him quite thunderstruck. 

Bilbo stared back.  Except for the lad’s unusually elfish blue eyes, Frodo looked very much like Bilbo had at that age.  Or at least he would have had he been cleaner.  The stout hobbitess who had brought him before Master Rorimac sensed it, too.  With a sharp swat on his rear she sent Frodo off to the bath.

*

While it became quite evident that evening that this Frodo Baggins was, indeed, a bit of everyone’s business, it became even clearer to Bilbo that Frodo was a lot of no one’s business.  Throughout dinner, as the boy hurried about dutifully waiting on his temporary master, he was directed by numerous relations in the hall.  Yet none of the voices or hands expressed genuine closeness for the lad. 

*

“What’s this, Mr. Bilbo?”  Frodo asked as he unpacked the traveler’s things later.  He fingered the rich leather curiously.  As it began to part in his hands, he quickly set it down.

“It’s a book, Frodo.”  Bilbo answered.  “Certainly you know what books are?”  He picked it up, faced it in the right direction, and opened it as he handed it back to the lad. 

Frodo examined the item, cautiously turning the pages of paper.  “It has pictures,” he marveled.

“And words, Bilbo added, with obvious exasperation.  “I take it by your blank expression that no one here has bothered to begin teaching you your letters.”  Developing extremely slowly in comparison to, say, men, hobbits could start to read around the age of fourteen – if they were exposed to it.  From what Bilbo could surmise Frodo seemed bright enough to learn.  He would never get instruction here, though.  Education was generally considered the stuff of pretense and nonsense in many parts of the Shire and was valued even less in this rustic edge known as Buckland.

The lad’s only response was a flush.  He carefully placed the book on the table and returned to the task of unpacking the things that he was to wash.

Bilbo Baggins was not about to let it end there.  An illiterate Baggins was utterly unacceptable in his eyes.  He again picked up the book and gestured to Frodo to sit beside him.  “These are the basics, Frodo…”

Beyond a doubt – Frodo was indeed bright enough to learn – and quickly.

“Where did your book come from, Mr. Bilbo?” yawned Frodo after several hours of concentrated introduction to language and the art of writing as a way of capturing thoughts and history.  The subject of the book he was learning to read was a race of beings he had never heard of before.  His tired yet observant mind seriously doubted that any hobbit had written it.

“I got it from a friend of mine while I was in Rivendell visiting the elves,” Bilbo answered.  Despite the lad’s obvious exhaustion, Bilbo found himself launching into a lengthy discourse to answer Frodo’s immediate barrage of questions about elves.

*

 Bilbo awoke in the middle of the night and fingered the ring in his pocket nervously.  Finding it safe, he looked about the dark of the small sitting room.  There was not even a candle to light in the room.  The fire was mere cinders.  “Bother,” he grumbled aloud, shivering slightly.  “That boy should have left some wood to stoke the fire before he retired.”

He threw aside his blanket and rose from the couch.   It was not hard to guess where wood could be found in this house.  He headed toward the massive Brandy Hall kitchen.

The cloud-shrouded moon contributed nothing to his search, but fortunately his eyes could make out the tables blocking his path to the hearth.  As he rounded the last he spotted the wood – and a dog tightly curled on a plump cushion in front of the embers still smoldering in the grate nearby.

Bilbo hesitated.  He wasn’t at all certain the wood was worth approaching the sleeping creature.  Hobbits on the borders of the Old Forest were apt to keep dogs to protect their homes against wild animals and other intruders.  They were not the coddled little companions of the kind found in Hobbiton, but fearless and frightening guards that it was best not to arouse.

Bilbo, though, was cold enough to take his chances.  He tiptoed past the animal and reached for a log.

The figure stirred but did not awaken.  Bilbo quickly grabbed two more logs and some kindling and backed away.

A glimmer of light passed through the window as the clouds parted.  It was sufficient to highlight the form of Bilbo’s slumbering nemesis.  To his relief he realized that it was not a dog at all.  To his dismay he realized it was a hobbit – and not just any hobbit.

“Frodo?” 

This time the stirring completed.  “Mr. Bilbo, sir,” the youth gasped in recognition and subsequent alarm as he saw the logs in the elder Baggins’ arms.  “Your fire – I’m sorry!”  He jumped to his feet to take the load from Bilbo.

The silence bothered Bilbo as he followed the fellow in the dark.  He searched for something worth saying to fill the void.  As Frodo dropped the logs into the sitting room grate, Bilbo finally came up with something. “‘Mr. Bilbo’ is a bit formal, I think, considering we’re related,” he said as Frodo lit the fire.  “Perhaps you can call me ‘Uncle Bilbo’ instead.”

Frodo looked up from the tiny flames that were beginning to catch and shyly smiled at him. 

*

“He sleeps on the kitchen floor?”  Bilbo asked Rorimac in the quiet after second breakfast.  He was well aware of how rude it was for a guest to criticize a host in his own house, but he felt compelled to breech the subject. 

“It keeps him under our noses,” the Master of Brandy Hall explained.  “We’d probably lose track of him otherwise.  This way we know where he is in the evening, for he helps with the cleanup.  He has to be in his bed when the last person leaves for the night.  In the morning they make sure he’s up to help with the breakfast preparations.”  He held up his hand to stay Bilbo from voicing his disapproval.  “Not to worry, the pillow is clean and comfortable, and it is probably the warmest place in the entire Hall.  It is a solution that has worked for us all.  Frodo is happy enough.”

Bilbo didn’t push the issue.  He realized it was more diplomatic to take a deep breath and go for a walk in the sun.

*

There could not have been a fairer early fall day – crisp air offset by warm sun.  It was perfect for a stroll about the fields of the river’s eastern shore.  He watched a group of youngsters rolling down the gentle knolls, and was pleased to recognize Frodo amongst them.  The lad was laughing heartily with the rest, his mouth wide and round in his delight.  ‘Yes,’ Bilbo thought, relaxing, ‘he is happy.’

One of the other young hobbits noticed Bilbo and nudged Frodo.  All activity came to a halt.  Frodo brushed himself off and hurried over to see what his master needed.

“No, no, lad,” Bilbo responded as the lad approached.  “Go have fun with your cousins.  I came out here to watch you play.”  He motioned him back towards the group.

A few of the children came towards them.  “Mr. Baggins,” said one, “I hear you tell stories.  Would you tell us one?”

“Yes, please,” they all chanted, gathering around eagerly. 

Such a request Bilbo never refused.  He spun his magic before their enchanted eyes.  He found himself equally spellbound by their involvement.  Thoughts of anything else entirely melted away.  Even elevenses were forgotten as his story unfolded, carefully abridged for the youngest members of his audience.  He was quite surprised, then, when Frodo suddenly left the circle and vanished into the Hall, not to return.

Bilbo cut his story to a quick end when he heard the luncheon bell ring, and followed the excited exchanges of the children into the dining hall.  There he found his place meticulously set, with full plate and cup, and Frodo holding a small dish of soapy water and a towel for him to refresh his face and hands.  As he sat, Bilbo whispered, “I’ll finish the story for you later, then, lad.”  The youth’s eyes displayed his eagerness.

*

“I wish I could go on adventures with you, Uncle,” Frodo said wistfully that evening as he carried extra logs to Bilbo’s sitting room.  They had been talking throughout the afternoon and the promised story had been retold in its full and proper version after the dinner dishes had been cleared away. 

“Your father voiced that very same wish, Frodo.  It brought him this far, but no further.”  Bilbo eyed the boy critically.  “Drogo Baggins was the only relation of mine who ever showed any true spirit.”

The younger Baggins politely bid the elder goodnight and padded off towards the kitchen, looking disheartened by the insinuation that his uncle had evidently not seen that kind of spirit in him.

In truth, however, in the last two days Bilbo had seen more spirit in Frodo than he had ever seen in Drogo.  As he stood there absently fiddling with the ring in his pocket, Bilbo realized he had seen more in Frodo than in any hobbit he knew – maybe even more than he thought he had ever seen in himself.

“I need to teach that boy to be a Baggins,” he vowed to himself… and that gave him an idea.

*

“I’d like to borrow Frodo for a spell,” Bilbo told his host the following morning.  “I’ve been away for nigh three months now, and my home needs a good cleaning.  Frodo is just the sort who can help me with it, and I’ll give him a few lessons in return.” 

After much discussion, it was agreed that Bilbo would take possession of his young cousin.  Many a head shook at the news, for most in Buckland were of the opinion that Bilbo was cracked.  “No good will come of this,” was heard time and again. 

“That Frodo barely has any common sense in him as it is.  Wait until ‘Mad Baggins’ gets through with him.”

“You can bet any lessons he gets will be full of elvish, runes and other such worthless nonsense.”

“He’ll be sent back here soon enough – mark my word – once Bilbo loses interest.”

“By then he’ll be nothing but a dreamer – just like his father was.  Not good for anything ‘cept cleaning a plate.”

“He’ll be thinking that he’s better than we are, too, once he picks up all those confounded Hobbiton airs.”

*

The two Bagginses were seen off by the entire Buckland population, every set one of whom had an opinion to voice at a great volume.  From all the naysay it sounded to Bilbo as though none of their onlookers were well wishers.  He couldn’t blame them.  He was beginning to question his own sanity for deciding to take a twenty-year-old into his tutelage.  Frodo didn’t even come with a change of clothes.

“Here, Frodo,” whispered a tween-aged lad as he offered an apple to the Hobbiton-bound traveler.  “Course, I know you’d prefer mushrooms, but I couldn’t slip off this morning to gather any.”

“Thanks,” Frodo answered in the same hushed tone as he tucked the apple into his pocket, “and who will you train to fetch unsecured bits and pieces for you now, Folco?”

“Probably the Berry, here,” his friend explained with a grin, pointing to one of two chipper young Brandybucks at his side.  “Or maybe even our little ‘Merry Master-ling’.  I just hope you’ll be coming back before next mushroom season, Fro.  You are the best; no one has the nose for mushrooms that you do.”

Frodo grimaced.  He knew his penchant for mushrooms was excessive, even for a hobbit – and it had gotten him into a fair amount of trouble.  “Just make certain that whoever you choose doesn’t get caught, Folco,” he warned seriously.  He didn’t want Berilac, Meriadoc, or anyone else to be taken to the woodshed as he had been.  “Farmer Maggot wields a mean strap when he’s mad, and sets his dogs on trespassers he catches.”

 He saw Bilbo beckon that it was time to depart.  The boys embraced quickly, in the fashion of their people.

“Bye, Frodo,” added the six-year-old future Master of Buckland as Frodo scooped him up and tossed him gently above his head.  “Don’t become odd like my dad says you will.”

“Don’t worry, Merry,” reassured Berilac.  “According to my dad, he’s already odd.”

*

TBC

The Floating Log

S.R. 1 Blotmath, 1388

The air caught a nip before they reached The Floating Log inn at Frogmorton, the halfway point on the road between the Brandywine River and Hobbiton.  Frodo was lagging behind, for it had been quite a journey trying to keep up with his uncle’s longer-legged pace.  Bilbo had not thought to slow down for the boy, and Frodo had nearly run the entire way to stay within earshot of the many facts and histories that were being told along the road.  In the cold he was no longer able to keep up.

“Come in, come in from that cold night wind, Mr. Bilbo,” welcomed the innkeeper warmly, for Bilbo was his most frequent guest.  “I thought you had said when you left here in early summer that you’d be back long before the first chill of Fall.  I was worried you might have gotten yourself into something.”

Bilbo laughed.  “And you were absolutely right to be concerned.  I got myself into something far crazier than you could ever imagine, Hap, old fellow.  I stopped at Brandy Hall.” 

“You didn’t get married, did you – like your cousin Drogo did?” pried Hap with an even merrier twinkle in his eye than usual.

“Oh, no, no, no – I did something even more outlandish.”  Bilbo reached behind him and produced Frodo.  “This is Frodo, son of Drogo,” he introduced proudly.  “He’s coming to stay with me this winter.”

Hap peered at all thirty-three inches of Frodo before whistling. “I dare say I would have never expected something like this from you.”  He studied the twenty-year-old again.  “Seems a bit peaked to me.  I think he’ll do with a nice hearty stew.”

Frodo’s huge eyes immediately expressed eagerness for stew.  Hap laughed.  “Your usual room won’t suffice for two, Mr. Bilbo.  I’ll give you the big one at the far end of the passage, instead.  Go get the stew from the missus, and tell her I said double for the young master. I’ll get the fire going and ready some soap and water for your clean-up.”

Frodo bowed low to him.  “Thank you kindly, good sir.”

Hap looked at Bilbo, impressed.  “He comes with proper manners, I see.  He definitely is a Baggins.”

“Quite right, he is,” Bilbo answered, hiding his relief that Frodo had at least been taught some etiquette at Brandy Hall.

*

Hap’s wife, Gladiola, took to Frodo the moment she set eyes on him.  After filling him with stew, thick molasses bread and fresh milk, she patted him on the head.  With an instant frown, she placed the back of her hand against his forehead.  “He’s feverish!” she pronounced with concern.  “You’ve walked him too hard in the cold wind.”

She went to her cupboards and, after careful thought, withdrew some herbs which she then ground.  “Here, now.  Put these in his bath water.  I’ll come to your room in a bit with a tea for him to drink before bed.”

A short while later she found her husband and guest in a hushed exchange at the end of the passage.  Hap gestured to her.  “We don’t think it was the wind that brought on the fever, Gladie,” he explained.  “The lad’s been whipped.  I took a look – you should, too.  The skin is dark red around the weal, and there’s a place that’s still seeping.  Mr. Bilbo estimates that the beating would have taken place 5 or 6 days ago, when Frodo had been caught stealing mushrooms.  He must have been too shamed to ask anyone to tend it.”

Gladie barreled past them and thrust the door wide.  Frodo was sitting wilted on one of the beds, engulfed in one of Bilbo’s clean shirts as pale in color as his face had become.  “Let’s see, boy,” she demanded, pushing the bulk of garment out of her way.  Frodo flopped like a limp fish.

Gladie turned to the two who had followed her back into the room.  “Yes, there’s infection that needs tending.  See these red streaks forming?  That’s a bad sign.”  She bustled past them, muttering about irresponsible young rascals and how they deserved as much as she went.  Frodo had lost her earlier favor.

She returned shortly, her arms laden with jars and bandages.  She took no care with rubbing the stinging ointments into the still sore wound.  Frodo winced but did not cry out.  When she was done she forced him awake long enough to drink the extra bitter tonic she had prepared him.  She then marched Hap and Bilbo out into the hallway with her.

“If he’s lucky, he’ll survive, the scalawag.  It’s worse than I’d like, I just hope we caught it in time.  Thieving!  Well, maybe this infirmity will teach him the lesson he needs in order to respect others’ property, even more than the whipping did.”

“Come now, Gladie,” her husband said.  “He’s just a lad.  Mushrooms do tempt the tongue, and for some tongues more than for others.”

“I appreciate your help, ma’am,” Bilbo interjected nervously, hoping to ease her disapproval.  “One of the reasons I’m taking Frodo to Hobbiton this winter is to see to it that he learns right from wrong.  He was referred to by several Bucklanders I overheard as being one of the worst young rascals of his generation, but I don’t think he is entirely to blame for it.  His parents have both been dead for these last eight years, and I’m afraid he has had to fend for himself more than he ought. 

“Why didn’t you say that in the first place?”  Gladie exclaimed, her demeanor taking a sharp about face.  “The poor lad!  Well, he’ll need to rest here a day or two at least, Mr. Bilbo.  I’ll be the one to tell you when you’ll be going back on the road again.  But I best be off below, for the crowd is assembling in the pub.  It should be quiet enough back here for him to sleep.  The poor dear…”

*

As great an appeal as it had, Bilbo elected not to join the jovial gathering of locals in the inn that evening.  He knew Gladiola would be watching and forming her opinions of him as a caretaker.   Instead he pulled another of his books from his pack and sat on the edge of Frodo’s bed, reading aloud in the faint candlelight.  The story was that of the birth of Ilmare, daughter of Manwe and Varda.  Bilbo read the lyrical elvish script in its original, interspersing it with translation into the common tongue.  Frodo’s fever still had its hold and he didn’t open his eyes once, but a wisp of a smile graced his lips throughout the recitation. 

*

TBC

A Morning Post

S.R. 2 Blotmath, 1388

The next morning, as Frodo slept, Bilbo penned a quick letter to give to the Messenger:

“Dearest Cousin Dora,” it read.  “I have significant and sad news!  I know that it has been some years since you last spoke with your brother Drogo.  I have just learned of his untimely death, along with that of his wife, in a boating accident on the Brandywine River some eight years ago.   I extend to you my sincerest sympathy in your loss.

“I have had the opportunity to get to know Drogo’s son!  His name is Frodo and he is just the sweetest and brightest twenty-year-old you could ever wish to meet.  I am bringing him to Bag End for the winter.  We are experiencing a delay in Frogmorton, but I expect that we will arrive in Hobbiton on the tenth.  Please send announcements to all the family for me to let them know that I will be holding a long-belated party of introduction in Frodo’s honor the afternoon of the fourteenth, at three.  I trust you know all of their addresses as well as you know mine.

“I am sure that you will find Frodo every bit as agreeable as I have.  He is a credit to Drogo’s memory, and to the name of Baggins.

“All my love, Bilbo.”

*

TBC

Arrival at Bag End

S.R. 10 Blotmath, 1388

Frodo’s fever stubbornly maintained its grip for three days and the mistress of the inn was adamant that the boy remain at The Floating Log until he was thoroughly recovered.  Just to be on the safe side, Bilbo rented a cart and pony for the remainder of the journey to Hobbiton.  The trip by cart took only a day and a half, but the rumors of a new Baggins heading to the Hill had had ample days to precede them.  Bilbo arrived home only to be greeted by the presence on his doorstep of his least favorite relations – the bilious Sackville-Bagginses – who were being denied entrance to Bag End by his resolute gardener, Hamfast Gamgee.

Bilbo was quite surprised to find Bell Gamgee, Hamfast’s wife, inside Bag End, approaching from the kitchen with their two youngest children, Samwise and baby Marigold.  All four of the other Gamgee offspring soon appeared from the hallway.   At their mother’s bidding, the older sons, Hamson and Halfred, scampered out the door to bring in anything remaining in the cart. 

Bag End was spotless.  It was also delightfully pre-warmed by fires, and fragrant with the scrumptious aroma of lunch coming from the kitchen. 

“I wanted the hole to be ready when you got here,” a dignified looking hobbitess in her late eighties explained as she, too, came from the kitchen.  “The Gamgees were so good as to help me.  Frodo, love,” she said as she drew him into her arms.  “I’m your Aunt Dora, your father’s sister.  Forgive us, Bilbo, for not waiting until the party, but Dudo and I just had to meet our nephew.”

Behind her was a couple just a little older, Frodo judged, than his Uncle Bilbo.  The husband looked almost exactly like his memory of his own father.  He choked back tears as the couple approached.  Seeing the glistening cheeks, Dora quickly introduced him first to his Uncle Dudo and then to his Aunt Mimosa and pretty thirty-eight-year-old Cousin Daisy.

Dudo regarded the lad with bewilderment.  He had expected the boy to look like Drogo.  Of anyone, Dudo noted, Frodo looked the most like Bilbo.  “You must take after your mother’s people,” he finally remarked, “except that you have our side of the family’s dark hair.  That’s the Stoor coming through from our mother, Ruby Bolger’s, family.  The Bolgers take great pride in it.  See, our Daisy has it, too.  I think you’ll be happy to have that wee bit o’ the Stoor in you when you get older.  You’ll probably not be quite as tall as most Bagginses, but you may wind up more muscular.  I can see it in your chest already – it’s broader than is typical in a Fallohide.  You’ll make a nice looking hobbit when you grow up, I’ll wager.”

“Your nose is just like Bilbo’s,” Dora said, tapping it playfully with her index finger. 

“That’s a Took nose, and no mistake,” Bilbo interjected.  “His maternal grandmother was my mother’s sister.”

Daisy saw the corners of both her father’s and her aunt’s mouths tighten.  She recalled that the rift that had formed between her Uncle Drogo and his siblings had started over a remark the Mistress Mirabella had made at Drogo and Primula’s wedding reception that had caused Primula to declare that she did not want to move to Hobbiton.  “I don’t know where you got those gorgeous eyes, Frodo,” she said to keep the conversation from stumbling.  “I’m envious.  I’ve never seen eyes that big or that blue in all of my life, even in the Tooks I’ve met. Do they run in the Brandybuck line?”

Frodo shrugged and answered shyly.  “Most Brandybucks have what’re called hazel eyes – brown speckled with green, or green speckled with brown.  My mother’s were green speckled with light blue, which was considered most unusual, yet mine were considered even more unusual.”

Dora asked no end of questions and, as they finally sat for lunch, she asked how Bilbo had happened to take Frodo in.  The account Bilbo gave of it accentuated the worst of Frodo’s life in Buckland and, Frodo noticed, while it was instance by instance accurate in its description it overlooked the many fond memories he had of his childhood in Brandy Hall.

“He stole?” Dora said in disbelief.

“Only out of necessity,” Bilbo assured.  “Isn’t that right Frodo?”

“It was more of a game, actually,” Frodo confessed, suddenly drawn into the conversation to which he had up to that point been merely a subject.  “It was mostly food related.”

“He’s particularly fond of mushrooms,” Bilbo added with a laugh.  “From what I have heard you can’t turn your back to him when they are near.”

“He may have mushroom ‘weakness’, as we call it,” Dudo said.  “It runs in the Bolger blood, and primarily affects males.  I certainly have it.  I think Drogo did as well.   Do you find yourself unable to think of anything but mushrooms when you see one, lad?”

Frodo nodded.  “And I get somewhat light-headed when I eat them.  In fact, my friends laugh at me because I start bumping into things if I eat too many.”  Intrigued, the tween couldn’t help but wonder if his father had been eating mushrooms the night of the accident.  Considering how weird he felt whenever he consumed large quantities of them, Frodo could imagine losing his balance and overturning a boat in the process.  As he thought more about it he realized that his daydreaming was often most excessive right after he had eaten a lot of mushrooms, while he was still feeling heady.  His father had had a reputation for being a dreamer too.  “I’ll never eat mushrooms again,” he vowed.

Dora looked at him with humored doubt.  “You don’t need to quit eating mushrooms altogether, my young hobbit.  Only those you’ve no right to eat.” 

*

After his immediate relations left, Frodo looked about the room that the Gamgee family had been preparing to be his new bedroom.  It was a cozy room, neither oversized nor undersized.  The wardrobe and the headboard of the bed were of matching curly maple, the mattress was simultaneously soft and firm, and the feather pillow was nice and lofty.  The quilt, which according to Aunt Dora had been his father’s growing up, was stitched in a pattern of oak leaves and acorns.  The matching hand-knotted carpet beside the bed was in the shape of an oak leaf.  Under the window –a window in a bedroom of all marvelous things – was a small table and chair.  A sturdy rocker sat by the hearth.  There was even a mirror on an adjustable stand.  All in all, it had to be the best bedroom in all the Shire, he was certain of it.

Hamson and Halfred Gamgee came into the room and silently positioned themselves on either side of Frodo, viewing the new young Baggins with the same curiosity that Frodo had about the room.  There was something unique about the Bucklander, the Gamgee lads thought; it was as though he glowed with a soft internal light.  “They say you haven’t any parents,” Hamson commented awkwardly.  Although his own father was often quite critical of him, Hamson had never even considered life without his perpetual terse guidance.  It scared him clean through to think about not having parents.

Halfred gasped at the affront and turned all red as Frodo startled at the unexpected sound of Hamson’s voice, but Frodo smiled at Hamson.  He was surprised to find that he felt comfortable with these disarming boys right off and was not at all put off by the question.  “No, I don’t,” he was able to answer without even a tear.

*

The Sackville-Bagginses determinedly remained on the front lawn of Bag End in spite of the fact that Bilbo clearly had every intention of ignoring their presence.  It had never been completely clear to the residents of Hobbiton how the friction between Bilbo Baggins and his first cousin, Otho Sackville-Baggins, had sprouted, although it had certainly become obvious when Bilbo came back from his adventure to find that Otho had married Lobelia Bracegirdle.  Lobelia had always been an unusually determined social climber for a hobbit.  Everyone believed that she had laid eyes on Bag End before she had laid them on Otho.  Rumor out of earshot had it that it was Lobelia, not Otho, who had proposed during Bilbo’s unexpected absence.  They had married even before Otho had come of age!

That had been many years in the past.  While Bilbo recognized that his inheritance had made him one of the wealthiest and most recognizable residents of the Shire, it had been a long time since any of that had mattered to him.  His adventure had made him far richer – in knowledge and in appreciation of other cultures as much as in treasure – than had his birthright.  Indeed, he had always been quite generous to his townsfolk, perhaps because he knew just how much it infuriated Lobelia.  She viewed him as being profligate with her husband’s – and hence her – rightful inheritance.

Lobelia stood on what she took to be the wrong side of the door and fumed at the fact that this Frodo Baggins had successfully made his way inside Bag End.  She was determined not to let him block her future passage through that round green door.  As the afternoon shadows lengthened she caught the ear of everyone who passed by, insisting “Drogo Baggins had no claim to Bag End and that …that… that orphan… has even less.”  By dusk she had accumulated quite a number of interested bystanders. 

“Move along, please, Missus Sackville-Baggins,” the Watch finally had to request.  “We wouldn’t want to have to go and register you as a disturber of the peace.”

*

TBC

A Long Belated Party

S.R. 14 Blotmath, 1388

“How many will be coming?” Frodo asked as he and Bilbo prepared for the party of introduction.  Cold, rainy weather was forcing the party to be indoors, and the kitchen, sitting room and parlor were becoming quite crammed with all the tables and chairs they were fetching from the recesses of Bag End. 

Bilbo put down his end of the table they were carrying and rubbed his chin thoughtfully.  “That’s a fair question for you to be asking, my lad.  Your Aunt Dora would know the count better than I would.  I’m the head of the Baggins family, but as the eldest lady in the family she’s the one who keeps the genealogy complete.  My copy of the Baggins of Hobbiton family tree is rather sparse.  It has maybe twenty names of living hobbits on it, but I know there are quite a few more than that.  I’m expecting it to get quite busy in here this afternoon.”

“It will be just like Brandy Hall,” Frodo said with a huge grin.

Bilbo grimaced.  It would be quite a bit tighter than at Brandy Hall.  On the other hand, he loved having guests and it had been entirely too long since he had opened his hole to extended family. 

“Are there any Bagginses my age?” Frodo asked, eager to make friends while in Hobbiton. 

Bilbo frowned, wishing he had a better answer than he did.  “There’s Lotho Sackville-Baggins.  He’s about four years older than you are.”  What he thought but didn’t say was ‘Right in the thick of his tweens, Lotho is, and he acts it.’ 

*

“All right, my boy, let’s get you properly turned out to meet the family,” he said as he looked through his own clothes.  He pulled out a simple blue shirt.  Frodo slipped it over his head and fastened all but the button at the collar.  Bilbo laughed.  “I guess the size of that shirt doesn’t matter one bit.  The color brings out your eyes so well that no one will even notice the fit.  Now I’d better neaten up those curls.” He took a pair of scissors from his desk and concentrated on his subject.  “Don’t move, Frodo,” he warned.  “I’m not an expert at haircuts. You wouldn’t want to lose an ear, now would you?”

Frodo pulled out of his reach and looked back at his uncle in alarm.  Bilbo laughed, then began to trim.  Frodo tried to stand still but, regrettably, didn’t altogether manage.

“Stickle-bats, Frodo, I meant it – hold still,” Bilbo ordered.  “I’ve just cut a chunk of hair off that I oughtn’t to have.  Now I’ll have to even things out.”

Frodo stifled a giggle as he circled around to check the damage in a nearby looking glass.  “I’d better do as you say, or I’ll have no hair left.”

Bilbo set back to finishing the job.  “I’s a good thing we didn’t pay money for that cut,” he assessed when done.  Poor Frodo’s hair was as short as a babe’s, with curls springing tightly to his head.

There was a knock on the door.  Bilbo had Frodo answer it.  As Frodo bowed to the family at the door, Bilbo announced.  “Ponto and Heather Baggins, and little Angelica, I would like to introduce to you my ‘nephew’ Frodo Baggins.”

“Welcome to the Bagginses, lad,” Ponto said with a grin as he reached out to Frodo for a hug, then passed him along to his wife.  “It’s about time that you settled down to family, Bilbo.”

“Here, Frodo,” Angelica, Ponto’s comely little seven-year-old, said as she sweetly handed him a green top.  “Now we’re friends as well as cousins.”  Frodo bowed in thanks.  His pockets were soon full of trinkets.  He just wished names and faces were not jumbling together in his mind – those of all the various Goodbodies, for instance.

“Everyone is very nice,” he commented to his uncle, several introductions later, after handing baby Mosco Burrows back to his mother, Ponto’s sister Peony.

“Yes, Frodo, they are,” Bilbo answered.  He was still a little miffed, however, at Milo Burrows’ apology of never having written Bilbo concerning Frodo.  Milo’s mother, Asphodel Brandybuck, was Primula’s sister.  She had told her son about the drowning back when he visited his parents in Stock to introduce them to his then bride-to-be.   Not knowing how to write herself, Asphodel had asked Milo to relay the message to the Bagginses before wedding plans chased all other thoughts from her head.  Milo had just shame-facedly admitted to Bilbo that in his eagerness to wed he had himself plumb forgotten his promise to write – until just days before, when he and Peony had received Dora’s letter.

Bilbo’s scowl had no time to lift.  “Otho, Lobelia, and Lotho Sackville-Baggins,” he introduced to Frodo.  “Otho is my closest relation, and as such is expected to inherit.”  Frodo bowed. 

Several seconds of silence passed with no response from the Sackville-Bagginses.  Frodo could hear his own heart beating in his throat and it was almost enough to choke him in his inverted position.

“Frodo,” Otho said finally.  “Yes, Bilbo, we recognize the bloodline, but do not expect that we will ever accept this child into our fold.  You can be assured that he and you will remain under our scrutiny.”  Upon rising, Frodo noted that Lotho offered him no trinket.

“Well, that went better than I expected,” Bilbo whispered pithily as the Sackville-Bagginses headed toward the punchbowl.  “After that, the rest of the family should be no problem.”

*

“I understand that you are the nephew of the Master of Buckland, Frodo,” Porto Baggins said, obviously impressed to have someone of such great worth in the family.

Frodo reddened.  “I may be closely related to Master Rory and consider his grandson Merry as my brother, sir, but I have no position at all in the Brandybuck family.  My friend Folco Boffin, who’s a nephew of Mistress Menegilda through her younger sister, says that that’s because I’m the very last of the Late Master Gorbadoc’s grandchildren, and the offspring of a female Brandybuck on top of that.  I can assure you that I sit on quite an obscure branch of the Brandybuck family tree.  Folco’s older brother, Griffo, jokes that the Brandybucks could prune me right off without anyone missing me.”

“That’s rather a mean thing to say, even in jest,” Daisy said.  "I don't think I would very much like this Griffo Boffin."

*

“Would you like a tour?” 

Frodo’s suggestion met with unanimous eagerness on behalf of the visiting children and tweens.  None but Lotho remembered ever having been inside Hobbiton’s finest residence.  They all lined up like ducklings. 

“This is the library,” Frodo explained with an elaborate sweep of the arms.  That met with revered murmurs from his Hobbiton relatives for except for the very young children - and Frodo - all of the other Baggineses knew how to read and write.  Frodo soon learned from his cousins that Bagginses in general were quick at figuring things out and in planning and organizing and sticking to a schedule and being altogether dependable.  These had been the skills that had earned the family its reputation and wealth.

They were surprised when they came to Frodo’s room.  “Is that all you’ve got?” Angelica asked, as she looked in Frodo’s toy chest, for it was much less grand than she had expected.  The wardrobe was far emptier than she had expected as well.  She had more clothes and toys than Frodo did.

“He hasn’t been here that long, Angelica,” Lotho said in the ensuing silence.  “You have to have time to accumulate stuff.”

But it was the wizard’s room that excited everyone the most.  Gandalf had stayed at Bag End frequently enough over the last 30 odd years that Bilbo had set aside a room for him. The room had once been a pantry – which, being in a hobbit hole, meant that it was one of the larger rooms in the dwelling.  Having been a pantry meant, too, that it was set deep within Bag End, with no windows or fireplace.  The earth of the Hill made it a comfortable constant temperature.  It was furnished with a huge mattress atop a high frame and an enormous armchair brought from Bree.

“Is the room enchanted?” Angelica whispered, peering inside with eyes wide.

“It may be,” Frodo answered, wondering himself.  He invited them all to climb atop the bed to see.  Nothing happened, so they all sat down and shared stories about themselves.

“…Over the years the timekeeper at Brandy Hall had tweaked and tweaked the one-hundred-plus clocks in the complex until they were all in near-perfect synchronization with his own timepieces,” Frodo relayed when it was his turn to talk, “so I haphazardly shortened or lengthened the pendulum of each clock so as to significantly alter its movement with respect to the other clocks.  Everyone agreed that it was the best New Year’s Eve prank ever played at The Hall.

“The timekeeper told the Master that it’ll take the rest of his years to recalibrate all of the clocks to his satisfaction,” Frodo concluded with a sense of pride.  “He gripes about ‘that mischievous young Baggins’ every chance he gets, but I don’t think he really minds it all that much.  He says I gave him something to fiddle with again.”

“You are an uncouth little urchin, aren’t you?” A tween-aged Goodbody lass said through the others’ laughter.  It gave Frodo pause.  Perhaps here in Hobbiton New Year pranks weren’t a tradition.  Perhaps around here it wasn’t an honor to be considered a rascal.

Or maybe it was. “I think I like you, Cousin,” Lotho said with an expression on his face that reminded Frodo to a great extent of the ones Folco Boffin wore whenever he was about to be at his most irresponsible.

*

“…So I propose our entire family come together in support of young Frodo in his need,” Bilbo stated as he passed around a plate of Dora’s renowned mince tarts.  “The Brandybucks are very good to him, but I intend to see that he is also raised as a proper Baggins.  Each of us knows what that means.”

“It does not mean learning twaddle from you,” Otho stated point-blank.  “Admit it, Bilbo.  You don’t want to make a proper Baggins out of him.  You want to make him an aberration in your own image.”

“The Baggins name would be better off if he were simply erased from its rolls,” Lobelia contended.  “Send him back to those river dwellers now.  He’s naught but one of them.  Simple and dirty.  You do nothing but cheapen Bag End by even letting him in the door.”

“This is not about Bag End, Lobelia,” Bilbo countered angrily, knowing full well that in her mind it was.  

“It is,” she avowed.  “Drogo Baggins had no claim to Bag End and that …that… that orphan… has even less.” 

Bilbo turned red, his ears quivering.  This conversation was going nowhere.  He turned and took the empty platter to the kitchen.  He did not bring in additional confections when he returned to the parlor, which was the rudest of gestures there was in hobbit etiquette.  Otho and Lobelia took the cue.  No civilities were exchanged upon their departure. 

*

TBC

Much News

S.R. 15 Blotmath, 1388

“Frodo?!” smiled the wizard with amusement at the news he received when he arrived the next morning.  “Rather a noble name for a hobbit, don’t you think?”

“How so?” Bilbo queried.  “The name bears no significance as far as I know.  There are probably other hobbits with that name.  His father’s name was Drogo.  Frodo – Drogo, it simply rhymes if you see what I mean.  It doesn’t even bear a familiar context.”

“Undoubtedly, Bilbo, undoubtedly,” Gandalf agreed.  “And yet it is also a variation on Frodi, which was the name of an ancient king.  He was a ruler who believed in peace and the welfare of his people over power for himself.” 

Bilbo’s hand absently went to his pocket.  “Coincidence, Gandalf.  Other than me, hobbits know nothing about history save their own and care not at all for the happenings of man.  Since I have never heard the name before, I am sure neither Drogo nor his wife would have.”

The wizard nodded, deep in thought.  “May I see Frodo?”

“Now?  Well, I suppose if you want.  He’s sleeping, though.”

“So late?” It surprised Gandalf.   He was aware hobbits needed significantly more sleep than other mortals, but it was already mid morning.  “Well, it is just as well.  It will give us time to talk.” 

Bilbo found the wizard’s demeanor disquieting.  Something was afoot.  Yet Bilbo’s innate hobbit nature put things in their proper perspective.  “I hope we can have a bite while we talk, Gandalf,” he requested.  “It is nearly time for elevensies and we’ve ample leftovers from yesterday’s party.”

“Yes, yes, by all means,” Gandalf yielded with a chuckle.  He knew that hobbits, Bilbo Baggins indubitably among them, gave their attention first and foremost to their appetites.  It was one of the many things he found delightful about the simple way of life found exclusively within the Shire.  “I would find yours a poor ear if your belly was not satisfied.”

*

The food was delightful, but Gandalf’s news was not.  He told Bilbo of his meeting with his wizarding counterpart Radagast the Brown.  Radagast had brought Rangers to meet with Gandalf, for the Rangers had been tracking dark men and their darker allies who had begun infiltrating northern human settlements and were moving perilously near to the Shire.  The Rangers’ leader was one well known to Gandalf.

It was in keeping with the news that Bilbo and Gandalf had received in Rivendell a month ago, of a darkness spreading. 

“I am most alarmed with the news you tell of these people nearing the Shire,” Bilbo said in not much more than a whisper. 

“As I presumed, dear Bilbo,” Gandalf answered.  The Rangers have promised me that they will guard the Shire’s borders.  I have given your name to the leader of the Rangers, a Dunedain of the north.  He will bring word to you of any threat to which the Shire must take action, should there be such a need.  In fact, I would like for you to meet up with him at the Grey Havens on the last day of February to hear his report in person.”

Bilbo nodded in agreement before coming to an abrupt realization.  “I’ve agreed to keep Frodo ‘till spring, Gandalf.  I guess I must send him back to Buckland now.  I was a fool, as I'm certain you would agree, to bring him here in the first place with my grandiose ideas of what I can teach him.” 

“I think you can stick by your promise to educate him this winter,” Gandalf quickly countered.  “You need not to be gone for an extended length.  No more than a few weeks, I should think.  I’m certain you can find someone to look after him for that brief time.”  He suddenly grinned mischievously.  “Perhaps those Sackville-Baggins cousins of yours who you often say want nothing better than to be in Bag End – you know I jest, of course,” he rapidly assured upon Bilbo’s glowering reaction. 

Bilbo wasn’t so sure.  Swiftly convincing himself that Frodo would be underfoot and a constant irritant to him, he found himself pleased to have such an easy ready-made out given to him.

Gandalf, however, was beginning to think that it would be extremely good for Bilbo to take on such a significant responsibility for awhile.  He decided to encourage him by pointing out that it was for only a short time-period.  “I will stay at Bag End until the New Year, Bilbo.  I’ll even help you start Frodo in his lessons.  It will give me a chance to see for myself what he is capable of, so you won’t be able to exaggerate his abilities to me later.”

“I would never exaggerate, Gandalf,” protested his hobbit host, for in his opinion he never did.

* 

As he waited for Frodo to arise, Gandalf smoked at the sitting room fireplace, thinking of Bilbo’s folly in taking in so young a hobbit.  Fond as he was of Bilbo, the wizard knew he was not the kind of hobbit to whom family life appealed in the least.  Throughout the history of the Shire folk, Gandalf had selected choice hobbits to set off on adventures to broaden their minds and keep the charmingly innocent race from becoming too isolated and reclusive for its own good.  Bilbo Baggins, however, had embraced the adventurous life more fully than any hobbit preceding him, to the point where he had nearly abandoned many of the values hobbits held dear.

So why would an old bachelor and adventurer suddenly burden himself with a child?  Gandalf suspected that Frodo embodied something which Bilbo greatly valued.  He was determined to see what that might be.

Frodo – Gandalf again pondered the lad’s name.  Hobbits’ names were seldom grand.  As Bilbo had indicated, the name was most likely of very simple origin.  Yet Gandalf found himself thinking about the legend of King Frodi.  Frodi had lived before the wizards came to Middle Earth, and had been king of a small tribe of men who had first settled in the Realm of Arnor before eventually moving south into Minhiriath and beyond.  The abandoned lands of the lost realm had later been chosen by the halfling folk.  By curious coincidence, the Shire now sat at the very center of what had once been Arnor. 

King Frodi had been reputed to have been the noblest of all of the kings of his time, the fairest of heart and the keenest of mind. The nine rings of power had been forged during his reign, and Frodi was the only king of men to refuse the offering to wear one.  He had stated that he believed such power was not necessary to lead his people effectively.  So he had not been caught in the corruption and horrendous downfall which took the hearts of the nine who did accept them. 

Rings – that coincidental thought brought Gandalf back to Bilbo.  Bilbo had a magic ring of unknown origin which he had found in the goblin caves of the Misty Mountains on his way to the Lonely Mountain.  He had initially hidden the true story behind his obtaining the ring, although Gandalf had later managed to force the truth from him.  It had been the first time that Bilbo had exhibited any semblance of deception, and it had long troubled Gandalf.  The otherwise trustful hobbit could become irrationally defensive in any armillary discussion.

And the nowadays unconventional Bilbo had now selected a young hobbit to bring into his own home and train to his own liking.  Gandalf knew that Bilbo had never shown the slightest interest in educating Lotho Sackville-Baggins, or any of his other relations of that generation.  Again Gandalf wondered what it was about Frodo that had attracted Bilbo’s attention.  For anyone else but Bilbo Baggins, the answer of pity for an orphan might have been arguable.  Such magnanimity, however, did not seem to fit the rather persnickety hobbit that Bilbo had become.

Gandalf found himself awaiting Frodo’s waking with unusual anticipation.                                                                         

*

“He’s out of bed,” Bilbo reported.  “He’ll be in shortly.  We’ll begin his lessons and you can see how clever he is.”

The wizard smiled.  “Is there someone with whom Frodo can study?   One of your gardener’s children, for instance.”

Bilbo frowned.  “I cannot imagine the Gaffer agreeing to it.  He’d call it flummadiddle.”

“Then perhaps Lotho,” Gandalf slyly suggested. 

Bilbo’s frown curled into a sneer.  “I’ll take it up with Master Hamfast.”

Indeed, Bilbo was able to convince his gardener to let both Hamson and Halfred study. He pledged to limit the Gamgee lads' lessons to the letters, spellings and grammar of the common speech and some simple counting, which he explained would serve them well in learning any trade practiced in Hobbiton.  The Gaffer was conveniently caught off guard since he was in the process of delivering a bundle of Bilbo’s clothing his wife had altered for Frodo.  Bilbo’s suggestion appeared simply a gracious and appropriate response under the circumstances and consequently Hamfast Gamgee found himself in the awkward position where he couldn’t politely refuse the offer.

Although he agreed to Bilbo’s offer, the Gaffer left Bag End with thoughts of many things he would have preferred to receive in exchange.

*

TBC

Friendship

S.R. 16 Blotmath, 1388

And thus Hamson and Halfred Gamgee found themselves seated at the kitchen table in Bag End the very next morning, fiddling nervously with sharpened pheasant quills while being instructed not just by Mr. Bilbo Baggins but also by a tall gray wizard; the pair seeming quite formidable.  There was nothing in either Gamgee’s life up to that point that had been any stranger.  Between them, young Master Frodo Baggins appeared far more confident, dipping his quill tip into dark berry juice and scratching it against the butcher paper laid out before him.  The scratches Frodo was making were beginning to look very much like the marks in the book to which Mr. Baggins was pointing as he spoke.

Ham and Hal’s were far shakier, more from anxiety than lack of coordination.  Gandalf stepped behind Ham and gently guided his arm as he described its movement in creating the letters.  Ham couldn’t help but wonder what he might be turned into if he failed to learn this alphabet.

They were allowed to get up halfway through the morning, and were given a chance to run outside.  Frodo quickly found the tree resting atop Bag End and was up its trunk in short order.

“You don’t have to be afraid of Gandalf,” he stated as he swung from one of the branches.  “Uncle Bilbo says he’s been a friend of his for a long time.”

“I dunno, Master Frodo,” Ham answered.  “I just want to make sure we learn this well enough to satisfy him and Mr. Bilbo.  Our Gaffer is expecting it of us.” 

Hal’s attention was nervously focused onto Frodo’s position, one that was quite unnatural for a hobbit.  “You should get down, Master Frodo,” he begged.

Frodo, however, had at an early age been taught by his mother to climb trees (Primula had, of course, been taught by her mother – the remarkable Mirabella Took Brandybuck – for whom climbing trees had been second nature).  “It’s all right, Hal; I’m barely off the ground.”

Hal looked at Frodo critically.  “I’m serious, Master Frodo.  You should be more careful.”

Frodo let go his grip and landed with a roll.  He looked up at the younger boy and smiled, returning to their original conversation.  “You’ll do fine, Ham.  You can already recognize all of the letters.  Uncle Bilbo had taught them to me before I came to Hobbiton.  You are nearly caught up with me.”

Indeed, Ham was far better at writing his letters when they returned to the table than was Frodo.  “It is the swinging from trees that causes that, Frodo,” Gandalf explained of the boy’s sudden uncontrollable quivering while holding his quill.  “Your fine coordination has been temporarily impaired by the use of your larger muscles.” 

“I told him he should not be in trees, Mr. Gandalf, sir,” Hal stated.  He was so convinced that he was right that his fear of the wizard lessened.  After all, the wizard was agreeing with him - wasn't he?

Seeing that Frodo could not continue to practice his writing, Bilbo quickly turned the lesson to sounding out words.  At that Frodo enthusiastically excelled.

*

“Well, well, Gandalf, what do you think of him?”  Bilbo eagerly asked after he had sent Frodo and the Gamgee boys off to the market.

They were enjoying their pipes in the sudden quiet.  Gandalf did not answer him, but took another puff and gazed into the fire before them, keeping his own counsel. 

Bilbo fidgeted at the silence, interpreting it as a sign that Gandalf had been less than impressed with Frodo.  “I don’t know where my head was when I decided to bring him home with me, Gandalf,” he started.

Gandalf stirred, and looked down at his friend with a smile.  “I would love to know where your head was, dear Bilbo, but here the lad is.  I will give myself the week before I form my opinion of him, but even then do not count on it being my final opinion.  First impressions do not always hold true.”

Bilbo was discomforted by that.  “You formed your opinion of me on a very brief encounter; in less time than you’ve had with Frodo today.”

The wizard laughed.  “Did I?  Do you think we had only just met at your gate that morning?  As a matter of fact, I had watched you for some years before I selected you for that adventure.” 

The hobbit looked at the wizard and relaxed.  “Well, then, I guess it must have been my opinion of you that was formed in haste.  You are right, my old friend.  First impressions do not always hold true.  I first regarded you as an untrustworthy meddler.”

They shared the laugh together, and took another puff on their pipes before Gandalf asked, “And what, may I inquire, did you see so quickly in young Frodo?  That you have not seen in any of your other kin; for example, Lotho?”

Bilbo took a deep breath, attempting to think his answer all the way through.  “Well, he wasn’t the son of Lobelia Sackville-Baggins for one,” he replied, quite seriously.  “I’ve never given Lotho notice simply for the very reason that I cannot abide his mother.  I suppose that is one thing about Frodo that I find appealing.  There is no one in his life to forbid me to spend time with him.  I can influence him at my will with no repercussions.”

The wizard raised an eyebrow.  “So it is not an attribute that Frodo has that you like so much about him but an attribute that he doesn’t?”

Bilbo stuck his hand into his pocket and fumbled about for a moment.  “Well, now that you mention it, I suppose there is a good deal of truth in that.  But Frodo does have a remarkable intelligence for a hobbit his age, I am sure of it.  He has been far more inquisitive about my stories than have the other children I have told them to, and he is quite curious about what I know of the world outside of the Shire.  Why, he enjoyed my recital of poetry when he was ill, and it was in Elvish.”

Gandalf returned to his pipe, pondering Bilbo’s answer.  It was evident that Bilbo liked Frodo primarily because Frodo took a greater interest in Bilbo than had others in the Shire.  That made sense.  A parent-less child would be likely to respond to an adult who gave him attention.  Likewise, someone with no attachments, like Bilbo, would respond to a young child’s rapt attention.  If that was the only reason for Bilbo’s kindred interest in Frodo, it was probably harmless enough.  Once again, Gandalf suspected that Frodo would actually be good for Bilbo.  What troubled him, he realized, was that he was not at all certain that Bilbo would be equally good for Frodo.  It was that which he found he most wanted to ascertain before leaving the boy with Bilbo for an entire winter.

But why, he wondered.  Frodo Baggins should mean very little to him; after all, he had indeed only just met the youngster.  Yet in that short time he too had seen an innocent earnestness in Frodo that he had not experienced in a long time.  Gandalf the Gray had rarely felt that much potential in anyone so young, much less in a hobbit of Frodo’s age.  The wizard did not want Frodo’s spunk ruined.  He thought Bilbo could provide just the right dose of natural encouragement for Frodo, provided the elder Baggins was patient enough for the task.

“Give me the week, Bilbo, to make my evaluation,” the wizard reiterated kindly.  He really meant that he needed the week to evaluate Bilbo.

*

“Now what was it we were supposed to get?” Ham asked Frodo as they entered the market square.  “A good chicken, as I remember.”

“And mushrooms!” Frodo exclaimed with joy as he pulled out the note Bilbo had written.

“We’re to see to it that ALL of the mushrooms make it to the cooking pot,” Hal reminded him sternly.  “No sampling!”

Frodo smiled at his new friends’ rapt supervision.  Hal in particular seemed to like looking out for him and the normally independent Frodo was surprised to find he didn’t fully mind the novelty.  He handed Ham the list, pointing to each word as he read it aloud.  “So what are tarragon and rosemary, anyway?” he asked.

“They’re herbs, Frodo,” Ham answered, pleased to know something his bright new friend did not.  “They are used for seasoning the chicken, the same as these other things on the bottom of the list.  We can get them at the Cottar’s booth.”

Frodo was looking eagerly in all directions.  He had spent a lot of time in the kitchen at Brandy Hall helping with the food preparation.  The market gave him a sense of familiarity he liked.   He followed Ham to each stand, listening carefully to the tween’s descriptions about how to pick out the best quality foodstuffs.  Ham liked to cook and had gone to market with, or for, his family almost every week of his life.  The stall owners seemed to know and respect him well. 

“So who is your young friend, Ham?”  Missus Cottar asked while her pretty daughter Poppy bundled fresh thyme for him, for the Missus Cottar had insisted that no chicken should ever be prepared without it.  Young Poppy smiled sweetly as she handed Ham the packet.  It had been quite attractively wrapped.  The tips of Ham’s ears reddened as he took the package from her, the shyest of smiles on his lips. 

It was clear to Hal that Frodo no longer existed in his brother’s sight, so he therefore answered the question himself with a polite nod.  “His name is Frodo, good lady.  Frodo Baggins.” 

As did everyone in Hobbiton, Missus Cottar of course already knew precisely who Frodo was.  She clucked.  “So, a Baggins are you?  Related to Mr. Bilbo, perhaps?”

“Yes, ma’am – Mr. Bilbo’s my uncle.”

“You are not from around here, judging by your accent.” she observed.

“No, ma’am.  I was born in Buckland.  My father’s from Hobbiton, so I’ve been told.”

“Drogo Baggins, I would swear to it.  You look like him more than a bit.”  She smiled widely.  “All right then, lad, welcome to you for as long as you are here.  Now give Ham a hand, dear.” 

”Thank you, ma’am,” Frodo answered with another nod as he grabbed the tower of herbs from Ham's hands and stuffed them in Hal’s basket while Ham fumbled with the payment.  Poppy’s hand touched Ham’s as she gave him the change.  Ham nearly fell over.

“Are you all right, Ham?”  Frodo asked with a laugh as they backed away.  He was old enough to understand his friend’s condition.

Ham went crimson.  “We’ve everything we’d come for, Master Frodo.  We’d better be getting back to Bag End so Mr. Bilbo can start this chicken stewing.”

“We still need to get the mushrooms,” Frodo reminded urgently.

*

After dinner, Gandalf entertained the Bagginses with stories of the Great Sea. “…The Grey Havens is an old Elven harbor.  Ships came there from other lands.”

Frodo had been about to ask about elves, but the wizard’s last sentence took precedence in his mind.  “What other lands?” 

“Many lands, Frodo.  The southern realms of men and the northern reaches, and the Undying Lands of Valinor.  I arrived here myself from there, a long time ago.”

Too many questions competed for Frodo’s tongue.  He simply repositioned himself on the hearth rug before the crackling fire and gazed up at Gandalf, waiting for the wizard to start expounding.

Gandalf looked down at Frodo and smiled.  Since the day he had first set foot on the dock at the Havens, the wizard had counseled great leaders of the likes of elves and men, dwarves and ents.  The purposefully axenic halfling folk had actually annoyed him when he had first encountered them.  Since then, however, he had developed such a delight in their tight-knit communal sensibilities and quaint agrestic ways that given any opportunity he chose to spend his idle time amongst them.  Saruman, the leader of his order, had mentioned more than once that he thought Gandalf a bit touched for it, but Gandalf could easily justify an occasional hobbitary ataraxy between the ever-present exigencies of Middle Earth.

In particular, the wizard had lately found Bilbo Baggins to be of great value in that regard, for Bilbo was quite remarkable among hobbits for the inimitable outlook he had acquired over the life of their acquaintance.   Even stacked next to Bilbo, though, Gandalf the Gray had never met a hobbit quite as appealing as this lively, bright-eyed, young Frodo Baggins appeared to be.  He wished that he had more time himself to spend on the little fellow, but the greater matters of Middle Earth were, as always, pressing and he would have to leave as soon as Yule was over.  He would have to trust Frodo’s upbringing to Bilbo.

*

TBC

Three of Many

S.R. 17 Blotmath, 1388

Frodo held the freshly delivered envelopes out to his uncle.  They were each addressed to Mr. Bilbo Baggins and Master Frodo Baggins, Bag End, The Hill, Hobbiton.  The script on all three was identical.  Bilbo chuckled when he saw them.  “You’ll soon learn to recognize that handwriting, lad.  You will see it frequently.”

“But why three in one day?” Frodo asked.  He had only just learned of letter writing but, as far as he could tell, these envelopes looked as if they could hold more paper than they did.

“Because your Aunt Dora always has another thought the moment after she sets the seal,” Bilbo answered.  If it hadn’t been that Frodo’s name was also on the envelopes, he would have put them unopened in the waste basket.  The fact that Dora was addressing her letters now also to Frodo made him curious to see what she had to say.  “Go ahead and open them.  Let’s see if you can read them.”

“Dear Bilbo and Frodo,” Frodo read aloud.  “On second thought, I will give the lessons on et…?”

Bilbo didn’t even have to lean over to see what the word was.  It was easy enough to guess.  “Etiquette.”  He answered Frodo’s puzzled expression.  “That means she plans on teaching you manners, Frodo.  Which fork to hold and which way to pass the rolls - that kind of thing.  She thinks she knows these things better than I.”

Frodo shrugged and returned to his reading.  “Frodo should arrive at my hole at noon on Saturday, and plan to stay through tea.  I’ll be having my sewing club that afternoon and he can put to practice what he learns…” 

The guffaw escaped Gandalf’s lips before he had the chance to stop it. 

“Better you than me,” Bilbo added with grin.  “What do the other letters say?”

“I’m afraid to find out,” Frodo said as he opened another.  “Oh, this one must have been her first thought.”  He read: “Dear Bilbo and Frodo,  There are several people that Frodo should meet in the coming weeks.  The Mayor and Delilah Whitfoot will be home for the holidays.  You, Bilbo, should arrange that introduction.

"I am busy checking genealogies and will put together a list of parents of lasses to whom Frodo should be introduced.  It is important to identify and encourage appropriate matches when they are young so they aren’t disappointed later.” 

“Gracious!” Gandalf sputtered over his tea.  “Isn’t it too soon to be discussing that?”

“We need to consider it sooner than later, I suppose,” Bilbo conceded, hating to admit it even as he said it.  “I myself fell in love with too close a relative when I was just of age – I never got over it.  Go on, Frodo, what else does she say?”

“Frodo should also get into the young hobbit’s Yuletide chorale that performs the evening of the First of Yule.  It will be a good way for him to make friends.  They rehearse each Friday morning at eight at the Ivy Bush Inn in Bywater.  I’ve already sent a letter to Choirmaster Hornblower to expect him.”  Frodo’s shoulders drooped, not so much because he didn’t want to sing, but because of the early hour of the practices.  But as he silently read on he, himself, began to laugh.

“What?” Bilbo and Gandalf both asked, leaning forward in anticipation.

“Oh, nothing much,” Frodo answered. “Just that here is where she first said that I should get the lessons in etiquette.  Apparently I also need to learn to stand up straight and pay better attention to the state of my nails." 

“And the third letter?” Bilbo asked.

Frodo tore it open.  “Dear Bilbo and Frodo,  And should that wizard friend of yours still be here, perhaps he can judge the Yule parade carts.” 

“That is, actually, a fine suggestion,” Bilbo considered.  “Every year groups decorate up carts and pull them along the street the afternoon of the Second of Yule so that everyone can see them.  You’d be the perfect person to decide which should win the prizes.”

Gandalf agreed to do it.  A concert and a parade sounded quite nice to him.  “I’ll even make ready a few fireworks for Between Eve.”

*    

TBC

Singing Practice

S.R. 19 Blotmath, 1388

Frodo grabbed but an apple as he shot from the hole Friday morning, devouring it before his snow-dusted feet hit the threshold of the Ivy Bush Inn.  A lass about his age was the first chorale-mate he met as he slid across the slick hallway and landed with a thud against the table at which she was sitting.

“Goodness!” she exclaimed with a laugh.  “You must be Frodo Baggins.  I’m Glimmer Hornblower.  My father told me to keep an eye out for you.  Why are you in such a rush?”

“I was afraid I would be late,” he answered when he regained his wind.  He stooped down to retrieve a bell that had been sent flying by the force of his impact with its resting spot.  He was rewarded with a pleased flash of jet black eyes as he handed it back to her.

“You aren’t late,” she assured him.  “In fact, you are the first one here.  Papa’s still conducting a private lesson with Warren Burrows, our soloist.  I was sent out to keep anyone who came in from entering too loudly.  From the spectacle of your arrival, it’s a good thing I’m here.”

“I’m sorry, Glimmer,” Frodo apologized.  “Should I wait out here with you?”

She looked at him coyly.  “If you can be quiet, you may.”

Frodo did not pick up on her flirtations.  He quietly dropped to the floor against the opposite wall and crossed his hands in his lap.  He noticed that she seemed to be watching him, so he dropped his gaze to his hands, which began to fidget.

Salisfrond Brungle came in a few minutes later, in a manner significantly more reserved than Frodo’s.  Glimmer raised her finger to her lips and gestured for him to sit next to Frodo.  He chose instead to take a seat on the other side of the small stove next to her table.

Half a dozen other tweens had soon taken spots in the hallway.  Glimmer seemed to relish her role as proctor, and if anyone made even the slightest movement she turned on her most disapproving glare.  Anytime Frodo glanced up she was staring at him.  It made him so nervous that to still his hands he sat on them. 

Glimmer did find herself studying Frodo more than was polite, so she stood up and put her ear to the door of the assembly room.  Ascertaining that the lesson had ended, she motioned to the others to follow her through the door.

“Papa will test your range after practice, Frodo,” Glimmer said as she placed him directly in front of a lad she introduced as Warren. 

“Lean backwards if you think you might not be in tune,” Warren told him convivially.  “That way you can match your pitch and tone with mine.  Don’t sing too loud until you’re confident that you’re hitting the right notes, or you’ll throw everyone else off. 

*

Frodo was a tad surprised that the choirmaster’s own children were not actually in the chorale.  Instead, they were accompanying the singers with instruments.  Always fond of music, Frodo made certain to meet them during the break.  Glint Hornblower, appropriately enough, played horn.  Not just one horn, either, but three different horns that had varying degrees of brassiness.  Gilda, a striking copper-haired beauty, played a variety of flutes.  Her silver flute provided a lower pitch than her tin whistle (which was similar in pitch to a bone whistle Frodo had that he had won at a Free Fair he had attended with his parents when he was quite young).  Gilda also had an instrument made of wood that she played through a reed for a remarkably smooth, less breathy sound.  Spark – or Tipper, as everyone called him – played all sorts of percussion instruments; everything from a bodhran of goat hide stretched over a Beech shell to a chromatic xylophone that sounded a bit like the dwarf-made celesta at Brandy Hall (that had apparently once been Frodo's grandmother's and that his mother had taught him to play).  Glimmer played the stringed instruments: fiddle, mandolin, dulcimer and harp.  Shimmer played a concertina.  Little Sunny, who was no older than Merry, cheerfully shook a pair of hollow gourds filled with seeds.

*

“So, Master Baggins, let’s test your singing range,” Brite Hornblower said when he had released the chorale for the day.  “Glimmer, will you accompany us on your fiddle?”

“Yes, Papa,” the lass answered and quickly tested the tuning against the xylophone before following them into a small room.  She smiled warmly at Frodo and suggested that he relax as she raised her fiddle to her chin.

“We’ll start with scales, Frodo,” the choirmaster directed.  “Glimmer, would you please give us a starting note that’s not too hard to reach?”

The lass nodded and played a note that was neither high nor low.  Frodo took a breath and began to sing.

The expression on Brite’s face brightened as Frodo completed the octave.  “Again, Frodo,” he said, “a little louder, please.”

Frodo obliged.  He finished several scales, going high and low, before the choirmaster asked him to sing The Yuletide Carol, which was a song every child in Middle Earth knew.   

Without comment, Mr. Hornblower had him move on to each of the other songs the chorale had sung that morning.  Frodo wondered self-consciously at the fact that he kept being asked to repeat again and again long past the point where everything sounded just right to him.  He kept trying to improve.

The choirmaster finally gestured for him to stop and for Glimmer to leave.  “I have a special song that I would like to add to the recital, Frodo,” he explained.  “It’s a solo, sung without accompaniment, that doesn’t quite suit Warren’s voice, but I think it might yours if you project.  Would you try it?” 

Frodo could find no reason not to and was soon introduced to an exquisite little melody; the most beautiful he had ever heard.  The choirmaster was exacting, though, and for a reason Frodo respected.  The composition was the choirmaster’s own and he was not going to allow it to be heard unless it could be realized as purely as he heard it in his head.  Frodo became equally determined to give it the performance it deserved.

There was another advantage to the personal exchange that was every bit as enriching to the boy.  “I understand you are learning to read, Frodo.  Let me show you the system I’ve come up with for symbolizing music.”

“That was quite a length of time you were gone,” Bilbo alleged as Frodo entered Bag End well past dinnertime.  “Were you really practicing all that time?”

Frodo was not going to ruin the surprise of his solo.  “Mr. Hornblower wanted to determine which part I would sing,” he said, barely stopping on his way to his room to stash the music manuscript.  “I told him you’d be coming, Gandalf.  He suggested that we supply your chair.  You’ll have to sit in the back or against one of the walls, I’m afraid, so you won’t block anyone’s sightlines…”

The wizard did not find a cause to scrutinize what was on Frodo’s mind, but he picked up on the excitement underlying the words.  He leaned back in the oversized chair that was temporarily taking up a large portion of the drawing room, and replaced his feet on the stool as he partook of yet another nice chunk of cheesecake.  “I’ll devise something portable,” he promised to Frodo’s retreating back. 

*

TBC

At Aunt Dora’s

S.R. 20 Blotmath, 1388

Bag End had a certain milieu of bachelor-ness about it.  Neither austere nor plush, it was decorated comfortably in woods and earth-tones and accented with handsome carpets, books, and memorabilia from Bilbo’s great adventure.  Its appointments hinted at the financial status of its occupier without drawing attention to it.  Aunt Dora’s hole, on the other extreme, bespoke spinster from the very first step through the doorway.  It smelled of rose oil and everything in it was flowery with lace, beading and other fine needlework – if it wasn’t a pretty little bauble made of blown glass. 

“And this is the closest I come to a drawing room,” Dora was telling Frodo as she showed him into a very large room for such a modest-sized hole. “It’s more of an all-purpose room.”  Past the table, tea cart, and tea set filled curio, Frodo noticed that there was a curved settee tucked against one wall, something the ladies in Brandy Hall had always called a fainting couch.  It was tapestried in a design depicting bouquets of roses and upon it sat a collection of ruffled needlepoint pillows.  Atop it was a tatted lace throw.  

The rest of the room was filled with materials, yarns, a spinning wheel, loom and sizable quilting frame; along with multitudes of pillows, quilts, doilies and other crafts of very high quality.  Blown glass birds and pressed flowers hung on strings in front of the windows, casting their colors across the room.   A large chest painted with flowers was covered with plush rag dolls.  “I make things to sell at the Free Fair,” Dora explained when she noticed him staring at everything.  “This room is quite on the verge of overflowing, I know.” She laughed, “It’s a mighty good thing we’re having the Fair this summer.”

“My parents and I went to a Free Fair once, about fourteen years ago,” Frodo said.  “Why did I not meet you there?”

Dora frowned momentarily.  She would have been set up in the same first-row end spot in the vendors' exhibits as always.  Drogo would have known the place, for he used to sell things he made alongside her.  Had he brought his family to the Fair and deliberately not come by her booth to introduce his son to her?  Had things really gone so bad between them as that, all because of a comment from her impressionable sister-in-law’s Tookish mother about Bagginses being stodgy?  It was an unsettling thought.  She let it go and smiled lovingly at her nephew.  “I must have been away when you came by,” she answered.

“Did my father share your interest in art?” Frodo asked as they were setting the table for the ladies who would be coming that afternoon.

“Fleetingly, I suppose, when he was very young.  As he grew up he became far more interested in tinkering.  Of course by then Mamma had steered me into needlework, sewing and other crafts.  She said the neighbor ladies had told her they thought craftwork was more lady-like than chiseling stone and getting all dusty.”

“I think it’s mean for people to criticize like that,”  Frodo said.  “Your craftwork is lovely, Aunt Dora, please don’t think I’m suggesting otherwise, but that’s because you clearly have artistic ability.  Had someone given you encouragement, just think what you might have been able to do with it.”

Dora thanked him for the compliment, but she didn’t dwell on her own abilities.  She knew what Frodo was clearly interested in knowing.  “As for your father’s skills, dear boy, he spent more time daydreaming than anyone I ever heard tell of, but when he thought of something ingenious he could make it work.  For instance,  he made a foot pedal that he called a treadle and used it for all kinds of things, such this marvelous sewing device that he made for me.  It makes a much more even stitch than I ever possibly could achieve by hand…

“… and in the kitchen I have a little tool he made that I can use to easily take the pits out of cherries.  Out back I have something he built to separate cotton from its stems and seeds.  We’ll have to see if you’ve inherited the tinkering knack.”

Frodo grimaced.  “Dad was known throughout Buckland for being a dreamer.  The Brandybucks didn’t hold well to it.  They told me that he had designed and built the ‘contraption’ that he and Mamma took out on the river and he had obviously not considered in Mamma’s abundant pregnancy weight because it sank.”  Overcome, Dora hugged him to her hard as tears drenched both their faces.  She didn’t even correct him when he wiped his face with his sleeve.  She, of course, dabbed hers with her embroidered lace-edged handkerchief.   

“I can draw well and I’m good with building things out of wood,” Frodo finally added as his aunt gave him a nice, not-too-fancy handkerchief to take home with him.  “Old Rory has determined to apprentice me to a carpenter, if he can find one willing to take me.  I’m known to drift off into thought, myself, and some consider me cursed because of it.”

*

Frodo learned a great deal that morning besides the proper sides from which plates are to be served and collected, how to place one’s knife and fork to signify that one is finished with a course, and how (of all horrors) one should never continue to eat after everyone else at the table has finished.  He learned about his roots.

“The Bagginses were one of the leading patrician families that purchased large tracts of land early in the history of the Shire,” Dora explained.  “They divided up their lands into farmlands and estates that they leased to others.  The Baggins family officially owns a fair portion of land between The Water and the Midbrook that is within the West Farthing.  Earnings are distributed annually.  That reminds me, Drogo had directed his earnings be put into a savings account for later use.  I’ll write a letter to Bilbo to make sure he transfers that account balance to your name for when you come of age.  You’re also heir to future earnings that would have come to him.

“Now, where was I?  Oh, yes.  Because the leasings made us so well known, the Bagginses were for many generations the shoo-in for Mayor.  Of course there is hardly any government in the Shire.  Families for the most part manage their own affairs and the only duties the Mayor has is to manage the Messenger Service and the Watch, and to preside at holiday banquets.  After a while, we Bagginses lost interest in running for the office.

“The last Baggins mayor was Balbo, who was elected by a show of hands at the Free Fair on the White Downs at the Lithe of 1264.  Balbo was my great-grandfather and your great-great-grandfather, Frodo….” 

“So Bilbo’s the Baggins family patriarch,” Dora went on to finish.  “Sadly he has no son to inherit control of the shared properties.” 

A thought immediately pushed its way forefront in Frodo’s mind just as adamantly as if were Lobelia Sackville-Baggins and her umbrella.  “That’s why Otho’s so adamant that he’s Bilbo’s heir, isn’t it, Aunt Dora?  There’s a lot more at stake than Bag End and whatever’s there.”

“Yes – and that’s precisely why no one in the family wants him as the heir, Frodo.  Imagine how he’d treat the hobbits who live on those lands.  I wouldn’t be surprised if the very first thing he’d do is to raise the rents on everything.”

“Why don’t you sell the lands to those who farm them?”

“Few could afford to buy them.  The lands are worth a lot more than the rent that we charge – ten times more, at least.  We can charge what we want for rent without interference, but we couldn’t give away property or sell it for an inappropriately low price without every landowner in the Shire voting in favor of it first, and that’s unlikely because it would lower the value of everyone’s property.  Bilbo needs an heir who will be satisfied to leave things as they are.”

Frodo was glad he was out of the running.  He thought he’d much prefer to go on adventures when he grew up than to keep track of rents.

*

Lacy Hornblower was so eager to get to Dora Baggins’ that afternoon that she arrived unfashionably early.  She had heard so much about young Frodo Baggins.  Her husband was beside himself with excitement at having found a new protégé whose voice perfectly complemented Warren’s.  He was already writing duets for them.  And Glimmer… well, the very Glimmer who had never before shown interest in a lad had been blushing with every word she said about Frodo.  Gilda was taking great delight in teasing her little sister over every one of Frodo’s features, from his unusually fair skin to the little cleft in his chin.   

Dora welcomed her – and the copies of the Hornblower and Chubb family trees – warmly.

*

TBC

Yuletide Preparations

S.R.  28 Foreyule, 1388

Frodo was piecing together a light snack as he wandered into the drawing room.  “When are we decorating, Uncle Bilbo?”

“We were just waiting for you to get back from rehearsal.  Gandalf and I were out today getting the tree.  You aren’t too tired, are you?  We can start tonight and finish up tomorrow.”

“I’m not too tired,” Frodo swore.

“Um-hmm,” Bilbo and Gandalf murmured in unison.  By their calculations Frodo had at most an hour before he would be asleep on the hearth rug.

“Finish your milk while I bring out the ornaments.”

“I’ll bring in the tree,” Gandalf added.

The light rekindled in the lad’s eyes.  Both Bilbo and Gandalf suspected the energy burst would actually shorten Frodo’s remaining minutes awake.

The tree that Gandalf had selected was about four and a half feet tall and well formed.  The unique thing about it was that it was still alive.  The wizard had coaxed the ground around its roots to warm enough to enable him to pull it from the ground and place it in a nice pot.  He would return it to its position alongside the road once the season was over.  “You have to respect all living things, Frodo,” he explained as he placed it across the room from the fireplace.  “That’s something I learned from an Ent friend of mine.”

“What exactly are Ents?” Bilbo asked.

“Ents are tree-herders, and many are as old as Middle Earth.  In fact, the one I’m speaking of calls me ‘Young Master’ whenever he sees me.”

Frodo laughed.  “You’re not serious, are you?”  Bilbo looked equally amused.

Gandalf smiled at the skeptical twosome.  “I am quite serious.  Ents were around long before the elves came from across the sea.   They shepherd the primeval forests.  They actually even look a bit like trees.”

“How do you shepherd trees?” Frodo asked, thinking about the dogs that kept the sheep and goats in line.  “Trees don’t move.”

“Don’t be too sure of that, little halfling.  There are trees that are themselves ages old.  The elves believed that they were the ones that brought awareness to the trees, but Treebeard says that trees had been aware long before that point.  Trees have a language of their own, if you listen carefully.  I myself have even witnessed some move.”

Frodo found he liked the idea of plants being conscious.  He went to the kitchen and brought the little evergreen a drink of water, which he poured in its base.  “I’d think you plants would like hobbits,” he told it.  “We like taking care of living things more than almost anything.”  He thought for certain that the tree adjusted its limbs slightly in response.  He looked up at Gandalf.  “Are there any Ents in the old forest on the edge of Buckland?”

“I have not met any; although that doesn’t mean that there are none there.  Ents do not often interact with the hasty folk, as they consider us.”

Hasty seemed a fitting word to Frodo, who was himself considered hastier than many Shire hobbits.

 Bilbo brought the first box of ornaments out.  “You may recognize some of these, Gandalf.”

“Indeed?”

“Uncle Bilbo says he has a story for each one,” Frodo explained, “and that many of those stories involve you directly.”

The first thing pulled from the box was a ruby ring set in mithril taken from the troves of three now petrified trolls.  Gandalf was taken aback.  “That’s a Yuletide ornament?  I wonder how many kings would so trivialize such a prize.”

“I’ve no better use for it,” Bilbo answered.  “Honestly, Gandalf, it’s a mathom – the most I could do is to give it away to someone.  It’s worth way too much to find a buyer.  It’s too big for a hobbit hand, and we’ve nothing in the Shire with which to cut the mithral to resize it.”

The wizard sent Frodo off to the kitchen to get him a refill of tea.  “What other rings do you hang on trees?” he whispered urgently.

“Not that one,” Bilbo answered, his hand touching his vest pocket.  “That one fits.”

“Good, and may I suggest that you not tell Frodo about that one.”

“Never,” Bilbo agreed readily, uncertain as to why they both were so resolute that his magic ring be the one item he possessed that he would forever keep secret from his young cousin.

The second item was a cork that Bilbo had pulled from a barrel that had once secreted a dwarf from the wood elves of Mirkwood.  He had since been amused to become a friend of the elves’ king and his son, a youthful statuesque immortal named Laegolas Greenleaf who did not look his two-thousand-some years.

“What is the meaning of Yule, Gandalf?” Frodo asked as they finally sat for a late snack.  It was nearing midnight.

“Yule is the celebration of the creation of Middle Earth,” the wizard answered between bites.  “The night of music that precedes Yule represents the music of the Ainur who sang to Eru, the One, before aught else was made.  I actually am surprised that you hobbits follow that custom since you know not the account of the Ainulindale.”

“Elves and dwarves and men created the tradition,” Bilbo explained.  “We hobbits have had dealings with other races over the years before coming to the Shire.  It makes sense that we would pick up their rituals.”

“Granted,” Gandalf answered.  “The children of Eru, or Illuvatar, are elves and men – the firstborn and followers.  Aule, one of the Ainur who became a Valar, created the seven fathers of the dwarves.  Each of these peoples has more intimate knowledge of the Valar than a hobbit ever could.”

“You’d think that hobbits just one day sprung up from the ground from how you tell the story,” Bilbo argued.

“Perhaps you did,” Gandalf said with a smile.  “I do not know the history of halflings.  You are on none of the ancient roles.”

“So what is the difference between an Ainur and a Valar,” Frodo asked eagerly.

“They are essentially one and the same, Frodo,” Gandalf answered.  “The Ainur are brethren – the offspring of Eru’s first thoughts – and they originated as themes of music in the Void.  In time, as Aman – or Valinor – took shape, they too took form of sorts so that they could dwell therein.  It was from that vantage point that they bequeathed their special gifts to the Realm of Arda, the World in which Middle Earth resides.  It is because of the gifting of the Valar that people give each other gifts at Yule.  Manwe is the mightiest of them, and gave the wind and the clouds.  With him dwells Varda, the lady of stars.  Their children are Fionwe Urion and Ilmare.  The children are called Valarindi and are lesser spirits than are the Ainur, although greater than the Maia.  Ilmare is the most joyful of the Holy Ones, even counting Tulkas...”  The wizard noticed that Frodo suddenly smiled at the mention of Ilmare, as if at a fond memory.

“You told me once that the Valar were not gods,” Bilbo reminded when the wizard stopped his recitation of the Valar and their gifts for breath and bite.

“That is right.  Only Eru can claim that title.”

“But the elves worship the Valar, don’t they?” Bilbo pressed.

“They do, but that does not mean they must.  Eru has left the management of his creations to the Valar, so many elves and men beseech them when in need.  My order was sent by the Valar in answer to these pleas. ”

“And what is the significance of New Year’s, Gandalf?” Frodo asked.

“New Year is a much more recent addition.  It is the anniversary of the day in which Sauron was vanquished by the last alliance of elves and men, and so it is considered to be a new beginning.  Calendars were adjusted accordingly, making the year start in the throws of winter instead of on the first day of spring as of old.  The Third Age of Middle Earth began on that day, nearly 3,000 years ago.  It was on that day that I set out from Valinor and I have been here ever since.”

Frodo could no longer suppress the yawn that pushed against his cheeks in spite of his interest.  “I’m glad you’re here, Gandalf, to spend Yule and New Year’s with us.  It will mean even more to me now that I can relate it to your coming to Middle Earth.” 

*

TBC

A Voice Apart

S.R. Yule, 1388 / 1389

The first thing Gandalf did when he entered the inn was to locate the best place for him to set his improvised chair.   The second thing was to invisibly improve the acoustics of the room; after all this was not an elven performance and it would need all the help it could get.   He doubted if a hobbit’s ear would even notice the difference, but he knew his would.

Bilbo came and sat down beside him, having just dropped off his batch of Took Turnips with Dora Baggins, who was busy supervising in the inn’s kitchen.  “The after music buffet is looking quite appealing,” he said eagerly, then lowered his voice to a whisper, “If we can make it though the performance, the evening promises to be pleasant.”

“How long is the performance?” Gandalf asked.  

The hobbitess directly in front of him turned around and laughed.  “It varies, Mr. Gandalf, sir.  Sometimes it is only a couple of hours.  Once it went on for four hours and ten minutes!”

“Goodness,” Bilbo proclaimed with alarm.  “How could anyone sit through anything for that long?”

“Don’t worry, it goes quickly,” the hobbitess assured.  “They have breaks while the different groups come on stage.”

“But the audience earns the banquet that follows,” her companion answered.  Bilbo and Gandalf exchanged glances.  “It is part of the price of being a parent, Bilbo Baggins,” she added, “in case you weren’t aware of that when you decided to take in Frodo.”  Bilbo suddenly thought it best to take a break before things began and excused himself.

“I’ve been coming to these for over twenty-five years,” the hobbitess continued to tell the wizard.  “Most of the time it’s lovely, but you had better be willing to sit through a few painfully wrong notes.”

“Thank you for the warning,” Gandalf answered.  “Missus?”

 “Lacy Hornblower,” she said, extending her hand.  “I’m the choirmaster's wife, and most of the musicians are mine.  This is Tawny Burrows.  Her son is a soloist in the chorale.” 

“It is a pleasure,” he responded.  “I look forward to exchanging critiques with you at the banquet.”

Bilbo returned just as the children’s chorus was lining up.  With him was Bell Gamgee.  “Hamfast wasn’t willing to come,” Bell was explaining.  “Good evening, Mr. Gandalf.”

“Hello, Bell,” the ladies in front welcomed.  “Is one of your children singing tonight?”

“Goodness, no,” Bell answered.  “No offense, but my husband doesn’t tolerate the children ‘wasting their time,’ as he calls it, with things like singing.  I’m here because I wanted to listen.”

“Missus Gamgee did sew Frodo’s robe for us,” Bilbo reminded as further explanation.  Knowing hobbit sensibilities as well as he did he couldn’t imagine anyone coming who didn’t have to be there, but as he looked around he saw more than a few hobbits who had apparently come just to listen. 

The sconces along the walls were extinguished as the chorus ascended the stage.  The audience hushed.  The young singers, all ages 9 to 15, fidgeted in their long white robes.  A few of the youngest waved to their family members.  The choirmaster entered to enthusiastic applause.  He took center stage and bowed to the audience.

“Welcome, one and all, to the annual Yule concert,” he began.  “We have a very full evening planned for you tonight.”  Minor applause and a few deep sighs.  “Our order is somewhat changed this evening from what many of you know.  The chorus will sing first, followed by the chorale and the adult choir as usual.  We will conclude, however, with a unified work of my own of mixed voices from all of the age ranges.”  Approving murmurs were heard scattered. 

Gandalf was pleased to discover that hobbits were not entirely tone deaf.  The young children had stronger voices than he had anticipated for their size and overall fared better under this choirmaster’s guidance than some of the human equivalents he had listened to over many a year. When singled out, however, their individual voices strayed across the scale as they tried to land on the correct notes.  The wizard winced many a time in spite of himself.

Gandalf clapped politely when the chorus finished, noticing that Bilbo did not.  The children’s parents, however, were extremely supportive, with cheers and whistles of approval.  Gandalf looked down at Bilbo and wondered if the demanding hobbit would relent to clap for Frodo when it was his turn.  

The chorus exited and the chorale entered in their burgundy robes.  This group was far more refined than the chorus members had been.  They stood very still as they waited for the musicians to take their seats and give a final tuning of their instruments.  Frodo glanced slightly in the direction at the wizard; Gandalf being so unmistakable in the crowd.  The boy’s oversized blue eyes glimmered in the lights at the base of the stage and the barest of smiles touched his lips. 

Gandalf looked around at the other chorale members.  No others seemed nervous.  He would have taken a moment to reflect on the matter had the choirmaster not reappeared at that very instant.  The audience again fell silent.

There was no doubt as to which child was the lead.  Standing directly behind Frodo, he had many solos.  It was true that his was an excellent voice.

A few of the other children soloed on a stanza or two, and the accompaniment was quite pleasant.  In fact, the chorale’s part of the performance was nearly flawless.  Bilbo and Gandalf both clapped enthusiastically as the young hobbits took their bows.   Many hobbits stood up when Warren Burrows took his bow.  Gandalf joined them because he knew that with his size it would be noticed if he didn’t. 

He went outside to get tea at the following intermission.  “A fine job,” he called when he spotted Frodo talking with the soloist and several of the musicians.  It was no exaggeration. 

Though not matching elven song, the adult choir was every bit as good as any human vocal ensemble that Gandalf had ever heard.  He found himself relaxing now that Frodo’s part was over and he was truly able to enjoy it.  To his left, Bilbo was thoroughly involved in the music.  The applause at the end of their performance was vigorous.

“I’m glad we came, Gandalf,” Bilbo said as they returned to their seats following the last intermission.  The performance had already gone nearly 3 hours, but they were ready for the finale, however long it would be. 

Tawny Burrows and Lacy Hornblower came back in excitedly.  “My husband has been composing this next work for quite a few years," Lacy explained.  "We are in for a treat.”

“He obviously has a good ear for music,” Gandalf said, looking forward to it himself.  “I’ve been impressed by his arrangements of the familiar tunes.”

It took quite a while for all the performers to take their positions.  The green of the choir robes filled the back risers, while the burgundy of the chorale filled the bottom ones.  Not all of the little chorus members came in, but those who did interspersed themselves with the chorale members in the front row, their white robes standing out in the burgundy.  Frodo was on the end of the front row.  Fortunately it was to the side on which Gandalf and Bilbo were seated, so their view of him was unhindered.  He still looked nervous compared with the others on the stage.  Warren, the now identified lead and soloist from the chorale, and the female soloists, stood just next to him.  The male soloists stood on the opposite side.

The instrumentalists again warmed up and the audience members repositioned themselves excitedly.

The choirmaster came forefront and bowed.  The music began.  It was not the rollicking fun of many of the earlier pieces, but captivatingly emotional.  There was nary a dry eye in the house.  Gandalf listened spellbound, for this sound did equal that of the elves.

The chorus and chorale members’ parts were wordless, save for a breathtaking solo by Warren and a simple duet sung by two lads from the children’s chorus.  The choir sang in the common tongue, yet the pronunciation was lyrical.  The voices mingled perfectly, and the accompanying instruments ebbed and flowed and built to crescendo.   Then, abruptly, all sound ended and a single pure voice rose out of the silence, causing a quiver to rise up everyone’s spine with it.  It was several notes in before Gandalf realized the voice belonged to Frodo.  It was even longer before Bilbo realized it.

The solo was not just a line long but a full song in itself, suspended in time.  When the rest of the ensemble swelled underneath it the audience took a collective breath.

It ended.  No one made a sound as the choirmaster dropped his baton to his side.  As he turned to face them a roar of excitement crashed through the auditorium.   Everyone was on their feet with cheers so deafening that Gandalf worried that the structure of the Inn might collapse around them.

The choirmaster turned and crossed his hands over his heart in gratitude.  Tears escaped from his eyes at the response.  When the ovation stilled, he turned to direct the choir to bow and the musicians to stand.  Clapping resumed wholeheartedly. The principle soloists took their bows and the applause grew.  The two chorus boys took their bows.  It increased.  Warren took his.  It amplified.  Then it stopped altogether.  All eyes were on Frodo.  He stepped forward and meekly leaned toward the audience.  The tumult was overwhelming.

It lasted only a minute more before the buffet table drew everyone’s attention.   Thus Frodo was introduced to the brevity of fame.  As uncharacteristically shy as he was for a hobbit, he was thankful it didn’t last long. 

*

“What are these?” Bilbo asked in wonder as he opened his box from Gandalf the next morning.  There were many compartments, each housing what appeared to be richly colored pieces of plant.  Some were powdered. The smells seemed intoxicating.

“Spices, Bilbo, of exotic natures,” Gandalf answered.  “They were given to me Radagast the Brown, who received them in turn from one of our order who has gone to the realms east of Middle Earth.  I think they’d be put to better service in a kitchen than in my cooking pot, so I am re-gifting them to you.  They should last at least a year.”

“How are they best prepared?”  Frodo asked from behind his uncle’s shoulder.  He was breathing in the aromas deeply, and his eyes seemed to float in a kind of ecstasy.  “Have you recipes?”

“I do not know the proper usage, Frodo.  You and your uncle will have to experiment.  Know only that they should be used sparingly, for they impart a great deal of flavor and they are each very rare.  I cannot predict when next I will be given more.”

Bilbo looked at the lid of the box, which was designed to form a tight seal in each compartment when closed.  Gandalf had marked it with the name of each spice – ajwain, cumin, cinnamon, cloves, coriander, nutmeg, ginger, vanilla, fenugreek powder, turmeric, galangal, kalonji, kala jeera, caraway, saffron and pepper.   “This is indeed a fine gift, Gandalf.  I do not know how to thank you.”

“By testing them out while he is here, of course,” responded Frodo eagerly.

The gifting could not be uniform.  As was typical in hobbit households the child was the major recipient, and thus Frodo got clothes and a supply of papers and inks from Bilbo; and from Gandalf a small book the wizard had long carried with him on nurturing nature.  Bilbo gave Gandalf some “Old Toby” leaf.

“I have something for each of you,” Frodo said as they were finishing up.  He ran off to his room.

“But you have already cleaned the hole,” Bilbo said as he returned.  “That is enough.”

Frodo smiled.  “They’re not much.”  He handed the larger package to his uncle and then turned to Gandalf.  “I know you don’t have much room to carry unimportant things around with you, so yours is smaller.”  He stepped back and instructed them to unwrap them together.

“Why, Frodo, this is exceptional,” Bilbo said as he opened his.  “Who did this?”

“I drew the picture,” the boy answered.  “Mr. Grubb, the carpenter, made the frames.  I’ve promised to clean up his workshop after Yule in payment.”

Bilbo gave the lad a bearhug.  “You have surprised me in many ways, Frodo – first with your intellectual interests, then with your singing talents, and now with your artistic ones.”

Gandalf embraced Frodo in turn.   “I will carry this with me wherever I go.”

*

The parade that day was every bit as exhilarating to the townsfolk as the concert had been the night before, for more attended that than the concert.   Rumor of Gandalf’s fireworks had attracted everyone.

There had been an accumulating snow overnight and the temperature was below freezing.  Still, hobbits young and old were bare of foot.  Gandalf marveled at it.  He knew that the soles of hobbit feet were tough, and that the hair that covered them helped warm them, but he kept thinking about how his own feet frequently were the first things to get cold, even in socks and boots.  It made him cold just to look at the children running though the snow without shoes.

The townspeople had agreed to the last minute idea of having the wizard as one of the float judges.  Gandalf would have preferred his original plan of standing on the sidelines with Bilbo by his side and Frodo on his shoulders, but the parade committee wanted him to sit in the grandstand with the other judges, apart from the influence of other opinions.  So up he went to the judges’ box.  Bilbo took Frodo several yards down the street where he was able to talk the Hornblower family into letting Frodo squeeze to the front and stand with their children.  Frodo found himself standing next to Glimmer.  When she batted her eyes at him he started to look for the best exit route.

“You were wonderful at the concert last night,” she said sweetly.  “You were as good as Warren.”

Frodo thanked her and inched away.  She immediately narrowed the distance. “What did you get for Yule?” she asked.

“Ummm, some new paper and inks.”  He looked anxiously down the street for the first sign of a float.

“How interesting,” Glimmer replied with a sincerity that surprised Frodo.  “Did you get anything else?”

Frodo had gotten two new shirts and a new pair of breeches, but he wasn’t interested in sharing that information.  “I got a book,” he added, omitting the fact that it was written in High Elvish.

“Maybe I could read it sometime,” she suggested. 

“I guess you could.”  The moment that it escaped his lips he wished he hadn’t said it.  Glimmer was suddenly swishing her skirt and looking quite hopeful.

Fortunately for him, the parade had started.  The first float had been built by the butcher’s family.  It was a tribute to the traditional Yuletide Feast and even had a pig roasting on a spit.  The family members were giving out samples, which drew everyone’s attention. 

This evening’s floats all had to do with different aspects of Yule.  One was covered with huge presents.  Another, the creation of  the Baxter family (who sold bakery) looked just like one of Missus Baxter’s specialty Yule Log nut cakes.  Yet another celebrated the decorations of the season and was covered with pine and hothouse flowers.  Alongside walked lads with streamers and other fancies on poles.  Several were carrying flowers and going up to pretty girls on the parade path in order to playfully trade them for kisses.  More than one stopped for Glimmer’s lovely older sister, Gilda.  When one also gave Glimmer a flower in passing, she turned to see if Frodo was watching and was a little miffed to see that he had disappeared. 

For he had been mesmerized by the float coming up behind that looked like all sorts of Yule sweets.  The candy maker was walking beside it, handing out individually wrapped candies.  She gave a peppermint drop to Frodo.  “That song you sang yesterday was really good, Master Frodo,” she said meaningfully.  “Everyone’s saying that old Gandalf must have laid a pretty good spell on you.”

Frodo smiled.  If everyone in Hobbiton thought his singing was a wizard’s trick, who was he to dispel the rumor?   “Thank you,” he answered and stuck the candy in his pocket.  He was suddenly of the mind to give it to Glimmer, but when he turned back to where she had been standing, he saw that she was already on her way to hear the results of the judging.

A float made of snow and ice sculptures won, for sheer resourcefulness in beautifully using materials at hand.  Ribbons were given to everyone who participated.   Gandalf, realizing that his presence had become a big deal to the hobbits, shook everyone’s hand before turning to his fireworks. 

* 

TBC

_____________________________________________________________

While Took Turnips is a secret recipe, here's a recipe for Pickled Turnips:

   _ Chinese white turnip*
   _ cup vinegar
   _ tablespoons sugar
   _ teaspoon salt
   _ Dash pepper
   _ teaspoon paprika

1. Peel turnip. Cut lengthwise in half, then in 1/4-inch slices. Place in a bowl.

2. Bring vinegar to a boil and stir in sugar to dissolve. Pour over turnip. Sprinkle with salt and pepper and refrigerate, covered, overnight.

3. Drain, and sprinkle with paprika before serving.

VARIATIONS:
* If using regular turnips instead of Chinese ones: Peel and slice thin. Then sprinkle with salt, let stand 1 hour and drain. Heat the vinegar and sugar, as in step 2, but add the turnips to the pan and simmer, covered, 2 minutes. Remove from heat and let cool in the pan. Then refrigerate, covered, overnight.
* For the turnip, substitute the following vegetables in any combination: cauliflower (parboiled) or carrots, cucumbers, green peppers, chili peppers, round cabbage. Slice or dice the vegetables. Increase the amount of dressing as you increase the vegetables.

Winter Games

S.R. 1 Solmath, 1389

Winter was rarely fierce in the Shire, for the winds usually moved from the southwest; still the post-Yule months of January and February were well deserving of hibernation.  It was a practice (while not instinctive to halflings) that more than a few of them would have quite willingly adopted if it hadn’t meant missing meals.  As it was, Shirelings were a most lethargic lot during those months.

In Bag End, though, there was plenty of activity.  Although Gandalf  was no longer there, Ham and Hal Gamgee slogged the muddy path from their home at Number 3 Bagshot Row to the Baggins’ almost daily.  They and Frodo were getting quite good at reading and writing.  Bilbo had begun to teach them counting.

With their own hole overflowing with people in the cold months, Ham and Hal spent the wintry evenings at Bag End playing the inventive games and mazes that Frodo would draw.  Often Bilbo joined in as they played.  One game in particular Bilbo found quite amusing, for Frodo had by accident made it impossible to finish.  They had played for several hours before anyone became aware of the problem, however, for Bilbo concurrently held the boys captivated by lore of the Three Ages of Middle Earth.  It had happened thusly:

“How long have there been elves, Mr. Bilbo?” asked Hal, setting down his mug of hot cider mulled with spices beyond his experience.  He always loved anything Bilbo could tell him about elves.

“Hmm.  The way they tell it, they have been here since before the Second Age began.  That would be over six thousand years, I believe.”  He smiled as Hal attempted to figure out just how long that really was and arrived at comprehension with a stunned face. 

“And they never die, Hal.  Do they Uncle Bilbo?”

Bilbo waited until Frodo had finished adding a couple of logs to the fire before he answered.  “Well, they never age, it seems.  They can die, it is said, from a broken heart or if they are struck down in battle.  That is what made the alliance between elves and men against the army of the dark lord so horrible at the end of the Second Age.  Many who were not meant to die were slain.  But that is a bleak story that I will not tell you until you are older.”

“Do elves have children, then?”  Frodo asked, returning to the table.  “If they never age, how could elvish children grow up?”

“Well, they must go through some aging at first,” Bilbo puzzled, thinking about it for the first time.  “As a matter of fact, I cannot say that I’ve ever seen an elvish child.  They do have familiar relationships, I am sure, because I know of some who are siblings or use parental / offspring terms to communicate with one another.  But once mature, they do not grow old.”

“Just like you, Mr. Bilbo,” Ham commented.  “My Gaffer says you’re almost as old as my grandfather, but you don’t look it.  ‘Well preserved’ is what he said you were.”

Bilbo fumbled around his pocket, nervously, at Ham’s candid observation.  It was then that he noticed the problem with the board game. “Well, now, look at this,” he pointed out with some relief at finding a handy diversion.  “No matter what number you roll, you wind up going around this circle again!”

Frodo studied the paper carefully.  “You’re right, Uncle,” he admitted sheepishly.  “Unless, of course, you land on this space, which takes you all the way back to the beginning!”

They laughed heartily at the fact that they had been going around in circles all afternoon without even realizing it.

TBC

 Worlds Apart

S.R. 1 Solmath, 1389

“Exotic spices are not to be doled out to common rabble,” Saruman chastised as Gandalf finished his explanation of his late arrival at Isengard.  “A halfling’s tongue does not merit such luxuries.”

“The tongue of Bilbo Baggins is far more discriminating than mine, Saruman,” Gandalf answered, “and Bilbo has treated my tongue well in my many stays in his establishment.  Forgive me, but I thought it a fair trade.”

“I do not see why you spend so much time amongst the inconsequential,” the leader of his order rebuked.

Gandalf fell back to his oft spoken justification.  “Hobbits help me clear my senses so that I can better take on new concerns.  To use a metaphor relevant to our discussion, I use them in much the same way as I do a mild tea to cleanse my palate between courses in a meal.”

“Then you are ready for new concerns?  That is good, my old friend.  For I have one.  News has come to me of the early death of Finduilas, wife of Denethor.    I wish you to travel to Gondor to counsel the Steward and bring back his word to me.”

“His word, Saruman?” Gandalf asked.  “You have always been on the best of terms with Gondor.  Why not go to Denethor yourself?”

Saruman pinched his heavy eyebrows together.  “I send you to show Denethor that men are not to consider wizards lightly.  Gondor needs to respect our counsel, but men are conceited and often do not feel they need to listen.  Denethor needs to see us united.”

Gandalf knew men well enough to agree with his leader on that matter.  “I will go to Denethor.”  They spoke at length about the agenda.

That night Gandalf spent in one of Isengard’s lavish chambers.  He sent his garments to be laundered, and with them his satchel.  On the table by his bed he placed the contents. 

He was surprised by a knock and the discovery of the head of his order at his door.  Saruman came in as a host, asking after the comfort of the rooms.

“Indeed, there are none finer anywhere,” Gandalf quickly admitted.

“Not even in the Shire?” Saruman asked.  He picked up the packet of pipeweed and sniffed it.

“The Shire offers holes in the ground,” the Grey Wizard answered.  “They are cozy, not grand.”

“There are other delights, then?” the White Wizard asked, as he set the pipeweed back next to the pipe.

“You may have the pipeweed if you wish, Saruman,” Gandalf offered as his leader picked up the small framed drawing and studied it.  Saruman’s eyebrows lifted and he looked at his fellow wizard oddly. 

“No, thank you, Gandalf.  I have no need of halfling leaf.  I would advise you, however, to remember to whom your loyalty belongs.”  He handed Frodo’s drawing to Gandalf.  “Good night, old friend.” 

*

“You have no people of your own, Mithrandir,” Denethor observed as they sat in the dining hall of Gondor’s White Tower after the wizard’s first day of audience with the grim Steward.  “How can you begin to understand the cares of a ruler?”

“In my time here in Middle Earth I have taken in the concerns of many rulers,” Gandalf answered the Steward, “although I cannot consider but one people as my own.  I must always look at the wider impact, to other kingdoms and races and to future generations as well.”

Denethor leaned into the conversation.   “Would you allow one people to suffer to provide for others?”

Gandalf sighed.  “If I could, I would let no one suffer, Denethor, but that power is beyond me.”

“Have you a favorite?”

The wizard glanced about the room.  With them were Denethor’s two young sons: Boromir, nearly ten years of age; and Faramir, who was but five.  Gandalf's mind noted that the boys, already being educated in as high a fashion as possible, were obviously gifted both physically and emotionally and would make great and respected leaders of men.  He was, in fact, quite eager to get a chance to learn more about their intellectual abilities.

He reflected that little Faramir was already as tall as the twenty-year-old Frodo Baggins.

“No,” he said, almost sadly.  “My duty affords me no favorite.”

“I am pleased to hear it,” Denethor responded, “for I would not have you putting the interests of another kingdom ahead of mine – even were it Rohan’s interests.”

“The men of Rohan and of Gondor are brothers, Steward.  In my eyes you cannot be separated.”

“And in those of Saruman?”

“Saruman and I speak as one,” Gandalf answered, fully convinced in its truth. 

Denethor was intrigued.  “Have you no opinion of your own, then?”

Gandalf considered his question thoroughly, wondering if Gondor had a contention with Saruman.  “Saruman and I are actually quite different in many ways, as are all of the wizards.  We are here as a collective order, however, at the bidding of the Valar.  You may speak to any of us openly.”

“So when I have counsel with one it is with all?” Denethor asked.

“You may consider it so,” the grey wizard said.  “We do not conspire against each other.”

“What would you do if I would need tell you something in confidence?”

“Have you such a need?”

Denethor shook his head.  It was as though he placed a mask before his face, he was suddenly so hard for Gandalf to read.  “I do not.  I only want you to know that there could come a time when I might wish to share only with a single wizard.  If that would occur, I would expect that the conversation would not be shared.”

“You may rest assured that each of us can be trusted individually as well,” Gandalf answered, recalling Saruman’s advice that he remember to whom his loyalties lie.  “Our loyalties are with the order and in the greater sense to the Valar for the good of all of Middle Earth.”

“I believe that you have answered my question well, Mithrandir,” the Steward responded.  “I hope I will never need to ask you to choose between your loyalties.”

*

“What does my father mean when he says you are a wizard?” Boromir asked.  To him the visitor was just an old man.  He had seen many men this old.  Most had not had so long a beard, and most had not worn such garb, but this Gandalf the Grey did not strike him as anyone special.  Yet he could tell his father begrudgingly respected the wizard.

Gandalf was sitting between Boromir and Faramir beneath the remnants of what he had once seen as a glorious tree.  “He means I am not a man, young prince,” he answered.  “He means that I have lived many lifetimes of men.”

Boromir looked at the old man skeptically.  “How many years is that?”

“I have walked Middle Earth for nearly 3000 years,” Gandalf replied, “and this has not been my first visit to Middle Earth.”

Boromir laughed.  “You jest with us, sir.  How can this be?”

“Do not be fooled by appearances, Boromir son of Denethor.”

“My father claims you are a magician,” Boromir continued.  Both boys had seen a magician who had performed before his father’s court during the summer, and had been keen to learn the secrets behind the tricks. 

“Show us some magic,” Faramir requested.

“I do not do such magic as you would have me show,” Gandalf said with a smile, “although I have brought fireworks as a gift for your father’s enjoyment.  You will see them when he commands.”

“You are no magician,” Boromir jeered. 

“No, I am not,” Gandalf said.  “I am a wizard.  In time you will come to experience what that means.”  He then changed the subject to the boys and their interests.  He learned that Boromir was consumed with becoming a great warrior, while young Faramir was more enthusiastic about learning about nature than about bows and swords.  

*

The lads were impressed by the fireworks that night, particularly the one of galloping steeds.  Gandalf smiled.  Nowhere or when in Middle Earth had he ever found a child who was not delighted by fireworks…or an adult, for that matter.   It had always come in as a handy icebreaker in situations like these when a people first got to know him. 

He turned in shortly after the fireworks ended.  A bath had been set up for him within his guest chambers.  After his soak, he fished out his Longbottom leaf and pipe and pulled a chair close to the fireplace.  The chimney had a strong draft and the smoke rings barely had time to form before they were whisked up the flue.   He sat pondering Gondor.  There was most assuredly a reason Saruman had decided to have Gandalf meet with the Steward.  Furthermore, there was a story behind the question of how to handle confidential issues that they didn’t want shared amongst the order.  He would need to decipher these clues before he returned to Isengard. 

He got up and drew Frodo’s drawing from his satchel.  Saruman had been holding it in his hand when he questioned his loyalties.  Gandalf had assumed that Saruman was reminding him that his allegiance to the leader of the order superseded any love he had for anything halfling, be it leaf, way of life, or individual.  Now he wondered if Saruman might rather have been alluding that he thought him no longer able to stay suitably detached in his dealings with any race.

He sighed.  Deliberate interaction with key leaders over time had been his primary technique for securing the future of this world.  He had occasionally used hobbits as tools in enabling these leaders to reach certain goals that he had for them, for instance, throwing Bilbo Baggins into the mix of dwarves not so much that they could regain their lost fortunes, but so that they might gain a regard for other races.  He had never expected to become friends with a hobbit himself.  He had never had a reason to do so; save to lighten his spirits as darkness crept back into the world and Estel continued to reject the crown of Gondor.  He had long ago sworn before the Council of the Wise that he would abide in no place, nor be subject to any summons, and yet now he had become strangely enamored of the simple lives of two very small and uncomplicated beings.  In little more than a hundred years, Bilbo and Frodo Baggins would be but trace memories in his long journey.  Could his sporadic companionship with them in any other way change the course of Middle Earth?  He sincerely thought not. 

‘Yet ever will I be conscientious to make certain that you do not interfere with the duties the Valar have invested in me,” He vowed once more to Frodo’s self-portrait.  ‘Although I am remarkably fond you and your uncle, I will continue to have no ties and no allegiance save to those who sent me.’    

*

“Do wizards sleep?”  Faramir asked him the next morning at breakfast. 

His brother laughed into his porridge, “Be careful how you answer that, wizard.  Faramir claims that he does not sleep.”

“Never?” Gandalf asked, peering into the younger boy’s eyes.  “Do you know that I can tell when someone is stretching the truth, young man?  That is one of the attributes of a wizard.”

“Then our mother was also a wizard,” Boromir said sadly. 

“I sleep,” Gandalf answered, “although I rarely get to enjoy a full night’s rest.  I am always grateful when I am given such a luxury, as I was last night.”

“Then do you dream?” Faramir asked.

“Yes.  As a matter of fact, I dreamt of you two last night.  I dreamt that I was teaching you the history of Middle Earth.”

“And were they good students?” their father queried without humor.

Gandalf smiled.  “Yes, Denethor, although they did not believe all that I told them.”

“What didn’t we believe?” both boys asked in unison.

“You did not believe in halflings,” Gandalf answered, “although in my dream one of your fellow students was one.”

Surprisingly, the Steward suddenly laughed.  “Now you have me, great wizard. What is a halfling?”

“They are little people, smaller than dwarves,” Gandalf said with a twinkle in his eye. “They do not wear shoes, for they have large hairy feet with thick soles.  They live in holes in the ground.  If you read your own lore, you will find your ancestors referred to them as halflings.  Men of Rohan call them holbytla.  Elves call them perians.  They call themselves hobbits.”

“Then there is no wonder the lads doubted you,” Denethor responded, more cheerfully than he had at any time since Gandalf had arrived, “and I would be proud of them for it.  Not everything that is spoken is truth.”

“And yet it might be,” Gandalf countered knowingly. 

*

“The Steward is proud but very isolationist,” Gandalf reported to Saruman upon his return to Isengard.  “I have severe reservations on letting such segregation continue into another generation.  It reminds me a bit too much of the simplistic attitudes of the Shire-folk, which is why I have occasionally yanked selected hobbits out of their holes and into adventures to get them to appreciate what is beyond their own boundaries.  The two sons would do well with an adventure or two outside of Gondor.”

“You equate these men with your halfling pets?” Saruman queried with ridicule. 

Gandalf nodded his head.  “In this regard I do.”

“Very well, Gandalf, my old friend.  You may see to these lads’ education.”

Gandalf sighed his relief and gratitude.  He looked out the window as gusts of chill wind rattled the glass.

“Tell me, old friend, why it is that you expend so much effort on halflings?” Saruman asked.  “I agree that ego-centricism is dangerous in men, with their temperaments and might, but halflings are so harmless and insignificant.  It would be no effort to erase them from Middle Earth altogether if anyone sought to seize their fertile land.  I can assure you they would not be missed.”

“I would miss them,” Gandalf answered, bothered by the hint of a threat veiled in his leader’s opinion, “and I think that Middle Earth would be far less interesting without them.  They can be quite resourceful when forced into a predicament where they need to be.”  He ended with something he had once said to Lord Elrond as they had first discussed the growing darkness in Mirkwood, “Many are the strange chances of the world and help oft shall come from the hands of the weak when the wise falter.”  He was not surprised when Saruman laughed. 

*

TBC

The text in black comes from LOTR.

Quick Trips

S.R. 21 Solmath, 1389

“Thank you for agreeing to mind Frodo while I’m gone,” Bilbo said as he escorted Dora Baggins into Bag End.  “I promise I’ll be back within two weeks.”

Dora nodded warily.  Bilbo’s trips were never as short as promised.  That was why Bilbo was carrying enough of Dora’s things as would keep her till spring.

Bilbo saw Frodo listening from the foyer. “Come here, my lad,” he gestured.  “I guess I should have told you earlier.”

Frodo followed him silently as he started gathering items to take with him.  Bilbo put the boy’s arms to use carrying the things to his bedroom, where a backpack had already been set out to receive them.

“Gandalf asked me to meet with someone, Frodo.  It is several days’ walk at least, and there are no inns along the way.  It will be adult talk.  You cannot come.”  He knew he needn’t be apologetic, for Frodo had no right to expect to join him, yet he somehow felt that he had betrayed the boy’s trust.

Frodo felt nothing of the sort.  It didn’t surprise him that his uncle had important matters to which to attend.  His imagination awash with dreams, he was actually quite excited for Bilbo.  “I’ll stay out of trouble while you’re gone,” he promised.  It was an easy word to give; Bilbo’s library was full of volumes Frodo hadn’t yet touched.

 “You’re a good lad, Frodo.”  That settled; Bilbo focused his complete attention on packing.  Frodo deferentially padded to the kitchen to prepare lunch.

*

“…You’re to obey your Aunt Dora to the letter of her word,” Bilbo instructed as he headed out the door.  He adjusted his backpack and grasped his walking stick.  “I want to hear no bad reports when I return.”

Frodo agreed to adhere to the rules.  Bilbo huffed inattentively in response, indicating he was ready to depart.  Frodo dashed to hug him tightly.  “Have a safe journey, Uncle.”

“Yes, yes – I will,” Bilbo assured him, a little annoyed at having to make such a production out of this parting.   He turned awkwardly and hurried down the steps to the gate.  Once his feet touched the road, however, he relaxed.  Delighted to have finally escaped the goodbyes, he began to hum his favorite traveling song.  He was again free of family responsibilities.

*

Frodo was awakened that night by the sound of someone talking.  “Now don’t let yourself be confusticated by this,” she was saying.  “It has to be around here somewhere.”

Rising, he opened his door to find his aunt.  “Aunt Dora?” he whispered, wondering why she was wandering the hall in the middle of the night, talking to herself.  Was she walking in her sleep, or could she be getting befuddled like old Missus Myrtle back at Brandy Hall had been?

“Frodo, I’m relieved to see you,” she said, proving she was neither asleep nor befuddled.  “I’m afraid I’ve lost my bearings.  Which way to the bathroom?”

“I’ll take you,” Frodo offered.  He hooked his arm around hers and turned her to his left.  “It's this way.”

“I appreciate this so much, dear boy,” Dora said, squeezing his arm to her side affectionately.  “I’ve never been in this part of Bag End before.  There are more passages than I've ever seen in a single family hole. 

Frodo waited for her and accompanied her back to the guestroom where, according to Bilbo, his own grandmother had stayed whenever she had visited her sister.  Mirabella had apparently commented on how getting to it reminded her of finding her way through Great Smials.

Dora smiled at him as he kissed her cheek and wished her pleasant dreams.  “In the morning, how would you like to go with me to visit the hole where I lived as a child?  It's on the other side of Bywater, near the Three Farthing Stone.”

“Did my father live there?”

“Yes.  We'll have to leave after first breakfast to get there and back before dark.  We'll have to eat on the road.”  She gave him a hug, for which he had to stoop over to receive.  “Mercy, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a tall, slender and fair-skinned young Baggins,” she exclaimed.

“I hear tell that it’s the Fallohide in me that’s responsible.”

Dora certainly had mixed feelings about that.  Stoor, Harfoot and Fallohide blood did not always mix well and often those hobbits who had all three types in them often experienced lower than average birth rates.  ‘But, good gracious, in appearance the bloods blend so extraordinarily,’ she thought as she gazed up at her nephew, ‘and in intellect as well.’  “You are unique and special in all the world,” she told him.  “Never forget that.” 

*

They stopped for second breakfast in an unpretentious looking little restaurant with a unique menu that Aunt Dora said had been where her father, Fosco Baggins, had proposed to her mother, Ruby Bolger.  “It was over a dish of mushroom pie that they were sharing,” Dora told him.  “Mamma said that she wasn’t sure whether her heart was set to floating from the mushrooms or from the proposal, but that she never regretted answering ‘Yes’. 

“Now, did Grandfather Fosco have any siblings?” Frodo asked, enjoying their conversation as much as the fluffy spinach, cheese and egg dish wrapped in a thin pancake and served with a heavy cream glaze that he was eating.  Aunt Dora seemed more relaxed than usual.  Nevertheless, he minded his manners.  “You said that Grandmother Ruby had at least a twin sister, who was Odovacar Bolger’s mother.”

“Yes, Papa had two sisters, Fiona, who was older, and Flora, who was younger.  Both sisters moved to Hardbottle when they married into the Sackville and Bracegirdle families.  We only visited together a handful of times.  Hardbottle’s such a long way from here.”

Frodo couldn’t help the stray thought that he wished Hardbottle had been further away, because then maybe the Sackville-Bagginses wouldn’t have come to live in Hobbiton, but he didn’t voice it.

“Ah now, yes, there’s the milestone, still as I remember it,” Dora said smiling.  “We turn right at the next lane.  Oh, I wonder if that old stone owl that I carved is still sitting by the door.  It was far too heavy to bother taking it with us when we moved.”

“Did my father share your interest in art?”

“Fleetingly, I suppose, when he was very young... before he grew contemplative.  As he got older he became far more interested in tinkering.  Of course by then Mamma had steered me into needlework, sewing and other crafts.  She said the neighbor ladies had told her they thought craftwork was more lady-like than chiseling stone and getting all dusty.”

“I think it’s mean for people to criticize like that,”  Frodo said.  “Your craftwork is lovely, Aunt Dora, please don’t think I’m suggesting otherwise, but that’s because you clearly have artistic ability.  Had someone given you encouragement, just think what you might have been able to do with it.  People are always making judgments about my interests, too, as if there’s something wrong with me for having them." 

“It’s extremely important to conform to society, Frodo.  Ahh, here’s the lane.  We have to go about two miles down this to reach our hole.  My father built our hole for us when I was but eight, and he had my mother and me help him do so.  I brought in the tiles for the entryway from the pile that had been delivered outdoors.  Mamma coated their undersides with glue so Papa could place them.  Mamma held the floorboards while I handed him the nails to pound.  She and I sanded the cupboards for him to varnish.  Mamma never complained about getting dirty or wearing breeches, so I thought nothing of it, either.”

Frodo couldn't quite picture his Aunt in breeches and, before he could stop himself, he said so.  He quickly apologized.

“You’re excused,” Dora acknowledged.  “Back then our nearest neighbors had a boy my age and for a year or two he was my primary playmate.  I did all of the things that he did.  Of course I did always greatly enjoy getting all prettied up and going off to visit other hobbits or go to town, but I remember that time in my childhood with great fondness. 

“When I got old enough to wander about and make new friends, my parents made for certain that they were girls.  They said I needed role models of my own gender, or something to that effect.  The mothers of my new friends were quick to correct me when I was not altogether lady-like.  At first I resented it dreadfully, but Papa kept repeating that I was a Baggins and should act like a Baggins, which meant proper and lady-like.

“When I was a tween, and all of my girlfriends were beginning to be courted, one of my friends’ suitors tried to match me up with his friend for a big picnic.  He almost managed, too, but all of that lad’s friends told him that he couldn’t take me because I was smarter than he was.  I never once got a date when I was in my tweens.  Not that I minded, particularly, because I never met a fellow I particularly wanted to date.

“After I came of age I took a position as a schoolteacher on the other side of The Water, teaching art.  That was when I carved the owl I was telling you about.  But Papa disapproved of my having employment.  As I said, he was determined that I become the most cultured, lady-like hobbitess there ever was.  After all, I was a Baggins.  And so I quit teaching.”

“That’s so sad, Aunt Dora,” Frodo exclaimed, “and it makes me furious.  You had to turn your back on your true self.  It wasn’t a’tall fair!”

“You’re right, my lad,” Dora said.  “But nothing in life is fair unless you make an effort to make it thus.  Now, let me take a good look at the lady who’s approaching.  She appears to be of an age that she may be someone I know.”

Frodo knew better than to either agree or disagree with that.  But he was delighted when it turned out that the lady was none other than the wife of his father’s best childhood friend who now lived in the Baggins’ old hole, stone owl and all. 

*

Bilbo was thankful that the temperatures were temperate.  It had been a most pleasant walk and he had made the first half of the journey in record time.  Having been to these Far Downs before, he knew of a comfortable cave in which to overnight.  His meal that evening of apples cooked with smoked pork and accompanied by cheese, stout ale and bread was substantial even for a hobbit.  Placing his pack behind his back, he pulled out his pipe and settled back in agreeable solitude. 

The stars were bright that evening; the crackle of the fire comforting.  “Now this is more like it,” he chuckled.  “Not a care in the world.”

He watched a rangy figure walking down the road, leading a horse.  The pace was neither lazy nor urgent.  “I wonder if that is that Estel of which Gandalf spoke,” Bilbo speculated aloud.  He rather hoped it was.  Men did not belong in the Shire and Gandalf had warned him that other kinds of men were venturing near.

“Hullo, sir,” he bid the approacher.  “Tell me your business.”

The man came to a halt and obliged with the tiniest of smirks discernable through his stubble.  “I am on my way to the western inlet.  I must say that I had rather hoped this cave would be vacant this night.”

“If you are who I think you are you may not have to go any further, tonight or in the morning.”

“You must be Bilbo, then,” the man answered with a smile.  “So I had guessed when I first spotted your fire.  I am called Estel.”

“Well then, we are well met.  We can talk here as well as at the Havens.  Come, have a seat and fix yourself your dinner.  I’ve already partaken in mine.”

Estel removed the bridle and saddle from his horse before joining Bilbo.  He produced a fresh caught pheasant and proceeded to roast it.  Bilbo readily accepted his offer to join him in his meal.  In exchange, the ranger accepted ale and pipeweed.  “We are indeed well met, my friend,” he smiled as he propped his long legs upon a log and lit his pipe.

The sun began to set as Estel disclosed the results of his surveillance over the past few months.  Bilbo was relieved to learn that there was no cause for alarm coming from the north.  At present, the encroachers appeared disinterested in the tilled lands of the Shire.

“Open land is not their style,” Estel confirmed.  “They are not inclined to eat a farmer’s produce.  For now they seem to seek the wild goats of the highlands.  As long as the winter remains mild they should keep their distance.” 

“Good, good,” Bilbo sighed, for all reliable signs to date pointed at a clement season.  They then turned to pleasanter subjects.  Bilbo found that he quite liked the ranger.  Estel’s rugged physical appearance disguised great astuteness and an entertaining wit not unlike his own.  In fact, they soon had had invented several uproarious new stanzas for old tunes familiar to both.

Estel was surprised to find that he greatly enjoyed Bilbo, too.  Aloof to many, the ranger relished a good conversation.  Gandalf’s description of Bilbo had perfectly captured the hobbit’s matchless persona and inimitable world view.  Estel decided he would have to find many more opportunities to engage Bilbo in discussion. 

* 

“Do you ever find yourself wanting to give up the wanderer’s life, Estel?”  Bilbo asked after their songs and tales and honest discourse.

The Dunedain smiled.  “I have times when I rest in comfort.” 

“For long?”

“For long enough.  I become restless if I tarry too long – even in houses as fair as in Rivendell.”

“Then you would find it tedious living in the Shire, no doubt,” Bilbo deduced.  “As do I when I am home too long.”

“We are alike in ways, Bilbo Baggins.”

Regretfully, Bilbo doubted the extent of that similarity.  “I have a wonderful house where I like to spend more time than not and when I don’t have that near, I elect an inn.  I would not be sleeping out on a cold winter’s night if I could help it.”

“Although you have slept under the stars more than once, so Gandalf tells me.”  

“Indeed, but it is generally only by necessity,” Bilbo admitted with some melancholy.  “I am accustomed to comfort and desire to schedule my adventures these days, although I long for my next excursion.”  He thought about his current entanglement with Frodo.  It was tolerable during the cold winter months when he would be stuck at home by choice anyway, but he could tell that he was already very much looking forward to returning the boy to Brandy Hall in the spring thus re-enabling his freedom to stroll off at will.

On the other hand he sensed that he would miss the lad’s presence.  Bag End had been quite lively these last few months.  Bilbo wasn’t sure that he would entirely relish long periods of solitude again.  “Do you ever wish for companionship, Estel?”

The ranger stood up and strode to the cave entrance, stretching his long legs.  “There are times that I am sorely tempted to settle down, too, to build a home and family.”  He gazed off for a time, as the first evening star appeared in the darkening sky, lost in his own thoughts.  Bilbo stood up and joined him, keeping the blanket tightly wrapped around him.  Estel looked down at him and smiled.  “It is not an easy choice to make is it, my friend, between exploration and domesticity?”

“If only it were possible to settle down but partway,” Bilbo sighed.

“Indeed,” the ranger agreed.  Silence inserted its deep breath.  The hobbit realized it was time to take his leave.

*

TBC

And Lengthier Ones

S.R. 1 Rethe, 1389

The winter chill lifted from Hobbiton early, before the first of March.  As the streams began to rush across their rocks once more, and the first flowers to push through their thawing coverlets, Bilbo began to chart out some short walks.  At the fastest hobbit’s foot pace the Shire was twelve days’ wide by seventeen long, so it was not possible to cover it all in the time available before Frodo was due back at Brandy Hall.  Bilbo selected a southerly route for their first trip, seeing that the air was not yet as warm as the sun hinted it to be. 

Early one sunny morning, he awakened Frodo with a walking stick that he had whittled himself.  “You’ll grow into it, lad,” he promised.  “It will see the very corners of the Shire before you have reached your coming of age, if I am not mistaken, and I and mine will guide you through much of it, starting this very day.”  Frodo would have needed no such aid, for his heart moved his feet with a lightness worthy of elves, but he nevertheless clutched the stick with the steadfast force of pure delight in having so meaningful a gift.

The two set forth with knapsacks brimming with edibles enough for the entire day, this time side-by-side and at matched paces.   Bilbo began to explain his view of travel – that there was really only one Road; that it was like a great river, its springs at every doorstep and every path its tributary.  “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.” ⁽¹⁾ Frodo’s mind was already on all the places the Road might sweep his feet.  He was on his way – going on an adventure with his Uncle Bilbo – and that was all that mattered to him.

Their path was southeast from Hobbiton, into country that was level and strewn with farms.  Having come from the rocky hillocks betwixt the River Brandywine and the Old Forest, Frodo had never seen such expansive farming and marveled as he perched with Bilbo upon a stone wall and watched the huge oxen tilling the fields for planting while he listened to his uncle explain the crops common to the Shire.  Curious about the many lambs and kids suckling their mothers in one pasture, he ventured too close and received a number of warning butts as he dashed back to the safety of the lane.  His uncle laughed gleefully at the hilarity of it, knowing that the docile animals would do Frodo no serious harm.   He was impressed by how quickly the lad could run.

As they walked home, the older hobbit told the younger about the ancient debate between dwarves and elves over what is fairest in all the world.  “What do you think is fairest, Uncle?”  Frodo asked. 

“The front door as I return from my travels,” Bilbo answered honestly, tousling Frodo’s hair and clasping his shoulder.  Yet even as he looked into the eyes of his happy young charge to speak the words, he became conscious that at that moment he was witnessing something truly fair.

The ground was still quite sodden from the melting snow, and they returned that night with feet caked with mud.  Bilbo filled a basin with warm water and succumbed to bathing Frodo’s feet himself as Frodo swayed on the bench in front of Bag End, unable to sit upright any longer, preserving what little energy he had left in him for yawns.  Bilbo was relieved that the youngster had finally worn down, for Frodo had acted all day as if he had had a spring tightly wound inside him. 

Gazing over at the round green door, Bilbo Baggins chuckled at the insight that ever since his trip to the Lonely Mountain, he could stand to endure such fairness only in small doses.  He himself yawned.

*

“Well now, sleepyhead,” Bilbo prodded cheerfully the very next morning, more with his voice than his stick.  “I’ve been wondering if you were going to sleep through ‘till summer.  It’s warm enough today for a trip north, I think.  There is a waterfall walk I think you’ll enjoy – with some quaint inns in prime locations along the way.”

“Waterfalls?” Frodo asked enthusiastically.  He had seen a few in his life, mostly near mills, and loved the sound of the rushing water.

“Yes, eight beauties in some of the most superb scenery I’ve seen throughout all my travels and it’s all right here in the Shire.  It will take a good week to make the rounds…

The two did not talk that much on the trail, for pristine nature is best experienced without words.  The spring bird songs, accompanied by squirrel chatters and other assorted sounds, filled their ears to satisfaction.  Upon occasion, Bilbo would point out a feature he thought should not be missed, such as a small frog the color of the mud, or a nest being built in a tree, and Frodo did things like squatting down on his haunches to have a one-sided discussion on the weather with a little hedgehog.  It was all about sharing the experience together.

Bilbo valued it deeply.  He thought of the Dunedain once more and how they had discussed the ranger’s life in seclusion.  “For how many years have you wandered the wilds?” Bilbo had asked. 

“It has been roughly forty since I have dwelled anywhere longer than a few days,” had been the answer.

“Is there anyone who looks forward to your visits?  A lady to welcome you?  Children eager to hear your stories when you come?”

Estel had shaken his head.  “My life does not permit relationships, and I’ve very little patience for children.”

“You should come to Hobbiton sometime,” Bilbo had offered.  “Even Gandalf finds comfort in my hole.  You could stay in his room.”  He had been able to see in the ranger’s eyes that the offer did not appeal.  He had sighed; saddened that the Dunedain knew not what it was like to have someone important in one’s life. 

He realized now how close he had come to not knowing it himself.

*

They reached the first waterfall, a thin flow dropping nearly 30 feet into a clear pool.  Bilbo guided Frodo carefully to the ledge behind it where they were able to reach their hands out into the water.  The feel of the water splashing on his palm delighted Frodo.  They sat on a rock – their feet in the cold water – and ate their lunch.  The path then led them up above the waterfall and along a little stream to the originating spring.

They climbed to the top of The Hill and encountered the second waterfall on the way down the north side.  This one was half as tall and twice as wide as the first.  A huge moss-covered tree had fallen over, redirecting the water around it as it leaned against the outcrop.  They followed the stream down to the town of Overhill and the rustic inn of their first stop, with Bilbo pointing out all of the wildflowers growing in the moist undergrowth on their way.

After breakfast the next morning they started across the fields to the North Farthing, their destination being the Bindbole Wood.  The terrain was flat and smooth and being prepared for the first plantings of summer barley.  Bilbo knew each of the farmers whose paths they crossed by name, for he had crossed their lands many times before.  “…and this is my nephew, Frodo Baggins,” he would always introduce.  “You will no doubt see a lot of him over the years, for I’m teaching him the pleasures of strolling the countryside.”  They were invited to stop for second breakfast, elevenses, lunch and afternoon tea.  Bilbo was generous with praise for each meal and he always left a few coins with their hosts.

They stopped for the day at a comely little hole at the southern tip of the wood.  It was not an inn, but the home of a close relation of Bilbo’s who did not tie back to Frodo’s line at all.  Violet Chubb was her name, and she was nearly Bilbo’s age, although he now looked substantially younger than she did.  Her husband had passed on, and her children were grown and married and raising families in other parts of the Shire, so she was overjoyed at seeing Bilbo come up her infrequently trodden walk.  “Bless you, Bilbo, taking on a child in need,” she said as she was introduced to Frodo, “but then yours was always the most kindhearted of souls.”

“No one these days knows it but you, my dearest Violet,” Bilbo answered, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips.  Frodo caught the atypical gentleness in his uncle’s voice and comprehended that this lady had a connection to Bilbo that went beyond kinship.  The insight flabbergasted the boy, for it completely changed his image of his uncle, who most viewed as irascible.  He suddenly felt awkward being there with them, as if he was an intruder on an intimacy.

While Violet appeared to have very little interest in Frodo himself, she asked no end of questions concerning how Bilbo had happened to take him in.  The account Bilbo gave of it accentuated the worst of Frodo’s life in Buckland and, Frodo noticed, while it was instance by instance accurate in its description it overlooked the many fond memories he had of his childhood in Brandy Hall.

 “He stole?” Violet said in disbelief.

“Only out of necessity,” Bilbo assured.  “Isn’t that right Frodo?”

“It was more of a game, actually,” Frodo confessed, suddenly drawn into the conversation to which he, as a polite hobbit child, had up to that point been merely a subject.  “It was mostly food related.”

“He’s particularly fond of mushrooms,” Bilbo added with a laugh.  “You can’t turn your back to him when they are on the table.”

“Do the blacks of your eyes grow large when you eat them?”  Violet asked, the very first time she had addressed Frodo directly.

Frodo nodded.  “And I get all light-headed.  I had always assumed that everyone felt that way after eating them, but apparently not.”

“He starts to bump into things if he eats too many,” Bilbo described to Violet.  “It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you part Bolger, by any chance?” Violet asked Frodo, who answered that he wasn’t aware of all of his relations. 

“His fraternal grandmother was a Bolger,” Bilbo confirmed.

“That would be where he gets it, then,” Violet concluded.  “They are known for their weakness towards mushrooms, just as my late husband’s family is sensitive to pipeweed.”

Intrigued, Frodo couldn’t help but wonder if his father had been eating mushrooms the night of the accident.  Considering how weird he felt whenever he consumed them, he could imagine losing his balance and overturning a boat in the process.  As he thought more about it he realized that his daydreaming was often most excessive right after he had eaten a lot of mushrooms, while he was still feeling heady.  His father had had a reputation for being a dreamer too.  Suspecting a link he vowed to himself to limit his mushrooming from now on.

*

Violet accompanied them on the next day’s walk through Brinbole.  The well-tended, although by no means level, path through the woods was thickly graced with blooming laurel and rhododendron juxtaposed alongside a rocky stream noisily brimming with winter’s thaw.  Tiny minnows teemed within the waters, luring all sorts of wildlife to the banks.  The three waterfalls they visited along the way were mesmerizing in their variegated beauty, none lovelier than the others.  It was the last of the three that got the better of Frodo.  As he stepped on an old log to get a better view, a swarm of bees emerged from their nest in the log’s rotten center, extremely annoyed at the trespasser.  Violet escaped without a sting, but Bilbo’s rough hide succumbed to several as he braved the buzzing cloud to pull the focal point of their attack from their midst.  Frodo was quite covered with stings.

It was a long walk back to Violet’s hole, but fortunately the bee venom did little harm in either Baggins’ bloodstream.  True to form, Bilbo’s skin barely reacted while Frodo’s skin became red and swollen in the vicinities of the stings and sore to the touch… but at least it was nothing life-threatening.  The boy’s stings tormented him, first with pain and then with itchiness, and the adults had their hands full just keeping him from scratching them open as they walked.

“It’s a good thing you bite your nails so dreadfully,” Violet ribbed the boy about his severe onychophagia as she dissolved some salts in a tub of hot water when they got home.  “You can’t do much damage with those vestiges – so stop trying!” 

Frodo soaked for nearly an hour as the salts began to draw out the poison before being painted head to foot with a smelly bright pink salve of Violet’s making that would complete the extraction.  “Aren’t you the sight?” Bilbo exclaimed with glee as he finished coating the lad.  Frodo actually stuck out his tongue at him in response.

“Do you let him get away with that kind of behavior?”

“Oh, Violet he’s not hurting anything by it,” Bilbo answered, laughing.  “He really is well behaved most of the time.”

“I beg your pardon, Missus Chubb, Uncle,” Frodo added dutifully in spite of not feeling in the least bit remorseful for his action.  “It was impolite of me.” 

Violet shook her head.  “You two boys deserve each other.”

On account of their numerous stings, the two Bagginses remained at Violet Chubb’s residence an extra day.  Frodo continued to itch something awful, but he could tell that his uncle thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to spend another day in Violet’s company.  In fact, Frodo was left behind in the hole for several hours while the two adults packed a picnic lunch and ventured off hand-in-hand into the woods without him.

*

The weather afforded them only one other hike before the spring officially arrived.  On that multiple-day trip they headed west, where the land rolled softly.  Bilbo knew of a high spot called the Tower Hills, from which one could make out the Gulf of Lhun in the distance.  They made camp in the center of a dense bramble thicket where the rise increased suddenly in order that they could get an early start the next morning, when they would be presented with a steep climb and the walking sticks would come to good use.  Indeed, in the morning Frodo displayed a knack for scrambling up the ravines in the final rock face and barely showed the effort.  Bilbo, on the other hand, was out of breath by the time they had reached the top.

Their climb was only half over, for on the top of the hill stood the remains of a tall elf-tower of immemorial age.  Its observation deck still had a covering of snow and there was a strong wind blowing, but the sky was cloudless and the visibility unspoiled.  The hobbits stood together, shivering, peering across the vastness to where the dark blue-grey of water met the not yet green edge of earth and beyond to where the sky took over.

“Gandalf says there are lands across the water,” Frodo stated with some disbelief.  “Why can we not see them?”

“The Undying Lands?”  Bilbo asked.  “He told you about those, did he?”

“He said he came from there long ago,” Frodo answered with a nod.

The older hobbit looked about for a place to sit, but there was nowhere dry.  “Perhaps they are invisible to the mortal eye,” he speculated, uncertain himself of the answer.  “Or perhaps we simply cannot see that far.”

“We can see to where the sky begins,” Frodo challenged.  “There is nothing between the sky and water out there.”

His uncle explained as best he could of what he had heard from elves and Gandalf about the horizon.  It didn’t make complete sense to him, and he made a very poor instructor of it.  Frodo simply looked at him with skepticism.  It was easier to accept the idea of invisibility than it was the idea of roundness.  He spun around and stared off in the opposite direction, looking for a sign of the mountains Bilbo had talked about to the east.

“The land does seem to curve a bit, Uncle,” he conceded as he returned his gaze to the west.  “It is almost like we are standing on top of a big ball.”

Bilbo was thankful he didn’t need to further his explanation.  He had taken the topic as far as he could.  Unfortunately, Frodo was still mulling it over in his mind.  “But it cannot be a ball because then …”

“I’ve told you all I know, Frodo.”

“But that doesn’t explain why …”

“Remember your questions for the next time we see Gandalf,” Bilbo suggested, more sternly than he would have liked, for he was a bit flustered that Frodo had asked him something not quite within his mental grasp. 

“Do you think Gandalf was young when he came across the water?”  Frodo asked, changing the subject suddenly.  “Or do you think he was always old?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” Bilbo laughed.  “I can’t imagine him any way other than the way he is.”

A sudden gust knocked them both to the stone.  As Frodo lent his uncle a hand in rising, he kept talking.  “Maybe he’s like the elves, only just the opposite.  They never get any older and he never gets any younger.”

Bilbo wondered about what it would be like to never know youth.  To him it was far more inconceivable than the notion that the world could be curved.

When they returned to their camp that evening, Frodo was still talking about Gandalf and what he had told him about the Undying Lands.  Some of it was even new to Bilbo, who had of course known that Gandalf was but one of a group of wizards but had been unaware that they were collectively called the Istari and that they had been purposely sent to Middle Earth at the dawn of the Third Age to keep an eye on everything.  Intrigued, Bilbo let Frodo go on and on about Gandalf’s first meeting with a hobbit, long before the Shire had been settled.  He was delighted to hear that his wizened friend claimed to be far less serious now than he once was and that the change was due entirely to the halfling appreciation of the humor in life.

Bilbo was first to become drowsy before the crackling fire and his chin dropped to his chest in the midst of one of Frodo’s sentences.  The boy shushed immediately and quietly circled around the fire to tuck his uncle lovingly into his woolen bedsack under the brush.   Crawling into his own blankets, little Frodo Baggins rolled onto his back and contentedly studied the stars through the bare branches until sleep caught up with him as well.

*

TBC    

Great Smials

S.R. 1 Astron 1389   

“You’re part Took, aren’t you?”  Bilbo asked as he closed the door.  It was a rhetorical question for which he knew the answer, yet he asked it anyway.

Frodo looked up from his book.  “Yes, my grandmother Mirabella Brandybuck was a daughter of the Old Took.”

“Excellent,” Bilbo answered.  “That messenger just invited me to a celebration at Great Smials.  One of the granddaughters of Isembold Took is getting married to a Goldworthy next week.  Let’s see, Isembold was one of Mirabella’s older brothers, so that would make the bride your second cousin.   I deem that ample reason to bring you along, and then you can return to Brandy Hall with Saradoc and Esmeralda Brandybuck.  I’m sure they’ll be there.  Esmeralda is a Took.”

“Are all the relations invited?” Frodo asked.  While he was very interested in seeing Great Smial, and meeting a whole new set of cousins, he was rather disappointed that his uncle saw this wedding as a perfectly timed solution for sending him back to Uncle Rory.

“If they sent a messenger all the way to Bag End to invite me, a cousin of the bride’s mother, then I am sure all the relations will be invited, wherever they are in the Shire.”

"Wait a minute,” Frodo said upon reflection.  “You’re my cousin on the Took side, too?”

“I’m actually a closer cousin to you on the Took side than on the Baggins side,” Bilbo answered.  That’s another reason that I have every right to intrude on your upbringing. 

“Do you keep in touch with the Tooks, Uncle Bilbo?”

“I haven’t been to Great Smials myself in nearly 20 years,” Bilbo answered.  “I spent a lot of time there as a youth while my mother was still alive, but Tookbank and Tuckborough are not conveniently on the way to anywhere from Bag End, so I’m never able to come up with a good excuse to drop by.”  He said that with remorse; the Tooks were the wealthiest of all hobbit families and Great Smials was an extravagance not to be missed.   He smiled.  “Wait until you see it, Frodo.  The holes there make Bag End look small and unadorned.  If the Sackville-Baggins had any claim to Tookdom you can rest assured they’d take no interest in our affairs.”

A Took wedding meant a trip to the tailor’s for the most elegant of togs.  Frodo had never seen such designs as were being drawn – the suit-coats were to have tails.  They would each have a fancy striped piece of cloth tied around the neck and to top it off, a tall hat.  “Do they really wear these things, Uncle?” Frodo asked skeptically.  He was relieved to hear that he would only need to be so dressed for the ceremony.  The rest of his stay he could be comfortable in familiar garb.

*

“Esmeralda’s not once mentioned him,” Hyacinth Took, the bride’s mother, gossiped to a group of Took ladies at tea shortly after the Bagginses arrived, “yet Bilbo alleges that the boy’s a grandson of Mirabella Took.”

“Now what makes you think Bilbo would lie about such a thing?” one of the ladies asked. 

“He didn’t say why the boy came with him and not with his parents,” Hyacinth answered.  “I don’t like the idea of such a young boy being entrusted to a character the likes of Bilbo Baggins.  There’s something we haven’t been told.”

“Is Esmeralda coming?  We can find out from her what she knows of him.”

“Well, he certainly has the Took nose,” observed another of the ladies. 

“He’s a cute little fellow with those big blue eyes,” someone else commented.  “What did you say his name is, Hyacinth?”

“Frodo Baggins.  Bilbo said that he was the son of his cousin, Drogo Baggins and his wife, Primula Brandybuck.  I remember hearing about that wedding.  It was rumored that Mirabella and Gorbadoc didn’t approve the match,” Hyacinth answered.  “Maybe that’s why we’ve not heard of the boy.  Maybe he’s a black sheep.  He certainly has the black hair for it.  I believe there is a wee bit of Stoor in the Baggins line.”

“That would account for his build,” the first guest assessed.   “He’ll probably not be quite as tall as most Fallohides, but he may wind up more muscular.  I can see it in his chest already – it’s broader than is typical in a Took.  He’ll make a nice looking hobbit when he grows up, I’ll wager.”  Everyone giggled.

“I wonder what Bilbo’s interest in him is?” Hyacinth wondered.  “I can’t picture him being responsible for a child, being a black sheep himself since that adventure of his.

The first guest shook her head.  “It’s not like he’s the only hobbit that the wizard has sent off for an excursion.  There’s been many a Took who’s taken a trip and come back normal, gotten married and raised a family.”

“When they come back at all, you mean,” Hyacinth said.  “We’ve seen neither sight nor sound of more than a few.  Why, two of my great uncles were spirited away.  Hildifons went off west on a journey and never returned, and Isengar went to sea and hasn’t been heard of since.  That was the last any of us in Tookbank or Tuckborough trusted that old Gandalf.”

“So he went after Bilbo off in quiet little Hobbiton and the poor hobbit came back completely changed,” another said, sympathetically.

“And now he seems apt to influence impressionable youngsters himself,” Hyacinth concluded, her stand well justified. “Primula should keep a better eye on Frodo.  I can hardly wait until they get here so we can find out what is going on.”

Esmeralda Brandybuck arrived a few hours later.  She filled them in on young Frodo Baggins all right, from his incessant daydreaming to his penchant for thievery.  “But he’s really just a sweet child who’s been through a great deal of trauma after his parents’ deaths.  He latched onto Bilbo the moment they met, and Bilbo was good enough to give him some of the attention he’s been lacking.  I hate to take Frodo back to Brandy Hall just as he's blossoming into a gentlehobbit.  Perhaps we can convince Bilbo to keep him.”

*

Frodo was glad to shed the wedding clothes.  “Can’t I go with you tomorrow, Uncle Bilbo?” he begged as he pulled on his nightshirt. 

Bilbo smiled as he picked up and carefully folded the abandoned clothing and put them in the storage box.  “Now, Frodo, I’ve already convinced everyone that you should have the chance to experience Great Smials and get to know this side of your family – and they you.  Saradoc says he promised Esmeralda at least a month’s stay here, and they say little Merry will be delighted to have you returning with them.  You’ll make friends, I saw lots of children your age at the wedding.”

Frodo frowned in doubt of that.  “I will see you again, won’t I?” he asked.  His voice betrayed the fear that he wouldn’t.

“I’ll find you at Brandy Hall, my boy,” his uncle said gently.  “Now come, we’ve another several hours of mingling to do.”

Frodo followed Bilbo into the banquet room and looked around for a friendly face.  Saradoc Brandybuck spotted them, and swiftly got up and pulled a couple of chairs over beside his family’s, where he quickly introduced Esmeralda’s brother, Paladin Took, and his family.  “They’re telling tales of the Old Took,” Paladin said through a whisper.  “There aren’t any of Gerontius Took’s children left to tell the firsthand accounts, but the oral traditions are keen.” 

“All right,” the Thain was saying.  “The tale of our learning what ‘Great Smials’ means. This particular event happened when my father was a tween.  The Old Took, Gerontius, had frequently had an old wizard, Gandalf, as a houseguest in those days.”  He looked over at Bilbo when he said that.  “Most of us have never met the old wizard, but I’m sure Bilbo here can substantiate the legend that Gandalf talks in ways that will bamboozle even the brightest mind.   Anyway, the Old Took prided himself on never having once been caught off guard by the wizard.  Dad said he didn’t think Gerontius would have ever let Gandalf past the front gate if it weren’t for that, because Gandalf had a bad reputation for showing up for dinner unexpectedly and leaving in the morning with a Took by his side.  So Gandalf arrived one night with a cartload of what he called fireworks.  He had them in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  He told Gerontius that he could have the whole lot if he could tell him what ‘Smials’ meant.  Well, Gerontius knew our ancestors had built this estate as an elaborate collection of interconnected family holes, so he explained that it surely meant ‘labyrinth.’  That old wizard proceeded to tell us that it was an old mannish word for ‘ant hill.’  Gerontius was so incensed by what he called slander that he stayed up all night combing the library for evidence that he was right.  The next morning the Old Took comes up to breakfast with Isengrim’s original drawings and shows us all with great humility that across the top it read ‘wife thinks it looks like an ant colony’ and goes outside and puts it on top of all the fireworks and sets a match to it to show the wizard what he thought of it.  Well, fireworks explode when fire hits them and you are supposed to set them off in a controlled manner, one at a time, to appreciate their differences.  But this time they all went off at once.  My Dad said they are a sight – colored lights fizzing every which way in the sky.”

“You’ve seen fireworks since, haven’t you?”  Bilbo asked.  “Shown properly?”

“No,” the Thain answered wistfully.  “The Old Took wouldn’t let Gandalf come to Great Smials after that.  That was because Hildifons went off with him that morning and never returned.” 

The whole of the crowd turned to Bilbo, for they all knew he had traveled with the wizard.  “I can’t deny that Gandalf’s adventures are risky,” he responded, “but I’ve enjoyed going on them.”

*

“I’ve arranged for you to take lessons while you’re here,” Bilbo told Frodo the next morning as he was hitching up pony to wagon.  “Now don’t go snooping around the catacombs without someone who knows the tunnels well.  I know from experience how easy it is to get lost in this place.  Not all passages lead to exits.”  He gave Frodo a parting hug and pried himself loose of the boy’s unyielding grasp.  “Have fun,” he called as he pulled out.

Frodo kicked a stone as he made his way to the dining halls.  His stomach ached, more from nerves than from hunger.  Tookland was hilly and lush and the boy was tugged by a yearning to take off across the knolls and live amongst the wild things.  He would have succumbed to it, too, had a stiff cold wind not been blowing through his curls, encouraging him to seek the warmth of a comfy hole.

Not that Great Smials was a comfy hole by his account.  It was massive and gilded and elegant, a place of formalities to which he was unaccustomed.  Uncle Bilbo had advised him to bow to everyone and speak to no one – unless he was asked a question, in which case he was to make his response concise and courteous and deliver it with a bow.

There were as many Tooks in Great Smials as there were Brandybucks in Brandy Hall, but it didn’t feel that way.  Conversations were not heard in the corridors.  Unlike at Brandy Hall where families ate together, there were actually eight adjoining dining rooms.  The sexes were divided, with the males to the left and the females to the right of center.  Very young children like Merry ate with their parents in the two back rooms, older children and tweens in the middle back, young adults without very young children in the middle front, and elders in the front.  The amounts and varieties of the entrees varied by age.

Frodo made his way to the proper section and bowed to the steward, who took him to his seat.  A plate was set before him with a piece of cheese on a slice of soda bread and apple slices.  It would have seemed insufficient had his stomach already decided for him that he was not hungry.  Keeping his head bowed, he let his eyes scan the room.  His glance touched on a lad who looked to be about the same age that he was.  The boy’s hair was a light sandy shade along the lines of Merry’s and his eyes were the same green.  Shape-wise he had the Fallohide slenderness and height to him.  Frodo quickly refocused his gaze onto his water glass and carefully took a few sips before hazarding another look.  The tween happened to look up at the same moment and winked.   Frodo had made a friend.

He finished his meal and set down his utensils in the way that his Uncle Bilbo had instructed – the knife across the center from lower right to upper left with the sharp edge inward, and the fork crossing likewise from lower left to upper right with the prongs down.  He folded his napkin neatly – something he had never done in his life before coming here – and placed it to the left of the plate and then sat quietly with his hands folded neatly in his lap.  When the steward removed his plate and moved his chair back from the table for him he nodded politely and walked calmly out of the dining area, where he took his first full breath since he had entered Great Smials.

As his Uncle Bilbo had directed him, he stayed in the hallway for Saradoc to come for him.  The tween with whom he had exchanged glances came up to him and shook his hand.  “You’re Frodo Baggins, aren’t you?” he asked.  “I’m Reginard Took.  I’ve been asked by the Brandybucks to show you around while they’re visiting with Esmeralda’s family.”

Reginard was a good tour guide, and Frodo began to feel sure of the landmarks he was being shown.   After about an  hour, with no sign of second breakfast, they turned a corner and started down a particularly winding corridor.   “The headmaster will interview you now to determine which class you will be joining while you are here,” Reginard explained.  

Frodo gulped.

*

“So, Master Baggins, since you will be attending lessons for only a brief time I need to assess your skill level so that I can place you efficiently,” Headmaster Tumkin said, looking at Frodo critically.  “Now, have you had any instruction in the past?”

“I’ve had one winter of tutorial, sir,” he answered.  “I can sound out almost anything written in the common tongue, although I do not have the vocabulary to understand everything I read. I’ve learned a little of the history of the Shire.  I know my numbers and can do addition and subtraction, although Uncle Bilbo says I simply must remember my subtraction facts better.  I can read a bit of elvish.”  He realized the moment he said it that he should have kept that to himself.  From Tumkin’s reaction he could tell that elvish was appreciated as much here as it was everywhere else in the Shire – which meant not at all.

“We’ve no need for rubbish here at Great Smials,” Tumkin said.  “Have you learned any multiplication?”

“Only as far as ten times ten,” Frodo admitted reluctantly, “and division likewise.  Uncle Bilbo says that I’m still a little young to be learning anything more.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty and a half, sir.”  He needn’t have been ashamed with his accomplishment.  Mathematics did not come easily to hobbit brains and it was rare for any hobbit younger than twenty to be able to comprehend even simple multiplication, so he was actually right where he should be.  Of course Frodo didn’t know that.  He only knew that there was more to learn and that his uncle did not think he was ready for it – and that embarrassed him.

Tumkin made a note of all he had said so far without conveying to Frodo any sign of whether he was impressed by or disappointed in the lad’s stage of development.  He motioned to Frodo to sit by the light and handed him a book which he had opened to a page near the middle.  “Start reading aloud.”

Frodo read for nearly an hour, stopping as instructed to answer comprehension questions that the headmaster threw at him.  It was a very basic primer and the stories were not at all interesting, but the vocabulary and sentence structure got progressively harder with each page.  As the words became increasingly unfamiliar Frodo hoped that he was not fooling the headmaster into thinking he knew what the words meant; yet he kept being instructed to continue on.

“That’s enough,” Tumkin finally said, grabbing the book away.  He jotted down a few more notes as he stood up.  Frodo did so, too, and followed him to the door.

“You will go to Mr. Ferdinand Took’s classroom this afternoon after lunch, Master Baggins.  Now go outside and get some exercise and fresh air to wake up that sluggish brain of yours,” the headmaster advised.

‘Sluggish brain,’ Frodo thought miserably as he headed toward the outdoors, wiping tears from his cheeks.  It had come as a complete surprise to hear that.  From Bilbo’s – and Gandalf’s – responses to his learning he had all but assumed that he was a rather bright hobbit.  It came as a rude revelation to discover that he was not as clever as he had thought himself to be.

“Well?” Reginard asked as he joined up with Frodo in the glorious spring sunshine.  “Where is he putting you?”

“Mr. Ferdinand Took’s class,” Frodo answered.

“Hmmm,” Reginard reacted, looking surprised.  “You’ll be in with me.  Let me see if I can find Mr. Ferdinand and introduce you.  Wait here.”

Frodo’s waiting was not in place.  He had run across the field and back several times and was balancing atop the stone wall along the road when Reginard returned with a proper looking hobbit. 

“You are younger than most of the others in the class, Frodo,” Ferdinand Took said.  “Same as Reginard, so I’m going to be expecting a lot from you.”

“The headmaster said I was sluggish,” Frodo said, surprised to find he was going to be in a class of slightly older children.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Ferdinand Took said with a hint of humor.  “When he says that he means he thinks you are lazy and not achieving your potential.  You are being put in a gifted class for tweens, actually.”

Frodo hoped that he hadn’t fooled Tumkin into thinking he was brighter than he was.

A bell rang to tell them it was lunchtime.  Frodo didn’t really want to go back to the dining hall with all of its formalities and so he asked Reginard if it would be all right if he stayed outside until class time. 

“I doubt that anyone would notice your absence,” Reginard answered, looking at Frodo as if he were out of his mind to want to skip a meal.  He gave him directions for getting to the classroom and then headed indoors.  “You’ll hear a bell about ten minutes before class begins.  Don’t be late!”

Frodo took full advantage of the extra playtime.  He had seen a budding tree not far off with low lying limbs that was begging to be climbed.  Pulling himself about a quarter of the way up, he found a comfortable hobbit-sized nook where he could see quite a distance through the hills.  He sprawled along the branch and let himself lapse into a daydream.

He remained mindful of the time, though, and was first to the classroom. 

Ferdinand Took was already there, though, and invited him in.  “Considering that you will not be with us long, I think it will be best for you to sit up front.”  He rearranged the seats until he was satisfied that everyone would be able to see.  When the others arrived, Frodo saw that there were five other children in the class besides him and Reginard, three boys and two girls, and he could see Took features in every last one of them.  He wondered how closely they were all related.

He was given a pair of books, writing paper, a quill and ink.  “This book is a dictionary, Frodo,” Mr. Ferdinand told him.  “It has words listed by spelling and gives definitions for each.  You can use it whenever you come across a word you do not know.  Mr. Tumkin said your vocabulary is limiting your reasoning abilities.”  Frodo reddened at having been deemed ignorant compared with the others, and sheepishly wondered if his Uncle Bilbo had a dictionary.  Usually his uncle would simply tell him the definitions of any words he didn’t understand.  He took a peek inside before the teacher continued.  “The other is the textbook we are currently using.”  Mr. Ferdinand then addressed the class.  You will be reading the chapter beginning on page 103 this afternoon.  You may make notes on key points as you read.  When everyone is finished, we will have a discussion.” 

Frodo noticed that he was the only one who had to use a dictionary while reading.  It was embarrassing how frequently he had to refer to it.  He hoped he would not appear too much the fool during the discussion.

He was not the last to finish the chapter, he noticed.  He nervously checked his notes before he finally set down his quill and folded his hands on the desk, his big blue eyes set on Mr. Ferdinand.

He had never before had to wait for others to finish and he started to nod off in the silence of time.  “Master Baggins!” he heard his name called and he rousted immediately.  Mr. Ferdinand directed him to give his initial interpretation of the lesson.  The others added their additional points in the discussion, and Reginard was called on to summarize.  They were then instructed to compose an essay on what they had learned.  Frodo had never done anything quite like that before and he sweated as he hunched over his desk, writing furiously.  He felt quite the sluggard Tumkin had claimed him to be by the time he shambled to the dining hall for dinner. 

He was mentally so fatigued that evening, as he climbed into bed next to little Merry, that all he wanted to do was close his eyes as soon as possible – and wake up the next morning ready for another day in class.  He may not be having fun in Great Smials, but he was really eager for another go at the type of reasoning he was getting the opportunity to learn.

*

Frodo was given his paper back at breakfast the next morning.  He glanced over to where Reginard was seated and observed that his classmate had opened his paper and was reading it at the table, so he felt safe in opening his.  There were a lot of critiques written in red ink all over it, not so much on his analysis of the text, but on the written organization and presentation of his thoughts.  They were, to him, profound suggestions that inspired all sorts of ideas on ways he could improve his writing.  On the bottom of the last page was written: “An impressive first attempt, Master Baggins.  I can see that you have potential – if you are willing to exert some effort and keep your EYES OPEN during class.  I look forward to getting the chance to work with you.  Ferdinand Took.”  Frodo grinned ecstatically and gobbled down his eggs and ham.  Maybe this was the kind of fun to which Uncle Bilbo had been referring.  Maybe this was why Uncle Bilbo thought he might want to stay longer.

*

Reginard hailed him as they left the dining hall.  “So, what did Uncle Ferdinand think of your paper?”  Frodo pulled it from his pocket and showed him.  After glancing at the final comment, Reginard raised his eyebrow and handed it back.  “He came over to our rooms last night and visited with my parents and me.  He said it was a toss-up for you to have been put in our class; that you probably should have been placed in the regular class for our age but that Headmaster Tumkin wanted you challenged to see what happens.  Uncle Ferdinand agreed it was a good idea.” 

“I’m glad I got to be in your class.  It was really interesting yesterday.”

“So interesting that you fell asleep,” Reginard chided.  “Look, some of the cousins are organizing a game.  Do you want to play?”  Frodo jumped at the offer and was soon in the middle of a pack of boys who were kicking a large ball between two targets.  Like most of the smaller boys Frodo never got near enough to the ball to kick it but he did enjoy racing back and forth after it.  For the first time since he arrived at Great Smials he heard laughter in the air, and it wasn’t always his.

Frodo skipped second breakfast after the game.  The soft birdsong-filled spring breeze and warm sunshine were so alluring that he just couldn’t bring himself to go indoors.  Instead, he lay back on a mound of grass and granted himself the luxury of closing his eyes.

He would hear about his transgressions later.  Reginard found it unfathomable that a hobbit lad might skip meals due to lack of hunger and took great delight in teasing him about still taking naps at his age.  Neither opinion bothered him in the least.  Furthermore, the realization that he didn’t feel like conforming liberated him.

*

The afternoon class had a different structure than the previous day.  Mr. Took paired the students by age, so that Frodo and Reginard became a team of sorts.  Their assignment was to read a position on a statement and then research it in the reference books in the library and prepare and deliver a debate between teammate’s positions in front of the class.  The other students would act as judges.

Frodo was not concerned about doing the research.  He was charged with trying to find a reason to argue that hobbits should permit members of other races to pass through the Shire based on previous Shire rulings.  It didn’t sound altogether difficult until he reached the Great Smials library.  There were a lot of volumes available and he had no idea of where to start.

In the past Frodo’s research had never been competitive.  He had always sought out the opinion of his uncle as he worked through his reasoning.  It seemed to him that the teacher should be a resource he could use – at least as far as getting an idea of the locations and types of books so that he did not have to waste valuable time deciphering the library’s layout.  He approached Mr. Took shyly with his request and was relieved to get a positive response.

He was totally unprepared for the books he was shown which, although written in the common tongue, were difficult for him to understand.  ‘I’m twenty,’ he thought as he tried reading through “Judgments in the Shire, S.R. 1 – 1360” with his dictionary at hand.  ‘I don’t understand any of this.  Maybe I should be in the regular class.’   He looked over to where Reginard was writing notes and wondered if he was faring any better.

He decided to do the best he could in the hour he had.  He found little to support his side of the argument and suspected that the selections in the library were biased.  He had found no books that had titles which suggested contributions by other races.  He did find one entitled “Trespassers in the Shire” that he thought might give him some idea of the arguments Reginard would be using.  The book talked about a time when the Stoors, who had been friendly with men, had often let men into their homes in the early centuries of the Shire, until visiting men had brought with them a horrendous plague.  The Stoors had quarantined themselves to keep the illness from spreading throughout the Shire, but the plague had severely decimated their numbers, which was why the Stoors were now the least numerous of the three Hobbit breeds, with most now living in Bree.  Since he had heard that there was Stoor blood in the Baggins line, Frodo found it interesting to read that those Stoors who survived were particularly robust.

He found nothing derogatory about dwarves, which he thought would be useful in his argument.  Elves he found mentioned twice, the first suggesting that they traveled across the Shire freely, and the second concerning an agreement that they keep to certain paths and avoid interfering in hobbit life.  Of orcs, which translated to what appeared to be a particular breed of goblin, there was mention of the Battle of Greenfields, S.R. 1147.

Gandalf was mentioned by name six times in the book, the last being a grievous account warning against trusting his motives.  ‘He goes where he goes and there is purpose in his passage,’ Frodo thought, lovingly, of something Uncle Bilbo had once told him about the wizard. ‘Gandalf’s an individual, not a race,’ he added to his notes as a parting thought.

“You really do belong in this class,” Reginard complemented as they were leaving class for the day.  “I won our debate only by citing a very detailed opinion that my own father had written on the subject a smattering of years ago; and I’ve done this kind of exercise before where you haven’t.  You should be proud, Frodo.  Only the children who are expected to be the future leaders of Great Smials are given such rigorous training.  From what I hear you’ve impressed both our teacher and the headmaster.”

*

Frodo Baggins had a decidedly different energy level than Ferdinand Took was used to in his students.  It was not so much that he had less energy than the others, but that it was sporadic.  Ferdinand discovered that Frodo had either periods of enormous physical energy OR bursts of enormous mental energy, but never both without a substantial nap separating the two.  He pushed himself at his studies much harder than did the other students, keeping up with whatever Ferdinand demanded of his young brain but, again, he needed a nap midway to sustain himself through the lesson.  At first the old school in Mr. Took wanted to chastise the lad each time he fell asleep, but he soon discovered that no threat of punishment deterred Frodo from nodding off whenever he was pressed too hard.   What Mr. Took soon realized, though, was that after about fifteen minutes Frodo would automatically awaken with startling comprehension of whatever he had just learned.  It was as if the boy’s brain deliberately went to sleep to enable it to fully process a new concept.  Rather than continuing to fight it the teacher put a blanket and pillow in the back of the room and let Frodo curl up as needed.  He even encouraged the others in the class to give it a try, but none responded the way Frodo did.  It was simply something endearingly quirky in Frodo Baggins’ makeup.

Just as Ferdinand Took had hoped, Reginard was working harder than ever to keep ahead of Frodo and seemed to relish making the additional effort, yet contrary to his expectations the two boys had become close friends.  With Frodo’s encouragement Reginard even blossomed out of his innate conceit and started interacting comfortably with others outside of his own classmates.  Ferdinand was surprised, then, to observe that Frodo was himself a rather shy hobbit.  Unlike most young Tooks, the lad preferred not to attract attention inadvertently and appeared most comfortable in one–on–one interactions on topics that tickled his curiosity or in social gatherings where he was surrounded by only a few close others.  Even more surprising was that the boy seemed to greatly prefer adult conversation to that with hobbits his own age.  Ferdinand also noted that Frodo coped with large groups only outdoors.  Inside, more than a dozen hobbits conversing in a room at any given time sent the little fellow in search of a quiet corner.  Whatever the case or cause, the teacher found the young Baggins’ peculiarities likeable; it was not hard to see that others agreed.

All in all, many in Great Smials were rather disappointed when the Brandybucks took him with them when they returned to Brandy Hall.

TBC