For Eyes to See That Can
Author: Rowan
Summary: The Ring-bearer, as seen by his family and friends. Meant as a character study more than a story.
Rating: G
Note: As a reader, I prefer completed stories over works in progress. However, I'm now taking the risk of posting a WIP myself, justifying it because this is not really one continuing story but a series of short stand-alones grouped under one title. I hope to go through every major character who had some significant interaction with Frodo, but please forgive me in advance if I run out of ideas and just stop.
Disclaimer: No copyrights were harmed in the making of this fanfic.

Chapter 3: Samwise Gamgee, August 1392

Folk can say what they like. And they do, oh yes. Seems every time the talk about Mr. Bilbo Baggins and his strange ways begins to die down a little, something else happens and it starts right back up again. Either he goes off wandering to meet some Elves in the woods, or he adopts his cousin, or he gets a visit from Mr. Gandalf or some dwarves, and they're off, meaning the folk who've got nothing better to do than talk.

Anyway, as I was saying, folk can say what they like, but far as I reckon, I'm the luckiest gardener's lad there ever was in the Shire, to have a master like Mr. Bilbo. One who says, "Good morning!" to me or my Gaffer just as hearty as you please, as if it don't matter to him none that we ain't gentry like he is. One who slips me sweets whenever the Gaffer takes me up to Bag End on business, bringing pies from my mum or needing to talk to him about what to plant next. One who says when I get a little older he'll teach me my letters, and I know he means it too. Mr. Bilbo don't ever say he'll do something and then not do it.

Mr. Bilbo's been living in Bag End for longer than I've been alive. Longer even than my Gaffer's been alive, and my Gaffer is getting to be an old hobbit. You'd never know to look at the two of them how much older Mr. Bilbo is than my Gaffer. He's a hundred and one, if you can believe it, Mr. Bilbo is, and he'll be a hundred and two next month. I wonder if, when I get old, Mr. Bilbo will still be there up on the Hill? I'd like to think he would.

Mr. Frodo, now, him I don't know so well. Leastways, I know now, since what happened yesterday, that even though I thought I knew him, I didn't really.

It ain't that he was unfriendly, in the beginning. He just always seemed to hold himself back somehow. He'd greet me and smile, but then he'd disappear and let Mr. Bilbo handle whatever business we had with him.

"I think he's just shy, Sam," my mum told me when I asked her about it, not long after Mr. Frodo moved into Bag End.

"A gentlehobbit bein' shy of a gardener lad?" I asked, thinking it were the strangest thing I'd ever heard.

"I know it sounds a mite funny, but some folk are that way, no matter who to. Mr. Frodo, he may be a gentlehobbit and Mr. Bilbo's heir and all, but he's also young and doesn't have a mum or dad, and he's gone from being surrounded by relations to having just Mr. Bilbo to look after him, in a place that has different ways than what he's used to. Why, you might be shy too, if you left everything you knew and moved to Buckland."

I thought about that for a good while, and it made sense even to a ten-year-old like me.

She patted my arm. "Don't you worry, Sam. Give him time, and just be there to help him, and once he sees you're willing to be his friend as much as you can be, he'll thaw out, I expect. Mind you, it's important that you get along with him, Sam. He's going to be your master one of these days, after all."

So I took her words to heart, and I started doing whatever I could think of to let Mr. Frodo know that he didn't need to be shy no more. The first time I smiled specially at him, on one of my trips up the Hill with the Gaffer, he looked a mite taken aback, but then he smiled back, bigger than I'd seen him do before. A real "pleased you noticed me" smile instead of a polite "how do you do, when can I leave" smile. I could even see a gap in his front teeth that I'd not noticed before, maybe because I'd never seen his teeth.

I did other things too. Like bringing him little presents such as pretty rocks I'd found, or one time a turtle shell that had lost its turtle. I also talked nice to him about how fine he was looking today in that new weskit, and how pretty the day was, and would he like to see my favorite fishing hole, the one where hardly no one else ever went because it was too far from the road?

And my mum was right. Mr. Frodo did start to thaw out. At first he didn't seem to quite know how to act, but he'd look at what I brought or come where I invited him, and say nice things back. I don't reckon I know exactly when it went from his being polite to his really seeming to enjoy my company, but it don't matter, I 'spect, because I started to enjoy his too. He was every bit as nice as Mr. Bilbo, really; he was just quieter about it, and took longer to decide about people.

One day, he came out into the garden while I was just finishing a bit of weeding. He had a book under his arm. I thought he was going to say hello and move on by himself to do his reading. He did say hello, but instead of leaving he stood there watching me.

"Something I can do for you, Mr. Frodo?" I asked.

He cleared his throat. "No, I just wondered if you might like to hear me read some of this book. It's about Elves, and Bilbo says you like stories about them."

My heart leaped just like it always does when I hear the word "Elves", and I smiled. "I do indeed, Mr. Frodo. Just let me pull out these last few weeds, and I'll be with you shortly."

We went down to a field on Mr. Bilbo's lands, one that had a big spreading tree that gave plenty of shade, and we sat there, and Mr. Frodo read aloud. He had a pleasing kind of voice that sort of flowed over the words like water over rocks, and it never came out flat nor rushed like some people's do when they read; he put feeling into the words, making them come alive. I'd never had no one read to me better, not even Mr. Bilbo, and I said so.

"Thank you, Sam," he said, and he had that smile that lit up his face again.

After that, every so often, when I wasn't busy in the garden or Mr. Frodo was done with his studies and wasn't off tramping with his uncle, or the two of them didn't have company, we would go out to the tree and read. We always took food and made a picnic out of it. I made sure to carry the bulk of it, knowing my place and all, though Mr. Frodo always tried to take at least half, saying he might be the gentlehobbit, but he was older and could carry more. Then finally he cottoned on that that only made me more set on carrying most, if not all, no matter how heavy it was. It got to be a bit of a joke between us.

Oftentimes we'd go down to the market together too, and that was what we were doing yesterday when what happened happened.

The day before, I had done all the work in the garden. Truth to tell, there wasn't much to do, but it was the first time I had done it all by myself. The Gaffer let me do it to test me, and I did what Mr. Bilbo called an "exceptional" job. It was the first time I had gotten paid money, too. Mr. Bilbo himself had pressed two whole copper pieces into my hand -- a lot for one day, but he winked and said one of them was a "bonus" -- and Mr. Frodo had offered to help me look for something to buy while I was helping him do some of the regular shopping for Bag End.

We stopped at the tanner's booth where my eye was caught by a brown leather belt. It looked to be my size, and it wasn't too fancy nor too plain; it had a real metal buckle, too. I touched it, feeling how soft but strong it was. My own belt was getting worn, and it only had a wood buckle.

Mr. Frodo was looking at it too when the tanner spotted us, so the tanner spoke to him, maybe thinking I was just there to help my future master. "That's a good belt, Mr. Frodo, but a bit short for you, as you can see. I've got some finer-looking ones over here that you might find more suitable."

Mr. Frodo smiled at him. "I'd be happy to look at them another time, Mr. Willowby. Sam is the one doing the shopping, this visit. What do you think, Sam?"

Before I could answer, a voice interrupted.

"Well, lookee what we have here."

It was Pimple, Lotho Sackville-Baggins that is. Lotho (I don't honor him with a Mr., at least not in my head) is first cousin once removed to Mr. Bilbo, and third cousin to Mr. Frodo. Not that you'd know they were related at all, the way Lotho acts. I hate to say it of a gentlehobbit, but he's mean, no getting round it, and he hates Mr. Frodo most specially.

Lotho stepped nearer, a sneer making his face even less handsome. He's got pimples, which is why he's called Pimple, and no doubt that's some of why he hates Mr. Frodo. Not that Mr. Frodo is to blame for Lotho's pimples; I think it's that Mr. Frodo doesn't have them himself, and never did, and that makes Lotho jealous. Then of course, there's the biggest reason, which everyone knows: the fact that the Sackville-Bagginses were hanging their hopes on getting hold of Mr. Bilbo's wealth and home when he passes (if he ever does), but then Mr. Bilbo went and chose Mr. Frodo as his heir instead.

"If it isn't that Brandybuck who calls himself my cousin." Lotho said the name "Brandybuck" as if it tasted bad. He always calls Mr. Frodo that, even though Mr. Frodo is just as much a Baggins as he is.

Mr. Frodo's lips tightened for a moment into a flat line, but then he smoothed his expression. "Lotho," he said with a bare little nod.

Lotho folded his arms, the sneer never leaving his face. "What brings you down the Hill? Run out of musty old books and fanciful tales, and thought you might actually get out and see what the sun looked like?"

"As you can see," Mr. Frodo replied, glancing down at the bag he had slung over his shoulder, in such a way as to make Lotho's eyes follow his, "I'm out shopping. I do appreciate your being kind enough to take an interest, however. How is your dear mother? Did she send you out to add to her spoon collection?"

I didn't understand why Lotho's face should get even redder than it was already, or why he should look at Mr. Frodo as if he was picturing wringing his neck like a chicken's, when as far as I could tell Mr. Frodo was being polite enough, more so than Lotho ever was to him. (Though I was puzzled as to why Mr. Frodo had mentioned spoons.)

Mr. Willowby got my attention away from the two gentlehobbits just then. I could hear their voices going on talking while I dickered for the belt, Lotho's sounding waspish and Mr. Frodo's sounding mild as ever. I did my deal, and started to hand over one of my coppers.

Lotho saw, and puffed himself up. Thinking back on it, maybe he wasn't getting as much fun out of pestering Mr. Frodo as he'd hoped, and thought he'd try something else to make himself feel good. "Where did you ever get a whole copper, brat?" he barked.

I blinked, the coin still in my hand. "I -- I -- " But words failed me as I gaped at him, not sure what he was meaning.

"Stole it, didn't you?" A nasty smile was spreading across Lotho's face. "Never saw a Gamgee with better than brass, and you're too young to have earned it. Really, Frodo, whatever do you and Uncle Bilbo see in that family? I'd have shown them the gate years ago."

I glanced at Mr. Frodo, and saw a look on his face I'd never seen before. He was gazing evenly at Lotho, brow lowered and eyes narrowed so that I could only see slits of blue.

"Begging your pardon, sir," I said quickly, scared for no reason I could name. "But Mr. Bilbo gave me this copper himself, after I worked all day in the garden alone."

Lotho snorted. "A likely story. But I'll be generous. If you hand it over so I can return it to Uncle Bilbo myself, I'll not mention your name." He held out his hand. I just stared at it. He lost his patience and grabbed my wrist.

I didn't know Mr. Frodo could move so fast. Like lightning, he grabbed hold of Lotho's wrist, the one on the hand that held mine.

"That's ENOUGH!" he said, in a voice loud enough to make heads turn all over the square. People began gathering round, goggling at what was going on. Two gentlehobbits having a disagreement right out in front of everybody, and not caring who saw, weren't something that happened every day. "I don't know why you decided to try to stir up trouble today, Lotho, and frankly, I don't care. But if you value your face, I advise you to leave, now, or it will grow a few knuckles."

"You forget yourself, cousin," Lotho spat, but then he howled as Mr. Frodo's fingers began digging into a tender spot on his wrist. He let go of me, and Mr. Frodo let go of him, only to snatch hold of the front of Lotho's shirt and pull him close to glare into his eyes.

"You may talk to me however you want," Mr. Frodo said. Now his voice was so soft that only Lotho and I, and maybe Mr. Willowby, could hear it. "If it pleases you to call me a Brandybuck, go ahead. That name is not an insult, no matter how hard you try to make it one. As a matter of fact, I am proud of my mother's family, and where I came from. If you care to try any worse names, be my guest. Your opinion of me is no more to me than a duck quacking. But," and he shook Lotho, "Sam is the son of my uncle's most valued servant, and he is my friend. Lay so much as one finger on him again, and you will regret it."

Everyone, and by that I mean me as well, was gaping at Mr. Frodo as if he'd sprouted another head. But there was not a soul there who doubted him, I'd lay any money on that. No matter that two of Mr. Frodo would have added up to one Lotho. There's more to a fight than size, after all.

When Mr. Frodo finished his piece, he thrust Lotho away from him so that Lotho staggered and would have fallen except that the side of the tanner's booth stopped him. He straightened up and fussed with his shirt as if Mr. Frodo had gotten it dirty. I almost laughed at him trying to act the dandy now.

"Really," Lotho said. "The manners of those people from across the river are atrocious. I've half a mind -- "

"Obviously," Mr. Frodo cut in. It was a hot day, but his voice could have frozen a pond. He just stood there looking at Lotho until Lotho gave him one last sneer, stuck his nose in the air, and made off.

The crowd began to break up and go about their own business. I think some of them were a bit disappointed there hadn't been a fight, but there were those who smiled at Mr. Frodo or touched their foreheads with a new respectfulness as they left.

Mr. Frodo turned to me. His smile was back. "Well, Sam, have you got your new belt? We still have some more shops to visit, and Bilbo specially asked that I check to see if Mrs. Goldworthy has any of those new inks he ordered."

"Yes, sir," I said, finally letting out the breath I didn't know I'd been holding, as I fastened my new belt around me. I pointed to the sack he had over his shoulder. "I can carry that for you, Mr. Frodo, begging your pardon."

"You could, but it's only going to get heavier, you know."

"I don't mind, Mr. Frodo. I can carry a lot of weight, for all I'm only twelve."

"Oh, I believe you, Sam, but really, I'd feel quite useless if I let you carry all of that. What would people say if they saw us?"

I thought about that a bit. "They'd say, 'There goes Mr. Frodo Baggins and his Sam.'"

He laughed. But I meant it. I'd never thought to have a gentlehobbit call me friend, but it had happened today. And that same gentlehobbit had stuck up for me and not for himself. I might be just twelve, but even I know how rare that is. Then again, Mr. Frodo is a rare soul.

I smiled, and reached out for the strap of the sack. He sighed big, meaning he didn't mean it, and gave it to me, then ruffled my hair.

"Shall we?"

"Yes, Mr. Frodo." And I followed him.

***

Note: I admit to being inspired by a scene in Anne McCaffrey's Dragonsinger, with a couple of lines from Dragonquest (same author) thrown in for good measure.