Chapter the Third. In which Bilbo acquaints himself with the Vagaries of Unclehood.

Eglantine apologised breathlessly as Tom Cotton and Hamfast Gamgee carried the unconscious Paladin from waggon to best guest bed with its freshly warmed sheets and bright fire on the hearth.

 ‘I’m so sorry... I’m so very sorry...’

 ‘Aggie, if you don’t stop apologising I’m going to turn you out in the snow,’ Bilbo said.

She looked at him in horror and burst into tears. Immediately it was Bilbo doing the apologising, putting his arms around her and patting her on the back. ‘Now, now, lassie,’ he crooned.

 ‘I’m so sorry,’ she whispered.

 ‘Healer saw him down at the bottom o’ the Hill already,’ Tom Cotton said. ‘She said she’d check in a bit later; got called away by a birthing, but she said to keep him warm and try to get some broth into him.’

 ‘What about his head?’ Bilbo said.

 ‘Landed in a bank of snow,’ Tom said. ‘Good thing it’s a white Yule this year! Had it been otherwise he’d’ve broke his neck!’

Bilbo gave Eglantine’s back another pat and stepped away. ‘You just tuck him up,’ he said, ‘and I’ll be right back.’

 ‘The children,’ she whispered.

 Bilbo put on a broad smile and said, ‘Don’t worry about a thing, cousin! Not a thing!’ He gave her a little push towards the bed and nodded to the two helpers.

 'If there's anything at all...' Hamfast said as Bilbo ushered them towards the entryway, and the good farmer added his own assurances.

 'Thank you, Master Hamfast, Farmer Cotton, but we'll be fine here,' Bilbo said. 'I know your own missus hasn't been well,’ he said to Hamfast, and to Farmer Cotton he said, ‘and I know my way around a kitchen, outstanding gossip to the contrary!' 

 ‘I’ll just see to the baggage and put the ponies away,’ Farmer Cotton said, and Hamfast allowed as he’d help carry in the bags. They wished Bilbo a good night and reiterated their willingness to help, should he need aught.

The little Tooks were shivering in the entryway, staring about with big eyes as Bilbo saw the farmer and gardener out the door. ‘There you are,’ he said. ‘Let’s get your wraps off. Are you hungry?’

He bent to help the littlest and was rewarded by a piercing shriek. The largest, so wrapped as to be difficult to distinguish whether lass or lad, stepped forward hastily. ‘Vinca!’ it scolded. The high voice was no clue, of course, for they were all fairly young. ‘I’m sorry, cousin,’ it added. ‘She’s shy of strangers.’

 ‘Vinca?’ Bilbo said, backing up a few steps. ‘Vinca? That’s a pretty name.’ He had seen Paladin occasionally, when he’d gone to Brandy Hall for Yule, for example, and at festive occasions at the Great Smials, but thinking back, Bilbo could only remember Paladin and Eglantine. The children had merged into an ever-changing blur with the children of the Hall or the Smials, busy about... busy about whatever it was that children were invariably busy about. He thought he remembered a little lass with Eglantine’s eyes, only much wider, of course, the last time he’d told stories at the Great Smials, or was it the time before that?

One child that had stood out, had caught Bilbo’s notice at Brandy Hall, was poor Drogo’s lad. Ah, Drogo. Bilbo missed him still, rued the stupid waste of his death, fooling about with boats. A Baggins ought to have known better! He’d thought of taking the orphaned lad on, for Drogo’s sake, but really, an old bachelor like him? What sort of home could he offer a child? Still, things didn’t seem to be working out all that satisfactorily for young Frodo. One of the worst young rascals of Buckland, he’d heard lately. His lips twitched. At least the lad had spirit.

The largest of the children was unwinding an incredibly long muffler from around the little one’s upper regions, and finally bright eyes and curls were revealed, but the eyes were full of tears. ‘Mama,’ the little one sobbed.

The big one caught her up in a hug. ‘There now,’ it said. (Bilbo was wracking his brains; he remembered that Paladin had sisters... did he have all daughters as well? Were any sons?) ‘Help me undo this muffler of mine, Vinca, there’s a dear.’

The little one gulped back her tears and began to pull at the knitted wool, with a great deal of circumspect help from the big one. Soon curls were revealed, long curls, another lass, then. The middle child, also a lass, had shed her outer garments without any help and now made a pretty courtesy. ‘Pimpernel Took, at your service,’ she said formally, ‘and that’s Pearl, and you already have met Vinca.’

 ‘Charmed,’ Bilbo said with a bow.

 ‘And yes, we are hungry,’ Pimpernel added.

 ‘Nell!’ Pearl said in warning.

 ‘And thank you for asking,’ Pimpernel added belatedly.

 ‘Come along,’ Bilbo said in his heartiest matter. ‘I’m sure we can find something or other to suit!’

He hung their heavy garments on the long double row of pegs alongside the front door.

 ‘You must have many visitors,’ Pimpernel observed. She was a candid lass, Bilbo decided, and if there was any news to be got, she’d be the one to ask.

 ‘I’m very fond of visitors,’ Bilbo agreed with a smile. ‘Come now, my ladies.’ He bowed them towards the kitchen, and soon he had them eating bread and butter, well smeared with jam, and had poured them cups of freshly brewed cambric tea.

 ‘He has real sugar,’ Pimpernel said behind her hand, and Pearl shushed her while little Vinca stared with wide eyes. When Pimpernel thought the old hobbit wasn’t looking, she licked her finger and put it in the sugar pot, stared at the grains that stuck, and slowly and thoughtfully licked her finger. Bilbo hid a smile.

 ‘Well now, young ladies,’ he said. ‘If you’ll excuse me for a moment, I’ll just take some tea to your mum and dad.’

 ‘Da’s awful sick,’ Pimpernel whispered, and the little shoulders slumped, the wonder of real sugar forgotten.

Pearl put one arm about her and the other about Vinca and whispered comfort, then said, ‘We’ll be all right here, sir.’

 ‘Don’t you “sir” me!’ Bilbo said, rearing back at the term of respect. ‘You may call me “Uncle Bilbo” if you like, and if you don’t like you may call me something else, but do not call me such a thing as “sir”! Why, we’re cousins, you know!’

 ‘We are?’ Pimpernel said, while Vinca put her thumb in her mouth and stared with wide eyes. Pearl merely smiled in a superior manner, for she'd overheard Farmer Cotton talking with her mother, and so she revelled in possessing the knowledge before Pimpernel had found out.

 ‘We are indeed,’ Bilbo said, ‘and just as soon as I get back we’ll work out the connexion.’

Eglantine looked up as he entered with the tea tray, her eyes bright with unshed tears. ‘I’m sor—’ she began, before she blushed, bit her lip, and looked down. ‘We’re in your debt,’ she whispered.

 ‘Ah yes, and Paladin is not one to be in debt to anyone,’ Bilbo said. ‘His indebtedness to Mistress Lalia is onerous enough, I think.’

Eglantine took a shaky breath and looked away. Bilbo hastily set down the tray and took out a snowy handkerchief as he saw a tear spill over her cheek. ‘There now,’ he said in alarm. ‘No cause for that.’

 ‘He’s so... so hot,’ Eglantine said, taking the handkerchief and dabbing at her eyes, though one hand retained a firm grip on her husband’s. ‘He’s never been ill, not in all the time I can remember.’ She looked up at Bilbo with worried eyes. ‘Clementina, the next farm over but one, she died last week of a high fever, and the healer had them burn her bedroom furnishings and bedding and her nightclothes.’ She took a shaky breath. ‘We should never have come here, we ought to have turned around and driven straight through, home...’

 ‘Manage by yourself, you and three little daughters?’ Bilbo said. ‘I shudder to think.’

 ‘But if it’s that same fever,’ Eglantine said. She looked about the room. ‘All this lovely furniture, and putting you at risk, yourself. You ought not to be in this room at all. And the kind hobbits who carried Dinny in here, what if they take the fever, or someone in their families?’

 ‘You’re borrowing far too much trouble,’ Bilbo said gently. All the same, he’d heard about a nasty fever going round the Shire. It was no wonder that the S.-B.’s had taken themselves off so precipitously. Lobelia, had she been Mistress of Bag End, would have shut the door in this unfortunate hobbit’s face. Suddenly the resolution began to harden in Bilbo’s heart, that Lobelia would never have the opportunity to shut Bag End’s door in anyone’s face. He certainly hoped he didn’t catch the fever and die before he had a chance to draw up his Will and name an heir. Now who would be a proper one...? He patted Eglantine’s shoulder. ‘Let’s just take as much trouble as this day cares to offer, without looking for more.’

She swallowed hard and nodded.

 ‘Drink your tea,’ he said with a final pat. ‘Don’t let it go cold.’ He moved to the bed, to rest a hand on the burning forehead. Paladin was a sturdy hobbit, well-muscled from years of heavy farm work, but you’d never know it to look at him now. His face was pale and slack, his mouth partly open, his eyes rolled back in his head.

 ‘I’ll bring you a basin of water,’ Bilbo said, ‘and chip some icicles into it, to chill it well.’

Eglantine nodded again.

Bilbo was as good as his word, and it eased his heart to see Eglantine dip the cloth he provided into the icy water and lay it upon Paladin’s forehead. ‘That’s got to feel better,’ he whispered. ‘If there’s anything else you need, just call me.’

He returned to the kitchen, where the three lasses sat quiet as mice. The bread-and-butter had been eaten to crumbs, however, so they’d been busy as mice to all appearances. ‘So,’ Bilbo said, rubbing his hands together. ‘How about a story?’

Pimpernel’s eyes lit up. ‘About the dragon?’ she said eagerly. ‘And the Arkenstone, and the Battle of the Five Armies?’

 ‘My,’ Bilbo said. ‘It seems you’ve paid attention.’

 ‘She loves to hear stories,’ Pearl said in massive understatement. ‘The fancier the better. She’ll probably run off and have adventures of her own someday.’

 ‘I will not!’ Pimpernel said hotly.

 ‘I beg to differ,’ Pearl said with all the loftiness of the oldest sister. 

 ‘Well then,’ Bilbo said, staving off the incipient argument. He sat down on the other side of the table, facing the three lasses, all lined up in a row like the three little kittens in the picture book of his youth. ‘Let me see now...’

He told of the dragon as requested, suitably edited for the ears of the littlest, whose thumb never left her mouth. Indeed, she sucked that appendage harder at the exciting parts, and Bilbo began to fear she’d wear the skin right away, except for the fact that she fell asleep partway through, nestled under Pearl’s protective arm. ‘And he fell with a boom and a splash and a hissing of steam, right into the Lake, and that was the end of Smaug!’

 ‘And Lake Town,’ Pearl said, ever practical.

 ‘And what about the Battle of the Five Armies?’ Pimpernel said, eyes glowing.

 ‘That, my dear, will have to wait for the morrow,’ Bilbo said. ‘I do believe it’s time for young hobbits to seek their beds.’

Pimpernel groaned, but Pearl said, ‘He’s right, you know. Vinca’s asleep already and you’re yawning.’

 ‘I'm not,’ Pimpernel said, stifling a yawn.

 ‘Come now,’ Bilbo said, rising. He reached down for Vinca, and Pearl pulled her arm away as he lifted the little one. She nestled against him and he felt the soft sigh of her breath against his neck. A vague longing stirred in him then. He’d never had a little one of his own...

 ‘Come now,’ he repeated. ‘I’ve a bed all nicely warmed, and you can tumble into it together and curl up like a litter of pups. Chamber pot’s under the bed, if you need it, and there’s a pitcher of water and bowl for washing on the dressing table, and I do believe Master Gamgee brought your baggage in from the waggon whilst Farmer Cotton was putting the ponies away...’

He carried the littlest to the second-best guest bedroom and laid her on the bed, whispering to Pimpernel to follow him out of the room. They went to the entry, and Pimpernel showed him which bags contained the children’s clothing. Bilbo tucked one bag under his arm and picked up the other two, one in each hand.

 ‘Aren’t you awfully old to be doing that?’ Pimpernel asked, looking up at him.

 ‘You’re only as old as you feel,’ Bilbo said with perfect truth. He carried the bags to the bedroom, and after ascertaining that Pearl could manage putting herself and her younger sisters to bed, he lit the watch-lamp, blew out the lamps, and showed himself out the door with a quiet “Good night.”

 ‘Good night, Uncle Bilbo,’ Pimpernel whispered loudly. Bilbo smiled as he pulled the door nearly to behind him and went to fix a light meal, to coax into Eglantine, and a mug of broth for Paladin.