Bilbo’s Blunder

Beta: Periantari

Sam is 4 ½ (or almost 3 in Man years)

Foreyule 1384 SR
 

Bilbo heard the knock on the front door and peeked out the study window to find his gardener standing on the porch. Bilbo started at the sight and quickly looked up at the darkening sky. Was it nearing sundown already? He shook his head and left the study, mumbling about autumn sneaking up on him, and opened the door with a grin.

“Good afternoon, Master Hamfast. Or good evening, I should say,” Bilbo corrected himself.

“Evening, sir,” Hamfast said with a nod. A slight frown creased his brow and he shifted uncomfortably. The movement was so small even Bilbo’s sharp eyes nearly missed it. “I’ve come for Sammy.”

“Of course,” Bilbo said with affirmation. He knew Hamfast still wasn’t keen on having his employer watch the lad while he worked, but there had been nothing for it. Sam had become clingy after Bell’s passing in the summer, and he flat out refused to leave his father’s side after May recovered from her own illness last week.

Bilbo waved his gardener into the entrance hall as he thought furiously, ‘Now where did I last see the lad? Come to think of it, when did I last hear little Samwise?’

He had been so immersed in his own business that it took him a moment to remember: he had put the lad down to his nap in the parlor, but that had been two hours ago. Well, it wasn’t unheard of for children that age to take long naps and Sam had had an adventurous morning, helping Bilbo bake bread and biscuits, then dust all the shelves and mop the floor. However, ‘help’ wouldn’t be an accurate description of Sam's earnest efforts. Once the lad was asleep, Bilbo had had to go over everything Sam had cleaned, before squirreling himself away in his study to answer correspondence. He was afraid he quite forgot about the lad.

‘He must still be napping,’ Bilbo thought optimistically. He turned to Hamfast and said aloud, “I put him to his nap in the parlor. Why don’t we wake the poor lad up? He’s been quite busy today.”

Bilbo thought he caught a brief and subtle eyebrow arch on the Gaffer’s carefully controlled visage at this statement, but Hamfast only nodded again and followed his employer down the tunnel to the parlor. Bilbo was in the process of listing all of Sam’s activities for the day, elaborating on his fumbling attempts with the mop. Then they entered the parlor and Bilbo froze, mid-step and mid-sentence. The blanket was there on the rug, as well as the pillow and the stuffed and tattered pig Bilbo had given him for a sleeping companion, which Sam had immediately named Snoozer. Sam, though, was nowhere to be seen. Behind Bilbo, Hamfast was the silent presence of a protective parent.

“He seems to have rolled away,” Bilbo said cheerfully, despite the sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach and the leap of panic in his chest.

“Aye,” Hamfast agreed kindly, hiding his alarm with practiced ease. “He rolls himself under my bed a times.”

‘Yes, yes, that must be it,’ Bilbo thought fervently, grasping at this explanation with gratitude. He drew a deep breath and nodded with decision. “We shall search the room then, shall we?”

Master and servant got on their hands and knees to search under and behind the furniture, in the corners and behind the curtains. They looked in the spaces behind the stacks of books, tomes, and loose piles of papers. Bilbo even removed the hearth screen and searched there, just in case. By the time they determined that the lad was nowhere in the parlor, Bilbo was feeling dreadfully ashamed, and Hamfast was quickly losing his calm resolve.

“Mayhap he got up to look for a bed,” Hamfast suggested and wondered just how many crooks and crannies there were in Bag End for a wee lad to be getting lost in.

“Right, of course,” Bilbo agreed graciously. He wouldn’t have blamed Hamfast for coming out and clocking him over the head for losing his son, and he was grateful that the burly gardener had thus far restrained from placing blame. That didn’t stop Bilbo from blaming himself, though, and mentally beating himself with the hearth sweeper.

He had finally convinced Hamfast to bring Sam to work with him, so Bilbo could watch the lad in close proximity to his father, and what did he do? He lost his charge! ‘What if the lad went outside and wandered off? How far can a child get in a couple of hours? Surely not to the Water? No, no,’ Bilbo firmly shook his head at this horrid thought. Sam would no sooner go near the river than he would jump into a fox’s mouth, of that much at least he could be assured.

Bilbo squared his shoulders and lifted his chin. Well, he had faced worse situations than this. “Let’s go to it then,” he said, missing his gardener’s thoughtful gaze in his panic. “He must be around here somewhere. You search to the right, and I’ll take the left.”

That way, he could at least spare Hamfast from having to search the master bedchamber and formal dining room, two rooms the gardener refused to enter except under the sternest orders. Not that Hamfast looked too bothered with propriety at the moment; he probably would have gladly dumped the master’s hamper onto the lawn for all of Hobbiton to see if he thought his son might be hiding there.

To his surprise though, Hamfast shook his head. “Begging your pardon, sir, but it’d be a might easier simply to call him,” he reasoned. “If he’s about, he’ll hear us and come running, once he’s awake enough to answer that is.”

Bilbo nodded, seeing the sense in this. “We’ll go down the tunnel and call him then,” he agreed. After all, the doors wouldn’t be closed; they could still glance inside as they passed. If Sammy had gone looking for a bed, they’d find him quickly, one way or another.

So they went down the tunnel, calling at the top of their lungs and glancing through doorways. Sure enough, they found Sammy in the chamber that Frodo used when he visited. Sam was curled up on the bed, thumb held loosely to his lips, his mouth opened slightly. His soft, slow breaths of deep sleep gradually grew shallower as the lad began to awaken at the calls. Hamfast went to the bed and gently shook Sam awake.

“Up you get, Sammy,” Hamfast chided gently, brushing the curls off Sam’s forehead. Sam yawned and blinked, then managed to hold up his arms for his father to pick him up. Once securely in his father’s arms, he rested his little head on his father’s broad shoulder and drifted off again.

Hamfast turned to his employer and nodded. “Sorry to take up so much of your evening, sir,” he said and then shrugged his shoulder. Sam’s little head bobbed once, twice, before settling again. “I’ll talk to him about wandering around the hole without leave, sir. It won’t be happening again.”

“This is hardly the lad’s fault,” Bilbo said, feeling even worse than before. “I take full responsibility. I shouldn’t have left him unattended.”

Hamfast shrugged again. “Can’t watch them all the time; get naught done if you did,” he said with that level-headed practically that so many times recalled Bilbo to his senses. “I’ll tell him to come a looking for you next time he wakes up, rather than going to look for another bed and making himself comfortable. I’ll let myself out.”

“I am sorry, Hamfast,” Bilbo said, not able to shake the feeling of shame for all he knew that Hamfast was right. “I’m just not used to this. It will take some getting used to, having a child about the hole.”

“If it’s too trouble much for you,” Hamfast started, but Bilbo held up a steady hand.

“It’s not,” Bilbo said. “I enjoy the company, and if it allows you to come to work timely, then I’ll learn to be more vigilant. It’s a small price to pay, for the sake of the garden.”

For this had been the argument that finally got Hamfast to give in to Bilbo’s request and bring Sammy with him up the Hill. As much as Hamfast chaffed at the idea of having his employer do for him, he chaffed even more at coming late and getting only half his work done as he had been doing; Sam took that much convincing to let his father out of his sight each morning. It would only be temporary after all, Bilbo had assured him, and it was nearly wintertime besides. Hamfast would only be ‘imposing’ on his employer a few times a week once the beds were settled for the winter. By the time spring came, Sam should be sufficiently recovered from his shock to return to Missus Rumble’s with his sisters.

“I’ll see you in the morning then,” Hamfast said and slipped past Bilbo into the tunnel. He was halfway down the tunnel when he paused uncertainly, then turned with decision and nodded again. “And if you’re not minding my asking it, sir, if you could see as Sam takes his nap around two, and only an hour at the most. He’ll be up half the night now, going down so late.”

“Oh,” Bilbo said, surprised at this news. Indeed, it had been a long time since he had been responsible for such a young charge. “Well, we don’t want that, now do we? Two o’clock it is then.” Though he wondered how he would convince the lad to sleep at such an early hour, as he had been wide awake today at that time.

As if reading his thoughts, Hamfast continued. “Just lay him down and sing to him a bit. He’ll drift right off. As for waking him again, a nice warm plate of biscuits or some such does the trick nice,” he offered helpfully.

“Thank you, Master Hamfast. I shall remember that,” Bilbo said and allowed Hamfast to see himself out the door as promised, before sliding along the door jam and softly banging his head against it. “I shall remember that,” he repeated and resolved to answer his correspondence in the parlor from here on out.

The end

GF 11/19/08