A Need to Heal

Summer 1410
Sam is 30, Marigold 26, Hamfast 84

Sam woke up the same way he always did, stirring out from under his covers to sniff the sweet scent of breakfast being cooked in the kitchen. Goldie never came and banged on his door, hollering for all the Row to hear that it was time his lazy bones got out of bed. That had been Daisy’s and then May’s routine. Goldie knew the best way to wake any hobbit was to get their stomach grumbling, and Sam’s was obliging quite nicely. He licked his lips, anticipating the taste of her hotcakes slathered with honey and cream, sausage links dipped in syrup, eggs scrambled with cheese and fresh-squeezed apple juice.

Sam yawned, stretched his arms and back, stretched his calves and wriggled his toes. He threw back the covers, swung his legs over the side of the bed, sat up… and let out a whelp of surprised pain as his left hamstring started to throb in protest of the sudden movement. His bedroom door slammed open just a few moments later. Hamfast hobbled into the room, concern etched onto his weathered face, making him appear fierce to anyone not familiar with him.

“Sammy?” he asked, calling him by his childhood name, which hadn’t been spoken in Number Three for nearly fifteen years. “Are you all right, lad?”

“I don’t think so, Gaffer,” Sam said calmly, now that the initial shock of finding himself injured had worn off. He experimented with his left leg, moving it gingerly to determine it’s range of motion. Any movement that didn’t require his hamstrings caused no discomfort. As soon as he attempted to extend his leg, the pain came throbbing back, watering his eyes and stealing away his breath. He took a few moments to recover, then grinned in irony at his father. “Seems as I pulled something.”

“Humph,” Hamfast grunted. He had allowed Sam to go to the Cotton’s yesterday to help with the branding and any other tasks Old Tom might need him for after Lily had sent word that her husband had pulled his back the day before.

“Help me stand. I should be able to hobble out to the kitchen,” Sam said.

Hamfast walked over to Sam’s injured side, put Sam’s arm over his shoulder and helped him to stand. Once Sam was on his feet, or foot in this case, Sam nodded and they both moved as one to inch him towards the door. Sam tried his best not to put any weight on his left leg, which was now burning with pain and not at all happy about being forced to move after its warnings to let it lie. Sam drew in his breath with a hiss, closed his eyes until the worst of the throbbing went away, then nodded to his father to start inching forward again. Hamfast, however, didn’t move and Sam discovered why when he opened his eyes. Marigold stood in the doorway, hands on hips, scowl on face, and eyes squinted at the two fellows in her life. She shook her head and pointed to the bed.

“Back in that you get, Sam Gamgee, and I want no lip from you about it,” she commanded, with surprising force and determination.

“But…” Sam started to protest.

“I believe I said no lip,” Goldie snapped.

Sam had no choice in the matter. Hamfast was already starting to lower him back into the bed, seeing sense in Marigold’s edicts. Sam couldn’t very well get out of bed by himself, unless he rolled out of it, and then what? He’d have to lie there on the floor until he healed enough to move on his own. At least the bed was soft.

Sam let his father lift his legs back onto bed, and they managed to get him into a comfortable position without too much difficulty. While they did that, Goldie went back to the kitchen, put a plate together for Sam and carried it back to his room on a tray. She fitted the tray over his lap, kissed his forehead and fluffed up his pillow, all the while muttering about stubborn Gamgees with pigheaded notions of walking when they oughtn’t to be walking.

Sam and Hamfast endured this tirade in silence. They had never seen their sweet and accommodating Marigold in such a mood before and they didn’t want to do anything that might agitate her more.

“Now,” Goldie said, pillow fluffed and lecture given. She turned to her father. “Someone ought to go up and tell Mr. Baggins as Sam ain’t coming today… Or the rest of the week for that matter.”

Sam opened his mouth to protest this, but Goldie turned a cold eye on him just then and he shut it tight. “I’ll go and fetch the healer, just so as we can make sure you ain’t done any permanent damage to yourself.”

“What all is needing done at Bag End, son?” Hamfast asked.

“Just the regular: weeding, watering, pruning. Some of the vegetables and berries are ready for the picking and the flowers inside are needed replacing,” Sam said. “You should ask Dandy and Randy if they might be able to help with that.”

Sam knew if his father tried to fill in for him by himself, Hamfast would end up injured next. Dandy and Randy Proudfoot were good, sturdy lad, and while they didn’t have much of a hand for gardening, under Hamfast’s instructions they certainly couldn’t damage anything.

Marigold and Hamfast went to the kitchen then to sit for their breakfast. As there was little conversation to be heard, Sam knew they were trying to eat as quickly as possible so they could get ready for their now hectic day ahead. Sam picked at his food, feeling guilty for interrupting their plans and bewildered to determine just how this had happened in the first place. He went through the previous day from sun up to sun down and couldn’t think of when he might have injured himself. Certainly, he had been able to work on his leg without any problems or hints of damage done.

An hour or so later, Miss Camellia was standing at the foot of his bed, watching as her apprentice Miss Willow conducted the examination.

“Do you know how this happened, Sam?” Miss Willow asked. “What were you doing yesterday?”

“Oh, nothing much really,” Sam said. “I was helping the Cottons, see, with the branding and whatnot. I didn’t trust myself with the branding prod, so I was helping Tom to hold the heifers and steers in place so as Old Tom could do the hard part. The beasts weren’t happy about it all, of course, and more than a few of them tried to buck us off them, but we managed it all right. Then I went up to the hayloft and helped to haul hay bales up all afternoon. We mucked out the stables, fed all the beasts, pulled some vegetables for the pantries and to take to market, and since it was so late, I stayed on for supper. That’s all.”

Miss Willow and Miss Camellia exchanged a dubious glance. That’s all, hm?

With this unhelpful but detailed information in mind, Miss Willow began her examination. She had a firm but comforting touch, and she went about her business with a thoroughness that put Sam at his ease. Under her instructions, Sam once again went through the movements of showing them his range of motion, extending his leg and then attempting to contract it again as Miss Willow gently held his foot, then his calf. After this excruciating exercise, he gladly sat back and relaxed as Miss Willow moved his leg without his assistance. The result was not promising.

“Grade three strain to the biceps femoris,” Miss Willow announced. “You’ve ruptured your hamstring, Sam. There’s swelling, a noticeable gap in the muscle tissue, limited range of motion and severe pain when attempting to walk.” She narrowed her eyes at him when she said this, in an uncanny imitation of his sister that made his blood run cold. “You need bed rest for at least a week. You need to keep the leg elevated. I suggest a pressure band for the thigh to prevent muscular bleeding to the affected area. You’ll also need to stretch the muscle in your pain-free range of motion every couple of hours so that the leg heals correctly. Each day, you should notice that you can move it a little bit farther than the day before. If you don’t notice significant improvement by the end of the week, send your sister to us again. I’ll leave Goldie with a receipt for a poultice that will help reduce the swelling and aid healing. Any questions?”

Sam shook his head, stumped by this matter-of-fact delivery of his state of health, or lack thereof.

“Very well. I’ll give Goldie the receipt now. Take care,” Miss Willow said, patting his arm in a surprisingly comforting and warm manner, smiling with a reassurance that lifted his heart and hopes immediately. She went out to the parlor, where his sister and father were waiting for the diagnosis.

“How are you feeling, Sam?” Miss Camellia asked. Sam shrugged, the best response he could think of at the moment. “Willow takes some getting used to, but she’s a competent apprentice and will make a very fine healer some day. You would be wise to do as she says.”

“Yes, Miss Camellia,” Sam agreed heartily. He didn’t want to imagine what Miss Willow might say or do if he didn’t follow her instructions to the letter.

Miss Camellia wrapped a pressure band around his thigh. It was a simple strip of cured hide with strings sewn into the seams that went around three-quarters of the hide. The seam ended where a series of holes began. Miss Camellia pulled the hide until she found the desired pressure, then inserted one end of the string through the corresponding hole and tied it securely in place. Sam was grateful when it actually stopped the muscle from throbbing quite so much. Miss Camellia called Marigold and Hamfast into the room to show them how to take the pressure band on and off for applying the cold poultices. The hide was oiled on the inside to prevent the poultices from ruining the leather.

When the healers left, Hamfast patted Sam’s left foot. “Mind your sister, now, lad, or I’ll thump you one,” he said in his gruff concern. He left then too. He had already sent Dandy and Randy up the Hill to explain things to Mr. Frodo and start watering the garden. Now he needed to get up to Bag End before they could get it in their minds to start weeding and pull out all the parsley prematurely.

Goldie waited until the front door closed behind their father, then sat next to Sam on the bed and felt his forehead.

“I ain’t fevered, Goldie,” Sam said.

“Are you sure?” she asked. “Cause I can’t be thinking of any other way you’d not noticed you did this to yourself.”

“Shouldn’t you be getting the poultice?” Sam asked.

“It’s brewing, then it needs to cool. Miss Willow said that under no circumstances am I to put a hot compress on your leg when it’s as inflamed as it is, and I ain’t about to go against her,” Goldie said. Apparently, she and Hamfast hadn’t been spared Miss Willow’s cold glare simply for the good luck of being healthy. “Now, do you need aught? A book? Your journal? Some tea?”

Not waiting for a reply, Marigold pulled the basket from under his bed where he stored all his ‘learning things’ as she called them. She found the book with the bit of ribbon in it that he used for a bookmarker and handed that to him. She also grabbed his journal, the bottle of ink and a couple of quills and put those on the tray along with the book. She pushed the basket back in place, stood, fluffed his pillows and turned about in a swirl of skirts and apron to get the tea from the kitchen. She returned with not just tea, but a few crumpets, a bowl of grapes and cherries, and a basket of laundry, sewing needles and yarn.

“Here you are,” she said, putting the food on the tray and the basket next to him on the bed. “Don’t think you get to slug-about just a’cause you’re injured. You can help me with the mending while I clean out the oven and beat the rugs.”

“What about that knife that was needing the handle fixed?” Sam asked, poking through the laundry basket.

Goldie lifted her eyebrows at this. “The way you’re going, you’ll cut off your finger and bleed all over the laundry and your sheets. I don’t want to have to wash all that.”

Sam grinned. “What if I promise not to hurt myself?” he asked and got just the response he had expected: a slow look down at his leg and a slow look up back at his face, eyebrows arched even higher than before. “You know, I might poke myself with these here needles too.”

“You better not,” Goldie said. She fluffed the pillows under his leg, careful not to touch the sensitive part, patted his foot in the same place the Gaffer had, then strolled away to her daily chores.

Sam settled into his pillows, wondering what task to tackle first, and finally settled on the mending. It only seemed right to work while everyone else was working.

The week progressed in long stretches of boredom, interspersed with moments of activity when visitors stopped by to see how he was healing. The Cottons came of course, bringing a feast along with them. The Proudfoots and Goodloves down the Row came by also, bringing work when Marigold ran out of things to keep him occupied. He was grateful for the distractions and went to work on whatever they placed before him with alacrity. Mr. Frodo came, naturally bringing more books for him to read when he ran out of chores.

In between visits and snoozes, Goldie changed the compresses and poultices and came into the room every two hours like clockwork to make sure his did his stretches, no matter what she had been in the middle of doing. Sam got used to seeing her stroll through the door, apron covered with blood from butchering some coneys, or grease from cleaning out the oven, or water from doing the laundry for her customers, or food stains from cooking breakfast, luncheon and dinner.

Hamfast came home every night, sore from doing more standing and bending than his old body has comfortable doing, and irritated from having to correct Dandy and Randy all the day long. How two hobbit lads had grown up not being able to tell a carrot from a turnip was beyond his comprehension and he was close to pulling his hair out with frustration.

They were all glad when the first week passed and Sam’s leg improved enough to allow him to begin walking on it again. Miss Willow instructed him to use a cane for the first week and he was forbidden from doing any kind of strenuous activity, which she seemed to think included squatting, bending, climbing, sitting tailor-fashion or even walking faster than a snail’s crawl. Thus limited, Sam discovered that his second week of convalescence was even more annoying than his first, but at least he could go outside and enjoy the sun of the summer.

Mr. Frodo rescued him from complete boredom by inviting him into Bag End, where he was in the process of rearranging all the books in the library by subject and title. It was a project he claimed to have been wanting to complete for a while, but Sam was convinced he only dreamed it up just to give Sam something to do. Never mind that Mr. Frodo would spend the next six months in constant loss as to where to find anything.

The last day of his convalescence, Sam and Hamfast stood outside in the garden at night, smoking their pipes and looking up at the stars.

“How bad is the garden?” Sam asked. He had taken a cursory tour of the upper gardens that morning, but hadn’t been permitted to take the stairs into the lower garden.

“Not so bad,” Hamfast said. “Randy and Dandy are good enough lads, so long as you’re watching their every move. They’ll be on to help us next week, then Miss Willow reckons you’ll be right as rain again.”

“I certainly hope so,” Sam said with zest. He flexed and stretched his left leg experimentally and was pleased to feel only a slight pressure at the last. “I just wish I knew as how I’d done this.”

“By not paying attention, I reckon,” Hamfast said practically. “You’ll be paying more attention from here on out, I hope.”

“Yes sir,” Sam said. “I don’t ever want to be hurt like this again, that’s for sure.”

“Did I ever tell you about the time I pulled my hamstring?” Hamfast asked.

“No, sir, you didn’t,” Sam said.

“That’s a’cause I never did,” Hamfast said, winking at him and laughing with a grunt.

Sam smirked. “I’ll pay more attention, I promise,” he said, sending a smoke ring in his father’s direction.

Marigold came to the front door then and stood there with her hands on her hips. Now that Sam was better, she was back to her cheerful, sweet self.

“You lads need an invitation to help dry the dishes or shall I just leave them in the sink to spot overnight?” she asked hopefully. Her face was in shadow with the light behind her, but Sam knew she was batting her eyes and looking as doleful as possible.

Sam and Hamfast grumbled under their breaths, recognizing a hint when they heard one. They snuffed out their pipes and went inside, all of them grateful that everything was back to normal.

GF 3/29/09