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