Quick Trips

S.R. 21 Solmath, 1389

“Thank you for agreeing to mind Frodo while I’m gone,” Bilbo said as he escorted Dora Baggins into Bag End.  “I promise I’ll be back within two weeks.”

Dora nodded warily.  Bilbo’s trips were never as short as promised.  That was why Bilbo was carrying enough of Dora’s things as would keep her till spring.

Bilbo saw Frodo listening from the foyer. “Come here, my lad,” he gestured.  “I guess I should have told you earlier.”

Frodo followed him silently as he started gathering items to take with him.  Bilbo put the boy’s arms to use carrying the things to his bedroom, where a backpack had already been set out to receive them.

“Gandalf asked me to meet with someone, Frodo.  It is several days’ walk at least, and there are no inns along the way.  It will be adult talk.  You cannot come.”  He knew he needn’t be apologetic, for Frodo had no right to expect to join him, yet he somehow felt that he had betrayed the boy’s trust.

Frodo felt nothing of the sort.  It didn’t surprise him that his uncle had important matters to which to attend.  His imagination awash with dreams, he was actually quite excited for Bilbo.  “I’ll stay out of trouble while you’re gone,” he promised.  It was an easy word to give; Bilbo’s library was full of volumes Frodo hadn’t yet touched.

 “You’re a good lad, Frodo.”  That settled; Bilbo focused his complete attention on packing.  Frodo deferentially padded to the kitchen to prepare lunch.

*

“…You’re to obey your Aunt Dora to the letter of her word,” Bilbo instructed as he headed out the door.  He adjusted his backpack and grasped his walking stick.  “I want to hear no bad reports when I return.”

Frodo agreed to adhere to the rules.  Bilbo huffed inattentively in response, indicating he was ready to depart.  Frodo dashed to hug him tightly.  “Have a safe journey, Uncle.”

“Yes, yes – I will,” Bilbo assured him, a little annoyed at having to make such a production out of this parting.   He turned awkwardly and hurried down the steps to the gate.  Once his feet touched the road, however, he relaxed.  Delighted to have finally escaped the goodbyes, he began to hum his favorite traveling song.  He was again free of family responsibilities.

*

Frodo was awakened that night by the sound of someone talking.  “Now don’t let yourself be confusticated by this,” she was saying.  “It has to be around here somewhere.”

Rising, he opened his door to find his aunt.  “Aunt Dora?” he whispered, wondering why she was wandering the hall in the middle of the night, talking to herself.  Was she walking in her sleep, or could she be getting befuddled like old Missus Myrtle back at Brandy Hall had been?

“Frodo, I’m relieved to see you,” she said, proving she was neither asleep nor befuddled.  “I’m afraid I’ve lost my bearings.  Which way to the bathroom?”

“I’ll take you,” Frodo offered.  He hooked his arm around hers and turned her to his left.  “It's this way.”

“I appreciate this so much, dear boy,” Dora said, squeezing his arm to her side affectionately.  “I’ve never been in this part of Bag End before.  There are more passages than I've ever seen in a single family hole. 

Frodo waited for her and accompanied her back to the guestroom where, according to Bilbo, his own grandmother had stayed whenever she had visited her sister.  Mirabella had apparently commented on how getting to it reminded her of finding her way through Great Smials.

Dora smiled at him as he kissed her cheek and wished her pleasant dreams.  “In the morning, how would you like to go with me to visit the hole where I lived as a child?  It's on the other side of Bywater, near the Three Farthing Stone.”

“Did my father live there?”

“Yes.  We'll have to leave after first breakfast to get there and back before dark.  We'll have to eat on the road.”  She gave him a hug, for which he had to stoop over to receive.  “Mercy, but I don’t believe I’ve ever seen such a tall, slender and fair-skinned young Baggins,” she exclaimed.

“I hear tell that it’s the Fallohide in me that’s responsible.”

Dora certainly had mixed feelings about that.  Stoor, Harfoot and Fallohide blood did not always mix well and often those hobbits who had all three types in them often experienced lower than average birth rates.  ‘But, good gracious, in appearance the bloods blend so extraordinarily,’ she thought as she gazed up at her nephew, ‘and in intellect as well.’  “You are unique and special in all the world,” she told him.  “Never forget that.” 

*

They stopped for second breakfast in an unpretentious looking little restaurant with a unique menu that Aunt Dora said had been where her father, Fosco Baggins, had proposed to her mother, Ruby Bolger.  “It was over a dish of mushroom pie that they were sharing,” Dora told him.  “Mamma said that she wasn’t sure whether her heart was set to floating from the mushrooms or from the proposal, but that she never regretted answering ‘Yes’. 

“Now, did Grandfather Fosco have any siblings?” Frodo asked, enjoying their conversation as much as the fluffy spinach, cheese and egg dish wrapped in a thin pancake and served with a heavy cream glaze that he was eating.  Aunt Dora seemed more relaxed than usual.  Nevertheless, he minded his manners.  “You said that Grandmother Ruby had at least a twin sister, who was Odovacar Bolger’s mother.”

“Yes, Papa had two sisters, Fiona, who was older, and Flora, who was younger.  Both sisters moved to Hardbottle when they married into the Sackville and Bracegirdle families.  We only visited together a handful of times.  Hardbottle’s such a long way from here.”

Frodo couldn’t help the stray thought that he wished Hardbottle had been further away, because then maybe the Sackville-Bagginses wouldn’t have come to live in Hobbiton, but he didn’t voice it.

“Ah now, yes, there’s the milestone, still as I remember it,” Dora said smiling.  “We turn right at the next lane.  Oh, I wonder if that old stone owl that I carved is still sitting by the door.  It was far too heavy to bother taking it with us when we moved.”

“Did my father share your interest in art?”

“Fleetingly, I suppose, when he was very young... before he grew contemplative.  As he got older he became far more interested in tinkering.  Of course by then Mamma had steered me into needlework, sewing and other crafts.  She said the neighbor ladies had told her they thought craftwork was more lady-like than chiseling stone and getting all dusty.”

“I think it’s mean for people to criticize like that,”  Frodo said.  “Your craftwork is lovely, Aunt Dora, please don’t think I’m suggesting otherwise, but that’s because you clearly have artistic ability.  Had someone given you encouragement, just think what you might have been able to do with it.  People are always making judgments about my interests, too, as if there’s something wrong with me for having them." 

“It’s extremely important to conform to society, Frodo.  Ahh, here’s the lane.  We have to go about two miles down this to reach our hole.  My father built our hole for us when I was but eight, and he had my mother and me help him do so.  I brought in the tiles for the entryway from the pile that had been delivered outdoors.  Mamma coated their undersides with glue so Papa could place them.  Mamma held the floorboards while I handed him the nails to pound.  She and I sanded the cupboards for him to varnish.  Mamma never complained about getting dirty or wearing breeches, so I thought nothing of it, either.”

Frodo couldn't quite picture his Aunt in breeches and, before he could stop himself, he said so.  He quickly apologized.

“You’re excused,” Dora acknowledged.  “Back then our nearest neighbors had a boy my age and for a year or two he was my primary playmate.  I did all of the things that he did.  Of course I did always greatly enjoy getting all prettied up and going off to visit other hobbits or go to town, but I remember that time in my childhood with great fondness. 

“When I got old enough to wander about and make new friends, my parents made for certain that they were girls.  They said I needed role models of my own gender, or something to that effect.  The mothers of my new friends were quick to correct me when I was not altogether lady-like.  At first I resented it dreadfully, but Papa kept repeating that I was a Baggins and should act like a Baggins, which meant proper and lady-like.

“When I was a tween, and all of my girlfriends were beginning to be courted, one of my friends’ suitors tried to match me up with his friend for a big picnic.  He almost managed, too, but all of that lad’s friends told him that he couldn’t take me because I was smarter than he was.  I never once got a date when I was in my tweens.  Not that I minded, particularly, because I never met a fellow I particularly wanted to date.

“After I came of age I took a position as a schoolteacher on the other side of The Water, teaching art.  That was when I carved the owl I was telling you about.  But Papa disapproved of my having employment.  As I said, he was determined that I become the most cultured, lady-like hobbitess there ever was.  After all, I was a Baggins.  And so I quit teaching.”

“That’s so sad, Aunt Dora,” Frodo exclaimed, “and it makes me furious.  You had to turn your back on your true self.  It wasn’t a’tall fair!”

“You’re right, my lad,” Dora said.  “But nothing in life is fair unless you make an effort to make it thus.  Now, let me take a good look at the lady who’s approaching.  She appears to be of an age that she may be someone I know.”

Frodo knew better than to either agree or disagree with that.  But he was delighted when it turned out that the lady was none other than the wife of his father’s best childhood friend who now lived in the Baggins’ old hole, stone owl and all. 

*

Bilbo was thankful that the temperatures were temperate.  It had been a most pleasant walk and he had made the first half of the journey in record time.  Having been to these Far Downs before, he knew of a comfortable cave in which to overnight.  His meal that evening of apples cooked with smoked pork and accompanied by cheese, stout ale and bread was substantial even for a hobbit.  Placing his pack behind his back, he pulled out his pipe and settled back in agreeable solitude. 

The stars were bright that evening; the crackle of the fire comforting.  “Now this is more like it,” he chuckled.  “Not a care in the world.”

He watched a rangy figure walking down the road, leading a horse.  The pace was neither lazy nor urgent.  “I wonder if that is that Estel of which Gandalf spoke,” Bilbo speculated aloud.  He rather hoped it was.  Men did not belong in the Shire and Gandalf had warned him that other kinds of men were venturing near.

“Hullo, sir,” he bid the approacher.  “Tell me your business.”

The man came to a halt and obliged with the tiniest of smirks discernable through his stubble.  “I am on my way to the western inlet.  I must say that I had rather hoped this cave would be vacant this night.”

“If you are who I think you are you may not have to go any further, tonight or in the morning.”

“You must be Bilbo, then,” the man answered with a smile.  “So I had guessed when I first spotted your fire.  I am called Estel.”

“Well then, we are well met.  We can talk here as well as at the Havens.  Come, have a seat and fix yourself your dinner.  I’ve already partaken in mine.”

Estel removed the bridle and saddle from his horse before joining Bilbo.  He produced a fresh caught pheasant and proceeded to roast it.  Bilbo readily accepted his offer to join him in his meal.  In exchange, the ranger accepted ale and pipeweed.  “We are indeed well met, my friend,” he smiled as he propped his long legs upon a log and lit his pipe.

The sun began to set as Estel disclosed the results of his surveillance over the past few months.  Bilbo was relieved to learn that there was no cause for alarm coming from the north.  At present, the encroachers appeared disinterested in the tilled lands of the Shire.

“Open land is not their style,” Estel confirmed.  “They are not inclined to eat a farmer’s produce.  For now they seem to seek the wild goats of the highlands.  As long as the winter remains mild they should keep their distance.” 

“Good, good,” Bilbo sighed, for all reliable signs to date pointed at a clement season.  They then turned to pleasanter subjects.  Bilbo found that he quite liked the ranger.  Estel’s rugged physical appearance disguised great astuteness and an entertaining wit not unlike his own.  In fact, they soon had had invented several uproarious new stanzas for old tunes familiar to both.

Estel was surprised to find that he greatly enjoyed Bilbo, too.  Aloof to many, the ranger relished a good conversation.  Gandalf’s description of Bilbo had perfectly captured the hobbit’s matchless persona and inimitable world view.  Estel decided he would have to find many more opportunities to engage Bilbo in discussion. 

* 

“Do you ever find yourself wanting to give up the wanderer’s life, Estel?”  Bilbo asked after their songs and tales and honest discourse.

The Dunedain smiled.  “I have times when I rest in comfort.” 

“For long?”

“For long enough.  I become restless if I tarry too long – even in houses as fair as in Rivendell.”

“Then you would find it tedious living in the Shire, no doubt,” Bilbo deduced.  “As do I when I am home too long.”

“We are alike in ways, Bilbo Baggins.”

Regretfully, Bilbo doubted the extent of that similarity.  “I have a wonderful house where I like to spend more time than not and when I don’t have that near, I elect an inn.  I would not be sleeping out on a cold winter’s night if I could help it.”

“Although you have slept under the stars more than once, so Gandalf tells me.”  

“Indeed, but it is generally only by necessity,” Bilbo admitted with some melancholy.  “I am accustomed to comfort and desire to schedule my adventures these days, although I long for my next excursion.”  He thought about his current entanglement with Frodo.  It was tolerable during the cold winter months when he would be stuck at home by choice anyway, but he could tell that he was already very much looking forward to returning the boy to Brandy Hall in the spring thus re-enabling his freedom to stroll off at will.

On the other hand he sensed that he would miss the lad’s presence.  Bag End had been quite lively these last few months.  Bilbo wasn’t sure that he would entirely relish long periods of solitude again.  “Do you ever wish for companionship, Estel?”

The ranger stood up and strode to the cave entrance, stretching his long legs.  “There are times that I am sorely tempted to settle down, too, to build a home and family.”  He gazed off for a time, as the first evening star appeared in the darkening sky, lost in his own thoughts.  Bilbo stood up and joined him, keeping the blanket tightly wrapped around him.  Estel looked down at him and smiled.  “It is not an easy choice to make is it, my friend, between exploration and domesticity?”

“If only it were possible to settle down but partway,” Bilbo sighed.

“Indeed,” the ranger agreed.  Silence inserted its deep breath.  The hobbit realized it was time to take his leave.

*

TBC