And Lengthier Ones

S.R. 1 Rethe, 1389

The winter chill lifted from Hobbiton early, before the first of March.  As the streams began to rush across their rocks once more, and the first flowers to push through their thawing coverlets, Bilbo began to chart out some short walks.  At the fastest hobbit’s foot pace the Shire was twelve days’ wide by seventeen long, so it was not possible to cover it all in the time available before Frodo was due back at Brandy Hall.  Bilbo selected a southerly route for their first trip, seeing that the air was not yet as warm as the sun hinted it to be. 

Early one sunny morning, he awakened Frodo with a walking stick that he had whittled himself.  “You’ll grow into it, lad,” he promised.  “It will see the very corners of the Shire before you have reached your coming of age, if I am not mistaken, and I and mine will guide you through much of it, starting this very day.”  Frodo would have needed no such aid, for his heart moved his feet with a lightness worthy of elves, but he nevertheless clutched the stick with the steadfast force of pure delight in having so meaningful a gift.

The two set forth with knapsacks brimming with edibles enough for the entire day, this time side-by-side and at matched paces.   Bilbo began to explain his view of travel – that there was really only one Road; that it was like a great river, its springs at every doorstep and every path its tributary.  “It’s a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step into the Road, and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.” ⁽¹⁾ Frodo’s mind was already on all the places the Road might sweep his feet.  He was on his way – going on an adventure with his Uncle Bilbo – and that was all that mattered to him.

Their path was southeast from Hobbiton, into country that was level and strewn with farms.  Having come from the rocky hillocks betwixt the River Brandywine and the Old Forest, Frodo had never seen such expansive farming and marveled as he perched with Bilbo upon a stone wall and watched the huge oxen tilling the fields for planting while he listened to his uncle explain the crops common to the Shire.  Curious about the many lambs and kids suckling their mothers in one pasture, he ventured too close and received a number of warning butts as he dashed back to the safety of the lane.  His uncle laughed gleefully at the hilarity of it, knowing that the docile animals would do Frodo no serious harm.   He was impressed by how quickly the lad could run.

As they walked home, the older hobbit told the younger about the ancient debate between dwarves and elves over what is fairest in all the world.  “What do you think is fairest, Uncle?”  Frodo asked. 

“The front door as I return from my travels,” Bilbo answered honestly, tousling Frodo’s hair and clasping his shoulder.  Yet even as he looked into the eyes of his happy young charge to speak the words, he became conscious that at that moment he was witnessing something truly fair.

The ground was still quite sodden from the melting snow, and they returned that night with feet caked with mud.  Bilbo filled a basin with warm water and succumbed to bathing Frodo’s feet himself as Frodo swayed on the bench in front of Bag End, unable to sit upright any longer, preserving what little energy he had left in him for yawns.  Bilbo was relieved that the youngster had finally worn down, for Frodo had acted all day as if he had had a spring tightly wound inside him. 

Gazing over at the round green door, Bilbo Baggins chuckled at the insight that ever since his trip to the Lonely Mountain, he could stand to endure such fairness only in small doses.  He himself yawned.

*

“Well now, sleepyhead,” Bilbo prodded cheerfully the very next morning, more with his voice than his stick.  “I’ve been wondering if you were going to sleep through ‘till summer.  It’s warm enough today for a trip north, I think.  There is a waterfall walk I think you’ll enjoy – with some quaint inns in prime locations along the way.”

“Waterfalls?” Frodo asked enthusiastically.  He had seen a few in his life, mostly near mills, and loved the sound of the rushing water.

“Yes, eight beauties in some of the most superb scenery I’ve seen throughout all my travels and it’s all right here in the Shire.  It will take a good week to make the rounds…

The two did not talk that much on the trail, for pristine nature is best experienced without words.  The spring bird songs, accompanied by squirrel chatters and other assorted sounds, filled their ears to satisfaction.  Upon occasion, Bilbo would point out a feature he thought should not be missed, such as a small frog the color of the mud, or a nest being built in a tree, and Frodo did things like squatting down on his haunches to have a one-sided discussion on the weather with a little hedgehog.  It was all about sharing the experience together.

Bilbo valued it deeply.  He thought of the Dunedain once more and how they had discussed the ranger’s life in seclusion.  “For how many years have you wandered the wilds?” Bilbo had asked. 

“It has been roughly forty since I have dwelled anywhere longer than a few days,” had been the answer.

“Is there anyone who looks forward to your visits?  A lady to welcome you?  Children eager to hear your stories when you come?”

Estel had shaken his head.  “My life does not permit relationships, and I’ve very little patience for children.”

“You should come to Hobbiton sometime,” Bilbo had offered.  “Even Gandalf finds comfort in my hole.  You could stay in his room.”  He had been able to see in the ranger’s eyes that the offer did not appeal.  He had sighed; saddened that the Dunedain knew not what it was like to have someone important in one’s life. 

He realized now how close he had come to not knowing it himself.

*

They reached the first waterfall, a thin flow dropping nearly 30 feet into a clear pool.  Bilbo guided Frodo carefully to the ledge behind it where they were able to reach their hands out into the water.  The feel of the water splashing on his palm delighted Frodo.  They sat on a rock – their feet in the cold water – and ate their lunch.  The path then led them up above the waterfall and along a little stream to the originating spring.

They climbed to the top of The Hill and encountered the second waterfall on the way down the north side.  This one was half as tall and twice as wide as the first.  A huge moss-covered tree had fallen over, redirecting the water around it as it leaned against the outcrop.  They followed the stream down to the town of Overhill and the rustic inn of their first stop, with Bilbo pointing out all of the wildflowers growing in the moist undergrowth on their way.

After breakfast the next morning they started across the fields to the North Farthing, their destination being the Bindbole Wood.  The terrain was flat and smooth and being prepared for the first plantings of summer barley.  Bilbo knew each of the farmers whose paths they crossed by name, for he had crossed their lands many times before.  “…and this is my nephew, Frodo Baggins,” he would always introduce.  “You will no doubt see a lot of him over the years, for I’m teaching him the pleasures of strolling the countryside.”  They were invited to stop for second breakfast, elevenses, lunch and afternoon tea.  Bilbo was generous with praise for each meal and he always left a few coins with their hosts.

They stopped for the day at a comely little hole at the southern tip of the wood.  It was not an inn, but the home of a close relation of Bilbo’s who did not tie back to Frodo’s line at all.  Violet Chubb was her name, and she was nearly Bilbo’s age, although he now looked substantially younger than she did.  Her husband had passed on, and her children were grown and married and raising families in other parts of the Shire, so she was overjoyed at seeing Bilbo come up her infrequently trodden walk.  “Bless you, Bilbo, taking on a child in need,” she said as she was introduced to Frodo, “but then yours was always the most kindhearted of souls.”

“No one these days knows it but you, my dearest Violet,” Bilbo answered, taking her hand in his and raising it to his lips.  Frodo caught the atypical gentleness in his uncle’s voice and comprehended that this lady had a connection to Bilbo that went beyond kinship.  The insight flabbergasted the boy, for it completely changed his image of his uncle, who most viewed as irascible.  He suddenly felt awkward being there with them, as if he was an intruder on an intimacy.

While Violet appeared to have very little interest in Frodo himself, she asked no end of questions concerning how Bilbo had happened to take him 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?” Violet 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, as a polite hobbit child, 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.  “You can’t turn your back to him when they are on the table.”

“Do the blacks of your eyes grow large when you eat them?”  Violet asked, the very first time she had addressed Frodo directly.

Frodo nodded.  “And I get all light-headed.  I had always assumed that everyone felt that way after eating them, but apparently not.”

“He starts to bump into things if he eats too many,” Bilbo described to Violet.  “It’s the strangest thing I’ve ever seen.”

“Are you part Bolger, by any chance?” Violet asked Frodo, who answered that he wasn’t aware of all of his relations. 

“His fraternal grandmother was a Bolger,” Bilbo confirmed.

“That would be where he gets it, then,” Violet concluded.  “They are known for their weakness towards mushrooms, just as my late husband’s family is sensitive to pipeweed.”

Intrigued, Frodo 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 them, he 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.  Suspecting a link he vowed to himself to limit his mushrooming from now on.

*

Violet accompanied them on the next day’s walk through Brinbole.  The well-tended, although by no means level, path through the woods was thickly graced with blooming laurel and rhododendron juxtaposed alongside a rocky stream noisily brimming with winter’s thaw.  Tiny minnows teemed within the waters, luring all sorts of wildlife to the banks.  The three waterfalls they visited along the way were mesmerizing in their variegated beauty, none lovelier than the others.  It was the last of the three that got the better of Frodo.  As he stepped on an old log to get a better view, a swarm of bees emerged from their nest in the log’s rotten center, extremely annoyed at the trespasser.  Violet escaped without a sting, but Bilbo’s rough hide succumbed to several as he braved the buzzing cloud to pull the focal point of their attack from their midst.  Frodo was quite covered with stings.

It was a long walk back to Violet’s hole, but fortunately the bee venom did little harm in either Baggins’ bloodstream.  True to form, Bilbo’s skin barely reacted while Frodo’s skin became red and swollen in the vicinities of the stings and sore to the touch… but at least it was nothing life-threatening.  The boy’s stings tormented him, first with pain and then with itchiness, and the adults had their hands full just keeping him from scratching them open as they walked.

“It’s a good thing you bite your nails so dreadfully,” Violet ribbed the boy about his severe onychophagia as she dissolved some salts in a tub of hot water when they got home.  “You can’t do much damage with those vestiges – so stop trying!” 

Frodo soaked for nearly an hour as the salts began to draw out the poison before being painted head to foot with a smelly bright pink salve of Violet’s making that would complete the extraction.  “Aren’t you the sight?” Bilbo exclaimed with glee as he finished coating the lad.  Frodo actually stuck out his tongue at him in response.

“Do you let him get away with that kind of behavior?”

“Oh, Violet he’s not hurting anything by it,” Bilbo answered, laughing.  “He really is well behaved most of the time.”

“I beg your pardon, Missus Chubb, Uncle,” Frodo added dutifully in spite of not feeling in the least bit remorseful for his action.  “It was impolite of me.” 

Violet shook her head.  “You two boys deserve each other.”

On account of their numerous stings, the two Bagginses remained at Violet Chubb’s residence an extra day.  Frodo continued to itch something awful, but he could tell that his uncle thoroughly enjoyed the opportunity to spend another day in Violet’s company.  In fact, Frodo was left behind in the hole for several hours while the two adults packed a picnic lunch and ventured off hand-in-hand into the woods without him.

*

The weather afforded them only one other hike before the spring officially arrived.  On that multiple-day trip they headed west, where the land rolled softly.  Bilbo knew of a high spot called the Tower Hills, from which one could make out the Gulf of Lhun in the distance.  They made camp in the center of a dense bramble thicket where the rise increased suddenly in order that they could get an early start the next morning, when they would be presented with a steep climb and the walking sticks would come to good use.  Indeed, in the morning Frodo displayed a knack for scrambling up the ravines in the final rock face and barely showed the effort.  Bilbo, on the other hand, was out of breath by the time they had reached the top.

Their climb was only half over, for on the top of the hill stood the remains of a tall elf-tower of immemorial age.  Its observation deck still had a covering of snow and there was a strong wind blowing, but the sky was cloudless and the visibility unspoiled.  The hobbits stood together, shivering, peering across the vastness to where the dark blue-grey of water met the not yet green edge of earth and beyond to where the sky took over.

“Gandalf says there are lands across the water,” Frodo stated with some disbelief.  “Why can we not see them?”

“The Undying Lands?”  Bilbo asked.  “He told you about those, did he?”

“He said he came from there long ago,” Frodo answered with a nod.

The older hobbit looked about for a place to sit, but there was nowhere dry.  “Perhaps they are invisible to the mortal eye,” he speculated, uncertain himself of the answer.  “Or perhaps we simply cannot see that far.”

“We can see to where the sky begins,” Frodo challenged.  “There is nothing between the sky and water out there.”

His uncle explained as best he could of what he had heard from elves and Gandalf about the horizon.  It didn’t make complete sense to him, and he made a very poor instructor of it.  Frodo simply looked at him with skepticism.  It was easier to accept the idea of invisibility than it was the idea of roundness.  He spun around and stared off in the opposite direction, looking for a sign of the mountains Bilbo had talked about to the east.

“The land does seem to curve a bit, Uncle,” he conceded as he returned his gaze to the west.  “It is almost like we are standing on top of a big ball.”

Bilbo was thankful he didn’t need to further his explanation.  He had taken the topic as far as he could.  Unfortunately, Frodo was still mulling it over in his mind.  “But it cannot be a ball because then …”

“I’ve told you all I know, Frodo.”

“But that doesn’t explain why …”

“Remember your questions for the next time we see Gandalf,” Bilbo suggested, more sternly than he would have liked, for he was a bit flustered that Frodo had asked him something not quite within his mental grasp. 

“Do you think Gandalf was young when he came across the water?”  Frodo asked, changing the subject suddenly.  “Or do you think he was always old?”

“I’ve never thought about it,” Bilbo laughed.  “I can’t imagine him any way other than the way he is.”

A sudden gust knocked them both to the stone.  As Frodo lent his uncle a hand in rising, he kept talking.  “Maybe he’s like the elves, only just the opposite.  They never get any older and he never gets any younger.”

Bilbo wondered about what it would be like to never know youth.  To him it was far more inconceivable than the notion that the world could be curved.

When they returned to their camp that evening, Frodo was still talking about Gandalf and what he had told him about the Undying Lands.  Some of it was even new to Bilbo, who had of course known that Gandalf was but one of a group of wizards but had been unaware that they were collectively called the Istari and that they had been purposely sent to Middle Earth at the dawn of the Third Age to keep an eye on everything.  Intrigued, Bilbo let Frodo go on and on about Gandalf’s first meeting with a hobbit, long before the Shire had been settled.  He was delighted to hear that his wizened friend claimed to be far less serious now than he once was and that the change was due entirely to the halfling appreciation of the humor in life.

Bilbo was first to become drowsy before the crackling fire and his chin dropped to his chest in the midst of one of Frodo’s sentences.  The boy shushed immediately and quietly circled around the fire to tuck his uncle lovingly into his woolen bedsack under the brush.   Crawling into his own blankets, little Frodo Baggins rolled onto his back and contentedly studied the stars through the bare branches until sleep caught up with him as well.

*

TBC