Great Smials

S.R. 1 Astron 1389   

“You’re part Took, aren’t you?”  Bilbo asked as he closed the door.  It was a rhetorical question for which he knew the answer, yet he asked it anyway.

Frodo looked up from his book.  “Yes, my grandmother Mirabella Brandybuck was a daughter of the Old Took.”

“Excellent,” Bilbo answered.  “That messenger just invited me to a celebration at Great Smials.  One of the granddaughters of Isembold Took is getting married to a Goldworthy next week.  Let’s see, Isembold was one of Mirabella’s older brothers, so that would make the bride your second cousin.   I deem that ample reason to bring you along, and then you can return to Brandy Hall with Saradoc and Esmeralda Brandybuck.  I’m sure they’ll be there.  Esmeralda is a Took.”

“Are all the relations invited?” Frodo asked.  While he was very interested in seeing Great Smial, and meeting a whole new set of cousins, he was rather disappointed that his uncle saw this wedding as a perfectly timed solution for sending him back to Uncle Rory.

“If they sent a messenger all the way to Bag End to invite me, a cousin of the bride’s mother, then I am sure all the relations will be invited, wherever they are in the Shire.”

"Wait a minute,” Frodo said upon reflection.  “You’re my cousin on the Took side, too?”

“I’m actually a closer cousin to you on the Took side than on the Baggins side,” Bilbo answered.  That’s another reason that I have every right to intrude on your upbringing. 

“Do you keep in touch with the Tooks, Uncle Bilbo?”

“I haven’t been to Great Smials myself in nearly 20 years,” Bilbo answered.  “I spent a lot of time there as a youth while my mother was still alive, but Tookbank and Tuckborough are not conveniently on the way to anywhere from Bag End, so I’m never able to come up with a good excuse to drop by.”  He said that with remorse; the Tooks were the wealthiest of all hobbit families and Great Smials was an extravagance not to be missed.   He smiled.  “Wait until you see it, Frodo.  The holes there make Bag End look small and unadorned.  If the Sackville-Baggins had any claim to Tookdom you can rest assured they’d take no interest in our affairs.”

A Took wedding meant a trip to the tailor’s for the most elegant of togs.  Frodo had never seen such designs as were being drawn – the suit-coats were to have tails.  They would each have a fancy striped piece of cloth tied around the neck and to top it off, a tall hat.  “Do they really wear these things, Uncle?” Frodo asked skeptically.  He was relieved to hear that he would only need to be so dressed for the ceremony.  The rest of his stay he could be comfortable in familiar garb.

*

“Esmeralda’s not once mentioned him,” Hyacinth Took, the bride’s mother, gossiped to a group of Took ladies at tea shortly after the Bagginses arrived, “yet Bilbo alleges that the boy’s a grandson of Mirabella Took.”

“Now what makes you think Bilbo would lie about such a thing?” one of the ladies asked. 

“He didn’t say why the boy came with him and not with his parents,” Hyacinth answered.  “I don’t like the idea of such a young boy being entrusted to a character the likes of Bilbo Baggins.  There’s something we haven’t been told.”

“Is Esmeralda coming?  We can find out from her what she knows of him.”

“Well, he certainly has the Took nose,” observed another of the ladies. 

“He’s a cute little fellow with those big blue eyes,” someone else commented.  “What did you say his name is, Hyacinth?”

“Frodo Baggins.  Bilbo said that he was the son of his cousin, Drogo Baggins and his wife, Primula Brandybuck.  I remember hearing about that wedding.  It was rumored that Mirabella and Gorbadoc didn’t approve the match,” Hyacinth answered.  “Maybe that’s why we’ve not heard of the boy.  Maybe he’s a black sheep.  He certainly has the black hair for it.  I believe there is a wee bit of Stoor in the Baggins line.”

“That would account for his build,” the first guest assessed.   “He’ll probably not be quite as tall as most Fallohides, but he may wind up more muscular.  I can see it in his chest already – it’s broader than is typical in a Took.  He’ll make a nice looking hobbit when he grows up, I’ll wager.”  Everyone giggled.

“I wonder what Bilbo’s interest in him is?” Hyacinth wondered.  “I can’t picture him being responsible for a child, being a black sheep himself since that adventure of his.

The first guest shook her head.  “It’s not like he’s the only hobbit that the wizard has sent off for an excursion.  There’s been many a Took who’s taken a trip and come back normal, gotten married and raised a family.”

“When they come back at all, you mean,” Hyacinth said.  “We’ve seen neither sight nor sound of more than a few.  Why, two of my great uncles were spirited away.  Hildifons went off west on a journey and never returned, and Isengar went to sea and hasn’t been heard of since.  That was the last any of us in Tookbank or Tuckborough trusted that old Gandalf.”

“So he went after Bilbo off in quiet little Hobbiton and the poor hobbit came back completely changed,” another said, sympathetically.

“And now he seems apt to influence impressionable youngsters himself,” Hyacinth concluded, her stand well justified. “Primula should keep a better eye on Frodo.  I can hardly wait until they get here so we can find out what is going on.”

Esmeralda Brandybuck arrived a few hours later.  She filled them in on young Frodo Baggins all right, from his incessant daydreaming to his penchant for thievery.  “But he’s really just a sweet child who’s been through a great deal of trauma after his parents’ deaths.  He latched onto Bilbo the moment they met, and Bilbo was good enough to give him some of the attention he’s been lacking.  I hate to take Frodo back to Brandy Hall just as he's blossoming into a gentlehobbit.  Perhaps we can convince Bilbo to keep him.”

*

Frodo was glad to shed the wedding clothes.  “Can’t I go with you tomorrow, Uncle Bilbo?” he begged as he pulled on his nightshirt. 

Bilbo smiled as he picked up and carefully folded the abandoned clothing and put them in the storage box.  “Now, Frodo, I’ve already convinced everyone that you should have the chance to experience Great Smials and get to know this side of your family – and they you.  Saradoc says he promised Esmeralda at least a month’s stay here, and they say little Merry will be delighted to have you returning with them.  You’ll make friends, I saw lots of children your age at the wedding.”

Frodo frowned in doubt of that.  “I will see you again, won’t I?” he asked.  His voice betrayed the fear that he wouldn’t.

“I’ll find you at Brandy Hall, my boy,” his uncle said gently.  “Now come, we’ve another several hours of mingling to do.”

Frodo followed Bilbo into the banquet room and looked around for a friendly face.  Saradoc Brandybuck spotted them, and swiftly got up and pulled a couple of chairs over beside his family’s, where he quickly introduced Esmeralda’s brother, Paladin Took, and his family.  “They’re telling tales of the Old Took,” Paladin said through a whisper.  “There aren’t any of Gerontius Took’s children left to tell the firsthand accounts, but the oral traditions are keen.” 

“All right,” the Thain was saying.  “The tale of our learning what ‘Great Smials’ means. This particular event happened when my father was a tween.  The Old Took, Gerontius, had frequently had an old wizard, Gandalf, as a houseguest in those days.”  He looked over at Bilbo when he said that.  “Most of us have never met the old wizard, but I’m sure Bilbo here can substantiate the legend that Gandalf talks in ways that will bamboozle even the brightest mind.   Anyway, the Old Took prided himself on never having once been caught off guard by the wizard.  Dad said he didn’t think Gerontius would have ever let Gandalf past the front gate if it weren’t for that, because Gandalf had a bad reputation for showing up for dinner unexpectedly and leaving in the morning with a Took by his side.  So Gandalf arrived one night with a cartload of what he called fireworks.  He had them in all sorts of shapes and sizes.  He told Gerontius that he could have the whole lot if he could tell him what ‘Smials’ meant.  Well, Gerontius knew our ancestors had built this estate as an elaborate collection of interconnected family holes, so he explained that it surely meant ‘labyrinth.’  That old wizard proceeded to tell us that it was an old mannish word for ‘ant hill.’  Gerontius was so incensed by what he called slander that he stayed up all night combing the library for evidence that he was right.  The next morning the Old Took comes up to breakfast with Isengrim’s original drawings and shows us all with great humility that across the top it read ‘wife thinks it looks like an ant colony’ and goes outside and puts it on top of all the fireworks and sets a match to it to show the wizard what he thought of it.  Well, fireworks explode when fire hits them and you are supposed to set them off in a controlled manner, one at a time, to appreciate their differences.  But this time they all went off at once.  My Dad said they are a sight – colored lights fizzing every which way in the sky.”

“You’ve seen fireworks since, haven’t you?”  Bilbo asked.  “Shown properly?”

“No,” the Thain answered wistfully.  “The Old Took wouldn’t let Gandalf come to Great Smials after that.  That was because Hildifons went off with him that morning and never returned.” 

The whole of the crowd turned to Bilbo, for they all knew he had traveled with the wizard.  “I can’t deny that Gandalf’s adventures are risky,” he responded, “but I’ve enjoyed going on them.”

*

“I’ve arranged for you to take lessons while you’re here,” Bilbo told Frodo the next morning as he was hitching up pony to wagon.  “Now don’t go snooping around the catacombs without someone who knows the tunnels well.  I know from experience how easy it is to get lost in this place.  Not all passages lead to exits.”  He gave Frodo a parting hug and pried himself loose of the boy’s unyielding grasp.  “Have fun,” he called as he pulled out.

Frodo kicked a stone as he made his way to the dining halls.  His stomach ached, more from nerves than from hunger.  Tookland was hilly and lush and the boy was tugged by a yearning to take off across the knolls and live amongst the wild things.  He would have succumbed to it, too, had a stiff cold wind not been blowing through his curls, encouraging him to seek the warmth of a comfy hole.

Not that Great Smials was a comfy hole by his account.  It was massive and gilded and elegant, a place of formalities to which he was unaccustomed.  Uncle Bilbo had advised him to bow to everyone and speak to no one – unless he was asked a question, in which case he was to make his response concise and courteous and deliver it with a bow.

There were as many Tooks in Great Smials as there were Brandybucks in Brandy Hall, but it didn’t feel that way.  Conversations were not heard in the corridors.  Unlike at Brandy Hall where families ate together, there were actually eight adjoining dining rooms.  The sexes were divided, with the males to the left and the females to the right of center.  Very young children like Merry ate with their parents in the two back rooms, older children and tweens in the middle back, young adults without very young children in the middle front, and elders in the front.  The amounts and varieties of the entrees varied by age.

Frodo made his way to the proper section and bowed to the steward, who took him to his seat.  A plate was set before him with a piece of cheese on a slice of soda bread and apple slices.  It would have seemed insufficient had his stomach already decided for him that he was not hungry.  Keeping his head bowed, he let his eyes scan the room.  His glance touched on a lad who looked to be about the same age that he was.  The boy’s hair was a light sandy shade along the lines of Merry’s and his eyes were the same green.  Shape-wise he had the Fallohide slenderness and height to him.  Frodo quickly refocused his gaze onto his water glass and carefully took a few sips before hazarding another look.  The tween happened to look up at the same moment and winked.   Frodo had made a friend.

He finished his meal and set down his utensils in the way that his Uncle Bilbo had instructed – the knife across the center from lower right to upper left with the sharp edge inward, and the fork crossing likewise from lower left to upper right with the prongs down.  He folded his napkin neatly – something he had never done in his life before coming here – and placed it to the left of the plate and then sat quietly with his hands folded neatly in his lap.  When the steward removed his plate and moved his chair back from the table for him he nodded politely and walked calmly out of the dining area, where he took his first full breath since he had entered Great Smials.

As his Uncle Bilbo had directed him, he stayed in the hallway for Saradoc to come for him.  The tween with whom he had exchanged glances came up to him and shook his hand.  “You’re Frodo Baggins, aren’t you?” he asked.  “I’m Reginard Took.  I’ve been asked by the Brandybucks to show you around while they’re visiting with Esmeralda’s family.”

Reginard was a good tour guide, and Frodo began to feel sure of the landmarks he was being shown.   After about an  hour, with no sign of second breakfast, they turned a corner and started down a particularly winding corridor.   “The headmaster will interview you now to determine which class you will be joining while you are here,” Reginard explained.  

Frodo gulped.

*

“So, Master Baggins, since you will be attending lessons for only a brief time I need to assess your skill level so that I can place you efficiently,” Headmaster Tumkin said, looking at Frodo critically.  “Now, have you had any instruction in the past?”

“I’ve had one winter of tutorial, sir,” he answered.  “I can sound out almost anything written in the common tongue, although I do not have the vocabulary to understand everything I read. I’ve learned a little of the history of the Shire.  I know my numbers and can do addition and subtraction, although Uncle Bilbo says I simply must remember my subtraction facts better.  I can read a bit of elvish.”  He realized the moment he said it that he should have kept that to himself.  From Tumkin’s reaction he could tell that elvish was appreciated as much here as it was everywhere else in the Shire – which meant not at all.

“We’ve no need for rubbish here at Great Smials,” Tumkin said.  “Have you learned any multiplication?”

“Only as far as ten times ten,” Frodo admitted reluctantly, “and division likewise.  Uncle Bilbo says that I’m still a little young to be learning anything more.”

“How old are you?”

“Twenty and a half, sir.”  He needn’t have been ashamed with his accomplishment.  Mathematics did not come easily to hobbit brains and it was rare for any hobbit younger than twenty to be able to comprehend even simple multiplication, so he was actually right where he should be.  Of course Frodo didn’t know that.  He only knew that there was more to learn and that his uncle did not think he was ready for it – and that embarrassed him.

Tumkin made a note of all he had said so far without conveying to Frodo any sign of whether he was impressed by or disappointed in the lad’s stage of development.  He motioned to Frodo to sit by the light and handed him a book which he had opened to a page near the middle.  “Start reading aloud.”

Frodo read for nearly an hour, stopping as instructed to answer comprehension questions that the headmaster threw at him.  It was a very basic primer and the stories were not at all interesting, but the vocabulary and sentence structure got progressively harder with each page.  As the words became increasingly unfamiliar Frodo hoped that he was not fooling the headmaster into thinking he knew what the words meant; yet he kept being instructed to continue on.

“That’s enough,” Tumkin finally said, grabbing the book away.  He jotted down a few more notes as he stood up.  Frodo did so, too, and followed him to the door.

“You will go to Mr. Ferdinand Took’s classroom this afternoon after lunch, Master Baggins.  Now go outside and get some exercise and fresh air to wake up that sluggish brain of yours,” the headmaster advised.

‘Sluggish brain,’ Frodo thought miserably as he headed toward the outdoors, wiping tears from his cheeks.  It had come as a complete surprise to hear that.  From Bilbo’s – and Gandalf’s – responses to his learning he had all but assumed that he was a rather bright hobbit.  It came as a rude revelation to discover that he was not as clever as he had thought himself to be.

“Well?” Reginard asked as he joined up with Frodo in the glorious spring sunshine.  “Where is he putting you?”

“Mr. Ferdinand Took’s class,” Frodo answered.

“Hmmm,” Reginard reacted, looking surprised.  “You’ll be in with me.  Let me see if I can find Mr. Ferdinand and introduce you.  Wait here.”

Frodo’s waiting was not in place.  He had run across the field and back several times and was balancing atop the stone wall along the road when Reginard returned with a proper looking hobbit. 

“You are younger than most of the others in the class, Frodo,” Ferdinand Took said.  “Same as Reginard, so I’m going to be expecting a lot from you.”

“The headmaster said I was sluggish,” Frodo said, surprised to find he was going to be in a class of slightly older children.

“That doesn’t surprise me,” Ferdinand Took said with a hint of humor.  “When he says that he means he thinks you are lazy and not achieving your potential.  You are being put in a gifted class for tweens, actually.”

Frodo hoped that he hadn’t fooled Tumkin into thinking he was brighter than he was.

A bell rang to tell them it was lunchtime.  Frodo didn’t really want to go back to the dining hall with all of its formalities and so he asked Reginard if it would be all right if he stayed outside until class time. 

“I doubt that anyone would notice your absence,” Reginard answered, looking at Frodo as if he were out of his mind to want to skip a meal.  He gave him directions for getting to the classroom and then headed indoors.  “You’ll hear a bell about ten minutes before class begins.  Don’t be late!”

Frodo took full advantage of the extra playtime.  He had seen a budding tree not far off with low lying limbs that was begging to be climbed.  Pulling himself about a quarter of the way up, he found a comfortable hobbit-sized nook where he could see quite a distance through the hills.  He sprawled along the branch and let himself lapse into a daydream.

He remained mindful of the time, though, and was first to the classroom. 

Ferdinand Took was already there, though, and invited him in.  “Considering that you will not be with us long, I think it will be best for you to sit up front.”  He rearranged the seats until he was satisfied that everyone would be able to see.  When the others arrived, Frodo saw that there were five other children in the class besides him and Reginard, three boys and two girls, and he could see Took features in every last one of them.  He wondered how closely they were all related.

He was given a pair of books, writing paper, a quill and ink.  “This book is a dictionary, Frodo,” Mr. Ferdinand told him.  “It has words listed by spelling and gives definitions for each.  You can use it whenever you come across a word you do not know.  Mr. Tumkin said your vocabulary is limiting your reasoning abilities.”  Frodo reddened at having been deemed ignorant compared with the others, and sheepishly wondered if his Uncle Bilbo had a dictionary.  Usually his uncle would simply tell him the definitions of any words he didn’t understand.  He took a peek inside before the teacher continued.  “The other is the textbook we are currently using.”  Mr. Ferdinand then addressed the class.  You will be reading the chapter beginning on page 103 this afternoon.  You may make notes on key points as you read.  When everyone is finished, we will have a discussion.” 

Frodo noticed that he was the only one who had to use a dictionary while reading.  It was embarrassing how frequently he had to refer to it.  He hoped he would not appear too much the fool during the discussion.

He was not the last to finish the chapter, he noticed.  He nervously checked his notes before he finally set down his quill and folded his hands on the desk, his big blue eyes set on Mr. Ferdinand.

He had never before had to wait for others to finish and he started to nod off in the silence of time.  “Master Baggins!” he heard his name called and he rousted immediately.  Mr. Ferdinand directed him to give his initial interpretation of the lesson.  The others added their additional points in the discussion, and Reginard was called on to summarize.  They were then instructed to compose an essay on what they had learned.  Frodo had never done anything quite like that before and he sweated as he hunched over his desk, writing furiously.  He felt quite the sluggard Tumkin had claimed him to be by the time he shambled to the dining hall for dinner. 

He was mentally so fatigued that evening, as he climbed into bed next to little Merry, that all he wanted to do was close his eyes as soon as possible – and wake up the next morning ready for another day in class.  He may not be having fun in Great Smials, but he was really eager for another go at the type of reasoning he was getting the opportunity to learn.

*

Frodo was given his paper back at breakfast the next morning.  He glanced over to where Reginard was seated and observed that his classmate had opened his paper and was reading it at the table, so he felt safe in opening his.  There were a lot of critiques written in red ink all over it, not so much on his analysis of the text, but on the written organization and presentation of his thoughts.  They were, to him, profound suggestions that inspired all sorts of ideas on ways he could improve his writing.  On the bottom of the last page was written: “An impressive first attempt, Master Baggins.  I can see that you have potential – if you are willing to exert some effort and keep your EYES OPEN during class.  I look forward to getting the chance to work with you.  Ferdinand Took.”  Frodo grinned ecstatically and gobbled down his eggs and ham.  Maybe this was the kind of fun to which Uncle Bilbo had been referring.  Maybe this was why Uncle Bilbo thought he might want to stay longer.

*

Reginard hailed him as they left the dining hall.  “So, what did Uncle Ferdinand think of your paper?”  Frodo pulled it from his pocket and showed him.  After glancing at the final comment, Reginard raised his eyebrow and handed it back.  “He came over to our rooms last night and visited with my parents and me.  He said it was a toss-up for you to have been put in our class; that you probably should have been placed in the regular class for our age but that Headmaster Tumkin wanted you challenged to see what happens.  Uncle Ferdinand agreed it was a good idea.” 

“I’m glad I got to be in your class.  It was really interesting yesterday.”

“So interesting that you fell asleep,” Reginard chided.  “Look, some of the cousins are organizing a game.  Do you want to play?”  Frodo jumped at the offer and was soon in the middle of a pack of boys who were kicking a large ball between two targets.  Like most of the smaller boys Frodo never got near enough to the ball to kick it but he did enjoy racing back and forth after it.  For the first time since he arrived at Great Smials he heard laughter in the air, and it wasn’t always his.

Frodo skipped second breakfast after the game.  The soft birdsong-filled spring breeze and warm sunshine were so alluring that he just couldn’t bring himself to go indoors.  Instead, he lay back on a mound of grass and granted himself the luxury of closing his eyes.

He would hear about his transgressions later.  Reginard found it unfathomable that a hobbit lad might skip meals due to lack of hunger and took great delight in teasing him about still taking naps at his age.  Neither opinion bothered him in the least.  Furthermore, the realization that he didn’t feel like conforming liberated him.

*

The afternoon class had a different structure than the previous day.  Mr. Took paired the students by age, so that Frodo and Reginard became a team of sorts.  Their assignment was to read a position on a statement and then research it in the reference books in the library and prepare and deliver a debate between teammate’s positions in front of the class.  The other students would act as judges.

Frodo was not concerned about doing the research.  He was charged with trying to find a reason to argue that hobbits should permit members of other races to pass through the Shire based on previous Shire rulings.  It didn’t sound altogether difficult until he reached the Great Smials library.  There were a lot of volumes available and he had no idea of where to start.

In the past Frodo’s research had never been competitive.  He had always sought out the opinion of his uncle as he worked through his reasoning.  It seemed to him that the teacher should be a resource he could use – at least as far as getting an idea of the locations and types of books so that he did not have to waste valuable time deciphering the library’s layout.  He approached Mr. Took shyly with his request and was relieved to get a positive response.

He was totally unprepared for the books he was shown which, although written in the common tongue, were difficult for him to understand.  ‘I’m twenty,’ he thought as he tried reading through “Judgments in the Shire, S.R. 1 – 1360” with his dictionary at hand.  ‘I don’t understand any of this.  Maybe I should be in the regular class.’   He looked over to where Reginard was writing notes and wondered if he was faring any better.

He decided to do the best he could in the hour he had.  He found little to support his side of the argument and suspected that the selections in the library were biased.  He had found no books that had titles which suggested contributions by other races.  He did find one entitled “Trespassers in the Shire” that he thought might give him some idea of the arguments Reginard would be using.  The book talked about a time when the Stoors, who had been friendly with men, had often let men into their homes in the early centuries of the Shire, until visiting men had brought with them a horrendous plague.  The Stoors had quarantined themselves to keep the illness from spreading throughout the Shire, but the plague had severely decimated their numbers, which was why the Stoors were now the least numerous of the three Hobbit breeds, with most now living in Bree.  Since he had heard that there was Stoor blood in the Baggins line, Frodo found it interesting to read that those Stoors who survived were particularly robust.

He found nothing derogatory about dwarves, which he thought would be useful in his argument.  Elves he found mentioned twice, the first suggesting that they traveled across the Shire freely, and the second concerning an agreement that they keep to certain paths and avoid interfering in hobbit life.  Of orcs, which translated to what appeared to be a particular breed of goblin, there was mention of the Battle of Greenfields, S.R. 1147.

Gandalf was mentioned by name six times in the book, the last being a grievous account warning against trusting his motives.  ‘He goes where he goes and there is purpose in his passage,’ Frodo thought, lovingly, of something Uncle Bilbo had once told him about the wizard. ‘Gandalf’s an individual, not a race,’ he added to his notes as a parting thought.

“You really do belong in this class,” Reginard complemented as they were leaving class for the day.  “I won our debate only by citing a very detailed opinion that my own father had written on the subject a smattering of years ago; and I’ve done this kind of exercise before where you haven’t.  You should be proud, Frodo.  Only the children who are expected to be the future leaders of Great Smials are given such rigorous training.  From what I hear you’ve impressed both our teacher and the headmaster.”

*

Frodo Baggins had a decidedly different energy level than Ferdinand Took was used to in his students.  It was not so much that he had less energy than the others, but that it was sporadic.  Ferdinand discovered that Frodo had either periods of enormous physical energy OR bursts of enormous mental energy, but never both without a substantial nap separating the two.  He pushed himself at his studies much harder than did the other students, keeping up with whatever Ferdinand demanded of his young brain but, again, he needed a nap midway to sustain himself through the lesson.  At first the old school in Mr. Took wanted to chastise the lad each time he fell asleep, but he soon discovered that no threat of punishment deterred Frodo from nodding off whenever he was pressed too hard.   What Mr. Took soon realized, though, was that after about fifteen minutes Frodo would automatically awaken with startling comprehension of whatever he had just learned.  It was as if the boy’s brain deliberately went to sleep to enable it to fully process a new concept.  Rather than continuing to fight it the teacher put a blanket and pillow in the back of the room and let Frodo curl up as needed.  He even encouraged the others in the class to give it a try, but none responded the way Frodo did.  It was simply something endearingly quirky in Frodo Baggins’ makeup.

Just as Ferdinand Took had hoped, Reginard was working harder than ever to keep ahead of Frodo and seemed to relish making the additional effort, yet contrary to his expectations the two boys had become close friends.  With Frodo’s encouragement Reginard even blossomed out of his innate conceit and started interacting comfortably with others outside of his own classmates.  Ferdinand was surprised, then, to observe that Frodo was himself a rather shy hobbit.  Unlike most young Tooks, the lad preferred not to attract attention inadvertently and appeared most comfortable in one–on–one interactions on topics that tickled his curiosity or in social gatherings where he was surrounded by only a few close others.  Even more surprising was that the boy seemed to greatly prefer adult conversation to that with hobbits his own age.  Ferdinand also noted that Frodo coped with large groups only outdoors.  Inside, more than a dozen hobbits conversing in a room at any given time sent the little fellow in search of a quiet corner.  Whatever the case or cause, the teacher found the young Baggins’ peculiarities likeable; it was not hard to see that others agreed.

All in all, many in Great Smials were rather disappointed when the Brandybucks took him with them when they returned to Brandy Hall.

TBC