Chapter 10. Of Time and Change

For the rest of the day, Haldoron carried Pip-lad on his shoulders, as he had upon a time carried his own son a lifetime ago. They camped at last on a patch of ground that was damp and uncomfortable but large enough for them to stretch out and rest, though they did not unroll their bedrolls. Their clothes, dampened from lying on the soggy ground, would dry much more quickly than the bedding would once they began moving again in the morning.

Before they'd left the Chetwood, Haldoron had insisted that everyone should collect as much firewood as they could carry. Since they would be refreshing their food supply on the far side of the Midgewater marshes, that meant they could carry a fair amount, even without the help of a pack-pony – enough for two nights' worth of fires when they were in the marshes. 'Though the days are warm, the waters in the marshes are always chilly,' Haldoron said. 'You'll be happy we carried wood with us in the damp cold that is night-time in the marshes.'

The younger hobbits hadn't believed him, of course, and Farry had protested that the addition of firewood was hardly "authentic" at this point in the journey, for hadn't Boromir made his suggestion when the Fellowship were preparing to climb Caradhras's snowy sides?

Ferdi blessed the Man's foresight. When they'd stopped, the Ranger had built a fire and then brewed medicinal herbs into warm drinks for the two teens, whose heads had been pulled under the marshy water. 'For if the lung fever should arise,' Haldoron had told them, encouraging them to sip despite the bitter taste of the draught, 'there'll be no more journey after we leave the marshes. For at the next outpost, we'll send the two of you in the arms of fast Messengers to the King's healing hands at the Lake.' He laughed and added, 'Perhaps a larger packet than they're used to carrying, but I have perfect confidence in them! My own son was a Messenger...'

He sobered then as suddenly as he'd laughed, but covered his feelings by saying, 'The Shire-folk have their own term for the lung fever, I think? But I cannot quite remember...'

'The Old Gaffer's Friend,' Ferdi said quietly. 'You might've heard the name mentioned in the same breath as the Thain.'

'Oh?' the Man said quietly.

'O aye,' the Hobbit answered. 'Not long after he came of age, when he had not yet outgrown tweenish foolishness, it nearly carried him off. So badly, it near to ripped the lungs right out o' him. If not for the Tree Folk o' legend, I doubt he'd be in the world today.' The creeping of the back-country Tookish lilt into Ferdi's usually careful speech spoke to his discomfiture.

'Tweenish foolishness?' Haldoron echoed, changing the subject by seizing on a more neutral-sounding point, for he suspected that deep waters lay beneath the Hobbit's calm surface, at least related to this topic in some way. He might learn more about the Ernil i Pheriannath's lung fever at some point, but he might not, either. 'What is the difference between a Hobbit tween and one who has come of age, then?'

'It's a matter of time – of growth and change,' Ferdi said, laying aside his spent pipe to draw his knees up and circle them with his arms. 'I take it you're not all that familiar with young Hobbits.'

'I'm not all that familiar with Hobbits, as it works out,' the Man said. 'And that is why I have been sent upon this journey with the rest of you... that I might gain the familiarity my kinsmen think I need before I can be of any further use to them in the North-lands.' He picked up a fallen twig and scratched in the dirt, though Ferdi could make little sense of the pictures, if he was even drawing any. 'I'm not even sure of what a faunt might be, though I've heard the term tossed about in casual conversation.'

'Faunts are... like toddlers, as I've heard Men call their very young ones, a bit younger than tots,' Ferdi said. He might as well put to use some of the Mannish terms he'd learnt from Pippin and Merry over the years, listening to them talk about the lives and customs of Men as they'd come to know them in their time in the South-lands, not only in the War but in visits afterward. He'd also been at some pains to learn as much as he could for the remainder of his time at the Lake, though it wouldn't have been his first choice to do so. He much preferred the company of Shire-folk.

'Two or three years of age, then?' Haldoron asked, and Ferdi had the feeling the Man was paying close attention and filing away the facts he was learning in that cold but keen mind of his.

'They're babes from before the time they're born until they turn three,' he corrected. 'O some may learn to say a few words at two, and most begin crawling and climbing from two to three years of age...' He smiled then, remembering a maidservant in New Annúminas saying in dismay, 'Climbing! They start climbing before they can even take a step, walking!'

'So faunts are... how old?' the Man said, drawing on his pipe until the light from the coals lit his curious expression.

'At three, the parents and grands have a little ceremony,' Ferdi said. 'A small celebration, it is, to welcome the child to the ranks of walking hobbits. No longer are they little crawling creatures, going about on four legs as all the other beasts do.'

'Uncle Ferdi!' Robin reproved, but the older Hobbit only chuckled.

'Three, then, until what age?' the Man persisted.

'At five, we begin calling them "children" Ferdi said, 'though other terms are not unknown.' He smiled at Robbie's warning glance and went on, avoiding some of the more pejorative terms that parents might apply to mischievous little ones, 'tots, for example.'

'I've heard you use the term,' Haldoron agreed.

'In the wild Green Hills, folk may say "childer" or "bairns" up to and even to the end of a child's teen years,' Ferdi said. 'Faunts are, as my dear wife would put it, "adorable", and children are "charming". Both faunts and children are innocent and trusting – and they want a good deal of looking after.'

'By a Man's reckoning, they are incredibly small of size, too, o' course,' Robin added. 'Being Hobbits as they are. Even a ten- or eleven-year-old can be killed by a fox or snatched up by one of the larger types of owls.'

The Hobbits saw the Man shudder at this idea, and the same thought crossed both their minds at that moment. What if this Man was not quite so cold and unfeeling as he made himself out to be?

But Ferdi continued the lecture as if he'd seen naught. 'Teens, now,' he said, wiggling his toes in the warmth coming off the fire. 'That's the point where young Hobbits begin growing ever more quickly. They eat and sleep a lot!' he added, sharing a grin with his companions, even as his eyes went over the sleeping teens they had bedded down close to the fire on the other side, though not so close that the young Walkers might roll over in their sleep into harm. 'They're soon beyond the reach of foxes and owls which, I must say, comes as quite a relief to their loved ones!' He glanced at Robin and then back at the fire. 'Though they're still inordinately innocent and trusting at that age. As a point in fact, we try to keep them that way as long as may be.'

'Keep them that way?' Haldoron said, his astonishment clear in his tone.

'O aye,' Ferdi nodded. 'A body is only a child once in their life, and for such a short time, at that. The time goes quickly...'

'It does,' the Man said quietly, and was that a note of sorrow in his voice?

'O course, as I understand it, the very old among Men can grow withered and witless, becoming childlike once more as the end of life draws near. That is why, as your kinsman Elessar has told me, the wise among Men call Death "the gift of Men" and not their Doom.'

Haldoron sat straighter. 'And this is not the case for Hobbits?' he asked.

Ferdi shook his head, wondering at the Man's sudden and seemingly intense interest. 'Nay,' he replied. 'Barring illness or injury, Hobbits remain clear-headed and vigorous to the end of our days. It's a proverb in the Shire that the perfect end is to pass on quietly in your sleep after a fine meal and a good pipe.' He smiled and amended, '...or a well-brewed cup o' tea for those who never took up with pipe-weed.'

He heard Haldoron murmur under his breath, Would that the Númenóreans had lived by such tenets... But he knew too little of Men to understand the words behind the sentiment. For the first time in his life, perhaps, he felt the stirring of curiosity about Men and their histories.

But Haldoron wasn't finished learning about young and youthful Hobbits.

'So teens are growing in height, while keeping the innocence of children,' he said. 'And what of knowledge and wisdom?'

'O aye,' Ferdi said, 'there is some of that. For at the age of ten, young Tooks begin to learn to shoot and ride – and read! I cannot tell you much about how the other Shire-folk live,' he added honestly, 'for I've spent little enough time in the Outer Shire, except to visit my sister – Robbie's mum – and she's a Took!'

'Outside the Tookland,' Robin said, filling in for his uncle's deficiencies, 'teens begin to help their parents on the farm or in the workshop. Only in the Great Families—'

'The gentry,' Ferdi clarified for the Man's sake.

'—do the children begin formal lessons in reading and history and more than simple maths and the workings of the world. Amongst common hobbits, learning to read is unusual, and those common hobbits who do know their letters tend to keep their knowledge to themselves lest they be accused of "putting on airs".'

At the Man's subtle jerk of surprise, Ferdi queried, 'Is it not so amongst your folk?'

'Every child amongst my People learns to read and write,' Haldoron said. 'Unless, of course, the child is unable. For example, a dangerously high fever at a very young age...'

'O aye,' Ferdi said softly. His cousin Tolly, who was closer than a brother to him, actually had an older brother who'd suffered fever convulsions as a faunt when a deadly fever had swept the Tookland. Although he was older than Ferdi by several years, Freddy had never grown past the understanding of a child. O' course, other adults treated him with gentleness and kindness, for his limitations were not the unfortunate Hobbit's fault.

He thought it best to go on with his narrative. 'And then you have tweens,' he said, mock-glaring at Robin from under knitted eyebrows.

But Robin only laughed. 'You cannot level such an accusation against me any more!' he said. 'I reached my majority three years ago, now, as you well know!'

'Be that as it may... At the age of twenty,' Ferdi went on smoothly, 'one leaves childhood behind and is no longer called a child.'

'You said tween but a moment ago,' Haldoron assented.

'Aye,' Ferdi nodded. He stretched and changed his position, now sitting tailor-style. For the stable ground Haldoron had chosen for their resting place was as hard as he remembered from his earlier years, and sitting in one position for too long could lead to feelings of stiffness in his joints and muscles, though he wasn't even close to being considered elderly in Hobbit years. 'Then you have tweens.' He sighed. 'And watch out for your pantry during the tween years, I can tell you!'

'Don't tell me,' the Man said, a question in his voice. 'Tweens eat more than teens?'

The talk stopped as young Faramir stirred and murmured in his sleep. As the teen settled again, Ferdi resumed. 'I cannot tell you how much more tweens eat,' he said, 'for I don't know if anyone has actually ever taken measurements and recorded them for posterity. What I can tell you is...' he paused as if considering and then went on, 'they seem to need to eat every hour or two! And they're growing so fast, it makes them restless and their muscles twitchy, and so (unless they are labouring away on a farm or chopping trees, as Robin did with his father, or whatnot, which uses up their energy quite effectively) you'll often see tweens walking about the Shire, visiting relatives...'

'And encouraged by their parents to do so,' Robin said. 'To save the family pantry from their depredations.'

'Tweens commonly walk about the Shire?' Haldoron said. He seemed puzzled about something, though he did not ask further questions.

'Not tweens from the ranks of common Hobbits,' Robin amended, 'or "working" Hobbits, as they're often called, though some of the gentry do work for a living, present company included.'

Ferdi inclined his head towards his nephew in acknowledgement, then went on to describe typical tweens among Shire-folk. 'Long on legs and short on sense, is a byword amongst Shire-folk,' he said. 'It is commonly believed that they are growing so fast in terms of muscle and bone that the blood scarcely reaches their brains. 'Empty-headed tween is another byword.'

The Man finally asked the question that had been hovering at his lips. 'Then how in the world did Peregrin – Pippin – manage to keep up with the others in the Fellowship, much less accomplish all he is renowned for?'

'He was nearing the end of the tween years,' Ferdi said, 'and that is all I can think might account for it. He'd reached nearly his full growth – he'd've been shorter than the average Took, if not for those Ent-draughts he talks about – and so he did not have the same need to eat every waking hour and sleep half the day.' He shook his head. 'Still,' he said, 'eating such scanty portions as the rest of the Company – Men and grown Hobbits and an Elf and a Dwarf – and walking all night long could not have been good for him. I can only credit the Ent-draughts for the fact that he turned out as well as he did.' And of course, though he did not add this latter thought aloud, an Ent-draught had brought the Thain back from the edge of the grave, not so many years ago, when none of the healers' efforts – not even Elessar's healing hands! – had been able to do the same.

'So I should consider it a mercy that Faramir and Pippin-lad are only teens and not yet tweens, I suppose?' Haldoron said, sounding bemused.

'You might say that,' Ferdi nodded. 'You just might.' He picked up his pipe, gently knocked out the now-cold ashes, and tucked it away in the bag that hung from his neck. 'When one reaches the age of twenty, it is the custom to hold a special party for a young one who is passing from the teen years into the tweens. A tween, moreover, is of an age to be apprenticed, at least amongst the common Hobbits.'

'And a Hobbit is considered an adult when...?' Haldoron asked, perhaps intending to put away the topic of apprenticeship in the Shire for another time.

'At three-and-thirty,' Ferdi answered. 'Robbie, here, is six-and-thirty, as you heard him say a little while ago. And I was Robbie's age when I did what I could to keep the ruffians out of the Tookland during the time of the Troubles, first under Lotho and then under that dratted wizard.' By common consent, Shire-folk almost never spoke the name "Saruman", and "Sharkey" was used as an expletive more than an epithet.

'And by then they have grown into their sense, as I heard you put it while we were still in New Annúminas?' the Man enquired.

The older Hobbit surprised him by chuckling. 'Wouldn't that be ideal?' Ferdi said wryly. 'But no...'

'Hoi!' Robin said in startlement.

Ferdi reached over and patted his nephew on the arm. 'I'm sorry, my lad,' he said. 'But you've a ways to go yet.' And to the Man, he said, 'When they reach their majority, they are treated as adults, and they are considered adults for legal purposes – for example, a Hobbit who has passed his thirty-third year cannot be apprenticed unless he, himself, requests such.' He shook his head and added, 'But they are still in the time of life where they are acquiring wisdom and experience, and will remain so for quite a number of years afterwards. No,' he said, shaking his head, 'I would say that your typical Hobbits don't grow into their sense until age fifty, or perhaps a year or three – or as many as five! – after that.'

'Bilbo Baggins was only fifty when he set off on his adventure,' Robin affirmed. 

'O aye,' Ferdi said, 'but then, that hobbit never did grow into his sense, or did he? For "mad Baggins" became a byword in the Shire in his later years, as I seem to recall.

'No, but,' he said, returning to the topic at hand, 'Hobbits in their thirties and forties are considered adults... but they've got more growing to do. Their bodies may be grown, true... And once past the awkward tween stage, where they don't know where their arms and legs end, and they've become familiar with the way their bones and muscles work, they are no longer clumsy and likely to stumble over nothing and drop things but dextrous, at last, and as strong as they'll ever be, and even graceful!'

'I thank you, Uncle,' Robin said, inclining his head. 'Dextrous, strong and graceful... I cannot see the disadvantages in that description.'

'Having left the awkward, empty-headed tween years behind,' Ferdi said, 'with their thinking clearer than they've ever known, once the fog of unending hunger lifts, it is unfortunate but true that most hobbits, on reaching their majority, enjoy a feeling of well-being and revel in the power of being able to accomplish much more than they ever dreamed as children.'

'And what's so bad about that?' Robin demanded.

Ferdi ploughed on doggedly. 'They're likely to feel invincible,' he said, catching his Bolger nephew's eyes and holding them fast with an intense gaze. 'As if naught can touch them. Almost as if they're... immortals, like Elves, and nothing can harm or kill them. Blithe and bright and bonny are they... Long may they live, such Hobbits...'

'I don't...' the Man said, and stopped as if unsure how to complete the thought. I don't understand. I don't see.

'Merry and Sam suffered such shortcomings when they followed Frodo to the ends of Middle-earth,' Ferdi said. 'Pip, to a smaller degree. He combined a tween's foolishness with the foolhardiness of a hobbit who's recently come of age.'

'But you—' Robin protested.

'But I, too,' Ferdi affirmed.

'You're a hero of the Tookland!' Robin objected. 'If not for you, and others like you, the entire Shire would have fallen! And the Master...'

'What about Master Merry?' Ferdi asked quietly.

Robin took a few sharp breaths before answering. 'I heard him say, on more than one occasion, that if the Tookland had fallen, there'd've been no Shire when the Travellers got back!' he said, obviously upset.

'I only did what had to be done,' Ferdi said. 'And believe me, Robbie...' he sighed. 'There are things I'd've done differently, had I the knowledge I've gained in the years since then.'

'To be honest, Ferdi,' Robin said earnestly, 'I don't see what you might have done differently!'

'Aye, and there's the rub,' Ferdi said, rubbing the back of his neck with a rueful hand. He looked up and met the Man's eye and then looked over at his Bolger nephew. 'You're about the same age as I was at the time we were keeping Lotho's Men out of the Tookland.' He shook his head. 'Just wait 'til you're older; you may see some things differently then.'

The Ranger surprised him then, saying quietly, 'But rogue Men are just that... rogue Men. You might think to change your approach to them, but I think you'd agree with me that they never change.'

But young Robbie shook his head vigorously. 'I must disagree,' he said. 'We saw all sorts of rogues in the Troubles...' He poked a stick in the fire and stirred the coals. 'I was only a young hobbit then,' he admitted, 'younger than these two miscreants...'

'And you played a major role in our ability to keep the Tookland free,' Ferdi said.

'A child?' Haldoron said, intrigued. 'How could a small Hobbit child...?' But before either Robin or Ferdi could answer, he said slowly, 'Faunts are adorable, you said, and children are charming... as well as innocent and trusting.' He nodded, 'I can see how even rogue Men, if they have not given themselves completely over to evil, might be disarmed by such.'

'Robbie-here,' affirmed Ferdi, 'and his littler sister were among the best of the Thain's information-gatherers. Lotho's ruffians felt no need to guard their tongues in front of such small and innocent children. And the children, young as they were, made the Men feel welcome, as valued guests, whenever they entered the clearing or knocked upon the door.'

'They even thought we named my younger brother after one of them,' Robin said, seeming lost in the past. 'As if to honour them for coming to succour my mum in her time of greatest need.'

'My sister nearly died in childbirth, in part because the ruffians had descended upon her smial and were in the middle of gathering all there was to gather when her pangs came upon her,' Ferdi said quietly. 'And yet, that murderer, Scar...' he seemed to have some difficulty before going on, 'he immediately took charge – sent one of his men for the midwife, another for her husband Hally who was cutting wood a little way away, told others to watch over the children and keep them occupied, and carried Rosie to her bed and sat with her until Hally and the midwife came.'

He shook his head. 'I cannot understand it still,' he said. 'For whilst Rosie was in the midst of her travail, he also ordered his Men to restore all they'd gathered – the foodstuffs, the tools, the firewood, the goats... and more. And then they cared for Rosie's other little ones, children and faunts, cooked and cleaned and told stories and cradled the little ones in their laps and sang what passed for lullabies...' he shuddered whilst Robin snickered at some memory. 'They left, their waggon empty, only after the babe was safely born and Rosie was out of danger.' 

He met Haldoron's quizzical gaze and added, 'They left the larder full to overflowing – Hally told me they put back more than they'd taken away! And more... they returned several times between that time and the Battle of Bywater and replenished the pantry with foodstuffs they'd gathered from other Hobbits. O' course, that was not what they were supposed to do, according to their orders! Gathered stuffs were never shared with Shire-folk; most of their gatherings were shipped away south, out of the Shire completely, and the rest were stored away.'

'But that was in part because Mum fed them,' Robin said.

Ferdi grinned and stretched. 'Aye, Robbie,' he said. 'You ha' the right of it! Rosie is a dab hand at cooking!'

'She welcomed them, and pitied them for being "so far from mother and home",' Robin said. 'She baked extra on her baking day, just for them to come and eat, and more for them to take away. When ever they came around, she fed them ­– or offered to – and she did their mending. Sewed on buttons, mended tears, darned holes. She knitted them mufflers and mittens that winter, I remember...'

'And so they came around often, and spoke openly before the children,' Haldoron said, nodding. 'And you came to visit your sister—'

'Secretly,' Ferdi broke in.

'—secretly,' Haldoron agreed, 'and you took all the news the children had gathered and brought it back to the Tooks.'

'O aye,' Ferdi said.

'Your sister was either foolish or very clever,' Haldoron said. 'To trust those rogues!'

'But they protected us from others,' Robin said. 'I suppose we could say we were their Hobbits, in that they seemed to adopt us almost the way we had adopted them.'

The Walkers sat quietly, pondering the paradox of ruffians and Shire-folk adopting one another. 

'And Mum was neither foolish nor trusting,' Robin said.

'She knew the deadly danger; she and Hally both knew it,' Ferdi said quietly. 'But o' course the children could not know. To remain safe, they had to remain innocent.'

'And so they made it a game,' Robin said. 'We were always laughing and playing, and the ruffians were our "great friends", and talking with them and asking childish questions and listening and laughing were all part of the game, and I never knew until I was much older how deadly serious my parents' play-acting was...'

'Your parents put you in grave danger,' Haldoron said slowly.

Robin Bolger nodded. 'I know it!' he said. 'I didn't know it then, but I know it now.'

'But why?' the Man said.

'Why did the Northern Rangers stay in the North-lands after the old kingdoms fell to Shadow?' Ferdi challenged. 'Why did your people cling to a land where they knew at any moment dark things might issue from the houseless hills or creep from sunless woods, to menace and murder their loved ones as well as those they guarded? Why did they long endure the scowls and scornful names of travellers and countrymen? Why did they choose to ceaselessly guard simple folk from terror and ruin when they might have marched to the Southlands and joined the cause of Gondor and enjoyed her protection – at least as much protection as any Gondorian?'

'I thought you knew little of Men, and wished to know less,' Haldoron said.

'I know enough,' Ferdi answered, but then he deflated. After a moment, he added, 'And yet, it seems I do not know enough, or why would I even be here now?'

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Author's note: Some thoughts and phrasing in this chapter were drawn from "The Council of Elrond" in The Lord of the Rings by J.R.R. Tolkien.

p.s. My former editor-beta reader used to excise large sections of long, expository conversations like the discussion in this chapter of Hobbit developmental stages because she thought they slowed down the story progression too much. Would you agree with her? Should I restrain from thinking aloud so much and "just get on with the story" as she used to say?

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