For Eyes to See as Can

by Larner

Preface

This, as a work of fan-fiction, uses the beloved characters brought into being by the imagination of John Ronald Reuel Tolkien and, as is common, both seeks to fill in gaps and to postulate What if...?I do not own the characters or the story on which this work of my own imagination is based. I admit to having borrowed from as well as being inspired by other writers of fan-fiction, and in some parts my version of the narrative follows off plot devices crafted originally by those such as Baylor, Lindelea, Anglachel, Tom Fairbairn and others--I pray they will not be angry but flattered that I found their works intriguing enough to serve as springboards for my own meanderings, and a few of their OC characters of sufficient rightness to include here.

This is a story told from the point of view of Samwise Gamgee, in his own words, told in my version of the vernacular he chose to use. He is, in many ways, more complex that Tolkien’s Sam, just as Frodo is more complex than Tolkien’s Frodo. He has been conditioned to see himself as working class, but has been given a gentleman’s educational advantages, being taught alongside and in part by the Young Master. How would this conflict of roles have affected him? How would, now and then, his unusual educational background have manifested itself, and how would it have affected how others, through increased exposure to his camouflaged intelligence and perceptiveness, come to change their attitudes and behavior toward him? How would this lead in the end to his election as Mayor (although I don’t bring the story to that point)?

I also consider Frodo’s experience as perceived by Sam. How would the presence of as malevolent an agent as Sauron’s Ring as it reawakened have affected Frodo and his relationships with others and, ultimately, himself? How would this be perceived by those who knew and loved him? What would he have experienced in the wake of his return to the Shire, and in light of the growing realization he had been too drastically changed to find once again his place in Shire society? If he found his body as well as his spirit is failing him, how would he have responded to it? How would he have learned or chosen to attempt to exorcise the demons within? If such attempts should come to light, how would others respond to them, to the revelations they bring?

These two were not peers, and there was an extreme difference in their ages. So, how would Sam go from being the gardener’s lad to Frodo’s best friend, dearer than brother?

Then at the end I shift focus from Sam to Aragorn. How would he have responded to the knowledge his Friend had finally chosen to leave Middle-earth, and then to the evidence of physical and mental anguish?

The relationship between Frodo Baggins and Sam Gamgee is one of the most inspiring ever described in literature. How it came to be is a matter of general fascination, as are speculations on what happened during the two years before Frodo left Middle-earth. I have been exploring these situations as well as postulating what could have occurred between Sam and Gandalf and other characters along the way, how Sam might have been prepared for his own part in the quest and for his role afterwards.

As Tolkien himself did in The Lord of the Rings I’ve kept to our own calendar names and titles for holidays, rather than using the calendar names from the appendices. Not as fascinating for many, but I feel it is acceptable.

That Bilbo might involve Frodo in copying as well as binding books I felt would be consistent with his and Bilbo’s interests in translation and study, particularly in a culture which has not yet developed movable type. And that such items as caddis fly larvae and woolly bear caterpillars might worm their way into a story I’ve worked on is something that I’m certain would make my mother sigh with recognition.

I hope this effort stimulates thought as well as entertains.

No slash, but a deliberate level of angst.

Mostly book canon.

B.L.S.

10/10/2004

In memory of Lynn Bickford S. Mom, this is for you.

Grieving

I’m not going to put this in the Red Book--what goes in the Red Book is about what he did, what we all did, to save the Shire, to save Middle-earth, and what it cost to do that, what it cost us. But especially what it cost him. What it cost Frodo. And it cost him so much. But I have to write it down--I got to get it out, and I can’t tell everyone about it, not now.

Mr. Frodo, he showed me the way. When anyone else was bothered, they could always go to him, and he’d listen. He’d listen so hard, his eyes looking at you so kind, so interested. But when he got bothered, Frodo wouldn’t talk about it. Felt real responsible, he did, and decided he wasn’t going to burden anyone else with his problems. Used to drive old Mr. Bilbo to distraction, if you take my meaning. It would be obvious something was going through his head, but what it was he wouldn’t say. Mr. Bilbo would have to figure it out, ask questions, draw him out. He would come out into the garden sometimes while I was weeding, and he’d be running his fingers through his hair till it stood right up on end, so frustrated, and he’d always start, "Sticklebacks! Bother the lad!" And then he’d pace up and down a bit, and finally he’d go, "Don’t know where he got his reticence, I swear. Certainly not from the Baggins part of the family, or the Tookish part, either. Won’t say a word--plain as the nose on your face something is stirring him up, it is, but he won’t say what. Got to drag it out of him!"

I’d just keep working and making noises like I was interested but not paying a lot of attention, and finally he’d start describing what he’d learned or figured out so far, and then he’d ask me what I’d seen that could be part of the problem. I’d try to say nothing, but Mr. Bilbo--he’d see whenever you tried to hide something, and he’d go after it like a dog digging after a badger. Once he’d started putting the pieces back together, old Mr. Bilbo would just keep at it, and then he’d go back to the hole and confront Frodo and finally drag it out of him proper. Or, if Mr. Frodo had decided to leave so as to avoid him, he’d just wait till Frodo’d come back, and Mr. Bilbo’d act like it wasn’t bothering him no more, he’d have something just ready to go on the table when Frodo walked in, and he’d just sort of slip it in sideways, what he’d figured out, like he was talking about someone else or whatever. And then Frodo would finally have to agree, to admit Mr. Bilbo was right.

One day Frodo had had enough, and he got downright mad, he did, and asked why he couldn’t be allowed to just be bothered about stuff and nobody else meddle in it; but Mr. Bilbo, he just shook his head.

"Can’t let you keep it all bottled up inside, Frodo my lad," he said. "Puts you into a right state, it does, and you don’t eat for days till it finally settles down or you figure out what you’re going to do about it. And that is not good for you, dear boy."

Frodo was shouting, and I could hear whether I would or no, for I was working the garden just outside the kitchen and that was where they were, and the windows were open, for it were a hot day and the kitchen with its fire, small as it was in high summer, was still stifling if you tried to keep the windows shut up. Seems I would all too often hear what I oughtn’t to through the open windows of Bag End when my Mr. Frodo lived here....

"But maybe what I know or suspect is my own business, or is private to someone else, Uncle," he said. "When Uncle Saradoc is troubled and has asked you for advice and it is a puzzler, do you tell me about it, or the Gaffer? Would you let me badger it out of you in that case? Or if it were a case where the Sackville- Bagginses were on at you about something private and were making innuendoes--"

"Lobelia Sackville-Baggins does that all the time, but she never sinks to making innuendoes," Mr. Bilbo sighed. "She just outs with it, whether you would or no. No subtlety at all in Lobelia, as you well know, Frodo."

I couldn’t see Mr. Frodo--just the top of Mr. Bilbo’s head for he was now standing just inside the window, and I knew that Frodo would be by the table, giving him that look he had as he ran his fingers through his own hair--he didn’t lose his temper often, just went away inside hisself and would get stubborn; but the few times Mr. Bilbo sent him into distraction his own self that’s what he’d do, just stand there shaking, his face going white where others’ faces would go red, but he could make his hair stand up as good as his uncle, I swear.

Then Mr. Bilbo’s own voice went soft, strange soft as it could sometimes when he was talking serious to Frodo, and he said, "It’s just that I love you, boy, love you so very much, and it’s all I can do to keep still when I know you are troubled. You are so intense, and it’s not good for you to get that intense--when your heart starts going like a trip hammer it’s all I can do not to worry about you. You have to have some way of working it out before it eats your heart away from the inside!"

I know my Mr. Frodo, he must have just stood there, his face white, his eyes enormous and shadowed, just giving his uncle that look. Others would turn away from that look, but not Mr. Bilbo--he’d just stand there, drinking it in, his heart getting full of it, full of concern and love for his lad, looking sad at the hurting look. Then he sighed, Mr. Bilbo did.

"I’ll see what I can do," he said soft-like, then said, "You go out and get yourself a walk to the Water and back, it will help you settle it out or at least walk off your frustration." And Frodo did that. A moment later I heard the front door slam, and then there he was, walking off along the road, but not toward the Water but the other way, toward the fields and woods. He’d snatched up his cloak as he left and was fastening it as he walked by, his face all pale still, his hair still standing up but the breeze just giving it a combing as it did, his eyes enormous still. Didn’t need no cloak at all, it being right warm that day, but he’d grabbed it anyway. He’d get cold when he was troubled, Frodo would. Then Mr. Bilbo came out, soft footed, walked into the garden to look out after him, and sighed. "There he goes," he said, and sighed one more time. "It will eat out his heart if he doesn’t find some kind of outlet, that lad." I didn’t understand, so I looked up at him from where I was working the soil. Mr. Bilbo did look right worried his own self, he did, his forehead all lined, his eyebrows almost touching. "It will eat out his heart," he said again, and he went still. Quite still.

A moment he stood there, looking out after where Frodo had disappeared, and then he shook hisself and went back into the smial. A few moments later he came back, his waistcoat on, his favorite wine-colored one with the gold dwarf buttons on it. "I’ll be back shortly," he called out to me. "I’m just going to nip into the village for a bit." Although why he felt he had to tell me, I didn’t know. I mean, it’s not as if I was family or nothing; but he’d always tell the Gaffer if he was leaving, or me if I was working alone, being polite like. That’s what the Gaffer liked about old Mr. Bilbo--always treated him with respect, would listen to him like his words meant something, acted like he was responsible enough to tell visitors the master was away when he was gone or didn’t want to be bothered by relatives or such. So I just nodded and watched him go, then went back to my bit of earth, turning over my thoughts as I turned over the soil.

Anyway, Mr. Bilbo was gone about an hour, and he came back whistling, a large bundle in his hands, and he went into the hole, then came out and came to where I was weeding by the window of his study. "I need your assistance, Master Samwise," he said to me. He had me go with him into the old office where his mum used to keep the household accounts, and he had me take one side of the desk that stood there and help him carry it out of there and into Mr. Frodo’s room. I was embarrassed, I was, to be going into Mr. Frodo’s private room and all, but Mr. Bilbo just tutted like he would and had me help carry the desk over near the window and set it up there. There was a small table there already, but he just pushed it aside so we could place the desk, and then he carried it out while I settled the desk and straightened the rug under it and all, and came back with a bottle of oil and some cleaning rags. "Now here’s for it," he said, and he began to clean up the desk and rub it down. It had looked grey in the little office, but now its wood shone up nice, golden with its grain starting to glow. It was a right pretty little thing when it was cared for, don’t you know. And when he was satisfied, he had me take them cleaning things out of there and put them away again while he fetched the bundle from where he’d left it on Frodo’s bed, and he laid it on the desk and opened it.

It were a wooden box full of stationery, a soft golden color shot with green threads, it was; and a second box with a funny lid, and when he opened it there were in it three bottles of ink, black and blue and green, I think. And a third box held several quills and a pen knife, and a fourth held fine sand and a silver sifter and blotting paper. He set it all out on the desk, then smiled at it, looking right satisfied, he did. And I looked at it, and went outside and cut some flowers and foliage and took them to the kitchen and got the old vase as stood there on the dresser, the one they never used much, and filled it with water and put the flowers and leaves in it, arranging them just right, and then took it into the bedroom and set it on the desk at the back, right where the light would hit it just proper to make the golds glow and the pinks blush and the blues shine a bit. And Mr. Bilbo, who’d just been standing there admiring the effect, he smiled, he did, and said, "Just what was needed, Sam," with approval like in his voice.

Then he brought over the chair that had set by the table, but it wasn’t good enough. So him and me, we began to go through the other rooms looking for the proper chair. We found one he decided was good enough in the third guest bedroom, and he had me carry it in there to Frodo’s room and take back the lighter one from there and put it in its place, and he settled it under the desk, then pulled it out and set it sort of inviting like at a bit of an angle. The way he fussed over it would have been funny if he hadn’t had that look of satisfaction on his face, and I knew what he was feeling. Wasn’t nobody that loved Mr. Frodo more than old Mr. Bilbo, not even me, I think.

When finally he decided the chair was the right angle to look inviting enough, he said, "Well, that’s done. What about some tea, Sam, my boy?" and we went into the kitchen. He let me stir up the fire a bit and set the kettle over it, although I could tell he really would have been happy doing it hisself. Then when it was all ready he poured it out for us and set out a small plate of sweet biscuits that he seemed to know I liked especial well, and he began to fill his pipe and all, then began to put some scones left over from second breakfast on a second plate and set them on the table with some butter and a knife, and a pot of my sister May’s currant jam and the silver spoon he always used in it. How he knew Frodo was just coming back I don’t know, but he always did, and they were set out with a fresh plate and mug at Frodo’s place when he finally came into the kitchen. He had taken off his cloak and waistcoat, and had his sleeves rolled up as if he’d been fishing up pebbles from the bottom of the stream, the way he sometimes did when he went out into the woods of an afternoon. He looked at his uncle with suspicion, then sat down and poured hisself some tea and reached for the sugar bowl.

"I got you something this afternoon," Mr. Bilbo said, not looking at him directly. "It’s in your room." Frodo said nothing, just nodded a bit, and took a scone and split it, and after putting some butter on it he spooned in the currant jam. "On days when you don’t want me looking over your shoulder and prying," Mr. Bilbo continued, "you can use it. And I do expect you to use it, understand?"

Frodo was beginning to let go the closed look, starting to be curious in spite of hisself. I finished my tea quick, and explained I had work to do in the gardens afore the Gaffer decided he’d go for me for not finishing the tasks he’d set for me that day, and they both sort of grunted--Frodo’d picked up the sound of Mr. Bilbo’s grunt when he was involved in one of his projects, and it were always funny to hear him sound just like his uncle like that. And I slipped out the back door and went back to where I’d been working under the study window while Mr. Bilbo had been gone. I finished up there as quick as quick, and then hurried to the window for Mr. Frodo’s room so I could hear what he had to say when they got to that. Didn’t take too long, and I heard the door inside swing open. I stopped with the lily I was working on, listened. I could hear the intake of breath, then the sound of Frodo coming near, him opening the box of inks, the sound of sand from the little sifter falling back in its box, and then him turning round back toward the door again. I was right glad, then. He gave a little laugh like he was right pleased, and I could hear it, I could. And Mr. Bilbo must have followed right behind, for I heard him laugh relieved like from over by the door.

Then Mr. Bilbo got all solemn like. "I want you to use these when you are troubled, Frodo," he said. "I want you to use them. There’s a drawer in the box of stationery, and it has a key--it’s inside the drawer right now, and it’s yours. There’s no other copy of that key. When you get all bothered about something, I want you to write it out, and when you have it all nicely committed to paper, you put it in that drawer and lock it up. Then think about it. If you can figure out what to do about it, then write that out, too. Or, if after considering it for a while you decide to share it with me, come and tell me, or bring the papers for me to read if you think it’s better said that way. Do you understand?" Then after Frodo must have nodded, he continued, "You can’t keep things always bottled up, Frodo. It will eat your heart away, and you need your heart for loving things and people, not for being bothered.

"Now," said he, all brusque now, "when you have the problem settled or decide there’s nothing you can do about it and the other will have to settle it himself, then you can either keep the sheets or burn them or simply commit them to the garbage, or even share them with me if you’d like. But I want you to use this paper and ink, and when you need more tell me and I’ll get it--or better yet, go to Boggins’s and ask him for more. I’ll let him know tomorrow to keep it on hand, or a different style if you find you like it better, and he’s to send the bill each month when you’ve bought some. But you need to get what’s bothering you out--it’s like being sick to your stomach, dear Frodo--better out than in. But I won’t let your troubles eat your heart away; and they will as long as you refuse to let them out into the light of day in one way or another. Do you understand, dear boy?"

"Yes, Uncle," he answered him.

And after that there would be days when he’d just sit for an hour or two and write furiously, then I’d hear the snick of that lock and after a while he’d come out all whistling softly like he always did, and he’d come out to talk to me and all, his heart lighter for not having the anger or concern bottled up. Some days he’d take the box to the study and write there near his uncle, and if he felt free to share once he’d gotten it clear on paper what was bothering him, he’d give a sort of clear to his throat that let Mr. Bilbo know he was ready to read it aloud. And Mr. Bilbo would stop, and then he’d fill his pipe slow like and look at Frodo and let him know he was ready to listen. I’d move away then, so as to not overhear--most of the time, of course.

So that’s what I’m doing now--what Frodo learned to do--writing it out, like. Getting it out so it don’t eat my heart away.

Too Many Secrets

There’s been too many secrets in this hole, too many eating at hearts and minds and souls. For sixty years old Mr. Bilbo tried to keep the secret of that Ring of his, that cursed thing as took us away from the Shire and almost killed us all, that destroyed the happiness in my Mr. Frodo. And for another seventeen Mr. Frodo hid it, keeping it secret, keeping it safe, the way old Gandalf told him to do.

Then there were all the years that Mr. Bilbo would insist that Mr. Frodo wasn’t to do anything that would, as he kept putting it, eat the heart away of Frodo. He’d always say it that way, "You can’t let it eat your heart away, my dear boy." Neither of us understood why he put it that way. He didn’t say it like that to others when they was upset or troubled--just to Frodo. I didn’t find out why he said it that way until Mr. Merry began working on organizing the records in Brandy Hall for his dad over the winter, and he found one old letter from the healer from when Frodo was just a lad there, after his mum and dad died, drowning in the river the way they did. Mr. Merry just showed up on the doorstep one day, this paper in his pocket, his face pale, his eyes solemn; and he handed it to me, saying, "You’ll want to read this." And when I was done reading it, I looked up at him, and he looked at me, and he nodded. I think I nodded, too. Made too much sense.

So I checked with Drolan Chubbs, the healer here in Hobbiton, to see if his gammer, who was the healer who used to see to Mr. Bilbo and Frodo when he first came here, had left any records on her patients. Took a few weeks of going through boxes of old papers stowed in one of the disused storerooms in the place--half smial, half house--where Drolan’s parents and gammer and he have worked from for three generations. But we found it. Gammer Laurel always wrote down what she did, what she found out about her patients, what medicines or treatments worked and what didn’t; but she’d write it down in a sort of code. With Drolan helping us, we figured it out, Mr. Merry, Mr. Pippin, and me. And it fit, too. More heartening, what she wrote, but it fit--helped explain. Then we had a long talk with Mr. Freddy’s healer, that Budgie Smallfoot, and got the last of it. Well, almost the last of it--I’m going to badger even Strider about it, quiet like, when he comes north. Doubt he’ll be able or willing to tell me much, but suspect if he cracks he’ll just confirm what we already know, if I can get him to talk at all. But then, maybe he didn’t notice. I mean, he learned healing from Elrond, in Rivendell. That’s Elvish medicine. Oh, he knows how to work on wounds, to stitch a deep cut, to wash a burn, to bind cracked ribs, to splint a broken limb, to amputate a foot that’s going into putrefaction, to call someone back from the doors of death, even. He can deal with broken bodies and, in part, at least, with broken spirits as well.

But does he understand about just mortal problems? Do Elves understand-- really understand--how things grow strange in parts of a mortal’s body for no reason we can understand, how blood starts moving slower, how stomachs can stop accepting food, how hearts can sicken in their beating?

And then there were the three of us, me, my Rosie, and Frodo, all trying to keep the secret from one another--and from ourselves. At least, I was working right hard at keeping it from myself--Mr. Frodo was fading, was close to dying. I didn’t want to believe it, you know. How could he be fading? He was so young, not even fifty-five. He seemed to be doing so very good once we woke up in Ithilien. Oh, he’d get sad and withdrawn sometimes, but then the Ring ate at his soul so. Of course he’d not be just as he’d been. There was not a serious sign things were bad for him all the way home--well, except for when we left Rivendell and he started going funny at the Ford and stayed that way till we got past Weathertop. That were the first real sign as he wasn’t as well as he seemed to be. But even then he seemed to be so much better afterwards. Budgie tried to explain, but I’m not sure I have the right of it to this day.

Secrets can eat the heart out of you as bad as being troubled, I think. Too many secrets, too much trying to protect others--it just scoops the insides right out of you. And my heart feels so hollow....

But I’m skipping through this part too much.

The Heart of the Matter

Frodo was born right here in Hobbiton, he was. His mum and dad lived near Bag End, in Number Five, Bagshot Row. It was one of the first smials dug this side of the Hill, the traditional home of the Bagginses. Mr. Bilbo’s dad was born there. It were the biggest of the holes in the Row--four bedrooms, two parlors, two kitchens, five larders, two pantries. Right nice place. Frodo come early, and was tiny when he was born. Old Widow Rumble, who lives in Number Four, next door to us at Number Three, and who likes to take care of the Gaffer, told me about that time. She was prenticed to a midwife for a while, but she didn’t have the heart to do that work. Every time the baby would start pushing its way out of the womb and she was there to see, she’d become sick, and her mistress finally told her that she wasn’t never going to make a midwife as the last thing she generally saw in the delivery of a baby was the sides of the bowl she was retching into. Widow Rumble says she never regretted having her prenticeship terminated--she loves babies, but not the birthing of them, so she worked as a nurse to several families over the years, even after she was married to Mr. Rumble. Helped raise any number of other people’s children over the years, she did.

Widow Rumble had quit trying to learn midwifery afore Missus Primula come to her time, but she was friends still with her former mistress, and she loved hearing tales of the birthings, so her mistress would stop by afterwards and tell her all about it. As long as she wasn’t seeing it with her own eyes, she was eager to know all the details.

When her mistress came by after little Frodo’s birth, she was solemn and her lips thin and tight. Said the birth was easy enough, but only because since it was so early the baby was quite small and thin. Said the baby was blue at first, and it took quite a bit of time to get it to start breathing on its own. Finally it coughed out a bit of stuff, and then it started breathing more normal and its color started showing up on its cheeks and all. She said it wasn’t a good sign to be so blue when born, as it’s a sign the breath isn’t getting where it needs to go. She also said that it was probably just as well that Missus Primula had told her she wasn’t sure she’d want to have more children, as it looked like she wasn’t going to be able to carry another child to term. In the healer’s records at Brandybuck Hall, Mr. Merry found that she lost two more there, both born at least three months too soon, so looks like the midwife here were right on that one.

Now, Missus Primula was a Brandybuck, and she’d been brought up in Brandy Hall; so living on her own was sort of lonely for her. Mr. Bilbo loved his cousins and had been in and out of Number Five frequently since Mr. Drogo and she got married and settled there, but I guess it weren’t the same as knowing that you could just walk down a passage and be sure of finding someone to gossip with. Having only Mr. Bilbo nearby as family just wasn’t the same, I guess--oh, there was Missus Lobelia and Mr. Otho, but that just wasn’t quite the same neither, don’t you know. If I’d have had to put up with that lot as family like they and Mr. Bilbo and Frodo had to do, I think I’d have dug me a new chamber in toward the center of the Hill, and caved in the passage to it so as to keep them away from me. They were right horrid in those days, those Sackville-Bagginses.

Anyway, when the baby was about a year old, Missus Primula talked Mr. Drogo into moving them back to Buckland. He didn’t want to live in the Hall, at least not at first; thought it would be too crowded. So Mr. Drogo found them a comfortable place near the Brandywine River, not far from the Hall. I guess when they bought it Mr. Drogo thought he’d got hisself quite a bargain, for it was quite cheap. Didn’t realize what he’d got his family into, Mr. Drogo didn’t--turns out this hole was in the flood plain, and every few years it would get flooded out when the spring rains were heavier than usual. Plain foolish, if you ask me, not finding out what could have induced folks to sell a nice place like that so cheap. When Mr. Bilbo found out about it, I guess he just shook his head at the lack of sense of some folks.

Old Mr. Bilbo, he doted on little Frodo. I guess he were often in and out, and that he learned how to dress the baby and to change it’s nappies and all. And little Frodo seems to have liked his grown-up cousin quite a bit in return. When Mr. Drogo decided to move his family to Buckland, Mr. Bilbo was devastated. The baby seemed to miss his Uncle Bilbo from the moment they settled in the new hole, and according to the Gaffer there weren’t no question Mr. Bilbo missed that baby! He’d go over to Buckland regular, he would, and he’d take it presents and all, and stay for a few days to help with things, and he’d take the baby out on his rambles. Once little Frodo could walk by hisself, he’d toddle after his Uncle Bilbo all over Buckland, and Mr. Bilbo would show him everything and all. And I guess sometimes Mr. Drogo and Missus Primula would come with him here to Bag End, but they stopped that when Frodo was about seven or so--the Sackville-Bagginses was getting right jealous of Mr. Bilbo’s care for his cousin Drogo and his family and was raising quite a fuss at the time, and it got to the point Missus Primula couldn’t face the constant rumors that Lobelia was putting out on her and refused to come back at all--and I can’t hardly blame her.

A year after that, after the third time the hole by the Brandywine flooded, they moved smial again--bought a new hole in Whitfurrow. From the healer’s records Mr. Merry found in Brandy Hall, that appears to have been just after they lost another babe, and the healer noted the midwife had said this one was a girlchild, and that he’d had to give Missus Primula medicine for the sadness after. But there was one more note about Mr. Frodo--about how he went into a faint when he heard his mother crying out in grief when the baby came so very soon and was dead when it was born. The healer was worried about the little boy, that this wasn’t right. He was called over by Mr. Drogo, who was right upset, what with losing another babe and his wife weeping her heart out and his son gone all faint. By the time the healer got there Frodo was awake and seemed better, but was all too pale; the healer examined him, or tried to. Even then Frodo was a very private child, and didn’t like no one touching his body if it wasn’t necessary, and he got so stiff when the healer tried to listen to his chest at last the healer gave up, but he wrote that he’d ordered valerian tea for the child three times a day, valerian tea with a small infusion of St. John’s wort.

But it seems Missus Primula wasn’t all too happy in Whitfurrow, neither, and they’d visit Brandy Hall right regular. She and Mr. Drogo would go there to stay for weeks at a time, and they’d often go out in those boats the Master keeps there. I member my Gaffer telling me when I was little about what happened the last time they were there, how they went out in one of them boats after supper, but somehow the boat tipped in the river, and they both drownded. The Gaffer could tell it right proper, he could, and put in all kinds of details, like when they found the bodies there was weeds in their hairs and fishes were swimming in and out of their mouths and all. Now I know that a lot of that was just his stories like, but when I was a little lad it spooked me proper. Then he’d caution me, "And let that be a lesson to you, Sammy my lad--Hobbits just shouldn’t ought to mess around with boats. It just ain’t natural, going about on the water, it ain’t. Don’t be no ninnyhammer, and leave them boats alone." And for years that’s just what I did!

It was then, when Frodo, who was just a lad of twelve, got white and fainted again, and then wouldn’t talk at all when he came to, not for hours. They was sure it was just grief, they was--at first, at least; but then they changed their minds. My Gaffer told me that Mr. Bilbo went for the funeral, and that when he came home he was right upset. Of course, that was only natural, as Mr. Drogo was about the only relative in the Baggins clan who treated him with respect, and they’d been right close and all, and he did love both of them a lot, Mr. Bilbo had. But there was something about Mr. Frodo that had him real upset, too, though he’d never say what it was.

Some folks had assumed he’d bring the boy back to Bag End with him as his ward--after all, he was Mr. Baggins of Bag End, and was now the head of the Baggins family; and certainly, for all his Took and Brandybuck blood, Frodo was still a Baggins. Mr. Merry has asked his mum about why Frodo stayed in Brandy Hall instead, and she told him they convinced Mr. Bilbo that it would be better if the boy had someone to stand as a mother for him, and that as he--meaning Mr. Bilbo-- wasn’t seen as respectable by most of the Shire folk, it would reflect bad on the boy to be raised by him.

But it seems that that was when they first got wind of the fact that there was something not quite right with Frodo’s heart. Budgie Smallfoot, whose dad was a healer for some of the Boffinses, has explained to me how the heart is put together--seems there are rooms in it with doors between that only are supposed to open one way to let the blood through. Sometimes, though, the doors don’t seal right, and a bit of the blood can slip backwards, and the heart will make a slushy sound when you listen to the chest. There’s been several of the Boffinses who have had this problem, though it’s rarely seen in most of the rest of the Shire. When this shows up in a Hobbit child, usually it doesn’t mean a lot, and Budgie says that such children usually don’t have the sound once they get bigger, that in growing up the child’s heart fixes itself, or the doors just fit better or something.

But sometimes, especially when the child is worried or really scared or upset, when the heart beats faster, the doors will slip worse, and then the blood will slip backwards worse, and for some reason it works against breathing somehow, and the child will often faint. This is what I don’t quite understand, and Budgie can’t seem to get it through my head how the heart does with breathing. Maybe it’s just that he don’t know, or I’m just too lacking to understand--I’m not sure which is right.

Mr. Budgie says, though, that sometimes when folk get older, especially it seems if you’re real old or a Boffins, sometimes this will start happening in a grownup Hobbit, and then it can be real bad. This can be the sign the person’s heart is failing, and the person will probably die sooner rather than later, especially if they end up going through a bad patch. The heart will stop sounding just a bit slushy, but will start sounding really slushy more and more of the time, and the feet will start swelling, and other parts, inside the chest, will start swelling, too, and it can get right hard to breathe or move. People will feel like they just can’t take a breath at all, or like they’re out of breath after just a bit of moving.

When the person is a child, as long as it’s just a bit slushy just part of the time, apparently it isn’t too worrisome. He says that exercise, as long as it’s sensible and not too strenuous, can help even things out, make the heart stronger. He says that walking is really good for the heart, as it keeps things moving but isn’t too hard on you. He agrees with what the healer said in that letter Mr. Merry brought to me.

Now, Mr. Saradoc Brandybuck’s mum was a healer, too--only, I think Missus Menegilda was more a midwife than a full healer. But being the Master’s wife, she was often busy with family duties; so when another of the healers who had prenticed with a healer for the Boffinses married one of the Brandybucks as lived in Brandy Hall, they were glad to hear he’d agreed to live in the Hall with his new wife, as there would be someone able to be on duty when Missus Menegilda had to do with Hall business. He was the one who attended Frodo just after he found out his parents was dead. While Frodo was still fainted away, he listened to his chest and heard that noise in Frodo’s heartbeat. He told them about the slushy sound, that as Frodo was still just a lad there was a good chance he’d grow out of it still, but that it might still be a problem when he grew up. He told them that Frodo needed to eat lots of green vegetables and fish and chicken and other fowl, and about exercising regularly, and about not allowing things to get him too upset.

Apparently they decided that going to the funeral would make him too upset, but he was even more upset that they’d left him out of it all, so finally Mr. Bilbo took him to the funeral after all, and I understand Missus Esmeralda was fit to be tied. She told Mr. Merry that Frodo was all still and quiet during the funeral, and all pale, but composed. After, I understand there was a row with Mr. Bilbo over why he had brought the boy anyway, and Mr. Bilbo tried to tell them that not bringing him was the crueler thing as he was tearing hisself in two, not knowing what was happening, but Missus Esmeralda was having none of it.

Growing Up in Brandy Hall

When Missus Esmeralda found she was to have a babe, she didn’t want Frodo to know, for she had lost other babes already; but you can’t keep such news quiet in a place like Brandy Hall, when the Heir’s Lady is with child, and of course Frodo found out. He was very excited over it all, it seems, and when the babe was due they couldn’t get him to leave the smial the way she’d intended, for he intended to know this baby from the time it was born. They had a time of it, Mr. Saradoc told me, trying to keep the boy out from underfoot, but he kept sneaking into the rooms around where Missus Esmeralda was having her confinement. Mr. Saradoc finally said to leave him there, as there seemed no way to keep him out, but the worry was that the excitement would make him take a spell again. It appeared, however, that he was indeed growing out of his problem. He was one of the first to greet the new lad, and was tickled pink with what he called his "brother-cousin." From what I hear tell he was as devoted to the babe as Mr. Bilbo was to hisself, and he would gladly walk the babe around and around the smial when it was fretful, would devise toys for its amusement, play peep-and-see-me for hours with it, and once little Merry was able to keep his feet for more than a few moments worked on teaching him to walk. Once he could toddle, Merry would follow Frodo everywhere.

It was probably a good thing he had the babe to care for, for Frodo wasn’t allowed to do so many things. Wasn’t allowed to run much with the other bigger boys in or out of the Smial for fear they would make him do too much and it’d be hard on his heart; wasn’t allowed to play much with the littler ones for they might be too rowdy for his heart; wasn’t allowed to ride a pony for fear he’d lose control of it and it would be too much for his heart, wasn’t allowed to wander far from the smial for fear he’d go too far and his heart might take a turn, wasn’t allowed to work the whole day during the harvests for fear he might tire hisself.... You can see how it was. Many a lad would’ve been utterly spoiled from such coddling; but Mr. Frodo, he didn’t cotton to it. Felt he should be allowed to do his own share. Felt shamed because he wasn’t allowed to do, wasn’t allowed to play, wasn’t allowed to work.

Mr. Bilbo would meet with all his younger cousins pretty regular, always had gifts for them, delighted them with his stories of giant spiders and dragons and Dwarves and Elves’ halls and all, but his favorite was Frodo. As Frodo got older and didn’t have no more spells, Mr. Bilbo got more and more annoyed at how the lad was being treated, for he felt they was protecting him too much, and would drive him away.

When he was reaching sixteen, Frodo just rebelled something awful. They’d never told him why they didn’t let him do things, and he thought it was only because they felt sorry for him because he’d lost his folks and all. He started slipping out of the Hall at times and joining the other lads near his age.

Raiding the farms around the Marish is what a lot of the bigger teens in Buckland do regular like. They’ll sneak into the fields and steal taters or carrots, maybe hit the smoking sheds and cut off a bit of bacon or ham, dip into the cool houses for some butter or cream, into the glass houses where the winter strawberries is grown--what all of us have always done when we was teens. We’d do it here, too; and we’d take what we’d stole out to the places in the woods where teens will go, or to the old empty Underhill place on the outskirts of Hobbiton, and we’d have us a feast. Teens seem to get awful hungry, more so than when we’re little lads and lasses, or when we get to be tweens.

Frodo, maybe because he hadn’t been allowed to do so much for so long, got to be real involved in the field raidings in the Marish, and would plan some of the most daring thefts of all. The other lads stood in awe of him. Maybe it was because he was so smart--he was the smartest of the lads in Buckland even then; but he could plan things so no one would get caught by the farmers. He’d get some of the younger lads to play decoy, and then when the farmers and their goodwives was distracted trying to help some little lad who’s kitty had somehow gotten stuck in one of their apple trees, Mr. Frodo and his mates would be in the back fields picking baskets of raspberries as fast as they could. Or an older lad’s pony cart would lose a wheel at the entrance to the lane of a farm just as the farmer would be heading out to milk his cows, and by the time he’d helped reset the wheel and seat the linchpin, the lads from the Hall would have stripped the milk from the best cows in the herd. Or while a likely lad was offering the farmer and his wife the pick of a litter of puppies, the other lads would be raiding the mushroom patch. Mr. Frodo was that devious.

It was the mushrooms as led to his downfall, though. Best mushrooms that grow in the whole Shire, both old Mr. Bilbo and Frodo said many a time, grow on the old Maggot farm. Farmer Maggot was constantly having to defend his stand of prize mushrooms from the boys, and not just the teens from Brandy Hall. But I guess my Mr. Frodo was the worstest of the lot. Had as true a passion for mushrooms as any Hobbit as ever was, and then some. He’d sneak over to the Maggot’s mushroom patch every chance he got, and he’d grab a good number each time. Got seen there several times, he did, and the last time Farmer Maggot actually caught him in the act. He’d set a careful watch on the patch and this time hadn’t fallen for the decoy one of the other lads had tried--left one of his oldest sons to deal with that. The Farmer hisself was actually hiding by the mushroom patch, and he let Frodo sneak in and start picking some of the mushrooms afore he sneaked up on him and caught him with a half a small bag. That was when he smacked Mr. Frodo across his bottom with his walking stick, and threatened him with his dogs. That finally broke Frodo of his mushroom raiding, I guess, as the farmer also went over across to Buckland to have a talk with old Mr. Rory and Mr. Saradoc and all.

He’d set the dogs to chase Frodo off his place, and it appears to have scared Frodo real bad. Where Frodo went afterwards no one can say, but Mr. Merry remembers that day, how Frodo had sneaked off just after dawn and wouldn’t let him come with him or nothing. It was not long after noon when Farmer Maggot arrived at the Hall with his complaints about that Baggins boy of theirs; but Frodo didn’t show up till near dark. He was real white when he tried sneaking into the smial through one of the delivery doors near the kitchens, and the cook who caught him was concerned, for he seemed sort of clumsy or something. She thought at first he was getting ready to raid the first pantry, for that was just near where he was coming in; and there was a birthday feast planned for the next day, and they’d been filling that pantry all day with cakes and sweets; she was keeping a tight watch for fear the teens would raid the treats and leave nothing for the party. She wasn’t so sure once she’d caught him that he was intending to raid that pantry, but she was becoming concerned, for he didn’t seem right somehow. She took him to the Master’s study, and Mr. Rory was about to give him a strict lecture when he looked at the lad’s face and saw it was all off color. He sent him to bed, instead, and made out it was for punishment, but then he got Missus Menegilda to go see to him. Frodo wouldn’t say much of nothing to her, I guess; but as he looked only a bit pale by then and his pulse was steady--he wouldn’t let her listen to his chest--she couldn’t be sure whether or no he’d had another spell. She told him he’d been way too bold with the Maggot’s mushrooms and that he was to be punished for what he’d stole, but that the Master was so upset he didn’t want to deal with him till the next day. Then she had some special tea made up for him and had Missus Esmeralda take it to him and make sure he drank it--had some herbs in it to strengthen his heart, although nobody told him that at the time.

They made him work in their own garden and the glass houses after that for a good month, part as punishment, but more to keep an eye on him. He knew he’d been caught fair and square stealing and he deserved to be punished--told me about it when we were in Rivendell after he started feeling better. He said it weren’t so awful bad as punishments go, and that they’d told him the stripe on his backside from Maggot’s stick and the scare from the dogs was almost punishment enough, but he needed to learn discipline. I guess they didn’t tell him that they was trying to make sure he didn’t stress his heart too much. He was just glad he was being allowed to do something for the Hall--it were almost the first time they allowed him proper work to do--oh, he got lessons and all, but those was easy for him. The other lads around his age all had tasks to do for the Hall--every week some of them had to work in the stables grooming the beasts, or in the gardens and fields scaring crows and other birds, or helping the gardeners or the farmers, or driving the horses during harvesting, or gleaning--the types of jobs lads can do easy, you know. Usually when a lad from the Hall got caught raiding at a time when raiding was not good, or if he was taking so much it was a strain on the farmer or goodwife he was raiding from, he’d get sent to the kitchen to turn spits and scour pots, or to the stables to muck out for a week or two, or to the smithy to work the bellows for a while to remind him to not get too greedy. So I can see where Frodo felt it wasn’t such a bad punishment to work at weeding and potting and trimming the edges of the gardens, even though that was usually just a regular task for a Hobbit teen his age.

But when the month was over, they started keeping him close again. He told me that if it hadn’t been for little Merry he’d have gone mad--he was that bored and feeling useless. Couldn’t go out--couldn’t play with the other lads--wasn’t allowed a regular task except to keep an eye on the younger children.

One good thing, I guess, was that old Mr. Rory did listen when the healer told him to let the boy to swim. They did live near the Brandywine, after all, and swimming was a skill most of the lads and even many of the lasses learned, as it could be right dangerous if they slipped into the river and had no idea how to float even. Mr. Rory hisself had taught Frodo how to swim when he was just a tiny thing, and as a lad Frodo had always been happy with water, till his folks drownded. Mr. Saradoc told me that usually Missus Primula could swim fine, but it’s a lot harder when wearing skirts and petticoats and all; and that when they finally found her body it looked like there was a nasty bump on her head. Said it looked like she’d tried to come up from the bottom of the river, but in the dark bumped her head on the boat and stunned herself, and that was why she drownded.

Now, swimming was nothing I ever learned how to do, although I’ll have my own bairns taught it. I member following Mr. Frodo out into the water when he tried to leave the Fellowship on his own, and how helpless I felt when I sank in the water and almost drownded myself. I don’t want my children to not be able to save themselves or to be as helpless as their old dad, after all.

Frodo was something graceful in the water, all the folk at Brandy Hall who remember his time there tell me. Missus Esmeralda has told me that even though he didn’t get afraid of the river after his folks died, Frodo did respect it more, was more cautious--just not afraid cautious. After he came to Bag End he’d take me to one part of the Water as was a bit deeper than the rest, and he’d swim there and I’d just watch. Oh, I’d paddle in the water when it was right hot, or wade in the streams and the like. But I was that afraid of water deeper than my knees--not even Frodo could make me go deeper than that, other than the time when he tried to leave me behind at Amon Hen. I’d watch him, though, and was amazed. He didn’t have no fear at all of water--would swim as graceful as an otter; would suddenly disappear here and then surface way over there, shaking his hair out of his eyes as he’d come up laughing with delight. But, he never took chances in the water; and that did give him something to do in the summer at Brandy Hall--he was charged with watching the other children when they were swimming and teaching the little ones. He was right good at it, I guess, and stopped more than one lad as old as him or older from doing something right stupid as would endanger hisself or a littler one.

But when winter came, there wasn’t nothing they’d let him do cepting minding the bairns, and he started getting pale and withdrawn. The healer who’d married the Brandybuck wife finally got right perturbed after watching this year after year, as he couldn’t get them to see they was not letting the lad exercise or have any real responsibility, and he felt this was very bad for him. It would be better in the summertime, but when the swimming in the river was over, Frodo’d get even more quiet and withdrawn than ever. Finally he wrote a letter to Mr. Rory, and sent a copy to the Thain hisself as well as another copy to Mr. Bilbo. It was that, it seems, as made Mr. Bilbo decide that it was time to take Frodo in hand and bring him to Bag End. It was the Master’s copy of that letter that Mr. Merry brought to me that day.

Mr. Bilbo’s Ward

I member Mr. Bilbo setting off for Brandy Hall with a pony cart he’d rented from the stable at the Green Dragon. Said he’d probably be gone a week or so, but that when he got back he expected he’d be bringing back his lad Frodo as his ward.

Now, I’d never seen Frodo, although my old Gaffer had, of course, when Frodo was just a tiny thing. I’d heard him tell of the days when Mr. Drogo and Missus Primula lived just down the Row from our place, and how they’d visit Bag End from Buckland from time to time till Frodo was seven, and how clever the lad was, and how devoted to him his folks was and all. And I’d heard the pride in Mr. Bilbo’s voice when he’d get back from a visit to Brandy Hall, when he was speaking of his young cousin Frodo, how smart he was, how much promise. And, of course, there was the Gaffer’s cautionary tales he’d tell of how Master Frodo’s mum and dad had drownded that we all got to hear, and how boats and rivers was not to be trusted. Had no idea what this Frodo Lad of Mr. Bilbo’s would be like, but had a vague idea he’d still be about ten, same as me.

I saw the tall, pale person first in Mr. Bilbo’s garden, and I thought for sure this had to be an Elf. He was a young tween, of course, but I was just a little one myself, and had no idea as how he’d had to have grown since he’d last visited Bag End with his folks. But he was so slender, his face so pale and his eyes so bright and eager in a way I’d never seen in a Hobbit afore, his expression sad and watchful, his hands so slender and like they’d never done more than handle beautiful things and all, his gaze so intent and intelligent--I just knew this must be an Elf visiting Mr. Bilbo. I knew that Mr. Bilbo went out walking to meet with Elves in the Shire, and he’d told me they often visited the Woody End and he’d sometimes meet with them on the way to Buckland; I knew Dwarves sometimes would come to visit Bag End, although I was too little at the time to remember the last time they’d done so; and I knew that the old wizard Gandalf was a frequent visitor since Mr. Bilbo’s adventure, although I’d not seen him yet, neither. So, when I saw this person in Mr. Bilbo’s garden I was sure it had to be an Elf come to speak with Mr. Bilbo when he got back from Buckland. I was in a fine dither, I’ll tell you.

But then Mr. Bilbo hisself came out of Bag End, looking for someone, and when he saw the slender stranger, he said, "Well, there you are, then. Is it as you remember? It has been years, hasn’t it, my boy?" And only then did I begin to realize this must be Master Frodo.

He wasn’t really all that tall--just the way he carried hisself and his slenderness made him look taller, it seems. But to me--even as I realized this was just another Hobbit like me--to me he seemed special and splendid, and....

...and fragile. Yes, fragile is the word. Something specially beautiful and precious and possibly easily broken and lost. And something in my heart went out to that feeling of fragile, something that said, This one, this Hobbit I will protect, because this is a beautiful Hobbit who shall not be broken if I can help it. We can’t lose this one. I can’t lose this Hobbit. I won’tlose this Hobbit. And when he looked about and saw me at the garden gate and suddenly gave me that smile of his, I felt as the Valar themselves had given me a sign. I had sworn myself then, just a lad of ten, to Frodo Baggins, and it’s a giving I will never, never, never regret.

Mr. Bilbo saw where he was looking, over at me at the garden gate, and he smiled at me, too. "Ah, our lad Sam!" he said. "Frodo Baggins, may I introduce young Master Samwise Gamgee, son of our inestimable gardener, Hamfast Gamgee, a veritable master of growing things. Now, Sam, is your father on his way?"

At that point the Gaffer hisself spoke up from further up the garden where he’d been working since sunup on pulling out some nettle plants that had taken over in the patch of garden he’d given to me to cultivate. I’d thought they was catnip and had left them grow, and only a painful encounter with the underside of their leaves had disabused me the night afore.

"Ain’t no kind of young master, that ‘un," my Gaffer grunted, and then spat. He was wearing his long gloves to protect his arms as he pulled out the stinging nettles. "Not less’n it’s master of not knowin’ the differ’nce ‘tween nettles and herbs, like." He was carrying a pile of the plants to set in his barrow as he’d left near the gate.

"Ah, nettles, eh?" Mr. Bilbo said as he looked them over after they was cast into the barrow. "Useful things, and young ones are quite tasty in a salad, you know."

The Gaffer looked at him with his brows raised in disbelief. "Nettles in salad?" he asked.

"Oh, yes, but only young ones, mind you. Learned that along the way to the Lonely Mountain. One very useful bit old Balin taught me--not that I’ve had a nettle salad since, of course. And the fibers can be twisted into thread in a pinch. But when you’re starving for greenstuffs because about all that’s been packed for food is cram and jerked meats, you’ll try about anything. Ah, many was the time we’d have dandelion greens and young nettles along with our meals."

The Gaffer gave that grunt that he gave about whenever Mr. Bilbo mentioned his adventures, what said he was half-disbelievin’ and half-curious and couldn’t quite make up his mind which--not that he truly disbelieved Mr. Bilbo’s stories, mind; but some of the things he said was so far beyond the Gaffer’s experience he just couldn’t take it all in, if you take my meaning. He knew as Mr. Bilbo had really gone with Dwarves--he’d seen them the day afore he disappeared coming up the Hill to Bag End, and he’d seen them the next morning early on heading for the Green Dragon, then Mr. Bilbo runnin’ after an hour or so later on, his waistcoat all unbuttoned and his face flustered. He was just starting to work a bit with his uncle, who did Bag End’s garden in those days, and though he was just a lad at the time, he found the garden and the smial it graced both fascinating.

But, that’s a different tale.

"I’ll stick to lettuce and cabbages, mind," the Gaffer said.

I looked at them nettles with more interest and stowed the information away in my head for study later. I brought the pail that had the food Mum had put up into the garden, not sure if I needed to be invited since the Master and his ward was there today, not that I ever stopped to wonder when no one was there--then the garden was my dad’s and mine, you know. Meanwhile old Mr. Bilbo was telling Frodo what kinds of remedies the Elves had told him for nettle stings--seems the stings don’t seem to bother Dwarves none, though Elves know a number of ways to reduce the bumps and itching. Again, I listened, and later that day when no one was around I tried one of them on my arms, and it worked--we had the comfrey there in the herb garden, and a bit of aloe, and my arm felt much better after.

Mr. Frodo spoke up in a quiet patch amongst his uncle’s talking, and asked me, "Did your mum send that up for your elevenses?" I nodded. His voice was like him, beautiful and clear. He waited, and I saw he meant me to add on.

"She sent us some bread and cheese, and some dried grapes from the arbor above our place," I told him. "Too early for fresh grapes this year." He nodded.

"Does she dry them on a tray in the sun?" he asked. "That is how my Aunt Menegilda does it." I nodded. "I copied out her book of useful ideas for my Tookish aunts for Yule last year," he said. I think I just looked up at him, surprised. Oh, I knew Mr. Bilbo read and wrote regular, but I’d never met a tween who knew how to do it afore.

"Uncle Bilbo has promised to tell me some of the dishes he learned of on his travels, and I’ll make them cookery books from Dwarvish and Elvish recipes for this Yule," he continued. "Would you like to help me make copies? Maybe your mum would like one, too."

I must’ve gone all red or something, and I muttered that my mum didn’t know how to read, and he got all embarrassed.

"Not to worry, Frodo my lad," Mr. Bilbo said. "You forget that a lot of Hobbits never learn to read and write--you’re just so used to it in being true in the Hall you have no idea it’s not universal."

I didn’t quite understand all the words he used, but thought I understood the gist of that, and filed that away to think of, too. So, over in Buckland lots of Hobbits, even working Hobbits like my Gaffer and me, learned how to read and write? I’d have loved to learn how to do that, you know. Mr. Bilbo had let me visit him in his study one day when the rain suddenly poured down out of a sky gone suddenly dark, and he’d brought me into the smial to get out of the wet. I’d been fascinated by the books, and he’d started telling me about them, what they was about, where he’d got them, and that this one was tales and that one was about healing plants in the wild, and the one with the red cover and blue spine there on his desk was the story of the Great War against the Enemy, written in Elvish, and he was translating it into our speech. He picked up one of the pages he’d written and read it to me, then opened to a page in the book and read some of it out in Elvish. It was beautiful sounding words, yet dark and frightening. And when I said that, he told me that of course it was dark and frightening, for it were a dark and frightening part of the story, with Beren fighting against Morgoth and being vanquished and put down into the dungeons.

Anyway, Mr. Bilbo said that as I’d brought our elevenses, maybe it was time for the two of them to have theirs, too, and he took Mr. Frodo back inside.

Frodo was quiet and observant, like. Late that afternoon when the Gaffer had me cutting off the dead flowers among the pansies so they’d keep blooming, he was sitting on the ground nearby, reading a book and watching me at the same time. I had been rather pleased he was there, for I liked to look at him when I could. Finally he closed the book with a blade of grass inside it, sticking out between the pages, and set it on the bench he’d sat by, and came over and asked if he could help me. "I helped in the gardens at home some," he explained. I was surprised--someone like this special Hobbit grubbing around in gardens? But if he wanted to help, I guessed he could, as this was his garden now. Once he figured out what I was doing, he went in and got a short knife, then came out and started helping me. His hands was quick and gentle with the plants, and once I figured he weren’t going to cut any buds, too, I moved over and started with my scissors on the geraniums, doing the same with them. Then I heard him whistling. He could whistle like a songbird, and I’d never heard anything like it afore.

Soon Mr. Bilbo came out and watched. He sat down on the bench, his hands in the pockets of his waistcoat, fingering whatever he had in the right one, watching and smiling at the two of us. I would give him a glance now and then to see what he was thinking of this, his cousin there on his knees in the garden cutting off dead heads off the pansies, but it was plain he was pleased enough with what he saw. Then the Gaffer came around from the turn of the Hill where he’d been working on the yellow rose tree he was trying so hard to get over an attack of rust, and his jaw dropped. Not but Mr. Bilbo hadn’t been known to take an interest in some of the plants hisself, mind you. He’d brought back some cuttings from his adventures-- plants from Rivendell--and he’d insisted on caring for them hisself for years afore he’d finally been sure they would not die if the Gaffer took care of them after that. But to see the Young Master working alongside me was a shock to the Gaffer’s system, seemed like.

Mr. Bilbo stopped him afore he could do more than sputter, though. "I’m very pleased," he said, "to see that your Sam there has been teaching my young cousin some useful skills. And a very good job he’s been doing of overseeing Frodo’s education in how to keep the pansies blooming."

Mr. Frodo looked up at the Gaffer rather shyly, and smiled at him, and not even the Gaffer could help being overwhelmed. "He’s letting me earn my keep, Mr. Gamgee," Frodo said. "He’s a very good teacher."

Later he told me that both of us had turned red with pleasure, and he thought that was a right treat, he did. Of course, he already had an idea of what was needed, but he didn’t tell us that then. But he enjoyed cleaning out dead heads, although after an hour he’d become tired and his knees would be starting to bother him, so then he’d stop and leave me to it, but there usually weren’t a lot left to cut when he’d helped like that. Then he’d go back to his book, but often he’d start reading it out loud so I could hear the story as I was working.

I didn’t work all day, of course, but I loved being with my dad in the Bag End garden, and I loved flowers. In the section that was mine to grow, I’d changed from trying to grow herbs to trying to start some of the seeds from the elven flowers. I’d also started an aloe plant there. This was a plant Mr. Bilbo said grew wild in the south, and that the Elves loved it for its soothing effects on the skin, so he’d brought a cutting from there. The aloe was thriving, but the flowers wasn’t doing so well. Oh, they’d come up okay, but then they’d shrivel and wouldn’t grow right, and I was trying to figure out why they grew where the Gaffer had them near the study window, but not here in this sunny patch.

After watching me check them for the fifth day in a row, Mr. Frodo figured out what I was worrying over, and came over and looked down at those small, valiant seedlings. He asked me about them and where I’d gotten the seeds, and after I’d explained and shown him the grown flowers near the study window and all, he sat and studied on them seedlings for quite a while, then went and looked at the ones that was growing so famously by the smial.

Suddenly he gave a laugh, and came over to me and said, "I think maybe I see the problem." He led me to the study window and asked me to describe what it was like to him. It took quite a lot of describing for me to suddenly realize what was wrong with my little plot--too much sun! They grew by the study window shaded the hottest part of the day by nearby trees and the honeysuckle vine that was trained around the window, but I had them out under the bare sun all day long, and she was just too hot for them. Once I understood I felt like a ninnyhammer, but at the same time I was pleased with having figured it out for myself, even if Mr. Frodo had helped me see.

I went back to my bit of garden and gently dug them up, then took them over under the lilac and planted them there in a bare spot, and went back and looked at my now empty bit of plot and sighed. "I’d put sunflowers here now," I said, "but it’s too late for them to bloom."

"How about nasturtiums?" Mr. Frodo suggested, and I felt happier. Nasturtiums will grow about anywhere, and they don’t take too long to grow and flower, so I went to where there was nasturtiums out by the front door, found some of their big seeds lying near the plants, and brought them around and put them where the elven flowers had been.

When the Gaffer came by as I was watering the seeds, he wanted to know what had happened to the seedlings I’d started. I told him that I’d found out they didn’t do well in the full sun, and showed them where I’d moved them to and asked if he thought they’d grow there. He snorted, but it was with approval, I realized. He’d not said anything so I’d have a chance to learn for myself that some plants couldn’t grow in full sun, but if I’d not realized what was wrong soon he was going to move them hisself and then tell me what I’d done wrong. He was right pleased I’d realized what was wrong without him saying so. I didn’t tell him then that it was Mr. Frodo who’d helped me see what the matter was, for he didn’t tell me--he’d just figured it out by hisself and then helped me figure it out by myself. That was when I got sure Mr. Frodo was about the smartest Hobbit alive, next to Mr. Bilbo, of course.

Fealty

It was Mr. Frodo who realized I wanted to learn to read. I’d finished with cleaning the herbaceous border one day and had nothing to do, and my nasturtiums didn’t need no more water or nothing, and I’d been sitting near Mr. Frodo as he read to me. I wanted to see the trick of it, how it was he could read, so I moved alongside of him. But I couldn’t see the whole book, so I sat up on the bench behind him where I could look at it over his shoulder. He was surprised when I moved behind him, but then he figured out just what I was looking at so he began to move his finger under the words as he read so I could see what it was he was reading. It were a story about a boy who tricked a fox into leaving his chickens alone. I’d heard it afore, of course--it was a common story to tell. I was amazed someone had written it down. But there it was, in a book, and there was other stories in that book, too, and I was dying to know which was ones I knew and which was new ones.

The next day Mr. Bilbo came out while the Gaffer was trimming the roses and suggested I be taught how to read and write and figure. The Gaffer weren’t too sure about that, but at the same time he couldn’t say no--he was agreeing with Mr. Bilbo that I was right smart, although he rarely told me so. So, he just said he’d think about it.

My mum was real pleased to hear Mr. Bilbo thought I was that smart, and she were all happy to have me start to learn, and finally the Gaffer told Mr. Bilbo to go ahead and teach me, as long as I wasn’t a bother and I had time to do my work in the garden.

Mr. Bilbo started off teaching me and all. He was teaching Frodo Elvish then, so he’d set him off doing some translation or practicing the letters, and then he’d start with me on the letters for our speech. In a week I was writing simple words on a slate with a piece of chalk, and soon I was reading and writing sentences. I finally was able to start working on the book of tales Mr. Frodo’d been reading me out of, and I was as pleased as all get out. Began copying parts of it out on bits of parchment once I got to learning how to use a quill and ink, and then I’d take those bits of parchment home and read the stories to my sister Marigold.

But then Mr. Bilbo got a new book of Elvish he was laboring on trying to read--I learned there was more than one Elvish language, and although they looked the same, they didn’t read or sound the same, and he was just really getting into this new language called Quenya, so he let Mr. Frodo take over teaching me. He would have me read and write, then he’d have me read some more and we’d talk about what I’d read, what it meant and all.

Figuring was harder at first, but I soon got into it. After a while I got real good at it, and could figure out easily how many plants I could put into a garden patch of such a size. When the Gaffer was making decisions on what kinds of bulbs he’d need for the fall planting I figured how many of each kind he’d need, and drew out a plan of the garden on the slate they’d given me to take home to practice on and showed him how I’d plan it out. He was right impressed. I don’t think he’d realized just how useful figuring could be, for once he told me how much the different bulbs would cost, I figured out how much he’d need to ask from Mr. Bilbo to get them all.

But it wasn’t just my letters I learned from Mr. Frodo. Mr. Bilbo was determined that his lad was going to exercise, so he sent him off on a walk each day, either in the morning or afore sunset, telling him he was to enjoy hisself in the woods and fields or exploring the villages.

Tweren’t many lads near his age in Hobbiton--a few more in Bywater, but none of the gentry like, who’d feel fine talking to such as Frodo Baggins. So Mr. Bilbo talked the Gaffer into letting me go with Frodo once all were clear he liked having me with him. He explained to me he was used to caring for the younger lads and lasses in Brandy Hall, and that he missed his little cousin Merry something fierce. He’d take me to the stables and explain about the ponies, and the hostelers let us stroke them and help curry them and all, those as were gentle, of course. We’d go down to the Water and he’d swim. We’d go out into the woods and poke around in the stream. He found a worm that builds itself a shell out of whatever it finds to protect itself, so we brought a few home and took them out of their shells and gave them colored sand and sticks and small beads to see what kinds of homes they’d fix for themselves. Mr. Bilbo let us put jars of water with these worms on the window sill of the dining room, and we saw all kinds of shells built, some of them right pretty. Then we’d watch them crawl up the stems Mr. Bilbo said we had to keep in the jars for them, and they’d turn into flying insects after making themselves a different kind of case around them.

One day we came home with caterpillars we’d found that were big and brown with a wide stripe, and we fixed up a box for them with dirt and grass and twigs and some leaves we’d change every day. And when they made cocoons we watched with delight till the cocoons opened, letting moths out.

As fall came, Mr. Frodo got more lonely for his cousin Merry, and finally Mr. Bilbo said he could invite him to come for a visit for their birthday, that they’d have a big party at Bag End, and they’d invite Aunt Esmeralda and Uncle Saradoc and little Merry and Uncle Paladin Took and his family, too. But both insisted Marigold, May, and me were to come for the party, too, as their guests. My folks was all in a dither, but there wasn’t no way of saying no without being rude, so we was allowed to go on the big day.

The company came three days ahead of time. My sisters May and Marigold came in to help, as did Mrs. Rumble--she weren’t a widow then, yet. They cleaned that hole from back to front, and the windows sparkled and so did the glasses and the bottles of wine and such. I helped some with the airing of the rooms, and my mum and me did arrangements of flowers for the guest chambers.

I’d not seen the Brandybucks afore, although the Tooks had come for a visit now and again in the last few years. The Tooks came in their carriage, and the Brandybucks rode over on ponies, and the Bolgers even came from Budgefield. Mr. Frodo was happy to see his family again, and their expressions when they saw him were a treat--were all surprised to see how much different he was than they’d been thinking. He was filling out some, and his eyes weren’t so hollow any more. The freedom he’d found to wander about on his own and with me had hardened his muscles, and his eyes had a sparkle to them now. I tried to see him as they did, membering how he’d looked when I first saw him. Mostly, there wasn’t the deep sense of sorrow I’d seen when first I saw him in the garden. His voice was calmer, getting deeper, more cheerful. His smile was less rare, and he didn’t always look over his shoulder as if to ask if it was all right for him to do this and that. He was happy now, and they could all see it.

Mr. Freddy was my age, and Mr. Merry was about two years less than me, but boy, was he a scamp. Mr. Frodo was that pleased to see him and all, but it was soon obvious this was a child who didn’t know the meaning of the word "No." He was into everything, and Mr. Frodo was all in a dither trying to keep him from upsetting the drying sand on Mr. Bilbo’s desk or using all the blotting paper to make paper boats out of. He calmed down when we went outside and I showed him my bit of garden and all. He knew lots about plants, and explained with pride that he got to help in the glass houses at Brandy Hall now, and he was learning about herbs. Was right interested in the herb garden out around the Hill from the kitchen door, and could name most of the plants. Mr. Frodo and him and me spent some time collecting seeds from the poppy heads, and we took some up the Hill to plant there to grow a bit wild.

Mr. Frodo nipped back into the hole to get us some elevenses, and we ate up on the hill, looking one way into Hobbiton, then to the Water, then into Bywater and across to where the Cotton’s have their farm, then back towards the woods and fields where Mr. Frodo liked to ramble during his walks, then down toward Bagshot Row where I pointed out where I lived to Mr. Freddy and little Merry. And Frodo told us stories like Mr. Bilbo told him in the evenings of the lands out beyond the borders of the Shire, of Bree and Rivendell and the Misty Mountains where Bilbo and the dwarves were captured by goblins and he saw Gollum. That was the first time I ever heard tell of Gollum, and he sounded such a funny creature, hiding in the roots of the mountains on his rock in the middle of an underground pool. That one day I’d not only see him myself but learn to loathe and fear him--and pity him as well--I never dreamed.

On the birthday day, Mum made sure that May and Marigold and me were all special dressed up and our hair on our heads and feet all brushed neat, and she gave us a basket of bread to take up with some pots of jam she’d made, a bowl of mushrooms the Gaffer had ordered from Farmer Maggot’s and Mum had made into a warm stew, and a small basket of brambleberries she’d found Mr. Frodo especially liked. She said that even though we was guests, we should contribute to the feast.

It was funny to sit at a table with Mr. Frodo and the other guest children. Mr. Bilbo had toys from Dale for all of us little ones, and I got a lovely dragon carved all of a green stone. Its legs could move, and its tail swished from side to side when you moved it. Marigold got a wooden doll all dressed in lace, and for May there was a lovely work basket with a bird perched on top that made music when you tapped its head. Mr. Freddy got a dragon, too, only his was purple, and the younger Took girls got dolls while Miss Pearl, who was the eldest, got a bigger bird who also played music if you tapped its head, and its wings would flap. And little Mr. Merry got a wooden dog on wheels he could pull across the floor, and its head would go up and down.

Mr. Frodo had collected stones of various kinds and put them into a slotted box for Mr. Merry, and gave Mr. Freddy a bag of sweets. There was pincushions for May and Pearl, and a pinecone doll he’d made for Marigold, who seemed to love it as much as the fancier one she’d had from Mr. Bilbo, and bead necklaces for the other Took lasses. For the men he’d carved pipe rests, and for the ladies he’d copied poems from a book for each one and put them into a fancy cover he’d made. And for Mr. Bilbo he’d bought a book he’d found in a stall at the market, and it made him right pleased. But for me he set a package wrapped in cloth by me, and it turned out it was a story he’d written just for me, sewn into a book and with pictures he’d drawn hisself. I have it still, "The Story of a Garden" by Frodo Baggins. It’s one of my most treasured possessions. Wonder if he members making it?

The food Mum sent was part of the feast, and Mr. Frodo was tucking into the mushrooms like wild until May said our dad had got them from Farmer Maggot. Then he stopped eating them. But then Mr. Bilbo looked over at us and noticed something was amiss. When he said he was going to get a bottle of Old Winyards to have when the supper was over, he stopped by the lower table and spoke real soft to Mr. Frodo, who spoke real soft back to him. Then Mr. Bilbo laughed out loud, and said, only a little louder, "Don’t you dare leave those mushrooms, my dear lad. They came fair and square this time, and you deserve them--the best mushrooms in the Shire." And suddenly Frodo laughed out loud and started eating again, and the other adults looked over at us to see what the laughing was about, then forgot about us when they couldn’t figure it out.

After dinner we younger ones went out onto the Hill to play, and Mr. Frodo did his best to make us all laugh and have fun. He didn’t let any of us lord it over the rest, and we played Statues and Tig and Hot-and-Cold, and we told stories, and then Mr. Frodo told us more stories till it was time for tea.

But when we went back in, he was holding Mr. Merry’s hand in his right hand, and mine with his left. And when I thanked him again for the story, he smiled like I’d just given him a jewel from a dragon hoard.

When the guests left the next day, I stood there by Frodo to wave goodbye. And he smiled at me and told me, "I was so glad to see Merry again, but it’s so good he’s off home and I don’t have to pull him out of Bilbo’s desk one more time! Now it’s the two of us again." And the way he said it, I knew he meant it, that he was truly glad it was just the two of us again. And when he was sent off to the market in Hobbiton to get his uncle some pipeweed and some seeds for the Gaffer, I went with him to carry the basket. No one would ever doubt I was Frodo Baggins’s man.

Meeting the Wizard

A few days later there was another guest at Bag End. I had finished my lesson with Mr. Frodo and looked out the window and saw there was a huge shadow on the lawn. It was one of those very bright days one gets as the summer lets go and the rains and winds and storms prepare to set in. I got up to try to see what was making the strange shadow, and saw a Big Folk for the first time in my life. He was so tall, I felt he was as big as the oak in the field down the hill and across the road. He wore grey robes, and had a grey beard and hair like silver and eyebrows that stuck out like anything. And his hat was blue, and tall and pointed. In his hand he carried a staff with an end that looked like a knot of roots, and around his neck hung loose the ends of a silver scarf. He was looking down at my bit of garden and the nasturtiums, and he was smiling large as hisself.

Mr. Bilbo looked up from where he was working on his book and asked what had caught my attention, and Mr. Frodo looked up from where he was cleaning up the papers I’d left on the table where we worked. I couldn’t answer, but pointed out the window. Suddenly old Mr. Bilbo was up and dancing around with pleasure, calling out, "Gandalf!" and hurrying for the door. And I found out that there was indeed a wizard named Gandalf the Grey.

Mr. Frodo was as shy as I was about this guest, for he’d never seen the wizard, neither, although he told me later he’d heard all kinds of stories about him, and some of them from his Brandybuck cousins and the Sackville-Bagginses not pleasant nor flattering.

Mr. Bilbo led the wizard into Bag End and brought him into the study--and suddenly, as he looked at Frodo and me he stopped still and looked at us with a funny gaze in his eye, like he was seeing us but something else as well, something that was a big surprise, a mixed sort of surprise. He blinked several times, and for a second he looked at Frodo and--what? What could I call it then? Hadn’t seen that look afore, and didn’t know what to think about it. Today, I know the word--compassion. He looked at Frodo, and he had compassion in his eyes--just for a moment. Then he looked at me, and I knew that look, for I’d seen it growing in the eyes of Mr. Frodo as he looked at his Uncle Bilbo; but didn’t understand it at all now, not toward me. Why was he looking at me with respect? Then he smiled and laughed and said, "Why, Bilbo--I stay away for a year or two and find suddenly you have a family! What on earth has happened here?"

Gandalf stayed for several weeks, and it quickly seemed like there had always been a wizard in the garden. He liked to spend the days outside where he could stand without worrying about hitting his head on beams and chandeliers. He and Mr. Bilbo’d get into competitions to see who could make the most smoke rings--only Gandalf’s would change colors suddenly, or would take on other shapes than rings, or would dart through the shrubbery like living things afore suddenly they’d just fade away the way smoke rings do. I couldn’t keep my eyes off of him.

Then the weather changed, and the wet came. He and Mr. Bilbo would stay holed up in the study for hours on end, talking. He brought letters with him from people Mr. Bilbo had met on his travels, and together they’d talk of how the world was changing outside the Shire. Frodo and I were doing our lessons in the parlor, but we could hear the voices from the study, and now and then we’d hear talk of goblins in the mountains, of Dwarves traveling freely from the Lonely Mountain to the Iron Hills, of how the Shadow was growing again south and east, of Eriador and Arnor and Rangers and hints of Gondor and Rohan and Mirkwood the Great. And Bilbo spoke of how he’d met Elves now and then in the woods of the Shire heading west, west to the Grey Havens and beyond, going out of Middle-earth. And Gandalf would sigh, and say that the Third Age was coming to an end, and that if there was a Fourth Age it would be a different world altogether.

And now and again I’d catch Gandalf looking at Frodo with a puzzled look on his face, or that look of compassion. He began to talk to the boy, and to quiz him of what he knew of the outer world or what his childhood had been like in Brandy Hall. The shyness Frodo’d felt had started to melt away, and soon the wizard was telling him the most outrageous stories of what the Old Took had been like and some things Mr. Bilbo had never told him about hisself yet, while Frodo told him about his discoveries in Hobbiton and about the worms who made shells of pebbles or sticks or beads, and the caterpillars and their cocoons; and he told how he’d taught little Merry how to swim and watched over the other young ones from Brandy Hall swimming in the Brandywine, and how some of the others and he, when they were still teens, used to set up raids on the pantries of Brandy Hall, of his reading, of his studies in Elvish, and how he was helping to teach me, and the like.

Then Gandalf made a point of talking to me. I didn’t know how to act, really, but he was insistent I just be myself. He asked me about what Mr. Bilbo and Frodo had been teaching me, and about the elven flowers he’d seen growing under the lilacs, and which flowers I’d planted myself in the garden, and what I knew about Elves and the outer world. He got down one of Mr. Bilbo’s books of tales and read to us out of it, reading the story of Luthien and Beren One-Hand. And when I asked what a Balrog was, he shivered as he said it was a demon of the ancient world, and with luck I’d never have to meet one.

One day when it was fair and I was helping the Gaffer clean up some of the damage in the garden from the rain, I overheard Gandalf and Bilbo talking in the kitchen, talking about Frodo.

"Of all my assorted cousins, old and young, he’s the best of the lot," Mr. Bilbo was saying.

"And on what do you base this assessment?"

"He has spirit, a fine intelligence and curiosity, and a will of iron. I don’t think he knows yet just how strong his will is, but I’m beginning to see glimpses of it. To come through his childhood as fine as he is, after all he’s been through, he had to have a strong will. I’ve a strong suspicion he’ll do great things one day--maybe even make Mayor."

Gandalf laughed. "Mayor?" he said. "I’ve been expecting you to become Mayor for decades, my friend."

"Hmmph. Not likely. Who would vote for old Mad Baggins? And you can be assured as surely as that is how I am known throughout Hobbiton and Bywater, that if I dared to run Lobelia Sackville-Baggins would make certain the entire Shire would know just how mad I am. Not, of course, that they don’t already gossip about it.

"But as for my lad there--he’s quite a different sort from me. Has compassion, deep compassion. Probably from seeing his parents die when he was at such an impressionable age. And a love of beauty, and for our people. And intelligent? I must tell you the story of his history of farm raids in the Marish when he was a teen." And he told how he led the other lads in setting up raids, how he’d get them cooperating and the littler boys involved with the diversions, and how he’d finally been caught one too many times in Farmer Maggot’s mushrooms. And the peals of laughter I heard from the wizard were enough to rock the Hill.

"But why have you let this fine mind languish so long in Buckland, Bilbo?" he finally asked when the laughter passed.

Mr. Bilbo sounded disgusted. "I let myself be persuaded that my passion for adventures and study would work against the boy, Gandalf. But they were coming close to killing that fine lad with kindness, kindness not mixed with understanding. I’m hoping that he’s outgrown it, but he was fragile as a child." And there was the word I knew what I’d wanted to use when I was first seeing Frodo in the garden at Bag End--fragile. "Too close a hand kept on him after his parents died, not letting him do much of anything, followed by not watching him at all in his late teens, and then back to swaddling him in wool again when the least hint of the old troubles looked to be returning. I finally had to get him out of there. He was eating his heart out from enforced idleness and lack of sheer empathy. Oh, they loved him, right enough; but they didn’t know how to encourage him at anything."

"He looks happy enough now, Bilbo."

"He’s happier, certainly--and healthier as well. I encourage him to walk as much as he can, and to swim in the Water, and to assist young Sam when he wishes. And he’s not only showing an aptitude for study, but for teaching as well. Gaffer Gamgee is bragging how I’m teaching his son to read and write, ‘not meaning anything ill from it, mind you;’ but the one who’s doing the lion’s share of the instruction is Frodo himself, who’s finding himself reveling in the fine mind the gardener’s lad has."

"A very fine lad indeed, young Samwise. Not aptly named at all, though, I fear. ‘Half-wise’ indeed! Very intelligent child. And he, too, will be a force to be reckoned with one day." Now that, I must say, was one thing I’d never looked to hear about myself. I was smart enough to learn to read and write and all--but a force to be reckoned with one day? How did he figure that? I was a gardener’s lad, and one day would be a gardener myself, I reckoned. And I doubted that "fine mind" Mr. Bilbo spoke of. But it was nice, I’ll admit, to hear such compliments.

There was silence for a while, and I was thinking of moving to the next bed when Gandalf spoke again.

"Bilbo, I’ve spoken of the Shadow that is rising again. I have a feeling that just as so many of your folk have gone on to quiet glory in the past, that in the time to come something will draw more into the affairs of the outer world, perhaps these two likely lads." Again there was a silence. Finally he added, "I don’t know for certain what’s coming--Eru alone knows to what end this age will come--but things look very black, very black indeed. Yet hope I am finding hidden in odd corners, in the vale of Imladris, and hints of it here in the Shire. Hidden, in some unfathomable manner, in the hearts of two Hobbit lads."

"I don’t want any grief falling on my Frodo," Mr. Bilbo said with a fervor I agreed with. "I wouldn’t let the Brandybucks kill him with kindness, and I’m not going to loose him to the ungentle mercies of the outer world if I can help it."

"When his time comes, will you be the next to pad him in wool, Bilbo?" There was such a note of--gentleness--in the wizard’s voice. And then he said, "What about a cup of tea, my friend, and tell me about this plan you have for improving the yield of potatoes in the Westfarthing?"

"Oh, it’s not my idea--it’s due to observations and experiments run by my dear friend and employee, Gaffer Gamgee. One of the truly knowledgeable about growing roots, and a canny mind in his own right." And I could hear the noises of Bilbo setting the kettle on the hob and preparing to scald the teapot.

I stole off then, thinking on what I’d heard.

The grey wizard stayed a week longer, and began to watch the lessons Frodo was giving me. I was right proud to show him how I could read, and then he asked me questions about what I’d read and what I’d thought about it. I was surprised to hear myself telling him just what I thought.

We’d been reading about Turin and Nienor, how he’d loved this girl he’d found who had no memory of who’d she’d been, and he married her and all, only for it to come out she was his sister who’d been trying to find him to give him a message of warning, but got caught by agents of the Enemy and had a spell of forgetfulness put on her. Then both of them got real tragic and allowed themselves to die, because brothers and sisters ain’t supposed to love each other that way.

Well, I thought it was a right shameful thing for them to let themselves die like that. It were an honest mistake, right? And they’d not seen each other since they were bairns and all, and she’d lost her memory like. How was they to know they was brother and sister? And I told Gandalf that, that they ought to have been allowed to just apologize and have the marriage set at naught or something like, for it weren’t their fault, after all. I thought it was all just plain wasteful, don’t you see? Gandalf had a smile on him; I could tell Frodo was surprised and a bit embarrassed and all; and Mr. Bilbo, who was listening to all this, was trying his best not to laugh out loud.

Now, mind you, I was still just a little one, and I didn’t know about what it was the folk who is married do with one another, you know, when they’re alone and all. Had no idea as that was how babes is born. Still thought mums just ended up having babies because they were married now, and that dads and mums just got together because they loved one another and thought they’d help each other out. Now I know I was a rank innocent if there ever was one. But it seemed that Gandalf agreed with me about Turin and Nienor, and he told me that I was obviously a very practical and straightforward thinker, and he also felt their reaction was a bit too dramatic. Didn’t know what "dramatic" meant, but got the gist of what he was saying, and I just nodded my head sagely. (I liked that sentence when I read it for the first time--"He nodded sagely." I thought it was right poetical when Mr. Frodo explained what it meant, and I always tried to nod my head sagely after that. Not only practical--I was trying to be above myself, too. Ah, Samwise Gamgee, not a ninnyhammer, maybe, but you had a tendency toward the pompous even then.)

Now don’t ask me how we’d went from "The Boy and the Fox" to Turin and Nienor so quick--I don’t rightly remember. I think, actually, that this was from a book of Elvish stories Mr. Bilbo hisself had written up and bound for Frodo when he was younger, for Frodo also really loved tales of Elves and the old days even when he was little. So Mr. Bilbo had tried to tell some of them in short chapters and simple words. Both Mr. Bilbo and Frodo knew I was really keen on stories of Elves, so after we finished the other book of tales Mr. Frodo must have brought this old book of his out to try me on next. However it was, I was loving to read those tales and was a fair way through the book by that time.

Afore he left, Gandalf had him a long talk with Mr. Bilbo about not letting Frodo go back to live in Brandy Hall, how he was to watch out for him and all; and how maybe they start teaching me about breeding ponies or cows. They was in the study again, and Mr. Frodo had gone off to Bywater to have fittings for a new suit for Yule. I’d dumped some weeds into the compost pile for the Gaffer, and then had come into the Smial to finish doing some figuring practice for Frodo. They’d had the door open, but then Gandalf walked out into the hall to see where I was, give me a look and a nod, then went back in and shut the door. When they came out, Mr. Bilbo looked a bit perturbed and was saying something soft, and he had his right hand in his pocket, fiddling with what he had there like he always did. Gandalf looked right serious, and said, "You’ll do what you please, I know; but such things are best used absolutely as little as possible. You have no idea what mischief some of them get up to."

I looked up, for I thought he was speaking about us lads.

"You’ve no right to nag me about things as if I had no experience at all, or as if I were no older than Samwise there," Mr. Bilbo said, his face angered like I’d never seen.

Gandalf stopped and turned to him, suddenly very stern, stern and frightening, like he was being totally serious for the first time since I’d met him. "I beg to disagree, Bilbo Baggins. I, unlike you,know by what craft such things came to be. Do not presume to know more than I about the focus of my tasks here in Middle-earth."

Mr. Bilbo just backed up, but although there was surprise at this way of speaking from Gandalf, the anger was still there at the corners of his face.

Gandalf looked at him with that stern, truly wizard gaze for a few seconds till the old Hobbit dropped his eyes and mumbled what sounded like an apology, but one he didn’t fully mean. Only then did Gandalf turn away and sweep into the guest room where he’d been staying.

Bilbo’s anger died away, but when the wizard came out with his small bundle, they spoke rather stiff and formal for several minutes afore it all seemed to die away and they were friends again. Mr. Gandalf looked a bit sad, but brightened up when Frodo came back in.

"Good!" he said, "I’ll have a chance to give you a proper goodbye then. I must be off now, so I’ll wish you a fine Yule, although I know it’s months early. You will keep up with your studies in Elvish, won’t you, Frodo? I have a feeling it will stand you in excellent stead one day."

Frodo was right sad to see the wizard go, but promised to keep practicing his Sindarin, and then he was agreeing to it to make sure I have a bit of stock keeping added to my studies, and he blushed and I didn’t understand why. Oh, but I was an innocent! I stood up with my slate and my chalk in my hand to say goodbye, and felt a bit out of place.

Then the old wizard did something I’d never have expected in my life--he knelt down to look me in my face and said, soft and low, and as solemn as if I were an adult being charged to care for a child, "And you, my fine young gardener, I’ll tell you this: you will be charged with safeguarding the hope of Middle-earth one day. I see you are full worthy of it. Promise me this, to never lose your master.You will not understand the meaning of what I say fully for many years, and I hope indeed that things will never come to the point I now foresee. But it is very, very important that you realize you must never, never lose your master."

And, looking into his eyes, seeing how serious and concerned he was, I knew first that he was speaking of Frodo, and second that this was what I’d already seen when I first saw what I’d thought of as an Elf in the garden, and I nodded, and answered him just as low and solemn: "I already made myself that promise, sir." And he gave me a searching look, a deep searching look, then he rose and straightened, and then he bowed to me! Then he turned to Mr. Frodo, and he bowed to him, too. Frodo was surprised, but he bowed back, low and solemn.

Then the wizard looked at us both with a look of care on his face, then a smile that lit his eyes, and he took Mr. Bilbo by the shoulder and led him down the passage to the door, saying, "And you, my dear, beloved friend, you take excellent care of these two scholars of yours. And I hope they continue to be honest in their convictions for you." And he and Mr. Bilbo were laughing again as he took his hat from the hooks and his staff from where it stood against the wall. They said something more as they went out the doorway together. Gandalf went down the steps to the lane, then turned and looked up at us all, for Frodo and I’d come to look out the door on either side of Mr. Bilbo, and he gave one more deep and reverential bow to all three of us, then turned and walked decidedly away. And suddenly we had lost sight of him as he made his way swiftly toward the east.

Lung Sickness and Yule

Two weeks later the constant changes in the weather from rain to sun to cold to warm to storms began to lead to folks getting sick. There were colds and ague and various degrees of the lung sickness breaking out all over Hobbiton and Bywater. I caught a nasty cough and was kept at home in bed for several days, and then my sisters and my mum caught it, too. But it was worst for my mum, and went into the lung sickness, the worst type. She was sick for weeks, and the Gaffer kept care of her something tender; so when there was work to be done up at Bag End it was me (once I was over my cold) or my brother Ham, who took time off from his prenticeship to come home and help, who would have to see to it. I could do a lot of the lesser stuff like carrying out the refuse and covering the flower beds with straw for the winter; but Ham did most of the splitting of wood and any heavy hauling.

It seemed Bag End itself would be spared, but then finally Mr. Bilbo took a cold and was in bed for three days, and Frodo took care of him well. But just as the uncle was getting better, Mr. Frodo caught it, and he caught it hard. Like my mum, it went into the lung sickness, but where my mum was weak and feverish but mostly lucid and it lingered for weeks and listening to her try to breathe was a torture, for Frodo he got a high fever and went delirious. That fever just went up and down, and finally the Gaffer told me off to go stay there in Bag End and see if I could do anything to help. I stayed in the room where Gandalf had slept when he was there, and I’d trade off sitting with Frodo while Mr. Bilbo’d fix up broth or tea or whatever medicaments the healer suggested. Mrs. Rumble would come over, too, every day, and fix a couple of meals for us, and she’d do whatever marketing needed to be done, and when we was both needed to do something else she’d sit by Frodo’s bed till one of us was able to take over again. Frodo sounded awful, and Gammer Laurel seemed to be in and out at all hours. Got so she’d just knock at the door as she was opening it to come in.

For five days I was there while the fever continued, and it was constant potions and medicaments and poultices and rubs and putting pots of water over the fire to fill the room with steam with different herbs in it to clear the humors or to soothe the lungs or to calm a cough or whatever. Finally Gammer Laurel thought of an old treatment she’d heard tell of, and she came in with some kingsfoil and put it into water to boil for vapors, and made some into tea along with willow bark and had us give it to him. Mr. Bilbo could do it all by hisself--support Frodo and get him to take the tea and all; but when it was our turn Mrs. Rumble and I figured out how to do it together. She’d hold Frodo sitting up, and I’d hold the tea to his lips and feed him sips, and she’d rub his throat to help him swallow. The combination of the steam vapors and the tea seemed to work, and finally the fever broke and he began to recover. It was the first time I ever heard of using kingsfoil as a healing herb, and the only time for a long while, till years later and Strider disappeared from our camp by Weathertop looking for some to treat Mr. Frodo’s shoulder with. But I didn’t think back to when Frodo had had the lung sickness until after we got to Rivendell.

While Frodo was sick, Mr. Bilbo and Gammer Laurel had long talks about Frodo, and it seemed to me she was listening to his chest more than to his back, while with my mum she