Anpassal: Interlude
"The master's busy as a hen with one chick," observed Marigold, shaking out the feather bed while Sam stood in the
passage with his ears cocked for the sound of footsteps. He had marked the Gaffer catching his breath beneath the
chestnut blossoms in Hill Lane and unless he fled the hole before his dad turned in at the gate they would have an
exchange of words. If he followed the footpath through the orchard from the bottom of Bagshot Row he could bypass
the lane altogether, but should the laundry tub be spotted making its way across the party field the Gaffer would have a
great deal to say about it later. Sam was caught between the runner and the bedstone, for whether it was in the garden
at Number 3 or seated at the supper table next to three meddlesome sisters he would hear the Gaffer's thoughts on
hobnobbing with Frodo by day's end.
"He has a head full of bees and won't rest till they've been hived," answered Sam, shifting uneasily from one foot to the
other as Marigold tucked the sheet under and plumped the goose down pillows. "The kitchen walls are asweat with
steam, the smial reeks of lavender, and he's up to his lug-holes in sodden handkerchiefs."
Marigold tut-tutted as if she disapproved of Frodo's inability to do his own washing and would take pleasure at the sight
of wrinkled cuffs and yellow hankies. Lasses could be hard as hammers where a fellow's bits and pieces were
concerned, as Sam had discovered when the champion conker which he had left in the parlour by mistake had been
thrown onto the rubbish tip without a by-your-leave.
"No doubt," she said, a smile threatening to break out in spite of her vexation. "He came by at eleven with a bundle of
smallclothes and a face like a wet week. I'd swear he hasn't been in such a taking since Mr. Bilbo ran off with that
wizard."
"Smallclothes?" Sam frowned. He knew every pair of breeches in his master's many wardrobes from the dark green
worsted to the plum whipcord and none had been in the kitchen that afternoon except the new brown superfine which fit
so admirably over Frodo's slim hips. "He said nowt to me."
"Why would he?" She picked up the counterpane and laid it atop the coarse blanket, turning the top sheet over the
assembled bedclothes. "They want mending, not planting in rows. He'd have brought his wash too only I told him I
couldn't do it. The cheek!"
"You fobbed him off," cried Sam in a voice made shrill by his fear of being found at home when a tray of seedlings still
languished in the shed. "You told him --"
"Samwise Gamgee, listen to yourself!" She pushed the chamber pot out of sight with a toe and hung the creased
flannel nightshirt on the footboard. Sam usually made his own bed but the sudden turn in the weather had taken him to
Bag End directly after first breakfast; the covers had been left in a muddle and he had abandoned the nightshirt
higgledy-piggledy in a corner. He hung his head.
"When the master wants a thing done, he can't bide until it's finished. He has me all a-quiver."
"I can see that," she continued in a more kindly tone, "but I had mattresses to air and floors to scrub and our Dad was
making moan over the bent tine on his onion fork. Then May walked down to the pork butcher's for a link of sausages
and Dad stormed out in a temper 'cos of --"
She jerked her head in the direction of Bag End and Sam raised his eyes to the ceiling as if Frodo's kitchen were right
above them instead of two fields and the width of the garden away.
"Blow me tight," he said. "I guessed it. Did he say aught of the master before he --"
"Naw," she answered, tucking her arm in his. "He mumbled summat about 'nine inches round' and lads who were
'green as gooseberries' and was off like a flash. Come along, my dear. Least said is soonest mended."
They walked down the passage to the scullery, the cool stone pavers gleaming in the light from the open door. A
mound of potatoes waited on the table for May's return and a suet pudding hissed in the copper.
"Perhaps he meant Fosco Proudfoot,” said Marigold.
"Mebbe."
She poked him in the ribs. "For all we know, he's worritin' about the garden. I'm no prattle-tale, Samwise, but if our
Daisy overheard Mr. Frodo explaining why he wants ten pairs of spotless breeches by Monday --"
Sam groaned aloud. "Will you mend 'em?"
She shook her head. "He can stitch a button-hole as well as you or me. Besides, it would take a gang of lasses to
keep him tidy from what I've seen."
"I reckon so," replied Sam. He would gladly have looked after Frodo's button-holes and satisfied his other needs, too,
but how a vigorous lad could plant seeds both indoors and out and have time for a game of shuttlecock with his friends
or a lamb chop at the Green Dragon was anybody's guess.
"He wants to cut a dash at Gammidge, if I'm not mistaken. I ought to make a packing list, was how he put it, though it's
simple enough to my way of thinking." He held up his hand. "Four pairs of plain wool breeches for the journey and one
pair of velvet for the gathering. He'll be naked in the sweat house, as I told him earlier. Concerning weskits --"
"You told him?" said Marigold, throwing her apron over her face to stifle a laugh. "Criminy."
"Not at first," said Sam, determined to make it sound as if he had planned the revelation of Gammidge mating customs
during his encounter with the merkel rather than suffered Frodo to tease it from him by means of relentless
questioning. "I led him there in gentle stages. Best he hears it now than finds out when Harding brandishes the
whisks and we drop our trousers. Imagine the shock!"
"I'd just as soon not, and I won't share the sweat house with him neither." Marigold lowered the apron and her cheeks
were scarlet. "You're a caution, Sam, but if the master can stand your high jinks I suppose the two of you will come to
no harm."
She picked up the scrub brush and began to sort through the potatoes, setting the red nuggets on one side and putting
the bakers in the sink. "I can't abide the thought of him in nowt but his skin," she added. "Where would I look?"
"You could look at his fresh-pressed hankie." Visions of flawless pale skin had preyed on Sam's mind since the
previous summer when he had been sent to Bag End for a bottle of rheumatism salve and had spied Frodo emerging
from the bath with his dressing gown open from neck to nethers. He had left in such haste that his Gaffer had been
forced to go without any salve until the morning after the Party; nevertheless, there had been time between the meeting
in the passage and the door of Number 3 to hum a few lines in Frodo's honour from a song made popular by Mr. Bilbo
and preserved in a number of versions from Overhill to Nether Fold. Sam liked the second verse, the one that went:
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I pass them by today,
Tomorrow I may come this way...
"And if he doesn't want lasses gawping at his linens he can stay in the tent," he finished, recovering his composure
with an effort. He would have no trouble deciding where to look; that one brief glimpse of Frodo in his birthday suit had
provided him with months' worth of solitary pleasure.
"After a night on the ground in Harding's back pasture? Don't be daft." Marigold filled a pan with water, added the red-
skinned potatoes, and placed it on the stove. "He'll be glad of the warmth and the pint of grog afterwards."
"It doesn't seem right," said Sam. He intended to make his master's nights as comfortable as possible, sharing a
blanket on the journey and positioning his body between Frodo's pallet and the tent door during their time in
Gammidge, but he suspected that three days of rough walking would accustom them to what Frodo called a 'lack of
amenities.' Sam's bodily warmth or its absence might be of no concern to a gentlehobbit hardened by exercise. He
sighed. A gardener's lot was not always a happy one.
"Don't be a pickle," replied Marigold. "If he cared aught for onlookers he wouldn't swim in The Water with a pair of
skimpy underdrawers to shield him from the eyes of the village lasses. For all his fine talk, he doesn't hold himself
above us."
It was true that Frodo had been unruffled by the state of his dressing gown and had merely remarked Oh, there you are,
my dear before Sam had turned tail and fled Bag End, and yet a bare Baggins in the midst of four score Gamgees
would stand out like a daffodil in a carrot row.
"No more he does, but he needn't share our steam if it isn't to his liking. I meant to tell him as much only I let summat
slip about Suck and Blow and by the time I'd shown him how to hold the card it was too late. He wanted an ounce of
Gammer Birtwhistle's and I --"
"Suck and Blow."
"Aye. Bucklanders don't play at kissing games," said Sam, although it was evident in hindsight that Frodo had never
admitted to an ignorance of Suck and Blow and might, if luck favoured them, be as adept at dropping the card as any
Shire hobbit. "I told him of Rose Cotton's cheating ways and he was that taken aback. Then he asked if you could iron
his hankies and I came away as fast as I could."
Marigold stared at him across the heap of potatoes, her expression uncommonly like the Gaffer's when he was
puzzling over a new variety of tuber. "You can't help being smitten," she said at length.
"No fear!" cried Sam, glancing around to see whether May or Daisy had come in at the door. "I've planted leeks,
weeded the borders, sown the nasturtians, and given him an earful of advice since first breakfast. It's enough to make
a lad's head spin."
"So it is," she said, her gaze on the coils of steam which had begun to rise from the simmering potatoes. "Gammidge
will be an eye-opener for some, I'll warrant. As to the rest -- " She covered the pot and turned back to Sam. "I can iron
his things on Sunday forenoon if it's agreeable but mind you don’t leave any streaks in the linens."
"Not hardly." Sam understood the principle of laundry blue although he feared that its application would differ from the
steeping of chicken dung. "I'd never hear the end of it."
"Then be off afore Dad gets home," said Marigold, nudging him towards the back door, "or you'll have more on your
mind than a parcel of breeches."
"I do anyhow," Sam replied and left the smial in the certain knowledge that if he had escaped further questioning on
matters as sensitive as Frodo's smallclothes it was by the skin of his teeth.
He was likewise aware, and in a way that lent wings to his feet as he plunged into the half-lit safety of the wash-house,
that the running of domestic errands in fair weather would ill-please some folk when the garden had still to be got ready
in time for the arrival of the hapless Fosco. The regulars at the Ivy Bush had been heard to remark that if Frodo
Baggins was unable to handle the indoor work he should hire one or two of the farm lads; he was amply supplied with
Took money and could well afford it. It was perhaps no great wonder that Bungo's Folly had proven to be a white
oliphaunt, for what use after all were three virgates of land, an apple orchard, a fish pond, and a rambling smial full of
dusty mathoms to a pair of confirmed bachelors who lacked the will to maintain them? It was clear that the new master
of Bag End was no more likely than his cousin to show a morsel of hobbit sense and it seemed unreasonable to those
who made it their business that Samwise Gamgee should bear the burden of household chores for the sake of a few
extra pennies on his wages. Nothing good would come of it.
Talk of this sort meant little to the Gaffer, but he had taken offence at the Miller's description of Sam as 'a pushing lad'
whose head would be turned by the queer company at Bag End and had kept a sharp watch on the garden's
maintenance ever since.
"It's a fine how-d'ye-do," grumbled Sam, extracting the galvanised rinse tub from its place below the sink and setting it
near the door. He felt flustered rather than queer as he dumped the laundry blue into a drawstring bag and stuffed the
lot into his pocket. If he had an ambition beyond the planting of hardy annuals it was not one to be spoken aloud. It
was far too late in any case to prevent his head spinning round at the scent of wild roses. "And no one's never-mind
neither."
He was wiping his hands on the jack-towel when he heard a shout of How-do, Neighbour from Old Noakes and the
unmistakeable grunt of the Gaffer's answer. There was no time to flee across the party field and no help for it now but
to peer through the smudged window and wait on tenterhooks as the Gaffer unlatched the gate, bent to study the
setterwort, blew his nose on a square of gingham and sank into his favourite seat with a pouch of Old Toby and an
ancient briar.
It was close in the wash-house and the drowsy murmur of bees at the harebells made Sam long for a quiet spot in the
shade, for the parcel of barley bread in his knapsack at Bag End, and a zesty mouthful of ginger beer. The only signs of
life from the Gaffer were the fitful clenching of his hands on the smooth knob of the blackthorn stick and the swirl of blue
pipe-smoke in the still air. He might never go indoors. Sam counted the flat irons on their shelf above the clothes
horse, picking at a loose thread on the hem of his jacket until he had pulled it quite away. If he stayed hidden much
longer, Frodo would despair of his coming and eat lunch alone while the hankies mouldered in their basin and the
bread in its linen napkin; the grass would remain untrimmed and after they had finished mangling it would be too late
to peg out the linens.
Blast it! He had promised to be there and back in a trice. The bold-faced lad who had proffered an invitation from
behind the safety of his wheelbarrow had perished from want of vittles, but the hobbit who grasped the handle of the
rinse tub and stepped onto the garden path was equally heedful of his master's comfort.
"Is that you," said the Gaffer, lifting his eyes from their contemplation of the unweeded path, "or has a cloutnapper come
to Hobbiton?"
"It's me," said Sam, scuffling his toes in the chickweed, "but I'm minding the master's clouts, if it's all the same."
"Didn't I hear summat about leeks at breakfast?" Gaffer Gamgee screwed up his face as if the memory pained him.
"I'll be busy as bees in a basin were your very words, unless my ears mistook me."
"So they were," said Sam, who had never known his dad's ears to fail him when it wasn't convenient, "and so I was, but
Mr. Frodo --"
"He's a sprightly lad, ain't he," observed the Gaffer, nodding at the space beside him on the bench. Sam looked up
above the undulating green rise of the smial's top as though he expected to see Frodo gazing down at Bagshot Row
from the front gate, impatience writ on every feature. He put the tub by the doorstep and sat on the edge of the seat,
legs stretched out to catch the sun.
"More than most," he acknowledged, meeting the Gaffer's scrutiny with a trembling in his belly. "The leeks will be
planted this weekend, Dad. Fosco can't do any harm in nine days, even if Mr. Frodo is --"
Gone to Gammidge, he would have said but it was easier to suffer the Gaffer's questions than find words to explain
how a sudden brainstorm had beset him while he pondered the merits of his mechanical wax pencil. "-- away from
home."
"The master's often away," said the Gaffer, thumping the point of his stick against the bare ground so that Sam started
and drew in his feet. "Bless him. Fosco Proudfoot won't sneak past the Widow's garden without he gets an earful on
the trenching of leeks."
"Aye." Sam delved in his pockets and produced a small clay pipe with a painted bowl. "Poor bugger."
Gaffer Gamgee snorted. "I'll box his ears if he takes a misstep. You mind our Sam, I told him yesterday, and don't go
shaping the privet into any queer likeness. Mr. Baggins mayn't notice, but I will."
Sam shrugged.
"Happen he may. I caught him in the tool shed last week having a gander at The Gardener's Calendar of Ornamental
Trees and Shrubs. If he fancies topiary, I'll try my hand at an oliphaunt frame once I've laid the stone path."
"Ye'll scare the posthobbit," said the Gaffer, handing Sam his leather pouch of Southern Star. "Stone, eh? That green
slate from Oatbarton is the finest in the Northfarthing for those with long purses."
"'Tis," replied Sam, pressing a fingerful of weed into his pipe. He had been keen to discuss the contents of Burrfoot's
Catalogue before drawing up a plan for his master's inspection but the forsaken linens were proving to be a greater
burden than several hundredweight of slate flags. If he could drive his father over the course to the shedding ring he
might return to Bag End with a lighter heart. "Very handsome. Dad --"
He licked his lips, wondering if there was a better way to tackle the subject though he could think of none, but whatever
he might have said slipped from his tongue when the Gaffer nudged him gently and crooked a finger towards
Gammidge.
"I know what you mean to say."
"Ah," muttered Sam, relieved that he was to be spared the discomfort of finishing his sentence but a trifle unsettled
nonetheless. "You can't pick your nose in Bagshot Row without someone telling the gossips."
"No doubt of it," answered the Gaffer, "and I dare say the Widow Rumble thought it strange when the master came
tearing down hill with his parcel of laundry. Old Noakes was planting pole beans along the south wall at the time and
might have died of shock if Mr. Frodo hadn't wished him good morning. What a to-do!"
"Did they --"
"Naw," said the Gaffer. "Neither on 'em. He asked my permission like a proper gentlehobbit."
Sam wasn't sure why a proper gentlehobbit would ask permission for an outing with his gardener when he was free to
walk wherever he wanted. The secrets of the sweat house were in the hands of Harding Gammidge and the Gaffer
had as much influence there as any other second cousin once removed -- that is, little or none. Sam considered the
matter carefully while he took a second pinch of Southern Star from the pouch and packed it loosely on top of the first.
"I would have told you if -- " he began.
"If 'ifs' n' 'ands' were pots and pans," interrupted the Gaffer. He sucked on his pipestem and blew a smoke ring across
the marigolds. "No outsider has seen our doings since Holman the Elder's day, I said. Really? said he, pulling out a
stub of pencil and a square of card. Why not, Master Hamfast?</i> I don't know what he had in mind for that pencil, but I
met his eyes with mine. 'Cos the last outsider caused a fearsome ruction when he eloped with Rose Greenhand.."
"Oh, aye." Sam struck a spark into the tinder and lit his pipe, resigned by now to the likelihood of his missing lunch; it
was probable, indeed certain, that he would hear the entire conversation between his Gaffer and Mr. Frodo for better or
ill. "I know summat about it."
"A thing worth knowing is worth repeating," said the old hobbit. "He caused a ruction on account of Farmer Tolman
Cotton's grandmother and Holman took after them afore it was too late. If you take me. The master is sharp as a
needle and took my meaning straight off. Gaffer, he said, eyes flashing like stars, I promise not to run off with one of the
Gamgee lasses. Then I --"
"O' course he did," said Sam, with a disdainful curl of his lip. "Mr. Frodo is no more apt to run off with a lass than I am to
seek my bread in Buckland."
"Pshaw," retorted Gaffer Gamgee. "I know that. In and out of Bag End my foot. I've no doubt you can, sir, I told him.
Master Bilbo would have done the same, bless him, for all that folk say he left Hobbiton to marry a foreigner. Can you
sleep on the ground for a sennight and eat your breakfast cold?"
"The master is as handy a lad as any you could imagine," said Sam, "and needn't go without his eggs and bacon. Why,
since Mr. Bilbo went to visit the elves --"
"Passed on, you mean."
"-- he's wandered about the countryside in all weathers," finished Sam, paying no heed to the Gaffer's remark. Bilbo
had been well-preserved for a hobbit of one hundred and eleven and as he had vanished once before and come back
unharmed it was possible that he might do so again. "Better to suffer a hard bed in Gammidge than be shut up in
Bungo's Folly with Fosco Proudfoot to tend your leeks. I dursn't think of it."
"Nor does he, if I know aught of gentlehobbits. Sam wants my company, Master Hamfast. A cold breakfast in the wilds
is a mere bagatelle when compared to my gardener's well-being.</i>" The Gaffer waggled his head as though he had
seldom heard the like. "That lad could charm the pips from an apple."
"I expect so," said Sam, taking a pull on his pipe. Frodo had failed to charm Marigold in the matter of lawn
handkerchiefs and buttonless breeches but it seemed that he had cozened the Gaffer with a well-chosen sentence.
"There's not many as can do it. Master Meriadoc has a quick tongue but I should be surprised if he had got round Mr.
Frodo. And Miz Lobelia was no match for either on 'em when she came calling after the Party."
The Gaffer looked uncomfortable.
"Mebbe not," he said, knocking the old briar on the arm of the bench and rising to his feet, "but she nearly got round a
few of the master's bits and bobs. The question is -- " He poked Sam's weskit with his pipe. "How did Mr. Frodo get
round you?
"Me?" said Sam. He was startled by the suggestion that his offer might have been the result of any unusual
persuasion. The master had dogged his heels for the best part of an hour out of curiosity at the fate of Nan Gamgee;
he had grumbled about the beastly dullness of life in Hobbiton since Bilbo's disappearance; and he had stood at the
door of the shed while Sam unpacked his lunch box. No, it would be quite wrong to say that Frodo had 'got round' him.
There was enough work at Bag End to have kept the master busy in Sam's absence and no reason to suppose that his
threat to hire Theuderic Bracegirdle had been other than a tease of the gentlest kind. "He never!"
"So I thought," said the Gaffer as he tucked away his pipe, "but you let summat else slip. He was a touch white around
the gills the last I saw."
"I told him of the birch twigs, and I might have said a word or two about the duck pond," answered Sam, deeming it
unwise to mention An Excursion to Tighfield with an Account of a Curious Bathing Custom by S. Gamgee or even
Mushrooms of the Westfarthing. The Gaffer was ill at ease with book-learning and would be dismayed that his son had
taken part in the morning's gossip for the sake of a place in the acknowledgements. Frodo's antiquarian interests were
tolerated in the district but there would be no end of talk if he were to draw out his pencil in the sweat house.
The Gaffer nodded. "Harding is a queer old buzzard but he means well. You didn't --"
"Not yet," said Sam, as he picked up the tub and tugged on his hat brim. The breeze had risen again and the sky
carried a threat of rain before nightfall. "It would knock Mr. Frodo off his pins, if I may say so. Is it settled then?"
"I s'pose. I told him, I said, Some folk will swear it ain't done, but if you can stomach cold vittles in a tent down wind of
the pig barn, you can deal with Harding Gammidge. The master laughed fit to bust and went home with his bundle of
laundry."
"Some folk will swear through a stone wall."
"You have the right of it, lad, but -- " The Gaffer tapped Sam's sleeve and lowered his voice so that Marigold, who was
clattering her mop in the passage, wouldn't overhear. "If you're not careful you'll have a wet arse and no fish. Don't say I
didn't warn you."
passage with his ears cocked for the sound of footsteps. He had marked the Gaffer catching his breath beneath the
chestnut blossoms in Hill Lane and unless he fled the hole before his dad turned in at the gate they would have an
exchange of words. If he followed the footpath through the orchard from the bottom of Bagshot Row he could bypass
the lane altogether, but should the laundry tub be spotted making its way across the party field the Gaffer would have a
great deal to say about it later. Sam was caught between the runner and the bedstone, for whether it was in the garden
at Number 3 or seated at the supper table next to three meddlesome sisters he would hear the Gaffer's thoughts on
hobnobbing with Frodo by day's end.
"He has a head full of bees and won't rest till they've been hived," answered Sam, shifting uneasily from one foot to the
other as Marigold tucked the sheet under and plumped the goose down pillows. "The kitchen walls are asweat with
steam, the smial reeks of lavender, and he's up to his lug-holes in sodden handkerchiefs."
Marigold tut-tutted as if she disapproved of Frodo's inability to do his own washing and would take pleasure at the sight
of wrinkled cuffs and yellow hankies. Lasses could be hard as hammers where a fellow's bits and pieces were
concerned, as Sam had discovered when the champion conker which he had left in the parlour by mistake had been
thrown onto the rubbish tip without a by-your-leave.
"No doubt," she said, a smile threatening to break out in spite of her vexation. "He came by at eleven with a bundle of
smallclothes and a face like a wet week. I'd swear he hasn't been in such a taking since Mr. Bilbo ran off with that
wizard."
"Smallclothes?" Sam frowned. He knew every pair of breeches in his master's many wardrobes from the dark green
worsted to the plum whipcord and none had been in the kitchen that afternoon except the new brown superfine which fit
so admirably over Frodo's slim hips. "He said nowt to me."
"Why would he?" She picked up the counterpane and laid it atop the coarse blanket, turning the top sheet over the
assembled bedclothes. "They want mending, not planting in rows. He'd have brought his wash too only I told him I
couldn't do it. The cheek!"
"You fobbed him off," cried Sam in a voice made shrill by his fear of being found at home when a tray of seedlings still
languished in the shed. "You told him --"
"Samwise Gamgee, listen to yourself!" She pushed the chamber pot out of sight with a toe and hung the creased
flannel nightshirt on the footboard. Sam usually made his own bed but the sudden turn in the weather had taken him to
Bag End directly after first breakfast; the covers had been left in a muddle and he had abandoned the nightshirt
higgledy-piggledy in a corner. He hung his head.
"When the master wants a thing done, he can't bide until it's finished. He has me all a-quiver."
"I can see that," she continued in a more kindly tone, "but I had mattresses to air and floors to scrub and our Dad was
making moan over the bent tine on his onion fork. Then May walked down to the pork butcher's for a link of sausages
and Dad stormed out in a temper 'cos of --"
She jerked her head in the direction of Bag End and Sam raised his eyes to the ceiling as if Frodo's kitchen were right
above them instead of two fields and the width of the garden away.
"Blow me tight," he said. "I guessed it. Did he say aught of the master before he --"
"Naw," she answered, tucking her arm in his. "He mumbled summat about 'nine inches round' and lads who were
'green as gooseberries' and was off like a flash. Come along, my dear. Least said is soonest mended."
They walked down the passage to the scullery, the cool stone pavers gleaming in the light from the open door. A
mound of potatoes waited on the table for May's return and a suet pudding hissed in the copper.
"Perhaps he meant Fosco Proudfoot,” said Marigold.
"Mebbe."
She poked him in the ribs. "For all we know, he's worritin' about the garden. I'm no prattle-tale, Samwise, but if our
Daisy overheard Mr. Frodo explaining why he wants ten pairs of spotless breeches by Monday --"
Sam groaned aloud. "Will you mend 'em?"
She shook her head. "He can stitch a button-hole as well as you or me. Besides, it would take a gang of lasses to
keep him tidy from what I've seen."
"I reckon so," replied Sam. He would gladly have looked after Frodo's button-holes and satisfied his other needs, too,
but how a vigorous lad could plant seeds both indoors and out and have time for a game of shuttlecock with his friends
or a lamb chop at the Green Dragon was anybody's guess.
"He wants to cut a dash at Gammidge, if I'm not mistaken. I ought to make a packing list, was how he put it, though it's
simple enough to my way of thinking." He held up his hand. "Four pairs of plain wool breeches for the journey and one
pair of velvet for the gathering. He'll be naked in the sweat house, as I told him earlier. Concerning weskits --"
"You told him?" said Marigold, throwing her apron over her face to stifle a laugh. "Criminy."
"Not at first," said Sam, determined to make it sound as if he had planned the revelation of Gammidge mating customs
during his encounter with the merkel rather than suffered Frodo to tease it from him by means of relentless
questioning. "I led him there in gentle stages. Best he hears it now than finds out when Harding brandishes the
whisks and we drop our trousers. Imagine the shock!"
"I'd just as soon not, and I won't share the sweat house with him neither." Marigold lowered the apron and her cheeks
were scarlet. "You're a caution, Sam, but if the master can stand your high jinks I suppose the two of you will come to
no harm."
She picked up the scrub brush and began to sort through the potatoes, setting the red nuggets on one side and putting
the bakers in the sink. "I can't abide the thought of him in nowt but his skin," she added. "Where would I look?"
"You could look at his fresh-pressed hankie." Visions of flawless pale skin had preyed on Sam's mind since the
previous summer when he had been sent to Bag End for a bottle of rheumatism salve and had spied Frodo emerging
from the bath with his dressing gown open from neck to nethers. He had left in such haste that his Gaffer had been
forced to go without any salve until the morning after the Party; nevertheless, there had been time between the meeting
in the passage and the door of Number 3 to hum a few lines in Frodo's honour from a song made popular by Mr. Bilbo
and preserved in a number of versions from Overhill to Nether Fold. Sam liked the second verse, the one that went:
Still round the corner there may wait
A new road or a secret gate,
And though I pass them by today,
Tomorrow I may come this way...
"And if he doesn't want lasses gawping at his linens he can stay in the tent," he finished, recovering his composure
with an effort. He would have no trouble deciding where to look; that one brief glimpse of Frodo in his birthday suit had
provided him with months' worth of solitary pleasure.
"After a night on the ground in Harding's back pasture? Don't be daft." Marigold filled a pan with water, added the red-
skinned potatoes, and placed it on the stove. "He'll be glad of the warmth and the pint of grog afterwards."
"It doesn't seem right," said Sam. He intended to make his master's nights as comfortable as possible, sharing a
blanket on the journey and positioning his body between Frodo's pallet and the tent door during their time in
Gammidge, but he suspected that three days of rough walking would accustom them to what Frodo called a 'lack of
amenities.' Sam's bodily warmth or its absence might be of no concern to a gentlehobbit hardened by exercise. He
sighed. A gardener's lot was not always a happy one.
"Don't be a pickle," replied Marigold. "If he cared aught for onlookers he wouldn't swim in The Water with a pair of
skimpy underdrawers to shield him from the eyes of the village lasses. For all his fine talk, he doesn't hold himself
above us."
It was true that Frodo had been unruffled by the state of his dressing gown and had merely remarked Oh, there you are,
my dear before Sam had turned tail and fled Bag End, and yet a bare Baggins in the midst of four score Gamgees
would stand out like a daffodil in a carrot row.
"No more he does, but he needn't share our steam if it isn't to his liking. I meant to tell him as much only I let summat
slip about Suck and Blow and by the time I'd shown him how to hold the card it was too late. He wanted an ounce of
Gammer Birtwhistle's and I --"
"Suck and Blow."
"Aye. Bucklanders don't play at kissing games," said Sam, although it was evident in hindsight that Frodo had never
admitted to an ignorance of Suck and Blow and might, if luck favoured them, be as adept at dropping the card as any
Shire hobbit. "I told him of Rose Cotton's cheating ways and he was that taken aback. Then he asked if you could iron
his hankies and I came away as fast as I could."
Marigold stared at him across the heap of potatoes, her expression uncommonly like the Gaffer's when he was
puzzling over a new variety of tuber. "You can't help being smitten," she said at length.
"No fear!" cried Sam, glancing around to see whether May or Daisy had come in at the door. "I've planted leeks,
weeded the borders, sown the nasturtians, and given him an earful of advice since first breakfast. It's enough to make
a lad's head spin."
"So it is," she said, her gaze on the coils of steam which had begun to rise from the simmering potatoes. "Gammidge
will be an eye-opener for some, I'll warrant. As to the rest -- " She covered the pot and turned back to Sam. "I can iron
his things on Sunday forenoon if it's agreeable but mind you don’t leave any streaks in the linens."
"Not hardly." Sam understood the principle of laundry blue although he feared that its application would differ from the
steeping of chicken dung. "I'd never hear the end of it."
"Then be off afore Dad gets home," said Marigold, nudging him towards the back door, "or you'll have more on your
mind than a parcel of breeches."
"I do anyhow," Sam replied and left the smial in the certain knowledge that if he had escaped further questioning on
matters as sensitive as Frodo's smallclothes it was by the skin of his teeth.
He was likewise aware, and in a way that lent wings to his feet as he plunged into the half-lit safety of the wash-house,
that the running of domestic errands in fair weather would ill-please some folk when the garden had still to be got ready
in time for the arrival of the hapless Fosco. The regulars at the Ivy Bush had been heard to remark that if Frodo
Baggins was unable to handle the indoor work he should hire one or two of the farm lads; he was amply supplied with
Took money and could well afford it. It was perhaps no great wonder that Bungo's Folly had proven to be a white
oliphaunt, for what use after all were three virgates of land, an apple orchard, a fish pond, and a rambling smial full of
dusty mathoms to a pair of confirmed bachelors who lacked the will to maintain them? It was clear that the new master
of Bag End was no more likely than his cousin to show a morsel of hobbit sense and it seemed unreasonable to those
who made it their business that Samwise Gamgee should bear the burden of household chores for the sake of a few
extra pennies on his wages. Nothing good would come of it.
Talk of this sort meant little to the Gaffer, but he had taken offence at the Miller's description of Sam as 'a pushing lad'
whose head would be turned by the queer company at Bag End and had kept a sharp watch on the garden's
maintenance ever since.
"It's a fine how-d'ye-do," grumbled Sam, extracting the galvanised rinse tub from its place below the sink and setting it
near the door. He felt flustered rather than queer as he dumped the laundry blue into a drawstring bag and stuffed the
lot into his pocket. If he had an ambition beyond the planting of hardy annuals it was not one to be spoken aloud. It
was far too late in any case to prevent his head spinning round at the scent of wild roses. "And no one's never-mind
neither."
He was wiping his hands on the jack-towel when he heard a shout of How-do, Neighbour from Old Noakes and the
unmistakeable grunt of the Gaffer's answer. There was no time to flee across the party field and no help for it now but
to peer through the smudged window and wait on tenterhooks as the Gaffer unlatched the gate, bent to study the
setterwort, blew his nose on a square of gingham and sank into his favourite seat with a pouch of Old Toby and an
ancient briar.
It was close in the wash-house and the drowsy murmur of bees at the harebells made Sam long for a quiet spot in the
shade, for the parcel of barley bread in his knapsack at Bag End, and a zesty mouthful of ginger beer. The only signs of
life from the Gaffer were the fitful clenching of his hands on the smooth knob of the blackthorn stick and the swirl of blue
pipe-smoke in the still air. He might never go indoors. Sam counted the flat irons on their shelf above the clothes
horse, picking at a loose thread on the hem of his jacket until he had pulled it quite away. If he stayed hidden much
longer, Frodo would despair of his coming and eat lunch alone while the hankies mouldered in their basin and the
bread in its linen napkin; the grass would remain untrimmed and after they had finished mangling it would be too late
to peg out the linens.
Blast it! He had promised to be there and back in a trice. The bold-faced lad who had proffered an invitation from
behind the safety of his wheelbarrow had perished from want of vittles, but the hobbit who grasped the handle of the
rinse tub and stepped onto the garden path was equally heedful of his master's comfort.
"Is that you," said the Gaffer, lifting his eyes from their contemplation of the unweeded path, "or has a cloutnapper come
to Hobbiton?"
"It's me," said Sam, scuffling his toes in the chickweed, "but I'm minding the master's clouts, if it's all the same."
"Didn't I hear summat about leeks at breakfast?" Gaffer Gamgee screwed up his face as if the memory pained him.
"I'll be busy as bees in a basin were your very words, unless my ears mistook me."
"So they were," said Sam, who had never known his dad's ears to fail him when it wasn't convenient, "and so I was, but
Mr. Frodo --"
"He's a sprightly lad, ain't he," observed the Gaffer, nodding at the space beside him on the bench. Sam looked up
above the undulating green rise of the smial's top as though he expected to see Frodo gazing down at Bagshot Row
from the front gate, impatience writ on every feature. He put the tub by the doorstep and sat on the edge of the seat,
legs stretched out to catch the sun.
"More than most," he acknowledged, meeting the Gaffer's scrutiny with a trembling in his belly. "The leeks will be
planted this weekend, Dad. Fosco can't do any harm in nine days, even if Mr. Frodo is --"
Gone to Gammidge, he would have said but it was easier to suffer the Gaffer's questions than find words to explain
how a sudden brainstorm had beset him while he pondered the merits of his mechanical wax pencil. "-- away from
home."
"The master's often away," said the Gaffer, thumping the point of his stick against the bare ground so that Sam started
and drew in his feet. "Bless him. Fosco Proudfoot won't sneak past the Widow's garden without he gets an earful on
the trenching of leeks."
"Aye." Sam delved in his pockets and produced a small clay pipe with a painted bowl. "Poor bugger."
Gaffer Gamgee snorted. "I'll box his ears if he takes a misstep. You mind our Sam, I told him yesterday, and don't go
shaping the privet into any queer likeness. Mr. Baggins mayn't notice, but I will."
Sam shrugged.
"Happen he may. I caught him in the tool shed last week having a gander at The Gardener's Calendar of Ornamental
Trees and Shrubs. If he fancies topiary, I'll try my hand at an oliphaunt frame once I've laid the stone path."
"Ye'll scare the posthobbit," said the Gaffer, handing Sam his leather pouch of Southern Star. "Stone, eh? That green
slate from Oatbarton is the finest in the Northfarthing for those with long purses."
"'Tis," replied Sam, pressing a fingerful of weed into his pipe. He had been keen to discuss the contents of Burrfoot's
Catalogue before drawing up a plan for his master's inspection but the forsaken linens were proving to be a greater
burden than several hundredweight of slate flags. If he could drive his father over the course to the shedding ring he
might return to Bag End with a lighter heart. "Very handsome. Dad --"
He licked his lips, wondering if there was a better way to tackle the subject though he could think of none, but whatever
he might have said slipped from his tongue when the Gaffer nudged him gently and crooked a finger towards
Gammidge.
"I know what you mean to say."
"Ah," muttered Sam, relieved that he was to be spared the discomfort of finishing his sentence but a trifle unsettled
nonetheless. "You can't pick your nose in Bagshot Row without someone telling the gossips."
"No doubt of it," answered the Gaffer, "and I dare say the Widow Rumble thought it strange when the master came
tearing down hill with his parcel of laundry. Old Noakes was planting pole beans along the south wall at the time and
might have died of shock if Mr. Frodo hadn't wished him good morning. What a to-do!"
"Did they --"
"Naw," said the Gaffer. "Neither on 'em. He asked my permission like a proper gentlehobbit."
Sam wasn't sure why a proper gentlehobbit would ask permission for an outing with his gardener when he was free to
walk wherever he wanted. The secrets of the sweat house were in the hands of Harding Gammidge and the Gaffer
had as much influence there as any other second cousin once removed -- that is, little or none. Sam considered the
matter carefully while he took a second pinch of Southern Star from the pouch and packed it loosely on top of the first.
"I would have told you if -- " he began.
"If 'ifs' n' 'ands' were pots and pans," interrupted the Gaffer. He sucked on his pipestem and blew a smoke ring across
the marigolds. "No outsider has seen our doings since Holman the Elder's day, I said. Really? said he, pulling out a
stub of pencil and a square of card. Why not, Master Hamfast?</i> I don't know what he had in mind for that pencil, but I
met his eyes with mine. 'Cos the last outsider caused a fearsome ruction when he eloped with Rose Greenhand.."
"Oh, aye." Sam struck a spark into the tinder and lit his pipe, resigned by now to the likelihood of his missing lunch; it
was probable, indeed certain, that he would hear the entire conversation between his Gaffer and Mr. Frodo for better or
ill. "I know summat about it."
"A thing worth knowing is worth repeating," said the old hobbit. "He caused a ruction on account of Farmer Tolman
Cotton's grandmother and Holman took after them afore it was too late. If you take me. The master is sharp as a
needle and took my meaning straight off. Gaffer, he said, eyes flashing like stars, I promise not to run off with one of the
Gamgee lasses. Then I --"
"O' course he did," said Sam, with a disdainful curl of his lip. "Mr. Frodo is no more apt to run off with a lass than I am to
seek my bread in Buckland."
"Pshaw," retorted Gaffer Gamgee. "I know that. In and out of Bag End my foot. I've no doubt you can, sir, I told him.
Master Bilbo would have done the same, bless him, for all that folk say he left Hobbiton to marry a foreigner. Can you
sleep on the ground for a sennight and eat your breakfast cold?"
"The master is as handy a lad as any you could imagine," said Sam, "and needn't go without his eggs and bacon. Why,
since Mr. Bilbo went to visit the elves --"
"Passed on, you mean."
"-- he's wandered about the countryside in all weathers," finished Sam, paying no heed to the Gaffer's remark. Bilbo
had been well-preserved for a hobbit of one hundred and eleven and as he had vanished once before and come back
unharmed it was possible that he might do so again. "Better to suffer a hard bed in Gammidge than be shut up in
Bungo's Folly with Fosco Proudfoot to tend your leeks. I dursn't think of it."
"Nor does he, if I know aught of gentlehobbits. Sam wants my company, Master Hamfast. A cold breakfast in the wilds
is a mere bagatelle when compared to my gardener's well-being.</i>" The Gaffer waggled his head as though he had
seldom heard the like. "That lad could charm the pips from an apple."
"I expect so," said Sam, taking a pull on his pipe. Frodo had failed to charm Marigold in the matter of lawn
handkerchiefs and buttonless breeches but it seemed that he had cozened the Gaffer with a well-chosen sentence.
"There's not many as can do it. Master Meriadoc has a quick tongue but I should be surprised if he had got round Mr.
Frodo. And Miz Lobelia was no match for either on 'em when she came calling after the Party."
The Gaffer looked uncomfortable.
"Mebbe not," he said, knocking the old briar on the arm of the bench and rising to his feet, "but she nearly got round a
few of the master's bits and bobs. The question is -- " He poked Sam's weskit with his pipe. "How did Mr. Frodo get
round you?
"Me?" said Sam. He was startled by the suggestion that his offer might have been the result of any unusual
persuasion. The master had dogged his heels for the best part of an hour out of curiosity at the fate of Nan Gamgee;
he had grumbled about the beastly dullness of life in Hobbiton since Bilbo's disappearance; and he had stood at the
door of the shed while Sam unpacked his lunch box. No, it would be quite wrong to say that Frodo had 'got round' him.
There was enough work at Bag End to have kept the master busy in Sam's absence and no reason to suppose that his
threat to hire Theuderic Bracegirdle had been other than a tease of the gentlest kind. "He never!"
"So I thought," said the Gaffer as he tucked away his pipe, "but you let summat else slip. He was a touch white around
the gills the last I saw."
"I told him of the birch twigs, and I might have said a word or two about the duck pond," answered Sam, deeming it
unwise to mention An Excursion to Tighfield with an Account of a Curious Bathing Custom by S. Gamgee or even
Mushrooms of the Westfarthing. The Gaffer was ill at ease with book-learning and would be dismayed that his son had
taken part in the morning's gossip for the sake of a place in the acknowledgements. Frodo's antiquarian interests were
tolerated in the district but there would be no end of talk if he were to draw out his pencil in the sweat house.
The Gaffer nodded. "Harding is a queer old buzzard but he means well. You didn't --"
"Not yet," said Sam, as he picked up the tub and tugged on his hat brim. The breeze had risen again and the sky
carried a threat of rain before nightfall. "It would knock Mr. Frodo off his pins, if I may say so. Is it settled then?"
"I s'pose. I told him, I said, Some folk will swear it ain't done, but if you can stomach cold vittles in a tent down wind of
the pig barn, you can deal with Harding Gammidge. The master laughed fit to bust and went home with his bundle of
laundry."
"Some folk will swear through a stone wall."
"You have the right of it, lad, but -- " The Gaffer tapped Sam's sleeve and lowered his voice so that Marigold, who was
clattering her mop in the passage, wouldn't overhear. "If you're not careful you'll have a wet arse and no fish. Don't say I
didn't warn you."
