Looking for Aunt Lula by Kathryn Ramage
Summary: A minor Frodo Investigates! mystery. At the Gaffer's request, Frodo and Sam search for the woman who looked after the Gamgee children following their mother's death.
Categories: FPS, FPS > Frodo/Sam, FPS > Sam/Frodo Characters: Frodo, Sam
Type: Mystery
Warning: None
Challenges: None
Series: Frodo Investigates!
Chapters: 8 Completed: Yes Word count: 12021 Read: 25845 Published: March 24, 2008 Updated: March 24, 2008
Story Notes:
This story takes place in the spring of 1423 (S.R.), about a month after the events of "Who is Killing the Brandybucks?"

The Frodo Investigates! series

1. Chapter 1 by Kathryn Ramage

2. Chapter 2 by Kathryn Ramage

3. Chapter 3 by Kathryn Ramage

4. Chapter 4 by Kathryn Ramage

5. Chapter 5 by Kathryn Ramage

6. Chapter 6 by Kathryn Ramage

7. Chapter 7 by Kathryn Ramage

8. Chapter 8 by Kathryn Ramage

Chapter 1 by Kathryn Ramage
Marigold Gamgee came up to Bag End early one morning to see her brother. "It's Dad," she told him. "He's on about Mum again."

Sam was in the middle of feeding his daughter Elanor her breakfast. He often got up early with the baby and let Rosie sleep in since Elanor had been weaned and was taking solid food--was eager to take it, as a matter of fact, and would grab the spoon from his hand or scoop the porridge out of the bowl with her fingers to put in her mouth herself. Frodo, too, was asleep in his room. Sam didn't want to disturb their rest, but couldn't leave the baby unattended, so he wiped the blobs of mush off the pudgy little face and hands, and took Elanor with him.

"When I got up this morning, there he was by the fire where I'd left 'm last night with his pipe," Marigold told Sam as they went down to the bottom of the Hill to the Gamgee bungalow in Bagshot Row. "The kitchen was so full o' smoke, I'm sure he never stirred from his chair since I bid 'm Good-night, nor had a wink o' sleep. He wouldn't have no breakfast when I offered to make it for 'm, but just sits there a-staring at the fire. He's been remembering Mum."

Sam was familiar with these odd, gloomy moods of the Gaffer's, but it seemed that they were coming on more frequently as he grew older and dwelt more upon his past. Bell Gamgee had been dead for more than thirty years, but sometimes the memory of her--and the grief at her loss--were as vivid for the Gaffer as the day she'd died.

"It'd be better if I could talk to him about her when he gets to remembering this way," Marigold went on, "but I don't remember Mum at all."

Sam had only been six himself, and his own memories of his mother were vague. The elder Gamgee children, who could talk to the Gaffer about the old days, lived too far away to be summoned at a moment's notice; the nearest was their next-oldest sister, May, who lived in Bywater. Leaving Marigold, the only one of the family still at home and unmarried, to care for the Gaffer was something Sam had always felt guilty about since he'd left Bagshot Row to live with Frodo at Bag End. It wasn't fair that his youngest sister should have this duty alone.

The Gaffer was sitting in the smoke-filled kitchen, just as Marigold had left him, and did not turn from the fire at the sound of the door opening as his son and daughter came in. Bringing the baby turned out to be a good idea, however, for at the sight of her grandfather, Elanor called out, "Gaffa!" and stretched out both arms toward him.

At the child's voice, the Gaffer looked up, expression brightening. He held out his hands, and Sam let his father take Elanor to sit on his knee.

"Image 'o Bell, she is," the Gaffer said as he gently ruffled the baby's fair curls.

Sam, who thought Elanor was the image of Rose, didn't contradict this. If his father was cheered by a fancied resemblance to his mother, then Nel could look like Mum for a bit.

"You wasn't much older'n when she passed on, lass," the Gaffer told Marigold. "I been seeing her, just as she was the day we wed. She had a crown o' flowers round her head, and we danced on the field where the party tree stands. I brought her here to this bungalow, as was new-dug in old Mr. Bilbo's day. She was a lovely thing. My Bell..." He fell silent, musing on those long-ago days, and holding the baby close.

"Marigold tells me you been up all night," Sam ventured. "'Tisn't good. You ought to go to bed, Dad. You need your rest."

"Go to bed?" the Gaffer responded. "At this hour? 'Tis daybreak, Sam my lad, and there's work to be done. I can't go lying a-bed all day when I promised Missus Muscote I'd have them new bulbs planted in her front garden."

"That can wait," Sam answered. "Or if it can't, I'll do it."

"You got your own work, Sam-lad, now you've come up in the world with your shirriffing, and there's Mr. Frodo home and the garden at Bag End."

"There isn't much call for shirriffing just now, and the garden's fine. Mr. Frodo's better'n he was since he's been away. Now you lie down a couple hours, Dad. Marigold'll get you breakfast, and I'll come back to help with Missus Muscote's planting or anybody else you like. I'll bring Nel back too, to sit with you this afternoon. Would you like that?"

The Gaffer made some more half-hearted, fussing remarks about this foolishness and his gardening jobs, but at last, he relinquished the baby to Marigold and let Sam take him into his room. The old hobbit lay down on his bed without taking off his clothes and shut his eyes. Sam crept quietly out of the room and rejoined his sister in the kitchen.

Marigold had opened the windows to let in some fresh air and, since she'd called Sam away before his breakfast, had put some bacon and eggs on the griddle for him. Elanor had been given a piece of crisp toast to chew on.

"What'm I to do, Sam?" Marigold asked as they ate. "Dad's getting on, and somebody's got to be look after him. You know how me 'n' Tom have an understanding, but I keep putting 'm off."

"You mustn't let it stop you marrying," Sam told her. "The Gaffer'd understand, and won't stand in the way."

"No, but I can't promise to marry Tom and go live at the Cotton Farm and leave Dad here alone when he needs me, nor can I ask Tom to come and live here."

"Tom'd come if it meant you could get married soon," Sam told her; he had heard the other side of this same problem often enough from his friend and brother-in-law.

"I expect he would, but he's needed at the farm. Mr. Cotton's getting on too, and Nibs and Jolly can't take on all the work."

"There's Rosie 'n' me. We're right up the Hill if the Gaffer should need us. We'd have 'm up to live at Bag End with us, if he'd come," Sam offered. "Only, he wouldn't. Besides, Widow Rumble's right next door. She'd come in a trice if sommat should happen."

Marigold made a face at the mention of their neighbor. "She'd come 'n' live here. Old Missus Rumble's had an eye on marrying Dad since Mum died."

"You needn't worry for that. A fine woman, but I wouldn't marry her, Marigold-lass," the Gaffer spoke from the doorway. "If I was a-going to marry again, I'd've done it when you was small had need of a mother to take the place o' your own. 'Tis no easy job bringing up six young-uns alone! The only woman I'd have in this house now is Lula."

"Aunt Lula?" Sam responded to a name he hadn't heard spoken in years. "D'you know where she is, Dad?"

The Gaffer shook his head. "I han't heard a word from her in ages, lad. Ye'll have to find her."

Marigold turned to her brother hopefully. "That's just the sort o' job Mr. Frodo used to do. D'you think he would, Sam?"

Sam didn't know if Frodo would agree to take up an investigation--his last investigation within his own family had been very hard on him, and he'd been working on the final chapters of his book since he'd returned to Bag End--but this search was important to both the Gaffer and Marigold. Sam couldn't refuse their request. "I'll ask," he told them. "'Tis the least I can do, and we'll see what Mr. Frodo says about it."
Chapter 2 by Kathryn Ramage
Sam went back up the Hill to find Rosie was up and laying out the plates, cup and teapot, and silverware for Frodo's breakfast on a tray. "I wondered where you'd got to, Sam," she said when she saw her husband. "I looked all over for you, and when I saw Nel was gone too, I thought as you must've taken her out for a walk, though it seemed an odd thing so early in the morning."

"I had to go see about Dad," Sam explained.

Rosie nodded in understanding. Sam left the baby with her, and took up Frodo's tray to carry it in to him.

Frodo had come home from Buckland several weeks ago. Sam had stayed with him at the Crickhollow cottage until the end of March, packing up Frodo's belongings and seeing the boxes carted ahead to Bag End so that Rosie could have Frodo's bedroom and study ready for him when he arrived. Once they'd returned, Frodo had settled into his old rooms and old ways comfortably--as if he'd never been away a whole year, Sam thought with satisfaction.

It was a relief to have Frodo home again, not only because Sam loved him and missed him achingly, and was never happy if Frodo wasn't in his care, but because it hadn't seemed right to him that he and Rose should live here as if Bag End were their home while the true master was away. After Frodo had first gone to Minas Tirith, they'd acted simply as caretakers; it wasn't until Sam had been appointed as Chief Sherriff and the fine folk of Hobbiton and the Mayor's family began to call that they'd dared to use the best parlor and dining room. Frodo wouldn't have minded if they'd made themselves at home in these rooms before, but Sam thought it disrespectful. Getting above their place, the Gaffer would say. Nor was he entirely comfortable when Rose, who had a better head for figures than he did, had started using the desk in Frodo's study to work out the household accounts.

When Sam tapped on the slightly ajar door to Frodo's room, Frodo bade him, "Come in!" and sat up in bed to let Sam put the breakfast tray over his knees.

"I've heard you were out already this morning," he said, "Rosie popped her head in to see if you were with me, even though it wasn't your night last night." Since Frodo's return, they had resumed their old arrangement of 'sharing': Sam would spend one night in Rosie's bed, then sleep with Frodo the next. "Is anything the matter?"

"It's the Gaffer." Sam sat down at the foot of the bed and, while Frodo ate his breakfast, told him what had happened that morning: his father's sadness and sleeplessness over memories of his mother, Marigold's difficulties, and what both had asked him to do.

He'd been reluctant to trouble Frodo with his family problems, but Frodo seemed sympathetic and interested in their situation. More importantly, he seemed fit to take up another investigation. Frodo had said that he was still in pain because of what the Ring had done to him. Sam had to accept this was true, but all the same, he had his hopes. He'd watched Frodo carefully these past weeks, and saw no signs of Frodo's old weariness. Frodo was better. He was in reasonably good health and spirits. He had color in his cheeks and the soft purple shadows under his eyes had faded. He even had an appetite; he was actually eating his breakfast, rather than poking it to bits and moving the mess around his plate, the way Sam had seen him do so often before.

Frodo had weathered his worst day, the anniversary of the Ring's destruction, much better this year than he even had before. Sam had sat beside him all during that day while Frodo lay in a half-dream state, weeping and moaning, and clutching the gem Queen Arwen had given him, but the gem seemed to give him comfort. The brew of athelas leaves Sam had prepared to bathe his face had helped him to sleep. Frodo had recovered more quickly from his bad spell than he had in years past, but Sam made him rest a full week afterwards, especially since Frodo was also recovering from a nasty crack on the head, before they'd undertaken the fifty-mile journey to Hobbiton.

"Of course I'll be happy to try and find this lady for you," Frodo said once Sam had explained. "But I don't believe I've heard of her before. Who was she?"

"You wouldn't've known her. She left Hobbiton long afore you came to live with Mr. Bilbo. I was only a little lad myself. She was with us awhile after Mum died. 'Twas a fever," Sam told the story, although Frodo had heard it before. "Marigold had it first, then Daisy. Mum nursed 'em through it right enough, then came down with it herself and was carried off so quick nobody knew how sick she was 'til it was too late. After she died, Aunt Lula saw after us little ones, the girls 'n' me. My brothers was almost in their tweens--Ham was 'prenticed to Uncle Andy and Halfred went up at Farmer Goodenough's in the Northfarthing not too long afterwards."

"And she looked after you?"

"That's right. We called her Aunt Lula. We called all the ladies who came 'n' went looking after us Auntie This-or-That. Her right name was Missus Tredgold."

Frodo, who called at least a dozen older female relations "Auntie," nodded in understanding.

"Lots of neighbor-ladies was in 'n' out of Number 3 in those days," Sam remembered. "You wouldn't think my old Dad'd be much of a catch, but plenty of 'em had an eye on him after Mum died. Widow Rumble's had her hopes since her own husband passed on, as she was the one who had the care of us most after Aunt Lula went away, 'til May and Daisy was old enough to look after Marigold and me."

"Was this Lula married?" asked Frodo. "You said 'Missus Tredgold'."

"I suppose she was," said Sam, although he couldn't actually recall a Mr. Tredgold. "'Twas such a long time ago."

"Then she couldn't have had marital designs on your father at the time," Frodo responded. "But it was, as you say, a long time ago. She might be widowed now too."

"D'you think it's like that?" Sam was startled at the suggestion. "The Gaffer didn't say nothing about marrying her."

"Yes, but he seems to remember her fondly. If she's the one he wants to have with him now, he must have some special reason for it." Frodo raised an eyebrow as he regarded his rather perplexed friend. "Are you certain you want me to find her, Sam?"

The idea of his aged father having any kind of fond feelings for a woman besides his mother was disturbing--even at this late date!--but Sam was forced to admit that it was better to have someone the Gaffer had chosen to look after him. And it would give Marigold her own chance at happiness. "Yes," he said. "If it's what the Gaffer wants, then we'd do best to find her."
Chapter 3 by Kathryn Ramage
Frodo decided that the best way to begin his search was to ask to the Gamgees' neighbors who had memories of those long-ago days and might recall Mrs. Tredgold. That same morning, he called on the Widow Rumble and Daddy Twofoot in Numbers 1 and 2 Bagshot Row, and the Noakes sisters who had lived in the Grange Lane longer than anyone.

Daddy Twofoot thought that the name had been Tredwell rather than Tredgold, and that Lula or her husband was related somehow to the Gamgees.

The Noakes sisters recalled that the Tredgolds had lived two doors down the lane from them, in the cottage now occupied by "young Ando and Rula Cotman" (The Cotmans were both well into their sixties and had lived there for over twenty years, but the Noakeses were past one hundred and considered anyone less than eighty little more than a lad or lass in their tweens). "Foreigners," they called the Tredgolds, meaning that the couple had come from some place more than ten miles from Hobbiton. Mr. Tredgold had rarely been there--he was in some sort of traveling work--and his wife had only been their neighbor for a year or two before she too had gone away. To the Southfarthing, Miss Gillyflower Noakes thought, but couldn't be sure.

Mrs. Rumble remembered more. The memory of Lula Tredgold still seemed to rankle even after so many years. "I'll tell you why she left Hobbiton so suddenly, Mr. Frodo. 'Twas a quarrel with the Gaffer that drove her off," the old lady confided rather cattily. "Over the children. She was in and out of Number 3 every day even before poor Bell Gamgee took ill, and once poor Bell was gone, she took up the care of the little ones as if she meant to call 'em hers. She never had a child of her own--least-wise, not while she lived here. Jealous of Bell, I'd say she was, and wanted to take what wasn't hers. At last, the Gaffer put his foot down about it."

It looked as if Mrs. Tredgold weren't the only one who harbored some jealousy. "But surely she wouldn't have left Hobbiton over so minor a difference," said Frodo.

"No..." Mrs. Rumble conceded. "That's what happened, sure as I sit here, but I always wondered if there wasn't more to it."

"Do you know where she went?"

"Back where she came from, I've no doubt." But Mrs. Rumble was unable to provide no better forwarding address than the Noakes sisters could.

In the afternoon, Frodo accompanied Sam to call on his next-oldest sister, May Bundlegreen, in Bywater. May was only four years older than Sam, but was swiftly growing into a round and matronly hobbit-lady. Her husband, the town green-grocer, was in his shop in front when Sam and Frodo went around through the private garden to knock on the kitchen door. May was used to her brother's visits, but the appearance of such a prominent local hobbit as Mr. Baggins of Bag End disconcerted her, for in spite of his long acquaintance with the Gamgee family, Frodo had never been to her home before. She welcomed the visitors into her kitchen and shooed her little boy, Hamnet, out to play before she asked why they'd come and what could she do for them?

The Gaffer's sad spells and Marigold's plight were already familiar to May, but when Sam explained the solution the Gaffer himself had proposed, she was only too happy to help. "Only, I don't how I can, Sam," she said apologetically. "I don't know where Aunt Lula is. I han't heard from her since Uncle Fenrod passed on. That must be near ten years ago."

"Was that her husband?" asked Frodo.

"I don't remember him," said Sam, "but I'm sure I never called 'm Uncle."

"Yes, you did, Sam," May replied. "Don't you remember? He wasn't around so much as Auntie Lu, but he was there now and again when you was little. You called him Uncle Fenny, and why shouldn't you? That's who he was."

Sam stared at his sister, bewildered. "Was he? Not one o' the Gaffer's brothers." Although they all lived far away, Sam knew that his father had three brothers, none of them named Fenrod. "Mum's brother?"

"Of course not. He was-" May stopped and gave her brother an odd look in return. "Sam Gamgee! Was there ever such a pudding-head? Uncle Fen was married to Aunt Lula. She is our aunt, Mum's own sister." Then, more gently, "I don't suppose you'd any reason to remember, Sam. There was so many ladies about Number 3 after Mum died, and we called 'em all Auntie whether they was kin or not. Nobody's talked about Aunt Lula since you was a little lad. There's no Goodchilds in this part o' the Shire, and none anywhere else anymore so far as I know. Mum and Aunt Lula was the last."

"Why did they leave Hobbiton?" Frodo asked her. "Mrs. Rumble said that your aunt quarreled with your father over your upbringing."

"If there was a quarrel, Mr. Frodo, I never heard of it. She was there one day, and then gone the next. Uncle Fen was a peddler and tinkerer, and went about the Shire from place to place in his work, and I think she wherever he was going next. Daisy and me had letters from Aunt Lu from time to time when we was in our tweens, but I wrote her when I married Sudo, and my letter came back a week later--the postmaster had written on it, 'Not known at this address.' I've had no word from her since."

"Where did you write to?" asked Frodo. "What was her last address?"

"'Twas Oatbarton, but that was years ago and she's long gone by now," May answered. "Our sister Daisy might know, as she lives up in Brockenborings, but she's never said so to me if she did. I'll write her and ask, if you like, Mr. Frodo."




"May can write if she likes," Sam said as they were walking back to Bag End, "but I don't know as it'll do any good unless Daisy's got some forwarding address for Aunt Lula. We know she isn't up that way anymore, and we can't go looking all over the Shire for her with naught to tell us where to start."

"Yes," Frodo agreed. "We need some idea to begin with. I must at least try to make an intelligent guess." In the privacy of the tall hedgerows of the lanes between Bywater and Hobbiton, he took his friend's hand. "Tell me about your family, Sam. I know that the Gamgees didn't come from Hobbiton originally, nor did the Goodchilds, I gather. Your sister said there were none of that family in this part of the Shire. Where did they come from?"

"I don't know about the Goodchilds," Sam admitted ruefully, still embarrassed by his complete ignorance of his mother's family and his sister's calling him 'pudding-head' in front of Frodo. "But the Gamgees come from up around Tighfield-way. You know how my Uncle Andy and Ham run a rope-makers' walk there. I expect Mum's family also come from thereabouts. Dad came to Hobbiton when he was a young lad to take work with his cousin Holman Cotton, as was Rosie's grandfather. He wasn't married to Mum yet, but sent for her later and they was wed in the Party Field. The Gaffer could tell you that story better'n I can. He thinks about it all the time now."
Chapter 4 by Kathryn Ramage
They called on the Gaffer that evening. It was the first time Frodo had visited the old gardener since his return to Hobbiton, and the Gaffer welcomed him warmly and showed him into the kitchen, where Marigold was washing up after dinner. Sam helped her, and listened quietly while Frodo talked with his father.

"I didn't mean to burden you with my troubles, Mr. Frodo," said the Gaffer, "but my Sam talks so much 'bout you finding lost jewels and umbrellas and missing ladies and such, and how he's helped you so the Mayor himself made him Chief Shirriff. That's higher'n I ever thought I'd see a son of mine come to, particularly not Sam." The old hobbit shook his head. "Well, if my lad's got to a place above himself, I know you meant well by putting him there and hope it'll come to good."

"That's what I've always wanted for Sam myself," Frodo agreed, and turned his head to cast a quick smile in his friend's direction. "His good."

"I have a bit o' money put by for my old age. Now, I can't pay much for your services, Mr. Frodo, but as Sam's helping you with finding our Lula, I hope you'll take that into account-"

"Never mind about that, Mr. Gamgee," Frodo hastened to assure him. "I'll do my best to locate your sister-in-law for you without any question of payment. Consider it my favor to you, and to Sam, for all you've done for me over the years. I hope you don't mind if I ask you a few questions?"

"Not at all, Mr. Frodo. Ask whatever you like."

"Will you tell me about Mrs. Gamgee, please? How did you meet her?"

"'Twas in Gamwich, up in the Northfarthing," the Gaffer answered. "Bell and her sister came to live with kin o' theirs after their mum and dad died."

"Where did they live before? Do you know?"

"Greenholm."

"I've never been there," said Frodo. "That's on the westward Bounds, isn't it?"

"That's right, Mr. Frodo. Twenty mile or so from Gamwich, and as far west as the Shire goes. I han't been to it myself, but that's where they came from, Bell and her sister. They wasn't no older'n Marigold here--Bell was the older, 'n Lu five year or so younger. 'Twas at a harvest dance I first saw the two of 'em. I danced with Bell around the bonfire." The Gaffer's gaze grew misty and distant as he recalled that day, seeing it more clearly than the walls of the little kitchen around him. It was a mood his children had seen often before. "She was the prettiest lass you'd think to see. Fair and pink-cheeked, and eyes green as the spring leaves with flecks o' gold. After I made myself known to her family, I courted her a time but never spoke my intentions. I could see as they didn't think it proper for a lad without a job nor home to himself to talk of marrying a girl like their Bell. No, it warn't 'til Cousin Hol over in Bywater asked me to come work for 'm. He was gardener for the gentlefolk hereabouts and saved enough to buy a farm, but he wanted somebody to give a hand and take the work o' the gardens he tended in town. Didn't want to leave them as was counting on him in want of a gardener. Now, I had a fancy for growing things, but no mind to go a-farming myself, nor to join my brother Andy at his rope-walking business, so I said I'd come. But afore I went off, I promised Bell I'd send for her as soon as I'd settled myself, and she said she'd come to me as soon as she had word. 'Twas your uncle, Mr. Bilbo, who put me in the way of taking this here bungalow when he hired me to look after Bag End's garden and heard about Bell. Well, I moved in when it came empty and sent for Bell so we could be wed."

"Did Aunt Lula come with Mum?" Sam asked.

His father, jolted from his reverie by the unexpected question, blinked up at him before answering, "She came to stand by Bell at our wedding, but didn't stay on with us. We'd've given her a home with us if she wanted, as she warn't happy with her folk at Gamwich, but she went back to 'em so as not to be underfoot while we was newlyweds. We didn't see her again 'til after Ham and Halfred was born. She was married herself then."

"Do you know where she and her husband lived?" asked Frodo.

"Here and abouts," the Gaffer answered. "Bell'd get letters from Lula from different parts of the Shire, north and south. We never knew where'd she'd be next."

"When did they come here to Hobbiton?"

"Years later, that was, Mr. Frodo. 'Twas just afore Marigold here was born. This bungalow of ours was too crowded with all the little ones for Lu to stop with us, so she took a cottage down the Grange Lane for herself. Her husband--Fen, his name was--came to join her later."

"Why did they leave?" Frodo asked. "Mrs. Rumble next door seems to think there was some sort of quarrel between you."

The Gaffer snorted. "That's all she knows about it! There was never a quarrel, Mr. Frodo, not between Lula and me. She went away, that's all." He sounded rather glum. "She would've stayed on to look after Sam and my girls as long as it suited us both, only her husband moved on and she was bound to go after him."

"Did she look like our mum, Dad?" asked Marigold. "Was she pretty?"

"Near as pretty, but not quite so," said the Gaffer. "She was fair, like your mother, and had the same way o' smiling. But her eyes were blue."

Sam tried to remember his aunt's face, but when he thought of those months after his mother had died, he could only recall some vague memories of a large and comforting figure who had scrubbed his face and tucked him into bed. That might be anybody. But the way the Gaffer spoke of Lula only increased his worries about why his father wanted her to return. It wasn't unheard-of for a widow or widower to marry their late spouse's brother or sister, but it disturbed Sam to think that the Gaffer had had those sort of feelings for his mother's sister when she'd been here last, so soon after Mum's death. Could that be part of the reason why Aunt Lula had gone away from Hobbiton, never to return nor barely to send word to them since? Would she agree to come and take care of the Gaffer now if they found her?

He was so lost in these thoughts as he and Frodo left Number 3 and went up the Hill that he barely heard what Frodo was saying. It wasn't until they were in Bag End, hanging up their coats in the front hall, that he was drawn back abruptly when Frodo asked, "What do you think, Sam?"

"Think about what?"

Frodo laughed. "My plan. I'm certain that Gamwich is the place to begin. Old Mrs. Rumble said your aunt had gone 'back where she came from,' and I believe she's right in this instance. If the relatives in Gamwich are still alive, she might have gone to them. The sentimental associates may be quite strong--It'd be perfectly natural for a widowed lady to return to the place where she'd lived as a girl." Then he reconsidered. "Or perhaps I'm wrong. Gamwich is quite near Tighfield, isn't it?"

"Not more'n four or five miles off," Sam agreed.

"Then surely your eldest brother or uncle would have news of her if she were so near them. Well, there's Greenholm to consider as well, but let's try Gamwich first. It's closer, and her family there might have news of her recent whereabouts."

"We're going to Gamwich?" Sam asked.

"Haven't you been listening at all, Sam?" Frodo smiled. "I intend to go. I thought you'd like to accompany me."

"'Course I do!"

"Then we'll leave tomorrow. You'd better go and tell Rose." He gave Sam a quick kiss, then took him by the shoulders to turn him toward the kitchen and sent him off with a gentle shove.
Chapter 5 by Kathryn Ramage
Gamwich was over eighty miles from Hobbiton, a two-day journey. Rosie packed a bag for Sam, and Sam packed for Frodo. Sam also left his friend Robin Smallburrows in charge as Deputy Chief lest anything that required a high shirriff's attention happened while he was away. He had done the same before going to aid Frodo in Buckland, but nothing had occurred during his absence.

They rose early and began their journey after breakfast. On the first day, they rode as far as Michel Delving, where Frodo stopped to call on his cousin Angelica and her husband Lad Whitfoot. The Whitfoots were also friends of Sam's and Rosie's; like Rosie, Angelica was expecting her second child in the autumn. When Lad's father, Mayor Will Whitfoot, learned that Sam and Frodo were in town, the two were invited to dine at the Mayor's Hall and stop the night there.

The next morning, they continued to Gamwich. While Frodo rode on head to find an inn and take lodgings, Sam stopped to visit his Uncle Andy and his eldest brother Hamson at their rope-making business in Tighfield. Frodo had originally intended to go with him, but Andy was rather shy of "Sam's gentleman," and snatched off his cap to bow low when Sam introduced him. Both Frodo and Sam agreed that Sam's relatives were more likely to speak to him alone than talk frankly to the famous investigator.

Sam brought the news from Hobbiton, for neither his father nor uncle could read nor write, and they only heard from each other via Sam and his siblings. Then he asked about Aunt Lula and confirmed what Frodo had already guessed: they hadn't heard from her nor seen her in years.

"She came back to Gamwich only once that I seen," Uncle Andy said as the trio walked between the rows of trestles between which long strands of damp rope were laid out; the old hobbit stopped every ten yards or so to check the progress of the ropes' drying. Andwise Gamgee was very like the Gaffer--a spry and obstinate old hobbit, wrinkled, gray-haired on his toes as well as his head, and bent with lumbago after long years of work. "'Twas for her uncle's funeral."

"How long ago was that?" Sam asked.

"Oh, fifteen, twenty years at least. She had her husband with her, him as she ran off with." The elderly hobbit snorted. "I remember Miss Lula Goodchild well enough from when she was a lass. When your dad was a-courting the one sister Bell, that'd be your lads' mother, he had me court the other. But I wasn't going to chase after a girl I wasn't sweet on just to keep my brother company."

Ham, who had been walking quietly some paces behind, waited until the old hobbit had gone on ahead, out of hearing, before he told Sam, "Uncle Andy don't talk about it much, but I remember our granduncle's funeral too and how he was when he saw Mum's sister was there. If you want to know what I think of it, Sam, it's that he did go a-courting of Aunt Lula when they was young, only she wouldn't have him."

"But she hasn't been here since?"

"Not that I know. You and your Mr. Frodo can look about Gamwich all you like, but she's not in ten nor twenty miles of here."

Uncle Andy and Ham would have been happy to have Sam stay for dinner, but Sam was anxious to go after Frodo. He was beginning to worry: Had Frodo found an inn for them to stop at tonight? Had he managed to get a room and see himself settled in properly? Had he remembered to order their dinner? Frodo took so little interest in food that he was liable to forget such things if he didn't have someone tending to them for him.

Sam bid his uncle and brother good-bye, and arrived in Gamwich just before nightfall. There was only one prominent inn on the high road through town, the Mousehole, and he tried there first.

Yes, the innkeeper told him when he asked, Mr. Baggins was in and dinner was to be laid out for them directly once he arrived. Sam was shown into the common room, where he found Frodo sitting and talking with a group of local hobbits.

"There were two sisters," Frodo was telling his audience; he had apparently just bought them all a round of ales and had their full attention and goodwill. "They came to live here in Gamwich with their aunt and uncle after they were orphaned as young girls. Goodchild was their name."

Some of the elder folk nodded; they remembered Mr. Goodchild and his wife, and the nieces who had come to stay with them.

"It's the younger niece I'm looking for," Frodo explained. "Her married name is Tredgold." Then he saw Sam standing in the doorway. "Sam, there you are!" Frodo rose to take him by the arm and bring him over. "This is my friend, Mr. Gamgee, whom I was telling you about. It's his aunt we hope to find."

Sam was welcomed warmly by the hobbits Frodo had been talking to. They didn't know Sam personally, for he'd never been to Gamwich before, but there were plenty of other Gamgees in this part of the Shire and everyone was acquainted with Andy and Ham.

"We'd like to help you, Mr. Baggins," said one of the farm-lads in the group, "but there's no Goodchilds, nor any of their kin, hereabouts anymore since old Mr. Goodchild passed on."

"Now, wait," said an older hobbit. "That isn't so. She ain't a Goodchild proper-like, but old Mr. Goodchild's wife is still about. She married again and was widowed again, and lives up the Northmoor lane. She's getting on in years--must be nigh on her eleventy-fifth birthday!--and don't get out much anymore. Mrs. Scuttle, her name is. She might have news of where her niece is got to."

Their dinner was brought in. Frodo thanked the hobbits for their help, then he and Sam went over to the table where the innkeeper was laying out their meal. Sam thought that they would go and see Mrs. Scuttle next, since she looked to be the most promising clue they'd discovered today, but after dinner, Frodo only spent a little more time chatting with the patrons remaining in the common room, then went to the room he'd taken for the night. Sam followed.

"Aren't we going to talk to her, this Mrs. Scuttle?" he asked.

"Yes, of course," Frodo replied. "Tomorrow. An elderly lady won't appreciate strangers knocking on her door at this hour of the night to ask questions. I'd like to rest tonight myself. We'll call on her in the morning."

"Are you tired, Frodo?"

"A little. It's been a long day."

As he spoke, Frodo was already undressing at the foot of the bed. Sam watched him unfasten each button and neatly lay his waistcoat, shirt, and trousers over the back of a nearby chair before stepping out of his small-clothes. He never tired of the sight--those bare arms and legs, the fine muscle and bone of Frodo's back, and that dimpled, round little bottom, all rosy in the firelight. Frodo looked as beautiful now as he had before the Ring had come into their lives and eaten away at him. He was better. Sam knew he mustn't say so; Frodo would only tell him that the pain was still there and would one day grow so bad that he must leave the Shire forever and go to the Elves in the West to be healed--but Sam had to hope that that awful day was still years and years ahead.

Watching Frodo now, he was reminded of a night nearly four years ago, when Frodo had stood before another fire, preparing to join him in another bed, in a room over a thousand miles away. Then, he'd stared at Frodo with wonderment, not quite believing the remarkable thing that was about to happen between them, that Frodo could love him. Tonight, what he felt was pride and a certain sense of triumph. Frodo had gone away for so many long months, until Sam had gone to Buckland and won him back. He was determined never to let go of Frodo again, not as long as he had anything to say about it!

Frodo had pulled on his nightshirt. He was shoving his arms through the sleeves, pushing his head through the open collar, wriggling until the hem fell modestly down to his knees. As he knotted the ends of the blue ribbon that laced up the front, he glanced up suddenly, catching Sam's eyes on him. He smiled.

"You're not tired, are you, Sam?" Frodo crossed the few feet of floor between them and wrapped his arms around Sam's neck before giving him a kiss. "I should think you'd be glad of a rest, carrying on as you've been every night since I came home."

"Not every night," Sam confided reluctantly. He didn't like to talk about his private moments with Rosie with Frodo, or vice versa. "When I sleep with Rosie, we- well, we sleep, that's all." He lowered his voice. "Rosie isn't as keen on it once there's a baby on the way. And she tires herself out looking after our Nel all day. We've only just got Nel to sleep through nights now." Since he had told Frodo this much, he felt bold enough to add, "I wonder sometimes if Rosie isn't glad to have you back herself, so she don't feel like she's shutting me out if all she wants is a good night's sleep. She knows I can come to you."

Frodo's smile flashed again. "I'm always happy to be of assistance to a lady. If I can take her husband off her hands once in awhile, he's welcome to come into mine." He sat down on the bed and held both arms out wide.

Sam took up this invitation immediately. "You'll get your reward for helping out," he joked in reply as he nuzzled on Frodo's ear and made him laugh. "After Rosie's had her baby, we'll name 'm after you."

"You said the same before Elanor was born," Frodo rejoined. "Are you so certain it'll be a boy this time?"

"Rosie hasn't said not, like she did when she was carrying Nel, and she was right about Nel, so she must know best. And this baby'll come in September, just 'round your birthday, Frodo. So it'd be fitting if he had your name, and it'd be like he was yours too, as much as Rosie's 'n' mine."

"Sam." Frodo drew back from their embrace to look at him. "How terribly sweet of you."

"It's the only way I can ever give you a baby," Sam tried to explain, "seeing as how we couldn't never have one together. You see, don't you, Frodo? It's my way of showing how you're my family as much as Rosie and Nel and my brothers and sisters, the Gaffer and Uncle Andy, and this aunt of mine we're looking for."

Sam could see that Frodo hadn't understood what he was offering; his eyes grew large and dewy now that he did. "Oh, Sam," he said softly. "My very dearest Sam." He took Sam's head in his hands to bestow another kiss with more energy than the last. Before Sam knew it, Frodo had pushed him down onto the bed and was sitting astride him, rapidly undoing his shirt buttons before bending his head down to tickle the bared skin with the tip of his tongue, then followed with playful little nips with his teeth.

This was another side of Frodo's newly restored health that Sam wasn't as pleased to see. These odd, wild bursts of passion had first taken him by surprise, for they seemed so unlike Frodo, and they took some getting used to. It especially disturbed him when Frodo showed him some new trick--it might feel wonderful, like nothing Sam had ever felt before, but he knew where all these tricks had been learned. Frodo was tactful enough to stop when he saw that Sam was bothered, but Sam couldn't help thinking of that year Frodo had spent away from him, and who he'd spent it with.

He sat up abruptly, grabbing Frodo and twisting to toss him down onto the mattress and pin him; Frodo shouted with laughter, delighted at the roughhouse, and wrapped his legs more tightly around Sam. There was so much lost time to make up for, and Sam wanted to drive every thought of Merry Brandybuck and his clever tricks from Frodo's head. He would do his best to give Frodo every reason not ever to go away again.
Chapter 6 by Kathryn Ramage
"If Mrs. Scuttle is your mother's uncle's widow," Frodo said the next morning, "then she must be your great-aunt." He and Sam had gone out to find the old lady's cottage; the innkeeper had given them directions to the Northmoor lane.

"I suppose she is," Sam replied.

"You've never spoken of her."

"I didn't know about her," Sam admitted. "'Cept for what the Gaffer's told me about courting Mum and his young days hereabouts, I never heard about her family at all! If what Ham says is true, 'tis no wonder Aunt Lula never came back here, not if Uncle Andy wanted to marry her and still's got hard feelings over it all these years later. He never married anybody else." He wondered how Uncle Andy would take it if Aunt Lula did agree to come care for the Gaffer and took up with him. There'd be hard feelings all right!

They found the lane easily and walked up its winding length between gorse-covered hillocks, until they came to a cottage halfway up the hillside with a neat and pretty little garden full of spring flowers on the slope beneath it. "This must be it," said Frodo.

Sam was surprised, for the cottage was an impressive-looking residence--not as large and fine as Bag End or the Old Baggins Place, but bigger than the type of bungalow he'd expected a great-aunt of his to live in. But he couldn't say Frodo was mistaken: the post box by the gate clearly read "Mrs. Edda Scuttle."

Frodo opened the gate and stepped back to let Sam go in first. "After all, she is a relation of yours."

"Even if I never seen her before, and she don't know me," Sam agreed. He went up the stone steps to the door and, feeling somewhat timid, tugged on the bell-pull.

The door was answered by a maidservant in a neat lace cap and white apron, who looked them over with curiosity.

"Is Mrs. Scuttle in please?" Frodo requested. "We'd like to see if, if she's receiving visitors."

"I'll go 'n' ask, sir," the maid replied. "Can I tell her who you are?"

They gave their names, and the maid curtseyed and left them standing on the doorstep while she consulted her mistress in some room far down the tunnel that wound into the hill. She returned a few minutes later to announce, "Missus'll see you. Come this way," and led them down the same tunnel into a parlor where Mrs. Scuttle sat.

Mrs. Scuttle was a very old lady, well past one hundred, tiny and wrinkled as a piece of dried fruit, but she gave her unexpected visitors a sharp, studying gaze before she dismissed the maid and said, "Gamgee, is it? You're no Gamgees I am acquainted with, neither one of you. Who're you lads, and what is it you want?"

Faced with such abrupt questions, Sam found his tongue. "I'm Samwise Gamgee, ma'am, and not from these parts. I've come from Hobbiton. Me, and my friend here--this is Mr. Frodo Baggins, the detective. You knew my mother, Bell Goodchild."

"Bell?" the old lady exclaimed. "Stars above! You're one of the gardener's children."

"Yes'm, that's right."

"I wouldn't have guessed. You've almost the look of a gentleman about you..." She looked Sam over again, "although I believe I can see the resemblance now."

"I'm a gardener myself," Sam responded, feeling that he had to stand up for himself as well as the Gaffer. "There's naught wrong with looking after a garden, ma'am. You might even say so yourself, seeing as you've got a nice, pretty garden here of your own."

"Indeed," the old lady conceded. "At least, your father was a good, honest work-a-day hobbit, and gave our Bell a home to stay put in. Her sister ran off disgracefully with a traveling man."

"It's the sister we've come about, Mrs. Scuttle," Frodo intervened. "We've been sent to find her."

"Ah, I guessed you hadn't come all the way from Hobbiton to talk about gardening." Mrs. Scuttle fixed her sharp eyes on Frodo. "Now what would a detective want with a niece of mine? Is there a legacy for her? Or has she done something wrong?"

"It's for my father," Sam said simply. "He wants to see her."

She chuckled. "I should think he'd be glad to see the last of her. Good riddance, I'd say, and I advise the same to you."

"Then you don't know her whereabouts?" asked Frodo.

Mrs. Scuttle shook her head. "She might be anywhere in the Shire. A wild one and a wanderer, that girl was--though she must be well on eighty now and no girl anymore. I haven't seen her since my first husband's funeral."

"You've had no word from her? No letters?"

She shook her head again. "We didn't part on good terms, and never kept correspondence with each other."

Sam believed her, but wondered if she was keeping something back. Out of spite for Aunt Lula, or for him and the Gaffer?

Frodo seemed doubtful too. "What about her parents?" he asked after pondering his next move.

"Parents?" Mrs. Scuttle echoed, surprised. "They've been dead sixty years and more!"

"But you corresponded with them while they were alive, before their daughters came here to live?"

"Yes, of course," she said reluctantly.

"What was their address?" asked Frodo. "The name of their house?"

"I don't recall," the old lady answered. "It was a very long time ago, Mr. Baggins, and I no longer know what's happened to my old address book."




Since Mrs. Scuttle could tell them no more, there was nothing to do but return to the inn.

"I'm sure she knows more than she told us," Frodo said once they were back in the common room. "My best guess is that your aunt Lula has gone to her old home-town, and perhaps even her old family house."

"That's why you asked the old lady about it?" asked Sam.

"It seemed a reasonable idea," Frodo explained. "The Goodchilds of Greenholm were her near relatives. Even if she hadn't taken in their daughters herself, she must have been on respectably good terms with them before their deaths. I was sure she must have their old address. I suspect she does still."

"But she won't give it to us," Sam said glumly. "'The gardener's children' aren't good enough for the likes of her. I wondered if there wasn't sommat of the sort behind it all the time. We hardly ever heard tell of Mum's family, and now I know why. They thought she'd married beneath her when she went off to the Gaffer, and must've thought Aunt Lula did the same."

"You can't take the opinion of one old lady for the feelings of a whole family, especially when they aren't around to speak for themselves," Frodo consoled him. He put his hand on Sam's arm, and leaned his head gently against his friend's. "You mustn't take her snobbery to heart. You've nothing in the world to feel ashamed of, Sam, not for yourself or any of your family. Rather the contrary. I know how wonderful you are, better than anyone can, and if this Mrs. Scuttle doesn't deign to know you or recognize your worth, then it's her loss." He kissed Sam on the temple. "Never mind. We'll go on with our search."

"At Greenholm?" asked Sam, comforted. Frodo's words meant far more to him than anything a snappish and ill-tempered great-aunt could say.

"It's where we meant to try next in any case," Frodo replied. "Don't give up hope, Sam. We'll find her yet."

They were packing their bags, preparing to leave, when the inn-keeper came to their room to tell them that a messenger had arrived for them. Frodo went out into the hallway to find Mrs. Scuttle's maid-servant there.

"Missus said she found this, and bid me bring it to you," she explained, holding out a folded square of paper to him. "She said 'I don't know what good it'll do you, but it might be some use.'"

Frodo thanked her, and opened the note. There was no message, only an address:

Mr. & Mrs. Goodchild Foxglove Cottage outside Greenholm Westfarthing

"Foxglove Cottage!" Frodo cried as he returned to the room to show Sam the note. "It's her old family home. I feel sure she's there."
Chapter 7 by Kathryn Ramage
Foxglove Cottage was not simply outside Greenholm, but lay some miles beyond the town.

"We would have found it for ourselves eventually, once we talked with someone who remembered the Goodchilds," said Frodo, "but Mrs. Scuttle has saved us some work." When they'd arrived in Greenholm, they had only to call at the post office and ask for directions. The postmaster had also confirmed that, yes, a lady was living alone at Foxglove Cottage and had been for seven years, though she rarely came into town.

Frodo and Sam were riding now on the road along the Bounds, the border of the Shire. Neither of them had ever been so far west before. While the Bounds were in some places marked by a hedge or the natural boundary of a river or ridge, here a stone wall ran atop a row of downs. The narrow road beside it was where the "bounders" who kept watch on the Shire's borders made their regular patrols. Beyond the wall lay more rolling chalk downs and a single road led away toward higher green hills in the distance.

"We'll travel on that road someday," said Frodo as he gazed out at the road through the empty land. Though it was not long past midday, the sky was growing dark with gathering clouds and the wind was rising, blowing the tall, yellowish grass in ripples like waves. "Over the Far Downs, past the Tower Hills, to the Sea. You'll come with me, won't you, Sam?"

Sam, knowing what was on Frodo's mind, felt a coldness tighten around his heart, as if that day were upon them now instead of some far date in the future. Frodo would go West to join the Elves and be healed. He spoke of it often enough, to try and make Sam understand; Sam understood, but he didn't like to look forward to when it must happen, nor what would happen to him once Frodo was truly gone for good. In sixty years' time, he would be the old hobbit who sat by the fire and remembered the boy he'd loved long ago, only he couldn't talk about Frodo the way the Gaffer did about Mum. It would shock his children if he did.

He grasped at Frodo's last words. "Can I go with you?"

"I meant--Will you accompany me to the Grey Havens? Will you see me off when I go? Beyond that, Sam..." Frodo sighed. "I don't know. Perhaps you may follow, one day. I can't promise. It's not my decision. The Elves have made a special allowance for me and Uncle Bilbo to go to the Undying Lands, because we bore the Ring. You carried it too, for a little while." He glanced at Sam. "You've never felt the- ah- effects of it, have you? No pain or great loss, as if something vital had been torn out of you?"

"A bit," Sam admitted. When he'd carried the Ring, he'd felt a few flickers of temptation, visions of the powers and gifts that would be his if he claimed the Ring for himself, but in his desperation to rescue Frodo, he'd scarcely given them a moment's consideration. Worse, however, was the hesitation he'd felt in the Tower of Cirith Ungol, when Frodo had demanded he give the Ring back. Before he'd obeyed, there'd been an awful moment when he'd seen Frodo not as his beloved friend, but as a greedy and grasping creature like Gollum, ready to snatch back the precious object from his hands. The illusion had lasted no more than an instant, but Sam was sickened whenever he remembered it. Frodo had begun to ask him about those awful days, so he could write them down in his Red Book, but Sam never wanted to tell Frodo about this. Even now, it felt like a betrayal. "But naught like that. Not a minute's pain."

"You've been fortunate then, Sam. It never touched you."

"I'd rather be unlucky for once, if it meant I wasn't left behind." He'd won Frodo back, but wouldn't keep him forever.

The wind came up in a sudden gust, and they nudged their ponies into a trot, for there was a cottage about half a mile ahead on the eastern side of the road and they wanted to reach it before the rain began. If this was Foxglove Cottage, then it wasn't as fine a house as Mrs. Scuttle's. There was only a small paved half-circle area before the front door with no sign of a foxglove or other flowers, and the cottage front was cut from the exposed, white chalk of the downs.

A woman was on top of the hill above her home, working rapidly to take down her laundry from the lines strung between the trees. When she heard the clatter of ponies' hooves, she turned.

"Are you Mrs. Tredgold?" Frodo called out to her as he pulled up his pony outside the gate.

"That I am!" she shouted back. "You'd best come inside, lads! We'll all be soaked if we stand out here much longer." She turned back to yank down the last of her laundry. Sam went up the hill to aid her with carrying down the heavy basket, while Frodo took their ponies to shelter. They met again on the cottage doorstep, and Mrs. Tredgold quickly ushered them into the front hall just before the first patters of rain struck the door and windows.

"I don't see many visitors out this way," Mrs. Tredgold said once they were indoors. "What brings you lads to me?"

She was much closer to Sam's idea of an aunt. He would like to say that she reminded him of his mother, but he couldn't remember his mother's face clearly enough to say how much Lula Tredgold was like Bell Gamgee. There was, however, something in her plump, pink, and good-humored face that was like his sisters'--more like May's than Marigold's--and he thought he even saw some resemblance to Elanor. Her hair was fair, if streaked with gray, and her eyes were as blue as the Gaffer had said.

"We've come to find you, Aunt Lula, because the Gaffer's asked for you," Sam answered. "That is, Hamfast Gamgee. My father. I'm Sam Gamgee."

She smiled. "Little Samwise? Why, I haven't see you since you were a small boy, not more than six or seven, but I've heard a great deal of your comings and goings since. You're quite well known, even in these far parts of the Shire. Is this your famous detective-friend?" She turned to Frodo, still smiling. "Oh, yes, I've heard of you, Mr. Baggins. Missing jewels, and missing persons too? Come in and tell me--however did you know to find me here?"

"This is your family home," answered Frodo as Lula led them down the tunnel toward the kitchen.

"Yes, that's right." She regarded him with interest. "But none of my family has lived here in many years. This house has been my property since my parents died. It was your mother's too, Sam, so I suppose you and your brothers and sisters have a share in it. My uncle used to manage it for us. I never had an interest in living here, until my husband died. There aren't many people in the town who remember the Goodchilds anymore, and I haven't gone out of my way to tell anyone about my relation to who used to live in this house so long ago."

"We've been searching for you for several days, Mrs. Tredgold," Frodo replied. "No one seemed to know where you were, but we've heard so much about you, I made a guess where you might be now."

"We talked to my Uncle Andy, and your aunt, Edda Scuttle in Gamwich yesterday," Sam added.

Lula laughed. "I can imagine what they had to tell you about me! They've never forgiven me for my marriage, neither of them--for different reasons, of course." They entered the kitchen, and she went on as she put the kettle on the fire. "Your Uncle Andy is a fine hobbit, Sam, and he would've made many a hobbit-lass a good husband. I was sorry to see he'd never sought another bride, but he wasn't the one for me. He had no desire to go one step beyond Tighfield. Aunt Edda had another lad picked out for me, but he was so dull and respectable that I can't even remember his name. After my sister Bell married away, I felt very much alone. Then Fenrod Tredgold came to town, an itinerant peddler and tinker, with his pack on his pack. When he left, I went with him and never regretted it for an instant.

"When Bell and I were girls, we used to walk out across the downs. I used to wonder--Who knows what lies beyond? We never went more than a few miles before we grew tired and had to turn back, but I always meant to go farther one day. I wanted to see what was out there. After I ran off with Fenrod, I traveled all around the Shire, and met all sorts of people. We even went as far as Bree. Oh, those were wonderful times. But I lost my taste for wandering once Fenrod died. I had fond memories of this place, and so I came here." She turned to ask them, "Why Ham Gamgee put you to all this trouble and sent you to look for me?"

While Aunt Lula made tea, Sam explained about his father.

"We realize that it's an imposition to ask you to come to Hobbiton to look after an elderly hobbit who's no relation to you except by marriage," said Frodo, "but it would be of great help to the Gamgees."

"Not just to the Gaffer," added Sam. "There's my sister Marigold. You haven't seen her since she was a baby, but she's old enough to marry now and has a lad she wants to wed, Tom Cotton, who is brother to my own wife, Rose. Only she can't go off and leave Dad by himself and he won't leave his home to come live with us."

"I wouldn't like to stand in the way of a young girl's happiness," murmured Lula. "Very well, I'll come for awhile and do whatever I can for Ham, but I can't promise I'll stay."
Chapter 8 by Kathryn Ramage
Aunt Lula had said that she mightn't stay for long. At the beginning of their search, Sam would have thought he'd be relieved to hear her say so, but by the time they returned to Hobbiton, he was sorry. He'd liked her the moment he'd met her, and only liked her more as they became better acquainted. The three-day journey home, which carefully avoided the road through Gamwich, gave them plenty of time to talk. Aunt Lula had a wealth of stories to tell about her travels, and was eager to hear of the great journeys Sam had made with Frodo, but their conversations often turned to his mother and those months after her death.

"I always wrote Bell, wherever I was, and she wrote back whenever I had a fixed address," Lula told him. "When she was expecting her last baby, she asked me to come to Hobbiton. Fen was planning a trip into the far northlands. Normally, I would've gone with him, but we both agreed that this would be a good time for me to go for a nice, long visit. It'd been years since Bell and I had seen each other, and I'd missed her. She was the only one who approved my marriage to Fen. She'd had troubles of her own when she'd gone to marry your father, Sam dear. So to Hobbiton I went. I took a cottage for myself, and lived there for nearly three years. Fen came to join me after while. When poor Bell took ill, I did my best to nurse her and was at her side at the last. She asked me to look after you little ones."

"Why didn't you?" asked Sam. "Why'd you go off again? Was it... was it because of the Gaffer?"

"We've heard that you quarreled with Gaffer Gamgee over the upbringing of the children," Frodo added, "or that you simply left to join your husband."

"Fen left Hobbiton after Bell's funeral, and when I saw things had been fairly settled in my sister's household, I went after him," Lula answered, "but there was more to it than that. It was time for me to go. If I quarreled, it wasn't with Ham. There was an awful, interfering woman who lived next door. She always criticized the way I looked after the children, as if she knew better. She was jealous of how I'd made myself useful in the house, of course, and afraid that I might take it up permanently. She once said I wished the children were mine. Well, perhaps she was right about that. I never had a child of my own, you see. It wouldn't have been easy for Fen and me to take children all around the Shire with us if we had, but I was envious of my sister's six--and darlings every one of you--just the same. If I'd stayed much longer, I would've become like a mother to you, in your own mother's place. I might've truly thought of you as mine. I was sorry to leave you all, Sam, but I thought it for the best."

They arrived in Hobbiton that evening. Rather than wait until morning, Lula asked that they stop by Number 3 on their way up the Hill before going to Bag End. The Gaffer and Marigold had just finished their dinner when Sam knocked on the bungalow door. When his sister answered, her eyes went with at the sight of the lady who stood with him and Frodo.

"Marigold, this here's our Aunt Lula," Sam introduced them. "We've found her,"

The Gaffer, hearing this, rose from his chair and came to the open door, beaming. "Is it..? Why, it is! Lu, how long it's been since I saw you last, and you haven't changed a hair since."

"Oh, I've changed a hair or two," Lula replied, laughing, and took him by the hands. "How have you been, Ham?"

Within a few minutes, the two older hobbits had settled by the sitting-room fire and were talking together as no one else were in the room. Sam had meant for his aunt to stay the night at Bag End, but as she showed no sign of ending her conversation with the Gaffer, and he was sure that Frodo must be weary after their long journey, he asked Marigold to bring Lula up the Hill when she wished to find a bed. Then he and Frodo went up to Bag End without her.

Lula never did come up to Bag End that night, and Sam went back down to the bungalow in the morning. His sister was alone in the tiny kitchen, making a pot of tea, but there was no sign of the elder pair.

"They didn't sit up talking all night?" he asked her.

"No, only half the night," answered Marigold. "After we saw Dad to his rest, 'twas too late to go up the Hill and wake you and Rose, so I made up the bed in your old room for Auntie. She's still asleep, but I thought as I'd have breakfast ready for her as well as Dad when they rise." The kettle over the fire began to whistle, and she took it off its hook and poured the boiling water into a little brown pot. "I never seen him so happy, not in a long while, as he was last night talking to Auntie about Mum and the old days when they was all young. It'll be good to have her about for awhile, but 'tisn't a great matter anymore if she doesn't stay."

"No great matter anymore?" Sam echoed. "What d'you mean?"

"I had a word with Tom after you and Mr. Frodo went off, to tell 'm as how we mightn't have to wait much longer to be wed. Tom said he'd for me waited long enough. He'd no objection to coming to live here with me and Dad, and going off every day to do his work at the farm, so long as we could be married at last. Whether Auntie stays to look after Dad or no, we'll be wed in a month."

"Marigold! That's wonderful news." Sam gave his sister a quick hug and kiss. "If any wife could make that Tom Cotton behave himself proper, it'd be you."

While they were talking about Marigold's wedding plans, the Gaffer came in to breakfast. He was very cheerful this morning, smiling to himself as he sat down to wait for his bacon and eggs. "A fine woman that Lu's turned out to be, for all she was a wild lass once. Thank ye, Sam-lad, and thanks be to Mr. Frodo for bringing her to see me. How do the two of you like your aunt?"

"I didn't get much chance to talk with her last night, but when I told her about me 'n' Tom, she said as she'd help me with my dress and such," said Marigold. "I'm glad she'll be here for the wedding."

"I like her," Sam said, "and she won't be out of place, in Mum's place." He braced himself, and said what he felt had to, "If you're to marry her, Dad, I won't mind it a bit."

"Marry?" The Gaffer stared at him in surprise, then chuckled. "Now what put such an idea into your head? I told you I wasn't planning to marry again, Sam-lad, and even if I was, I wouldn't marry my Bell's own sister! Lu is too like her, and like a sister to me. But that's just why I thought o' her. It's a comfort to have someone from the old days by me, who remembers Bell as I do and can talk with me about her."

Sam was surprised--he had misunderstood his father's reasons from the first--but he saw the truth of it now. Aunt Lula could give the Gaffer just what he and Marigold couldn't: memories of their mother.

He stayed at the bungalow long enough to see Aunt Lula and had a bite of breakfast with his family, then went back up the Hill to Beg End, where he knew Rosie would be waiting for him to return for breakfast there. Rosie was feeding the baby and had kept a plate warm for him. Frodo's tray sat ready on the end of the kitchen table; before he settled down to his second round of bacon and eggs, Sam took the tray and carried it down the hall to Frodo's room.

While Frodo ate, Sam told him what the Gaffer had said. Frodo wasn't surprised.

"Yes, I thought the same when we started out," he admitted, "but once we came to Foxglove cottage, I knew that even if that's what the Gaffer intended, it wouldn't come off. Your aunt Lula isn't the sort for him."

Sam would never call himself a great investigator, but this once he knew exactly what clue had led Frodo to see the truth. "She didn't have no garden at all," he said.

"Yes, exactly. I can't see the Gaffer wanting to marry any woman who cared so little for flowers. Mrs. Scuttle would have a better chance, if you'd care to have her as a stepmother."

"No thank you!" answered Sam with a huff.
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