It took the rest of the day to trace Mrs. Tiggle's whereabouts. Thimula recalled that the cook had lived in Overhill, and both she and Frodo hoped that if Mrs. Tiggle wasn't still there, her family or neighbors could tell them where she'd gone. When they located the cottage in the village to the north of the Hill, they learned that Mrs. Tiggle had taken another job--a good cook could always find work if she wanted it--but her daughter, who was still living there, provided an address in Frogmorton, ten miles away. That was too far for the older woman to travel back and forth every day, so she was living at her employer's house.
The pottery goose? Yes, Mrs. Tiggle's daughter had seen it; her mother had brought it home with her from Mrs. Sackville-Baggins's one day. No, it wasn't here. Mother had taken it with her to Frogmorton.
After they'd thanked Miss Tiggle and gone on their way, Frodo sighed. "We will have to go to Frogmorton."
"Won't it tire you, Frodo?" asked Thimula. "I know you've been ill lately."
"No, not at all. We can ride there by midday. I'll just fetch the ponies from the stable and tell Sam I won't be home until this afternoon. He's probably so busy with the new babies and three other little children to look after, he hasn't noticed yet that I've been out of the house ."
"Three children? But I thought the Gamgees had only two--the little girl and a baby boy."
"They do, but Sam's sister Marigold is staying at Bag End now, and brought her baby with her. The nursery is quite full."
"You're extremely generous to the Gamgees," Thimula spoke after a moment--Frodo thought with a certain tentative delicacy. "Everyone says so."
"So they do," he answered carefully.
"Aunt Lobelia had her own way of speaking of it."
"About my friendship with Sam Gamgee, you mean?" He wondered how much local gossip Thimula had heard. Since his affair with Merry Brandybuck was common knowledge, his Hobbiton relatives and neighbors had reconsidered his close friendship with Sam. They seemed to assume that his remarkable generosity to Sam must spring from whatever had been between them before Sam's marriage. While his cousin Angelica thought it noble and fine of him, others, like the Cottons and Lobelia, viewed it as a more sordid affair.
After spending most of yesterday in each others' company, he and Thimula had become friendly, but they weren't yet so intimate that he was ready to reveal his secrets. He could, however, give her some part of the truth.
"Sam is my dearest friend," he told her. "We've traveled halfway across Middle-earth together on adventures I'll tell you about someday, and experienced... some things I couldn't possibly describe to anyone. He's saved my life so many times I can't tell you--I've lost count. Why shouldn't I want to do everything I can for him?"
"Why indeed?" said Thimula, and pressed no further on the subject.
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