"The thing to consider is where will they strike next?" Frodo said to Sam as they left the Old Place.
"How're we going to find that out?" asked Sam.
"Now that we've seen how they launch the pumpkins, we know we must look for places that suit their need. They must have a high hedge alongside a lane, with a field on the other side that has with young saplings in it, close enough to the hedge to clear it. It can't be too near anybody's home, or they'd be observed at their tricks, but at the same time it can't too far off. They're too young to stray very far from their homes. It must therefore be somewhere around the Hill, not farther than Overhill to the north or Bywater to the east. I don't believe they'd go south across the Water. They might return to one of the places they've used already, but where else might they go? Think, Sam. You know this part of the Shire, root and
branch, better than anyone except perhaps the Gaffer."
They stopped in the lane while Sam gave the question some thought. "Here." He picked up a stick and drew a simple map in the dirt. "Say this circle's the Hill.
Overhill's up here and Hobbiton's southward. Bywater's over here. This-" he drew a curving line, "is the lane we're in, and this-" another line, perpendicular to the last, "is the lane that goes past the Chubb house."
Frodo crouched down. "Then the meadow is here," he tapped a spot near the juncture of the two lines. The place where Ponto was struck is around here..."
"There's a good stretch of fields up that way, north of the Old Place," said Sam.
"We ought to go have a look at them. What about the south side of the Hill? That's where Aunt Lobelia was struck, and we were struck last night, just entering Bagshot Row." Frodo tapped these spots on Sam's impromptu map. "What else is over there?"
"The Gammidges keep a pasture near the end o' the lane where Mr. and Mrs. Proudfoot live," said Sam. "If the girls want to lay one o' their traps there, they'd have a good wait afore somebody came along. Not a lot of folk go along that way, unless they're going to the farm. The lane don't go anywhere else, but comes out at the Great Road after a bit."
Frodo's eyes brightened. "Sam, that's it! Oh, not where I think they're going to set up their next pumpkin-toss, but where they've hidden their store of pumpkins. They couldn't have carried them too far from Lobelia's garden. Didn't Aunt Pru say that there was a cowshed in the Gammidges' pasture, where Will and Sancho used to go and hide out? I wonder if the girls know about it?"
As they approached the Gammidges' pasture, they could see that Frodo's guess was correct. The girls were preparing to spring another trap here, or were at least doing a little target practice: a pair of saplings near the edge of the pasture had been bent over with their tops nearly touching the ground, and tied off with ropes. The rotted shells of one or two old pumpkins lay in the lane, pushed under some bushes. The girls were not in sight, but a wooden shed stood a hundred yards or so away. The door was open.
Frodo held a finger up to his lips, and they crept as quietly as they could toward the shed. There was no high hedge along the lane, only a stone wall, and they kept low. As they drew nearer the shed, they could hear childish voices and giggles from inside.
When they reached a gate, Sam pulled it open. The rusted hinges creaked, and the voices fell silent. There was an urgent shush, and Dolly Chubb peeked out. In her arms, she held a pumpkin; at the sight of Sam at the gate, she yelped shrilly and dropped it with a splat. The other two girls emerged from within the shed, and there were more yelps of alarm. Shrieking, the trio scattered and fled across the field.
"There's no use running, girls!" Frodo called after them. "I've already spoken to your mother, Myrtle. I'll speak to yours too, Florrie, Dolly. They'll know all about it!"
The Chubb girls didn't stop--perhaps were too far away to hear--but Myrtle paused in scrambling over the stone wall and turned to look back to him. "You told Mama?"
"That's right," said Frodo. "I've just been to your house. I thought it was your brother, Mosco, but then I realized his feet were too big."
The little girl looked puzzled, and for a moment looked very like Peony. "His feet...?"
"You stepped in a pumpkin last night, Myrtle, didn't you? That's how I knew it was you and your friends."
Myrtle climbed down off the wall and took a tentative step toward him. "Did you tell Papa too?"
"No, but your mother's sure to have told him by now."
"They're going to be angry. I'm sure to get a spanking."
"It wouldn't surprise me, my dear child," Frodo replied, and crouched down to place himself at eye level with the little girl as she came nearer. "You've been very naughty, you know. You might've hurt somebody. You almost hit me and Mr. Gamgee last night."
"I'm sorry, Uncle Frodo."
"You'd better apologize to Mr. Gamgee too."
Sam stood with arms folded, scowling at her sternly; Myrtle found Frodo less intimidating, and sidled close to him as she mumbled, "‘M sorry."
"Now how did you girls come up with such an idea?" Frodo asked her.
"It was Will," said Myrtle.
The two older hobbits exchanged a glance. "I knew those two was at the back of it," Sam said, and asked Myrtle, "Did he 'n' Sancho put you up to this?"
"No. Will only showed us how to do it." Myrtle began to speak quickly. "It was last autumn. Will and Sancho stole so many pumpkins they didn't know what to do with 'em all. So after they smashed some, they fixed up one of the trees in the field by Florrie and Dolly's house to make the rest go flying."
"Over the hedge?" asked Frodo.
"No, the other way. It made the ponies go running off." She laughed. "They let us watch. Sancho said it'd be great fun if they sent one the other way, into the lane, but they'd finished all the pumpkins up and didn't have anymore. So that was that."
"Until this autumn, when there were new pumpkins growing, and you and Florrie and Dolly decided it would be fun to try it out for yourselves?" said Frodo.
Myrtle nodded. "Florrie said she could tie up the trees as good as Will could, so we took some rope from the stables and took the pumpkins from Old Aunt Lobelia's place. Nobody'd notice. We took a bunch, as big as we could carry, and put them in the shed over there." She waved a hand in the direction of it. "And we played here, 'til we could make 'em go over the wall. It was awfully fun!"
"And then you thought it'd be even more fun to aim them at people?" Frodo prompted.
Myrtle nodded again, and had the grace to look shamefaced about it. "It sounded like a good joke, but nobody ever comes along this way. All we could scare was the cows, and after awhile they stayed away this end of the pasture. So we carried some pumpkins, one each, over to the field by my house, where there are more little trees, and waited 'til somebody came walking by. It was Uncle Ponto-" In spite of the trouble she was in, she laughed. "Oh, you should've seen him jump when the first one landed by him!" But, finding that the grown-ups were not amused, she quickly lost her smile. "We didn't try to hit anybody, Uncle Frodo. Honestly! Not even Old Lobelia. We only wanted to frighten 'em, like the cows and ponies."
"Tell your mother and father that, and maybe they won't be so hard on you. Are you ready to go home and face them, Myrtle? Then come along. Be brave" Frodo held out a hand. The little girl took it and, hand in hand, they walked back to the Old Place, where Myrtle's parents were waiting to deliver a scolding.
After they'd left the Burrows family, Sam and Frodo headed for the Chubb smial to tell Ruby and Wilgo what their daughters had been up to.
"They won't like to acknowledge it's true," said Frodo, "but since the girls have been caught out and Myrtle's confessed, they can't deny it."
"Even so, they won't come down so bad on those girls as Milo 'n' Peony will on Myrtle," said Sam. "If you ask me, they deserve it more. It seems more it was their idea, and that brother of theirs."
Frodo had to agree. "But Milo and Peony will be fair, and after Myrtle's taken her punishment, she isn't likely to go astray again. The Chubbs, on the other hand, I feel sure will find themselves with worse mischief-makers on their hands after Will's grown out of it. I've been thinking, Sam. I'll wager that even if Will didn't play a part in this mischief, he guessed what was up when Robin spoke to him about it the day before yesterday. He knew he hadn't done it, and could honestly say so for a change, but he must've remembered what he'd shown his little sisters to do last year. He couldn't say so, and couldn't say anything else unless he was willing to take the blame on himself. I'm sure that's why he and Sancho went into hiding." In the lane that led to the Chubbs' house, he turned to Sam. "I'm surprised you didn't talk more to Myrtle, Sam. You're a father. You know how to talk to children."
"You did fine," Sam told him. A look of horror appeared on his face. "What if my Nel really is like that in a few years?"
Frodo smiled. "Then this will be good practice."
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