Looking for Aunt Lula 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."
You must login (register) to review.