WHISPERS OF THE RING
No Bread at Breakfast
The gray of pre-dawn found Frodo and Sam awake and active in the widow’s kitchen. Hobbits could move a silent as fog when the notion took them and neither had wanted to wake the widow so early, so they had been quiet indeed. “Hot oats, Mister Frodo?” Sam offered in a low voice.“Would you mind, Sam? I know that’s twice in a row we’ve had them, but I’ve got no appetite this morning for baked goods.” Not after the dreams I had last night, Frodo thought to himself.
Sam pushed another bit of wood onto the fire and set the large iron kettle on its hook to heat over the flames. His expression was thoughtful. “To tell the truth, Mister Frodo, me neither. I’m not much in the mood for bread especially.”
Frodo looked hard at Sam for a moment, then relaxed and smiled. “Did I talk aloud in my sleep again, Sam?”
“Er…not really, Mister Frodo. I can’t remember much about last night to tell you the truth. My memory of it is like dew in the hot morning sun.” Sam looked a bit sheepish for not remembering more.
Frodo pulled on a curly lock for a moment as he thought, then smiled. “No matter, Sam. To tell you the truth, I don’t recall much either.”
Frodo and Sam busied themselves with meal preparations with a silence spread between them like a comfortable blanket. For many years they had worked together doing such simple chores as they cared for Frodo’s second guardian, Odo Proudfoot, through his long illness.
Bilbo’s first cousin Odo had been an old hobbit when he had come to care for Frodo, but shortly after Frodo’s thirty-third birthday the old Proudfoot fell ill and a great weakness overtook him. Though Frodo no longer needed a guardian by the law of the Shire, as he was then considered an adult and capable of handling his inheritance, he still looked after Odo. Frodo considered the care and attention he gave Odo to be inadequate payment indeed for Odo having saved Frodo from being taken in by the Sackville-Baggins.
The Sackville-Bagginses were Bilbo’s first and Frodo’s second cousins. Bilbo Baggins had never forgiven Otho and Lobelia Sackville-Baggins for trying to auction off the contents of Bag End whilst he was attending to the matters that would later fill his book ‘There and Back Again’. A feud, if such could be called that by the peace-loving hobbits, had sprung up between Bilbo and his cousins. When Frodo was named Bilbo’s heir, Frodo found himself embroiled in it quickly, for without an heir, Bilbo’s possessions would fall to his cousin Otho in the event of Bilbo’s death. Had Frodo been taken in by the Sackville-Baggins after Bilbo had left, surely they would have seized the contents of Bag End and Frodo would have had nothing to inherit when he came of age!
Frodo set the table for three, taking his time positioning the plain, wooden spoons and polished wooden bowls just so. “Sam,” he said quietly, “You’ve never really asked me why I suddenly wanted to find Bilbo. Don’t you wonder why I’m leading you so far from home?”
Sam looked a bit startled by the question. He thought about it for a moment then shrugged. “Your business is your business, as Gaffer would say; and I couldn’t very well leave you to go out among the Big Folk by yourself!”
Frodo fiddled with a spoon then smoothed a sharp crease in one of the cloth napkins. “Thank you, Sam. Even when I question myself, I can count on you to stand firm. Your simple wisdom is something I cherish."
“You shouldn’t ever have reason to question yourself, Mister Frodo! I daresay you’re the keenest hobbit in the Shire!” Sam thought for a moment. “Or out of the Shire, I suppose. Seeing, as we’re a ways away from home now. You know what I mean?”
With a flush and a duck of his head, Frodo looked far younger than his forty years. "Ah Sam, you almost make me believe such words when you speak them with such conviction! I am a bit of a scholar but I am not so much keen as learned. Thank you."
Sam beamed back at Frodo and continued stirring the oats. It was important you kept them stirred up nice otherwise they’d stick to the bottom of the pot and burn, or turn lumpy and unappetizing. He tossed a handful of dried cranberries into the pot and added a touch more water to help them plump up. It may be oats for the second morning in a row, but the circumstances were quite different from the previous morning and oats in a comfortable kitchen was just as good as sausage and eggs!
“Sam, do you suppose we should wake the good widow for breakfast?” Frodo looked down the hall at the closed bedroom door. The modest cottage had only two rooms aside from the main kitchen/sitting area. One was the widow’s bedroom and the other the bath. Frodo and Sam had shared the copper tub the night before as it was far larger than any hobbit tub and easily fit the two of them with room for a third!
Sam shuffled his foot a bit and looked rather embarrassed. “Well, Mister Frodo, I wouldn’t want to trouble the lady, seeing how she’s been so kind and we’re up awfully early.” Sam regretted his words the moment he spoke them.
“We are up rather early today. I’m sorry, Sam. I just couldn’t fall back asleep.” Frodo seemed to take it to heart that Sam had decided to remain awake with him, depriving himself of a good rest.
“It’s alright, Mr. Frodo! Honest! I wouldn’t have been able to sleep well myself knowing you weren’t able to.” Frodo opened his mouth to reply but Sam cut him off quickly. “Oats are ready! Don’t they smell good?” Sam lifted the kettle from its hook after wrapping a bit of heavy cloth round the handle and started to scoop oats into the bowl nearest Frodo.
Frodo sighed and shrugged his shoulders. Sam was right of course, there was no use going on about how bad he should feel for depriving his friends. Sam was his friend, and if he honestly hadn’t wanted to stay up, he would have said so. Picking apart the small things often led to larger problems.
“They smell very tasty indeed.” Frodo and Sam flushed guiltily as the widow sat down at the table. “May I join you? Or were you planning on creeping from my company before we said our goodbyes?”
Hobbits could be very stealthy indeed when the took a notion to be, but sometimes they grow distracted and their voices raise and carry to the ears of those they try to hide from.
“Good morning to you, widow,” Frodo and Sam chimed together.
She regarded them with a suspicious eye. “The two of you are suddenly the picture of innocence…” The hobbits looked at each other and giggled at the face the other had put on.
“Sam! Your face looks like that time Gaffer and I caught you ‘watering’ his prize petunias the natural way!”
Sam turned beet red. “Mister Frodo!” He glanced shyly at the widow, “Not in front of a gentlewoman!”
The widow reached over and patted Sam’s shoulder in a comforting gesture. “It’s alright, Sam. We all do strange things when we are children.”
Upon hearing those words, Sam turned even redder and Frodo doubled over at the table with gales of roaring laughter. Sam booted irritably at Frodo with a foot and sunk into his chair so only the top of his head showed above the tablecloth.
“What? What is the matter? Why is that so amusing?” The widow looked confused as Frodo tumbled off his chair and Sam reached up to the table to take his bowl and bring it into his lap to eat.
With great gasping breaths Frodo stood using the table for support. “Because,” he gasped again, “Because it was only last spring!” Frodo’s grip slipped from the table and he fell to the floor laughing again.
“It’s not all that funny,” Sam muttered beneath his breath.
The widow hid a smirk behind her napkin while she composed herself. “I’m sorry if I have caused you embarrassment, Master Gamgee.”
Sam inched his way up so his eyes were at least visible again at table level. They looked sorrowful. “’It was I that caused myself the embarrassment, missus. And it will be I that must bear the shame.”
“Poor Sam,” Frodo wheezed. “It’s terribly unfair of me to keep teasing you about that. But we have so little to tease you about really.” Frodo’s eyes were twinkling with mirth. His limbs shook as he took his seat. “Don’t worry, Sam. We’ll be off before the rumor can spread and damage your reputation here.”
“So soon then?” The widow asked with a wistful sigh. “Well, I can’t keep you from your destiny. But still, I don’t think I’ve given you enough for supplies!”
Frodo choked a bit. “We’ve plenty thank you.
The widow looked about her with amusement, for in the course of preparing oats there had suddenly appeared a good-sized chunk of cheese, a loaf of bread, some sweet pickled carrots, an apple sliced into parts and a pot of tea set to steep. “I think I could pack a farm with you on your journey and you would still suffer for lack of food. For you who are so small in stature eat more heartily than men who stand three heads taller again than you!”
“I find,” Sam began, “That a hobbit packs exactly what a hobbit will need. We can do with less, but we prefer to do with more, ma’am.” His ears pinked a bit, as he spoke, still not entirely comfortable with the widow.
“Indeed, Master Gamgee, well met.” She replied. “But again, you will not take some more? Surely you have a corner in your pack for a crock of pickles? Or a cold chicken?”
With a jump Sam got up to check their bags but Frodo held him to his seat with a firm hand and a laugh. “As much as we would dearly love it, we simply have no room left to spare! You have packed our bags as solidly as if you had filled them with pudding! Not a cranny or crook could we find to squeeze even the thinnest, tasty bit into our packs!”
With a mouthful of oats and a hand filled with cheese, Sam had nothing more to add to the conversation. With a laugh, Frodo and the widow joined Sam in breaking their night long fast.
They were not even halfway through their second bowls of oats when there was a great pounding on the door. “Open up in there, Widow! I know you’ve got thieves in there with you!”
Spoons clattered to the table as the three breakfasters leaped in alarm.
“Thieves?” Sam blustered, “There aren’t any thieves here! Does he mean us, Mister Frodo?”
“Quick you two,” the widow pushed their cloaks into their hands. “You must flee! That is Farmer Ghead, and he sounds like he’s been into his honey mead again! He’s no love for outsiders, and he’s probably spoiling for a fight!”
Frodo swept his cloak about his shoulders and fastened it tight. Sam helped him shoulder his pack and for a moment he was regretful they had packed so much. Running with such a load would be a bother. With eyes suddenly wide with concern, turned to the widow, “If he has no love of outsiders how safe are you?”
Sam stopped adjusting his straps and time seemed to stretch taut between them all. “I know you’ve got them in there! Bring them out! Those little folk are thieves!”
With a frown and a quick push, the widow shooed them towards the back door and gathered her skirts to go answer the front. “What is the meaning of this, Farmer Ghead? Is it so important you cannot wait for even the sun herself to rise from her slumber?”
Frodo threw her one last, unseen, parting glance, his heart full of fear for her, then followed Sam out the back door.