“Mama?” came a soft voice in Primula’s ear as she lay in bed. “Mama?”

Primula opened her eyes and stared into her son’s glowing ones. He grinned at her and she smiled back. The only time Frodo was usually up this early was during Yule, but now not only was he up, but he had already dressed himself. He pulled at her arm. “Can you get up, Mama? We’re going to Uncle Bilbo’s today for our birthday, ’member?”

“I remember, sweetling,” she said as she rose and pecked her treasure on a kiss to his head which made him giggle. How she loved that sound!

Her lad walked over to the other side of the bed instead of crawling over as he liked to do. “Papa? You have to get up, Papa,” he said, pulling at his father’s arm.

Drogo pretended still to sleep and when Frodo got up a little closer to pull harder, he was suddenly grabbed and sent into a explosion of giggles. Frodo resisted after a moment, but his father was too strong for him. “Let me go, Papa! I don’t want to wrinkle all my clothes. I dressed up all by myself.”

Drogo let his son down, though not without tickling him first. Frodo shrieked in delight and squirmed away.

“You did dress yourself,” he said. “Is there any special reason for that?”

Frodo giggled again. “It’s my birthday ’morrow, silly Papa! We’re going to Uncle Bilbo’s today. Don’t you ’member?”

“Hmmm. I knew something important was coming up, I just couldn’t remember what! Why that is a very special reason then.”

Frodo dragged his father out of bed. “Come on, Papa! We still have to eat and everything.”

Drogo allowed himself to be pulled away and then he and Primula looked proudly and lovingly at their only child. Frodo had made indeed a very good first attempt to dress himself, though there was one button that didn’t line up in the proper hole and his braces were tangled across his back. Primula gently corrected both problems and noticed that her lad’s curls were still damp from scrubbing his face. She looked down at his little furry feet and saw he had combed even those.

“You really are ready, aren’t you, my dearling?” she said. “You did a very good job too.”

“Thank you, Mama.” Frodo beamed and it was sunlight poured straight into her heart. He was going to break many hearts when he grew older and make one lass very, very happy. Now that they were both standing, the child pulled at his parents’ hands. “Come on, Mama, Papa, we’ve got to eat so we can go to Uncle’s.”

Primula and Drogo looked at each other and allowed themselves to be led into the kitchen. Frodo pulled up his own chair and stood up on it so he could help where he could in the making of the mushroom omelette that was his favorite. The elder Baggins’ wondered if their child had even tasted it he ate so fast or the milk that left a white mustache around his lips that he wiped off with a napkin.

Then he had hurried back to his bedroom and soon came out with his green stone he had found by the water and his prized sea shell. He put the stone in his breeches pocket and the sea shell very carefully on a table near the front door and then scurried back for his pack that held some extra clothes, his books, writing slate and drawing sticks. It was a bit heavy for him and Drogo relieved him of it and placed it by the door.

When they were already to go, he placed it and his and Primula’s own packs into the cart when they were ready to go. Frodo held up his stuffed bear to his mother just before they left the smial. “Could you hold Beorn for me, Mama, please? I have to hold onto my shell so it doesn’t break.”

“Of course, sweetling,” Primula said and took the gift that Bilbo had given on one of their joint birthdays that normally Frodo was inseparable from.

She left the smial and locked the door. Frodo followed close behind, holding his shell with both hands.

“Do you want to ride up with me, Frodo lad?” Drogo asked. It was a rhetorical question since Frodo had always responded with an enthusiastic, “Yes, Papa!” and scrambled up beside his father so he could see everything and everyone they passed on the way to Hobbiton and Bag End. But this time, Frodo said, “No, Papa. I’m going to stay inside with Mama. I don’t want anything to happen to my shell.”

The child spent the whole time inside with his mother and did not complain at not being able to see the scenery he so loved. In the afternoon after lunch, he leaned against Primula’s side and she had the joy of his warm weight against him as she had had so many other times before when she would hold him and rock him asleep in the chair Esmeralda Brandybuck had given her as a wedding gift, singing softly to him and stroking his curls and wondering how she had gotten so lucky to have such a lovely and loving son. He was still holding his shell, but when sleep began to loosen his hold, she took it carefully from him. He roused a bit at that, but she kissed his head. “Don’t you fret, my sleepy, I’ll make sure it’s keep safe.”

“Thank you, Mama,” he murmured drowsily and settled closer against her side, his small arms reaching around her as well as he might.

“You’re welcome, dearling.”

Primula longed to hold him, but she knew at the moment she had something else very important to hold and she wasn’t about to let that go.

When Frodo roused for a snack at tea time, he took the shell back. “Thank you, Mama. I knew you would take good care of it.”

When they reached Bag End late that afternoon as the sun was setting, Frodo restrained his excitement and exited the carriage very carefully, sitting down on the ledge and stepping down one foot at a time instead of jumping off as he had always done. Bilbo was waiting on the stoop with a large smile and Frodo smiled back, but he didn’t run into his uncle’s arms as he always did. Instead he approached almost solemnly and only when he was close did he show some of the excitement that was coiled within him.

“Look what I found, Uncle!” he said, proudly holding up his shell. “I couldn’t wait to show you!”

“Ah, my birthday present, is it?” Bilbo said as he took it carefully from the lad’s hands.

Frodo giggled. “No, silly, it’s mine.”

“You’re giving yourself a present on your own birthday? What would Aunt Dora say?”

Frodo collapsed into more giggles and Bilbo wondered how such a beautiful, light filled lad could ever have graced the world, not to mention being a relation of his. More and more he was in love with the child.

“I found it before my birthday, during the summer, by the water. Hold it up, Uncle. You can hear the Sea, but there’s no water inside. Do you think the Elves made it with their magic? Papa said you might know.”

Bilbo looked up at Drogo and obediently held up the shell to his ear. “That is indeed the Sea, my boy.” He looked back down at Frodo. “Lord Ulmo gave you a beautiful gift.”

Frodo scrunched up his face, trying to remember if he had heard that name before. “Who’s Lord Ulmo?”

“The Master of the Waters.”

“Is he an Elf?”

Bilbo smiled. “No, my lad, he’s even better.”

Frodo looked quite confused. “What could be better than an Elf?”

Bilbo laughed. “You are, for one, my dear,” he said and patted that little curly head. “No, Lord Ulmo is one of the Powers, watching over the world. And watching over you.”

The child’s eyes widened. “He knows about me?”

“He knows all about you, I’m guessing, and gave you this gift so you would always have the sound of the Sea with you. I think he knows you are meant for great things and will need to hear that sound.”

Frodo grew thoughtful. “How does he know all that?”

“Because he cares about all the Elves and the Men and the Hobbits who live here in Middle-earth.”

“How do you know all this, Uncle?”

“I learned of it from the Elves. One day, I’ll take you to Rivendell where you can meet them and I’ll show you the library there. You could spend your whole life there and never get tired of it. So many books there are, Frodo, a whole room of them and in another room, there are songs to hear.”

The child’s light grew and his eyes widened even further. “A whole room of books? Oh, Uncle, can we go soon? I would love to see that!”

“We’ll have to wait a little longer until you’ve learned more. The books are written in Sindarin and the older ones in Quenya. There are not many in the Common Speech. And you’ve barely begun your lessons.”

“Then I’ll learn faster.”

Bilbo laughed. “That’s my lad.”

They went inside at last and Frodo very carefully placed his prize on a small table in the parlor out of the way from being bumped. After dinner and while Bilbo and Drogo were enjoying a pipe and Frodo was happily sitting in his mother’s lap, he pulled out his green stone from his pocket.

“I found this too, Uncle,” he said. “Do you think maybe a dragon dropped it? It’s so pretty. I wonder if he misses it. I was thinking that I could return it to him, if you could tell me where dragons live. I know yours died, but maybe there are still others around.”

“Maybe, my lad, maybe, but I don’t know of any close by and I think if there was a dragon around that could have dropped it, we would have heard of it.”

Frodo deflated some upon hearing that. “Oh, I was hoping I could bring it back to him as my present to him.”

“Well, I could inquire some and find out for you. I still do talk to the Elves as pass through at times and there is the occasional dwarf.”

Frodo brightened again. “Could you, Uncle? I would love that.” He squirmed off his mother’s lap and scrambled upon Bilbo’s who had time to set his pipe aside and accept the embrace of his beloved cousin.

“Thank you very much, Uncle,” Frodo said, pressing his head against his uncle’s chest, then looking up at him with those lovely, earnest eyes. “Do you think I could come with you? I would love to meet a Elf myself and go on a ’venture with you!”

“Of course, you can come, my lad. But I think we should wait until morning. Elves can move without being seen when they want to and it wouldn’t do at all if we missed them in the dark.”

“I thought you said they were all lit up and shiny, so wouldn’t make them easier to see and not harder?”

Frodo was surprisingly intelligent and curious for a hobbit lad his age, but Bilbo wasn’t really that surprised. He did have some Took blood in him after all. “They are, but they can still go unseen when they want to. Just like hobbits can go quietly in the woods without anyone hearing them. And besides, we can’t go out right now since you don’t want to fall asleep just when you’re about to meet them. That would be terribly rude.”

“I don’t want to be rude, Uncle, but I so want to go out too!”

Bilbo leaned toward the youngster as though he was about to impart a great secret. “It’s a dangerous business going out your door, Frodo. You step into a Road and if you don’t keep your feet, there is no knowing where you might be swept off to.”

“I know, Uncle!” the child said excitedly. “I can’t wait to be swept off like you were!”

“Well, I think it best for you first be swept off to sleep and then after a full night’s rest and on a full stomach, we can start out, how’s that sound?”

“All right. Can you read me a story before going to bed?”

“What would like to hear, my lad?”

That was another rhetorical question because Frodo always answered either Elves or his uncle’s ’venture. But then Bilbo looked down at the stone again and said, “You know that reminds me of a story I don’t think you’ve heard before. Would you like to hear that one? It has a dragon in it and a little hobbit lad just like you.”

Frodo’s eyes lit up. “Yes, Uncle! That sounds wonderful.”

“All right then. You can even help me with the story. Would you like that?”

“Oh, yes!”

“Well, the story starts with this little hobbit lad, just about your age, with the same dark curly hair and the same big bright blue eyes. He found a stone just like yours and he thought too it might have been lost by a dragon so he wanted to find the poor beast and return the lost treasure. He was quite fortunate to find a guide who specialized in that very thing. So the two of them went off together, the hobbit lad and his guide, and they searched high and low, near and far, above and below, all throughout the Shire and even to Bree and a little bit in the Old Forest, but they didn’t see any dragons. The lad was getting tired after all this searching and he was getting a bit disappointed too that they hadn’t seen anything yet. But he kept searching because he thought the dragon might be very sad that he had lost the stone and the boy couldn’t bear the thought of that. When at last he couldn’t go on another minute, he lay down on the soft grass, far from his bed, and went to sleep. The next day and the day after and the day after that, he and his guide searched and searched and searched and finally far, far away from the Shire, amidst the mountains, they found a dragon with glorious red and golden scales and he was sleeping.”

Frodo shivered a little. “Ohh! I hope they were careful when they woke him.”

“They didn’t even time to be careful, for the dragon sensed them and opened one eye and then the other and then raised his whole terrible head to look down at them.”

“Were they very scared?”

“Would you be?”

“I think so, but after I had searched so long, I hope I would still be able to ask him if he had lost a stone and that I wanted to give it back to him if he had.”

“Well, that is just what the little lad in the story did, my Frodo. How did you know that? Have you heard this tale already?”

“No, Uncle, but I was just thinking of what I would do.”

“Well, what you do think the lad said to the dragon?”

Frodo thought for a moment. “Well, if I was him, I would hold out my hand with the stone in it and say very nicely, ‘Please, Mr. Dragon, did you lose this? I found it by the water and I thought maybe you had dropped it and I wanted to give it back to you.’”

Bilbo looked quite surprised. “And that’s just what this lad said too! You must have heard this before.”

The child shook his head. “No, Uncle.”

“Well, the dragon lowered his head a mite and looked carefully at the stone and saw that it was indeed very beautiful. He didn’t recall losing anything so fine, but dragons are rather greedy, and he thought it would be a very nice addition to his collection, so he thought he would take it for his very own, even though it didn’t belong to him. He looked straight into the lad’s big blue eyes and thought to bewitch him as that was how he had always gotten his treasures before. But, do you know what happened next, my lad?”

Frodo bounced in his uncle’s lap. “No, Uncle. Tell me!”

Bilbo looked deeply into the child’s eyes. “It was the dragon himself that was bewitched! He had never seen such lovely eyes before and he knew that he couldn’t take the stone from someone so good. So though he wanted that stone very much, he had to admit that it wasn’t his.”

“What did he sound like when he talked?”

“He had a very deep voice and it was rather scary to hear, and the little boy shook a bit when he heard it, but then he gathered up his courage and asked if the dragon knew any others that may have lost it. And then still bespelled by those beautiful eyes, the beast had to respond truthfully and say that he thought he had heard that a dragon with blue scales over the next mountain had lost a stone.

“‘Thank you very much, Mr. Dragon,’ the little lad said with a bow. He tried to hug the dragon but his arms were so small, he could barely reach anything. Then he left with his guide to seek out the other dragon. The guide had never seen anything like that before.”

“Did they found the other dragon?”

“Yes, but it took some time. They searched for a long while, for the mountain was very large and they didn’t know exactly where to look at first. So one night, they lay down to sleep, long after dark and they were so tired, that they didn’t notice until the next morning that the place the little lad had slept was right inside a giant footprint so they knew the dragon had to be near by.”

Frodo’s eyes widened a bit at that. He couldn’t imagine something so huge that the footprint would be just as big as he was all the way around.

“Was this one sleeping too when they found him?”

“No, but they were sleeping when it found them.”

“Ohhhh...”

“What did you think happened next?”

“I hope the dragon didn’t eat them before the boy could ask him about the stone.”

“Well, he indeed thinking of doing that, but then the lad woke up and he bowed to the dragon and took the stone out of his pocket and asked him if he had lost it. The dragon looked down and saw that it was indeed the very stone that he had lost. He thought he would take the stone back and then eat the two of them, but the more he looked at the boy, at his big blue eyes and how innocent and sweet he was, trying to return his stone to him and not being scared of him, he thought better of it. He thanked the boy instead and the boy smiled and said he was glad that he had found the stone so it could be returned. And then the boy and his guide went back home and guess how they did?”

“It would be very exciting if the dragon flew them home!”

Bilbo looked quite shocked. “That’s exactly what happened. The boy had the time of his life, holding tight to the dragon’s scales and watching all the scenery below. They were home before you knew it, just in time for tea in fact. Now, Frodo, my lad, you can’t tell me that you haven’t heard this one before. You knew the whole story before I even told you.”

“No, I didn’t, Uncle, but it is a very good one!”

Primula spoke now. She and Drogo had enjoyed the tale almost as much as Frodo had, their enjoyment enhanced by his. “Say goodnight now, dearling, so you can be all rested for your birthday tomorrow.”

Frodo hugged his uncle tightly. “Goodnight, Uncle. Thank you for the story. I hope our own turns out so nice!”

Bilbo kissed and hugged him back. “Goodnight, my lad. Sleep well. You are in your own story, Frodo lad, and there are many adventures ahead of you, I’m sure.”

Frodo beamed at the thought. “I hope you can come on all of them, Uncle! And Mama and Papa, you have to come too!”

“We shall, sweetling,” Primula said.