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The Road to Edoras  by Dreamflower

CHAPTER 6

A couple of days later, as Freddy was making his morning toilet in the basin of warm water the hobbits shared, he got ready to change his shirt and put his jacket back on. He came across Folco’s flute, and took it out to look at, before stowing it away once more. His breath hitched, and he felt tears threaten, but he blinked them away. The pain subsided into a mere ache of longing. He missed his best friend still, every single day. But the hurting was less than it once was.

Bergil had been standing nearby, and noticed. That day as they rode, he rode alongside Freddy.

“Mr. Freddy?” Bergil had finally settled on the hobbity form of address as most appropriate. Freddy had laughed at being called “Master Fredegar” all the time, and he said “Mr. Bolger” was his father.

“Yes, Bergil?” He was quite willing to pass the time of day with the lad.

“Do you play the flute? I have never heard you, but I saw--” he stopped, confused by the look on Freddy’s face. “I’m sorry. Did I say something wrong?”

“No, no, lad, nothing wrong at all. The flute belonged to my friend Folco. He was killed during the Troubles, and it reminds me of him.”

“Oh.” Bergil had heard something of the sort mentioned. “Did he play well?”

“Very well indeed, Bergil. It was my delight to have him play for me, as he often did. We sometimes had to coax him to play for others--he was a bit shy about it--though once the music began he would get over it. But he would always play for me, even without being asked.”

“He liked music, then, like Sir Pippin?”

Freddy grinned. With Bergil, it always came back to his “Sir Pippin” at some point. “Yes, he liked music in very much the same way, though he only played the flute. He also liked to sing, as well.”

“I’m learning to play,” Bergil offered shyly.

“I know you are. I have heard much improvement in your playing since we began. You take lessons from Anwynd, do you not?”

“Well, I heard him play after the Rohirrim joined us at Edoras. I loved to listen to him and to watch him. After we got started on our journey, one day when he was playing, he asked would I like to learn how. He helped me carve mine, and began giving me lessons. I was pretty bad at first,” he confided.

Freddy laughed. “Even Folco was pretty bad to begin with! But his parents put up with it, for they wanted him to play very badly indeed.”

“Were they musical?” asked Bergil, puzzled.

“Not at all. There were much more practical reasons for Folco to play.” Freddy felt a lightness speaking of his friend in this way that he had never thought would be his again.

“I don’t understand?”

“Let me tell you about Folco, Bergil my lad!”

________________________________________________________ 

When Folco Boffin was a faunt he was a bit slow in learning to talk. But once he did start talking, he chattered non-stop. However, most of what he said made little sense to anyone except his best friend Freddy Bolger, who always understood what he was trying to say. It was not that he used baby talk, or nonsense words, but he simply talked about everything he thought or saw or heard as soon as it came into his head, and never waited for that thought to be finished before he forgot it and was talking about something else entirely.

Most adults thought he was funny and cute with the unexpected things he would say, but as he grew a bit older, he did not seem to outgrow the tendency, and it began to become embarrassing.

“Mummy, what happened to Uncle Blanco’s hair? It’s going away--doesn’t that look funny?” spoken in a rather shrill voice by a rather vocal seven-year-old. “There’s not much left on his feet either!”

The object of this statement flushed bright red with both embarrassment and anger. Baldness was almost unheard of in hobbits, and for poor Blanco Chubb-Baggins, it was a sore trial, for not only was the hair on his head afflicted, to the point where even growing it long on the sides and combing it over did not help, but it had begun to affect his feet as well. The healers had told him that it occasionally cropped up in his branch of the family and they could do nothing about it. He rapped the end of his walking stick upon the floor and to Daisy Boffin’s everlasting shame said “Madam, have you taught that child no manners?”

And then when he was eight, there was the occasion of the wedding of Betony Proudfoot to Togo Banks. “Papa, Cousin Betony is awfully fat, like Freddy’s mum was before he got a baby sister!”

This rather loud proclamation drew a number of shocked stares, not a few muffled sniggers, and caused the bride-to-be to burst into tears. Griffo Boffin’s own face flamed, as he groaned, and heard once more Folco’s plaintive question: “Did I say something wrong again, Papa?”

Griffo just moaned and placed his palm over his face.

Folco was beginning to realize that when his parents made that gesture, it meant “yes” in answer to his question. But he was never sure exactly *what* he had said to cause the reaction, because by then his attention had been caught by something else.

When he was nine, he had drawn the ire of the Sackville-Bagginses at a family picnic, when first he had said Cousin Lobelia’s new hat looked like a fruit basket, and then when he had said that Lotho’s face looked like a pig’s. Both of those statements had drawn tirades from Lobelia, who would have used her umbrella on the frightened lad if he had not had the sudden presence of mind to hide behind Cousin Bilbo’s legs. Cousin Bilbo just gave Cousin Lobelia a Look, and told her “Be off! You cannot punish a lad for speaking the truth!” Lobelia, Otho and Lotho had all left in a huff, and Cousin Bilbo had patted him on the head and given him a sweet. Nevertheless, his parents were not pleased.

By the time Folco was ten, the task of keeping his friend busy and away from anyone he might offend had largely fallen on his friend Fatty--for Freddy had become Fatty soon after his little sister Estella learned to talk.

She could not quite get her little tongue around “Freddy” and it came out “Fatty” instead, and since he was rather rounder than most lads, it stuck. Fatty often thought it rather unfair that his sister’s embarrassing baby-talk was thought cute, while poor Folco just got in trouble for that kind of thing.

It wasn’t easy. Folco simply opened his mouth and said whatever passed through his mind. It grew worse about then, as he had discovered jokes. He would take up any joke he heard someone else tell and repeat it, usually getting the point of it wrong. Or failing that, he would tell it to entirely the wrong sort of person.

One day Fatty and Folco overheard some tween lads telling some rather rude jokes that should never have been spoken near young ears. Fatty by this time knew what would happen. Sure enough, the next day, when Daisy Boffin was entertaining some hobbit matrons at tea, including Iris Whitfoot, the wife of the Mayor, Folco decided to repeat one of the jokes.

It was a major mistake. His mother washed his mouth out with soap and sent him to bed without supper.

He was heart-broken. He had only meant to be funny, after all.

Yet Folco was very kind-hearted. Once they had gone for a ramble, and they came across two of the Goold cousins tormenting a kitten. Fatty was upset, but knew that if they said anything, the lads would just do worse things to it later.

Folco, on the other hand, turned out his pockets, and traded half a copper, two toffees, his best marble, and the spinning top Estella had given him for her birthday for the kitten. It was a scruffy, ill-favored half-starved little thing, and the two lads went off chortling at having made such a deal. When they returned to Fatty’s house where his mother was having tea with Folco’s mother, Folco made known his intention to give the kitten to Estella to make up for having traded her gift away.

Rosamunda was horrified, but she could not say much, as Estella was thrilled, and she did not want to offend Daisy. So the kitten, whom Estella named “Topsy” joined the Bolger family. It actually turned out to be an attractive little creature once it was fattened up, and was rather a good mouser as well. Fatty was amazed at Folco’s practical solution for rescuing the kitten; such a thing would never have occurred to him.

Folco could always be counted on to give something away if a friend admired it. He never really thought twice about it. His friends learned not to give empty compliments, or they might end up stuck with some mathom they really didn’t want.

And he loved to sing. When he and Fatty would go out on rambles, he loved to listen to Folco sing to him.

After the joke incident, Griffo and Daisy were at their wits end. It really did no good to rebuke Folco, for though he’d never repeat the exact same thing if he were told not to, it didn’t stop him from saying something else equally unsuitable on another occasion.

Finally they went to Daisy’s Aunt Dora. She was famous for giving advice, much of it good.

“He’s not a bad lad, Aunt Dora,” said Daisy, “he never really means any harm, but he just does not seem to understand that there are things one should *not* say out loud.”

“A problem to be sure,” said Dora sagely. “The world cannot get along if folks constantly go around speaking their minds willy-nilly. I think what Folco needs is a distraction. He needs something to put in his mouth, so that he doesn’t have to talk.”

Griffo blinked. “Aunt Dora, we can’t be popping food into his mouth all the time. He eats as well as any young hobbit, but--”

“I don’t mean food. And he is far too young for a pipe--which wouldn‘t keep him from talking anyway. But I have heard the lad sing, he has a pleasant voice. Perhaps he could learn to play a horn or a flute--something he has to put in his mouth to play. It would be a social asset to him as he grows older, and goodness knows, it would keep him from talking.”

Since Griffo’s second cousin twice removed, Fern Boffin, played the flute, it was decided that would be the instrument, and Folco went to her for lessons. At first he was pretty dreadful, as beginners usually are, but soon he picked it up wonderfully well, and Fern was very pleased with her student, in spite of the fact that on meeting her he had asked if it was very uncomfortable for her with her two front teeth sticking out like that. She certainly understood why his parents preferred him to have his flute in his mouth instead of his foot.

From then on, Folco was never without his flute. He could not always be stopped from saying something unsuitable, but he could be coaxed to play, and that kept him from saying anything else. And his playing was so lovely that his listeners soon forgot to be insulted for whatever it was he said in the first place. As Eglantine Took said, one could forgive any number of unconscious insults to hear music like that.

Of course, there were some exceptions. The Sackville-Bagginses had never forgiven his childhood observations, and he had managed to run afoul of Lotho again over the years. And he managed to also offend Ted Sandyman.

And it was those offenses that eventually led to his murder at the hands of the Ruffians.

_________________________________________________

Bergil and Freddy were very quiet for a while. Freddy was amazed at himself; he had never talked about his friend like that. Before he lost Folco, he took him for granted, rather like he took his arms and legs for granted. And immediately afterwards it had been far too painful. Even at Folco’s hasty funeral, Freddy had been too distraught and too full of calming draughts to say anything when the time came.

He felt like he had just spent time in Folco’s company, and though he was still a bit melancholy, it was a sweet feeling, not agony. He glanced at Bergil, and saw unshed tears glistening in his grey eyes.

“Mr. Freddy, I think that I would have liked your friend Folco.”

Freddy smiled. “I do not know. I am sure he would have found some way to offend you at first. But I do know one thing: he would have liked *you* lad!”

Bergil looked at him in surprise, and grinned. “Thank you, Mr. Freddy. That’s a very nice thing to say!”

“It’s the truth, Bergil.”





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