Chapter 23. Tickling the Fancy

Bungo neglected his business for several days more, enjoying the mild autumnal weather with his family—his wife and the two lads, in a manner of speaking. It was rather like having two lads, actually, having Isen and Bilbo. In some ways Bilbo was the elder, as a matter of fact, and it touched Bungo to see his lad adopting rather a protective air towards his Tookish uncle. It was an older-brotherly sort of attitude, not the smothering attentions Isen had suffered in recent years, with his grown-up brothers trying to protect the family name more than the hobbit himself, but more like the old days when they'd all been lads and older had looked after younger as a matter of course, treating him with a mixture of childish condescension and brotherly camaraderie.

They walked to the top of the Hill for fresh air, or they walked down to Hobbiton to buy a few sweetmeats at the dry goods shop; and on market day they walked all the way to Bywater, and Bilbo and Isen browsed the toy-seller's table (and the bookseller's, of a wonder!) whilst Bungo followed Belladonna about with a large basket on his arm.

When Isen stumbled on the walk to market, it was Bilbo who was beside him (they'd been discussing the merits of tops and their design—whether a pulled string was a superior method to a twist of the wrist, and so forth), Bilbo who picked him up, brushed the dust from his clothes, straightened the lame arm in its sling and offered his own arm in support as they resumed, as if there had been no interruption.

It was Bilbo, too, who was responsible for the biggest change in his uncle, the dawning of hope, and healing. At least, it was Bilbo who set things in motion, all unaware.

At the Bywater market that day, as the “lads” discussed tops with the toymaker, a farm lad had been walking through the maketplace with a basketful of pups, ready to sell away from their mother.

'Sheepdogs!' he barked importantly. 'Finest sheepdogs in the farthing! Sheepdogs for sale!'

'Look, Isen!' Bilbo said, for he'd found his uncle responded better to his name than to “Uncle”, perhaps because “Uncle” carried with it a weight of responsibility and impossible expectation—impossible for a crippled, daft hobbit at any event. 'Look, pups!'

They turned from the toys to intercept the farm lad and his three fat, roly-poly pups.

'They hardly look like sheep dogs,' Bilbo observed. His hand went out of itself to stroke a silky ear, though the task was made difficult by a busy canine tongue that insisted on thoroughly exploring his fingers.

'O' course they're sheep dogs!' the farm lad said, his tone indignant. 'His dad won the trials last summer—finest sheepdog in the Farthing! And his mam...'

'I only meant that sheepdogs are long, lithe things, slinking along on the ground with an evil eye.'

'If you're a sheep, that is,' Isen agreed.

The farm lad spared him a glance, but no more than that. Word had gone round the area that Belladonna and Bungo had taken in the unfortunate Took, whose family had been about to lock him away for eccentricity. Isen had been carefully, if unobtrusively, observed in his first descents of the Hill, and having shown no sign of dangerous insanity, had been dismissed as an object of pity, perhaps an embarrassment to the family, but nothing more.

Those who remembered Isen as a bright, mischievous young lad, gallivanting about the countryside with an older brother or two, shook their heads in sorrow at his current state, and offered him friendly greetings when they saw him.

'May I hold him?' Bilbo begged, rubbing his wet fingers dry on the pup's coat. At the farm lad's lofty nod, he lifted the wiggly little charmer to his chest, receiving a thorough chin-wash for his reward. 'Here, Isen,' he said. 'Feel how soft he is, the little fellow! Too soft by half to herd those big brutes of sheep!'

'He'll grow out of it,' the farm lad said with a laugh.

'Here, Isen,' Bilbo pressed, shoving the pup against his uncle's chest. 'He's an armful, but lovely for all that!'

Startled Isen brought up his good arm to cradle the pup, and then he was laughing as the pup strained upward to reach his face with its busy pink tongue. 'I washed this morning, I did!'

And then the pup collapsed, as pups do, in the sudden exhaustion that overwhelms them and sends them off to snuggling sleep, draping itself along Isen's good arm. He lifted his bad arm in its sling, just a bit, to help support the weight, and wiggled the lame fingers under the pup's chin, laughing again as the little tongue emerged one last time for a series of sleepy endearments. 'Tickles!'

Bungo and Belladonna had come up to them by this time, to suggest tea at the Ivy Bush and then home, and Bilbo turned eagerly to them. 'May we have him?' he begged. 'He's such a fine pup, and look how well he's getting along!' (With Isen, he didn't need to add, though it was in point of fact his strongest argument. Belladonna had shown an astonishing capacity for giving in to all sorts of requests that were for Isen's benefit.)

'No,' Bungo managed to say, through Belladonna's laughter. 'No, lad, we've no sheep to keep him contented.'

'But...!' Bilbo protested.

'No,' Bungo said, in a firmer tone. It is difficult to say “no” when a chuckle is threatening, but to his credit he did. 'No, lad, he's sweet as jam tart now, limp and sleepy as he is, but all too soon he'll be grown and wanting occupation. He was bred for sheep...' He looked to the farm lad and received a nod of confirmation '...and he'll only pine, or find himself mischief to relieve his energies, if he doesn't find a place with sheep.'

He could see that Bilbo was considering the idea of suggesting they acquire a few sheep to keep the pup occupied, and it really was deucedly difficult not to laugh, spurring the lad to further pleas. No, 'twas wiser to nip the weed in the bud, before it could come to flower and then seed, and so he fought down the laugh, his hand tightening on Bella's basket of purple onions and carrots and potatoes and a bottle of wine and a nice piece of meat wrapped up in paper and destined for tomorrow's table, plus a few things tucked away down underneath towards Bilbo's birthday a few days hence.

'Tickles, does it, lad?' a cracked old voice said near at hand, and Isen shied away, nearly dropping the now-sleeping pup. Bilbo caught the pup neatly, so quickly that the little creature never woke, but burrowed against his jacket. His arms tightened a moment, revelling in the warmth and weight of the pup, and then he reluctantly laid it back in the farm lad's basket with its two companions.

'I'm sorry,' he told it with a gentle pat for the limp head.

'I'm sorry too,' the farm lad said with unexpected understanding.

Bilbo barely heard, busy as he was soothing and calming his uncle, pulling him along to a table of sweets where the candymaker displayed his wares and fishing in his pocket for a copper. 'Here, Isen, what do you think? A stick or a paper full of drops?'

The farm lad looked on for a moment, then lifted his basket higher and resumed his sing-song. 'Sheepdogs for sale! Sheepdog pups, finest in the Farthing!'

Meanwhile Bilbo's parents were greeting the oldest resident of Bywater, Haselwort, who happened to be the old healer, retired now, having trained up a son, Spikenard, to take over the family business, and he in turn having trained up a daughter, Ginger, who now did the bulk of the healing for the hobbits of Bywater.

The old healer was one of those who remembered young Isen from long-ago visits before he ran off to Sea and was forever changed. She might be bent with age, her fingers grasping her walking stick gnarled as old wood, but her faded eyes were still sharp and her mind clear.

She responded politely enough to the greetings, and then cut straight to the heart of the matter. At her age, one did not waste time. 'He felt that,' she said.

Bungo and Belladonna exchanged glances. Who felt what?

'I beg your pardon?' Bungo said with a little bow and a tip of his hat.

'He felt it!'

'Did he?' Belladonna said, not one to be left out, though she was decidedly not following the conversation.

'The hand may be twisted, but it's not dead!' Haselwort said, jabbing her walking stick into the ground to emphasise her words.

Bungo was the first to take her meaning. He put a hand on the old healer's arm. 'Not dead,' he agreed. 'But... do you mean there might be something to be done?'

Old Haselwort sniffed. 'How would I know?' she said irascibly. 'I just wonder... he wouldn't let me get near him, Took that he is, when he was a young whip-snapper and that pony threw him on his head... He howled as if the North Wind was after him, when I tried to staunch the bleeding, and his brother picked him up in his arms and ran away with him... as if I meant to do him harm!'

Bella caught her breath, remembering an older brother bearing Isen home, head roughly bandaged with a shirt-sleeve and no explanation forthcoming. They'd both been dishevelled and dusty, and had nothing to say how they got that way, when they'd been going to Bywater market on a lark. As she remembered, they had gone off on their own feet, and hadn't been riding ponies, not even one pony shared between the two of them.

'Ah, the Tooks and their healers,' Bungo soothed, but old Hasel wasn't finished yet.

'He wouldn't let me near him now, I'm sure, and he'd likely tie himself up in knots should I try, but...' She set her lips in a thin line.

'If you'd like...' Belladonna said, in her best placating way.

'I wouldn't!' the old healer snapped. But she watched Bilbo and Isen, now fully engaged in choosing from the available sweets, the best and biggest they could get for Bilbo's copper penny, and sighed. 'If you'd just...'

'Something we can try?' Bungo said delicately. 'A suggestion...?'

'A ball,' the old healer said, looking back to the Baggins. She nodded to herself. Bungo was a good fellow, had taken on a wild Took of a wife and tamed her nicely, and now he was raising up his son to have a kind heart as well as an eye for business. 'A soft ball, perhaps of wound wool, and if he were to squeeze it in that hand, squeeze and relax, squeeze and relax...' She nodded again. 'I saw him move those fingers just now. There may be something there... but it'll take slow and patient work.'

Belladonna was blinking in astonishment, but Bungo nodded slowly. 'I take your meaning,' he said, and he did. He gently took the healer's gnarled fingers in his, careful not to squeeze the painful joints, and shook her hand solemnly. 'We'll do all we can,' he said, 'and let you know the result.'

'I thank you,' old Hasel said, and when Bungo released her hand, she settled her skirts and stalked off, her sturdy walking stick punctuating her steps.

'Bungo, I--' said Belladonna. 'What was that all about?'

'Just a bit of kindness,' Bungo said with a smile for his wife. If Bella hadn't caught the significance of the old healer's words, well, he didn't want to get her hopes up. Better to work with Isen, come up with some excuse or another for squeezing a ball of wool in his bad hand, and see if anything came of it.

He eased the heavy basket that had hung forgotten on his arm during his exchange with Hasenwort. 'Come lads,' he said, raising his voice, 'Bilbo! Isen! Finish buying your sweets, but put them here in the basket for later! It's teatime, and I don't want you to spoil your appetites!'