Little Lad Lost

Lobelia Sackville-Baggins drooped in her low wicker chair, feeling dull and half-asleep. All of Hobbiton was drowsing under an unusual spell of moist, early-summer heat that threatened rain, and she and Otho's relation, Posy Chubb-Baggins (oh bother, was she a cousin? A second cousin?) had planted themselves under the plum trees in the garden, hoping for a cool breeze. Posy was a plump, grey matron, well past middle age, but her voice was a high, girlish murmur that went on and on, skipping from one subject to another and Lobelia let the tide of chatter flow over her, occasionally throwing in a 'Dear, dear' or a 'How droll' to aid in conversation. Not that Posy needed much help. During all their long years of acquaintance, Lobelia had never met anyone else who could talk so much about absolutely nothing of importance-unless it was that wretched cousin of Otho's, that Bilbo creature. He'd spout foolish poetry or make a speech at the drop of a hat.

"That mad old thing," Lobelia muttered. Rather fortunately rich and lucky and long-lived, too. The plaguey little...

"Who's a mad old thing?" Posy said, the long river of her words temporarily stopped up by curiosity. She did so love good gossip

"Spider on my arm," Lobelia said, flicking off a nonexistent insect. "Thinks I'm a mountain." The dam broke, and Posy opened her mouth to speak, but Lobelia cut her off. Down in the garden something was moving in the bushes. "I say, Posy dear, do you have a cat?"

"Why no," Posy twittered. "No, no, goodness no, not now, but I did have a cat when Carlo and I first married, oh such a dear little thing with little white paws, that I named Fastolph, though I shouldn't have because it was a little puss, not a tom, so I named her Snowball after that, though she was all black otherwise, and the kittens-"

"Posy!" Lobelia said. "Hand me my umbrella, there's something alive in your gooseberries."

At this Posy gave a little shriek and jumped from her chair, but she handed Lobelia her weapon of choice before she ran to the relative safety of her back doorstep. Silly and talkative she might be, but Posy knew the voice of command when she heard it.

Lobelia hauled herself up out of her chair much more slowly, flexed her fingers around the handle of her umbrella, and casually made a subtle adjustment to her stays. The wretched things pinched, but just because a body was visiting kin didn't mean they mustn't look trim and presentable. You never knew who might come to the door, and appearances must be kept up.

Lobelia marched down the gentle slope of lawn, panting a little in the heat, then stood before the bush and prodded it with the umbrella. ":Hi, you! Come on out of there, whatever you are! Shoo! Scat!"

The bush trembled and gave out a frightened squeak. Not a cat, or a dog, then. Lobelia bent down and peered in, then suddenly dropped her weapon and thrust her arms into the bushes. There was a struggle, and Lobelia said some unladylike words. Posy shrieked again and threw her apron over her head, sure that a fox or something else awful had taken up residence in the gooseberries and was now eating Lobelia from the elbows up, but in a minute or so Lobelia straightened up, holding something squirming and pink, and quite naked.

Posy dared to peek out from behind her apron. "Is it a fox?"

"Since I'm not now torn to bits, no, you silly goose," Lobelia muttered, then held the soft, snuffling creature against her shoulder and patted its back to comfort the poor dear, since it had had a fright. She did have some experience with that sort of thing. Lobelia sighed, then said more loudly, "No, Posy dear, it appears to be a little naked baby. My word," Lobelia said. "The things one will find just laying about nowadays."

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Bag End, after a nice filling luncheon and a pleasantly long collective nap to escape the noonday heat, was in an uproar: Pippin, the little babe, the darling of various Tooks, Baggins's, Gamgees, and one very distraught little Brandybuck, was missing. He had been sound asleep in his woven baby-basket, wearing nothing but his nappy, but when his older sister Pearl went to check on him, the basket was overturned and the little lad, still barely able to toddle, was gone. Tiny handprints in the dust of the doorstep told of an escape through an unwatched door, left propped open to catch the breeze. Now Eglantine was weeping in the kitchen after a frantic, hopeless search through the smial, while six-year-old Vinnie sniffled on her skirts, and twelve year old Pimpernel fanned her with an apron. Bell Gamgee, her eyes red and swollen, held her own little daughter Marigold close by her side and tried to settle the distraught 'Missus' with tea. From outside came the baying voices of Bilbo, Frodo, and Hamfast Gamgee and his two oldest sons, calling and beating the farthest bounds of Bag End's back garden. From the front of the smial came the higher and more hopeful shrieks of Pearl and Merry, and Sam Gamgee and his sisters, Daisy and May. They must spread out soon if they had no luck, Frodo and Bilbo knew, out the gate and into the roads and fields and pastures beyond, but they prayed that Pippin's small, wandering feet wouldn't have taken him as far as that. It would be all too easy for a tiny Took, no taller than a Man's shin and less the length of his boot, to become hopelessly lost, fallen into an uncovered well or rubbish pit, or snapped up by a fox or some sharp-eyed old bird of prey.

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To be continued...