Chapter 9. Babe in the Woods

‘Mum? I think he’s coming round.’

‘Good! I want to try to get something hot into him.’ Aster bustled to check the steeping herbs, pouring the result through a tea strainer into a tall mug and stirring a dollop of honey in for good measure.

The hobbit in the tub stirred and murmured. ‘What’s that he’s saying?’ said the farmer, coming closer. Ted looked up from where he cradled the chin of the ailing hobbit, to keep him from slipping under the water and drowning himself. ‘Need more wood for the fire,’ the farmer added with a meaningful nod for his son, and he sat himself down to take Ted’s place by the tub.

The younger hobbit stood up from his cramped position and stretched. ‘Dunno,’ he said. ‘Something about “Tod” or “Toddy” perhaps.’

‘Asking for a hot drink, I don’t wonder,’ Aster said, bringing the steaming cup over. ‘Finding ‘im half-froze in the stream, and such. What’re things coming to?’ She held the cup to the ailing hobbit’s chin. ‘Here now, you, drink up whilst it’s still hot.’

***

Tolly sipped at the cup, and then his eyes opened wide. He was in a large tub, large enough for two grown hobbits, and nearly up to his chin in hot water. Hot water indeed! For the faces surrounding him were much larger than hobbit faces.

Giants! He’d been taken by giants!

Scraps of half-forgotten tales floated in his head, and he froze, afraid to move a muscle. The water in the tub steamed around him, and he wondered, sickly, if he was in the process of being stewed for the giants’ dinner.

‘He’s coming round,’ one of the giants said.

Tolly stared from one face to another, wondering if pleading would do any good. But then two of the giants parted, and his father’s face shone over the side of the tub. ‘Tolly!’

‘Da!’ he cried, going limp with relief. A large hand kept him from sliding under the water... and suddenly the giants resolved into Men—larger than hobbits, certainly, but no longer fearsome. He’d seen Men before, woodcutters, and tinkers, and wanderers, though as a rule the Thain frowned on Men in the Tookland, and levied a heavy toll on those who passed through Tuckborough.

‘Taw?’ said a little voice, and Tolly looked up to see the babe from the wood, nestled securely in a woman’s arms, pointing at him and looking up into his mother’s face for confirmation. ‘Taw, Ma-ma?’

‘That’s right, my love, that’s Tolibold, my brave lad...’

‘Taw!’ the little one shouted in delight, clenching a chubby fist in his mother’s hair and kicking his fat legs with vigour.

‘He can say your name already, Toddy-lad can,’ a beaming Man said.

‘Are ye feeling warmer, Tolly?’ Haldibold said, reaching into the tub to take his son’s hand. ‘You were half-frozen when they found the two of you...’

‘I’m fine,’ Tolly said, blinking in surprise. He didn’t feel half-frozen. He’d been sleepy, for certain, and he remembered shivering, and then growing warmer as sleep overcame him. And then the words penetrated, and he looked up sharply at the little one. ‘Half-frozen!’ he said, starting up out of the water. ‘How is he, then?’

‘My little Tod is just fine, thanks to you,’ Toddy’s mother said. ‘He took no harm, not even a chill, I think, what with your taking off your own cloak to wrap around him, and keeping him in your lap, off the ground...’

‘Risked your life to save our boy, and we cannot thank you enough for it,’ the Man said, and suddenly Tolly realised that there was only one of them, one Man that is, and a wife, and the other three faces were those of children, two boys and a girl, and then the baby of course, in his mother’s arms. A family of Men, it was, here in the Woody End.

‘Da?’ he said, blushing a little now to find himself in the bath, and a woman and girl in the group surrounding him.

As if she understood, the woman put out a hand to touch the girl on the shoulder. ‘Let’s us see if the fire has dried his clothes, shall we, lovie?’

It wasn’t long before large hands were lifting him out of the oversized tub, much as if he were a very young hobbit, though they released him just so soon as his feet were on the floor while his father wrapped a bedsheet-sized towel around him, rubbing briskly, muttering about restoring the flow of blood. And when Tolly was dry, his clothes were at hand, warm as toast, and he slipped them on as quickly as he could and then was seated on a Man’s footstool before a “low” bench that served well as a hobbit-sized table, a well-filled plate set before him.

His father didn’t need to urge him to eat; Haldi stood on the far side of the bench-table nibbling at a portion of food to keep Tolly company, for he’d already eaten heartily. He’d been sick with worry, with Tolly lost in the woods in the cold fog, and when the body of torch-bearing searchers had come upon the woodcutter’s cot, to discover his son not only being warmed in a tub, but honoured for saving the woodcutter’s baby son from the cold, well, his appetite had returned in a rush and he’d eaten everything they’d pressed upon him, without much noticing, as he sat on a footstool beside the tub.

The other hobbits had groped their way back to their homes through the thick fog that was turning rosy with the sunrise. Tolly and the babe had spent the better part of the night in the icy chill, and it was a wonder that he hadn’t taken his death, they all agreed, what with wrapping his cloak around the babe and sitting on the ground in fog-dampened clothing much of the night. Still, Good was said to watch out for fools and babes, and it seemed that Something or Someone, at least, had been watching over the tween and the tot through the shivery night.

Second helpings were provided, and thirds, and the Big Folk built up the fire and began to sing, strange songs and familiar ones, while the breakfast washing-up proceeded and the fog shone white outside the windows.

Tolly became aware of a little voice demanding, ‘Dow!’ and a ripple of amusement from the Big family, and then little... Toddy, was it? ...was toddling over, a drunken stagger, or the gait of one who’d just mastered taking steps, reaching the bench with a squeal of triumph.

‘Hullo, Toddy,’ Tolly said, rising from his stool. Sitting down he’d been eye-to-eye with the tot, but standing he was not quite twice as tall. Of course, judging from the size of the lad’s father, Toddy would be a tall Man someday. At least the Man-folk here were careful to treat Tolly and his father as adults (as his father was and Tolly would be, in four years more) and not as children.

‘Taw!’ crowed the tot, and Tolly smiled and bowed.

‘At your service, and your family’s,’ he said, and then the door opened and another Man entered with an armload of wood that he proceeded to lay in the woodbox by the hearth.

‘I’d say you’ve already done us a great deal of service,’ the woodcutter said, and proceeded to bow to Tolly. ‘And at yours, and your family’s service, what ever we might be able to do,’ he said. ‘I’m Barad Woodsman, o’ the Greenwood, here by the Thain’s grace and favour...’

‘For so long as we pay him half our cutting,’ the second Man, younger, Tolly thought, said behind his hand with a wink, only to be hushed by the woodman and his wife.

‘Beg pardon,’ Barad said with a bow to Haldibold and another to Tolly for good measure. ‘Please, sirs, he don’t mean anything by it, naught against the Tooks, not at all...’

Haldi nodded in return with a very small smile. ‘I am, perhaps, one of the few Tooks in whose hearing it would be safe to air such a sentiment,’ he said. ‘I am a descendant of the Old Took who chooses not to live in the Great Smials, under the thumb of the Thain, so to speak, and yet... if one wishes to remain in the Tookland, it is perhaps best to be circumspect.’

He snorted lightly, ‘And yet,’ he said, lifting a finger, ‘I suspect you are well-off, giving up only half the wood you cut to the Thain. I believe the last woodman who rented this house gave up two thirds, before he decided to pack up and go back to the Breeland, and the Chetwood.’

‘I cut more than he did, I’m told,’ Barad said proudly, slapping the younger Man on the shoulder. ‘With the help of my good brother, we can satisfy the Thain’s demands and still cut enough to sell and trade to the hobbits of the Yale, and Stock, to live on, and put a little by.’

There was a pounding at the door, and Tolly’s brothers spilled in, Mardibold, his older brother, who was already a healer in his own right, and Fredebold, next oldest, and Hildibold, their younger brother, who broke into a grin at seeing him safe. The younger tween had been tense and silent through the night hours, waiting by his father’s order, safe in a warm, dry smial while the search for Tolly proceeded, unable to relax even when word came that his brother was safe, not until he saw the hobbit with his own eyes.

‘Tolly!’ Hilly said now. ‘I thought you had more sense than to spend the night out in the cold and damp!’

‘He seems none the worse for it,’ Mardi said dryly, looking at Tolly’s well-loaded plate, his fourth helpings, actually, but then these Big Folk seemed to understand the way hobbits eat.

Hilly’s eyes lighted, but old Haldi said, ‘If you’re nearly done, Tolly, we do need to be taking our leave... I had promised to be returning to Tuckborough this day, and patients will be waiting.’

‘And I’ve tinctures to be making,’ Mardi said. ‘You did manage to do some gathering, I hope, little brother, before you lost yourself in the fog?’ Freddy grinned to think he might have gathered more than Tolly, this once.

Tolly stammered a little, but then Barad was brandishing Tolly’s gathering-basket in one ham-like fist, and it was more than half-full of plants, and these had been tied in neat bundles for drying by some competent hand, and Barad’s wife had a wink and a smile for the tween, and a bound-up cloth that bulged with promising bounty—fresh-baked bread, Tolly thought from the aroma in the air, and cheese and nuts and fruit into the bargain, to see them on their way.

‘I’ll lead you to the Stock Road,’ the woodcutter was saying, ‘and from there you’ll be able to find your way, fog or no.’

‘We will,’ Haldi said, ‘and thanks for all you’ve done for us!’

‘We’re the ones owing thanks!’ Barad said stoutly, holding up a stern hand, but then he smiled. ‘Any time you’re in the Woody End, please consider our cot to be your own...’

‘A bit overlarge for my taste,’ Hilly whispered into Tolly’s ear, to be rewarded with a sharp elbow, though he spoke the perfect truth! All the furnishings were twice as large as they ought, and it would be a sore trial to climb up onto one of the benches, and after all that work, still be sitting too short to reach the tabletop!

‘And the same, if you’re ever in Tuckborough,’ Haldi said, though Barad and his brother would likely have to crawl through the front door. The children, perhaps, might feel at home...

And so they parted, on short acquaintance, but firm friends for all that.

(9/26/06)