Chapter 10: When Winter First Begins to Bite

17 Blotmath, S.R. 1311

Bilbo huddled in his bed, covers pulled up over his head. He burrowed into his pillows and did his best to ignore the smell of first breakfast and the rumblings of his stomach. He was not going to first breakfast, and that was that!

"Bilbo?" he heard his mother's soft voice at his door.

"Tweens often sleep late in the mornings, my love," said his father.

"I suppose." His mother's voice sounded dejected.

Silence. Bilbo hoped they would go on and eat first breakfast. He concentrated on the dreary sound of the rain on his window in the hopes of falling asleep again. But his mind kept drifting back to the last few days...

It had started about six days earlier, with the first of the nasty late autumn rains began. He could not ever recall them being so early, so chill and so persistent before, and from the things he overheard the adults saying, neither could they. Every one of those six days had been alike: rain, rain, rain, the livelong day, interspersed with thunder and lightning, and nights so cold that more than once during that time they'd awakened to the sparkle of thin ice coating the garden and making the flagstone path perilous. Then the rain began again and the ice would melt away. Bilbo wished it would turn to snow-- at least snow was pretty.

Bilbo had been cooped up in the smial with his parents far more than was usual for him. At first it had been rather fun: reading the day away, playing draughts with his father, and helping his mother cook. But as day after dreary day continued, Bilbo found it harder and harder to concentrate on reading or anything else. And he began to notice his parents having furtive conversations that broke off when they became aware that he was near.

"No, Bella, braving the rain to go into Hobbiton will be of no use. None of the shops have..." his father stopped speaking abruptly when he spotted Bilbo's curious expression.

Later on, as he had helped his mother in the kitchen, he had offered to fetch something from the larder.

"No, son!" she had said sharply. "I will get it!"

Bilbo felt hurt at her tone. He had only been trying to help!

But it had not been until yesterday that the puzzle became clear.

It had started at elevenses-- somewhat more meagre than their usual fare, tea, scones, an apple cut up and arranged on a plate. Bilbo had been hungry enough to start in eating right away, when he noticed his parents were only having cups of tea.

"We aren't very hungry, son!" said his father. "You finish it. No use letting it go to waste."

Luncheon had been vegetable-barley soup; Bilbo noticed his parents were eating very slowly. He had finished seconds, and they were still only half finished with their first serving. He was beginning to have some very nasty suspicions.

Tea had been much like elevenses, though supper was a rather more ordinary meal. Still, Bilbo could not help but notice that his parents were giving themselves much smaller servings, and his own food began to taste like ashes in his mouth.

He recalled a hastily hushed-up conversation between his father and cousin Fosco last summer: "a five-meal winter, or even a four-meal..." He realised now that he knew what it meant.

His parents were stinting themselves so that he would have more to eat.

He couldn't. He just couldn't let them do it. Yet it was clear they would, whether he willed or nilled.

Well, if they could sacrifice their elevenses and their tea, he could sacrifice first breakfast at least.

And so he lay here now, determined not to rise until they had the chance to eat a proper breakfast. If he rose too soon, he'd just find they'd put it by for him.

After a while the steady drum of the rain did lull him back to sleep...

And so began a new routine. Bilbo began to sleep in long enough for his parents to breakfast without him, and elevenses and tea continued to be very brief and unsustaining meals. And the rain kept up for three more days.

20 Blotmath, S.R. 1311

When the rain ceased, the cold became even more bitter.  Ice had formed everywhere.

That night, Bilbo was awakened by the sound of a loud crack! followed by a crashing sound. A few minutes later, there was a series of loud cracks, all sounding like nothing so much as old Gandalf's Midsummer fireworks! Bilbo rose from his bed and looked out his window, but could see nothing in the dark, and most certainly no signs of fireworks in the sky.

He went back to bed, and tried to sleep, but he was jerked awake several times by more of the loud sounds. He sat up and got out of bed, pulling on his dressing gown as he went, and lighting his bedside candle he took it with him into the hallway-- where he found his father, coming towards him.

"Go back to bed, son. I just looked out the door, and with no Moon or stars out tonight, there is nothing to see from the doorstep. And it's far too cold and slippery to go further in this weather."

"Do you know what it could be, Papa?"

Bungo shook his head. "I've no idea. All I know is, it is not fireworks."

So his father had noticed what it sounded like also. But it was not very reassuring to hear him admit ignorance. Reluctantly he went back to bed.

He could not sleep. He was hungry. Normally he would have gone to the kitchen and made himself some tea and toast or something. But that was not to be thought of now. He tossed and turned for what seemed like hours. He was wide awake when the light began to stream in through the window, and he rose and padded across the cold floor to see what the night had wrought.

He blinked in astonishment. Everywhere was the glitter of ice; in some parts of the garden it looked like snow, but he could tell it was not. The large oak in the front garden looked as though it had been struck by lightning-- it was split asunder, but there was no charring such as a lightning strike would bring. The chestnut that had stood by the front gate had massive limbs broken and dangling, and one branch nearly as large as a small tree of itself, lay upon the ground!  

There was no question of skipping first breakfast today. He dressed rapidly, and found his parents also dressed and preparing breakfast. It was porridge, and he made no comment on the fact that it was unaccompanied by toast and butter, or sausages or eggs. They had tea, and some brambleberry preserves to put in the porridge instead of honey.

After breakfast, Bilbo and his father bundled up as warmly as they could, and ventured out.  They walked carefully alongside the path instead of on its icy surface and went to examine the tree.

"It is a shame," said Bungo "It was very large and old. I was careful to make sure the trees were preserved when we planned Bag End, and your mother was especially fond of this one."  They began to walk about their property-- most of the trees had lost limbs and their crowns had been destroyed. Fortunately, the rooftree, also an oak, was not too badly damaged although it too, had lost a few sizable branches.

"What caused this?" Bilbo asked.

" 'Twas the weight of the ice what broke the limbs," said a voice behind them. "That and the sap a-freezing inside the wood."

Bilbo and Bungo turned to see their gardener, Tam Goodchild. He was surveying the broken trees with his hands on his hips and an affronted expression. He shook his head. "Ah well, " 'Tis an ill wind as blows no good", as the old saw goes. Looks like there will be a mort of firewood hereabouts. And if winter goes on as it's begun, we'll be a-needing it."

The three of them made their way to the road, and headed down Bagshot Row, where they were joined by others: the Twofoots, the Rumbles, the Goodchilds, Cousin Fosco, Uncle Bodo…

That day, and several days after, Bilbo spent alongside his father and the other male hobbits of Hobbiton chopping and splitting firewood. There was no difference made in this emergency between the gentry and the working hobbits, save that the working hobbits accomplished more, being more accustomed to such tasks. Bilbo found himself most often working alongside Jack Twofoot, Hom Greenhand, his cousins Herry Bolger and Tolo Goodbody, and Tam's sons Timmon and Tomba, most often called Tim and Tom. They were kept busy splitting the wood the older hobbits had cut into hearth-sized lengths. Younger lads and old gaffers bundled the smallest of the broken branches into kindling.

Mothers and sisters came to bring hot tea and food out to the workers. The hot tea, though weak, was plentiful; the food was not. Elevenses and tea were no longer mealtimes, and the tweens especially felt the pinch. Yet none of them ever suggested raiding a larder. That would be to take the food from someone else's mouth. In bountiful times such a thing was just a lark; now it would be cruel.

Bilbo and his father returned home each night weary and hungry, to take their supper (consisting now almost exclusively of soup) and then to fall into an exhausted stupor until the morning light. Their hands went from blistered to calloused in record time.

Day by day, the damaged trees and broken limbs were transformed into tidy stacks of firewood; soon every cot and smial in Hobbiton had been provided with at least a cord of wood, even those who had no trees on their property shared in the bounty, for there was plenty to go around, and many of those who received the wood had done the labour to cut and split it. Finally, after one last weary day, the last of the wood from the ice storm was split and stacked.

28 Blotmath, S.R. 1311

The next morning dawned bright-- the Sun shone even more brightly than was her usual wont into Bilbo's window, and he rose to look out.

Snow. Snow much deeper than the snow that had briefly fallen last month, when he had been so excited, when they had so much fun.

But Bilbo felt no exhilaration or excitement now. Only dread. Winter had well and truly begun.

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(A/N: My own first experience of an ice storm was the second winter after we had moved here, in early 2008, when my husband and I were awakened by a series of sounds like explosions or gunfire. We were shocked to discover that the sounds were actually the sounds of trees breaking. The resulting devastation of the trees was much like what we had seen after Hurricane Katrina! We had no idea that mere ice would wreak such havoc!)