Tongues began to wag in Hobbiton and Bywater; and rumour of the coming event traveled all over the Shire. The history and character of Mr. Bilbo Baggins became once again the chief topic of conversation; and the older folk suddenly found their reminiscences in welcome demand.
No one had a more attentive audience than old Ham Gamgee, commonly known as the Gaffer. He held forth at The Ivy Bush, a small inn on the Bywater road; and he spoke with some authority, for he had tended the garden at Bag End for forty years, and had helped old Holman in the same job before that. Now that he was himself growing old and stiff in the joints, the job was mainly carried on by his youngest son, Sam Gamgee. Both father and son were on very friendly terms with Bilbo and Frodo. They lived on the Hill itself, in Number 3
Bagshot Row just below Bag End.
"A very nice wel-spoken gentlehobbit is Mr. Bilbo, as I've always said," the Gaffer declared. With perfect truth: for Bilbo was very polite to him, caling him "Master Hamfast', and consulting him constantly upon the growing of vegetables - in the matter of 'roots', especialy potatoes, the Gaffer was recognized as the leading authority by all in the neighbourhood (including himself).
"But what about this Frodo that lives with him?" asked Old Noakes of Bywater. "Baggins is his name, but he's more than half a Brandybuck, they say. It beats me why any Baggins of Hobbiton should go looking for a wife away there in Buckland, where folks are so queer."
"And no wonder they're queer," put in Daddy Twofoot (the Gaffer's next-door neighbour), 'if they live on the wrong side of the Brandywine River, and right agin the Old Forest. That's a dark bad place, if half the tales be true."
"You're right, Dad!" said the Gaffer. "Not that the Brandybucks of Buck-land live in the Old Forest; but they're a queer breed, seemingly. They fool about with boats on that big river - and that isn't natural. small wonder that trouble came of it, I say. But be that as it may, Mr.
Frodo is as nice a young hobbit as you could wish to meet. Very much like Mr. Bilbo, and in more than looks. After all his father was a Baggins. A decent respectable hobbit was Mr.
Drogo Baggins; there was never much to tell of him, till he was drownded."
"Drownded?" said several voices. They had heard this and other darker rumours before, of course; but hobbits have a passion for family history, and they were ready to hear it again.
"Wel, so they say," said the Gaffer. "You see: Mr. Drogo, he married poor Miss Primula Brandybuck. She was our Mr. Bilbo's first cousin on the mother's side (her mother being the youngest of the Old Took's daughters); and Mr. Drogo was his second cousin. So Mr. Frodo is his first and second cousin, once removed either way, as the saying is, if you folow me. And Mr. Drogo was staying at Brandy Hall with his father-in-law, old Master Gorbadoc, as he often did after his marriage (him being partial to his vittles, and old Gorbadoc keeping a mighty generous table); and he went out boatingon the Brandywine River; and he and his wife were drownded, and poor Mr. Frodo only a child and al. '
"I've heard they went on the water after dinner in the moonlight," said Old Noakes; 'and it was Drogo's weight as sunk the boat."
"And I heard she pushed him in, and he puled her in after him," said Sandyman, the Hobbiton miler.
"You shouldn't listen to all you hear, Sandyman," said the Gaffer, who did not much like the miler. "There isn't no call to go talking of pushing and puling. Boats are quite tricky enough for those that sit still without looking further for the cause of trouble. Anyway: there was this Mr. Frodo left an orphan and stranded, as you might say, among those queer Bucklanders, being brought up anyhow in Brandy Hal. A regular warren, by all accounts. Old Master Gorbadoc never had fewer than a couple of hundred relations in the place. Mr. Bilbo never did a kinder deed than when he brought the lad back to live among decent folk.
"But I reckon it was a nasty shock for those Sackvile-Bagginses. They thought they were going to get Bag End, that time when he went off and was thought to be dead. And then he comes back and orders them off; and he goes on living and living, and never looking a day older, bless him! And suddenly he produces an heir, and has all the papers made out proper.
The Sackvile-Bagginses won't never see the inside of Bag End now, or it is to be hoped not."
"There's a tidy bit of money tucked away up there, I hear tel," said a stranger, a visitor on business from Michel Delving in the Westfarthing. "All the top of your hill is full of tunnels packed with chests of gold and silver, andjools, by what I've heard. '
"Then you've heard more than I can speak to," answered the Gaffer. I know nothing about jools. Mr. Bilbo is free with his money, and there seems no lack of it; but I know of no tunnel-making. I saw Mr. Bilbo when he came back, a matter of sixty years ago, when I was a lad.
I'd not long come prentice to old Holman (him being my dad's cousin), but he had me up at Bag End helping him to keep folks from trampling and trapessing all over the garden while the sale was on. And in the middle of it all Mr. Bilbo comes up the Hill with a pony and some mighty big bags and a couple of chests. I don't doubt they were mostly full of treasure he had picked up in foreign parts, where there be mountains of gold, they say; but there wasn't enough to fill tunnels. But my lad Sam will know more about that. He's in and out of Bag End. Crazy about stories of the old days he is, and he listens to all Mr. Bilbo's tales. Mr. Bilbo has learned him his letters - meaning no harm, mark you, and I hope no harm will come of it.
"Elves and Dragons' I says to him. 'Cabbages and potatoes are better for me and you.
Don't go getting mixed up in the business of your betters, or you'll land in trouble too big for you,"I says to him. And I might say it to others," he added with a look at the stranger and the miler.
But the Gaffer did not convince his audience. The legend of Bilbo's wealth was now too firmly fixed in the minds of the younger generation of hobbits.
"Ah, but he has likely enough been adding to what he brought at first," argued the miler, voicing common opinion. "He's often away from home. And look at the outlandish folk that visit him: dwarves coming at night, and that old wandering conjuror, Gandalf, and al. You can say what you like, Gaffer, but Bag End's a queer place, and its folk are queerer."
"And you can say what you like, about what you know no more of than you do of boating, Mr. Sandyman," retorted the Gaffer, disliking the miler even more than usual. If that's being queer, then we could do with a bit more queerness in these parts. There's some not far away that wouldn't offer a pint of beer to a friend, if they lived in a hole with golden wals. But they do things proper at Bag End. Our Sam says that everyone's going to be invited to the party, and there's going to be presents, mark you, presents for all- this very month as is."
That very month was September, and as fine as you could ask. A day or two later a rumour (probably started by the knowledgeable Sam) was spread about that there were going to be fireworks - fireworks, what is more, such as had not been seen in the Shire for nigh on a century, not indeed since the Old Took died.
Days passed and The Day drew nearer. An odd-looking waggon laden with odd-looking packages roled into Hobbiton one evening and toiled up the Hill to Bag End. The startled hobbits peered out of lamplit doors to gape at it. It was driven by outlandish folk, singing strange songs: dwarves with long beards and deep hoods. A few of them remained at Bag End. At the end of the second week in September a cart came in through Bywater from the direction of the Brandywine Bridge in broad daylight. An old man was driving it all alone. He wore a tall pointed blue hat, a long grey cloak, and a silver scarf. He had a long white beard and bushy eyebrows that stuck out beyond the brim of his hat. small hobbit-children ran after the cart all through Hobbiton and right up the hil. It had a cargo of fireworks, as they rightly guessed. At Bilbo's front door the old man began to unload: there were great bundles of fireworks of all sorts and shapes, each labeled with a large red G and the elf-rune, .
That was Gandalf's mark, of course, and the old man was Gandalf the Wizard, whose fame in the Shire was due mainly to his skil with fires, smokes, and lights. His real business was far more difficult and dangerous, but the Shire-folk knew nothing about it. To them he was just one of the 'attractions' at the Party. Hence the excitement of the hobbit-children. "G for Grand!" they shouted, and the old man smiled. They knew him by sight, though he only appeared in Hobbiton occasionaly and never stopped long; but neither they nor any but the oldest of their elders had seen one of his firework displays - they now belonged to the legendary past.
When the old man, helped by Bilbo and some dwarves, had finished unloading. Bilbo gave a few pennies away; but not a single squib or cracker was forthcoming, to the disappointment of the onlookers.
"Run away now!" said Gandalf. "You will get plenty when the time comes." Then he disappeared inside with Bilbo, and the door was shut. The young hobbits stared at the door in vain for a while, and then made off, feeling that the day of the party would never come.
Inside Bag End, Bilbo and Gandalf were sitting at the open window of a small room looking out west on to the garden. The late afternoon was bright and peaceful. The flowers glowed red and golden: snap-dragons and sun-flowers, and nasturtiums trailing all over the turf wals and peeping in at the round windows.