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When Bilbo Baggins was asked by his parents to run an errand for him that summer morning, he had no idea what lay in store for him. His father might have reconsidered sending Bilbo out with the broken clock when he heard that a dwarrow smith had set up shop in the Shire for the season.
To set the record straight, it was probably the fault of the Sackville-Bagginses. His cousin Otho had been more than just a little merry that evening when he had tripped over the fire irons and knocked the clock off the mantelpiece after the Bagginses’ annual family dinner party and a lot of good wine and ale. But of course, Bungo and Belladonna had said that it was a small matter. Nothing to be worried about.
Thank goodness family dinners were only once a year, Bilbo thought. Bungo and Belladonna were never very fond of the Sackville-Bagginses and that particular branch had never been very fond of Bilbo’s family. They were, however, rather keen on getting their hands on the Bagginses’ family fortune and Bungo was too kind to cut his own kin off completely.
The metal and glass-fronted clock had belonged to Bilbo's grandmother Laura Grubb and the Bagginses were quite fond of it, thank you very much. Not well-versed in clockwork or metalwork, the hobbits usually had to take those items to a trade fair to be mended. Or wait for a blacksmith to come by and set up his smithy in the shallow, sheltered hole set aside for such purposes.
Everyone knew that dwarves were the best craftsmen for fiddly things like clocks and Bilbo set out early that morning to try his luck for the crowd at the smithy was sure to be long after two seasons without a blacksmith in the Shire. It was a fine day and the young hobbit did not mind the exercise as he went down the road that led from Hobbiton to Bywater--the smithy was located just outside the small town, on the road to Bree-land where travellers and market-goers would pass.
There was a short queue already formed up when he got there with the clock wrapped in a towel. It gave him some time to examine the newcomers and sate his curiosity.
As a young hobbit approaching his coming of age, Bilbo had never travelled beyond the boundaries of the Shire. His only source of information was his mother's relations, awing him with their tales of life on the road. The Tookish side of him--the side of the family with the wandering feet--sometimes itched for a chance to see the world outside the homely confines of the villages and paths that he knew so well. Not that he would forget about his home after all his adventures, he thought conscientiously. He was a Baggins of Bag End after all.
But what happened that summer would turn his world upside down, not that he had a clue about what lay in store for him that fine summer’s morning.
Bilbo’s first impressions of the dwarrow race were of a pair of bright grins and hairless faces that beamed at him from behind a bench loaded with pots, belt-buckles and miscellaneous items to be mended.
"Hello!" the dark haired dwarf said enthusiastically. He was slightly taller than Bilbo, with untidy hair all the way down past his chin.
"Good morning," Bilbo said, automatically defaulting to the manners his parents had taught him. He had never met dwarves before and he was pleased that they seemed to be a merry folk.
"Yes, it's a very fine morning. What can we do for you, sir?" the other dwarf asked. He was blond and might have been just a little older than the first for he sported the beginnings of a fine downy stubble on his chin.
"I brought a clock to be fixed. If you fix clocks, I mean." Bilbo noticed that the forge and anvil behind them was manned by a larger dwarf--the actual blacksmith. The younger dwarves were probably the apprentices.
“Let’s have a look at it,” the first dwarf piped up. “No promises, but we can try.”
"Oho, that's a beauty, that is," the blond dwarf remarked as he uncovered the clock and examined it. "Some good work there. Did an oliphant fall on it?"
"Close," Bilbo said, a smile tugging on his lips as he thought of his cousin as a lumbering oliphant. "Can it be mended?"
"Of course--it'll be good as new by this afternoon."
Then they fell into some good-natured haggling over the price for the work, because it was the thing to do even though hobbits were generally not the miserly sort. Bilbo put down a deposit and set his mark down on the tally sheet--the dwarf lads promised that he could collect it soon after lunch.
Feeling satisfied with his morning errand, Bilbo returned home for elevenses and examined the map he had just received as a gift from his Took cousins. Where did the dwarves come from? They lived in the mountains to the east, did they not?
Such thoughts occupied his mind until his mother called him for lunch. Hobbits never said no to seconds, especially when there was treacle tart for pudding, and it was a very content hobbit that ambled his way down to the smithy that afternoon with his new pipe in his hand.
The pair of young dwarves was nowhere to be seen. Instead, he was confronted by a pair of pale blue eyes and a barely concealed scowl behind a dark beard and a shock of shaggy hair. The blacksmith was tall too--taller than the younger dwarves and if Bilbo had any doubts that they were not full adults, they were banished as he stared up at those piercing eyes--
“Well?” the dwarf demanded. “Are you collecting or do you have something that wants mending?”
Bilbo opened his mouth. And coughed as Old Toby fumes went down the wrong pipe. It took a while for him to recover and the blacksmith glared at poor Bilbo throughout his predicament.
“C-collecting, thank you,” Bilbo wheezed, bent over his own feet and wishing that the earth would swallow him up. “My gran’s c-clock. Name of B-baggins.”
The blacksmith--a real dwarven smith--turned to the bench containing a mountain of household goods and brought out the clock carefully. “A good piece--would have been a shame if we couldn’t fix it. The clockwork mechanism we pieced back together and we put in new glass for the broken face.”
And lo, if the clock did not look as good as it did twenty years ago. Bilbo handed over the rest of the payment without argument. And that would have been it for the business was concluded and the fierce-looking blacksmith was turning back to the bench full of mended items.
“Bilbo Baggins,” he blurted out. “I’m Bilbo Baggins, I mean.”
The dwarf looked at him as though he had grown a second head. “Thorin Oakenshield,” he said after a terribly awkward pause.
“Pleased to meet you.” Bilbo’s mouth seemed to have a life of its own all of a sudden. “I’ll be seeing you then.”
What was possessing him that day? Bilbo wondered as he hurried back to Bag End with the mended clock under his arm. He had been so forward!
But it had been terribly exciting to speak with non-hobbits, Bilbo thought, more than a little thrilled by his brush with the exotic. And they looked like they were well-travelled folk too. Surely, they would know about the lands outside the Shire? And most hobbits were on good terms with the local tradesmen anyhow . . .
A terrible idea was blooming in his head as he went back home.
“Mum, I’ll bring the largest stew pot over to the blacksmith tomorrow,” Bilbo called to his mother as he did the dishes after supper that night. “And your favourite frying pan. The handles could do with replacing.”
“You’re a thoughtful lad,” Bungo Baggins said, nodding approvingly as he smoked his pipe by the fire. The clock had been returned to its place on the mantelpiece and everyone agreed that it had been very well restored.
Bilbo had enough shame left in him to feel guilty. But not too guilty as he mentally sorted out how many items he could bring to the smithy for mending in the next few weeks.
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It had been on his mind that morning as the gentlehobbits came by with their pots and pans. Not a sword or mace in the lot. The knives that needed sharpening were kitchen knives and butchers’ cleavers. They were not warriors and looking around him at the Halflings going to market, Thorin envied them their ease and complacency.
He had sent his sister-sons to buy lunch for them all when Mister Bilbo Baggins came by--small, plump and radiating contentment the same way he was producing smoke rings from his pipe.
Thorin thought the hobbit had taken fright from his stern countenance when he doubled over coughing--his nephews always claimed that he was too gruff and scared customers away. They always did seem to have more business with Kíli and Fíli grinning at the customers.
But that particular hobbit was back the next day with some kitchenware that was in need of new handles. Mister Baggins returned to collect his items much later that afternoon, when there were few customers about.
And he was carrying a large basket. “I’ve got some lovely seed cake here, Mister Oakenshield. And it’s almost four o’clock. Why don’t we have some tea?” he asked. The hobbit had probably noticed the battered old kettle that they heated on the forge fire.
Thorin never corrected him about the “Mister Oakenshield” part and it was on the tip of his tongue to claim that he was busy when Fíli and Kíli opened their eyes wide at the mention of cake. They seldom had cake or sweets, but they would not utter a peep if Thorin did not approve of tea at four in the afternoon.
The hobbit had paid up in full and he had no more pressing jobs to do after all . . . So Thorin grudgingly got out the slightly chipped mugs they used for tea and told himself that this was better than seeing his nephews’ faces fall flatter than a failed soufflé when the prospect of cake disappeared.
“I’ve got no fancy teacups or tablecloths here,” Thorin growled.
“I wasn’t expecting any,” Mister Baggins said. But he had brought napkins and fussed about until everyone had large slices of admittedly very tasty seed cake. And then he talked a lot. Kíli and Fíli were more than happy to oblige the hobbit’s questions. Where had they come from? Was it nice there? Had they always been blacksmiths?
The lads knew what to leave out after the past year on the road with their uncle. They were wandering smiths, they said glibly through mouthfuls of cake, looking for work to earn enough to build a new home for themselves. They were their uncle’s apprentices, learning the trade and carrying on the family business.
The unalloyed truth--except for a few pertinent details. If the hobbit was put off by how Kíli and Fíli were chewing their food with their mouths open, he did not show it.
Thorin kept his words to a minimum and saw their visitor out once the cake was gone, signalling to his nephews to get on with the cleaning.
“What is your purpose here, Mister Baggins?” Thorin asked the hobbit when they were out of earshot of his sister-sons. “Respectable folk in these parts don’t seem inclined to stop by and chat, much less bring cake for tea.”
“You’re the first dwarves I’ve seen,” the hobbit said without guile. “I’ve seen a few Men, but only from a distance.”
Such a sheltered life. But the hobbit’s curiosity was not offensive, Thorin had to admit--just terribly innocent.
“Will you have more questions or more work for us tomorrow then?” Thorin asked sharply.
“Perhaps more questions and cake, Mister Oakenshield.” And if that had not been a rather forward wink from the hobbit, Thorin did not know what it was.
He put it down to frivolous hobbits and their carefree ways.
Thorin had no idea why he had the kettle on around teatime the next day. Or he claimed he did not know why.
Bilbo came by with an almond cake and his favourite blend of tea after collecting a belt buckle. And the day after next too. Fíli and Kíli started to look forwards to four o’clock in the afternoon. Thorin learned to have tea when business abated later in the day.
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“Oh no, he’s dead keen on education, he is,” Fíli reassured him. They were seated comfortably on chairs crafted from barrel-ends in the small forge and using the workbench as a makeshift table. “He’s just so busy with work that he doesn’t have the time to make sure we practice reading and writing.”
“He’ll be cross with us if we don’t learn how to write and read Common properly after so long on the road,” Kíli added. “But he won’t be that surprised ‘cause we’re thicker than two planks of wood most of the time.”
“He’s joking.” Fíli was quick to say when Bilbo’s eyebrows went up at this. “Our uncle’s got . . . very high expectations. And we’re not that thick. Just not used to book-learning, is all.”
True to their words, Thorin merely grunted in a noncommittal manner when he came in and saw Bilbo teaching the younger dwarves to read by the light of tallow candles and the banked embers of the forge.
“If they’re bothering you, Mister Baggins, just tell them to push off.”
“It’s no bother,” Bilbo said hurriedly. “They’re learning very quickly.”
Fíli and Kíli grinned at the praise, then ducked their heads back down as their uncle’s stern gaze swept over them. “That remains to be seen. I’ll thrash the pair of them for wasting your time if they don’t learn.”
Only Fíli and Kíli’s strong hands on both his elbows prevented Bilbo from jumping up there and then.
“Well I never!” Bilbo exclaimed when Thorin left them and his nephew’s fingers finally loosened their grip on him.
“Mister Bilbo, our uncle’s not a cruel dwarf,” Fíli said quietly. “He doesn’t mean it that way. And he won’t punish us unless we deserve it.”
“It’s been hard for him, having to drag us along and find work at the same time. But he always makes sure we have enough to eat and a roof over our heads. The last time he thrashed us was months ago too,” Kíli said defensively.
“Because we botched that job up royally and the horse was almost lamed,” his brother added. “Could have cost a few other lives too. So we deserved it.”
“You’re good lads,” Bilbo said at last. “I’m just not used to all this talk about beating faunt--er, younglings up.”
“He beats us when we train anyway. Not that way,” Fíli said when it looked like Bilbo was about explode again. “We get knocked about while sparring with each other too. Thorin always checks for injuries and makes sure we get ointment for bruises.”
“He draws a line at kissing it better though,” Kíli joked and the tension lightened.
They were young dwarves, he gathered. Just adolescents by Bilbo’s reckoning, but required to grow up relatively fast on the road with their kinsman. Their father was deceased and their mother had entrusted their training and apprenticeship to her brother, as was custom. They even trained with various weapons to protect themselves in the wild. But it was part of their culture after all--and it was rather exciting and foreign to hobbits.
Bilbo chalked up Thorin’s attitude to his nephews’ education under “more things he did not understand about dwarves”. He noticed that Thorin always freed his nephews from work or weapons training at least once a week so that they could practice reading and writing though. And Bilbo did not need to keep trying to find items that needed mending to have an excuse to drop by, so it was a satisfactory arrangement all around.
At best, the hobbits of the Shire would put it down to the strangeness of Bilbo Baggins, who was already known to be a little more eccentric than his fellows. At worst, Lobelia Bracegirdle would have plenty of gossip to spread around about Bilbo Baggins socialising with dwarven blacksmiths.
Fortunately, Bilbo did not give a fig about what other people said about him. The young seldom cared about respectability and young hobbits were not very different. The son of Belladonna Took merely carried it one step further.
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He had an agreement with the owner of the Green Dragon. They would fix the shutters, the hinges and other necessary repairs around the public house in return for supper every night--usually a hearty stew or roast with bread or potatoes. There was even coin for ale from the work that the hobbits brought in.
And they had a very regular visitor too.
Bilbo Baggins was a bottomless well of insatiable curiosity, coming around with maps and books about places outside the Shire and asking if they had been to the trade fairs at Bree or someplace further east. The hobbit had also asked if he could watch them spar. Thorin could not find a reason to refuse him and his nephews were keen to show off in front of their new friend.
There was no other word for it. Not for Fíli and Kíli who had never been in one place long enough to make friends who were not dwarves and related to them by blood. Not the sort of friend who brought cake over for tea and taught them their letters.
Thorin allowed it because he was ashamed to have neglected a part of his sister-sons’ education in their first foray into the world. They had learned Khuzdul and Iglishmêk at their mother’s knee as it was traditional. The learning of Common Speech for trade and communication with the other races fell to him, as their guardian and closest kin.
If he had been the simple blacksmith he pretended to be, writing would never have been an issue, but their future roles required more than just a rudimentary grasp of common map symbols.
So he was quietly grateful to Bilbo Baggins even though the hobbit was too soft by half and . . . and really more helpful that he should be to total strangers.
When Mister Baggins could find no more pots or small items to mend, Thorin had been called to the place called Bag End because he was the closest thing to an expert in plumbing in the Shire. The dwarf had not been past the wooden doors of a hobbit-hole before and he examined its construction critically. He grudgingly admitted to himself that it would last with some repairs every few years.
Inside was a jumble of bric-a-brac and wooden furniture that was just high enough for a dwarf. And there were the adult hobbits--Bilbo’s parents. Mister Bungo Baggins was a portly hobbit--going a little grey at the temples--and Thorin could see something of him in his son. But it was clear that Bilbo had inherited most of his unruly light brown curls and finer features from his mother.
It was Mistress Baggins who welcomed in him in. She even smiled at his nephews, who looked about them with wide eyes even as they wiped their boots conscientiously on the mat. Bilbo had forewarned them about the shoe-less ways of hobbits and how much they liked clean floors.
Bag End was a terribly comfortable little den. The hallway just inside the door was gleaming and smelt of beeswax. Like the clock that had been brought to him for repair, the furnishings were of good make. With care, they would last the Bagginses for a good while yet.
The bathroom they had been called to fix was faintly redolent of lavender and expertly tiled. It was a relatively straightforward job--a section of piping had to be replaced and some of the couplings had to be tightened. Bilbo's parents did not hang about the door to see if they were stealing the soap--it was Bilbo himself who kept popping his head in and asking if they needed any help. Thorin waved him away irritably and had the new pipe cut and fitted within the hour.
They were even offered tea after their work. Fíli and Kíli were on their best behaviour--probably because Mistress Baggins had laid on a most impressive spread. Egg and cress sandwiches, cucumber and ham pate sandwiches, butter cake, ginger biscuits and fresh scones. His normally rambunctious nephews were sipping tea and making sandwiches disappear as though by magic, but they were not being gluttonous. They were merely eating with the vigour of young dwarves confronted with more food than they had seen in a good while.
Thorn would have apologised for them, except Mistress Baggins kept bringing out more plates of sandwiches and cake while clucking over their young appetites. Bilbo was on hand to top up their tea and they never saw the bottoms of their cups. Perhaps the hobbit had noticed how much fuel was required for dwarven metabolism.
Or hobbits just ate a lot. Bilbo and his parents were also tucking in with a will. If this was tea, Thorin wondered what dinner was like.
Bungo Baggins made some polite conversation about the state of the pipes. He had designed and built Bag End for his wife when they had been married and Thorin managed to respond in a civil manner about technical things because it was a sturdy little dwelling, when all was said and done, and a fine gift for a bride.
It had been a while since he had a conversation like that--small talk had never been his forte.
His sister-sons slowed down and actually stopped before the last biscuits were consumed--which was a miracle in itself. It was time to go too, if Thorin judged the look in Baggins Senior’s eyes correctly. Kíli and Fíli would be at Mistress Baggin's service for the rest of their lives by the way they kept bowing to her. The lady hobbit seemed to find it charming and gave them the rest of the cake to take back, thereby cementing their impression of her as a minor goddess.
"Mum was a bit of an adventurer in her youth," Bilbo said as he walked with them out of Bag End. "I dare say she's met one or two dwarves before."
“Not like the rest of the folk hereabouts then,” Thorin remarked. He could not help it--he had soaked in the overall mood of contentment for long enough.
“Not unless they’re Tooks. My mother’s family are adventurous but mostly respectable folk.” Bilbo did not appear offended. “My cousins went out rambling when they passed their coming of age. They were the ones who gave me the maps.”
“But it’s not surprising if they stayed put--this is a nice place,” Kíli piped up. He looked nervously at Thorin, knowing his uncle’s views on the softness of hobbits.
It was Thorin’s first instinct to glare at him, but he recognised the wistfulness in his nephew’s voice. They did not have a safe and comfortable place to call home.
They had been comfortable in Erebor--much too comfortable and complacent.
“Will you be staying on after summer?” Bilbo asked when they reached the road that lead to Bywater.
“Depends on how much business we’ve got,” Thorin said. He had not planned to stay past the end of the season, but he could reconsider their prospects now.
Bilbo’s sunny smile matched Kíli and Fíli’s as they waved good bye before setting off down the road.
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“’Twas already a kind thing when Bilbo took it on himself to teach those lads how to read and write,” Bungo said, putting up his feet on his favourite footstool. “Mind you, people already thought we were odd for encouraging literacy in the gardener’s children.”
“Yes, dear, and did we care what people said about that then?” Belladonna asked.
“No, my dear, we did not.” Bungo looked at his wife fondly, no doubt remembering their rather wild courtship. Bilbo still heard bits of it being bandied about by the people of Hobbiton.
People meant the good folk of the Shire--all the respectable hobbits. Bilbo suspected that his mother cared about the opinions of people a lot less than his father did. She had been a queer one, by all accounts, going where no hobbit feet had trodden on before. Consorting with wizards and who knew what else! It had been a miracle that she had settled down with steady old Bungo Baggins, everyone said.
Although what some of them really meant was that it was a miracle that a hobbit as respectable as Bungo would have someone as strange as Belladonna to wife, even though she was a daughter of the Old Took. Bilbo’s mother had very narrowly escaped being labelled as disreputable. The Took side, however, thought that the only remarkable thing in Bungo’s life was his successful wooing of Belladonna.
Consorting with dwarves sounded like something Belladonna would do in her younger days, so Bilbo took heart from that and chose some of the books from his youth that Kíli and Fíli might like to read for the next time he visited. If Bilbo anticipated this more than he should because of the presence of the lads’ stern guardian, it only showed in the way he groomed himself carefully before setting out.
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