Glory Box

Bilbo was incensed. It had been a week since he was due to get his parcel and it was not here. He stamped his foot like a faunt. But really if he were truly a faunt the situation would have resulted in a full-blown tantrum; lying on the floor, wailing and flailing included. But no he was a Baggins and a well-raised one, not like the little hellion Lobelia had decided to inflict on them all. He stamped his foot again. This was the last time he was relying on the Men-folk to send his post they just weren’t reliable enough.

He had written to Rivendell and Lord Elrond last month and a passing Ranger had very reliably taken his message for him, he’d even received a response from Lord Elrond saying that he would get to work on sending him the necessary materials. However, the Rangers were moving into their northern territory for a while and would be unable to deliver the parcel themselves. So he was reliant upon the service of the traders and the men of Bree.

‘Do you think it would be rude to write to cousin Bingo in Bree and ask him to keep an ear out for the delivery?’ he asked the portrait of his parents. ‘I don’t want to be impatient but I really would like to get this sorted before the holidays.’

The problem was that his mother’s glory box. The box had been with Belladonna before her marriage to Bilbo’s father Bungo and had been very dear to his mother. After her passing, the box had come to mean a lot to him as well. It was where he stored her possessions such as her outdoor equipment from her adventuring days and her silver spoons whenever Lobelia came over. The lock on the trunk was wonderfully secure, forged by the Elves of Rivendell.

The wood itself was even more exotic. It came from a tree felled in Lothlorien. The wood was beautiful, a lovely grain wove through the golden wood and seemed to glow in the light of the sun. It was also terribly rare and that’s why Bilbo had reached out to Lord Elrond as he had given the first set of wood to his mother.

The reason why Lord Elrond had seen fit to give his mother such a handsome gift was still unknown to Bilbo. His mother had passed away a few years ago and Lord Elrond was not such a close confidant of his that he felt comfortable asking such questions. However the swiftness of the response Bilbo had received implied that Lord Elrond still thought kindly of his mother even after not seeing each other for so long.

‘Oh I do hope that some thieving brigand hasn’t made off with the wood, surely there’s too little to be of value even if it is from the Golden Wood.’ Bilbo lamented to himself while imagining his parcel being apprehended and turned into trinkets and flogged in some far away market. ‘No Lord Elrond sounded like a sensible chap in Amad’s stories, he will have seen to reliable transportation, it’s been very damp this spring the roads are probably hard going. I shall be patient.’ He promised himself while glancing at the glory box.

The box had for years sat beside his front door with no issue and made a rather wonderful talking point for new visitors; not that he had many new acquaintances. The last being Lobelia Sackville Baggins, or Lobelia Bracegirdle as she had been at the time. She had been very appreciative; far too appreciative and had looked around the simal and the possessions rather covetously and she hadn’t even known about the spoons in the glory box at that time. In Bilbo’s opinion, she had seen the comfortable hole and decided she wanted it. It was likely only the thought of her reputation and Grandma Baggins disapproving gaze, which had stopped her switching her affections to him, or at the very least his home.

However, since then it had been a constant battle, a silent war if you will between the master of Bag End and the mistress of Number Eleven Over Hill. Lobelia had taken and Bilbo had retrieved. Unfortunately, he had been called away to Tookborough for family business. His mother had been the oldest girl and ninth daughter of the Thain and a favourite. As her only child, he was very dear to his grandparents and often would be called on to visit if their spirits were down.

While visiting his relatives Lobelia had been into his Simal, to spring clean for him she claimed but really it was a bit late in the year to be doing that; he’d had a good clean weeks ago. It said rather damning things about her housewifery to leave it so late.

‘Bilbo you’re being mean,’ he scolded himself aloud. ‘Even if that dratted woman deserves it,’ he muttered to himself. Hobbits being such social people were prone to talking to themselves if alone for long periods of time.

During Lobelia’s so-called cleaning session the glory box, his mother pride and joy had suffered. The wood around the lock was cracked and bashed as if somebody had been trying to force it open. Lobelia had, of course, denied anything of the sort and had at first tried to imply that he had been responsible for the damage but Grandma who had visited the day before he set off to Tookborough had put an end to that. In the end, she blamed Lotho, her son. The boy still a young faunt already proved to be his parent’s child and had left a trail of destroyed windows, squashed plants and missing food in his wake. Although Lobelia had enough maternal instinct, or social acumen, to deny it was him.

So here he was waiting for a new piece of wood so he could repair the glory box. He had gotten out his fathers woodworking tools; the ones he’d used to build the simal and sharpened then ready to repair the box. Bilbo rather liked the symbolism. However, he wanted the repairs done before his mother’s birthday. She was dead but that didn’t mean Bilbo wasn’t hoping to have a good day to remember her on and the damaged box would certainly sour things.

If he’d been more like his mother and adventurous he would have gone to Rivendell himself to collect the wood. But he was a Baggins, of Bag End no less and he had responsibilities in the Hobbiton so he really couldn’t be gone more than a few days. Imagine if he did Lobelia would rob him blind.

‘I’ll have to be patient,’ he repeated. ‘Perhaps I should get some other wood to practice on before using the special wood. Yes, Bilbo that is a very wise plan. Perhaps a nice new pipe would be a good project to get my hand in again, it’s been a while. To the market then. Some proper wood, not the firewood, and some new leaf too, Longbottom. Best use the good stuff when trying out a new pipe. And Cinnamon to make mothers apple pie and maybe some ale too, they do go well together. Oh, it’s a Monday, Farmer Maggot maybe there with some nice juicy mushrooms.’ Humming in anticipatory pleasure of the finer things in a hobbits life. Bilbo gathered up his coat and basket and headed out the door. He could always make some enquiries at the Green Dragon and see if anybody was heading to Bree and willing to collect a parcel for him.