Tooktown

The next morning, Ilayilia paid for a small breakfast of porridge and bid Homas goodbye.

"Sure I can't interest you for one more night?" he asked. "Petunia's making her famous shepherd's pie."

"Thank you," the woman smiled. "But I've a friend waiting for me." Leaving the Cat and Mouse, she went to Gurfa's farm. He and his sons were already up and at work. The hobbit was happy to give her directions to Higgen's house.

She came at last to the round green door and bent down to knock. A woman with Ivo's sky blue eyes opened the door, wiping flour from her hands.

"I'm looking for a Mr. Higgen Took and I was told I could find him here," Ilayilia told the hobbit. She was ushered into the house and offered something called "second breakfast", which she politely declined. Ivo's mother went through one of the doors and came back with a middle-aged hobbit leaning on her arm.

"You just sit down there, brother," she said, guiding him to a chair. Ilayilia sat down opposite Higgen at the round dining table and looked the hobbit over. He had ruddy brown hair and bright hazel eyes that gazed steadily back at her. When his sister had left, Ilayilia leant forward and rested her hands on the table.

"Higgen, my name is Ilayilia." The hobbit's eyes widened and his hands shot forward to grab her own.

"I knew it!" Higgen hissed triumphantly. "As soon as I saw you!"

"You knew my brother, didn't you?"

"Did I? Oh, who really knew Anduin? But yes, I met him," the hobbit spoke in a rapid manner, as though afraid someone would try and stop him. "And loved him as a friend, for my part. Not like Eliohad, of course."

"Eliohad?" Ilayilia frowned, for she knew from Elrond that the Elf had accompanied Anduin on many of his travels and she knew from Glorfindel that his son had loved Anduin. But how did the hobbit know...?

"Yes, I never could compete with Eliohad," the hobbit continued. "Silly of me to try, really. Anduin and he had something much more than friendship... Eliohad took it badly, so badly. He left to cross the Sea after Anduin... after..." Higgen broke down into tears. Ilayilia could see why many thought the hobbit mad, for his sentences were almost incoherent unless your knew what he was talking about.

"Higgen," she said firmly, meeting the hobbit's eyes. "I came to the Shire for a reason. I came to try and save Tooktown." Higgen stopped crying and looked up at her in wonder.

"Tooktown's dead," he whispered.

"I know. I've seen it," she told him. "But maybe, together, we could bring it back."

Ilayilia took Higgen from his sister's house and placed him in the care of Gurfa, who was gentle and understanding. Then she returned to the Eastern end of the Shire and searched for Glarlauk. The dragon was where she had left him, though he had been extremely worried by her absence. Ilayilia explained that she would be away for a couple of days, but promised to come back soon.

She returned to Gurfa's house by nightfall and the woman and two hobbits stayed up long into the night discussing Tooktown as it had been and as it was now.

Over the next week, Ilayilia set about restoring Tooktown. Soon Gurfa, his two sons, Higgen, Ivo and his brother, and all of the Tooks that had taken up residence in Willowbottom came to aid her. They cleared the fields of all plants, weeds and former crops alike. Then Ilayilia produced the box of soil Galadriel had given her.

By sprinkling just a pinch on each field, the dirt became richer and moister. Worms, driven away by drought, returned to the soil and began to burrow through the thick, nutritious earth.

When news of this reached Pincup and Tuckborough, more and more hobbits came to help. They began to repair homes and tend forgotten gardens. Working together, Tooktown began to emerge from a pile of debris and ruin. Ilayilia helped in whatever way she could, but when the week was over she was gone.

Only Higgen and Gurfa had seen her go: to the latter she had entrusted the soil of Lorien and warned him never to use to much, for that could be worse than using too little.

It took all of that autumn and most of the next year to bring Tooktown back to its former glory. The Old Swan Pub was reopened the following winter in celebration and Gurfa Took was declared mayor in that same ceremony.

Higgen lived out his life in solitude, content never to marry. He never again spoke of his adventures, save to entertain young hobbits. Indeed, he seemed saner than ever to all of his neighbors, many of whom apologized to him. In his old age, Higgen became increasingly closer to his nephew, Bilbo Baggins, and it was to him alone that the elderly hobbit left his inheritance. A small one, too, it was, consisting only of a few pieces of Elvish clothing and a silvery-blue bag containing pockets upon pockets of dried herbs.