A Looming Disaster by Kathryn Ramage

The Spindlethrift weavers resumed their work the next day, with the instructions that any "wrong" cards that turned up were to be marked so that Pristina could give them to Frodo. Jacimbo confirmed that he'd left the last stack of true replacements in the same place he always did. When Frodo asked him about the stack of cards Mulbina had found in the table drawer, the elderly hobbit denied all knowledge of them. He hadn't made them, and he was sure that Mulbina was somehow responsible for losing the true cards. Before he set himself to the task of punching a fresh set of replacements without the original cards to guide him, Jacimbo began to make a thorough search of his workroom.

While at the mill that morning, Frodo also questioned some of the weavers, but received no impression that any of them were disgruntled or secretly pleased at their employers' misfortune. All the women he spoke with expressed worry at how this problem affected their work and eagerness to get back to their weaving. Frodo then turned his attention to hobbits who were no longer employed by the Spindlethrifts.

He asked Pristina for information about any workers who had recently been dismissed, especially 'that Larksey woman' she'd mentioned the evening before. Where might Mrs. Larksey be found? Was she still living in Oatbarton?

Pristina was certain that Mrs. Larksey was still living in the town, and referred Frodo to Jemina for an address. Jemina was in charge of hiring new workers in all parts of the mill, weavers as well as spinsters, for she had taken up a great deal of the day-to-day responsibilities of running the mill in the past few years, as Mrs. Spindlethrift aged and felt the burden of long working hours more keenly.

"Tell me, Miss Spindlethrift," Frodo ventured once he'd obtained Mrs. Larksey's address from Jemina. "Will you be in charge of the mill once your mother passes on?"

"We'll all come in for a bit of it, Mr. Baggins. It's what Mum brought us up to do."

"But you're the eldest. Will you be the mill's manager?"

Jemina nodded to confirm this. "I expect so. I do most o' the managing now, and Pris will be at my right hand, as Mistress Weaver. She knows the business best, after me."

"If you don't mind a personal question, Miss Spindlethrift," Frodo pressed on, "who will you leave in charge of the mill when the time comes? Your sisters' children?"

"That's right," she answered. "It'll be one o' the little uns that're already born, or one who isn't yet born. The young lasses'll marry and have children too. Pris might marry yet."

"But not you?" This was a very personal question, but Jemina didn't take offense.

"Not me, Mr. Baggins," she answered with a slight smile. "I made up my mind to it when I was no older'n Elfy that courting and marrying weren't for me. Spinster by nature as much as by trade, that's me. One of the young uns'll show promise and I'll know who to pick to carry on the business one day."

"Won't that mean the end of Spindlethrifts'? I mean, the mill will still be here, but its owners will be named Nutley or something else, depending on whom your younger sisters marry."

"Yes, that's so," Jemina agreed. "I don't like it, and neither do Mum nor Uncle Jacco, but there's no way 'round it now. There's no Spindlethrift sons."

"You could ask your brothers-in-law to change their names instead of making their wives take theirs," Frodo suggested.

This made Jemina laugh. "I said that once, when Dosy and Carina got married. You should've seen the looks on those Nutley lads' faces! Like I'd asked 'em both to cut off a toe. Mum took their side. She said that fine folk like the Tooks might do such a thing, but it wasn't fitting for weavers like us to give ourselves airs over our name. Mum doesn't like the Nutleys, but she wouldn't make 'em give up their name for ours."

"Your sister Carina said that her husband and his brother want to take a greater part in the business, and your mother won't let them," Frodo recalled the conversation over dinner.

"I expect they thought when they married Spindlethrift lasses, they'd get to be in charge o' the whole mill," said Jemina, "but Mum soon put her foot down about that. They came to us as dyers, and that's where they're suited to stay. They won't get more while Mum lives, nor while me 'n' Pris do. The mill'll most likely be called Nutleys' in the end, when a son or daughter o' theirs gets picked to carry on, so let 'em be happy with that."
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