I am having thoughts about Merry and Fatty Bolger setting up Frodo's new house in Crickhollow with great love and care to remind him of his old home, even though they know he is not going to stay at all, and is about to embark on the quest.
‘Well, what do you think of it?’ asked Merry coming up the passage. ‘We have done our best in a short time to make it look like home. After all, Fatty and I only got here with the last cart-load yesterday.’
Frodo looked round. It did look like home. Many of his own favourite things – or Bilbo’s things (they reminded him sharply of him in their new setting) – were arranged as nearly as possible as they had been at Bag End. It was a pleasant, comfortable, welcoming place; and he found himself wishing that he was really coming here to settle down in quiet retirement. It seemed unfair to have put his friends to all this trouble; and he wondered again how he was going to break the news to them that he must leave them so soon, indeed at once.
They KNOW, not just that he's not planning to stay more than a single night, but that he will likely never return. They tell him that they've overheard him sighing, many times, "Shall I ever look at this place again, I wonder?" and such. Merry is planning to go with him. Fatty is planning to stay behind as the decoy. They are under no illusions - and yet they scrambled and worked extremely hard just to give Frodo one last chance to feel he was home, even after he'd said goodbye to Bag End. They know it will do his heart good, and they put in as much effort to give him that one evening as if they were giving him a home for a lifetime.
