Chapter Two: A Hungry Hobbit is a Healthy Hobbit

The child in her arms shifted slightly, skrinkling his nose before his eyes blinked open to stare at the sky above. “Mama, look!” Pippin cried out, one hand shooting out from underneath the blanket to point upwards, knocking against Eglantine’s chin in the process.

“Those clouds look like ponies! Giddup! Giddup!” he chirped, drawing his knees up and bouncing his rump up and down on Eglantine’s lap.

“Pippin!” she cried sharply, placing a hand over his knees to still him. “The healer said you are to rest quietly today, and not to get up -- and that means no bouncing either,” she continued as he craned his neck around the cradle of her other arm to peer about the bench and the ground beneath it. “Now, is there anything else you’d like to do?”

“I thought there was custard,” was the response from the small bundle now sitting still on her lap and looking at her hopefully.

Eglantine stifled a laugh as she bent down to touch their foreheads together and peer into his eyes. “Does that mean you’re hungry?”

“Yes, Mama!” was the eager response, accompanied by several nods and an excited swing of a little foot that caught Eglantine on the thigh.

“Then let us see what we shall find in the kitchens,” Eglantine responded, and hoisted her lad and his blanket up for the trip inside. A hungry hobbit was a healthy hobbit.


They entered from the door that led into the gardens, and at first the kitchen hobbits, scurrying to prepare tea trays for the numerous apartments of the Great Smials, didn’t notice their Mistress. It was not until Eglantine’s skirts brushed against those of the head cook that Petunia gave a start, then a quick curtsy, keeping an elegant balance with the tray she held as she did so.

“Mistress. Will you be needin’ aught quickly?” she asked.

Eglantine took in both the flurry of activity in the kitchen and the direction of Pippin’s gaze (and pointing finger), which was fastened upon the cakes of gingerbread that were being cut into slices nearby.

“Nothing too troublesome, I hope, Cook,” Eglantine replied warmly. “I think we’ll just be having our tea in here today. Seems a shame to wait for something so quick to fix.” She inclined her head slightly, first toward the gingerbread, then toward the lad in her arms. “We’ll just have our cup and our bite here at the table.”

It was Fern’s first true meeting with the Mistress and The Little One, as she heard the other kitchen hobbits call him, as she set the gingerbread, milk and tea in front of Eglantine, who sat where a space had been hastily cleared at the great table generally used for rolling out dough.

Cook did not think it quite proper for the Mistress to be perched on a stool in the kitchen sipping a cup of tea as The Little One perched in her lap and busily consumed his gingerbread and milk. That much Fern could tell, although not much more. She was in her first week at the Smials, and she and Cook were just learning the ways of each other, so she had not yet been set to any regular tasks. If she were home on the farm, instead of here, “working out” as her da called it, the tween would have been outside all this fine morning, instead of cooped up in this great stuffy smial. The air couldn’t compare to the freshness of that of the farm, Fern thought, and that must be why she’d had a tickle in her throat for a day now.

Fern glanced again at the Mistress while she began washing up the tea things that had started to arrive back already, from the hobbits who had been among the first to be served. Why...surely that was not proper behavior...even her family practiced better manners than that, Fern thought, as she watched Mistress Eglantine reach into the mouth of her son, who seemed to have fallen asleep on his mother’s lap, and remove a fairly large piece of half-chewed gingerbread before letting the lad’s head fall back against her arm. Fern looked back at her pan of soapy water and scrubbed the dishes roughly as she thought more about her farm, and her family.

Why, if she’d been there, her little brother, ‘Bert, would’ve been running about near her. ‘Course, ‘Bert weren’t so spoiled as this Little One, that got gingerbread just for wanting some and had a mother that practically chewed it for him. Bert was a right stout little hobbit; strong, too -- he could lift a full milk pail, for all he was only five.

Fern twisted to rub her eyes against the shoulder of her sleeve without taking her hands out of the dishwater, and cleared her throat to stifle that durn tickle. What wouldn’t she give for a breath of farm air. She might’ve woke The Little One, with that, ‘cause the next time she glanced over there, his green eyes had blinked open to stare at his ma and he was sayin’, in what the lad prob’ly thought was a whisper,
“Mama! I have to go! Quick!”
even though it was obvious, from the way his ear tips were turnin’ pink and he was holdin’ his knees up to his chest with his little hands, what the sitch’eeation was.

The Mistress was carrying the lad out the door, dropping the blanket on her way out, quicker’n you could say “pop,” and Cook was tutting about ‘twould be a shame if the Mistress ruined that nice dress. And that, Fern was thinking, was another chore young ‘Bert could run hisself to, and right fast at that. She guessed mebbe her own five-year-old was ahead of this one some ways, be he heir to the Thain or no.


A bit later, when Cook had her run the blanket up to the Mistress, Fern used the fine fabric to muffle the cough that had finally escaped. ‘Twouldn’t do to be makin’ such a rude noise in Mr. Paladin’s quarters, and on her first time there, too.


It was dark when Pippin woke up later that night from where he’d been tucked lovingly under his favorite blankets. He didn’t remember that Eglantine had asked Nurse to stay on with Pervinca that night, as she was still fussing and demanding her share of the attention she hadn’t got during Pippin’s illness. He wasn’t sure what did remember, for his head ached, and his throat, and his tummy. But he was sick before, wasn’t he? Was this before, or was this now, when he was supposed to be allowed up to run and play?

He rolled over onto his stomach, raised himself on his elbows, and opened his mouth to call out for Mama. Instead, he was suddenly vomiting over the edge of the bed, leaving a sticky puddle on the floor.

Early the next morning, when Eglantine came in, still clad in her nightgown, to check on her lad, she found him hanging limp, half off the bed. A dried mess was on his chin, and fever sweat matted his curls to his forehead.