Chapter Twelve: Sam I Am

Pippin blinked awake in an unfamiliar room. Merry lay slumbering on the pillow beside him. It was so quiet here -- quiet enough for Merry to hear him moving his head about, evidently, as Pippin soon found his cousin’s blue-gray eyes looking at him.

“Morning, Pip,” Merry said softly. “Do you know where you are?”

Pippin thought a moment, then was able to shake his head slightly “no.”

Merry chuckled softly. “Well, you were rather tired last night. Guess it’s a good thing you can eat in your sleep.” Merry whispered gently to his cousin, “We’re in Bag End, Pip, visiting Cousin Frodo and Cousin Bilbo. You remember Cousin Frodo, don’t you?”

Pippin thought a little, then shook his head “no” again, his eyes starting to grow wide in apprehension.

“Shush, shush, of course you do.” Merry moved to gather Pippin in his arms and began to lift them both out of the bed. “He came to one of the parties at Great Smials last Afteryule -- he was there for your birthday, Pip! He said you were one of the little lads that loved to crowd around and listen to his stories -- he told me so himself.”

Merry was slowly easing himself, carrying Pippin, out of the bedroom and into the corridor as he talked.

“And now you’re here visiting Frodo at his smial! It’s just us and Frodo and Bilbo here,” Merry said as he walked. Pippin had been turning his head to glance nervously at the doors they passed, but at these words, he relaxed slightly and snuggled his face into the crook of Merry’s shoulder.

Merry gave him a couple of soothing pats on the back as he walked and talked. “Remember, Uncle Paddin said you were a big lad now, old enough to go visiting by yourself -- well, with me, of course,” he added. “And Pervinca gave you this trip for her birthday present?”

Pippin pulled his head back from Merry’s shoulder and looked up at him inquiringly. “Well, yes, you’re going to miss Pervinca’s party next week, Pip, but after all, sweetheart, you did already miss Pearl’s and Pimpernel’s birthdays earlier this summer. It would hardly be fair if she had you at hers when they didn’t. I’m sure your mama will make certain Pervinca has a grand time nonetheless. And besides,” Merry bent his head closer to whisper in Pippin’s face, “this way there’s no danger of her asking you to serve at a dollies’ tea party this year!”

Pippin giggled and grimaced simultaneously as he remembered that indignity. Merry had paused in the doorway to the kitchen and now turned Pippin’s face gently toward Frodo, who had his back turned toward them as he stood at the stove. “Shall we see if Frodo’s griddle cakes are as good as his stories, then?” he asked quietly.

Frodo turned to face them, a spatula in one hand. Pippin peered at him with one green eye, pressing the other side of his face into Merry’s shoulder.

“Good morning, then, Cousin Pippin,” the dark-haired hobbit said as he took a step toward Merry and Pippin. “Did you sleep well?”

Pippin hesitated, then gave a slight nod as Merry gently jostled him.

Frodo smiled kindly at him and then said, “Indeed you did! I must welcome you to our smial now since your arrival was rather -- sleepy. Is there anything you need during your stay?”

Pippin had slowly lifted his head as Frodo was speaking, and now looked to Merry for guidance. That cousin nodded back at him encouragingly and smoothed his curls. “It’s all right, Pip. Frodo’s my next-best friend, after you. You can trust him.”

Shyly, Pippin reached out an arm and, with difficulty, as he was still having problems with coordination, pointed to the sizzling griddle cakes.


Pippin was sitting at the table in Merry’s lap, being fed pieces of griddle cake, when the door to Bag End banged open and shut.

“Bilbo?” Frodo called out.

“No, sir, Master Frodo, it’s just me,” a voice cried out in return.

Pippin had looked up from his plate to gaze questioningly at Frodo, who smiled at him. “It’s all right, dearheart, that’s Sam. He works for us. I asked him to help with making up your rooms this morning.”

Pippin nodded, satisfied, and turned his attention back to his food. If it was just a servanthobbit, that meant no one had been lying to him about Bilbo and Frodo being the only hobbits who lived in this smial.

A few moments later, he looked up again as a strange thumping noise could be heard coming down the hallway, interrupting Frodo and Merry’s conversation. Accompanying this noise were muttered imprecations.

“...draggin’ things out of storage again, and with guests and all! It just don’t look right.”

A stocky hobbit slightly older than Merry appeared in the kitchen doorway, clutching onto one end of what appeared to be an old, rolled-up rug, the rest of it dragging on the floor behind him.

“Beggin’ your pardon, Master Frodo,” he said with a head bob toward the hobbits in the kitchen, “but do you know where Master Bilbo’s been about getting this? It were all jammed up under the bed in your cousin’s room, so’s you couldn’t get naught but the tip of a broom under there.”

Pippin had looked up again at this entrance and was now trembling slightly. He tried to twist in Merry’s lap, and lifted up his arms.

Merry picked the little hobbit up and turned him around, hugging him close. “Put it back, Sam,” he said in a commanding tone over Pippin’s head.

“But Master Merry, sir--” the other hobbit began to protest.

“Put it back,” Merry said again, even more forcefully as he sat rubbing Pippin’s back and placing occasional kisses on top of his curls.

“But, Master Frodo--” Sam turned to his employer.

“Sam,” Frodo said sternly, then softened his tone as he added, “You’d better do what Merry says and put it back where you found it.”

Sam stood only a moment in the doorway, mouth agape with astonishment, before turning to drag the rug back the way he’d come.

“Hush, hush,” Merry continued to coo to Pippin, who was giving an occasional sob. He leaned back in his chair and lifted Pippin’s face to look at him. “Was it one of the sevants at the Smials who put you under the bed?”

The lad violently shook his tear-streaked face side to side “no.” His mouth worked for several moments, but no sound came out.

“It’s all right,” Merry sighed as he hugged Pippin close again. “No one’s going to hurt you here.”

After breakfast and getting dressed, Merry carried Pippin about on a tour of the smial. He had visited Frodo and Bilbo many times on his own before. Bilbo had arrived shortly after breakfast, offered perfunctory greetings to everyone, and then shut himself up in his study. Frodo had followed him in there a few moments later to converse in low tones, no doubt about their guests and Pippin’s strange condition.

This door was the last on the tour, as Merry wasn’t allowed to go into the study alone, himself. Bilbo and Frodo must have heard him conversing with Pippin in the hallway, though, because Bilbo popped the door open and stuck his head out, asking Merry to come inside for a chat with him and Frodo.

“Just leave the lad out here,” he said, then, “Oh, er, um.” He ducked back inside the study, there were sounds of scuffling, and he reemerged a moment later carrying two wooden blocks with letters of the alphabet painted on their sides. He placed these on the floor to the side of the study door, then patted Pippin quickly on the head, saying, “Be a good lad and play while the big hobbits talk.” He quickly reentered the study.

Merry bent reluctantly to lower Pippin to the floor. He gave him a kiss on his forehead as he straightened, whispering a promise, “I won’t be long,” before he, too, went into the study.

Pippin listlessly batted the blocks about for a few moments but, although he could now move his arms to some extent, he still couldn’t do anything delicate with his fingers, or anything that required much strength.

The back door opened, and that Sam hobbit came in again. He was pushing a bushel basket through the hall ahead of him this time, using his legs to push it along the floor. The basket was filled to the brim and over with plump, round melons, their brownish gray rinds crinkled.

As Sam pushed the basket along the hallway closer to Pippin, some of the melons on top of the pile began to teeter. Sam gave another shove forward, and the round balls lost their precarious balance and slid down, across and over each other, tumbling more melons out of the stack along the way.

The heavy spheres rained down upon the floor and rolled toward where Pippin sat, unable to move himself out of the way.

Alerted by the heavy thuds, Merry burst out of the study door to swoop up Pippin, who sat surrounded by melons that had rolled to a stop mere inches from him.

Pippin cuddled his face into Merry’s neck and reached an arm out toward the hallway. He awkwardly shook a finger up and down.

“Who’s a bad, bad hobbit, Pip?” Merry asked. Then he caught sight of the gardener coming around the basket to gather his bruised melons. “Sam?” Merry’s eyes narrowed suspiciously.

Sam didn’t hear him or notice the look, because one of the melons had slipped out of his grasp again, landing heavily on top of his foot.

Merry gave him another funny look before turning to carry Pippin into the study. As he went through the door, he announced loudly, for the benefit of the room’s occupants, “Well, Pip, here’s the last stop on our tour: Cousin Bilbo’s study!”

When Sam had finished restacking the melons in the basket, he noticed the blocks lying on the floor. He shook his head. His Gaffer had told him young gentlehobbits weren’t expected to pick up after themselves.

Cousin Bilbo stayed in the hole’s study the rest of the day, popping out only at intervals for food. Pippin supposed that Bilbo was working, like his da did, but he didn’t see how Bilbo could possibly have as much to do since there were so many fewer hobbits here than at the Smials.

This actually made the hole quite pleasant, he thought, except that he missed his mama a bit. But still, she never let him help when they were cooking in the Smials’ kitchens, and dinnertime preparations were proving to be quite entertaining.

Frodo and Merry had sat him on the floor of the kitchen, at a spot where you could see both that room and into the hallway. It was his job, they told him, to let them know when Bilbo was coming, because they wanted to surprise the old hobbit with a special Buckland cake they were preparing.

“When you see him coming, you just smack your hand down on the floor as hard as you can, and that will tell Merry and me to hide the cake,” Frodo had said as he crouched down to Pippin’s eye level.

Pippin looked uncertain, but spread his fingers apart -- much easier than curling them to grasp something -- and smacked the flat of his right hand down on the floor.

He grinned up at Merry, pleased with the sound he’d made.

“That’s it, Pip,” the Brandybuck nodded encouragingly. “Now, you just do the same thing when you see Bilbo coming.”

Pippin had been waiting for a while now, watching as Frodo and Merry labored over their cake at the far table. Sam had joined them in the kitchen, using a knife to slice heads of cabbage into thin shreds that he pushed off the countertop and into a large stoneware crock. The smial was filled with enticing smells.

“Merry, can you get the cake platter out? I think we’re almost ready,” Frodo asked.

“Certainly,” Merry answered, and excused himself to Sam as he reached into the cupboards above the gardener’s head to retrieve the platter before he brought it across the room to Frodo.

He bumped slightly against the crock as he turned, but did not notice it begin to topple.

Pippin saw the lip of the crock, which reached up to Sam’s chest, begin to teeter. He opened his mouth to cry out, but produced only silence.

As the crock tipped over and began to roll toward him, Pippin managed to wrench his body around so he was lying on the floor on his tummy. He flailed his arms, trying ineffectually to push himself out of the way.

Sam had turned as he heard the crock fall, to see it begin rolling straight toward Master Frodo’s little cousin. It took him a couple of moments to realize that the lad was trying to move himself out of the way, but weren’t able to, somehow. The little face was looking up at him -- Master Frodo and Master Merry still being on the other side of the kitchen, with their backs turned. Master -- Pippin, that were the lad’s name -- looked like he was tryin’ to say somethin’, too, but weren’t havin’ any better luck with that. His green eyes were beseeching Sam’s face, but he didn’t look hopeful.

Sam dropped the knife onto the counter with a clang and jumped over to where the crock had rolled in just these few seconds. He reached over it and snatched the lad up and out of the way just before the stoneware crashed into the wall where he’d been lying. It left a dent, and bedraggled strips of red cabbage spilled out onto the floor.

Sam found himself with his arms full of trembling hobbit child, who looked at the mess on the floor, then at him, then back at the mess again before leaning his head forward to plant an awkward kiss on Sam’s neck.

Bewildered still and shaken, Sam began rubbing the small back and rocking slightly, as he did with his smaller nieces and nephews. He’d been told he was good with them. He was crooning nonsense to the lad as Master Merry and Master Frodo made their way over to the commotion.

“’Tweren’t no harm done, lad, you’re safe now. It’s Sam has got you. Aye, lad, Sam I am...”

Pippin’s green eyes looked up at him with admiration.