Chapter Fifteen: A Quiet Time

* * *I miss Merry. Things were lots more fun when he was here. Now it’s just Frodo and Cousin Bilbo and me, and it’s lots more quiet. Mostly all we do is stay inside the smial all day, and Frodo and Cousin Bilbo read their books and make scribbles on parchment. Sometimes Frodo plays with me a little, but not as much as Merry. I think Frodo forgets to play, but Merry’s good at reminding him.

Sometimes I make Frodo look sad, and that makes me feel bad. One time he bent down to look me right in my face and he said,

“Don’t you want to go home, Pippin? I’m sure your mother and father miss you very much,”

and then he looked like he was going to cry, but I didn’t know why and it made me feel bad and I didn’t like it much. It made me think maybe I was a bad hobbit when I made Frodo look sad so he gave me extra food.

But then I remembered that I have to eat lots because I want to be a big, strong hobbit. Like the Bullroarer. Rarrgh!

I just put my hands up in the air over my head like Merry knows means he’s supposed to say, “Big as the Bullroarer, Pip!” but Frodo just looked at me up out of his book and asked if I needed to go somewhere.

So I pointed to my mouth and then to the kitchen, but he just shook his head and said, “You just had your luncheon, Pippin. Why don’t you play with your cart, and I’ll help you in a little while.” And then he went back to his book, which must be dreadfully boring, because it hasn’t even got any pictures.

Sometimes, when he does remember to play with me, Frodo can come up with very good games and stories, and he says it’s because he reads all about elves and dwarves and such in his books. But I still think it’s better when Frodo or Cousin Bilbo tells stories out loud in front of the fire at night. Then we can eat snacks, too, and nobody has to hold onto a book so it’s in the way of eating with your hands or holding me in their lap.

But I guess Frodo and Cousin Bilbo must like their books. They spend lots of time with them, and even Sam comes up to Bag End sometimes now, too, and looks at a book and doesn’t play with me as much. He gets all funny around me sometimes, now, and acts like he can’t talk out loud either. He just looks down and mutters to his toes until I have to roll over and put my head on top of his feet so I can look up at him and hear what he’s saying better. It tickles when he wriggles his toes under my curls!

He’s been acting funny like that ever since Mama came to visit. I saw him almost drop a sack of potatoes he was carrying to the cellar when Cousin Bilbo was asking Mama about her and Da’s Mistress and Thain work at the Great Smials. But of course he caught the sack and didn’t drop it because Sam really is a very good hobbit.

I got to help him oil the garden tools out in the shed when he put them away for the winter. They made me wear a very thick coat, but I still got oil all over my hands and my feet and my face, so they gave me a bath when we went in and it was warm and that was nice.

Sam kept calling me “Master Pippin” and sometimes “Sir” and I think maybe Mama told him when I was taking a nap that I don’t like to be called “The Little One” like they do at Great Smials because I don’t like being little. Except it’s all right if Mama calls me her little lad, or if Merry says I’m his “darling little Perry” or sometimes for my sisters to call me their little brother, but only if they mean it nice.

So I’m eating lots because I want to get big and strong and Mama always says “a hungry hobbit is a healthy hobbit” and I don’t want to be broken no more.

One time, Cousin Bilbo had already gone to the study after luncheon and Frodo went to answer the door and I could hear him talking to Folco Boffin, and usually I like it when Folco or Freddy comes to visit because sometimes they play with me, and even if they don’t Frodo talks and laughs with them and I can listen and it isn’t so quiet so it’s almost like being at my home. Except this time, Frodo left me in the kitchen and he was gone a long time and I couldn’t hear what he and Folco were saying and I couldn’t get down from the chair by myself, so I dropped my dishes and made them break because I was so mad that the healers broke me.

But then I got scared and I was crying when Frodo came back in the kitchen because I remembered the song Cousin Bilbo’s dwarves sang
“Chip the glasses and crack the plates
...
That’s what Bilbo Baggins hates”*
and I thought maybe Cousin Bilbo would hate me now and want to send me home right away, and I want to go home but I’m still scared.

But Frodo thought it was an accident because I was crying, and he picked up the pieces and threw them away, and maybe Cousin Bilbo doesn’t know that I broke his dish.

Frodo says Cousin Bilbo’s very smart, and he thinks about lots of things that are outside the Shire even, and that he is writing them all down in his big book in the study, but that sometimes he is so busy thinking about all these important things that he doesn’t have room to think about things that are happening in his very own smial.

He forgot to think about the market list for a while after Merry went home, so Frodo just kept sending Sam for the same orders, and I had lots more food to help me get big with, because I know Merry would always share with me.

And one time Frodo went to the market with Sam, and Cousin Bilbo was going to carry me from the kitchen to the study. He picked me up, but then he forgot he was carrying me, which was very funny, really, because he had to use one whole arm to keep me up on his shoulder the whole entire time, but I guess he was thinking very hard about something important because he didn’t even notice he wasn’t using that arm. I didn’t tug on his curls or anything to remind him he was carrying me, either, because even if he forgot about it he was doing a very good job and wasn’t going to drop me. And he did do some very interesting things.

First, Cousin Bilbo wanted to look for something in the high-up cupboards in his kitchen. I haven’t ever seen in anybody’s high-up cupboards before, because even when I’m not broken, I can’t reach that high. So I wanted to see what was in there. There was some food, but mostly it was just dishes. I guess Cousin Bilbo must like this one mug, because that was what he finally took out and filled up with tea, and he just used one hand the whole time!

Before that, when he was looking in one cupboard, I reached and opened the door to the next one because I could already see that the first one just had plates in it, and two silver spoons that fell behind one stack, and that wasn’t very interesting. So I opened the next door to see what was inside, and when Cousin Bilbo got done looking in his cupboard, he took a step and hit his head on the door of mine because he didn’t see it was already open! I put my hand over my mouth so I wouldn’t giggle out loud, because I didn’t want him to put me down then, but it was very funny and some day I’ll have to tell Merry.

Then after he got his tea, Cousin Bilbo went into the study, and he was still carrying me, and when he sat down at his writing desk he put me on one of the big arms of his chair, but I don’t think he really even knew he was doing it because he didn’t say anything to me, he just started talking to his papers like he does in funny words I don’t understand.

I got bored after a little while, but then it got funny to watch Cousin Bilbo again because he put his quill behind his ear while he was drinking his tea and then he forgot it was there and started patting all over the papers on his desk looking for it. Then he gave up and got another quill, so I took the one out from behind his ear and waved it around to play with it.

I made the quill move in the air to make letters like Frodo tried to show me how to do, but I already know my letters, I just don’t know how to put them together, but I can’t tell anybody that, so I got mad and threw the quill at Frodo and it hit the ink bottle hard enough it knocked it over and it spilled.

I think maybe that’s why Frodo had to go to the market with Sam, was to get more ink like he likes, because they use lots of it here.

Sam did try to help me make words once, because Frodo said Mama writes to me lots, so Sam should help me write a letter to her and we could both prac -- prax -- learn our letters better. So Sam held my hand and tried to make me write, but he was acting funny and muttering again and I couldn’t tell him what to say because nobody ‘cepting Merry understands me now ‘cause I can’t talk out loud, and Merry always knows good what I mean, but I wanted to write to my mama and Sam wasn’t moving my hand for the letters so I moved it instead and made a big streak across the parchment. I thought maybe we could just send that to Mama and tell her it was from me, or I could draw something else, because I saw once that she has some parchment that Pearl drew on a long time ago, and it’s just lines and squiggles but Mama kept it all these years and she says it’s very good artwork so Mama likes funny things.

And maybe Sam knows Mama likes that, because after I made my line he said we should work on signing my name proper, and he moved my hand so it made letters that looked like this:
PAIRAGREEN
But when Frodo came over and looked at our parchment his face got all scrunched up funny, and he said it nice, but he said that was wrong and maybe we shouldn’t try any more letters for a while.

I don’t know why it was wrong, because it looked pretty to me, but maybe it’s because I’m a lad and lads aren’t supposed to have names that look pretty so maybe mine looks different.

And Frodo wouldn’t let Sam help me no more, and when he tried to help me himself I spilled his ink, and then when he got back from the market and came in the study to find me and Bilbo he saw me playing with Cousin Bilbo’s quills -- he forgot another one behind his ear, so I had two, one for each hand -- and I just then noticed that I got lots of globs of ink on Cousin Bilbo’s shirt, and on me, too, and on the chair.

I got a bath after that, but it wasn’t a very nice bath, even though Cousin Bilbo has ink on him all the time, so I don’t think I should get in trouble for that, but maybe the chair’s harder to clean so Frodo got mad.

Except he can’t say he’s mad because I’m just a little hobbit who’s broken and can’t walk or talk or nothing, so Frodo just put his mouth in a line and scrubbed me hard.

They don’t have any other lads or lasses here, and Frodo has to take care of me lots and sometimes I think he gets mad because he’s ever so much older than Merry, or Pimpernel, or Pearl even, and now he has to sleep with me, too, so he can’t go out lots like Mama says tweenagers do.

One time he put me in his bed already, and Frodo was changing into his nightshirt, and he bumped into a chair in his room and his leg kicked straight out toward me really fast, and I got scared and made a noise I think like a cat does when you kick it. But even if he does get mad at me, I know Frodo wouldn’t never ever want to hurt me really, because he came toward me real slow after that and crawled into bed and held me and told me that all hobbits have re-fexes like that in their legs that if you hit just the right spot, your leg goes flying without you even telling it to. Then Frodo told me a very nice story about dwarves in their caves mining for very pretty stones and metals and using carts like mine until I fell asleep.

But I still remembered what he told me about re-fexes, so the next day, I poked my legs really hard until I found a spot right under my knee that made them jump a little. That made me happy, because they don’t listen to me telling them to walk, but they still listen to the re-fexes inside me, so maybe they’ll start to listen to me again, too.

If my legs start to listen to me, then maybe I can go play outside again when it starts to snow. Right now it’s not very nice out, and there’s no snow, just gray sky and sometimes very cold rain and ice at the same time. Cousin Bilbo writes about his funny words, and Frodo reads lots of his books and takes naps on them sometimes, too, because I don’t think he sleeps as good with me as Merry does. He doesn’t make as much noise, anyway.

I like that Merry makes lots of noise: when he’s asleep he snores, and then he sings in the privy in the mornings, and talks to me lots.

I’ll bet my da has lots to say to me now, too, because I’ve been gone from the Smials for a really long time, and he has to be done with harvest now, and even with doing sums about it, and I think he likes to play the Thain Peregrin game when the weather’s bad like this.* * *

“Gracious! --Drat, I’ll need to blot that--Frodo, lad, could you see who that is pounding on the door? I’m not expecting anyone -- where’s that sand? -- Frodo!”

“I’m awake! Oh, yes, of course, the door....Cousin Paladin! Welcome! This is a surprise.”

“It shouldn’t be a surprise. I’ve decided to take matters into my own hands and collect my lad myself.

“Pippin! Give your da a hug.”

(Squeal!)


____
*Song from “The Hobbit”; chapter, “An Unexpected Party”