Chapter Seventeen: Tuesday’s Child Is Full of Grace

Now that he could walk again, Pippin was even more glad to be home at Great Smials, especially with all the feasting and gaming of the Yule celebrations. He was able to participate in many of the games meted out by this year’s Lord of Misrule on Second Yule -- although not, of course, those that required answering questions or making rhymes out loud.

Still, Pearl didn’t choose as many of those games as she might -- or, if she did, she saved them up until her younger brother had been taken to bed. Yawning, he was worn out from the first running and jumping and dancing he’d been able to do in months, his tummy pleasantly full of the nuts and sweets the Yule Dwarf had left him, as well as the treats from the groaning tables of the Smials.

They let him sleep late the next day, and when his mother came in to check on him again shortly after second breakfast, she found Pippin kneeling on the floor of his room next to the underbed storage drawers. He had already removed a pile of objects that were scattered on the floor next to him, and now he reached in and took out another toy, examining it carefully before tossing it onto the pile.

“Pippin?” Eg asked quietly from the doorway behind him, just to let him know she was there.

Pippin turned toward her, a smile lighting his face, and attempted to greet her.

“Mmm!” was all that came out of his mouth, and he looked frustrated, but then his face cleared as he concentrated on what he could do and pushed himself into a standing position before reaching out his arms to hug his mother, who had crossed to him.

Eglantine hugged him back, then drew back a little to look down at the mess on the floor. “Pippin, dear, what are you doing?” she asked.

Pippin sank back to his knees and picked up again the toy he’d been examining when she entered -- a battered jack-in-the-box, with a spring that stuck -- before frowning and casting it onto the pile again.

He then flicked his eyes toward the sitting room where the Yule log still blazed in the hearth, pointed to his own chest, then held one hand straight out in front of him with all four fingers and thumb extended. He added the other hand, with the thumb holding down the littlest finger so that only the three in the middle were extended, and then released the smallest digit so that four of them stood upright on that hand: a total of nine in all.

“You’re gathering presents for your birthday?” Eglantine guessed from where she’d seated herself on the edge of the bed.

Pippin nodded vigorously.

“Well, you know, dear, your father and I are happy to help you select gifts for us and for your sisters.”

Pippin nodded a little shyly, slightly chewing his bottom lip.

“And I think we can easily arrange for something nice for the Bagginses for being so kind as to let you visit for so long.” Eg smiled softly at the look of relief passing over Pippin’s face. “Perhaps a certificate to the bookseller’s for Frodo and a new quill for Bilbo? Goodness knows he’s always losing them.”

Pippin smiled up at his mother, but then suddenly looked down and worried his lip again.

“Is there someone else?” Eg asked. “Don’t worry about Merry, darling,” she added, suddenly inspired. “I’m sending to Brandy Hall all the ingredients and the receipt so that he can have a cake just like yours, and a letter telling about how you’ll be ready to run and play ever so many games with him when next you meet.” She paused. “I know Merry will think that just as magical a birthday present as your father and I have for Yule.”

She leaned forward and brushed the curls off Pippin’s forehead to place a lingering kiss there before settling back on the bed.

Pippin smiled up at her again briefly, before reaching out to his pile and withdrawing a tattered book. He held it up to her with an uncertain face.

“Did you want me to read you a story, sweetheart?” Eg asked, drawing her brows together in puzzlement.

Pippin shook his head quickly no, and then moved to point to himself again while still holding the book.

“It’s for another birthday present?” Eglantine asked, surprised.

A nod.

Eg thought a moment. “Someone at the Smials?”

A head shake “no.”

“Someone in Hobbiton?” she asked, puzzled.

A nod.

Eg racked her brain for any hobbits besides the Bagginses Pippin had encountered while he was away. “The gardener?” she mused out loud. “Sam?”

Pippin’s curls bounced as he nodded hastily up and down. Then his face fell a little as he opened the book of tales to a page covered in what would have been an exquisite illustration -- if it weren’t for the torn corner and the colorful scribbling across the middle of the page.

Eg leaned forward and ran her fingers over the page. This was a surprise, although a sweet one, that her lad wanted to give the Bagginses’ gardener a gift for his birthday. Still...a vision of Pippin lying on this bed, locked within himself and unable to move, passed before her eyes, and she remembered how very kind everyone at Bag End had been toward her son.

Eg smiled softly and bent down to kiss Pippin on the end of his nose. “I think perhaps we can find a new copy of this at the bookseller’s as well,” she informed him.

Pippin’s grin lit his face, and his eyes shone.


Sixth Night at last came and passed, the flames of the Yule log allowed to crackle and dwindle until the fire went out, and the stump was ready to be saved for lighting the new log the following Yule.

The next day -- the third of Afteryule, but the fourth day of both the new year and of the hobbits’ week* -- Pippin awakened before his Nurse could even consider fetching him. He rolled over, scrambled out of bed, and rushed across his family’s quarters to jerk open his parents’ door and fling himself upon their bed.

“Oof!” Paladin grunted awake, and Eglantine let out a soft gasp, but it was tinged with a smile. They both grabbed their lad to hug him and exclaim, “Happy birthday!”

Pippin grinned back.

The grin turned into giggles and happy little shrieks as Paddin kept one arm around his son’s tummy and rolled over onto his back, using the other hand to tickle up and down the squirming nine-year-old.

Eglantine sat back against her pillows and fondly watched her two lads at play. Pippin’s feet kicked out wildly from under his nightshirt, but he was smiling radiantly, his clear green eyes locking with his father’s of the same color.

Eg used the back of her hand to brush away some dampness from her eyes, even as as a smile played about her lips. Each year, Pippin’s birthday felt much like a victory celebration for her. For nine years now, since she’d first brought the tiny babe into the world in such bitter cold, she’d managed to keep him here with her a little longer. This past year, the battle had been especially hard-fought -- and it was still not quite over.

Paddin finally calmed a bit and rolled out of bed, taking his son with him. As he stood, he lifted Pippin above his head and looked up to tell him, “Happy birthday, Peregrin!”

Paddin didn’t say, this time, “Thain Peregrin,” but he certainly thought it. Nine years! Nine years old already! One more year and he could feel even more confident in assuring Eg. One more year, and he could persuade her to let him take the lad more under his wing, to begin preparing him for the future Paddin dreamed of.

As always at the Great Smials, Pippin’s birthday had the effect of prolonging the festivities that had begun with Yule. There was more feasting, of course, as well as more gift-giving and game-playing.

Pippin surprised nearly everyone when it came time to pick partners for the gaming. The other children near his age clustered in their accustomed groups and pairings, quickly sorting themselves out. No one among them thought about partnering with Pippin: he had been away for so long, and unable to join in their play for such a long time before that, it just didn’t occur to them.

Pearl, with the other tweens, was bustling about to set out refreshments, and Pimpernel had paired off with one of her friends among their own grouping. These teens would help the tweens if need be, play with the younger children if pressed, or amuse themselves with their own tales and gossip if left alone.

Pervinca was attempting to edge toward her own friends, and mimic her sister. It wasn’t that she didn’t love her brother, or that she wasn’t happy it was his birthday, but still, he was only nine, and really, now that she was thirteen -- a teen herself, just like Pimpernel! -- should she be playing such baby games?

Eglantine was just about to wade in and sort this out when she saw Pippin approach the group of teen lads hanging about near Pimpernel and her friends. He grabbed hold of Everard’s arm, and pulled the older hobbit back to the game space with him.

Everard was startled but pleased to sit on the floor across from Pippin and join him in the clapping and other hand motions of the pattycake game. Neither of them were singing the words to this tune, Pippin because he still could not speak and Everard because it took all his concentration to focus on what his hands were doing, so he had no thought left for singing.

At the end of the game, Everard glanced shyly over to the groups of teen hobbits, who were still standing about in the midst of their discussions. None looked his way. They had not missed him. Even when the lads his age did deign to play with him, they never wanted to participate in what they called “baby games,” but which Everard still enjoyed.

He let Pippin take his hand and lead him into the circle that formed for the next game.

As Regi took his turn removing chairs from the center of the circling young hobbits, he recognized with a start that the tall lad clasping onto Pippin’s hand was his own brother. Regi reached out a foot and nudged back into place the chair he had set far enough forward so that it would be in the dancers’ path, ready for them to trip.


As a nine-year-old lad with full use of his legs, Pippin had more freedom to roam the Smials. He kept practicing his attempts to say his words, hoping it would lead to the same success he’d had with his legs, but had so far not achieved any results.

Perhaps this was why he continued to be somewhat bored and lonely. After his birthday party, things at the Smials settled back into their regular routine, and Pippin again had no playmates.

He had decided, one afternoon, that a fun thing to do would be to swing on the gates of the stalls in the barn. Bundled in his coat and cloak, he had hoisted himself up onto the gate of one of the empty stalls when this new height allowed him to see into the next row.

A servant hobbit had fallen asleep on the floor of the cattle stall, and Pippin realized it was her soft snuffling he’d heard for the past few moments without being truly aware of it.

Fern didn’t rightly know why she should be carryin’ on so, a-snifflin’ and a-snufflin’ like a hobbit babe. It weren’t as if her time at the Smials had been a hard one, not once’t she and Cook had worked it out so as Fern’s job included bein’ one o’ them milkmaids so long with doin’ some duties in the kitchen.

She knew how to bake some fancy cakes now, that was for certain sure, and to cook some other swell dishes besides. Might be some call for her services ‘round home, now, or (she blushed) might be she’d make some fine hobbit a wife some day.

‘Course, she thought as she sniffed a tear back and brushed her hair away from her forehead, weren’t no sense in countin’ yer chickens afore they’re hatched. She still had some time to be gettin’ through at the Smials afore goin’ home.

Fern aimed a stream of milk into the pail and rested her head on the underside of the cow’s flank. This milkmaidin’ was sure a nice part of her job and all, reminding her of her own farm, as it were.

Well, not that any one of them were exactly her farm or her family’s. She just liked to think such while they were livin’ there, however long it mayhap be.

She’d be goin’ back to her ma and da with her wages in her hand for the first of Rethe, the day they’d all be movin’ to the next farm. This were the best one they’d been rentin’ yet, and the sums Fern had earned at the Smials were truly helpin’ out.

So her da had said in the letter he’d got a gentlehobbit to write for him, and Fern had listened to Mistress Eglantine read her on Second Yule, standing in a line as she were with the other servant lasses waiting to hear their own news from home.

For Fern had stayed at the Smials through Yule, with nary a visit between her and her kin. Right it was that she’d be goin’ home soon enough, and the extra wages were sure to be a help for the new farm, but it were still lonely to think of all she’d missed for the first time ever in her life. She supposed that’s why she was snufflin’ now as she set the full milk pail down and plopped herself onto the straw for a bit of a rest.

She woke up to find herself all snuggly under one of the thick pony blankets that had hung over the end of a stall when she entered the barn. She felt especially warm and cozy around the skirts on her left leg, and she picked up the edge of the blanket to peer at The Little One, who was tucked up against her as a pillow for his own nap.

Fern had changed her mind about this lad over the last near-year, as well -- leastwise, after she’d learned better what it were that his ma and da were facin’ all the time. She knew his proper age now, of course, as she’d been one of the kitchen hobbits makin’ all them fancies for his birthday. And she knew how sad his ma had looked last summer when she couldn’t get The Little One to eat hardly nothin’, let alone do anything else a proper lad should. He certainly weren’t as sturdy as her little ‘Bert, Fern thought, shaking her head. She knew now that rich hobbits had their own problems.

‘Course, that didn’t mean she weren’t goin’ to be in trouble if she didn’t get this pail of milk into the smial afore too much longer. Some of the cream had already started to settle out on the top.

She was thinkin’ whether she ought to wake the lad when the barn door swung to and Pippin’s eyes blinked open as they both heard a hobbit let out a huff of air.

Fern watched those green eyes get big with fright before Pippin shook his head, put a finger to his lips, and then pulled the blanket back down over himself. Mr. Regi banged a fist against the door of her stall.

“Well, here you are!” he bellowed out. “One last cow to milk, you told Cook an hour ago! And I don’t appreciate being sent as an errand boy after servant hobbits lollygagging about!

“Or are you after a roll in the hay with someone?” Regi asked with a leer as he took in the pony blanket.

Fern could feel The Little One trembling against her under the blanket, his fingers gripping her knee hard through her skirts.

“N-no, sir,” she stuttered. “I were just havin’ a nap and a cry, like. Seems I might’ve got bad news from home.”

Drawing on her sudden inspiration, Fern withdrew from the waistband of her skirt the paper that had been stuck together with her father’s Yule message. She was careful not to raise the blanket as she did so.

This paper were more official lookin’ than her family’s greetin’s, but that‘s what she’d been eager to hear, and she’d forgotten about it until after Mistress Eglantine had done and gone back to her quarters on Second Yule. She did ought to know what it was, though, and Mr. Regi here would do just as good as any to read it to her.

He took the paper from her hand and glanced at it contemptuously. “Shiriff!” he snorted. “I daresay you do have bad news from home!” He threw the paper back at her and stalked away. “Mind you bring the milk!” he called back over his shoulder.

Fern had started to sob in earnest, now, and soon as he heard the barn door shut behind Regi, Pippin crawled out from under the blanket to give her a hug.

* * *Bad, bad Regi! He made a lass cry! I’ll bet his Da doesn’t yell at him loud enough.

He lied about the Yule Dwarf, though. Maybe he’s lying to the lass, too.* * *

Pippin picked the paper up from the straw and furled his brow at it. Then, still clutching it in one hand, he moved toward the milk bucket.

“Oh!” Fern shot up. “You mustn’t, young Master Took. That there’s my job.” She picked the bucket up and then sloshed a bit as she heaved into another sob while she held it.

Pippin hugged her around the knees and then placed one hand on the milk bucket handle. Still clutching the paper in his other hand, he walked with her into the smial.

Cook was bemused to see her missing kitchen lass appear with both the expected milk pail and the unlooked-for heir to the Thain, crying as if her heart would break. Fern set the milk pail in its place, but Cook could not get any sense out of her, crying as she was. The Little One did not object to the ginger biscuit she handed him to munch on during this interrogation but, perhaps seeing that Cook was not succeeding in calming Fern down, he finally heaved a great sigh and took hold of the kitchen lass’s arm. Still clutching his paper in his other hand, he marched her to his father’s office.

Fern tried to pull back a bit and began sobbing even harder when she realized where they were, but Pippin gripped her more tightly, knocked once, then pushed the door open.

Paladin quickly shoved the ball and cup game he’d been playing with into his desk drawer. There was some time to relax, these late winter afternoons, after he’d sent Regi off to find a snack for himself in the kitchens. But his son was not alone.

“Peregrin,” Paladin said in the sternest tone with which he ever addressed his son, “have you made this lass cry?’

Pippin shook his head indignantly no, and the lass in question also managed a brief headshake before more sobbing took her.

Pippin marched up to the desk and lay the paper before his father. Paddin took it up, read it once quickly, and then looked up at the scene in his office, thoroughly confused. Pippin tapped the back of the paper and looked at him expectantly. Paddin shook his head, cleared his throat, and read aloud,

“Whereas, Will Whitfoot, Mayor of the Shire, and as such First Shiriff of the Shire, has received the notice of intent of Shiriff Olo Proudfoot of the West Farthing to retire from such position in three years’ time, said Mayor Whitfoot announces that he will accept applications for candidates to the position of Shiriff of the West Farthing during the first two months of the year 1399, Shire Reckoning, being Afteryule and Solmath. The chosen candidate will undergo an apprenticeship training under Shiriff Proudfoot to commence on the First of Rethe, 1399, Shire Reckoning, and to conclude with the transference of office on this same date in the year 1402, Shire Reckoning. In accordance with the mayoral seat and the request of Shiriff Proudfoot, the apprenticeship will be based in the city of Michel Delving. Applicants must have reached the age of majority at the scheduled time for transference of office. Signed Will Whitfoot, Olo Proudfoot, etc., etc.

“-- seven required signatures, very much in order,” concluded Paladin. “I wonder why this didn’t come in an earlier post?” he muttered to himself.

The lass, at least, had stopped crying, and was now gulping for air in his office. “That’s -- that’s what it says, sir?” she asked timidly.

“Of course,” Paddin responded as he let the paper flutter back to his desk, where Pippin promptly picked it up again. “Is there something amiss?”

“N-no, sir,” she gulped out, then a smile shone behind her tears. “Just a misunderstanding is all.” She glanced over to Pippin and looked as if she might be considering hugging him, but when he did not turn toward her, she gave a quick curtsy and rushed back out toward the kitchens.

Pippin was still staring at the the notice he held in his hands, an odd look on his face.

“A little young to be thinking of going for shiriff, aren’t you?” Paddin asked him in a nervous tone. It would never do if his lad got the wrong sort of dreams in his head. On the other foot...perhaps it was best to let these fantasies play out early, before even Paladin himself became Thain in fact as well as in practice.

“Keep the paper if you like,” he smiled indulgently and waved Pippin off. “I’ll let all the hobbits who need to know about this. ‘Twill be a simpler announcement than that is, for sure, as Will never uses one word when seven will do.”

Pippin waited the next day until close to the time he knew his father would release Regi, then darted down the corridor that housed the older hobbit’s family quarters. He dropped Mayor Whitfoot’s notice, crumpled from being in his breeches pocket all day, in front of their door so that it looked as if it had carelessly fallen. Then he scampered back to the safety of his own family’s rooms.

At the end of Solmath, Pippin hung back between his family and the groups of hobbits saying their farewells.

“Well, you’ve been a great deal of help to me these years, lad.”

“Thank you, Cousin Paddin. I am always glad to be of service to you.”

“No, no, don’t worry about me.” Paddin clapped Regi on the back. “I’ll have a new assistant in hand before long.” He glanced over at Pippin and winked.

“Yes, of course,” Regi answered stiffly.

“You just go on and make something of yourself, lad,” Paddin continued. “You’ll do a lot of roaming as a shiriff -- might even get down to the South Farthing a time or few. Ought to give the Longbottom Leaf a try while you’re there.”

“Yes, Cousin Paddin,” Regi answered. He suddenly smiled. “Perhaps I’ll even make myself into a two-feather shiriff someday.”

“Hoy, that’s a good one!” Paddin laughed, clapping Regi on the back again. “Off with you, now.”

When the families and close friends had said their goodbyes to the departing hobbits and the last cart had rolled away from the yard, Pippin approached Everard, who stood with his head down and tears running down his face. He slipped his small hand into the teen’s, then lifted up his face to the tear-stained one and put his other arm around Everard in a hug.


When he woke one morning early in Rethe, Pippin felt different. He eagerly consumed first breakfast, then went in search of Everard.

He led the older hobbit to a particular storage room. This was one thing Pippin had missed doing before, and he knew Everard wouldn’t mind if it wasn’t exactly the right time to be doing it now.

He pulled the end of his family’s Yule log out into the room a little, and then seated himself and Everard on the floor in front of it, clasping hands.

Opening his mouth wide, Pippin offered his high-pitched belated serenade to the Yule log.

“Sing Hey! Sing Hey!
For Yuletide days,
Twine mistletoe and holly,
For friendship grows,
In winter snows,
And so let’s all be jolly!”* *


___________
*Each week in the Shire calendar begins on Saturday, as does the new year. Fellowship of the Ring, Appendix D, “The Calendars.”

**Traditional nursery rhyme, adapted.