(Part Two)

Paladin puffed upon his pipe in the lee of the barn. Snow covered the ground, and the air was crisp, his breath visible even without the smoke. Yet it was not the cold weather that wracked his body with chills.

So cold -- so cold for such a small babe, not even meant to be born so soon. They were lucky that the healer come from Whitwell in the night had learnt a few tricks from the healers of the Great Smials.

‘Twas where all the best healers in the Shire were, ‘twas Great Smials. And ‘twas where Rumby wanted Paddin to remove to. And didna Pad’s new little lad deserve naught but all the best? The best healers...

Pad gave another shiver and wiped his eyes as he thought of the small babe with his sneezes and his weakening cries as Pad held him. He had known his son for but a few short minutes, and already, to lose him...to lose him would be more than Pad could bear. For with that loss would go all of his reawakened dreams, and the future he could see laid out before him.

“Peregrin,” he whispered into the still air. “Thain Peregrin.”

Yes, his lad would grow to be strong and brave and true, to be the best Thain the Shire had ever seen. Pad would not let any doubts weaken his confidence in his son again. He would give his lad the strength of his own convictions -- and the best healers in the Shire.


“Wha’s dat?” four-year-old Pervinca asked ten-year-old Pimpernel as the lasses stood sleepily in their nightgowns in the Whitwell farmhouse great room. Mama was still in her bedroom, with the door closed, Da was outside, Aunt Essie busy with something in the pantry on the other side of the room, and teenaged Pearl still asleep on the guest bed.

“I don’t know,” Pimpernel whispered back, for she knew something serious had happened in the night. She raised herself slightly on her tiptoes, but could not see over the edges of the flannel blanket-lined box pushed toward the back of the cookstove’s warm surface.

“I suppose it must be a piglet,” she told her little sister, for Pimpernel had heard that sometimes farm animals required such care.

Paladin entered the smial, stomping the snow off his feet with a gust of cold air, and opened his arms for his daughters to press their warm bodies against his cold limbs.

“Good morning, Da!” Pimpernel called out happily before clamping a hand over her mouth as she realized she had meant to stay quiet this morning.

“Da!” Pervinca chirped in echo, having no such qualms about the noise.

“Good morning to two of my loveliest lasses!” was Paddin’s jovial response, although Pimpernel noticed there was something funny about Da’s eyes this morning.

He stood up and walked with them over to the cookstove, clutching one daughter’s hand in each of his. “Do you know what’s in this box?” he asked them, looking down upon it himself with the goofy smile he sometimes got when they played games.

“P’gl’t!” Pervinca announced.

Paladin gave a bit of a start and then a wry chuckle as he extracted his hands and reached for the box to lift it down.

“No, lasses, this is your brother,” he said as he held the box down where they could see the tiny babe swaddled in a nest among the blanket-wrapped bricks that lined the edges. “His name is Peregrin.”

Pimpernel just stared with her mouth open in a round “o.”

Pervinca looked into the box and announced again, with as much confidence as before, “P’gl’t!”

Paladin began to look a bit cross, but before he could say anything, the babe let out a loud wail, bringing Essie over as Pad lifted him out of the box.

“Hush, now,” he crooned. “Pipe down, lad. My, but you’re pipin’ loud,” he chortled.

Pearl had just entered the great room as her father lifted the babe. As she yawned and stretched, she thought she heard a word she had not expected.

“Da?” she asked her father from where she stood. “’Tis a lad?”

“Aye,” Paladin grinned at her from where he stood holding the still wailing baby, who was swinging a tiny fist and making sucking motions with his mouth.

“Well,” Pearl said brightly as her aunt took the babe from her father and brought him in to Eglantine, “Seems ‘twill be a few changes around here.”

“Aye,” Paladin nodded, his face growing slightly more sober. “And speaking of changes...what would you lasses think of removing to the Great Smials?” he asked as if it were a sudden inspiration.

Pearl gasped and clasped her hands together. “Oh, Dad, could we truly?” she asked before spinning about so that her nightgown twirled around her. “’Tis said that they have all the best parties, you know, and they’re ever so much fun for the teen and tween hobbits and hobbitesses!”

Pimpernel gave a shy, uncertain smile and nod toward her father, but her eyes remained confused as she glanced toward the door to her parents’ bedroom.

Pervinca did not care one way or another about any such discussion, but she was disappointed that Aunt Essie was letting Mama, and not her, play with the piglet.

Paladin looked around at his daughters, then turned his own eyes toward the bedroom door with a decisive nod. “Aye,” he said. “A new life now awaits us.”


Boxes and bundles were the order of the day at Whitwell a few short weeks later. The Brandybucks had returned to help with the packing up and the move.

Young Merry was fascinated with the new baby, and managed to be underfoot whenever one of the hobbitesses was tending to him. In part this was because he was interested to see if the lad would ever *do* something besides produce that ear-splitting shriek of his. In part, it was because his presence proved such a distraction to the older hobbits that they were very likely to hand him a biscuit, or some sort of snack, as a bribe to encourage him to go elsewhere, no matter how near or far it was to mealtime. This worked particularly well at the times when Merry could say of his newest little cousin, “Well, *he’s* eating!”

Also, Merry had discovered, grown-up hobbits were very forgiving if, after you dropped a china figurine and broke it, you told them that it was only because the baby had been reaching for it and you just wanted to move it to where he wouldn’t see it anymore.

Yes, it was becoming quite clear, thought Merry, that this new little cousin could prove to be a handy little lad indeed.

He even had a name that Merry quite approved of. Peregrin shortened quite naturally to Perry, he thought, just as Meriadoc did to Merry. It was too bad the grown hobbits did not feel the same way.

“Can I help you change Perry?” “But I want to watch you feed Perry!” “Perry is quite a handsome little lad, Uncle Paddin.”

After dozens of such entreaties and comments, Paladin finally drew Merry aside for a little talk.

“Meriadoc,” he began. “Peregrin is my son.”

“Of course he is, Uncle Paddin,” Merry agreed. “And Perry looks to be a fine little lad, too.”

Pad sighed. “His name,” he said slowly, “is Peregrin. He is not to be called ‘Perry.’” He held up a hand to stop Merry’s imminent protest.

“Ah-ah. I remember what ‘twas like, to grow up with sisters called Essie and Bessie, and how you couldna tell who was being called for, or scolded for what mischief.”

“’Twas all her fault,” Merry’s mum muttered of her sister Bessamyn from where she sat listening to the conversation.

“I hope that you and my Peregrin shall be good friends, and spend much time together, and I’ll not be having the same confusion, to not be able to tell where one hobbit ends and the other begins.”

Paladin stopped Merry as he opened his mouth again. “And he is my lad to name, and I’ll not be having a seven-year-old--”

“Almost eight,” muttered Merry and Essie together under their breaths, Merry’s tone resentful and Essie’s resigned.

“--be given the naming of him,” Paladin continued. “’Sides,” he sat back on his haunches and grinned. “If I’m to be ‘Paddin’ for ‘Paladin,’ he shall be something along the lines.”

“Oy!” groaned Pearl, clamping her hands over her ears as the babe began to shriek just as she passed through the room. “’Tis pipin’ loud indeed!”

“’Twill -- ‘twill be ‘Pippin,’ will be his common name,” laughed Pad.

When the waggons were nearly all packed, Merry’s mum bade him give one last tour through the farmhouse to see if anything had been left behind.

“Be sure to look everywhere,” she told him. “Wouldn’t want one of the lasses to lose their treasures.”

As Merry made a final pass through the great room, where he could hear Mum and Aunt Eg talking outside, he noticed a lone box left before the still-warm embers of the hearth.

Looking in, he was surprised to see the baby slumbering.

“Mum! Mum!” he rushed to the doorway. “They forgot -- Pippin,” he concluded as he caught sight of his uncle.

“Nay, Merry, we didna forget him,” Aunt Eg smiled at him. “We’re just keeping him warm as long as possible.”

Uncle Paladin had gone inside and came out now with the well-wrapped baby, to whom he said, “Nay, we couldna forget you, lad. You are our dearest treasure.”

The End