Merry's Grandmother by Grey Wonderer
Merry gets to know his Grandmother Took...

These are not my characters. They belong to J. R. R. Tolkien. He created them for us to enjoy and I am just borrowing them.

Challenge 17: Use the following starter sentence; There hadn’t been such a festive day in those parts in living memory.
Characters should be, Merry, his grandmother Took and an elf.

Rated: G
Characters: Merry age 27, Pippin age 19, and Grandmother Took age 112.
Written by: Grey_Wonderer
Beta by: Marigold
Title: “Merry’s Grandmother”

There hadn’t been such a festive day in those parts in living memory. Never mind that the guest of honor had not yet arrived. Never mind that Esmeralda Brandybuck, who was in charge of it all, was running about trying to see to everything at once. Never mind that poor Saradoc Brandybuck was nearly worn out from making arrangements, moving tables, shaking hands with half of the Shire, and explaining that the guest of honor would be arriving shortly. Never mind that all of the Great Hall’s guest rooms were full to over-flowing. None of that mattered because there was plenty of food, plenty of ale, and plenty of lively music for dancing. Everyone on the other side of the river might think of the Brandybucks as a queer lot, but no one ever said a word against their parties. The Brandybucks knew how to throw a party, no mistake.

As Saradoc tapped another keg of ale for the guests, his wife approached him, wiping her hands on her apron, a strand of her hair in her eyes, and spoke in a whisper. “Where do you suppose that they are? It’s getting late.”

********************

“Oh, Merry doesn’t mind at all, do you dear?” Merry remembered his mum saying that morning at first breakfast. She hadn’t asked Merry if he would mind. Merry was very sure of that fact. If he had been asked, then he would have told her that he minded very much indeed. He was annoyed with the entire chain of events. He was annoyed with his mum, he was annoyed with his mum’s family, he was annoyed with his father, and he was annoyed with his grandmother. Just now, as he sat in the dirt by the side of the road trying to straighten the metal rim of the fancy carriage wheel, he was most annoyed with his younger cousin, Pippin.

Pippin was pacing back and forth making suggestions and chattering endlessly. “Maybe I could get a larger stone,” Pippin said. “Maybe if we put the rim of the wheel down upon it and then one of us brought another stone down on top of it-“

“One of us might smash the other one’s fingers,” Merry said, curtly. ‘That’s a wonderful idea, Pippin. It’s almost as good as your suggestion that we jump up and down on the rim, or maybe it’s as grand a suggestion as the one you made before that. What was it? Something about letting the pony stand on the rim, I believe?”

“I’m only trying to help,” Pippin said, clearly insulted, but Merry didn’t care just now. He raised the rim of the wheel on its end and stared at it trying to see if anything he’d done to this point had worked.

“You should be grateful for a bit of help,” Pippin muttered. “If I hadn’t waited behind with you, then you and Gram would be here all alone, you know.”

“Fine,” Merry said, getting to his feet and thrusting the heavy wheel into Pippin’s hands. “Fix it!” He stalked off toward the trees where the ponies were tied.

“I will!” Pippin said, looking uncertainly at the wheel in his hands and wishing that he’d kept his mouth shut. Why couldn’t he ever just keep his mouth shut? He didn’t have any idea how to fix this carriage wheel. He was used to wooden wheels, not this sort of fancy kind of wheel with a metal rim and tiny spokes. He looked over toward Merry and sighed. He wasn’t sure which would be worse, taking the wheel over and admitting that he didn’t know what he was doing, or standing here like an idiot and trying to fix it. From the set of Merry’s shoulders, he decided that looking like an idiot and trying to fix the wheel would be best for now. Merry was in a very bad mood and Pippin was already on his older cousin’s bad side, though he wasn’t sure how he’d got there this time.

Pippin looked over at his grandmother who was sitting in a rocker under a shade tree. She looked as if she were napping. Pippin sighed and looked back at the wheel. If only they had some tools with them. His Gram had thought to have someone secure her favorite rocking chair to the back of the wagon, but had not thought to bring along a spare carriage wheel or any tools. Someone should have seen to it that Gram’s carriage was better supplied, but no one had. Now, he and Merry and Gram were out here on the road to Buckland with a three-wheeled carriage and no tools.

“Give me that,” Merry growled, coming up behind Pippin and reaching for the wheel.

Startled, Pippin turned and looked at Merry who was holding the reins of one of the ponies in his hand. “What are you going to do with the pony, Merry?” Pippin asked, giving the wheel to Merry.

“Nothing,” Merry said, taking the wheel and giving Pippin the pony’s reins. Pippin stood there while Merry leaned the wheel against the ridiculous carriage and waited.

“Merry, I’m sorry, I only meant to help,” Pippin began as Merry turned back to him.

“I know,” Merry said. “And now you’re going to get your chance.”

“How?” Pippin asked, brightening.

“You are going to get on this pony and ride to the Hall and tell my father what has happened,” Merry said. “I will stay here with our Grandmother and this excuse for a wagon.” Merry didn’t think much of the fancy little carriage with the covered top and padded seats. It just wasn’t practical.

Pippin looked uncertainly at the pony and then over at Merry. “Are you sure?” he asked. “You trust me to do this? You’re going to let me ride?”

“I may be daft, but I trust you to do this,” Merry said. “Just don’t fall off of that pony Peregrin Took, do you hear me?”

“I won’t fall off, Merry,” Pippin said, straightening. “I hardly ever fall off anymore. I’m getting ever so much better at riding.”

“Yes, I think it’s been nearly two weeks since the last time that you landed on your backside,” Merry said, dryly.

“That was your pony what threw me,” Pippin said, tartly. “He doesn’t much like me and he tosses me for sport, I think.”

“Well, all the same,” Merry said. “Be careful and try to stay on this pony. Don’t go too fast and hang on to the reins. Keep your eyes on the road and keep the pony on the road. No short-cuts, Pippin.”

“I’ll be fine,” Pippin said, hoping that Merry wasn’t about to change his mind.

“Now there’s no saddle on this pony, so you’ll need to keep your knees in tight against her sides,” Merry said, boosting Pippin onto the pony’s back.

“I’ve ridden without a saddle plenty of times,” Pippin said, becoming annoyed with all of Merry’s fussing. “When we plow the fields, I ride the plow pony all the time.”

“This is not a plow pony and it isn’t used to being ridden,” Merry said, sternly, looking up at Pippin. “Don’t fall. You hear me?”

“I won’t,” Pippin said in an exasperated tone.

“I’ll keep working on the carriage wheel while you’re gone,” Merry said. “Maybe I’ll get it fixed, but without the proper tools I doubt it. Now, get going and do be careful.”

Pippin nodded and turned the pony onto the road and set off with Merry watching until he was out of sight.

“So, you’ve sent for help, have you?” his grandmother’s voice said, from behind him.

Merry turned and walked over to her rocker and knelt down on the grass next to it. “There wasn’t anything else left to do,” Merry said. “I can’t fix that wheel without any tools. You don’t even have a hammer in your carriage, Grandmother Took.”

“Well, I’ve never needed one before,” she said, adjusting her skirt a bit. “I don’t recall a thing like this happening with my carriage before. I suspect that you hit a rock with that wheel. You were going a bit too fast, you know. I believe that I told you to slow down just before you bent my wheel.”

Merry swallowed his anger, or tried to, and replied. “I was trying to get you to your birthday celebration on time. Since we didn’t leave at the scheduled time, I was trying to catch us up to the others so that you wouldn’t miss your own party,” Merry said, keeping his voice even. He wanted to shout at her, but he didn’t dare. This was his grandmother on his mum’s side and he didn’t know her well enough to shout at her. Pippin knew her well enough, but Merry had not spent much time with her at all. In fact, he wouldn’t be spending time with her now if his own mum hadn’t volunteered him to drive Grandmother Took’s carriage for her.

His grandmother had not felt like leaving the Inn after first breakfast and had decided to wait until after second breakfast to leave for Buckland. Merry and his parents had travelled to the Great Smials to visit with Grandmother Took a week ago. In spite of the fact that they had been there all week, Merry had not spent any time alone with her. He had taken off with his cousins and had spent most of his time outside with the other lads. His mum had a huge birthday party planned back in Buckland for his grandmother and so they were taking her there for a few weeks. Merry could not remember the last time that Grandmother Took had visited Buckland.

They had spent the night at an Inn on the way so that the trip from the Great Smials in Tuckborough to Brandy Hall in Buckland would not be so hard on his grandmother who was soon to be one hundred and twelve. Everyone else needed to hurry ahead so that they could begin the party preparations and so Merry had been left with his grandmother. Pippin, who had ridden along with them, had quickly begun to beg to stay with Merry. Not wanting to be alone with his grandmother, Merry had helped Pippin talk the adults into allowing this.

“This is the sort of thing that comes from getting in too big a hurry, lad,” she said. “It’s no good rushing about like a chicken with its head cut off.”

“Most carriages have tools and spare wheels in case of emergencies,” Merry said, stiffly. “Your carriage doesn’t.”

“Never needed those things,” she said, stubbornly.

“That’s why they call them emergency supplies,” Merry said. “You have them in the event that something of this sort happens. It’s proper planning.”

“I don’t do the planning anymore,” she said, a bit softer. “Everyone else plans things out for me and I just go along with it all. It’s what they do to you when you get on in years. Other folks plan for you and you sit back and allow it.”

Merry frowned. “Well, it is your carriage,” he said.

“It is,” she said. “Your grandfather bought it for me. He had it built somewhere outside of the Shire and brought here special so I wouldn’t have to travel about on a pony after my leg was broken. Blasted thing never healed properly and so I can’t ride anymore. Your grandfather wanted me to have that carriage and so I have it. It was too grand for a farmer and his wife, but he bought it all the same and it cost him dearly.”

“That was nice of him,” Merry said, interested. “I didn’t know that you’d ever broken your leg.”

“It happened a long time ago,” she said. “You weren’t born yet. Your mother was just married to your father and all of the others were grown or gone from the farm by then. It was just your grandfather and I there alone with some of the help that worked the fields for us. I had hoped that one of my children would live nearby, but at that time, none of them did. Even Paladin was off then. He was working on some farms for the Thain at the time. It was good money and he was trying to keep those lasses of his fed and clothed and so he went to where the money was. He had Pearl then and Pimpernel was a tiny babe at that time. Eglantine was always ill, bless her, and so she was no help. This was just before we gave the farm to Paladin and moved up to the Great Smials. Part of the reason we did that was because of my leg. I wasn’t up to doing my share of the farm work for quite a long while.”

“I didn’t know that,” Merry said. He really should be over by the carriage working on the wheel, but he’d never heard this story before. He’d never had much chance to talk with his grandmother Took and so he’d not heard any of her stories really.

She was quiet for so long that Merry thought that she might not say anything more, but just as he was about to get up, she began again. “I was out in the barn feeding the ponies when it happened,” she said. “I was just finishing putting the oats in the trough when I heard something up in the loft. It startled me because I knew that everyone else was out in the fields just then. We had a couple of old barn cats but the noise was too loud to have been one of them. Well, there was no one to check on it but me and I was a right bit younger than I am now,” she said. “When you’re young, you don’t think about what might happen to you, you just go on and do things as if there aren’t any consequences at all. I was old enough to know better then that, but I was impulsive. Peregrin might just get that from me.”

Merry smiled. “He gets it from someone,” he agreed.

“Well, up that ladder to the loft I went without a thought as to what might be up there,” she said shaking her head and sighing. “I bought myself quite a bit of trouble that day with my actions.” She reached down and rubbed her leg through her skirt. “I’d no more than topped the ladder than I spied him. I’d never seen anything like him in all my life and I never have again.”

“What did you see?” Merry asked, eyes wide with interest. He hadn’t known that he could be interested in anything that his Grandmother Took might have to say. He’d been dreading spending time alone with her and had nearly left Pippin here with her and ridden for help himself just to avoid that very thing. When his mum had suggested that he stay behind and drive his grandmother’s carriage to Buckland today, he had dreaded that too. His grandmother was always so prim and proper. She always made him feel self-conscious whenever he was around her. He’d never spent much time with her and so he had never become close to her. When the carriage wheel had bent, he had figured this was going to be another experience that he’d rather forget, but now, all of the sudden; he found that he was enjoying her company. He sat at her feet on the grass by the rocker and listened like a small child might.

“Well, now when I tell this part of it, you’ll likely think that I’m a crazy old lass who’s lost her mind,” she said, looking intently at him. “But, I’ll risk that. Just don’t mention this one to your mum because she’s never believed a word of it. She and your grandfather thought that it all came from the knock on the head that I got in the same fall that broke my leg, but I’ll always believe that I saw what I saw.”

“I won’t tell,” Merry said, interested to hear what it was that his mother had not believed.

“Well, I was holding tight to the ladder at the top and there he stood, looking back at me,” she said. “He was frightened too, I believe, because he gasped and stood up quickly. He was taller than anyone I’d ever seen and right off I suspected that he was one of the big folk, but he wasn’t.” She smiled. “He had long, straight, golden hair and the most perfect skin that I’ve ever seen. His eyes were as blue as the sky. He was dressed in brown and he moved so fast and so sure of foot. I was startled to see him coming toward me and that’s when I fell.” She shifted a bit in her chair and looked down at Merry. “You see, I didn’t know exactly what he was and I had no way of knowing that he wouldn’t hurt me. He was coming toward me and I was frightened. I meant to climb down that ladder as fast as I could and go for help, but my foot got tangled up in my skirt and I fell. I saw him reach for me, but he was too far away to catch me in time.”

“What was he?’ Merry asked, curiously.

“Well, now don’t laugh, but I think he was one of the fair folk,” she said, eyeing Merry and waiting for his response.

“An elf?” Merry asked, amazed.

“One of them, I suspect,” she said. “He had a light about him and he was so beautiful. I was frightened but it made me feel such pleasure inside just to look upon him.”

“What happened then?” Merry asked.

“Well, I don’t remember hitting the ground, but I know that I did,” she said. “When I woke up, I was lying on the floor of the barn and everything hurt. I was wrapped in a brown stable blanket that he must have put over me and there he was standing there and looking down at me.”

“He stayed?” Merry asked.

“Oh, yes,” she answered. “One of the fair folk would stay, Meriadoc. They’d not leave someone injured alone. I got the impression that this one felt guilty about my accident. He thought it was his fault that I’d fallen. He leaned over me and spoke quietly, but I have no idea what he might have said to me. I do know that it was a very pretty language. It sounded like music but he wasn’t singing, he was only talking. I suspect that he was trying to comfort me in his way. He had a very kind face and the only eyes that I’ve ever seen that come close to matching his are those of your cousin, Frodo Baggins. The fair one’s eyes were that very shade of blue.”

‘Did you try to speak to him?” Merry asked.

“I did try, but I was in such pain that I could barely stand it,” she said. “Besides, he wouldn’t have understood me either. I only looked at him while he stroked my hair and talked to me in that strange language. Later, I tried to remember what it was that he had said so I might tell it to Bilbo Baggins. I knew if anyone would know what the elf was saying it would be Bilbo, but I couldn’t remember a word of it.” She smiled and reached into her pocket and pulled out a thin chain with a small, blue crystal on the end of it. “He put this into my apron pocket, or at least, I believe that he did.” She held it up for Merry to see.

“That’s beautiful,” Merry said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

“Nor have I,” she agreed. “When I woke up later, I was in my own bed. I was in and out of consciousness for days and most of the time I was under the effects of some pain draught or a sleeping draught and so it was very hard to think clearly. It was several weeks before I was allowed to sit up and was able to ask and answer questions. Seems that I almost died from the fall. My leg was nearly ruined and it was over a year before I could walk on my own again. I still limp and when the weather turns damp, I might just as well stay in bed. The knee swells and I can’t put any weight on it. I was lucky that I healed as well as I did. It was quite a fall and the healer said that I should have died. I believe that the elf must have done something to help, though I can’t say what that might have been.”

“Did you tell them all about the elf?” Merry asked, still looking at the bright blue crystal.

“I told your mum, your grandfather, and poor, sensible, Paladin,” she chuckled. Her eyes looked far away as if remembering it all. “Paladin thought I had completely lost my mind. That little snip of a lad of his is so different from Paladin that I can hardly believe that Peregrin is his sometimes.” She smiled and shook her head. “Peregrin would have believed me, but Paladin simply couldn’t and neither could my dear husband. Now, I sometimes think that your mum believed it, but I doubt that she’d admit it. So, after a time I just didn’t speak of it. Years later, I told it to Bilbo and he believed every word.”

Merry grinned. “Bilbo’s talked to the elves and he knows what they are like. I am sure it wasn’t hard at all for him to believe you.”

“I took comfort in that,” she agreed. “Bilbo made me feel less foolish about it all.”

“But didn’t they believe you when you showed them the crystal?” Merry asked. “Surely that made them believe at least a little bit.”

“It might have, but I never showed them the crystal,” she said. “I didn’t find it until much later. It was in my apron pocket and when I came to, I was in my night gown and in bed. I didn’t find it until I was able to hobble about a bit on crutches. My apron was folded neatly and laying on a chair near my bed. I suspect that your mum folded it and never bothered to look in the pockets. If she saw it, she never mentioned it. It was nearly six months after my fall that I found it and by then I had made up my mind not to discuss my elf with any of them.” She looked proud and stubborn when she said this and Merry could see a trace of his own mum in her. “I showed it to Bilbo after I’d told him my story, but no one else knows that I have it.”

“Did you ever tell Pippin about the elf?” Merry asked.

“No,” she said. “As I’ve said, he’d have likely believed it, but I didn’t tell him. I suspected that the idea might excite him and that he might go running to his father with questions about it. I knew that Paladin wouldn’t approve of my putting fanciful notions into Peregrin’s head. I didn’t want to worry Paladin and I didn’t want to get Peregrin into trouble with his father. I dare say he has enough of that as it is with the two of them being so different from one another.” Her eyes were sad, but she didn’t say more about that. “You are the only one of my grandchildren that knows this story.”

For some reason this made Merry feel special in a way that he had never felt with his Took Grandmother. Pippin called her Gram and knew her well. He had visited her often as a little lad and she had come to his smial too. Pippin had sat on her lap when he was small and she had tucked him into bed and told him other stories. Pippin had grown up knowing her and living on the farm that she had once lived on. Merry had very few memories of his grandmother. She didn’t visit Buckland. In fact, this party was so important to everyone because it was one of the few times that his Took Grandmother was coming to Brandy Hall.

Merry’s mum and his grandmother were not as close as they might have been. They had grown apart over the years. This was partly because Merry’s mum lived in Buckland and was the wife of the Master of Buckland. Both of them had been stubborn about certain family matters in the past. It wasn’t always easy for Merry’s mum to be so far from her own kin. For all of these reasons, Merry didn’t have much of a chance to know this grandmother.

“Lad, are you all right?” she asked him when he had been still for some time.

“I’m fine,” Merry said. “I was just wondering about it all. I wonder why the elf was in your barn to begin with. What do you suppose he was doing?”

“I’ve thought a great deal about that one myself,” she said. “I never found the answer to that riddle. Bilbo seemed to think that the elf might have been very young and curious. He thought that maybe the elf had just come into our barn for a look around, or maybe he had come to see our animals. Bilbo says that the fair folk have a special way with animals and other creatures that hobbits don’t. Whatever the reason, Bilbo suspected that the elf must be very young or he would not have risked coming into our barn.”

“Do you ever wish that he hadn’t come?” Merry asked. “I mean because of what happened to your leg?”

“I did for a time, but now I am very glad that I had a chance to see him,” she smiled. “It’s a very clear memory. Some of the things that have happened to me in my long life are not so easily recalled, but if I close my eyes, even now I can see him as if he were standing right in front of this chair. He was a wonder to behold. All things considered, I believe that his coming was meant to be. It forced us to realize that we no longer needed to be farming and out in Whitwell all alone and it also gave us a reason to put the farm into Paladin’s keeping. Paladin is a very proud, stubborn, hobbit and he would not have taken the farm unless he truly believed that we could no longer work it. Times change and sometimes little things direct the course of your life. I think that my elf had a hand in directing our lives. I don’t regret it. Your grandfather and I still had each other for a time after that.” She smiled at Merry, fondly. “So you believe me when I say that I saw one of the fair folk in my barn loft?”

“I do,” Merry said, looking up at her. He studied her with his intelligent, grey eyes as if seeing her for the first time. “I’m sorry that you and I don’t get along better,” he said suddenly.

She laughed. “How can we get along if we never see one another? It isn’t your fault, Meriadoc. It’s just the way that life has treated us. You don’t always have control over things. Even if you might wish them to be different, you can’t always change them.”

“I suppose not,” Merry agreed. “Still, it might have been nice to know you better when I was small.”

“I would have liked that very much,” she said, and she reached over and pressed the small, bright, crystal into his hand. “I want you to have this.”

“I can’t take your elf crystal,” Merry objected, trying to hand it back to her.

“Yes, you can,” she said, gently. “I’m going to my one hundred and twelfth birthday party, Meriadoc and in all of my years of owning that crystal, only two hobbits who’ve heard the tale have believed it. I don’t want to go on to the over-heaven when my time comes and leave that with someone who won’t see it for what it is. I’ll not be around forever and sometimes there isn’t time in the end to see to the small things. I want you to have this now so that when my time comes, I will know that it is in good hands.”

Merry held it in his hands and looked up at her. “I should think that you would want to keep it until, well, for as long as you’re here.”

“No, I’ve enjoyed that crystal for the time that I’ve had it,” she said. “It was important to me because sometimes I doubted my own rather incredible tale, but when I did, this crystal would remind me that it had happened. I would take it out and hold it and think about my visit with that fair creature. Now, as I get older, I can close my eyes and see his face whenever I want to see him. It’s like I told you before, I don’t need the crystal anymore.” She ran a wrinkled hand through Merry’s curls and smiled at him sadly. “I haven’t been much of a grandmother to you, child, and it would please me to know that I had, at least, given you this bit of myself. You and I haven’t shared many things, but we’ve shared this. You, Bilbo and I are the only ones that have seen that crystal. I don’t wear it. I carry it with me because I’ve not wanted to share it with anyone. I like to think of him as my elf. Now, I’ve shared him with you and in a way, he’s your elf too.”

Merry rose up and kissed her on the cheek. “I haven’t been much of a grandson and I don’t think that I have anything that I can give you,” he said.

“You have given me your trust, Meriadoc,” she said. “There is no greater gift. Ask Peregrin when he returns if you don’t believe. You had only to look at his eyes when you trusted him to ride for help a few minutes ago to know that what I’m saying is true. You trusted him to get help while we waited and you trusted that what I told you was the truth.”

“Bilbo trusted you,” Merry said, looking down at the beautiful blue crystal in his hands.

“Bilbo trusted me because he’d seen what I was describing,” she said. “He knows the fair folk. Why did you believe it?”

“Because I don’t think you’d make all of that up,” Merry said. “You’re a sensible hobbit and I’ve never heard that you were given to fanciful thoughts. Also, you’re my grandmother and, though we’ve never been close, you’ve never lied to me about anything.”

“Exactly,” she said. “You take that crystal and keep it and one day when you have a little one of your own, you tell them my story. Then some day when you are ready to let the crystal go, you give it to someone who has faith in it and in you.” She kissed him again and then they both looked up. They could hear the unmistakable sound of an approaching cart.

Merry quickly put the crystal in his pocket with one hand and waved with the other as Saradoc Brandybuck pulled a cart in beside Grandmother Took’s carriage and climbed down. “Pippin says that you have wheel trouble,” Saradoc’s voice boomed.

“That we do,” Merry answered, helping his grandmother to her feet and giving her his arm.

“Well, your mother has her hands full with a smial loaded with relations all waiting for the birthday lass to make an appearance and so here I am to take you both to the party,” Saradoc said.

“Well, it’s kind of you to come and get us, Saradoc, but we were doing just fine in the shade of that nice old oak,” Merry’s grandmother said. “I was just getting to know my grandson a bit better and enjoying this peaceful afternoon.”

Saradoc grinned. “You are lucky to have enjoyed the peaceful afternoon. It is anything but peaceful back at Brandy Hall.” He reached out to help her into the cart and she let go of Merry’s arm and allowed it.

“I’ll just get the rocker,” Merry said. “Oh, and the other pony.”

Saradoc chuckled. “Yes, get that pony while you’re about it.”

Merry turned and looked at his father quizzically. “What’s so funny?”

“Pippin,” Saradoc said, with another laugh.

“What’s he done?” Merry asked.

“Seems all he can talk about is how he managed to ride Grandmother Took’s cart pony to the Hall without falling off a single time,” Saradoc chuckled. “He says that as if it is a near miracle of some sort and that the normal thing would have been to fall off several times.”

Merry grinned. “The normal thing for Pippin would have been to fall off several times. You know how much trouble he has staying on a pony.”

Saradoc smiled. “Once he’d told us where you were and what had happened to the cart, all he’s wanted to do is to tell us about every inch of his ride to the Hall to deliver your message. He wanted to come back with me to get you two, but I didn’t think I could listen to his description of the ride again. I can only hear the words, ‘I nearly fell but I managed to hold up because Merry was counting on me’ so many times without losing what’s left of my mind.”

“I knew he could do it if he just concentrated and didn’t get distracted by anything,” Merry said, turning to get the rocker.

“I don’t know what made you decided to trust him to ride to the Hall, but he didn’t let you down,” Saradoc laughed. “I wouldn’t put Pippin on a pony and send him for help if my life depended upon it. I love that little imp, but he is just not a rider. You and your mum got all of that sort of talent in this family.”

“Some folks just know whom they can trust,” Grandmother Took said, smiling at Merry as he put the rocker into the back of the wagon.

Merry returned her smile and went to get the remaining pony. He would have to remember to brag on Pippin for making it to the Hall. A bit of encouragement just might make all the difference in his younger cousin’s riding skills. Pippin always seemed to do better with a little praise than he did when criticized. Besides, Merry was proud of Pippin for managing it.

Saradoc looked over at Merry who was leading the pony over to the cart and then over at his wife’s mother. He had the feeling that he’d missed something important today but he wasn’t sure what it might be. Whatever it was, it seemed to have been good for both Merry and Mrs. Took and Saradoc doubted that he’d hear a word about it from either of them. Mrs. Took smiled back at him and said, “You have a fine lad there, Saradoc. Don’t ever forget that.”

The End

G.W. 05/31/2005