In the days that followed, Merry, Sam and Pippin were joined in shifts by their wives and by some of their children--namely Goldilocks, Faramir, Hamfast, and Periadoc--in reading through the thousands of words Nordri had sent. For the spouses and children, the books were an endless source of fascination. Although all three Walkers had spoken of their adventures, it was fascinating and often revealing to the outsiders to read the words of others concerning the events of more than thirty years before.

Faramir had unceasing queries, to the point where Peregrin felt a belated sympathy for Gandalf, pestered by a younger Pippin's incessant questioning. He answered those of his son's inquiries he could, and deflected those he could not onto Merry, who still loved to pontificate, luckily. But sometimes he simply had no answers.

"Father," said Faramir one snowy afternoon when it was just the two of them in the room, "this book says Boromir failed the Fellowship. It calls him a traitor and a betrayor." The lad's face was so bewildered as he gazed at the Thain that Peregrin felt his heart tighten. "Was he, Father?"

Pippin chose his words carefully. "Well, my son, I know that Boromir was sorely tempted by the Ring. Tempted beyond his strength, perhaps. But I know also that he tried valiantly to save Merry and me from the orcs of Isengard." Pippin's face grew sad, and he turned blind eyes toward the flame of the lamp. "He did not succeed, but his attempt was so valiant as to excuse that failure, at least."

Both Tooks startled a little at Merry's voice from the doorway. "There are few who are all one thing or another: all good or all evil, all loyal or all betrayor," he said, stepping into the room. He sat down across from Faramir. "It may be that 'all or nothing' belongs only to immortals. I know no Man or Dwarf or hobbit who is all one thing or another."

Faramir looked at his elders. He had seldom heard them speak seriously of such topics. More often they deflected questions about the hard things they had seen with jokes, or songs, or by some deft turn of the conversation to a different subject. "What about... Mr. Frodo?" he asked. "Was he not all good?"

Merry glanced at Pippin, and then at the door to make sure that Samwise was not there, listening as he had listened. "No, my lad, even Frodo was not all good. Were it not for Gollum, Frodo would have failed the Fellowship as well."

"Gollum!" exclaimed Faramir. "That is not in the books I have read. Nor in the stories I have been told."

"It is not a story that many know, although Frodo himself never denied it or tried to hide it--it is in the Red Book, which Mr. Sam keeps still, though he has told me he doesn't read from that part of the tale," said the Thain. "It is a story that might do harm in some places, or hurt those who loved Frodo most." Pippin paused. "How do you think he came to have only nine fingers?"

Faramir swallowed visibly. "Gollum bit it off, did he not?"

"Yes, but why, why then, at the very threshhold of the Fire, did they struggle?" Pippin stopped. He looked at his son.

"Did the Ring... did it tempt Mr. Frodo?" stammered Faramir.

Merry fixed his eyes on Faramir. "You asked about Boromir," the Master of Buckland said, and Faramir nodded hesitantly. "The Ring preyed on his mind, because he was great and would have used it powerfully. The Ring preyed on him, though it hung round the neck of another and was never seen by him after the Council in Rivendell." Merry stopped, and Pippin picked up the thread of his words.

"Frodo was not great in the way a man or wizard or Elf might be great. No hobbit is, really--we don't want to be," he said with a shrug, and his son understood that shrug better than anything else he had yet heard or seen in the faces of the two hobbits. "And so we have a bit of protection against such temptation. But think on what the Ring did to Boromir, who was certainly a good man, if such a thing can be. And then imagine being exposed to such, such--"

"Corruption," said Merry.

"Yes, such corruption," said Pippin fervently. "Imagine it wearing away at you for day after day after day, weighing you down with the desire and the lust and the need for it..." His voice trailed away.

"The Ring tempted Frodo beyond his power, too," said Merry. "If not for Gollum's horrid attack, Frodo would have failed."

The words hung there in the small room, and Faramir did not know what to say. He wanted to deny what he had heard, but looking at his father's still mouth and clear eyes, at the shuttered face of his cousin, he knew the truth of their words in a way that was beyond knowledge--he knew it in the same way he knew the apple trees would blossom in the spring, the same way he knew his mother would never desert him, the same way he knew that he and Goldilocks were the two halves of one soul.

Pippin reached out, and Faramir dove into his father's embrace as though he were much younger hobbit. When he looked up he was surprised to see Pippin's eyes, too, were wet. "Why are you sad?" he asked.

"I don't like telling you hard things, my dear," said Pippin, sniffing mightily. "And I don't like remembering them myself. These books are hard things, for that reason. And remembering Frodo's awful moment in Mount Doom, well... think how hard that must be for Sam. That's one of the reasons we don't speak of it in the tales we tell. We don't want to hurt our Samwise."

Merry sat still, watching the two of them and thinking about whether he would ever have to speak of these same things to his own children. He looked at the books that lay scattered about and thought that yes, probably he would, and he sighed aloud.

Pippin glanced up at the sound. "These books have a lot to say."

Meriadoc nodded. "Indeed they seem to. Not all of it to my taste--especially the bits about what a brave warrior Sam is." He wrinkled his nose.

Faramir tittered, alert to his elders' change of mood. "I like the ones that talk about how tiny hobbits are, and how you all had to be carried by Aragorn and Boromir and Gandalf and Legolas all the time."

"That was only one story, and completely untrue," cried Merry, swatting his young cousin with a book.

"Well, almost completely untrue," amended Pippin, squinting maliciously at his cousin. "There was that time after Aragorn's wedding, when Legolas had to carry you back to our quarters, and you were completely sot--"

"Anyway!" interrupted Merry brightly. "Obviously some of these books should be stored away, for the moment, at least."

Pippin mused blithely on: "And then there was the time in Rivendell when you got caught looking rather closely at some of the Elven ladies and their--ahem--anatomy. I wonder whether that story is in here somewhere?"

"You do, do you?" said Merry. "Well, I wonder when we'll run across the eternal written record of the time in Hollin when you scaled Gandalf like a tree because an insect--a butterfly if I recall correctly--flew into your hair?"

"Oh yes? Well, I am sure that I saw a reference in one of these books to the time you fell into the Great River because you stood up in the boat to look in your pack for your pipeweed."

Faramir turned his head from one to another as though watching a quick-moving chess match, his mouth open.

"I am sure that if I look hard enough I'll find a poem about the time in Lothlórien when Frodo had to hold you down so I could cut a glob of honey out of your hair--a mere week after it got there in the first place."

"No doubt I could find the tale of your 'experiment' with lembas bread and mustard and apples in the same book."

"That was delicious!" shouted Merry, and both hobbits began giggling wildly. Neither could go on, although there was a gasping reference to a drinking contest in Minas Tirith, and one of them choked out something about a custard and Gandalf's beard.

Faramir was rolling with both of them when Sam walked in. He stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips, in a pose so reminiscent to Pippin of his wife's when the books had first arrived that the Thain, who had begun to recover some modicum of composure, broke down again into a new fit of laughter. Faramir and Merry had no idea why Sam's appearance was so funny to Pippin, but he did look humorous, standing there looking at them all with disgust, and besides, Pippin's laughter was, as always, irresistably contagious.

At last, at last, the guffaws turned back into giggles, which trickled away into small wheezes. Sam was unmoved throughout this denouement, except to cross his arms. Feet spread slightly apart, his face remained patient and vaguely martyred until silence reigned.

When the room was quiet he came in. Pippin sat up and wiped his streaming eyes, struggling (unsuccessfully) to look calm and composed, while stray snorts escaped his nose (his trembling lips were pressed firmly closed). Merry sat straight and prim, his hands clasped in his lap, while Faramir pressed his face into a pillow and tried to control himself.

"What's all this now?" said Samwise.

Merry spoke. "We were just discussing the disposition of some of the books Pippin received."

"What's to discuss?" Sam began to sit on a low leather chair, but was intercepted by Merry, who jumped up and started steering him back out the door.

"Well," Merry continued, "not much. Just where they'll be stored, things of that nature."

Sam shot a skeptical look back at Pippin and Faramir. "And that made you all... laugh?"

"It was them," said Merry as they left the room. "You know, they're Tooks, and Tooks find the oddest things funny..." His voice grew faint as the two walked away.

Faramir opened his mouth to shout a protest after them, but his father clapped one hand over it. "Just this once we shall allow him to get away with it," said Pippin.

"But Father--"

"No, no, let your cousin distract Mr. Sam," said Pippin. His mobile face showed constraint, laid over the recent laughter.

Faramir sighed. "I understand." He began stacking the books which lay strewn about.

"Besides," said Pippin. "We can always get him back later. I just happen to have some powdered chilis. And--" he tapped the side of his long nose, and then touched his son's identical nose lightly-- "I just happen to know where Master Meriadoc puts his pipeweed when he's in the bathing room."

Faramir gaped and then laughed again, and helped his father straighten the books. But before they left the room, he sat down again. "What is it, child?" said Pippin, sensing the question that lay behind Faramir's thoughtful expression. It was always safe to assume that Faramir had a question, in any case.

"Well, Father..." Faramir looked troubled, and his voice faded.

"Just ask, whatever it is," said Pippin, and he sat down again by Faramir.

"Shouldn't the true story be known?" the young hobbit said. "It is not as though Frodo did anything evil in the end, and, and--" he flushed, aware of his youth and possible presumption-- "is there not something to be learned from Frodo's temptation? Perhaps? And the same could be said of Lord Boromir, could it not?"

Pippin looked with respect upon his only son. "Of course, you are right. And about Frodo, at least, the story is known. As time passes it will come to be known by more, through the Red Book and these others. Even if it were something to be ashamed of--which it isn't, by any measure--the truth would out in time, my dear.

"The reason we do not speak of it aloud, we who were there, or even near to the events, is not that they are shameful. It is that they are too close to us, still. The truth hurts--did it not hurt you when you learned of Boromir's frailty? Of Frodo's weakness? And you knew them only through tales. For Samwise and Merry and me..." Now it was Pippin's voice that faded.

"Yes," said Faramir. "I do see. And also some of these books are just so ugly--written by people who seemingly could have achieved greater deeds with ease, and have all the time under the stars to poke holes in the Fellowship." His mouth pursed with distaste as he stood.

His father rose, too. "There is that, too. Perhaps those books will be footnoted by wise hobbits, one day, when the writing comes easier. Or perhaps we will leave that hard work to our sons." Pippin slung one arm around his child's shoulders.

Faramir snorted. "Best leave it to your daughters," he said. "Elanor Gamgee and the other lasses are far better scholars than any of us lads."

Pippin lifted his eyes to the ceiling as they left the room. "I would chide you, but that I am a better hand at reading than writing, myself," he said. "Now, let's go find that chili powder. And perhaps you can invite cousin Merry to some nice, sweaty roopie practice in the barn--so he'll be in dire need of a bath this evening before supper."

Father and son strode down the hall, heads close to one another, identical Tookish giggles trailing behind.