Chapter One - Teacher’s Dilemma

“Good morning, Miss Hemlock,” sang the group of young hobbits, greeting the tutor as she entered the room.

“Good morning,” she responded with a smile as she laid her satchel on the table. “Pervinca, will you please collect last night’s assignments while I get the scraperboards from the shelf?”

“Yes, ma’am.” Pervinca got up from her chair, making her rounds to the other students. Merry proudly handed Pervinca his most thorough report on Buckland’s fishing trade. Degger hesitated to give the lass his handiwork; his face reddened when he finally placed his assignment atop Merry’s report. Pervinca saw that Degger’s work was only half finished.

“Are you sure?” Pervinca asked him in a whisper. Degger nodded glumly, so she went on to the next student.

“Well?” Pervinca eyed Pippin when he made no gesture to surrender his assignment from the previous night. “Hand it over,” she admonished her insolent brother in a whisper, “We all had lessons to do last night!”

“I didn’t do my lessons,” Pippin told his sister arrogantly, and in a normal voice.

Every head turned in the young teen’s direction. Degger’s eyes went wide at the bold, young Took’s declaration. Merry rolled his eyes, rubbing his temples at the imminent headache he knew would come before the end of the morning.

“Peregrin Took,” Miss Hemlock glared at her youngest charge. “Why did you not perform the assigned tasks that I gave you?”

Pippin sighed as he prepared to give his explanation. “Why are we given these assignments in the evening anyway, Miss Hemlock? We cover the same subjects during our day lessons.”

“Their purpose is to let me know if you are retaining what I have taught you,” she said firmly, walking over to his desk.

Pippin did not flinch; he looked his tutor directly in the eye--he was going to win this argument. “The exams you give us twice a week ought to help you with that. I have yet to see a blacksmith take his work home with him at the end of the day, nor have I seen a baker take his biscuit-dough home with him at night. So I don’t see the purpose in giving us assignments to work on during the evening when we could be relaxing from all of this and playing a game of chess.”

Miss Hemlock had to discipline herself to keep from grinning at Pippin’s reasoning, although she could not allow his cheek go unchecked. “Mr. Peregrin, not only will you do the assignments I give you this evening, you will also complete last night’s lessons. In addition to that, you shall write one hundred times, ‘I will complete all of my assignments, during the day and at night’. If you do not, then you and I shall have a talk with your father and the Thain tomorrow morning. He has been quite interested in your progress of late.”

Pippin knew he had been bested this time, however, his youthful resolve did not let up. “Can’t it be ‘I will complete all of my assignments’, and leave it at that? The sentence you want me to write is much too long.” Pippin sighed in utter defeat when he got up from his chair in response to the finger his tutor was crooking, indicating for him to stand in his customary spot in the corner on the far side of the room.

He knows this ritual far too well, she thought to herself. “You will stand in the corner until you are ready to properly participate in today’s lesson.” Young Pippin had been growing audacious a bit too much of late, which in her tenure as a tutor has taught her that mischief is a chief indication of boredom in a student.  

The fact of the matter was that Miss Hemlock, indeed, had been holding her students back from more advanced study because of one child: Mr. Degger. *All she had been told about this good-natured nineteen-year-old lad was that he came from humble beginnings in Michel Delving. However humble they had been, the teen had a lot of catching up to do in his studies in order be equal with his peers. If he didn’t catch up soon, Miss Hemlock felt it in the best interest of the rest of the students to inform Mr. Paladin that Degger just wasn’t ready for this level of learning.

As she passed out the day’s assignments to Merry, Pervinca, and Degger, she saw the anxious features on the lad’s face. She reasoned further that not only was it not fair to the other children to explore more complex areas of learning, it wasn’t fair to put Degger through this stress.

While Miss Hemlock sat at her table going over last evening’s assignments, Merry stole a glance over at Pippin. He grinned sadly watching his young cousin stand in the corner fidgeting. Even though Pippin brought his punishment upon himself, Merry felt that there was something unbalanced about this whole business--about Pippin disrupting the lessons every now and then. He had only started acting out recently.

In addition, Merry felt bad for the teen who sat across from him. He watched Degger absently use his fingers to work out the arithmetic on the small scraperboard he held, and then wipe at his forehead; Merry saw the lad was sweating. He knew Degger had been having difficulties with the lessons, but not enough to warrant sweat. Merry thought to get with Degger later on after morning studies were over and ask what sort of help he needed.

At noon, before wrapping up the day’s lessons, Miss Hemlock let the children go early so that they could check on their plants and flowers in the bit of garden provided for them. She needed a quiet moment to mull over an idea that had struck her--before making the suggestion to Mr. Took the following morning at her weekly progress meeting.

In addition to her regular curriculum, Miss Hemlock also offered a course in gardening, however, this was before she realised it was a futile endeavour. Pippin’s father was a farmer by trade, and Merry often assisted his uncle when he used to visit at Whitwell. Yet she soon discovered that the only student without any previous gardening experience actually excelled at it along with his study-mates. It amused Miss Hemlock to no end when Pippin, in all seriousness, gave sage advice to Degger--who just as seriously took it all in, his Lilac sapling thriving as a direct result. Degger seemed to actually enjoy this part of her curriculum, however, it would take more than just passing the gardening course to make up for what he was missing in other areas of study.

* * * * *

“Not too much, Pip,” said Merry, helping his younger cousin to pour a bucketful of a very foul-smelling mixture of soil over the base of his growing grapevine.

“Oh, I’ve forgotten how horrible that stuff smells!” said Pervinca, covering her nose with the skirt of her apron. “You didn’t ride all the way to Whitwell for that, did you?” she asked.

“No,” her brother answered. “Papa had Mr. Woodcot bring it to Tuckborough yesterday. Then when he went to town for a mug with Uncle Addie, papa brought it home with him.”

“I thought Mr. Woodcot decided to retire and take his ease with Mrs. Woodcot in Longbottom?” Merry asked.

“He is,” answered Pippin, still arranging the dark soil round his grapevine. “I think papa is going to have Pim take over until he can find a replacement.”

Pervinca was usually a target of Pimpernel’s whims right along with her brother--and cousin. “Goodness--I feel for the labourers!” she said cynically,” then crinkled her nose at another brief whiff of Pippin’s soil, “Whew!”

“Oh, stop your crying--my grapevine loves it,” Pippin stated, unfazed by his sister’s remark. “And so will yours, Merry. You’ve heard Papa say it; ‘A little bit of this, a little bit of that, and don’t forget soil needs a bit of cowpat!’” Pippin snickered at the silly rhyme. “Eat up, Fergie!”

Merry and Pervinca laughed along with Pippin, watching the teen spread the contents upon the base of his plant with his gloved hands.

“You actually named your plant?” Pervinca asked her brother.

Pippin had a gleam in his eye when he looked at the pair, “Of course!”

“Well, you won’t catch me naming my plants,” said Merry, and then promptly sneezed. He merely sniffled inward while spreading the same mixture at the base of his own.

“Oh…I don’t know,” Pervinca thought aloud, “Perhaps I’ll name mine…Vinca!” and then cackled. She was growing her namesake on the other side of the garden.

Pippin paused in patting down the newly laid dirt round his seedling to look at his cousin, “Oy! Now she’s trouble twice over, Merry!”

“I didn’t seem to be trouble when you needed your breeches sewed up after you ripped them open last Trewsday. Really, Pippin,” Pervinca scolded her brother in a playful manner, “trespassing in Mrs. Bricklayer’s garden.” Pervinca casually picked up a clover for closer inspection, then taunted her brother more, “Which, by the way, mother or father doesn’t know about--yet.”

“And you won’t tell them anything--”

“Have either of you seen Degger on your way out here?” Merry interrupted his cousin, suddenly realizing the fourth member of their gardening group hadn’t shown up yet. Degger was typically a few minutes late because he’d put his books away in his room before coming out to the garden, but not this late. They’d been out here for a half hour already.

Both Pervinca and Pippin shook their heads.

“I had wondered what was keeping him,” said Pervinca.

“If he isn’t here by now,” Pippin put in, “that means he probably got caught by one of the cooks to work in the kitchen.”

“But they know not to bother him until after luncheon,” Merry stated. “I’m going up to his room to see what’s keeping him.”

Pippin grabbed the watering can when he spoke, “Well, while you do that, when I finish here, I’ll go and look in on his lilac bush.” Pippin hoped all was well with his friend. “Let me know how it goes. Meet you at the stables in thirty minutes?” Merry nodded as he got up, walking out of the garden.

 _{*Degger’s “humble” beginnings can be read in Riches to Rags. Also, Mr. Woodcot is yet another minor O.C. from a tale called, “Merry’s Holiday”, which is currently posted at ff.net because it’s in no condition to be posted here at SOA.  Lastly, Pippin's reasoning about homework comes from a conversation between Pearl Took and I.  As for her, she had the GPA to do it (or not do it!) and get away with it.  I didn't.}