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[rabidsamfan]

ETA: [working title: Breakfast]

Note: For the purposes of this story I’m assuming the 21=33 ratio for humans to hobbits agewise. If Tolkien figured that hobbitchildren became “faunts” i.e. walkers and talkers at age 3, then this is about right, since most human children are doing both fairly well by the age of 2.

*****

Pippin opened his eyes and wondered why he didn’t smell breakfast cooking. It wasn’t night anymore – there was a line of red-gold sunlight on the curving ceiling over his head – and it couldn’t be evening again because he hadn’t had daytime yet, so it must be breakfast time.

On one side of him his Mama was still sleeping, and on the other side his sister Pervinca was tucked up against his snoring Papa, but he didn’t remember a thunderstorm or a bad dream. Just the carriage and bouncing on the seat until it wasn’t fun anymore and Mama telling him to try to sleep until they got to Hobbiton and Uncle Bilbo’s hole. Pippin scratched his nose and looked at the ceiling sunlight. The sun didn’t come into his Mama and Papa’s room in the morningtime. So maybe this was Hobbiton, and the Hobbiton hobbits didn’t know about breakfast time. He would have to go and tell them.

Being very careful, he got out from under the covers and crawled down to the end of the bed to get out. Mama didn’t like it if he woke up Papa too early for breakfast. She said it made Papa turn into a bear if he didn’t have anything to eat in the morning, and while Pippin had never seen his father turn into a bear, the picture of one in his book was scary to look at if you weren’t right there in Mama’s lap.

Pimpernel and Pearl were sleeping in a funny low bed next to the big bed, and Pippin tried waking them up to ask about breakfast, but Pimpernel only told him to go back to sleep and Pearl growled like a bear, and he decided that they needed to have breakfast too. It would be fun to make breakfast all by himself.

But the door was shut, and he couldn’t make the knob work – or rather he could, but someone had shot the bolt higher up where he couldn’t reach it. He made a face at the bolt. He knew all about bolts because they had put them on all the pantries at home, but it wasn’t fair to put one in the sleeping rooms. How was he going to find the kitchen and breakfast if he couldn’t get out?

Voices outside caught his ear, and he padded quickly over to the chair by the window and climbed up to push aside the curtains and look out. The window had been propped open to let in the cool summer morning air and he could climb right up into the deep sill and look out past the unfurling morning glories to a path where a hobbit-lady was kissing two children and giving them pails with napkins showing at the top. “I know ‘tis early, Marigold-lass, but do your best and you shall have a penny for the fair,” she said, to the younger of the two, a maid-child close to Pervinca’s size and, “Mind your sister, Samwise,” to the older, a lad who looked almost as old as Pimpernel.

***

Sam was just sleepy enough to feel indignant – when had he not minded his little sister, once she’d been put into his care – and just awake enough to know that his mother’s admonition was just her way of setting one worry aside for the morning. She had worries enough, what with half the Shire descending on Bag End, Tooks and Boffins, and Brandybucks, and Bolgers, and Bagginses and all, looking for free accommodations and a place at Mr. Bilbo’s table while the Midsummer Fair was being prepared down in the village. There was a fair of sorts every year of course, but the Fair went from farthing to farthing each year and Tuckborough had hosted it the last time it was in the West Farthing, so it had been eight years since Hobbiton had been this full of visitors. Mr. Bilbo had offered rooms to his relations that time too, and Sam was just old enough to remember the chaos that had arisen from a smialful of gentlehobbits, and all the extra work it had meant for his parents.

“Yes, Mama,” he said, and smiled as his mother nodded her pleasure and turned away up the walk. He sighed and settled himself to the morning’s work. It was hard in summer, when the nights were so short, but some jobs just went better when the light was right. “Come along,” he said, batting Marigold’s hand away from the wrapped breakfast in her pail. “And don’t get greedy. It’ll taste better once we’ve done a few rows.”

“But I’m hungry now,” she said, so wistfully that he took pity on her.

“All right,” he said. “But just the bread. It’s a long time till breakfast.”

***

“Breakfast!” Pippin was delighted. The Hobbiton hobbits did know about breakfast after all. But they were going away! Quickly, he climbed the rest of the way onto the sill and looked out over the edge. To his delight, instead of a steep drop the ground rolled away in a small hillside covered with flowers. It would be easy to climb down. He twisted around so his feet would go first.

***

The lower garden was one of Sam’s least favorite places to work, it being singularly free of shade, but that made the very early morning rising a little easier to bear. The rows were all cabbage and potatoes here, with some peas and beans at the edges, and while it was a very productive piece of the garden, it always seemed to be missing something to Sam.

Marigold’s nose was wrinkled up with dismay as she surveyed the enclosure. “Do we have to do all of it?” she asked.

“Well, the bugs are eating all of it,” Sam said. “Or they will be, if we don’t take care of ‘em first. You want that penny, don’t you?”

She sighed. “It’s a lot bigger than our garden, Sam.”

“Well, Mr. Bilbo has all those guests to feed, hasn’t he?” Sam said. “Here, give me your bundle.” He took both napkins and tucked them into a niche in the stone wall, where they could stay cool until they were wanted. Then he pulled the bottle of soapy water from his pocket and poured some into each pail. “There. You start on the right, and I’ll start on the left, and we’ll meet in the middle. All right?”

He started down the row, flicking beetles and caterpillars off of the broad leaves and into his pail with practiced ease. He didn’t expect that Mari would actually meet him in the middle, but he knew she would do her best if she didn’t fall asleep first. He yawned, not bothering to cover his mouth. By the time the sun was high, the bugs would all be hiding, and he and Mari could take a nap before they started their other chores.

***

By the time Pippin got himself untangled from the morning glories he couldn’t see the hobbit-lady or the two children any more. He went to where they had been and found a road and a path leading back to the hole he had just climbed out of. The lady had gone that way. But the food had gone with the children. Pippin stood as tall as he knew how and listened and looked hard, the way his Mama told him that he should listen for hawks and other things that little hobbits had to be careful of. He didn’t see anything like that, but he heard hobbit voices off to the left and started that way, confident that he wouldn’t have to go far before he caught up. He never even noticed the gate in the stone wall on the other side of the road.

***

Sam had finished his first row and was starting back up toward the road when Marigold called out his name. He straightened up and looked to see if Marigold was all right, but she was looking around too, as if she was listening to something. Sam put his pail down to mark his place and jogged up to his sister. There was something – a wailing cry faintly audible from her edge of the field. “It sounds like a peacock,” he said, frowning.

“It sounds like a baby,” Marigold said. But there aren’t any babies on the Hill.”

“With all them visitors?” Sam reminded her. “There’s bound to be a babe or two. It’s probably just someone up at Bag End.”

Marigold shook her head. “It’s the wrong direction for Bag End. Shouldn’t we go and look, Sam?”

Sam chewed on his lip, weighing the penny for the Fair against the distant cry. There were birds that sounded a lot like folk, if you didn’t know better. But then the wail became a shriek and he heard the word “mama” as clear as day.

“Fetch Mam,” he ordered Marigold, and ran for the gate.

***

Pippin was frightened. He hadn’t found the children or the food, and the road had turned into a path after a big gate that led to a stable. It was cool and dark under the trees along the path, but it was shadowy too, and safe from the hawks he wished he hadn’t remembered. He followed it a little way and found some berries, but they turned out to be on a pricklebush and after the first few scratches he got so hot and angry he had tried to hit it and that had hurt so much that he’d had to sit down and cry. And then, just when he was beginning to think that he might not have to cry much longer something soft brushed up against his hand and side and when he opened his eyes he saw red fur. A fox! Screaming for his mama now, Pippin climbed up into the pricklebush as fast as he could and waited for the fox to start eating his toes.

***

Sam heard the word “fox” among the others and scooped up a handful of rocks as he pelted toward the noise, his heart in his mouth. He didn’t know what he could do against a full grown fox, except maybe hold it off until an adult came. There wasn’t any question of which way to go, though, not with that poor babe screaming for its life, and he passed the overcrowded stable and ran down the back path to Overhill, trying not to think too much about what kind of horrible sight would meet his eyes.

His arm was cocked back, ready to throw when he turned the corner near the blackberry patch, and he nearly let the stone fly. But then he realized what he was seeing. There was a babe all right – a fauntling trying to climb deeper into the brambles – but the only orange fur in the vicinity belonged to the old stable cat, who had settled onto the path and was studying the frightened child with curious detachment.

Sam let the stones drop and laughed. He couldn’t help it after a fright like that, and he laughed all the harder when Tawny bestowed a look of dignified disgust on him. “Go on, you rascal,” he told the ancient tom. “I’ll see to the lad now.”

***

Pippin couldn’t help but open his eyes when the fox bit his arm, but it wasn’t a fox after all, just a brown hand attached to a pair of amused brown eyes. “Here now,” said the lad. “’Tis all right, you’re safe enough.”

“There’s a fox,” Pippin warned him, but the lad shook his head.

“’Twas only a cat,” he said. “Though the color’s right. He must have given you a rare fright for you to get so tangled up in here.” He kept on talking softly, prying the prickles off of Pippin and not paying much mind to the way that Pippin couldn’t stop crying. He didn’t mind that Pippin’s breechclout was wet either, though Pippin was uncomfortably aware that it was a baby thing to have done. “There now, there,” he said, getting Pippin free at last and sitting down with his arms wrapped around. “What are you called?”

“Pippin,” he managed to say, in a very squeaky voice. “Pippin Took.”

“A Took is it?” the lad raised his eyebrows in a funny way. “Well, Master Took, my name is Sam. And this is Tawny,” he pointed with his chin at the cat, who was watching them still. “Say hello, go on.”

Pippin sniffled, but he didn’t want to make the cat mad at him. “’Lo,” he said.

The lad, Sam, clucked his tongue and held out his hand, and the cat stretched itself and got up to come to his fingers. After a moment it began to purr, and Pippin dared to reach over and pet it too. “The cats at home won’t let me touch them,” he told Sam, astonished that any cat would strop itself back and forth under a hobbit’s hands like this one was doing.

“Mr. Bilbo gentled Tawny when he was just a kitten,” Sam said. “He likes to be petted. And he likes to pet back. I bet he came right up to you to be petted, didn’t he?”

Pippin giggled. “He tried to pet me with his whole body,” he realized. “I thought he was a fox.” It was funny now, even if it still made his laughing shaky.

“Well you did the right thing,” Sam said. “A real fox wouldn’t want to eat brambles, not even to eat you too. But we’d better take you along to your Mama so she can kiss your scratches better.”

***

Since Pippin was still shaken by his fright, Sam carried him back up toward Bag End, escorted by Tawny, who was still intent on getting more petting and stropped Sam’s legs until he almost tripped. They’d just passed the stable when the cat’s ears pricked and it leaped off toward its usual haunts.

A moment later Sam heard it, a babble of hobbit voices calling his name and Pippin’s. “We’re here!” he called back, and around the corner they swept, half a dozen grownups in dressing gowns and coats over nightshirts and old Mr. Bilbo well ahead of the pack. They scooped up Pippin and passed him from hand to hand, exclaiming over his scratches and depositing him at last in the arms of his mother and father who kissed him and laughed and asked what had happened.

“I went looking to make some breakfast but I only found berries. And then there was a fox,” Pippin explained, “so I climbed into the berry bush but Sam came and turned it into a cat called Tawny. But I still haven’t found breakfast.”

“Breakfast!” they cried, and went on up the hill, and Sam’s mother gave him a quick kiss and ran ahead to try to keep the kitchen from being too overrun with helpers.

Sam was left with Marigold on one side and old Mr. Bilbo on the other, and he sighed, feeling a little let down after so much excitement. “Twas only the cat,” he told them, trying to be sensible, like a proper hobbit would. “I should’ve known no fox would come up the Hill with all these folk about.”

“Nevertheless,” Bilbo said, producing a silver coin from his pocket and putting it into Sam’s hand. “I’d like to thank you for going to the rescue.”

Sam blushed. “It’s half Marigold’s,” he said. “She heard him crying first. And she went for help.” Marigold wriggled with delight when Sam passed her the coin, and her eyes shone.

Bilbo scruffled his hair affectionately, “Fox or not, I’m pleased with you, Sam Gamgee. Now come along and have some breakfast with the rest of us. I want to hear your side of the tale!”


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