On one particularly fine day at Bag End, Bilbo Baggins was thinking quietly to himself in his front garden while puffing his pipe.
He did his best to ignore the Gaffer giving that boy of his instructions on proper watering technique or whatever nonsense Gamgees talk about.
Apparently the Gaffer was starting to get too old to tend Bag End so he had to bring his son along some days. Bilbo thought it was ridiculous.
What does age have to gardening? It can't be that hard. But of course Bilbo wouldn't know.
He was in mid-scowl when he noticed his young nephew, Frodo, walking up the path.
"Frodo, my lad! You don't usually visit this late in the week. Especially on… nice sunny days where you be… oh, I don't know… marvelling at nature?" He mused, taking as many puffs as he could while speaking. Frodo had walked all the way to him by then.
"Good to see you, too. I came by to bring back all your books, I can't stay long."
Bilbo saw that Frodo was having trouble with the eight heavy books and became alert immediately.
"Yes, yes, dear boy, set them down next to me! Quickly, before you drop them!"
Frodo let the pile fall out of his arms onto the bench next to his uncle.
Bilbo took a long puff. "Did you read all these?"
"Of course. Took me four days. I… may have written in some them, too. Along the sides."
"Good lad."
Frodo began shuffling backwards, trying to leave. "Well, I really should go."
Right at that moment, the Gaffer decided to waddle over and holler.
"Master Frodo! You dun' normally come on the days I'm tending."
"Except for last time…"
"Oh, well, yes, sir… there was las' time o' course."
Frodo looked down at the young boy who had nestled himself into the Gaffer's side as they were talking.
"You must be Samwise."
The boy nodded.
Samwise was blonde, rounded and his skin was just a little golden; a truly stout Gamgee like his father but with a kind face like his mother.
Frodo got onto his knees to be at eye level with him.
"Last time I was here, your Gaffer told me you had planted those daisies over there." Frodo pointed to said white daisies in the flowerbox on the windowsill.
Samwise nodded again then buried his face in the Gaffer's side.
The Gaffer rolled his eyes.
"The Bagginses are your masters; you must learn to talk to 'em!"
"No, no, it's quite alright. I was shy and quiet at that age."
Bilbo nodded through the smoke cloud that had formed around him.
"A child is best when not speaking."
Frodo smiled warmly at the young hobbit. "You don't have to talk to me if you don't want to, but I just wanted to tell you... the daisies are lovely, Samwise."
"One day Bag End will do very well under your care."
Samwise took his blushing face away from his father's side and stopped clinging to him.
"Thank you, sir." He said quietly with a hint of a pride.
"May I call you Sam?"
"If you please, Master Frodo."
Frodo wrinkled his nose. "Sam, please, I don't like to think of myself as a master over a child. You can call me Frodo, like everybody else."
Sam gave a grumpy pout at the thought of that, which made Frodo laugh.
Frodo then remembered his plans for today when he heard his young cousin singing loudly from his cart.
Bilbo's face paled. "You brought… Merry?"
A small head with a mop of bright blonde curls popped up from the back of the cart.
"HELLO, BILBO BAGGINS!"
The Gaffer, knowing his queue to leave, hurried off with Samwise in hand to mull over a nearby bush.
Bilbo looked as if he was going to collapse into his own neck.
"You told me you wouldn't bring that… boy to my house again."
Merry has out of the cart and flailing his way over to the two Bagginses.
"We're not staying. Merry and I were on our way to Tookborough."
The last time Merry was here he had accidently set fire to half of the garden and tried to put it out with a wet tablecloth. An event enough to strike fear into the hearts of Bagginses and Gamgees alike.
Merry, nay a foot away from Bilbo, puffed his little chest out very proudly.
"I'm getting a new cousin today!"
Bilbo gurned. "Paladin's daughters are wild enough and now there's another on the way."
"It might be a boy." Frodo said, getting up on his feet and brushing the dirt off his pants.
"Don't try to scare me."
Merry made very wide eyes. At first Bilbo thought he was offended until he said:
"There's cake in your house." Then he was gone, ran off into the house and kitchen.
"As he said, new cousin. The baby started to come yesterday night and everyone is trying to get to her as soon as possible."
"Ah, yes, I think I can hear dear Eglantine screaming from here."
There was loud crash of breaking plates coming from the kitchen.
"I don't like children."
Frodo sat down next to Bilbo, pushing the books aside.
"You liked me."
Bilbo stopped puffing his pipe and looked very solemn. He thought back to when Frodo's parents had died. A young lad, only twelve, curled up in Bilbo's armchair.
Those big blue eyes – just like Primulas – filled with tears, looking up at him pleading for there to be way for them to come back. He said no.
As the boy kept sobbing, Bilbo made an empty promise that he would take care of him and always be there. Soon after Frodo went to live with the Brandybucks.
"I never saw you as a child."
"I swear I don't understand half the things you say."
Merry walked out the house, mouth and weskit sprinkled with cake remains.
He didn't say thank you. His chewing reminded Bilbo of a cow.
"Meriadoc, you are just like your Took of a mother and should learn some manners."
Merry made an awful snort. "I don't think you slayed a dragon!"
Bilbo brought his pipe up to no doubt smack Merry in the head with it but Frodo grabbed his arm to stop him as Merry ran away laughing.
"Beastly Brandybuck!"
"He just has too much energy. He needs a friend closer to his age. As it is, I'd rather read a book than climb a tree."
"As it should be."
"It may be out of question now, but I was hoping you'd come along with us to see the new baby."
"I don't need to see the new Took. I'm sure she – or he – will be destroying my garden in a few years time."
There was a faint sound of what seemed to be Sam saying "No" from where he was dropping eaves.
"Suit yourself. Merry, get back in the cart."
Frodo gave his uncle a pat on the shoulder and stood up, making his leave.
"See you early next week for lessons."
As he walked past the bush the Gaffer was having deep thoughts about, Frodo tousled Sam's hair. "Nice to meet you, Sam."
"Thank you, Mister Frodo."
"That'll do."
xxxxxx
"How old do you think that gardening boy was?"
"Sam. The Gaffer told me ten years."
"Ha! I'm eight and I'm much taller than him!"
Frodo sighed. After two hours with him, Merry was starting to test his patience.
Merry was starting to test the pony pulling the carts patience.
"We're almost at Tookborough."
"I've tasted ale there."
"Y- You really shouldn't."
"It was Pim's idea."
"She's only eleven years old!"
"That's half of what you are."
"That doesn't make any sense."
Merry grinned. Frodo shook his head and gave up.
The cart turned around a corner and they saw a particularly hilly part of the Shire.
"There it is!"
Frodo pointed to the top of the hills at Tookborough, luxurious hobbit-hole of Paladin Took, Thain of the Shire and his family.
He and Merry could both see the Took sisters, Pearl, Pimpernel and little Pervinca waving at them. As the cart rolled closer, their giggling and squealing became louder and louder.
When the cart made a complete stop outside their gate, there was also the background noise of the girl's mother Eglantine screaming at the top of her lungs from inside.
Merry jumped off the cart and onto Pim and Vinca, wrestling them to the ground.
As they rolled around forming a fluffy hobbit ball, Frodo hopped down from the cart and took Pearl aside. "So, I take it the baby hasn't come yet."
As if to answer him, Eglantine let out gut-piercing shriek.
Pearl made a half-hearted chuckle.
"Come inside. Mam wants my sisters and I to watch to prepare us. I already had to see when Pim and Vinca were born; I'm as prepared as I'm going to be!" She said, her Tookish accent becoming broader the quicker she spoke.
Frodo laughed out of nervousness. "I can only imagine."
"You don't want to. We lasses can do things I never wanted to know about."
"Merry and I don't have to watch do we?"
Merry's head sprung up from his pinned-down-by-a-wild-took position.
"IS HER BELLY GONNA SPLIT OPEN?" he screeched, too excited by the idea.
"Of course it will! Like a watermelon! But boys aren't allowed to see!"
Merry hmmphed.
Frodo sighed with relief knowing he didn't have see his auntie all bloodied.
He'd seen some nightmare inducing illustrations during his lessons with Bilbo.
The five hobbits walked into the large living area of the Took hobbit-hole to join the two dozen others already there. Hobbit relatives and well-wishers were coming from far and wide to see what could be the new heir to the Shire.
Joining the birthing mother's screams were broken sobs.
There was a murmur of "Not long now" amongst the women.
Everyone was huddled in a circle outside the door to bedroom. At the front of the huddle was Saradoc, Merry's father. Merry's mother Esmeralda was already in the bedroom as she midwife to Eglantine and sister to Paladin.
The door opened, causing the onlookers to cover their ears. Paladin Took emerged looking breathless and frightened. He had bright golden curls and vivid blue eyes just like Esmeralda and Merry as this was a Took trait. His daughters had all inherited the blue eyes but not the blonde curls. They instead had their mother's soft brown messy waves.
None could complain because it made them all the vision of beauty just like Eglantine.
Paladin urged everybody to back away from the door and make room.
"Frodo, Merry… come stay at the front with Saradoc so when it's all over you can come in right away. My daughters come in. She wants you to see."
Everybody followed their orders and Merry kept his ear to the door hoping for a belly splitting sound.
Eglantine was sprawled on the bed, sheets in disarray and soaked in blood.
Paladin was sitting on one side cooling her face with a wet cloth and Esmeralda was sitting at her feet so she could tend to her duties while also giving the three Took girls a good view of the event.
Pearl kicked away the broken pottery from when her mother was throwing vases.
The baby's head was already well out and the sight made Vinca, who was only five years old, start crying.
"Just the shoulders now, luv." Paladin soothed.
"I'M GOING TO DIE!"
"You didn't die the last three times and you won't die now!"
Eglantine gave him a swift punch in the chest. He knew that'd come sooner or later.
At the point of birth where she had to work the strongest, she felt the weakest.
"I can't… I can't…"
There was a sudden great force in her innards and the shoulders broke free, leaving the baby to slip out. A new type of screaming filled the room.
Eglantine collapsed onto the bed and began laughing from the shock of relief.
Esmeralda disconnected mother and child and took the baby to be washed.
"A boy. He's a boy. Perfect from the points of his ears to the fluff of his feet."
A great smile broke across Paladin's face.
"I have a son." He held his wife close and gave her kisses on her forehead, cheek and hair.
"You've given me a son!"
After the baby was cleaned and wrapped in a navy blue cloth, he was handed to his mother.
Pearl opened the door letting Frodo and Merry in.
Merry ran to the bed and sat on the other side of Eglantine, curious to see his new cousin.
"What is it?"
"Our son. Peregrin." Said by his father with no greater pride; the Shire had an heir.
Peregrin's sisters huddled in close, cooing over how cute he was. Pim made it her personal mission to fiddle his ear as much as possible.
Eglantine was cradling his head, petting the soft downy there. Paladin took note that like his mother and sisters, Peregrin's hair was also light brown.
Merry was tickling his feet, expecting giggles even though he's much too young for that.
"Peregrin Took. You all do insist on your odd names."
"Yes, thank you, Frodo son of Drogo, cousin of Bilbo." Paladin quipped.
"Examples of perfectly respectable names."
Eglantine shooed her daughters away. This was a clue to Esmeralda to take them away to the kitchen. Frodo followed. She checked to see if Pim hurt Peregrin's ear.
Paladin made a huff. "I'm exhausted."
Eglantine's eyebrows shot up. "Yes! It's been a hard day for you!"
Paladin, never one to accept sarcasm, nodded. "I need an ale."
Soon it was just her, the baby and Merry who, being an only child, was absolutely fascinated by Peregrin. Lasses always tended to keep their babes to themselves when they're this small and Merry was too young when Vinca was born to remember anything. Since Frodo had become a tween, he hadn't really many people to play with.
"You're not leaving, are you Merry?"
"Nuh-uh."
She held Peregrin close and gave him a little kiss on the head. He made tiny little baby goos and wurbles and she started to cry again.
"He's noisy."
"He's so sweet."
Then Peregrin opened his eyes for the first time and she saw tiny replicas of her own emerald green eyes.
"Oh, my sweet… little Pippin apple." She laughed gently through tears.
Merry was so close now the side of his face was pressed against Eglantine's shoulder.
He and the baby made eye contact and Merry grinned from ear to ear.
"Hello, Pippin!"
Fin.