"And that," Sam said, "Is the story of Sting." Sam's story about Frodo's famous sword had stretched on all morning, but his listeners had never tired of it. "I guess it was a good idea to keep them interested." He said to himself. It was just as well, as a full-blown snowstorm was waiting to burst and he knew that the young hobbits would want to go outside and would be very disappointed when they learned they couldn't. Sam was in charge not only of his own children (whose number was quite a few) but also Merry's two- Theoden and young Meriadoc, and Pippin's two- Faramir and Poppy. Theoden and Faramir were never a problem, they had adopted the laid back attitudes that each of their mothers possessed, but Meriadoc and Poppy (whose name was to be Peregrin if she had been a boy) had adopted the nature of their fathers, which meant something was to be smashed, cracked, or broken, the kitchen larders were to be empty, and they were to be in trouble by the end of the day. The Brandybuck and Took fathers were gone for the next two days on a trip to visit Farmer Maggot, Estella was gone to the market and then to make a brief visit to her parents, and Diamond was back with relatives again, she stayed with them very often nowadays. Even Rosie was gone with the youngest of the Gamgee children to visit her father and the rest of the Cotton brood.
Sam was wondering how Diamond and Peregrin managed to still maintain a relationship, with her gone all the time, but was cut out of his thoughts by a distinct Tookish brogue. "Sam, do we get to see the sword or are you going to keep it all to yourself?" Poppy said. Sam rolled his eyes and muttered 'Tooks' under his breath. He wondered how it was possible to have yet another hobbit that was identical to Pippin. "I already told you that no one could have the sword, touch it or anything. It is very valuable and you are too young." Sam recited these two lines in the manner of someone who had said them over and over. He then looked at the faces of the youngest Took and Brandybuck and saw that they were thinking hard. Sam sighed, put the sword in its box on the top shelf, then put on his strictest face, and made the two youngest look him in the eye while he told them that they would be in trouble if anything on that top shelf was out of order when he came back from luncheon.
The other hobbits had left, Faramir and Theoden giving their younger siblings looks identical to Sam's, knowing that they would be in trouble if the two troublemakers got up to anything.
Now it was just Poppy and Merry in the same room, a deadly combination. Poppy turned to Merry and grinned. Now that everyone was in the dining room (a full four rooms away from the comfortable study at Bag End) they knew they could get Sting from the top closet shelf as well as their old Cousin Bilbo's book and Cousin Frodo's mithril coat and the phial that an elf named Galadriel had given to Frodo, something that the two cousins had only seen once, and by accidentally stumbling across Sam while he had it out.
They had to be quick however, so Merry immediately kneeled down and clasped his hands together while Poppy climbed into them. Her fingers clutched around something soft and gray. She gently yanked on the fabric, this looked like one of the cloaks that her father had. As she pulled, the perfectly carved wooden box with Sting nestled inside slid closer and closer to the edge of the shelf. Neither Poppy nor Merry noticed until it was too late. Poppy had just looked down with a triumphant grin on her face at the prospect of getting to actually try on one of those elven cloaks when Merry's face turned white with horror and the box fell down to the beautiful wooden floors of Bag End with a crash. The cloak ripped through the center, nearly three quarters of the way up, the box holding the sword had cracked open and the box holding the mithril coat had fallen on top of the sword, luckily not breaking it but making the sword cut quite an impressive notch into the polished wood floors.
Poppy looked at her cousin, only two years older than she was, and gulped. Her eyes clearly said that they needed to get out, and quick. The noise would've alerted Sam even if he were on the opposite side of Bag End. They looked at each other with terror shining in their eyes. "POPPY, MERIADOC, I TOLD YOU NOT TO GET UP THERE!" They heard Sam's voice echo from the dining room.
They both gulped, knowing that Sam could (and would) deal out a punishment that would equal the stories of Gandalf's punishments that their fathers had told them. Merry felt tears stinging at the corners of his eyes, Poppy was already letting little waterfalls of tears fall down her chubby cheeks, and they both felt like they were going to be sick. Merry finally let his cousin down to where she could stand on the floor again instead of in his hands and grabbed her by her wrist. He had an idea that could save them from facing Sam's wrath, at least for a little while.