Pippin couldn't come with us, because "The Thain's work is never done." He slipped me a bit of pipeweed, and told me, "Don't you smoke that, Mar. It's to put in that pouch of home-smells you've got."

I grinned. "Thanks, Pip." I wrapped it up in a handkerchief and put it right next to Rosie's perfume.

Rosie and all the little hobbits walked with us to the edge of Farmer Maggot's property, and saw us off on our adventure.

Merry chuckled as we got onto our horses there. "I remember, the last time I went on an adventure, Pip and I ran straight into Frodo and Sam right where Rosie's standing." He smiled. "That day changed our lives, didn't it, Sam?"

Sam nodded. "I'd never been farther from home until that day. And now, I'd have to go all the way past Mount Doom to be the farthest from home today."

I absolutely loved hearing stories about when they had gone on the journey to destroy the Ring. I didn't like hearing about the Ring as much as I did my dad, but all the same, they were good stories.

"So, who were the other people who traveled with you, Uncle Sam?" I loved starting him on his stories.

"Oh, there were a lot of people who traveled with us, but the most important was Gandalf," he said. "Gandalf was the wizard who used to come visit us in the Shire. He was a kind man, and he was the one that forced me and Frodo into the grand friendship we had."

Merry was silent through Uncle Sam's stories. He liked hearing what Sam and Frodo were doing when he wasn't there. Merry never told me much about what happened to him when he wasn't with them.

"Well, Mar," Merry said. "You remember always nagging me to tell you all about my adventures? Well, I think you're old enough to hear about them today."

I smiled widely. "Really, Merry?"

He nodded. "Pippin and I, the only hobbits left with the Fellowship, were stolen by Orcs, who thought we were the ones with the Ring," he said. "If we had let them know we didn't have it, they would have eaten us for dinner."

"I had gone nearly three days with nothing to drink, and I fainted. Pippin found one of them drinking something and asked him to give me some water. It was NOT water, but it woke me up," Merry continued. "Pip looked pretty worried, so I convinced him that I was just acting sick, so they'd let us go. Pip, the gullible hobbit he is, believed me." He looked off into the distance. "I never did tell him the truth about that."

"So, what happened then?" I was sucked into the story.

"There was a battle. Some men attacked the Orcs, and we got away during the battle." He smiled. "Then we met a tree. Well, Treebeard wasn't really a tree, he was an Ent," Merry said. "He took us back to his home in the woods, and Pippin and I drank some of his water, and we grew taller than any hobbit ever has."

I looked at him. "How did the water make you taller?"

"It was magical water," he replied. "That was the water that turned normal trees into Ents."

Sam interrupted Merry's story, and told us that it was time to rest. "The horses need a drink."

The horses we were riding weren't really horses. They were half pony, half mearas. Mearas are very intelligent, strong horses. I've heard of some that could understand when you spoke to them, and some could even speak back.

We sat around a fire in the woods, and ate a bit of dinner. Merry said he would finish the story in the morning, when we started off on the trip again.

"I can't wait to get to Rivendell," Sam said. "I absolutely LOVED the Lembas bread they gave us for the journey to Mount Doom."

"Lembas?" I hadn't heard of them before. "What was it like?"

Sam thought for a moment. "It was hard on the outside, but soft and nearly buttery on the inside," he said. "Did I ever tell you about the time I tried to feed them to Gollum?"

"I don't think you have, Sam. Will you tell me?" I knew he would.

"Frodo and I were in the middle of nowhere. Not a tree in sight. No birds in the sky, no fish anywhere close, because there was no water. Nothing," he said. "We had Lembas in our packs, so I got some of mine out. Gollum was complaining about being hungry, so I threw him a bit. He chewed on it for a minute, then…"

Merry spat a huge chunk of bread out of his mouth. He nearly scared me to death. "It tries to KILL us, it does!" Merry was imitating Gollum.

I laughed. "You scared me!" I play hit him. "Mean Merry!"

He laughed with me. "Well, let Sam finish his story, Mar."

"Well, that's pretty much how it ended," Sam said. "Thank you for that WONDERFUL demonstration, Merry."

We all sat around laughing, and joking until Sam announced that it was time for bed. Each of us had brought a small pallet to sleep on, and a blanket. Merry and Sam put theirs on either side of mine, so they could make sure nothing could get to me.

I couldn't sleep for all the snoring coming from Merry, who was on my left. So I tried rolling over and facing away from him. I had a large bruise on my right arm that made it very uncomfortable to sleep that way. In the end, I slept curled up, facing towards Merry, who had stopped snoring.