FIC: The Grand Annual Four Farthings Show - G to NC17 18/?
Title of Part: GAFFS - Show Day the Third - Early (18/?)
Summary: In which Pippin acquires new skills, Frodo and Sam are relieved of their charge, and tables are turned
Rating: G
A/N: The verses Pippin knows, loves and seeks to emulate may be found in An Unexpected Party, chapter one of The Hobbit
If you are discomposed by the smell of chocolate, please remember AU - and also Victorian hobbits, to whom JRRT allowed tobacco and potatoes (and coffee and steam trains and Christmas trees and…) Letter 178 being specific as to time and place (the Diamond Jubilee was 1897)
The answer to Pearl's question (no, but it was) is Cosmos Atrosanguineus and Wiki is wrong (surprise...) it was 1835. A wonderful plant and well worth the effort of bringing it through the winter; it sets no seed and is believed to be extinct in the wild
On the last morning of the Show, Sam awoke to the distinct feeling that he was being watched. When he opened his eyes, he could make out, in the canvas gloom of early dawn, Frodo facing him across Pippin’s still sleeping form. He was propped on one elbow - curls squashed to his face on one side and all askew the other - and not that much more than a careful breath away.
As soon as he realised that Sam was awake, Frodo smiled and whispered ‘Good morning!’
‘Morning, sir!’ Sam whispered back. ‘He didn’t keep you going all night with Mr Bilbo’s story, did he?’
‘He didn’t admit defeat until the Great Goblin was dead!’ Frodo said ruefully, and Sam could hear the exhaustion in his voice.
‘That far? Goodness, you ought to be dead to the world still! You should stop here this morning, Mr Frodo, and get a bit more rest while you can. Master Pippin’ll likely be awake and in need of watching afore we’ve done cutting, any road.’
‘I shall be fine, Sam, and we can ask someone to keep an ear out for him. If he isn’t tired enough to sleep longer, then it’s just not fair - and I would rather come with you.’
And quick as that, Sam remembered the certainty he thought he’d found last night beneath his oak tree, and he hugged to himself the thought that Frodo may indeed be biding his time, just waiting for the right moment to ask… The very idea had him grinning away like a lack-wit, let alone Frodo choosing to be with him once again. But Frodo smiling back at him were a blessing whichever way, and Sam resolved simply to enjoy it until events should bring him down to Middle-earth again or float him out amongst the stars of his imagining.
Hobbits all around them were stirring now, creeping quietly to the unlaced doorway where hints of bacon were already suggestive on the air. Sam had to be particularly prudent and discreet in sliding out of his blankets and into his breeches, setting aside the necessity for not disturbing the lad between them. Frodo's movements too were slow and chary, it being safer all round if Pippin stayed asleep as long as possible. The notion of Pippin loose in a hayfield, with scythes swishing all around and pitchforks plying fast as wink - well, it just didn’t bear thinking about and that were a fact.
The matter of what would happen if he awoke whilst they were gone had still to be addressed, though. As they stood for the bacon being piled into their bread rolls to reach ever more generous levels, Frodo made sure to beg the favour of Mrs Smallpeace. Her serving spoons paused, a pair of rashers hovering even as Sam and Frodo awaited judgment. Immediately they apologised for troubling her, suspecting that - although experience of her own thirteen made her the ideal choice to spare an eye to Pippin - these few days of the Show may well be her one real respite of the year from her maternal duties, and that to ask for such help might even be seen as unfair.
But the bacon landed comfortably with the rest, her agreement equally placid; for, she said, even for a lad like Master Peregrin you’d surely need only the one pair of eyes and not a round dozen and more, and it'd not be for so very long, if he woke at all.
Savouring the bacon, the tea and the morning, Frodo and Sam rode out to the cutting field side by side at the back of the wagon, toes dangling in crisp, cool air. Yestermorn’s cold misery was gone as surely as its night mist, for today had dawned fair and clear; and for Sam the sheen on the day was completed by the ease that had returned between them, the rhythm of working together regained. Together they cut and carried, walked behind the load and helped share out the sweet-smelling grass they’d gathered. And somehow, there didn’t seem a lot as needed saying, really; the occasional bump of shoulders or quiet smile were enough, right then.
Foraging done with, they made haste to see what might have gone awry in their absence. When all was quiet enough, with only an ordinary morning bustle around them, it seemed that Pippin’s midnight wakening might indeed have kept him abed longer. The scattered roil of their blankets told a different tale, however. They exchanged glances and went in search of Mrs Smallpeace; and if Sam’s fingers were rather tightly crossed behind his back… well, what Frodo didn't know wouldn't worry him.
‘You'd nobbut been gone ten minutes afore he were on the wander,’ Mrs Smallpeace reported, ‘and a good thing for you, too! If I’d known what I were letting meself in for, I’d have been after you hotfoot, with the lad tucked under me arm!’
The sternness of her voice (over a pair of almost silent but truly heartfelt sighs of relief) was belied by the twinkle in her eye, and indeed Pippin looked to be fully occupied and perfectly content, swishing the soap-cage through a bowl of hot water to work up a good lather for the next round of greasy plates, and singing cheerfully as he did so. He was swathed from foothair to chin in a floral pinny the twin of Mrs Smallpeace's own - made of oiled cloth from the way it repelled the generous splashes. A complicated criss-crossing of strings - front and back before they were tied in a firmly doubled bow where small fingers couldn't reach - said that this was the expert’s answer to keeping a hobbit lad’s garments respectable as far into the day as possible.
‘Watch me!’ Pippin cried happily, and proceeded to demonstrate his skills. It was clearly for the best that GAFFS plates were of tin, for he was an unpractised washer-up at best and wielded the mop with some vigour. He had obviously taken to heart the dwarves’ advice in the tale he loved so well, repeating the verse over and over, though his little dishmop was scarcely a thumping pole, and no-one would ever have furnished him with the boiling bowl of which he warbled so lustily. The result of his zeal on anything remotely fragile would be quite as catastrophic as Bilbo could have feared (and was probably foremost amongst the many reasons that the kitchens at Great Smials were barred to Pippin).
It seemed only fair to repay Mrs Smallpeace for her assistance in kind, for there were always more tasks than hands where hobbit-catering was concerned. They set to with a will, Frodo fetching while Sam carried - until Pippin’s enthusiasm for dish washing eventually yielded to the fun of flicking suds at anyone who passed by. A warning glance at each of them from Mrs Smallpeace and they were unravelling him from the useful pinny, offering sincere thanks, and taking Pippin right out of her way.
The Mistress had left a basket of towels and clothes for her son, and although the oiled cloth had stood valiantly against water, he was still wearing yesterday's garments which were somehow positively grimy. Quite how he'd managed it, Sam couldn't be sure, for Pippin had done naught much different from what he and Frodo had done, and they hadn't ended up looking more like ragamuffins than not. But when Frodo suggested that they should smarten up before second breakfast, Pippin dug in his heels.
‘I had a wash before I went to bed and I haven’t done anything to get dirty since then - and with all that soapy water, I’m probably cleaner than you are!’ Sam had already thought, though not said for fear of tempting fate, that it were something of a wonder that only Pippin’s now quite wrinkly hands had met with the water; a natural grubby hobbitlad aversion, he suspected. ‘And that water,’ he eyed the ewer Sam was raising over a bowl on the washing benches, ‘is cold!’
‘Well, yes,’ said Frodo, ‘but it will wake you up properly.’
‘I am awake,’ Pippin insisted, ‘and I don’t need another wash just yet, thank you.’
‘Mr Frodo allus washes in the mornings,’ Sam put in. ‘Never misses,’ he added, which might be stretching his own knowledge a bit, but he’d sometimes catch sight of Frodo at Bag End of a morning, whisking damply tousled from bath to bedroom in the dressing gown he’d had for as long as Sam could remember and maybe longer (which probably accounted for a trifle of skimpiness) or, on a couple of memorable occasions, in no more than a towel. Bag End towels might be large and fluffy, but even at a brief glimpse they still draped interestingly.
‘Try this!’ Frodo said, dipping his face suddenly into the bowl before him and blowing noisy bubbles.
‘Oh!’ Pippin said, as Frodo came up dripping. ‘Let me!’ He wasn’t tall enough to manage to bend into the bowl, so Sam picked him up, getting rather wet for his trouble when Pippin emerged breathless from a truly impressive series of bubbles and shook his sopping hair about him like a dog that had enjoyed a swim.
Frodo tossed the towel to them. ‘Sorry, Sam - I deserved that, not you!’
‘I’m really awake now,’ Pippin announced. ‘Second breakfast? I’ve only had a teeeeny bacon roll as yet!’ The size he indicated with his hands completely belied the generosity of Mrs Smallpeace’s provision.
It hadn’t been so quick nor so easy as that by a long chalk, of course, but eventually all three were made respectable to greet the day and the meal. Mrs Smallpeace had seen to it that serving dishes heaped to overflowing were kept back for them, and from the looks of it, it’d be a struggle for three to finish even the half of what were there. They'd scarcely made much more than a good start though, when the rest of the Took family arrived at a rush.
‘Mama!' Pippin complained breathlessly as his mother squeezed him tightly to her bosom, with a careless disregard for the fork poised rather too close to her ear. ‘Let me go!’
The Mistress stepped back, obviously checking her son for damage now. Mr Paladin though, coming up directly behind her, seemed to be looking for such damage as might have occurred to the surrounding area.
Frodo laughed. ‘You didn’t quite trust us with him, did you?’
‘Of course we did, dear! It’s just that we know what a handful he can be... Oh, thank you, Samwise,’ she added as Sam poured tea for her.
He’d a fair idea that they’d skimped breakfast woefully, in their anxiety to reclaim their son, and set right whatever had gone wrong. Which it hadn’t, nohow, but they weren’t to know it. That were a poor way to start the day though, for any hobbit, so he set about filling plates for Frodo to pass around. Before he knew it, the two of them were at the centre of a Took family meal, with Pippin gabbling happily of all that he had seen and done and how very good he had been, and his parents reiterating both thanks and wonder with appreciative digressions into the many excellences of Bilbo’s table and of his cellar, with compliments to Sam for Daisy’s spiced curd tart and May’s apple fluff; all interspersed with comment from the three lasses as to how nice it had been to see Bag End again and how beautiful the gardens were looking and whatever was that pretty brown-red flower that smelled so deeply of chocolate and did Sam know there was a nest of kittens under his shed and how glad they were that the old swing was still up in the orchard (even if two of them were really too old to enjoy it properly any longer) and…
Exchanging smiles with Frodo, he forgot to feel awkward in such fine company. It took him a minute or two, though, to get used to Mr Paladin calling the Mistress Rose, knowing full well that her given name was Eglantine - then he kicked himself for missing the connection. There were no doubt of it that Rose were an easier mouthful, and he felt pretty sure the name meant that she reminded her husband of the delicate flower - or maybe of its wonderfully scented foliage - rather than its accompanying bristle of thorns. He’d never heard it used for her before, though; maybe much the same as it were really only the family as had ever heard Gaffer tease his Bell by calling her Tinkle. His wondering was cut short by the necessity of dissuading Pippin, as soon as he finished eating, from showing off his newly acquired skills with soap cage and dishmop, a new shift of penniless tweens having now taken over the task.
‘There, you see? I told you that he would be perfectly safe with Frodo and Sam!’
By the time that Bilbo arrived - at a more sedate pace after finishing a full if solitary breakfast of his own, and bringing with him this morning Andwise Roper at the conclusion of his most satisfactory stay on Bagshot Row - the impromptu meal was over. Pippin’s parents - still full of gratitude and admiration, and declaring themselves eternally in debt to both Sam and Frodo - were preparing to take their son off into the Show.
‘Well, you could have been wrong,’ Eglantine said, defensively. ‘With Pippin you can never be sure of anything except that trouble will arrive sooner or later.’
‘Bilbo, wrong? Never!’ Frodo declared, and Sam was hard put to it not to laugh aloud.
Bilbo ignored the remark and pointed out loftily that Beechnut and the day’s provender were awaiting their attention, and that Mr Roper was hovering for a word or two with his nephew.
Sam turned, to find himself enveloped in an awkward hug.
‘Nay, but it’s bin a grand visit,’ Andwise said, ‘and I’m on’y sorry not t’ve seen so much of thee, lad, for our Ham’s reet t’be so very proud of thee.’
Sam blushed. He'd known that Gaffer quietly approved his gardening skills, but it were a different thing entirely to know that he’d boast of them to his brother. From the corner of his eye he caught sight of Frodo and their glances crossed. Frodo was grinning broadly, seconding Uncle Andy’s words with a thumb up, and Sam’s heart swelled with pride and love.
‘Theer’s a bit o’summat for thee back at Number Three, lad - summat and nowt, but it were made wi’love.’ He cut off Sam’s attempt at thanks for, he said, it’d be more thanks than enough if Sam would give him a hand to get his belongings to where the rope stand awaited him.
‘Thank you again, Mr Bilbo, sir, for the lifts. Most truly appreciated, I assure you!’
‘You are very welcome, Mr Roper,’ Bilbo said. ‘Sam, you carry the basket for your uncle and Frodo can put our picnic and whatnot in the judges' tent. I’ll wait here with Beechnut and you can take him together.’
Andwise raised a hand in farewell and stumped off, knapsack on his shoulder, leaving Sam to follow with the wide and still mysterious basket. Its cover was snugged over the contents every bit as tightly as the last time he saw it, but he’d a fair idea of what might be in there now. Gaffer’d not have let his brother set off for home without a few samples of good garden produce to eat upon the way - Sam could smell the strawberry-apples already, and he knew there’d be peas and runners, whatever else, and likely tomatoes and them sweet black-purple plums an’all. The lasses would have tucked in cakes and pies aplenty, and probably a jar or three of preserves too, for it’d been a good year and the pantry shelves were satisfyingly full and to spare. The basket were a solid weight to heft and he wondered how they’d managed to get it into the trap at all.
He didn’t pause for more than a quick word with Anson and Ham, knowing that Mr Bilbo and Frodo were both waiting; but when he returned, panting a little, Frodo was only just arriving, and Beechnut and the trap had already vanished.
‘A couple of the Bolger lads, in dire need of pence for a few last games and Rides,’ Bilbo explained. ‘They’re reliable enough, and I like to encourage enterprise. Well,’ he said then, ‘have you decided what you are going to do for the rest of the day?’
‘Not really, except that we have promised ourselves another Ride or two, and Til that we would go and watch Rafe’s turn in the Little Show - and I am owed a toffee apple that I haven’t seen so much as a sniff of, as yet!’
‘B-but-’ Sam stuttered.
‘Well then, why are you lingering here when you have such a busy day ahead? Just remember, lunch at twelve sharp - keep an ear open for the bell. And you’d best be moving if you really want your toffee apples - once they’ve sold out, that’ll be it until next year. I seem to remember that the ones made at home never quite taste the same. Hmm,’ Bilbo sighed nostalgically. ‘It must be all of thirty years since I enjoyed a toffee apple - one grows out of them, you know.’
‘Nonsense! How can you possibly grow out of such a treat? We’ll bring you one,’ Frodo promised, turning to lead Sam away, still spluttering. ‘Oh, and by the way, Bilbo,’ he added over his shoulder, in rather too casual a tone, ‘I think someone may be looking for you.’
His uncle regarded him with a deal of suspicion, alerted by the mischief barely concealed in his voice. With a smile that was almost innocent, Frodo inclined his head to indicate the rapid approach of a stout and badly-dressed hobbit of indeterminate years but considerable determination about the face.
The delicate of stomach would indubitably blench at sight of her, most specifically those rendered unwell by the cordial juxtaposition of magenta with a rich egg-yolk yellow. And even a hobbit inclined to accept that might understandably be a trifle discomposed by the addition of a straw hat, dyed to an insistent shade of green and decorated with a selection of long-stalked scarlet cherries which wavered uncertainly over the wearer’s left eye, thus lending a certain raffish charm to the whole ensemble.
Paeony Broadbottom (who might have been designed by nature to marry into the family whose son she chose) was a consummate organiser. Even before she put widowhood and sincere mourning behind her, she had spent far more of her seemingly infinite time in organising other hobbits’ lives than she dedicated to her own (which went some way, said the charitable, toward explaining her dress sense). An extremely active member of the GAFFS Committee, she was considered on the whole to be a valuable asset, on the grounds that when Paeony Broadbottom made up her mind that something would be done, then done it would be, no matter the protestations of those called upon to actually carry out the project. (It may be noted here that it was for reasons far other than fear of her egregious fashion choices, that more than a few hobbits devoted a great deal of their time to avoiding Paeony in the weeks preceding the Show.)
That she had, in this one respect at least, a great deal in common with her distant cousin Bilbo was exactly the reason, Frodo confided to Sam as they made their way toward the main aisles, that he had thought of the present ruse when his aunt several-times-removed had greeted him with a worried frown, just as he completed his errand. As soon as she revealed that the reason for her preoccupation was an unaccountable failure to put in an appearance by the hobbit who was to have judged the Bonny Baby competition, he had scarcely been able to restrain his glee. He asked, in the most helpful way imaginable, whether she had thought of inviting Bilbo to step into the breach, for, said Frodo, his uncle was at a completely loose end on this final Show day, and more than eager to find a way of making himself useful. (It may be noted here, that Sam’s appreciation of a certain sublimely wicked smile, as Paeony’s gratitude at this suggestion was recounted, rendered his forward progress quite tricky for several minutes.)
Sure enough, Bilbo was borne inexorably away, guided by an unrelenting hand over his flood of ineffectual excuses toward a waiting sea of female and infant hobbitry. From toddlers - held in check from rampaging all over the showground only, it seemed, by the reins held firmly in the hands of mother or capable sister - to squalling faunts with screwed up faces and remarkably powerful lungs, it was more likely than not that every hobbit on the Showground under the age of five awaited Bilbo’s judgment upon his or her claim to be the bonniest baby present today.
Frodo watched him go, with a satisfied grin. ‘That will teach him how it feels to be inveigled into taking part in things you’d really rather not!’ he said.
~~~
Chapter 19: Show Day the Third - Morning
Chapter 17 was here and the story began with The Prologue
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Chapter 19 - given luck and a following wind - will be a post for The Birthday: another fun-to-write chapter, it will have a long-anticipated (see introductory notes - a very long time ago!) and eagerly awaited illustration by the ever gracious and multi-talented ♥notabluemaia♥ to whom all praise and honour, as always, for beta duty above and beyond the call.