This story takes place in SR 1451. Pippin is 61, Diamond is 56, and Faramir Took is 21. Merry is 69 and Sam is 71 years old.

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"Pippin!"

Peregrin Took straightened from his cramped position over a line of accounts. The call had held irritation, urgency, and affection--a large burden for one name, he thought with amusement. He rose from his desk and stretched, pressing his hands briefly against the low ceiling in a by-now-habitual gesture; he strode out of the study and toward the main door, where his wife's call had originated.

As he approached he could see her figure outlined against the brilliant autumn day outside: slim and erect as ever, she stood looking out now, hands on hips, her very posture speaking of exasperation. She turned her head slightly to call again, not removing her eyes from whatever it was she saw outside: "Pip--"

"Right here," he said, and she leapt into the air, turning to mock-scowl at him. "There's a delivery here for you," was all she said.

He stifled a grin, pleased at having startled her, and blinked out at the sunlight. A heavy wagon stood crushing the fine green sward, and two stout Dwarves, assisted by assorted members of the household, unloaded crate after crate onto the grass. Nick Burrows, the elderly (and universally feared) head gardener, glared over a hedge at the activity, his clippers held in a position that could only be called warlike; his two sons Bill and Hugo were braced beside him for an imminent explosion.

Pippin hurried out into the yard to direct the cargo into the unloading area behind Great Smials, near the stable. Nick's face changed from impending rage to sour satisfaction, only to sag into disgust again when Peregrin Took, undisputed Lord of the Tookland, Councillor of the Northern Kingdom, Thain of the Shire in whole, squealed with glee at the contents of the crates.

"Books!" he crowed. "My books have finally arrived!" And sitting down on the lawn, he promptly began investigating the nearest wooden box.

Nick and his sons slowly withdrew (not without a glower at Diamond Took, promising ruffled feathers to be smoothed at a later time). The Dwarves and other hobbits continued their work, and Diamond threw up her hands and went to sit by her husband on the grass.

"At last," he was muttering, using his small belt knife to pry off the cover. He drew out sheaf after sheaf of paper: binders, folders, leather-bound and unbound. Words came tumbling into his lap. He murmured over each one, stroking the pages, smelling the bindings, opening the books to gaze at spidery writing or delicate illustrations, only to be drawn on to the next wonder. Diamond took each discovery from him and studied them in her turn, until that crate, at least, was empty, its treasures plundered and heaped about the two like spoils of battle.

"Begging your pardon sir, but where shall we put all these?" came the voice of Teddy Goldworthy. He stood over them with his cap in his hand.

Pippin jumped up and began to pack his crate's contents away haphazardly. "Let's just put them in my study, shall we? It'll take some doing to go through them all--"

"No, sir," said Diamond firmly, and Teddy stifled a smile. "You and the others can take them to the empty storage room on the second level at the back. And as quick as you please, else we'll have Gaffer Nick breathing fire and brimstone for a week."

"But Diamond, that room is so far out of the way--" Pippin began.

"And just as well," she agreed firmly. "I know you've been waiting for an age for these books, and I'll not deny you the pleasure of gloating over them, but your study is already a woeful littered untidy unholy mess, and that room up there has plenty of air, empty shelves, and comfortable seats and tables just needing dusting. Which--" she held up one hand to still her husband's protest-- "I shall see to myself."

Pippin sighed, deflated. "Very well," he said. "At least I shall have the pleasure of cataloging them myself." At 61 years his smile was as unquenchable as it had always been. "And your company, I hope, in the doing."

"Mine and Faramir's," she replied equably. She nodded to Teddy and he turned away, calling the orders to his mates. "He could use the practice in reading something other than our writing."

"Brilliant!" said Pippin. He looked around distractedly. "Now I shall just invite those excellent Dwarves to dinner..." He hurried off and Diamond went back into the Smials to arrange for at least one night's lodging for the two Dwarves, who would need large beds and as much food as any hobbit guest.

The cataloging of the books took longer than any of them could have foreseen. Pippin had dashed off letters to everyone he knew, North Kingdom and South, asking them to please send the most recent writings of interest to his agent, an enterprising Dwarf named Nordri. Nordri had collected and collected and collected the books until his storage for the Thain overflowed, and then sent them on to the Shire in the sturdy wagon with his two sturdy kinsman. The books, sorted erratically into boxes by topic, covered every subject: from history to herblore to romances to tales. They also came at one of the busiest times of the year, for Pippin and his entire clan were taken up with the harvest. Much of their study had to wait until winter settled in and hands lay idle.

Thus it happened that it was well into the cold weather when Faramir, sitting with his father in the no-longer-empty storage room (called now the Book Room by all inhabitants of Great Smials), opened a new crate and picked up a certain tome. "A Tale of the Dark Years of the Third Age," it read, and Faramir cuddled deeper into the soft couch. It was the books of tales that he loved best. He read them voraciously, and stacked them upon a corner shelf to share with Goldilocks Gamgee, his best friend and true love, when she next came visiting or when he next called at Bag End.

Pippin looked up when he heard Faramir's satisfied sigh, and smiled. He himself was deep within a history of the Numenórean kings, far gone into an ancient world of terrible wisdom and corrupt beauty. He went back to his reading, shifting slightly to bring the warm lamplight better onto his page.

Faramir began the book. Within a few sentences, his brow furrowed. He held his place with one finger and skipped ahead in the book, looking at a page here, a paragraph there. At the end of the book he discovered an index, and sat forward to read it. Then he began flipping through the pages rapidly, from one reference to the next.

He made an inarticulate sound, a grin spreading across his face.

Pippin looked up. "What is it?"

"Listen, Father, listen to this!" his son said. "'The Ringbearer was accompanied from his land by three others. Firstly, there came with him his manservant Samwise of the family of Gamgee,'" Faramir snickered and continued, "'secondly there came Master Meriadoc Brandybuck of the eastern realm of the Shire, already a great swordsman and skilled adventurer,'" Faramir's voice became shrill as he attempted to go on through his increasing merriment, "'and finally there came Peregrin Took, a lord of great courage and skill also.'" Faramir gave up the struggle and dropped the book, rolling onto the floor in his jollity.

Said Peregrin Took sat forward at the first words and listened attentively. His eyes were as wide as they could well be when Faramir finished, and he leaned forward and picked the book up from the floor.

Faramir whimpered: "I bet Mr. Gamgee would just love being referred to as a manservant."

Pippin was gazing at the book. "Among other things," he said. "Is that where you got it from?"

"Yes, I just opened that box," said Faramir, popping up to sit on his couch again.

Pippin pulled the crate toward him, its wooden slats scraping noisily across the floor. "The Finding and Loss of the Great Ring." "A Collection of Stories: The Nine Walkers of Rivendell." "Ballads of Bravery: Songs of the Last Age." "The Ringbearer." "The Claiming of the Throne of Gondor." And then one that raised his eyebrows almost into his curly hair: "Halflings, Hobbits, Holbytla, Perrianath: Small Folk, Great Deeds." The crate contained nineteen books, all of them concerning the Fellowship of the Ring before, during, and after the events that had so changed Middle Earth.

At the bottom of the empty crate lay a note. Pippin picked it up and turned it slowly over in his hands. "Master Peregrin Took" it read, and he unfolded it, watched closely by Faramir. Pippin read aloud:

"'My dear hobbit friend, greetings from myself and my brother Sudri. We are in good health and hope that your lovely wife and family are also. I put this box together especially for you and your companions. I have not read all the books contained herein, nor even half, as business is very good this year, and we are very busy, but I hope you enjoy them and I believe they could only be of interest to you and yours. At your service as always: Nordri, son of Regin, son of Asutrin.'"

"Well, that was... nice of him," said Faramir cautiously. His first mirth had passed and he looked at his father curiously. Pippin did not answer; he examined the books again, picking up one and then another.

At last Pippin sighed and let the one he held ("An Examination of the King Elessar and His Peculiar Relationship with the Elves") fall to the couch. "I am not sure I want to read these," he said.

Faramir had no reply to this. He was uncharacteristically still, only his green eyes glittering slightly in the lamplight. He wanted to leap forward, to grab the books and run. If his father did not want to read them, he did, most desperately. But he quelled himself, and sat and waited.

Pippin ran his hands over his face. "But I don't suppose that will do," he said, and Faramir breathed again. "I should invite Sam and Merry to come and stay and look through these as well."

"Maybe they could come for Yule," Faramir said hesitantly.

Pippin looked at his son and smiled a bit. "And perhaps they might bring along certain of their children," he suggested. He was rewarded by his son's blush and he stood up, holding the letter in one hand and slapping it against the opposite palm. "Yes, I think we will invite the Gamgee and Brandybuck families for Yule."

The Gamgees who came numbered only ten: Frodo, Rose-lass, Pippin and Merry had petitioned and won the right to stay in Hobbiton and celebrate Yule with their Cotton cousins, and Elanor and her new husband Fastred had gone to his family in Greenholm. That left Mayor Samwise, his wife Rosie, and an assortment of lads and lasses, from twenty-year-old Goldilocks to little Tom, only seven. The Brandybucks all came, but even so they were outnumbered two to one by the Gamgee horde. Meriadoc, Estella, and their three children were such frequent guests at Great Smials that they slipped seamlessly into the daily life of the Smials; within days the Gamgees (some of whom visited less frequently than others) were also quickly assimilated into the activities of their various peers, cousins, and friends.

The morning after the first night's feast, Pippin met with Sam and Merry and led them to the Book Room. He placed his friends on the deep, soft, threadbare couches and lit the lamps.

"What's all this?" asked Merry curiously, looking around at the stacks.

"I got my books," Pippin said.

Sam whistled and reached to pluck an album from the nearest table. "Didn't you ever," he agreed.

"There are some I wanted to... show to you both," said Pippin. Merry cocked his head and regarded his cousin. Beneath the comfortable, responsible exterior of the Thain, Merry thought he could see a much younger Pippin: a twenty-eight-year-old hobbit setting off with courage and gaiety and fear, unsure of anything, questioning everything. The years fell away and the Master of Buckland himself was no longer an aging hobbit, a husband and father and manager of a large estate: He was merely Merry, curious and enterprising, wanting to protect Pippin from anything that might threaten.

Sam felt none of this. He was still and ever Sam, as he always had been, and he waited impatiently to see what it might be that Pippin would produce. "Well, out with it," he said, plowing through these subtleties (although that did not mean, as Merry and Pippin knew full well, that he did not see them). "What have you got?"

Pippin hesitated, then said in a rush: "Nordri sent me one crate all filled with books about the Fellowship, and I have tried and tried to make head or tales of them, but I don't really want to read them, and Faramir and Diamond just long to, and I don't quite know what to make of the whole thing." He looked down and began parceling out the books to Sam and Merry, placing text after text upon their laps and steadfastly refusing to meet their eyes.

"Well, what do you want us to do about it?" asked Merry.

"Help me," said Pippin. He sat down with his own stack of books and looked, finally, from Merry to Sam and back again. "Help me get through them, and help me get through what they recall." He held up an octavo of poetry. "This, for instance, ought to have some good laughs in it," he said, and one corner of his mouth curved up. "I just need a couple of good hobbits about to stop me getting maudlin about it all."

Sam picked up a book and read the title aloud: "The Tale of Frodo Nine-Fingers." He looked up at them both, and his eyes were sad. "It's a children's story."

The three companions sat in silence for a moment, and then Sam sighed. "Well, that's no help in not getting maudlin," he said. "We'd best get to work if we're to look through all these any time this year."

"Yes, Sam, honestly," said Merry. "You're always such a slowcoach when it comes to the real work. Stop delaying already." His lips twitched and he looked at Pippin. "Well?"

Pippin stared back. "Well, what?"

"We'll need pens and paper to catalog this, my dear Thain. Step to it and fetch them."

Pippin grumbled as he stood. "Since when does the Master of Buckland order the Thain about like a lackey?" he muttered as he headed out the door.

"Since the Master of Buckland remembered that he was senior in years to the Thain," called Merry.

"And I am senior to you both," said Samwise. "Merry, you fetch tea and something to nibble on." He leaned comfortably back and began rummaging out his pipe and weed; then sneezed as the pillow Merry threw hit him on the nose.

In the days that followed, Merry, Sam and Pippin were joined in shifts by their wives and by some of their children--namely Goldilocks, Faramir, Hamfast, and Periadoc--in reading through the thousands of words Nordri had sent. For the spouses and children, the books were an endless source of fascination. Although all three Walkers had spoken of their adventures, it was fascinating and often revealing to the outsiders to read the words of others concerning the events of more than thirty years before.

Faramir had unceasing queries, to the point where Peregrin felt a belated sympathy for Gandalf, pestered by a younger Pippin's incessant questioning. He answered those of his son's inquiries he could, and deflected those he could not onto Merry, who still loved to pontificate, luckily. But sometimes he simply had no answers.

"Father," said Faramir one snowy afternoon when it was just the two of them in the room, "this book says Boromir failed the Fellowship. It calls him a traitor and a betrayor." The lad's face was so bewildered as he gazed at the Thain that Peregrin felt his heart tighten. "Was he, Father?"

Pippin chose his words carefully. "Well, my son, I know that Boromir was sorely tempted by the Ring. Tempted beyond his strength, perhaps. But I know also that he tried valiantly to save Merry and me from the orcs of Isengard." Pippin's face grew sad, and he turned blind eyes toward the flame of the lamp. "He did not succeed, but his attempt was so valiant as to excuse that failure, at least."

Both Tooks startled a little at Merry's voice from the doorway. "There are few who are all one thing or another: all good or all evil, all loyal or all betrayor," he said, stepping into the room. He sat down across from Faramir. "It may be that 'all or nothing' belongs only to immortals. I know no Man or Dwarf or hobbit who is all one thing or another."

Faramir looked at his elders. He had seldom heard them speak seriously of such topics. More often they deflected questions about the hard things they had seen with jokes, or songs, or by some deft turn of the conversation to a different subject. "What about... Mr. Frodo?" he asked. "Was he not all good?"

Merry glanced at Pippin, and then at the door to make sure that Samwise was not there, listening as he had listened. "No, my lad, even Frodo was not all good. Were it not for Gollum, Frodo would have failed the Fellowship as well."

"Gollum!" exclaimed Faramir. "That is not in the books I have read. Nor in the stories I have been told."

"It is not a story that many know, although Frodo himself never denied it or tried to hide it--it is in the Red Book, which Mr. Sam keeps still, though he has told me he doesn't read from that part of the tale," said the Thain. "It is a story that might do harm in some places, or hurt those who loved Frodo most." Pippin paused. "How do you think he came to have only nine fingers?"

Faramir swallowed visibly. "Gollum bit it off, did he not?"

"Yes, but why, why then, at the very threshhold of the Fire, did they struggle?" Pippin stopped. He looked at his son.

"Did the Ring... did it tempt Mr. Frodo?" stammered Faramir.

Merry fixed his eyes on Faramir. "You asked about Boromir," the Master of Buckland said, and Faramir nodded hesitantly. "The Ring preyed on his mind, because he was great and would have used it powerfully. The Ring preyed on him, though it hung round the neck of another and was never seen by him after the Council in Rivendell." Merry stopped, and Pippin picked up the thread of his words.

"Frodo was not great in the way a man or wizard or Elf might be great. No hobbit is, really--we don't want to be," he said with a shrug, and his son understood that shrug better than anything else he had yet heard or seen in the faces of the two hobbits. "And so we have a bit of protection against such temptation. But think on what the Ring did to Boromir, who was certainly a good man, if such a thing can be. And then imagine being exposed to such, such--"

"Corruption," said Merry.

"Yes, such corruption," said Pippin fervently. "Imagine it wearing away at you for day after day after day, weighing you down with the desire and the lust and the need for it..." His voice trailed away.

"The Ring tempted Frodo beyond his power, too," said Merry. "If not for Gollum's horrid attack, Frodo would have failed."

The words hung there in the small room, and Faramir did not know what to say. He wanted to deny what he had heard, but looking at his father's still mouth and clear eyes, at the shuttered face of his cousin, he knew the truth of their words in a way that was beyond knowledge--he knew it in the same way he knew the apple trees would blossom in the spring, the same way he knew his mother would never desert him, the same way he knew that he and Goldilocks were the two halves of one soul.

Pippin reached out, and Faramir dove into his father's embrace as though he were much younger hobbit. When he looked up he was surprised to see Pippin's eyes, too, were wet. "Why are you sad?" he asked.

"I don't like telling you hard things, my dear," said Pippin, sniffing mightily. "And I don't like remembering them myself. These books are hard things, for that reason. And remembering Frodo's awful moment in Mount Doom, well... think how hard that must be for Sam. That's one of the reasons we don't speak of it in the tales we tell. We don't want to hurt our Samwise."

Merry sat still, watching the two of them and thinking about whether he would ever have to speak of these same things to his own children. He looked at the books that lay scattered about and thought that yes, probably he would, and he sighed aloud.

Pippin glanced up at the sound. "These books have a lot to say."

Meriadoc nodded. "Indeed they seem to. Not all of it to my taste--especially the bits about what a brave warrior Sam is." He wrinkled his nose.

Faramir tittered, alert to his elders' change of mood. "I like the ones that talk about how tiny hobbits are, and how you all had to be carried by Aragorn and Boromir and Gandalf and Legolas all the time."

"That was only one story, and completely untrue," cried Merry, swatting his young cousin with a book.

"Well, almost completely untrue," amended Pippin, squinting maliciously at his cousin. "There was that time after Aragorn's wedding, when Legolas had to carry you back to our quarters, and you were completely sot--"

"Anyway!" interrupted Merry brightly. "Obviously some of these books should be stored away, for the moment, at least."

Pippin mused blithely on: "And then there was the time in Rivendell when you got caught looking rather closely at some of the Elven ladies and their--ahem--anatomy. I wonder whether that story is in here somewhere?"

"You do, do you?" said Merry. "Well, I wonder when we'll run across the eternal written record of the time in Hollin when you scaled Gandalf like a tree because an insect--a butterfly if I recall correctly--flew into your hair?"

"Oh yes? Well, I am sure that I saw a reference in one of these books to the time you fell into the Great River because you stood up in the boat to look in your pack for your pipeweed."

Faramir turned his head from one to another as though watching a quick-moving chess match, his mouth open.

"I am sure that if I look hard enough I'll find a poem about the time in Lothlórien when Frodo had to hold you down so I could cut a glob of honey out of your hair--a mere week after it got there in the first place."

"No doubt I could find the tale of your 'experiment' with lembas bread and mustard and apples in the same book."

"That was delicious!" shouted Merry, and both hobbits began giggling wildly. Neither could go on, although there was a gasping reference to a drinking contest in Minas Tirith, and one of them choked out something about a custard and Gandalf's beard.

Faramir was rolling with both of them when Sam walked in. He stood in the doorway with his hands on his hips, in a pose so reminiscent to Pippin of his wife's when the books had first arrived that the Thain, who had begun to recover some modicum of composure, broke down again into a new fit of laughter. Faramir and Merry had no idea why Sam's appearance was so funny to Pippin, but he did look humorous, standing there looking at them all with disgust, and besides, Pippin's laughter was, as always, irresistably contagious.

At last, at last, the guffaws turned back into giggles, which trickled away into small wheezes. Sam was unmoved throughout this denouement, except to cross his arms. Feet spread slightly apart, his face remained patient and vaguely martyred until silence reigned.

When the room was quiet he came in. Pippin sat up and wiped his streaming eyes, struggling (unsuccessfully) to look calm and composed, while stray snorts escaped his nose (his trembling lips were pressed firmly closed). Merry sat straight and prim, his hands clasped in his lap, while Faramir pressed his face into a pillow and tried to control himself.

"What's all this now?" said Samwise.

Merry spoke. "We were just discussing the disposition of some of the books Pippin received."

"What's to discuss?" Sam began to sit on a low leather chair, but was intercepted by Merry, who jumped up and started steering him back out the door.

"Well," Merry continued, "not much. Just where they'll be stored, things of that nature."

Sam shot a skeptical look back at Pippin and Faramir. "And that made you all... laugh?"

"It was them," said Merry as they left the room. "You know, they're Tooks, and Tooks find the oddest things funny..." His voice grew faint as the two walked away.

Faramir opened his mouth to shout a protest after them, but his father clapped one hand over it. "Just this once we shall allow him to get away with it," said Pippin.

"But Father--"

"No, no, let your cousin distract Mr. Sam," said Pippin. His mobile face showed constraint, laid over the recent laughter.

Faramir sighed. "I understand." He began stacking the books which lay strewn about.

"Besides," said Pippin. "We can always get him back later. I just happen to have some powdered chilis. And--" he tapped the side of his long nose, and then touched his son's identical nose lightly-- "I just happen to know where Master Meriadoc puts his pipeweed when he's in the bathing room."

Faramir gaped and then laughed again, and helped his father straighten the books. But before they left the room, he sat down again. "What is it, child?" said Pippin, sensing the question that lay behind Faramir's thoughtful expression. It was always safe to assume that Faramir had a question, in any case.

"Well, Father..." Faramir looked troubled, and his voice faded.

"Just ask, whatever it is," said Pippin, and he sat down again by Faramir.

"Shouldn't the true story be known?" the young hobbit said. "It is not as though Frodo did anything evil in the end, and, and--" he flushed, aware of his youth and possible presumption-- "is there not something to be learned from Frodo's temptation? Perhaps? And the same could be said of Lord Boromir, could it not?"

Pippin looked with respect upon his only son. "Of course, you are right. And about Frodo, at least, the story is known. As time passes it will come to be known by more, through the Red Book and these others. Even if it were something to be ashamed of--which it isn't, by any measure--the truth would out in time, my dear.

"The reason we do not speak of it aloud, we who were there, or even near to the events, is not that they are shameful. It is that they are too close to us, still. The truth hurts--did it not hurt you when you learned of Boromir's frailty? Of Frodo's weakness? And you knew them only through tales. For Samwise and Merry and me..." Now it was Pippin's voice that faded.

"Yes," said Faramir. "I do see. And also some of these books are just so ugly--written by people who seemingly could have achieved greater deeds with ease, and have all the time under the stars to poke holes in the Fellowship." His mouth pursed with distaste as he stood.

His father rose, too. "There is that, too. Perhaps those books will be footnoted by wise hobbits, one day, when the writing comes easier. Or perhaps we will leave that hard work to our sons." Pippin slung one arm around his child's shoulders.

Faramir snorted. "Best leave it to your daughters," he said. "Elanor Gamgee and the other lasses are far better scholars than any of us lads."

Pippin lifted his eyes to the ceiling as they left the room. "I would chide you, but that I am a better hand at reading than writing, myself," he said. "Now, let's go find that chili powder. And perhaps you can invite cousin Merry to some nice, sweaty roopie practice in the barn--so he'll be in dire need of a bath this evening before supper."

Father and son strode down the hall, heads close to one another, identical Tookish giggles trailing behind.