In Stitches

It was the third day of planting at the farm of Paladin Took in Whitwell, in the spring of 1403 S.R. Eglantine Took straightened up from the table she was clearing at the sound of her eldest daughter yelling “Mum” as she ran into the hay barn. Planting time and harvest time meant extra hands were hired, too many to feed inside the house. So meals were served in the farm yard or in the hay barn. Today was a bit drizzly so the meals were being served in the barn.

“You’d best . . .” Pearl panted as she stopped in front of her mother. “You’d best go in and see him, Mum.” She drew a few deep breaths before going on. “I could hear him screaming before I got anywhere near his room, so I just came back out here to fetch you.”

Eglantine sighed, nodding to Pearl as she started toward the house. “I had the feeling this wasn’t going to go well today. Thank you dear, I’ll see to him.”

Normally, Pippin would have been helping just like everyone else. Even young hobbits helped with carrying things, stirring pots of soup or stew, washing dishes, drawing water from the well, among various other tasks. But this year, just two weeks before planting was to start, Pippin had a cold that decided to settle in his chest. At least this happened less often, now the lad was between thirteen and fourteen years old, but it still seemed there would be one cold a year that would find its way to her son’s lungs.

He was on the mend and over the worst of it. He really just needed to get his strength back, but in a way that made it worse. Because he wasn’t all that sick, he didn’t need to be watched over continually, but because he wasn’t up to his full strength he couldn’t help either. The first day of planting had gone well, Pippin had entertained himself with his books and toys and been content with occasional brief visits from his family members. The second day he had become irritable in the afternoon as the books had nearly all been read, and interest in his toys waned. Today had not gone well from the start.

Twice they had caught him trying to sneak out of the house and once Nell had caught him trying to fill the bath tub for himself. She caught him because she had gone to get a platter from the kitchen and found the floor shiny with water and her dejected little brother sitting in the middle of it beside the bucket he had lost his hold of and dropped. He quickly found himself dried, in a new nightshirt and tucked back into bed.

Apparently, it was shortly after that he had set up his howling and, like Pearl before her, Lanti heard Pippin long before she got to his room. Between coughs and hiccoughs her youngest was screaming, “I wan’ a ge’ ou’ o’ here,” over and over. With a few, “Muuums” thrown in for good measure. From the sounds the lad was making, Lanti was suddenly uncertain of her decision to make Pippin stay in his bed this day. He was hoarse, coughing and sneezing. When she got to his door she opened it to quite a sight. A very wet faced, red faced, Pippin sat in the middle of a bed stripped of its top bedclothes. His books had been dropped to the floor but fared better than his toys, covers and pillows as they had obviously been thrown about the room. With the exception of his sniffling and hiccoughing, Pippin quickly fell silent when he saw who had opened his door, his expression something of a mix between belligerence and gratitude.

Eglantine crossed her arms over her bosom. “Did you have a good time of it, throwing your things all over your room?” she quietly asked.

“Yes,” her son croaked.

“And are you satisfied with the state you’ve worked yourself into?”

He sniffed then hiccoughed before wheezing out a “yes”.

“You have been checked upon several times today, Peregrin. It’s not as though you’ve been abandoned. We talked about how I felt you were an old enough lad to not have to be sat with constantly.” She shook her head. “Apparently, I was wrong.”

“Yes. Well . . . *cough*. . . no. I’m an old enough lad . . . sort of.” Pippin looked down and started picking at the sheet he was sitting on. “It was fine the first day . . . *sniff* . . . and not too awful yesterday.”

Eglantine came and sat on the messy bed beside her son. “But today?”

“It’s just plain horrible, Mum,” he said without looking up. “I’ve read all my books more than twice through. My Dwarf, Elf, and Men soldiers are tired of fighting and my ponies are tired of racing and my farmers are out planting like Da is and their families are helping like you and my sisters so they don’t have time to play.”

“I see. Did they like getting thrown all about?”

“No.” Pippin sniffed a bit more then leaned against his mother. “They were all scared of me because I was angry. They tried to hide under the covers so I . . . *sniff* . . . wouldn’t throw them, that’s why I threw off the covers, and now they’re all hurt because they hit the walls and floor and such.” His breath hitched as he started to get teary. “I don’t feel good either,” he mumbled.

His mum hugged him close. “No, I’m sure you don’t, my sweet, silly lad. I think you need to pick all your toys up, apologize to them, see if any of them need a healer then put them away. I’ll make your bed back up then you and I can have luncheon in the kitchen together.”

Pippin looked up with a hint of a smile lighting his face. “In the kitchen? I get to come out?”

“Only into the kitchen, dear, not outside.” She saw his smile fade and hastened to add, “But I think you will find this afternoon a bit more to your liking, Pippin. After your luncheon, I want you to nap a bit, as you’ve worked yourself into such a mess. Then after tea, I shall spend time with my favorite lad.”

“I thought that was Da.” Pippin said, his eyes twinkling despite being red and swollen.

“True. He’s my favorite older lad; you’re my favorite younger lad.” She gave him a squeeze and a kiss. “Now, lets get this room back in order and get you fed, young hobbit.”

Soon, the room was in order. There were ten wounded soldiers of various races, two injured farmers, one injured farmer’s wife and three hurt children. They were gathered up in Lanti’s apron for tending to later. Pippin knew they would all be well, his mum being a healer. After a hearty lunch of chicken soup, bread, cheese, milk and biscuits, Pippin was tucked into his bed for his nap while Eglantine went to start preparing tea for the workers. She would also get things started for dinner so she could spend the time after tea with Pippin as she had promised.

After Vinca left with her brother’s tea tray, Lanti came in and sat down on the chair beside Pippin’s bed. He could see she had something wrapped up in her apron.

“Are you ready for me to spend some time with you, Pippin?”

“Yes, Mum. What have you got wrapped in your apron?”

“You think I’ve something in my apron?”

“Mum” he sing-songed as he reached for the edge of the apron. His mother batted him away.

“Will you pay attention while I show it to you?”

“Yes, Mum.”

“Will you try your best to learn?”

“Learn, Mum? Learn what, Mum? What did you bring me?” Pippin was bouncing with anticipation.

“Will you try your best to learn?” Lanti smiled as she repeated the unanswered question.

“Yes, Mum. Yes. Learn what?”

She pulled back the edge of her apron to reveal . . .

yarn . . .

and knitting needles.

Pippin quit bouncing. He scrunched up his face in dismay. He looked at the yarn and needles, he looked at his mother, back at the yarn once more then finally settled with looking at his mum.

“Knitting?” He said with a whiney tone.

“Knitting.”

“That’s for lasses, Mum. Are you wanting me to be a lass now? Don’t you have enough of those?”

Lanti bent close to her son’s ear and whispered, “ ‘Twas Grandpa Banks as taught me to knit.”

Pippin pulled sharply away, his look of dismay turned to one of shock. “Grandpa Banks knitted?”

“Yes, Pippin dear. He learned from his Auntie Lilly, and she from her Uncle Tod. I don’t know who taught him.”

“Lads knit?” Pippin whispered.

“Aye, they truly do. Though I will admit that most who do don’t go saying much about it to their lad friends. Well,” she gave him a hug and smiled, “they don’t go saying much to anyone. But, they do some of the most beautiful knitting I’ve seen.”

“Really?”

“Really. You know the ribbons that I showed you that Grandma Banks won at the fairs?” Pippin nodded. “They were actually Grandpa’s. Grandma would enter things he knitted in her name so no one would know.”

Pippin thought a few moments about all that he had just heard. Lads doing knitting. It seemed a horrible idea. But . . . Grandpa had been a strong hobbit farmer. He hadn’t seemed in the least bit sissy. Pippin looked at his mum.

“You really think I can learn to knit?”

“Of course you can. I was about your age when I learned. I taught Nell and Vinca when they were your age. Pearl never took to it. She is better with needle and thread.”

“All right, Mum,” Pippin said, but he stopped her as she reached for the yarn and needles in her lap. “Only if you promise, truly seriously promise, that you won’t tell anyone. Especially my sisters. Promise?”

“I promise, Pippin, my most sincere and serious promise. I’ve not told anyone but you about my father knitting, and I only told you so you would understand why I think you might like it. I’ve never even told your Da. Is that a good enough promise for you?”

Pippin nodded eagerly and reached for the tools of the craft.

When his mum left, just before dinner time, Pippin had a head full of new words and hands full of sticks and yarn. No, he reminded himself, *needles* and yarn. He had learned the way to wrap the yarn around the fingers of his right hand to “keep the tension even,” what ever the tension was. Mum had explained but it still wasn’t very clear to him. He had learned to cast stitches onto a needle and how to hold the needles when actually knitting. He learned to make what mum said was the stitch called “knit” and, she said, once he did well with several rows of knit stitches, she would teach him the other basic stitch, called “pearl” like his oldest sister.

When Eglantine went to check on Pippin that evening after supper, he proudly showed her his knitting. It was uneven, it had holes in it and became narrower from where he had dropped stitches (he had started with twenty and finished with fourteen). But he beamed with pride.

“I’m so proud of you, Pippin!” she said hugging him tightly. “You have stuck with your knitting all afternoon and evening. And look,” she held up the needle from which about six inches of fabric hung. “These last five rows are nearly even and there aren’t any more dropped stitches!”

“It didn’t go too well at first, Mum,” he fingered where some of the holes were, then looked up with a smile. “But then all of a sudden it just seemed to work and it looks a bit like your knitting.”

“It looks just fine, dear. Now,” she said taking up the needles, “I’ll just cast these stitches off. Do you remember what that means, Pippin?”

“Yes. It’s how you end it so it won’t un . . . un . . . fall apart.”

“Unravel, dear. Yes. I’ll teach you how to do it later, if you want to keep learning?”

“Oh yes! I really do, Mum. I want to learn Pearl’s stitch.” His eyes twinkled with humor at his jest. “And did you know, Mum, that Merry lost his favorite scarf and hat while we were at the Hall over Yule? I would really love to make new ones for him to give him on my birthday. Well . . .” Pippin paused and looked at his mother. “That is I would like to do that as long as he doesn’t know I made them. Could we tell him you made them, even though that would be lying?”

Lanti set down Pippin’s knitting, now cast off of the needle, so she could hug him tightly. “Yes, dear, we can tell him I made them. I’m proud of you for not wanting to lie, but I understand there are times one needs to keep a secret. Now,” she said as she stood, “it is time for this young hobbit lad to go to sleep.”

Pippin snuggled down into his bed as his mum pulled up and tucked the covers under his chin. “I’m so very proud of you, dear,” she said kissing him gently before dimming the lamp and leaving the room.

There were two more days of planting to be got through, but all went smoothly at the home of Paladin Took’s family. Somehow Eglantine and Pippin managed to keep their secret, even from Pippin’s nosy sisters and the lad now had something he enjoyed working on to help the rainy days of spring and summer pass by. He learned stitches and patterns and his work continued to improve so that by the time Pip’s birthday came, Merry wasn’t the only one to receive some of “Eglantine’s” knitting for their gift.