Pearl

I have no idea who is in charge of getting things organized for trips in other families, but I know who is in charge of this in mine. My oldest sister Pearl is the family organizer. Pearl lines up all of the baggage, sees to our coats and cloaks, checks to see if all of the fires are out, finds last minute items that are needed, and somehow, gets all of us into the wagon. Without her, we could never go anywhere.

Pearl is the oldest and she was born for the role. No one would be better at it. She takes charge with ease and she always seems to know what to do. Nell might be best suited to run the farm, but Pearl is best suited to run the family. I have watched her do this since I was very small. Nothing escapes her notice and no detail is left unattended. My dear mum is not an organizer and her system of keeping up with things is sketchy at best. I take after her. I never know where I have put anything but as long as Pearl is about, she knows where my missing treasures are.

When I was six, I lost the blanket that I slept with every night. I feel silly admitting it just now, but I couldn’t sleep unless I had a hold of that blanket. I had been recovering from a cold and so I had carried the blanket all through the smail with me all day, going from room to room and napping. When it came time for bed, I couldn’t find it anywhere. I had a terrible fit and was crying myself into a case of the hiccups, when Pearl came into my room with the blanket. I was fine once I had it, and everything went back to normal. Pearl is like a trained hunting dog. She can locate anything.

Pearl is also the sister that I can charm the quickest. Pearl will forgive me anything if I give her the proper look and use the correct tone of voice. She is the most likely to indulge me and she is the one that pleads my case with my parents when I have been up to no good. Nell won’t give me away to them, but if I’m caught then she lets me dig my own holes. Pervinca will dig the hole for me and shovel the dirt in on top of me. Pearl is always willing to believe that whatever I have done, I didn’t mean to do it.

Of all of my sisters, Pearl looks the most like our mum. In fact she might be mostly pure Banks which may explain why she is so much more practical than the rest of us. The rest of the family has far too much Tookishness to ever be considered practical. I suspect that mum is more of a Took than Pearl and I have no idea how this is possible.

Pearl is good with money. She knows how to shop and she knows how to save. She is the sister to go to for a loan because she is usually the only sister with any money to speak of. The down side of this is that she always makes you pay her back before she will grant you a second loan. She knows me well and so she knows that my money is soon spent. She will make me a loan but she does expect payment. She will take work in exchange for the money. I have done the dishes, helped with the washing, scrubbed the floors, gathered the eggs, and helped with the cooking all to pay back the money that I owe Pearl. I have come to realize that I am not really getting a loan from my dear sister. I am hiring on to do a job in exchange for payment.

Pearl is what mum calls a proper lass. She has perfect manners at all times and is comfortable in all social situations. I remember one year when I was thirteen and Pearl was twenty-seven, we had a dinner here at our Smail for some of father’s friends and their families. That afternoon, about three hours before the guests started to arrive, poor mum took ill with a bad fever. She had caught this while nursing Vince through it earlier in the week. It was too late to cancel the dinner and so Pearl stepped into the role of hostess while Vince and Nell took care of mum. It was amazing how easily Pearl performed this task. If I hadn’t known better, I would have thought that she was the Mistress of the smail. Father was very proud of her and so was I. The dinner was a success and more than one of the hobbits present commented to father than Pearl would make someone a fine wife some day.

Pearl might make some hobbit a fine wife, but I am not ready to let her go just yet. After all, if she leaves, who will organize us and find things and keep the peace? This is another of Pearl’s talents. She is the peace maker. She settles fights between Pervinca and Nell all of the time. Those two are so different that they rarely see things in the same light and so Pearl often has to step in and patch up the damage. I have also seen her do this between her own friends as well.

Pearl also never panics. I have come to her bleeding from both knees, my nose, my elbows, my head, with both eyes blacked, and once, though I don’t wish to discuss it, with a bucket stuck on my head. Nothing panics her. I have tested her and she will remain calm and sort out whatever the trouble may be. She will stop bleeding, bandage wounds, hold cold cloths on swollen eyes, bring down fevers, find missing blankets and remove stubborn buckets from your head. The only thing that upsets her is mice.

I have watched Pearl carry frogs out of the smail and return them to the out doors, kill poisonous snakes, kill spiders, and deal with angry farm animals, but she is helpless with mice. I once brought several field mice into our smail with the intention of keeping them in a box in my room as pets only to have them escape before I had mentioned them to the rest of the family. I had been out in the barn helping Nell milk the cows and when we returned, Pearl was standing on our kitchen table crying. I had never seen her this upset and it frightened both me and Nell.

Nell and I were both rushing over to ask her what was wrong, when one of my mice scampered across the kitchen floor and Pearl screamed. Nell thought it was very funny that Pearl was frightened of a little ole mouse until she saw the second one go by. Both of my sisters were convinced that the smail had been over-run with rodents. They were not at all please when they found out that I had brought them in and that, though we weren’t over-run, there were four of them.

Nell helped me track down my pets and release them into the fields, after we got Pearl off of the table and to safety. Nell had to pick her up and carry her outside. I was out of Pearl’s good graces for several days that time and no amount of charm could win her over. I was becoming desperate for her forgiveness when she finally calmed down enough to accept some of my many apologies. She doesn’t get angry at me often, but when she does, it always upsets me.

Pearl is thirty now and will come of age in three years. When she does, I hope that she won’t rush off and marry some lad and leave the rest of us to fend for ourselves. I don’t know what we would do without her. I don’t want to know.