Sometimes an idea just sticks in my head and it won't go away until I completely exhaust all possibilities. If you read "Poking the Badger", the chapter before this one, then you will know that I have tackled this subject at least once before. This story resulted from the same conversations on "Filling in the Corners" sight. The parts of this story that are set apart by *** are directly from "The Two Towers" and are the words of J.R.R. Tolkien. The rest of this is a bit of gap-filling on my part. This takes place during the Quest and it begins in Fangorn Forest. I do have to thank everyone on "Filling in the Corners" for their comments and suggestions on this issue and Gryffinjack who runs the site.

Thank you all for reading and I promise to move on to another subject now. I think this gets this one completely out of my system!

G.W. 09/04/2006

***The drink was like water, indeed very like the taste of the draught they had drunk from the Entwash near the borders of the forest, and yet there was some scent or savour in it which they could not describe; it was faint, but it reminded them of the smell of a distant wood borne from afar by a cool breeze at night. The effect of the draught began at the toes, and rose steadily through every limb, bringing refreshment and vigour as it coursed upwards, right to the tips of the hair. Indeed the hobbits felt that the hair on their heads was actually standing up, waving and curling and growing. _ Treebeard, The Two Towers, page 460***

“The Measure of a Hobbit”

***Merry and Pippin climbed on to the bed and curled up in the soft grass and fern. It was fresh, and sweet-scented, and warm. The lights died down, and the glow of the trees faded; but outside under the arch they could see old Treebeard standing, motionless, with his arms raised above his head. The bright stars peered out of the sky, and lit the falling water as it spilled on to his fingers and head, and dripped, dripped, in hundreds of silver drops on to his feet. Listening to the tinkling of the drops the hobbits fell asleep. - Treebeard, The Two Towers, page 467***

It was full dark now and Pippin twisted about and turned in an effort to get back to sleep again. Something had woke him and he was uncomfortable now. He tried not to wake Merry but in all of his squirming he must have disturbed his cousin.

“What are you doing?” Merry hissed as he rolled over to face Pippin as best he could in the dark.

“I didn’t mean to wake you, Merry,” Pippin whispered.

“Well, you did so you might as well tell me what’s on your mind so that we can both go back to sleep.” Merry propped himself up on one elbow and peered at Pippin through the dark.

“It’s nothing really,” Pippin said sounding slightly embarrassed. “It’s only that there seems to be something wrong with my trousers.”

“Your trousers?” Merry frowned. Merry tried to look down at Pippin’s legs with what little light the stars afforded them. They were inside the Ent house and so most of the light was cut off. “I don’t see anything amiss just now but there isn’t a proper amount of light really.”

“Well, I think they’re shorter than they ought to be,” Pippin said. He sat up and stretched his legs out in front of him. “See, they don’t fall properly.” He reached forward and tugged at the hems of each trouser leg so that Merry might get the proper idea of the problem.

“Orcs,” Merry sighed lying back down after a quick glance.

Orcs?” Pippin frowned. “Surely you don’t mean to say the Orcs have hemmed up my trousers, Meriadoc.”

Merry snickered. “No, you arse. They drug you about and tossed you on the ground and made you run until your feet felt as if they might fall off but I don’t recall any sewing.”

Pippin grinned. “I would have welcomed a bit of sewing if it would have kept them from those whips of theirs. I still don’t see what you’re trying to say and how it could answer my question about my trousers though.”

“I suspect that the hems are torn and frayed from all that we endured,” Merry said. “They probably ruined the lower part of your trousers, Pippin. I suspect that they are shorter now.”

“Oh,” Pippin said giving them a last look and then lying back down on the soft ferns and sweet smelling grass. “I suppose I look a fright.”

“I suspect that we both do,” Merry yawned. “Now, go to sleep and we will deal with your wardrobe in the morning.” He rolled over and that, Pippin knew was the end of the discussion.

~~~~~~~

“What are you laughing about?” Merry frowned over at Pippin. The two of them had been bathing and they were now getting dressed for the long day ahead. Treebeard was not around just now but Merry was certain that he would return soon.

“Your waistcoat,” Pippin smirked.

“What about my waistcoat?” Merry demanded as he turned to face Pippin who was just buttoning up his shirt.

“You’ve done something to it,” Pippin smiled. “It must be crooked in the back because it’s up too high. It isn’t hitting the top of your trousers. I can see your shirt beneath it.”

Merry looked down at his waistcoat and frowned. He tugged at the bottom of it and when this failed to correct the problem he quickly unbuttoned it and slipped it off. “Must have twisted something up in the back.”

“Did you sleep in it?” Pippin asked.

“No, of course not,” Merry sighed as he examined the waistcoat. “I always try to take it off if I can so that it will be one item of clothing that doesn’t appear to have been slept in.” Merry checked the small adjustment belt in the back which allowed him to tighten or loosen the waistcoat. This was particularly helpful after a large meal. He loosened it at bit and straightened the back of the waistcoat carefully. Then he slid it on and began to button it.

Pippin grinned. “Looks the same, Meriadoc. Did the Orcs do that too?” Pippin arched an eyebrow at his cousin.

Merry scowled. “The hem seems to be fine. I think this waistcoat has shrunk, Pippin.”

“I wonder when that happened?” Pippin frowned.

“I don’t know but it is shorter than it was. It’s a full inch above my waist and that isn’t at all proper,” Merry tugged at it again.

“One thing is certain,” Pippin said. “You’ve not eaten too much and outgrown it.” Pippin’s stomach rumbled at this and then suddenly they both looked up to see Treebeard standing there.

~~~~~

Treebeard was still involved with the Ent Moot which was taking considerable time as Treebeard had warned them it would. Quickbeam had sat the Hobbits down for a time and was allowing them to stretch and walk around a bit. He seemed to know that they needed to move around on their own.

“The Orcs have done strange things to your trousers too, Merry,” Pippin said looking amused as they walked.

“I was just taking note of that fact,” Merry frowned. He had removed his waistcoat and had left it back at the Ent house. Merry never liked looking improperly dressed. An ill-fitting waistcoat was simply something that he could not abide.

“I had to roll up my shirt cuffs too,” Pippin said. “They are now an inch above my wrists but they don’t look at all frayed. They just look short.”

Merry stretched his own arms out in front of him and frowned. “So are mine. What in thunder is going on here?” He reached down, unbuttoned his cuffs and began to roll them up a turn or two.

“It’s all rather odd, isn’t it?” Pippin said. “If I didn’t know better, I’d think we’d grown.”

Merry laughed. “You wish we’d grown.” He reached over and patted Pippin on the top of the head.

“Well, it does make some sense, Merry,” Pippin objected pushing Merry’s hand away. “I don’t recall us getting wet enough recently to shrink our clothing and yet it clearly doesn’t fit well.”

“Pippin, I am thirty-six,” Merry smiled. “How many thirty-six-year-old Hobbits do you know that suddenly experience a growth spurt?”

“None,” Pippin sighed. “Still it would have been nice to be taller.”

“I am afraid that you are as tall as you are going to get,” Merry smiled sympathetically. “Twenty-eight-year-old Hobbits don’t grow either.”

Pippin smiled. “But still, it would have been nice.”

~~~~~~~~~~~

“What are you fussing about?” Pippin inquired as he came outside of the Ent house on the second morning and walked over to join Merry.

“My trouser are even shorter today than yesterday,” Merry said. “If this continues I shall be wearing short pants like a little lad by the time the Ent Moot is over.”

“Mine are nearly hitting my knees now,” Pippin said leaning over and looking at them.

“I don’t want my knees to show,” Merry complained. “They’re knobby. I don’t have nice knees.”

Pippin laughed. “You have dreadful ears but I don’t see you doing anything to hide them. Why worry about your knees? Everyone will be so busy staring at your ears that they’ll not notice your knees at all.”

“There is nothing wrong with my ears,” Merry snapped. “Besides, my hair covers them.”

“One of them is sticking out right now,” Pippin said and he pointed to Merry’s right.

Merry reached up to straighten out his hair and Pippin laughed again. “Or not.”

“My hair covers my ears but unfortunately everyone can see your nose,” Merry smiled.

Pippin rubbed the end of his nose and frowned. “There is nothing wrong with my nose.”

“If anything on you has grown at all, it’s that pointed beak of yours,” Merry teased.

Pippin removed his hand crossed his eyes in an attempt to get a proper look at his own nose. “Looks the same as always to me,” he said irritated.

“I don’t’ know,” Merry frowned and he turned his back and stretched.

“Merry?” Pippin said after a minute in a rather nervous tone of voice.

“What is it, Pip?”

“It isn’t any longer, is it? Really?”

~~~~~~~~~~~~

As they stood before their picnic on the ruins of the gates of Isengard, Merry and Pippin faced one another and surveyed each other critically. “You need a hair cut,” Merry offered, looking at Pippin’s curls.

“So do you,” Pippin said. “It’s hitting the collar of your shirt and you never allow your hair to get that long.”

“I don’t suppose you saw anything that we might trim our hair with inside did you?” Merry frowned.

“No, but I wasn’t really looking,” Pippin said. “Besides, I suspect that you wouldn’t allow me to trim your hair even if we had something to do it with.”

Merry looked horrified. “I most assuredly would not. I was thinking that I might trim it a bit on my own thank you very much.”

“Maybe it’s best that we didn’t find anything then,” Pippin said. “We’d only argue over it. I am not about to allow you to cut my hair either.”

“I do an excellent job,” Merry objected.

“Merry, the last time you cut my hair it was a full inch shorter on one side and there was a large gap in the back. Even Pearl couldn’t fully repair the damage. She just kept muttering, ‘why did you let him near you with scissors?’ and she kept wacking me on the top of my head with the comb every time she came to a patch of hair that you’d ruined.” Pippin rubbed the top of his head as if he could still feel the pain from his older sister’s comb. “She said if I ever allowed you to cut my hair again that she’d take the clippers father uses on the sheep and sheer me bald as a lesson.”

Merry snorted. “Pearl is far too critical of everything. I may have missed a few spots or gone up hill a time or two but it was a passable job.”

“All the same, I have no wish to be shorn like a sheep, Merry,” Pippin said.

“Very well, no hair cuts then,” Merry said. “Now, you need to even the folding of your cuffs, Pippin. One is higher than the other.”

Pippin extended his arms and then began to unfold the cuffs. “I think this is a great deal of work to greet a King that we’ve never met before.”

“Treebeard said that this was important and so we have to try to look presentable,” Merry said. “We are representing Treebeard in this and we are also representing the Shire. We don’t want this King to get an improper impression of Shire folk, do we?”

“I suppose not,” Pippin agreed. “One of your trouser legs is rather badly torn, Merry. What happened to it?”

“I think I hooked it on one of Treebeard’s branches,” Merry sighed. “We’ve no mending kit or threads so I shall just have to hope that this King will come to realize that we’ve been out in the wild for some time now.”

“Better?” Pippin asked holding out his arms so that Merry could inspect his sleeves.

“Much,” Merry nodded. “If I didn’t know that your shirt sleeves were too short, I’d not notice a thing with them folded in that fashion.” He looked at Pippin and sighed. “Sadly, there isn’t anything at all to be done about our trousers.”

“I suppose not,” Pippin shrugged. “I’ve let me braces out somewhat and that seems to help slightly but they are still entirely too short. At least we are somewhat clean. I was pleased that we were able to wash our things out a bit while in Fangorn.”

“Yes, it is well that we are clean,” Merry agreed. “I was almost afraid to wash my trousers for fear they might shrink until I could no longer wear them.”

“Do you really believe that our clothing shrank, Merry?” Pippin asked.

"I don't know what else it could be," Merry shrugged as he let his braces out a bit more in the hopes of making his trousers appear a bit longer.

"It's a shame that when you wash something it doesn't sometimes get larger," Pippin said.

"Now, that is the most ridiculous idea you've had in some time," Merry sighed.

"Well, somehow we seem to be taller and if we are then it must have been the water that we bathed in," Pippin said thinking out loud. "If that is so, then why would it be so difficult to believe that the same water might make our clothing larger too?"

"So now you've decided that we are taller and that it is because of the fact that we bathed in the water in Fangorn Forest?" Merry grinned in amusement.

"It makes some sense Merry," Pippin said looking insulted at his older cousin's attitude. "If we are taller and that water that we bathed in is responsible then why wouldn't it make our clothing larger? Think of all the money that could be made on a thing of that sort." Pippin's expression brightened. "If you ate too much and out grew your things you could simply wash them in the water from Fangorn Forest and they would instantly be larger!"

"Wouldn't work," Merry said shaking his head.

"Why not?"

"If the water made us larger then what would keep your hands from becoming larger when you put them in the water to wash out your things?" Merry asked. "Just imagine some Hobbit who spends all morning washing clothing in the water from Fangorn Forest and then turns up at the noon meal with hands three times the size of a normal Hobbit's hands. What then?"

Pippin frowned and stared at his hands. "I guess it isn't anything at all to do with the water we bathed in is it?"

"No, we aren't any larger," Merry smiled. "Something has just happened to our clothing."

"But what do you think has happened Merry? How do you explain this?" Pippin wanted to know. He was greatly annoyed that his theory about washing in the water of Fangorn Forest had not been better received. He did regret that he had not discovered a new miracle washing idea and was loath to give it up.

“I honestly don’t know what to think, Pip,” Merry said. “If I didn’t know better I would begin to believe that you were right and that we’ve both grown. I have no idea how that would be possible though.”

Pippin smiled forgetting his laundry plans in favor of an idea that enjoyed more. “Wouldn’t that surprise everyone back home?”

“I should think that they’d be completely stunned by it if it were true,” Merry grinned. “Imagine, it would be impressive enough if I had grown, but I am not entirely certain that the Shire is ready for a tall Peregrin Took!”

“If I were taller, the first thing I’d do is walk up to Sancho Proudfoot and rap him on the top of his head with my knuckles,” Pippin grinned. “Then I should enjoy finding everyone who has ever mussed my hair or patted me on the top of my head and doing that very thing to them.” Pippin sighed and sat down amid the food that he and Merry had collected for a snack which they planned to eat while waiting for Treebeard’s guests to arrive.

“I would enjoy watching that,” Merry laughed as he sat down also. He sighed when he noticed how far up on his legs his trousers had shifted when he sat. “We look as if we’ve been dressed out of a rag basket.”

“My sisters would be fit to be tied if they could see me now,” Pippin grinned. “My shirt comes out of my trousers when I sit down. I’d not be allowed at the table looking like this.”

“Fortunately, we are not at a table,” Merry said, lifting a mug full of ale to his lips and taking a deep drink.

“Yes, well, knowing my older sisters I suspect that they won’t even allow me to eat on the ruined site of a great battle in this attire,” Pippin said drinking from his own cup. I can just hear Pervinca now. Pippin raised his voice an octave and said, “Peregrin Took, you should be ashamed of yourself! How dare you come to a meal dressed like that. This was the site of an important battle and you are being very disrespectful by sitting down to meal dressed like a bedraggled orphan child.”

Merry laughed spilling some of his ale onto the ground. “Bedraggled orphan?”

Pippin nodded. “According to Pervinca all orphans are bedraggled. Sometimes they are filthy but they are always bedraggled.” He smiled. “She once said that I was the image of a filthy little bedraggled orphan in front of Frodo.”

Merry sucked in his breath and his eyes widened as he imagined the scene. “What did Frodo say to her?”

Pippin laughed. “Nothing at all. He just looked at her so hard and for so long that she blushed fire red and ran from the room. Then Frodo turned to me and said, ‘you know you are filthy. In fact you may be entirely too filthy to be a proper orphan.’”

Merry laughed.

“I was confused by that for days,” Pippin said. “I thought all orphans were filthy and bedraggled and so naturally I wasn’t sure about any of it anymore. I couldn’t have been more than nine at the time.” Pippin put an entire slice of salted pork into his mouth.

“I hope this King isn’t overly critical,” Merry mused as he watched Pippin chew.

~~~~~

Much later, having greeted the King and their dear friends upon their arrival at the gates, Merry and Pippin busied themselves preparing a meal for Gimli, Legolas, and Aragorn inside the guard house that still stood in tact near the ruined gates.

***The three were soon busy with their meal; and the two hobbits unabashed, set to a second time. “We must keep our guests company,” they said.

“You are full of courtesy this morning,” laughed Legolas. “But maybe, if we had not arrived, you would already have been keeping one another company again.”

“Maybe; and why not?” said Pippin. “We had foul fare with the Orcs and little enough for days before that. It seems a long while since we could eat to heart’s content.”

“It does not seem to have done you any harm,” said Aragorn. “Indeed you look in the bloom of health.”

“Aye, you do indeed,” said Gilmi, looking them up and down over the top of his cup. “Why, your hair is twice as thick and curly as when we parted; and I would swear that you have both grown somewhat, if that is possible for hobbits of your age. This Treebeard at any rate has not starved you.”***

Pippin’s eyes widened and he looked over at Merry when Gimli mentioned the possibility that they might have grown. Merry swallowed hard, gave a quick glance at his trouser legs and then he responed to Gimli.

***“He has not,” said Merry. “But Ents only drink, and drink is not enough for content. Treebeard’s draughts may be nourishing, but one feels the need of something solid. And even lembas is none the worse for a change.”

“You have drunk of the waters of the Ents, have you?” said Legolas. “Ah, then I think it is likely that Gimli’s eyes do not deceive him. Strange songs have been sung of the draughts of Fangorn.”***

Merry and Pippin exchanged glances. Merry watched as Pippin straightened to his full height and smiled over at his older cousin looking as if he had just been awarded some sort of prize for a noble act. Merry sighed. Pippin was going to be insufferably pleased about this turn of events for quite some time now. Merry, for his part, was more amused than anything else. Later when Pippin kept insisting that Merry measure him just one more time so that they could be certain about how much they had grown, Merry was far less amused. Merry was even less amused when Pippin became convinced that he was taller than Merry was. Of all things! Naturally, that simply was not true.

The End?

G.W. 09/04/2006

I am grateful to Gryffinjack for providing a place to pose questions. Thank you to Slightlytookish and Claudia603 for the laundry idea. I couldn't resist putting it in here. Thank you to Shirebound who says that this is also similar to a Shirebunny. Also to everyone who commented on how the Hobbit's clothing might get shorter but was unlikely to become too tight since they had not eaten properly. Thanks to Dreamflower for pointing out the wear that would have been evident on the Hobbit's clothing after their time with the Orcs. And finally, thank you to everyone who was willing to read a second story on the subject of Ent Draught and Hobbit height!