Chapter 7. Home Again, Home Again

 ‘Home again, home again, jiggety-jig!’ sang Sweetbriar in a high, cracked voice as the waggon drove along the street that ran through Whitwell. It was a far cry from their lickety-split gallop to Whittacres Farm the previous day.

Paladin had braided ribbons into the ponies’ manes and tails, and used his best harness, the one with silver bells sewn along the length of leather so that the ponies made music as they jigged along. Now driving the healer and her helper home in the grandest style, he raised an arm to return greetings, a broad smile on his face. ‘Aye!’ he shouted once again, in answer to a query. ‘A lad!’

He pulled up in front of the healer’s neat little dwelling and hopped down to help Sweetbriar from the waggon. Next he held out his hand to the tween, and Woodruff, arrested in the act of jumping down, flushed scarlet at the courtesy that had never before been extended to her. He squeezed her hand in reassurance before releasing it, once she was safely on the ground. ‘My thanks, again, Miss,’ he said, ‘for all you’ve done.’

 ‘O but it was the Mistress,’ she said breathlessly, before biting her lip and dropping her eyes. ‘Beg pardon,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to contradict, sir.’

 ‘You don’t have to “sir” me, lass,’ the farmer said kindly. ‘Most everyone round here calls me “Dinny”, and if that seems too forward to you, then just call me “Paladin”. You start handing out “sirs” hereabouts and everyone’ll jump and look round for the Thain!’

 ‘Yes, si—Dinny,’ she said shyly, and the farmer’s grin brightened.

 ‘That’s the lass!’ he said approvingly. Turning to the healer, he added, ‘Our thanks to you, Sweetbriar, and—’ he dug in a pocket, ‘—a little something extra from the heir to Buckland...’

 ‘O now Dinny,’ she said, holding up a restraining hand, but he seized it and placed a gold coin there.

 ‘Not my gold,’ he said jovially. ‘...as if I had any gold! It’s no skin off my teeth! Sorry “Scattergold”, he’s the one, gave me this to give to you. He said you wouldn’t take it from him, earlier.’

 ‘He paid me the two silver pennies he owed for setting his son’s arm,’ Sweetbriar said.

 ‘And he thought you ought to have a little extra,’ the farmer said, closing her fingers around the coin, ‘as do I. Let me tell you, if I had a gold piece to spare, which I do not, so you needn’t worry, well, I wouldn’t have it, if you know what I’m saying.’

 ‘Go on with you!’ Sweetbriar scolded. ‘None of your nonsense, Dinny! Now you take this right back where it came from!’

The farmer stepped back, throwing his hands up in the air. ‘Can’t take it back!’ he said. ‘ ‘Tisn’t mine!’ He gave a bow, turned, jumped back into the waggon, and chirruped to the ponies. ‘Get on laddie; get on lass! Let us come home in time for tea!’

Sweetbriar hmphed, blowing the curls from her forehead. She shook her head and took her helper’s arm. ‘Speaking of tea,’ she said, ‘we had better put the kettle on, hadn’t we?’

Entering the smial, she placed the gold coin and the four silver ones she’d earned—two from Paladin and two from the Bucklander—in a little cracked sugar bowl on one end of the mantel, replacing the cover with a rattle. ‘There,’ she said briskly. ‘And there it’ll stay, for I’ll not have need to buy another assistant anytime soon! Now then, Sweetie...’

She assigned tasks to Woodruff, seeming busy about her own tasks, but watching the tween all the while. An absent-minded frown settled on her good-natured face at the tween’s slow, careful movements. Woodruff could move quick enough, the old healer allowed, when she wasn’t thinking about what she was doing, but now, handling the china teapot and cups and plates the tween was slow as honey in wintertime.

They passed a pleasant teatime, and after the washing up there was time for Sweetbriar to take the tween around to introduce her to her chores: caring for the chickens, pulling weeds in the little garden, watering the window boxes, and all the other little things that need attention.

While the tween was shutting up the chickens for the evening, Ted came whistling through the little gate. ‘Ah, you’re back!’ he said. ‘I wasn’t sure how long you’d be, so I just came to see to the chickens.’

 ‘You care for them when my Mistress is away?’ the tween said.

  ‘I do!’ Ted said. He jumped into the work then, helping her shoo the chickens into their little house, safe from foxes and owls, telling her the name of each and their little ways. ‘And that spotted one there, she thinks she’s queen of the flock, so we call her Queenie, of course. Look how she struts, all proud!’

Woodruff was laughing when old Sweetbriar came out of the smial. ‘Supper’s on,’ the old healer said. ‘Will you be staying, Ted-my-lad?’

Ted laughed. ‘I would love to,’ he said, ‘but for the fact that Mum gave me strict orders to be back home for supper. She said it’s hard enough, you having one great tween to feed, without making it two!’

 ‘You tell your Mum...’ Sweetbriar began, shaking her cooking spoon at the lad, but he laughed again and ducked around the spoon to peck a kiss upon her cheek.

 ‘I’ll tell her!’ he said. ‘And she’ll send me to supper one of these days, so long as I come with a basket on my arm to make up for the harm I’ll do your pantry!’

 ‘Rascal!’ Sweetbriar said, but he was off before she could add any more, for the Sun was nuzzling the horizon, ready for her own supper and bed, and the practical hobbits living in farm communities followed her lead.

Over the next days, Sweetbriar set her new apprentice a number of tasks to test her. The tween proved to own a sound knowledge of herbs and their uses, she gathered what she was sent for, she prepared tinctures and decoctions and set bunches of herbs to dry, she cleaned and dressed wounds, soothed injured hobbits and their families, helped set a broken leg, even delivered two more babies. She was willing, but puzzlingly slow whenever called to work with her hands. Whether it was employing mortar and pestle or washing up after a meal, Woodruff’s slow, careful pace tasked the patience of her Mistress, but Sweetbriar bit her tongue and kept watching.

 One thing the tween did not do well, and that was dealing with pen and ink. Her handwriting was reprehensible, a scrawl that she admittedly read with difficulty herself. Sweetbriar refrained from scolding, for it was clear that Woodruff was working very hard at it—O but she made hard work of it, she did!

The lass was not dull-witted, but she was cack-handed, to be sure. Perhaps that was one of the reasons Rosie Bracegirdle had dispensed with an otherwise competent assistant. Still, there was something... Sweetbriar couldn’t put a finger on it, so she kept her eye on the lass. And then came the day when the mystery was solved.

Woodruff was washing up after tea, and Sweetbriar was drying, and she noticed the tween wasn’t paying strict attention to her work... indeed, the way she was handling the precious old teapot that had been passed down in Sweetbriar’s family...

 ‘Sweetie,’ she said in surprise, and the tween started, the teapot slipping through her soapy hands with a rattle and an ominous crack as it dropped upon its own lid, reclining amongst the saucers in the dishpan.

 ‘Oh!’ the two cried at the same moment, Sweetbriar moving to catch the teapot, though of course the damage was done.

Woodruff’s cheeks were very pale as she stammered apologies. She looked down at her hands, and quickly snatched the dishcloth from left to right. Then her shoulders slumped in defeat. She’d cracked the pot, and she’d also broken one of Rosie’s cardinal rules.

She held out her left hand and tried to steady her voice. ‘I’m ready,’ she said.

 ‘Ready?’ Bittersweet said. She’d taken up the teapot, biting back reproof though she wanted to weep at the large crack she saw running through the thistle-flowered china, and seeing the lid in several pieces still in the dishpan. Now looking at the tween, she said again, ‘Ready? Ready for what?’

Woodruff swallowed hard and her hand trembled. ‘Would you like me to fetch the switch, Mistress?’

 ‘The switch...?’ Sweetbriar said. Comprehension dawned slowly as she stared at the tween’s face, and then down at the extended hand. She set the pot down in the dishpan, absently wiped her hands upon the towel, and reached for the tween, who flinched though she was obviously trying to stand firm.

Taking the trembling hand in hers, Sweetbriar looked down, rearing back slightly to bring the flesh into focus. ‘What...?’ she said, and took a deep breath at the fine white lines criss-crossing the palm. ‘What...?’ she repeated, beginning to tremble herself, though her emotion was outrage rather than fear like the tween’s. ‘What is the meaning of this?’ she demanded, clearly furious.

 ‘I’m sorry, Mistress,’ Woodruff whispered, her eyes on her hand. ‘I’ll try to keep still, really I will. Please don’t double the blows...?’

 ‘Double the blows?’ Sweeetbriar gasped, and in the next moment she had pulled the tween against her breast and was holding her very tight. ‘She beat you, lass? Beat you for using your off-hand?’

The tween’s head nodded against her, and tears of fury, outrage and shared hurt filled the old healer’s eyes. ‘Well I never,’ she whispered, and feeling the tween’s trembling she began patting and stroking Woodruff’s back. ‘There-there, lass, there’ll be none of that, not anymore!’

At last the trembling eased and Sweetbriar released her from the tight embrace, draping one arm about Woodruff’s shoulder and urging her away from the half-washed dishes towards the hallway, and then out into the afternoon sunshine. Seating them both on the weathered bench, taking the tween’s insulted left hand in hers, she said in a matter-of-fact tone, ‘Now, lass, tell me what it’s all about.’

 ‘She said it was “unnatural”,’ the tween replied in a low tone, keeping her eyes on her hand. ‘She tried to nag me out of it, and when that didn’t work she scolded, and then when I kept forgetting she would beat me. She said if it were painful I’d be better at remembering not to use it.’

 ‘She beat you bloody,’ the healer murmured, tracing one of the fine white scars with a gentle finger. ‘O Sweetie, how many times...?’ Looking up into the tween’s bewildered face, she added, ‘No. I do not want to know. Even once was one time too many. But hear me, lass...’ she said earnestly, and waited until the tween looked up to meet her eyes.

 ‘Hear me well,’ she said. ‘I want to see you using that hand right as it was meant to be used...’

 ‘But it’s not my right hand,’ Woodruff said, and gulped, dropping her eyes once more. ‘I’m sorry, Mistress, I didn’t mean to contradict.’

 ‘She beat you for that as well, I gather,’ Sweetbriar said, her lips pulled thin in disgust. ‘Well you’ll have no beatings from me, lass, on that you can rest! And if that Rosie Bracegirdle has the nerve to stick her nose in at my door, I’ll be tempted to flatten it for her! Imagine!’ But coming back to the topic at hand, the old healer added in a calmer voice, ‘Your off-hand is your “right” hand, lovie. It’s how you were made, and it’s “unnatural”, as you call it, to try to force you to use your right hand instead. It’s no wonder...’

She had been about to say that you’re so clumsy, but caught the words just in time, instead choosing to repeat, ‘It’s no wonder.’

But the tween's head drooped again, as if she'd heard the unspoken words. ‘Mistress?’ she whispered.

Sweetbriar cupped Woodruff’s chin in her hand, raising the young face.

 ‘You hold your head up, missy,’ she said. ‘You’ve naught to be ashamed of. Why, you’ve more of healing in your little finger than most healers I know have in their whole being! That Bracegirdle may have been a fool, but you learned well the healer’s arts in spite of her.’

Not long after, they returned to the neglected washing-up. Silently the tween lifted the cracked teapot from the water and began to carry it away.

 ‘Where do you think you’re going?’ Sweetbriar said.

 ‘It’s broken—useless,’ the tween said miserably. ‘It’ll never hold tea anymore. I was just going to put it on the rubbish heap.’

 ‘Just put it on the table until we’re done here,’ Sweetbriar said, and the tween nodded and obeyed.

But when the washing-up was done, instead of ordering the tween to cast off the teapot, Sweetbriar herself took up the pot and beckoned to Woodruff to follow. They went out to the garden, where the healer set the pot down and then directed the tween to fill it, first with the pieces of the broken lid, then little pebbles, and finally dirt. At the last she had Woodruff dig up a clump of pansies growing in the flowerbed and tenderly nestle them in the teapot, peeping out where the lid would have gone.

 ‘There,’ she said in satisfaction. ‘Now you set that by the front door, a nice little pot of heart’s-ease to brighten the eyes of passers-by.’

 ‘O Mistress,’ the tween said tearfully, and instead of taking up the pot she jumped to her feet and flung her dirty hands around the healer in a heart-felt hug.

 ‘There-there, lass,’ the healer said. It was the first hug she’d received, not given, in the company of this tween, and a precious thing, dirty hands or no. She returned the hug heartily. ‘There-there,’ she said. ‘It’s a nice, homely touch, it is. Just right for our home.’

 ‘Our home,’ the tween echoed, barely in a whisper, but the old healer heard the words right enough, and she smiled.