Part 1

Merry looked at his younger cousin and sighed.  “Are you going to let me see it or not?” he asked in exasperation.

Pippin nervously twisted the hem of his shirt and continued to stand in front of the object, blocking Merry’s view.  “It’s a bit rough and it isn’t completely finished yet,” Pippin explained.  “I still need to paint it and I might need to sand it some.  The edges are-”

Merry groaned interrupting Pippin’s litany of excuses.  “Did you or did you not insist that I come out to the barn so that you could show me something?” Merry asked.

“I do want you to see it,” Pippin said though he didn’t sound completely sure that this was what he wanted.  “It’s only that you have to understand that it still needs some improvement before it’s ready.”

“What needs improvement?” Frodo asked as he entered the barn munching on an apple. 

“I don’t know,” Merry shrugged.  “Pippin won’t let me see it.  He just keeps prattling on about the thing.”

“I was only explaining,” Pippin objected.  “It wouldn’t be fair to show you something and have you expect too much.  I just want to make sure that you understand that it isn’t completely finished.”  Pippin shifted a bit to one side so that he could also block Frodo’s view.

Merry was losing his patience but Frodo just looked at Pippin thoughtfully and asked, “Is this what you’ve been working on all week?”

Pippin nodded.  “Only it may not have turned out exactly like it was supposed to.”

“I doubt that Frodo or I will ever know because you don’t seem to be willing to let us see it,” Merry pointed out.  He moved a step closer to his seventeen-year-old cousin and folded his arms over his chest.  When Pippin made no move to step aside Merry turned and begin to walk out of the barn.

Frodo looked at Pippin.  “Well?”

“It isn’t really ready,” Pippin said twisting his shirt in both hands.

“Then I think I’ll go out and have a pipe,” Frodo smiled.  “You can show it to me when you have it completed.”  He patted Pippin on the shoulder encouragingly and left the barn.

Pippin watched Frodo leave.  He wanted to call him back but he just couldn’t do it.  With a heavy sigh Pippin turned to look down at the object he’d been concealing from his older cousins.  He bent down on his knees and looked at the lumpy shape that was covered with an old pony blanket.  He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut.  “Please let it look better than I remember when I remove the blanket,” he whispered.  He opened his eyes and instead of removing the blanket be focused his attention on the strip of white cloth that was wrapped around his left thumb.  He worried the edge of the cloth and wondered if his thumbnail would fall off.  He’d heard of that sort of thing happening to hobbits who had smashed a thumb.  In fact, his cousin Berilac Brandybuck had told him that if your thumbnail did fall off that it hardly ever grew back.  Pippin had meant to ask Merry if that was true but he’d never got the chance.

_____________________________________________________________

“How bad do you suppose it is?” Frodo asked Merry.  The two of them were leaning on the trunk of the party tree enjoying a smoke.

“It’s terrible,” Merry said without any hesitation.

“Have you seen it?” Frodo asked.

“No,” Merry said around the stem of his pipe.

“Then how can you be so certain?” Frodo asked.

Merry turned and looked at Frodo in the way that one might look at a rather slow child and blew a puff of smoke.  “It’s terrible,” Merry repeated only this time he said it slower.

“It never occurs to you that you might be wrong once in a while, does it?” Frodo asked in amusement.

“Only because I so rarely am,” Merry said with a smile.

“He’d smashed his thumb I think,” Frodo said.  “I thought I saw a bandage on it.”

“He also had a large bruise on the top of his right foot,” Merry said.  “I suspect that he might have dropped a piece of wood on it or maybe even dropped the hammer on it.”

“I wish he’d have let us help him,” Frodo said.

“I offered,” Merry said sinking down onto the grass beneath the tree.

“I remember that,” Frodo snorted.

“What?” Merry asked, looking up at him in annoyance.  “I did offer.”

“I remember,” Frodo chuckled.  “You looked over at Pippin and you said, ‘Why don’t you just let me build it for you and save some time?  You can tell Tobias that you built it and no one has to know that you didn’t.’  Yes, I remember that generous offer.”

“What’s your point?” Merry asked.

“My point is you could have been more tactful about it,” Frodo said.  “You could have offered to help him instead of letting him know that you didn’t think he could build it.”

“I did offer to help,” Merry repeated.  “How much more help could I be?  I offered to build the entire thing for him.  That is as helpful as anyone could want.”

“What if Pippin actually wanted to learn how to build it himself?” Frodo asked.

“Why would he?” Merry puzzled furrowing his brow.

“You know how,” Frodo said.  “Maybe Pippin wanted to learn to build something on his own.  That is the point of it all.  Pippin is supposed to be learning some basic carpentry skills.  He can’t do that if you build his project for him.”

“Frodo, Pippin is never going to be a carpenter,” Merry said.  “He is going to be the sort of hobbit who hires folks like Tobias Tunnely to build things for him.”

“He certainly won’t be a carpenter if he isn’t given the chance to learn,” Frodo said.  “It is one of his lessons.  He is expected to be able to build something on his own by the end of the summer.  This is supposed to be his special project.”

Merry looked up at Frodo and frowned.  “Do you actually think that Pippin wants to be a carpenter?”

“Pippin is only seventeen,” Frodo reminded Merry.  “I doubt that he knows what he might want to be.  That isn’t the important part of this.  The important part of it is, Pippin is supposed to learn something about building and repairing things.  Those are proper skills that most hobbits have.”

Merry muttered something under his breath and then laughed.

“What did you say?” Frodo asked glaring down at him.

“I said, you don’t know how to build anything,” Merry grinned.

“How would you know?” Frodo asked. 

“I have never seen you build anything more complicated than a stack of hotcakes,” Merry said.

“I have built many things,” Frodo said stiffly.

“When?” Merry asked standing up.

“When you were too little to notice such things,” Frodo said turning and walking briskly back toward Bag End.

“Well, that’s been quite a while, cousin,” Merry said running to catch up.  “Why don’t you show me some of these things that you built when I was not more than a faunt?  I’m sure that you must have kept a few of them.”

 “Piss off, Merry,” Frodo growled and he kept walking.

_________________________________________________________

Sam stood in the doorway of the barn and frowned.  Master Pippin hadn’t noticed him yet.  The lad had a hammer in one hand and he was holding a nail in the other hand.  He also had several nails held between his lips in the manner that some folks did when building something.  Sam had seen his Gaffer with a mouth full of nails many times.  It was one thing that his father did but refused to allow any of his sons to try.  Sam guessed that Master Pippin’s father was less strict about such matters.

Sam watched as the lad set the nail against the wood and raised the hammer.  Whatever Master Pippin was building it must not be anywhere near finished because Sam couldn’t have guessed what it might be by looking at it.   The wood was unpainted and there were two long poles stretching out behind it that might be handles of some kind.  It also seemed to have at least two wheels.

“”Ouch!” Pippin yelled, breaking into Sam’s thoughts.  “Tarnation and bother!”  Master Pippin was clutching the hand and swearing.  The nails that had been in the lad’s mouth were probably scattered all over the barn floor.  The hammer must have dropped onto the lad’s foot because he was jumping about as he continued to swear.

Sam walked over being careful not to step on any of the nails that Master Pippin had dropped and put a hand on the lad’s arm.  “Let me see that hand,” Sam said.

Eyes watering with pain, face flushed with embarrassment, Pippin extended his injured hand out to Sam and stood still while Sam examined it.  “Looks like you’ve gone and smashed two of your fingers with that hammer,” Sam observed.  “Don’t look like you broke ‘em but I bet it hurt.”

Pippin swallowed hard.  “I missed again,” he sighed.  “I don’t think the tops on these nails are as big as they need to be.  They’re too hard to take aim on with the hammer.”

Sam suppressed a chuckle.  “These nails with the small tops need to be got up off the barn floor or someone is likely to step on one or two,” Sam said.

Pippin knelt down on the barn floor and began to search for the nails.  “They came out of my mouth when I yelled,” he said.  He was scrounging about and collecting the nails with his uninjured hand.  Sam noticed the bandage on the thumb of the hand with the newly smashed fingers.  Whatever Master Pippin was building he wasn’t having much luck with it. 

Sam knelt down next to the lad and collected a few of the nails.  “You know, it might be a good idea not to put them nails in your mouth like that,” Sam suggested.

“Mister Tunnely does it,” Pippin said looking at Sam.  “He’s been giving me instruction and he keeps a mouth full of nails the entire time that he’s working.  He even talks with them in there and he never drops them.”  Sam could tell how very impressed Master Pippin was with this last by the look in the lad’s eyes.

“Well, I suspect he does do that, but he’s been buildin’ things and workin’ with nails longer than you or I have been drawin’ breath in this Shire.  He knows how to keep from yellin’ out and scatterin’ nails all over his work area and how to keep from swallowing ‘em,” Sam said letting this last sink in.

“Swallowing them?” Pippin asked wide-eyed.

“I suspect that if you was to take a sudden breath you might suck one or two of them nails right down your throat,” Sam said.  “I don’t know if they’d get stuck in there or not, but I suspect that it would hurt a bit more than just banging your finger with a hammer if you take my meanin’”

“Sam, if you smash your thumb nail and it falls off, does a new nail grow back?” Pippin asked suddenly.

Sam was a bit surprised by the sudden change of topic but Master Pippin was always doing that sort of thing.  “Course it’ll grow back.  Takes a bit of time and sometimes if you’ve done it several times, it grows back a might lumpy lookin’ but it grows back,” Sam said.

Pippin heaved a sigh of relief and smiled.  “I won’t put the nails in my mouth anymore, Sam.”  He took the handful of nails that he had gathered from the floor of the barn and dropped them into a large tin of nails that was setting next to his project.  He sat down and began to examine his foot thoughtfully.  “I don’t think I’ve broken it but it’s turning blue on the top where I bruised it.  Now it matches the other one,” Pippin said.   He stretched both legs out in front of him and began to compare the bruises.

Sam sighed.  “I got something that’ll help with that if you’re interested,” he offered as he stood up.

“What’s that?” Pippin asked.

 Sam walked over to one of the stalls in the barn and retrieved something.

_________________________________________________________

“One more word out of you, Meriadoc and you’ll sleep in the Gaffer’s tool shed tonight,” Frodo threatened.

“Well, as I recall you slept in there on one occasion,” Merry grinned.  “You and that rabbit of Pippin’s.  Remember?”

“I remember nothing of the sort,” Frodo said with a wave of his hand.  He suspected that he would never live that one down.  “Now go away and let me drink my tea in peace.”

Merry laughed and sat down at the table across from Frodo.  “How long are you going to let Pippin fiddle about in the barn?” Merry asked.

“He isn’t fiddling about, as you put it,” Frodo sighed.  “He’s doing his project for Mister Tunnely.  He has to have that finished before the end of the month.  I think it’s admirable that he is taking this seriously and working so hard on it.”

“I think it’s pointless,” Merry said.  “I don’t know why Uncle Paladin is insisting on this.”

“Because Pippin lives on a farm, Merry,” Frodo sighed.  “He needs to know how to make repairs to things.  Most lads Pippin’s age take some sort of carpentry instruction or they learn carpentry from their fathers.”

Merry snorted.  “Uncle Paladin will likely be Thain one day and Pippin is probably not going to need to know which end of a hammer hits a nail.  He’d do better to have Pippin take lessons in Shire history or Shire law than to try and make a carpenter of him.”

“First, we’ve no way of knowing that Paladin will be the next Thain,” Frodo said.  “Second, even if Pippin doesn’t wind up living his life out as a farmer, it won’t hurt him to know how to do a few useful things such as carpentry, and third Pippin has studies with a tutor for Shire history, reading, writing, and the other basic lessons that young hobbits have just as you once did.”  Frodo took a sip of his tea and frowned at Merry.  “You didn’t tell Pippin that he shouldn’t bother with his carpentry lessons did you?”

“No, but I’m sure that Pippin knows that his father could well be Thain at some point,” Merry said pouring himself some of the tea from the kettle.  “He’s not daft enough to think that the current Thain is suddenly going to produce an heir at his age.  Everyone knows quite well that the Thain will pass on childless and that the Thainship will fall to someone else.  That someone else will most likely be Uncle Paladin.”  Merry stirred some cream into his tea.

“I believe that will be the way of things, Merry,” Frodo agreed.  “All the same, it’s not the sort of thing that a hobbit can sit back and count on, is it?”

“No, I suppose not,” Merry said.

 “So, Pippin needs to continue on with his lessons just like every other hobbit lad in the Shire does,” Frodo said.  “Now, drink your tea and leave well enough alone.”

“They look kinda funny, Sam,” Pippin frowned looking down at his feet.  “What did you say they were again?”

“They’re foot-guards, Master Pippin,” Sam said.  He looked down at the leather covers that were now shielding the tops of Master Pippin’s sore feet.  They were rather ingenious devices if you thought about it.  They were made of soft leather and they had a strap that went around the ankle and one that went under the arch of the foot to hold them on.  They covered the tops of your feet and protected them.  They weren’t as cumbersome as the boots that the hobbits sometimes wore when forced to work in the mud.  They let the air get to your toes and you could still feel the earth beneath your feet.  All they did was help protect the tops of your feet while you were working with heavy things that might cause injuries to your feet.

Pippin walked about in a small circle looking down at his feet and grinning.  “Wonder why Mister Tunnely didn’t tell me about these?” Pippin asked.

“He’s been doin’ this sort ‘o work so long that I don’t suspect he needs these,” Sam said.  “Those are a might big on you but I don’t think they’ll trip you up.  That pair is the Gaffer’s.  He keeps them for when he’s settin’ stones for walls or walkways.”  Sam chuckled.  “He got this pair after I accidentally dropped a stone on his toe whilst I were helpin’ him build a wall at the edge of our little garden.  You shoulda heard him holler that time!”

Pippin grinned.  “Like me a minute ago?”

“He yelled a lot louder,” Sam said.  “Lot longer too and no wonder as the stone what I dropped broke the Gaffer’s big toe.”

Pippin looked down at the foot guards and then smiled at Sam.  “I’ll put them right back when I’m finished with them,” he said.

“What are you building’?” Sam asked.  He turned and took a long at the object behind him.

Pippin walked over and took hold of the long handles that Sam had noticed earlier and held the thing up on one end.  Sam walked around it slowly and studied it.  There were three wheels on it, one large one in the front that leaned slightly to the right and two smaller ones on the back on either side.  Each of the back wheels was leaning out a bit too only in different directions.  Master Pippin had the two back wheels off of the ground now.  The two long handles came off of the back of the contraption.  One of these was slightly higher than the other and the lower one was slightly longer.  Sam was sure that this hadn’t been intentional.  The main part of the thing was sort of triangle-shaped.  It was the most crooked triangle that Sam had ever seen, but it was a triangle.  One side of it was higher than the other two and again Sam didn’t think this had been done on purpose.  The three boards that made up the sides were unevenly cut and had been nailed together crookedly so that they didn’t fit properly against one another.  If Sam looked into the bottom of the triangle he could see the barn floor through a space between the bottom and the side.  He walked around the object and looked at it intently. 

Suddenly it dawned on him what the thing was supposed to be.  “Is that a wheel barrow?” he asked.

Pippin’s face split into a wide grin.  “So you can tell!” he said excitedly.  “Then at least some of it looks like it’s supposed to though sometimes it’s hard to know which parts those are.” 

“But why does it have three wheels?” Sam asked scratching his head.

“Oh, that was my idea,” Pippin beamed.  “Sometimes when you have something heavy in a wheel barrow it’s hard to lift the back off of the ground and so I figured if I put a couple of extra wheels on the back of it then if it was too full to lift it could just be rolled along.”  Pippin sighed as he sat it on all three wheels.  “At least that’s what it’s supposed to do but the wheels don’t work properly.  I think one of them must not be lined up quite right,” Pippin said.

One of them?  Sam couldn’t see that anything at all was lined up properly on this contraption.  Two extra wheels?  Wasn’t this almost a wagon now?  “Has Mister Tunnely seen it yet?” Sam asked ignoring the problem of the extra wheels for the moment.

“No,” Pippin said looking embarrassed.  “I think he wanted to give me some time to work on it without him.”  The little hobbit was staring down at the foot guards again.  “For instructing purposes Mister Tunnely might want to get some of these foot guards.”

“Did you drop a hammer on his foot, Master Pippin?” Sam asked.

‘No,” Pippin said.  “I nailed his sleeve to a board, dropped another board on one of his feet, accidentally spilt some of that grease that you use on wheels down the front of his shirt, and sawed a small table in half.”  Pippin cleared his throat.  “I think he was doing a good job of being patient with me until I dropped the hammer on his head and then he had a very hard time keeping his temper.  That’s when he said that I should work on my project by myself for a week.  He said that he would come by and see how I was managing after that.”  Pippin looked at Sam and continued.  “Do they make some sort of foot guard that fits on your head?  Maybe like a helmet?”

“I don’t recall ever seein’ one,” Sam said.  “Have you talked to Mister Merry about helping you with your wheel barrow?”

“Merry offered to build it for me,” Pippin said disgustedly.  “I know he doesn’t think that I can build one and that’s why he offered, but I want to do it myself.  I wouldn’t mind a bit of help but I don’t want Merry to build it.  Mister Tunnely would never believe that it was my work if Merry built it.”

“No, I don’t suspect that he would,” Sam said.

“This one isn’t very good and it doesn’t roll properly, but you can tell that I did it by myself can’t you?” Pippin asked.

“I can tell that all right,” Sam agreed.

“I almost asked Frodo to help today, but-“ Pippin faltered.  He didn’t want to say anything that might sound unkind about Frodo and especially not in front of Sam.  Sam and Frodo were great friends and Sam never took kindly to even the slightest criticism of Frodo.

“No, I don’t suspect that you should ask Mister Frodo for help with this,” Sam said trying not to grin.  “Mister Frodo is a fine gentle hobbit and he’s sharp as a tack about Elves and book-learnin’ and business matters, but he doesn’t know very much about buildin’ things.”

Pippin shook his head.  “One time, Frodo and I were riding in a cart hauling some potatoes and flour back to Bag End and a wheel came off of the cart.  I figured that Frodo would just get out and put the wheel back on, but instead, we left the cart right there in the road, pony and all.  We walked to the smith’s in town and Frodo hired him to come out and fix it.  If that had been Merry, he would have had the wheel back on in no time at all.”

“Some folks are good with their hands and some are better with their heads,” Sam said.  “Mister Frodo is more of a thinker then a builder.”

Pippin looked at the wheelbarrow that he had worked on all week and sighed.  “I guess I must be a thinker too because this doesn’t look very good, does it?” Pippin asked.

“It needs a bit of work and that’s sure,” Sam said trying to be tactful.  Mister Pippin had worked hard and he’d done all of this, whatever this was, on his own after he’d frightened Mister Tunnely off.  Sam knew that he was probably taking a big risk but he said, “I don’t suppose you’d mind some advise on this would you?”

______________________________________________________

Frodo walked into the barn and found Sam putting a blanket over Pippin who was sound asleep on a bed of straw.  Some distance behind Sam there was something else underneath a blanket.  Frodo suspected that this was Pippin’s carpentry project.  Obviously his little cousin was still keeping that under wraps for the time being. 

Sam looked up and smiled.  “I was going to wake him and point him toward the smial but I thought he could use a bit ‘o rest first.”

Frodo smiled back.  Sam had placed a blanket over Pippin but his little cousin’s feet were sticking out from underneath the blanket.  Frodo peered intently at Pippin’s feet.  “What is he wearing?” Frodo whispered.

“Them are the Gaffer’s foot guards,” Sam explained.  “They’re for protectin’ the tops of your feet from things such as fallin’ hammers.”

Frodo sighed.  “I am guessing that Pippin has inherited my lack of skill with tools then?”

Sam blushed a bit and nodded.  “Well, Mister Frodo the lad is a might awkward just now and it is his first try.”

Frodo smiled.  “So you are saying that, unlike me, he might have a chance of improving with practice and instruction?”

Sam stammered a bit and then finally said, “You never had much call to build nothing, Mister Frodo.  I’m sure that if you had that you-”

“Would have done just about as well as Pippin is doing now,” Frodo sighed looking at his sleeping cousin.

“I wouldn’t like to say, sir,” Sam said.

“I wish that I could help him a bit, but I’m afraid that I wouldn’t know where to begin,” Frodo sighed.  “Merry is the member of the family that seems to have a natural talent for this sort of thing.”  Frodo glanced behind himself as if expecting Merry to turn up suddenly and then said, “Don’t tell Merry that I said that, Sam.  That Brandybuck is insufferable enough as it is with out praise.”

“He’s at that age,” Sam said and Frodo had to try not to smile.  Sam was only two years older than Merry was.  “Course it ain’t my place to say nothing about Mister Merry’s behavior.”

“Merry could help Pippin with this if he’d simply help and not do the entire thing for him,” Frodo said.  Frodo was trying to build up to something and Sam was fairly sure that he knew what it was.  “I don’t suppose that you might be able to give Pippin a few instructions.  You know, look at his work and offer suggestions as to how to make it better?”

Having seen Master Pippin’s labors Sam suspected that almost anything would make it better but he didn’t think that would be a very helpful thing to say.  Mister Frodo was only trying to find some help for the lad and to be perfectly fair, Mister Frodo hadn’t seen the contraption that was underneath that blanket just yet.  “I suppose that I could help him a bit if he doesn’t mind,” Sam said slowly.  “But won’t Mister Tunnely but put out if I happen to teach Master Pippin something in a different way from how he thinks it ought to be done?”

“I believe that Mister Tunnely would be grateful for the help,” Frodo said remembering the old gentleman’s expression as he had sat on the sofa in the Bag End parlor with a cold cloth on the lump that was growing on the top of his head.  Frodo glanced over at Pippin.  The lad was the picture of innocence as he slept.  It was hard to imagine that this little hobbit had made patient Mister Tunnely so angry in one short afternoon.  Frodo sighed as he remembered the grease on Mister Tunnely’s shirt and said to Sam, “Anything that you might be able to teach Pippin would be appreciated by myself and Mister Tunnely.”

“Mister Frodo?” Sam asked.

“Yes, Sam?”

“You don’t suppose that old Mister Bilbo had anything laying about like a helmet do you?” Sam asked.

Frodo thought for a moment.  It was a rather odd question for a practical hobbit like Sam Gamgee, but Frodo supposed that there was a reason for the question.