Chapter 2. Leave-Taking

Early breakfast was... early, just as always, and just as always there was not a lot of talk at table. Pippin fortified himself with tea, and gratified his mother by eating as if there were no tomorrow, putting away numerous helpings of fluffy scrambled eggs and last night’s baking of bread and diced potatoes fried with onions in bacon fat. It was heartier than the usual early breakfast, which was usually bread-and-jam and plenty of hot tea to get the blood moving at four o’ the clock, before even the Sun began to rub the sleep from her eyes and the stars still danced in the heavens.

Eglantine had added the eggs and potatoes to the early meal because she could not bear the thought of her youngest traipsing half the length of the Shire, well, to Hobbiton, on a cold meal of bread-and-butter with a helping or two of jam. Second breakfast would be a hearty meal, sausages and eggs and bacon and potatoes and more, but by the time the family sat down to second breakfast, Pippin would be well on his way.

When the meal was finished, everyone jumped up from the table and in a twinkling the dishes were cleared away. Pippin’s sisters chirped cheery goodbyes to their brother, with big-sisterly admonitions to “take good care” and “look both ways before you cross Bywater Road” and such, and he set his lips in a smile (Eglantine thought, seeing his expression, that perhaps the little-brotherly sentiments might be wearing thin at this late date) and told them to go on with the milking before the milk soured in the cows, they were so long about it.

Ferdi winked and said, “Don't do anything I wouldn't do!” and turned to shoo Pippin's sisters before him out of the door on his way to tend the ponies. All called cheery goodbyes, and he looked after them, as they went out, and then turned and pulled his cloak from the peg on the wall and threw it around his shoulders.

‘Your muffler, too, lad,’ Eglantine said, lifting that item from the hook, and Pippin nodded and wrapped it around his neck, though not without a grimace at the motherly admonition. It was still September, after all, and mild though foggy.

Paladin slapped his son on the back and wished him “fair journey” and “give our best to the Master and my sister” and Pippin nodded, the smile still on his lips, though to Eglantine’s thinking her youngest looked a bit strained. He was probably grieving Frodo’s removal, poor lad, for he’d grown so close to Frodo, the past few years. It would be hard on the lad, to see his Baggins cousin so seldom, what with Frodo moving to Crickhollow.

The hired hobbits followed the farmer off upon their business with nods of their own, and then Eglantine was alone with her lad. ‘Have you got everything?’ she said, and reached to pull the muffler closer about her youngest’s throat. She wouldn’t want him to take cold, this foggy autumnal morn. ‘Did you pack extra...?’

‘I did,’ Pippin said quickly, before she could mention such embarrassing things as smallclothes.

Her littlest was growing up, Eglantine thought, quickly wiping at the corner of her eye. He didn’t protest, as he had when he was younger, that he was only off to Bag End, or Buckland, off for two-or-three-days and then back again, and didn’t need to take his home on his back as if he were a garden snail. No, just the simple phrase, and then he turned to take up his pack, lying ready against the kitchen wall.

‘Oh,’ Eglantine said breathlessly, ‘wait, just a bit, Pip,’ and she hurried into the pantry. She’d nearly forgotten! She took up the packets she’d prepared the previous evening, while the bread was baking, and brought them out. ‘Here,’ she said, emerging again. ‘Before you tie up your pack and take it up on your back, see if you can slip these in? They’re Frodo’s favourites, the ginger biscuits, and I put together a little second breakfast and elevenses for you, to take along the journey, if you didn’t want to stop at a farm along the way...’

Instead of taking the paper-wrapped parcels, Pippin threw his arms about his mother and hugged her tight. ‘You’re the best mum a hobbit could ever have,’ he whispered, a little huskily, and Eglantine worried briefly that he might be taking cold. No, likely just the foggy morning--this damp weather was ripe for frogs, in the throat as well as in the pond.

Come to think of it, her own throat was tight, and she cleared it as he stepped away. ‘Bless you, lad,’ she said, blinking a little. Really, he’d be back in a week or ten-day, a fortnight at the most, and she was acting as if this were the first time she’d watched him go out the door. Or the last.

Straightening and taking a deep, steadying breath, she said, ‘Now, off with you then, or you’ll not come to Bag End before teatime!’

‘Aye, Mum,’ Pippin said, swallowing hard and turning away to stow the food safely, strap up his pack, and shoulder it. He was blinking a little, himself. It was early, after all, and he’d been up late last night checking his pack, Eglantine had noticed when she passed his room on the way from the kitchen to bed. Poor lad was still half-asleep. It was a good thing she’d fed him well, to set him on his way in the pre-dawn darkness.

‘Give our best to Frodo,’ she said, and he nodded, preparing to catalogue a host of dos and don’ts, but he was in for a surprise. Instead of a list of musts, including the regular changing of his smallclothes and remembering to thank Frodo and to tell Merry this and his Auntie Esmeralda that, all Eglantine did was give him a long look and then say, ‘Well, what are you waiting for? I can hardly scrub this floor with your feet still standing upon it! Or are you going to change your mind about going, and...’

Pippin threw up his hands and yelped, ‘I’m going! I’m going!’ and with a quick backward glance, strangely wistful, he was out the door, and gone.