Night had almost slipped away and I found myself sitting at the table with my Uncle and Aunt and numerous cousins. As always, the infants were crying and the young ones were fighting and the tweens were in the corner comparing the sizes of their feet. I would have challenged them if I could, but my feet are far bigger than theirs and they always complain that I make the game unfair. Most of the time I just listen to my Uncle prattle on about farm work and my Aunt complain that she has been left alone all day with the children and still she is expected to tend the garden. Actually, it is my cousin Millie Proudfoot who makes sure the vegetables grow, but that does not stop my Aunt from complaining. Poor old Odo! Today I felt sorry for him! He is so henpecked that I almost feel I like who I am and do not mind being without ancestors. I cannot help but think when my Aunt grumbles that Priscilla would never be that way. I bet she is the kindest, gentlest Hobbit lass that lives.
Dinner was late this night, as my Aunt was explaining because of her overly numerous chores and how could my Uncle even think dinner could possibly be on time with all she had to do. I was sitting, listening and saying nothing. Botho had just stood up to announce that his feet had grown a whole half a centimeter taller than Lotho�s when a great, big thump fell upon our round red door. The whole house stopped and stared. No one hardly ever visited us at night. Almost everyone was out at the pubs or eating dinner. If it�s one thing Hobbits never miss, it�s a meal and to visit during one is not encouraged. You can visit before or after, but to interrupt our most important activity is unheard of.
My Aunt gasped. For her, a knock at this hour obviously meant emergency and something awful had happened in the Shire. For Odo, it meant something serious was a foot and he was needed for some unknown purpose. For my cousins, it meant nothing but fun. For me, it brought on pure curiosity and I blinked my eyes to concentrate. It was Millie who finally went to the door, prodded by my Aunt who was still in such a state of shock that she could not utter a word. (I have to admit that this was the quietest I had ever heard the house and I quite liked it). Millie slowly pushed open the door and my eyes opened wide in amazement.
Never before have I ever seen any of the Big Folk. I knew they existed, of course, but they never come into the Shire and I guess to me they had become legend. When I was little I thought that Uncle Odo just made them up to scare us. Later I figured they were probably real at one time, but now they had disappeared from the world. That is probably why I sat still in my seat for I could not help but fear what was standing in the doorway.
He was the tallest being I have ever seen. He was bent down peering through the doorway he was so tall. His head was covered with a hood and his attire was completely colored in browns. He held in his hand a cane of some sort. At least, that is what I think it was. It was long and had a crook in it near the top, though the crook was small. He held onto it as if it concealed some magic power I could not see and he dare not let it go. His face was covered in beard and with the way his hair was showing through the hood, it was like hair and beard were one flowing together. But what was most stunning and most terrified me were his eyes: their dark ovals were fixed on me.
�Have I come to the dwelling of Pady Proudfoot?� His voice was deep and sounded far away.
All eyes in the house turned on me. I gulped. I wish they had not stared at me like that! It made everything worse!
�Well?� The tall figure seemed impatient.
My Aunt just kept looking at me, but Odo managed a slight nod. I finally found my voice.
�Yes.�
�Well, then, come out and hear what I have to say, Pady Proudfoot.�
I knew he had not needed to ask if I were here. He had already known the minute he knocked on the door. I stood up with trembling legs and somehow managed to walked to the red door, all the while looking farther and father up as I came so close to this mysterious person. He loomed above me like a giant tree. When I reached the doorway, he put his large hand on my back and pushed me out the door and then shut it behind me. He turned then and looked down at me and I saw his dark eyes reflecting the moonlight. All of a sudden, I realized I had nothing to fear. This man could cause no harm; he was gentle and kind. I just knew it instinctively.
�Pady Proudfoot� I have traveled far looking for you. Rarely do I delve into the affairs of others. It is the animals that call to me and I have the voice and ability to answer back. It is the wild that I love, not civilization. Yet, if anyplace in this earth were close to what I desire, I suppose this green land must be it.� The stranger�s eyes moved over the country outside our door and then came to rest back on me. He shook his head and his eyes focused close at hand.
�Yes, but that is not important now. Pady Proudfoot, I bring a message out of the pity of my heart, for it is only pity that has brought me so far. I have been sent to call you on a journey. You must travel north. Your kin is in need of your help and you are the only one of them ever to have escaped into the wider world. Leave the Shire, journey up the Brandywine. There you will meet others who will tell you more than I.�
He paused and I opened my mouth. A hundred questions were sitting on the tip of my tongue. But he had turned his back to me and in but a second had walked to the road and was down it so fast, I did not have time to utter even one word. Going back inside, I was for once the center of attention as everyone wanted to know what the Big Man had said. Odo yelled and shooed them all away and it was to him alone that I told the message. When I said the word �kin� he choked in his throat and when I was finished reporting what had been said, he turned away and has said nothing to me since. Do I dare ask what he knows?