Alan Alexander Miln. Winnie-The-Pooh and All, All, All
Original of this document is at http://www.machaon.ru/pooh/
To her
Hand in hand we come
Christopher Robin and I
To lay this book in your lap.
Say you're surprised?
Say it's just what you wanted?
Because it's yours -
because we love you.
IF you happen to have read another book about
Christopher Robin, you may remember that he once had a swan (or
the swan had Christopher Robin, I don't know which) and that he
used to call this swan Pooh. That was a long time ago, and when
we said good-bye, we took the name with us, as we didn't think
the swan would want it any more. Well, when Edward Bear said
that he would like an exciting name all to himself, Christopher
Robin said at once, without stopping to think, that he was
Winnie-the-Pooh. And he was. So, as I have explained the Pooh
part, I will now explain the rest of it.
You can't be in London for long without going to the
Zoo. There are some people who begin the Zoo at the beginning,
called WAYIN, and walk as quickly as they can past every cage
until they get to the one called WAYOUT, but the nicest people
go straight to the animal they love the most, and stay there.
So when Christopher Robin goes to the Zoo, he goes to where the
Polar Bears are, and he whispers something to the third keeper
from the left, and doors are unlocked, and we wander through
dark passages and up steep stairs, until at last we come to the
special cage, and the cage is opened, and out trots something
brown and furry, and with a happy cry of "Oh, Bear!"
Christopher Robin rushes into its arms. Now this bear's name is
Winnie, which shows what a good name for bears it is, but the
funny thing is that we can't remember whether Winnie is called
after Pooh, or Pooh after Winnie. We did know once, but we have
forgotten. . . .
I had written as far as this when Piglet looked up and
said in his squeaky voice, "What about Me?" "My dear Piglet," I
said, "the whole book is about you." "So it is about Pooh," he
squeaked. You see what it is. He is jealous because he thinks
Pooh is having a Grand Introduction all to himself. Pooh is the
favourite, of course, there's no denying it, but Piglet comes
in for a good many things which Pooh misses; because you can't
take Pooh to school without everybody knowing it, but Piglet is
so small that he slips into a pocket, where it is very
comforting to feel him when you are not quite sure whether
twice seven is twelve or twenty-two. Sometimes he slips out and
has a good look in the ink-pot, and in this way he has got more
education than Pooh, but Pooh doesn't mind. Some have brains,
and some haven't, he says, and there it is.
And now all the others are saying, "What about Us?" So
perhaps the best thing to do is to stop writing Introductions
and get on with the book.
A. A. M.
Chapter 1 ...in which we are introduced to
Winnie-the-Pooh and some bees, and the stories begin
HERE is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump,
bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is,
as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but
sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he
could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. Anyhow,
here he is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you.
Winnie-the-Pooh.
When I first heard his name, I said, just as you are
going to say, "But I thought he was a boy?"
"So did I," said Christopher Robin.
"Then you can't call him Winnie?"
"I don't."
"But you said -- "
"He's Winnie-ther-Pooh. Don't you know what 'ther'
means?"
"Ah, yes, now I do," I said quickly; and I hope you do
too, because it is all the explanation you are going to get.
Sometimes Winnie-the-Pooh likes a game of some sort
when he comes downstairs, and sometimes he likes to sit quietly
in front of the fire and listen to a story. This evening --
"What about a story?" said Christopher Robin.
"What about a story?" I said.
"Could you very sweetly tell Winnie-the-Pooh one?"
"I suppose I could," I said. "What sort of stories does
he like?"
"About himself. Because he's that sort of Bear."
"Oh, I see."
"So could you very sweetly?"
"I'll try," I said.
So I tried.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last
Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh lived in a forest all by himself under
the name of Sanders.
("What does 'under the name' mean?" asked Christopher
Robin. "It means he had the name over the door in gold letters,
and lived under it."
"Winnie-the-Pooh wasn't quite sure," said Christopher
Robin.
"Now I am," said a growly voice.
"Then I will go on," said I.)
One day when he was out walking, he came to an open
place in the middle of the forest, and in the middle of this
place was a large oak-tree, and, from the top of the tree,
there came a loud buzzing-noise.
Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put
his head between his paws and began to think.
First of all he said to himself: "That buzzing-noise
means something. You don't get a buzzing-noise like that, just
buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there's
a buzzing-noise, somebody's making a buzzing-noise, and the
only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is
because you're a bee."
Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the
only reason for being a bee that I know of is making honey."
And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for
making honey is so as I can eat it." So he began to climb the
tree
He climbed and he climbed and he climbed and as he
climbed he sang a little song to himself. It went like this:
Isn't it funny
How a bear likes honey?
Buzz! Buzz! Buzz!
I wonder why he does?
Then he climbed a little further. . . and a little
further . . . and then just a little further. By that time he
had thought of another song.
It's a very funny thought that, if Bears were Bees,
They'd build their nests at the bottom of trees.
And that being so (if the Bees were Bears),
We shouldn't have to climb up all these stairs.
He was getting rather tired by this time, so that is
why he sang a Complaining Song. He was nearly there now, and if
he just s t o o d o n t h a t branch . . .
Crack !
"Oh, help!" said Pooh, as he dropped ten feet on the
branch below him.
"If only I hadn't -- " he said, as he bounced twenty
feet on to the next branch.
"You see, what I meant to do," he explained, as he
turned head-over-heels, and crashed on to another branch thirty
feet below, "what I meant to do -- "
"Of course, it was rather -- " he admitted, as he
slithered very quickly through the next six branches.
"It all comes, I suppose," he decided, as he said
good-bye to the last branch, spun round three times, and flew
gracefully into a gorse-bush, "it all comes of liking honey so
much. Oh, help!"
He crawled out of the gorse-bush, brushed the prickles
from his nose, and began to think again. And the first person
he thought of was Christopher Robin.
("Was that me?" said Christopher Robin in an awed
voice, hardly daring to believe it.
"That was you."
Christopher Robin said nothing, but his eyes got larger
and larger, and his face got pinker and pinker.)
So Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher
Robin, who lived behind a green door in another part of the
Forest.
"Good morning, Christopher Robin," he said.
"Good morning, Winnie-ther-Pooh," said you.
"I wonder if you've got such a thing as a balloon about
you?"
"A balloon?"
"Yes, I just said to myself coming along: 'I wonder if
Christopher Robin has such a thing as a balloon about him?' I
just said it to myself, thinking of balloons, and wondering."
"What do you want a balloon for?" you said.
Winnie-the-Pooh looked round to see that nobody was
listening, put his paw to his mouth, and said in a deep
whisper: "Honey!"
"But you don't get honey with balloons!"
"I do," said Pooh.
Well, it just happened that you had been to a party the
day before at the house of your friend Piglet, and you had
balloons at the party. You had had a big green balloon; and one
of Rabbit's relations had had a big blue one, and had left it
behind, being really too young to go to a party at all; and so
you had brought the green one and the blue one home with you.
"Which one would you like?" you asked Pooh. He put his
head between his paws and thought very carefully.
"It's like this," he said. "When you go after honey
with a balloon, the great thing is not to let the bees know
you're coming. Now, if you have a green balloon, they might
think you were only part of the tree, and not notice you, and
if you have a blue balloon, they might think you were only part
of the sky, and not notice you, and the question is: Which is
most likely?"
"Wouldn't they notice you underneath the balloon?" you
asked.
"They might or they might not," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
"You never can tell with bees." He thought for a moment and
said: "I shall try to look like a small black cloud. That will
deceive them."
"Then you had better have the blue balloon," you said;
and so it was decided.
Well, you both went out with the blue balloon, and you
took your gun with you, just in case, as you always did, and
Winnie-the-Pooh went to a very muddy place that he knew of, and
rolled and rolled until he was black all over; and then, when
the balloon was blown up as big as big, and you and Pooh were
both holding on to the string, you let go suddenly, and Pooh
Bear floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed there --
level with the top of the tree and about twenty feet away from
it.
"Hooray!" you shouted.
"Isn't that fine?" shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you.
"What do I look like?"
"You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon," you
said.
"Not," said Pooh anxiously, " -- not like a small black
cloud in a blue sky?"
"Not very much."
"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different.
And, as I say, you never can tell with bees."
There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so
there he stayed. He could see the honey, he could smell the
honey, but he couldn't quite reach the honey.
After a little while he called down to you.
"Christopher Robin!" he said in a loud whisper.
"Hallo!"
"I think the bees suspect something!"
"What sort of thing?"
"I don't know. But something tells me that they're
suspicious!"
"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey?"
"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."
There was another little silence, and then he called
down to you again.
"Christopher Robin!"
"Yes?"
"Have you an umbrella in your house?"
"I think so."
"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and
down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say
'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.' I think, if you did that, it
would help the deception which we are practising on these
bees."
Well, you laughed to yourself, "Silly old Bear !" but
you didn't say it aloud because you were so fond of him, and
you went home for your umbrella.
"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as
soon as you got back to the tree. "I was beginning to get
anxious. I have discovered that the bees are now definitely
Suspicious."
"Shall I put my umbrella up?" you said.
"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The
important bee to deceive is the Queen Bee. Can you see which is
the Queen Bee from down there?"
"No."
"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your
umbrella, saying, 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do
what I can by singing a little Cloud Song, such as a cloud
might sing. . . . Go!"
So, while you walked up and down and wondered if it
would rain, Winnie-the-Pooh sang this song:
How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!
Every little cloud
Always sings aloud.
"How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!"
It makes him very proud
To be a little cloud.
The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever.
Some of them, indeed, left their nests and flew all round the
cloud as it began the second verse of this song, and one bee
sat down on the nose of the cloud for a moment, and then got up
again.
"Christopher -- ow! -- Robin," called out the cloud.
"Yes?"
"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very
important decision. These are the wrong sort of bees."
"Are they?"
"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would
make the wrong sort of honey, shouldn't you?"
"Would they?"
"Yes. So I think I shall come down."
"How?" asked you.
Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go
of the string, he would fall -- bump -- and he didn't like the
idea of that. So he thought for a long time, and then he said:
"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with
your gun. Have you got your gun?"
"Of course I have," you said. "But if I do that, it
will spoil the balloon," you said. But if you don't" said Pooh,
"I shall have to let go, and that would spoil me."
When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you
aimed very carefully at the balloon, and fired.
"Ow!" said Pooh.
"Did I miss?" you asked.
"You didn't exactly miss," said Pooh, "but you missed
the balloon."
"I'm so sorry," you said, and you fired again, and this
time you hit the balloon and the air came slowly out, and
Winnie-the-Pooh floated down to the ground.
But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the
string of the balloon all that time that they stayed up
straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly
came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think
-- but I am not sure -- that that is why he was always called
Pooh.
"Is that the end of the story?" asked Christopher
Robin.
"That's the end of that one. There are others."
"About Pooh and Me?"
"And Piglet and Rabbit and all of you. Don't you
remember?"
"I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I
forget."
"That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the
Heffalump -- "
"They didn't catch it, did they?"
"No."
"Pooh couldn't, because he hasn't any brain. Did I
catch it?"
"Well, that comes into the story."
Christopher Robin nodded.
"I do remember," he said, "only Pooh doesn't very well,
so that's why he likes having it told to him again. Because
then it's a real story and not just a remembering."
"That's just how I feel," I said.
Christopher Robin gave a deep sigh, picked his Bear up
by the leg, and walked off to the door, trailing Pooh behind
him. At the door he turned and said, "Coming to see me have my
bath?" "I didn't hurt him when I shot him, did I?" "Not a bit."
He nodded and went out, and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh
-- bump, bump, bump -- going up the stairs behind him.
Chapter 2 ...in which Pooh goes visiting and gets
into a tight place
EDWARD BEAR, known to his friends as Winnie-the-Pooh,
or Pooh for short, was walking through the forest one day,
humming proudly to himself. He had made up a little hum that
very morning, as he was doing his Stoutness Exercises in front
of the glass: Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, as he stretched up as high
as he could go, and then Tra-la-la, tra-la -- oh, help! -- la,
as he tried to reach his toes. After breakfast he had said it
over and over to himself until he had learnt it off by heart,
and now he was humming it right through, properly. It went like
this:
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.
Well, he was humming this hum to himself, and walking
along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what
it felt like, being somebody else, when suddenly he came to a
sandy bank, and in the bank was a large hole.
"Aha !" said Pooh. (Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.) "If I know
anything about anything, that hole means Rabbit," he said, "and
Rabbit means Company," he said, "and Company means Food and
Listening-to-Me-Humming and such like. Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.
So he bent down, put his head into the hole, and called
out:
"Is anybody at home?"
There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the
hole, and then silence.
"What I said was, 'Is anybody at home?'" called out
Pooh very loudly.
"No!" said a voice; and then added, "You needn't shout
so loud. I heard you quite well the first time."
"Bother!" said Pooh. "Isn't there anybody here at all?"
"Nobody."
Winnie-the-Pooh took his head out of the hole, and
thought for a little, and he thought to himself, "There must be
somebody there, because somebody must have said 'Nobody.'" So
he put his head back in the hole, and said: "Hallo, Rabbit,
isn't that you?"
"No," said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this
time.
"But isn't that Rabbit's voice?"
"I don't think so," said Rabbit. "It isn't meant to
be."
"Oh!" said Pooh.
He took his head out of the hole, and had another
think, and then he put it back, and said:
"Well, could you very kindly tell me where Rabbit is?"
"He has gone to see his friend Pooh Bear, who is a
great friend of his."
"But this is Me!" said Bear, very much surprised.
"What sort of Me?"
"Pooh Bear."
"Are you sure?" said Rabbit, still more surprised.
"Quite, quite sure," said Pooh.
"Oh, well, then, come in."
So Pooh pushed and pushed and pushed his way through
the hole, and at last he got in.
"You were quite right," said Rabbit, looking at him all
over. "It is you. Glad to see you."
"Who did you think it was?"
"Well, I wasn't sure. You know how it is in the Forest.
One can't have anybody coming into one's house. One has to be
careful. What about a mouthful of something?"
Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock
in the morning, and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out
the plates and mugs; and when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed
milk with your bread?" he was so excited that he said, "Both,"
and then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, "But don't bother
about the bread, please." And for a long time after that he
said nothing . . . until at last, humming to himself in a
rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the
paw, and said that he must be going on.
"Must you?" said Rabbit politely
"Well," said Pooh, "I could stay a little longer if it
-- if you -- " and he tried very hard to look in the direction
of the larder.
"As a matter of fact," said Rabbit, "I was going out
myself directly."
"Oh well, then, I'll be going on. Good-bye."
"Well, good-bye, if you're sure you won't have any
more."
"Is there any more?" asked Pooh quickly.
Rabbit took the covers off the dishes, and said, "No,
there wasn't."
"I thought not," said Pooh, nodding to himself "Well,
good-bye. I must be going on."
So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with
his front paws, and pushed with his back paws, and in a little
while his nose was out in the open again . . . and then his
ears . . . and then his front paws . . . and then his shoulders
. . . and then --
"Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back."
"Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on."
"I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help and bother!"
Now, by this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too,
and finding the front door full, he went out by the back door,
and came round to Pooh, and looked at him.
"Hallo, are you stuck?" he asked.
"N-no," said Pooh carelessly. "Just resting and
thinking and humming to myself."
"Here, give us a paw."
Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and
pulled and pulled....
"0w!" cried Pooh. "You're hurting!"
"The fact is," said Rabbit, "you're stuck."
"It all comes," said Pooh crossly, "of not having front
doors big enough."
"It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too
much. I thought at the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like
to say anything," said Rabbit, "that one of us has eating too
much," said Rabbit, "and I knew it wasn't me," he said. "Well,
well, I shall go and fetch Christopher Robin."
Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest,
and when he came back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of
Pooh, he said, "Silly old Bear," in such a loving voice that
everybody felt quite hopeful again.
"I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing
slightly, "that Rabbit might never be able to use his front
door again. And I should hate that," he said.
"So should I," said Rabbit.
"Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of
course he'll use his front door again. "Good," said Rabbit.
"If we can't pull you out, Pooh, we might push you
back."
Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully, and pointed
out that, when once Pooh was pushed back, he was back, and of
course nobody was more glad to see Pooh than he was, still
there it was, some lived in trees and some lived underground,
and --
"You mean I'd never get out?" said Pooh.
"I mean," said Rabbit, "that having got so far, it
seems a pity to waste it."
Christopher Robin nodded.
"Then there's only one thing to be done," he said. "We
shall have to wait for you to get thin again."
"How long does getting thin take?" asked Pooh
anxiously.
"About a week, I should think."
"But I can't stay here for a week!"
"You can stay here all right, silly old Bear. It's
getting you out which is so difficult."
"We'll read to you," said Rabbit cheerfully. "And I
hope it won't snow," he added. "And I say, old fellow, you're
taking up a good deal of room in my house -- do you mind if I
use your back legs as a towel-horse? Because, I mean, there
they are -- doing nothing -- and it would be very convenient
just to hang the towels on them."
"A week!" said Pooh gloomily. "What about meals?"
"I'm afraid no meals," said Christopher Robin, "because
of getting thin quicker. But we will read to you."
Bear began to sigh, and then found he couldn't because
he was so tightly stuck; and a tear rolled down his eye, as he
said:
"Then would you read a Sustaining Book, such as would
help and comfort a Wedged Bear in Great Tightness?" So for a
week Christopher
Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh,
and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end . . . and in
between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And
at the end of the week Christopher Robin said, "Now!"
So he took hold of Pooh's front paws and Rabbit took
hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit's friends and
relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together....
And for a long time Pooh only said "Ow!" . . .
And "Oh!" . . .
And then, all of a sudden, he said "Pop!" just as if a
cork were coming out of bottle.
And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit's
friends and relations went head-over-heels backwards . . . and
on the top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh -- free!
So, with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on
with his walk through the forest, humming proudly to himself.
But, Christopher Robin looked after him lovingly, and said to
himself, "Silly old Bear!"
Chapter 3 ...in which Pooh and piglet go hunting
and nearly catch a woozle
THE Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of
a beech-tree, and the beech-tree was in the middle of the
forest, and the Piglet lived in the middle of the house. Next
to his house was a piece of broken board which had:
"TRESPASSERS W" on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet
what it meant, he said it was his grandfather's name, and had
been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you
couldn't be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you
could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for
Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And
his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one --
Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers.
"I've got two names," said Christopher Robin
carelessly.
"Well, there you are, that proves it," said Piglet.
One fine winter's day when Piglet was brushing away the
snow in front of his house, he happened to look up, and there
was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking round and round in a
circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called to
him, he just went on walking.
"Hallo!" said Piglet, "what are you doing?"
"Hunting," said Pooh.
"Hunting what?"
"Tracking something," said Winnie-the-Pooh very
mysteriously.
"Tracking what?" said Piglet, coming closer
"That's just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?"
"What do you think you'll answer?"
"I shall have to wait until I catch up with it," said
Winnie-the-Pooh. "Now, look there." He pointed to the ground in
front of him. "What do you see there?"
"Tracks," said Piglet. "Paw-marks." He gave a little
squeak of excitement. "Oh, Pooh! Do you think it's a -- a -- a
Woozle?"
"It may be," said Pooh. "Sometimes it is, and sometimes
it isn't. You never can tell with paw-marks."
With these few words he went on tracking, and Piglet,
after watching him for a minute or two, ran after him.
Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden stop, and was bending over
the tracks in a puzzled sort of way.
"What's the matter?" asked Piglet.
"It's a very funny thing," said Bear, "but there seem
to be two animals now. This -- whatever-it-was -- has been
joined by another -- whatever-it-is --
and the two of them are now proceeding in company.
Would you mind coming with me, Piglet, in case they turn out to
be Hostile Animals?"
Piglet scratched his ear in a nice sort of way, and
said that he had nothing to do until Friday, and would be
delighted to come, in case it really was a Woozle.
"You mean, in case it really is two Woozles," said
Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet said that anyhow he had nothing to
do until Friday. So off they went together.
There was a small spinney of larch trees just here, and
it seemed as if the two Woozles, if that is what they were, had
been going round this spinney; so round this spinney went Pooh
and Piglet after them; Piglet passing the time by telling Pooh
what his Grandfather Trespassers W had done to Remove Stiffness
after Tracking, and how his Grandfather Trespassers W had
suffered in his later years from Shortness of Breath, and other
matters of interest, and Pooh wondering what a Grandfather was
like, and if perhaps this was Two Grandfathers they were after
now, and, if so, whether he would be allowed to take one home
and keep it, and what Christopher Robin would say. And still
the tracks went on in front of them....
Suddenly Winnie-the-Pooh stopped, and pointed excitedly
in front of him. "Look!"
"What?" said Piglet, with a jump. And then, to show
that he hadn't been frightened, he jumped up and down once or
twice more in an exercising sort of way.
"The tracks!" said Pooh. "A third animal has joined the
other two!" "Pooh!" cried Piglet "Do you think it is another
Woozle?"
"No," said Pooh, "because it makes different marks. It
is either Two Woozles and one, as it might be, Wizzle, or Two,
as it might be, Wizzles and one, if so it is, Woozle. Let us
continue to follow them."
So they went on, feeling just a little anxious now, in
case the three animals in front of them were of Hostile Intent.
And Piglet wished very much that his Grandfather T. W. were
there, instead of elsewhere, and Pooh thought how nice it would
be if they met Christopher Robin suddenly but quite
accidentally, and only because he liked Christopher Robin so
much. And then, all of a sudden, Winnie-the-Pooh stopped again,
and licked the tip of his nose in a cooling manner, for he was
feeling more hot and anxious than ever in his life before.
There were four animals in front of them!
"Do you see, Piglet? Look at their tracks! Three, as it
were, Woozles, and one, as it was, Wizzle. Another Woozle has
joined them!"
And so it seemed to be. There were the tracks; crossing
over each other here, getting muddled up with each other there;
but, quite plainly every now and then, the tracks of four sets
of paws.
"I think," said Piglet, when he had licked the tip of
his nose too, and found that it brought very little comfort, "I
think that I have just remembered something. I have just
remembered something that I forgot to do yesterday and sha'n't
be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose I really ought to go back
and do it now."
"We'll do it this afternoon, and I'll come with you,"
said Pooh.
"It isn't the sort of thing you can do in the
afternoon," said Piglet quickly. "It's a very particular
morning thing, that has to be done in the morning, and, if
possible, between the hours of What would you say the time
was?"
"About twelve," said Winnie-the-Pooh, looking at the
sun.
"Between, as I was saying, the hours of twelve and
twelve five. So, really, dear old Pooh, if you'll excuse me --
What's that."
Pooh looked up at the sky, and then, as he heard the
whistle again, he looked up into the branches of a big
oak-tree, and then he saw a friend of his.
"It's Christopher Robin," he said.
"Ah, then you'll be all right," said Piglet.
"You'll be quite safe with him. Good-bye," and he
trotted off home as quickly as he could, very glad to be Out of
All Danger again.
Christopher Robin came slowly down his tree.
"Silly old Bear," he said, "what were you doing? First
you went round the spinney twice by yourself, and then Piglet
ran after you and you went round again together, and then you
were just going round a fourth time"
"Wait a moment," said Winnie-the-Pooh, holding up his
paw.
He sat down and thought, in the most thoughtful way he
could think. Then he fitted his paw into one of the Tracks ...
and then he scratched his nose twice, and stood up.
"Yes," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
"I see now," said Winnie-the-Pooh.
"I have been Foolish and Deluded," said he, "and I am a
Bear of No Brain at All."
"You're the Best Bear in All the World," said
Christopher Robin soothingly.
"Am I?" said Pooh hopefully. And then he brightened up
suddenly.
"Anyhow," he said, "it is nearly Luncheon Time."
So he went home for it.
Chapter 4 ...in which Eeyore loses a tail and
Pooh finds one
THE Old Grey Donkey, Eeyore, stood by himself in a
thistly corner of the forest, his front feet well apart, his
head on one side, and thought about things. Sometimes he
thought sadly to himself, "Why?" and sometimes he thought,
"Wherefore?" and sometimes he thought, "Inasmuch as which?" --
and sometimes he didn't quite know what he was thinking about.
So when Winnie-the-Pooh came stumping along, Eeyore was very
glad to be able to stop thinking for a little, in order to say
"How do you do?" in a gloomy manner to him.
"And how are you?" said Winnie-the-Pooh.
Eeyore shook his head from side to side.
"Not very how," he said. "I don't seem to have felt at
all how for a long time."
"Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I'm sorry about that. Let's
have a look at you." So Eeyore stood there, gazing sadly at the
ground, and Winnie-the-Pooh walked all round him once.
"Why, what's happened to your tail?" he said in
surprise.
"What has happened to it?" said Eeyore.
"It isn't there!"
"Are you sure?"
"Well, either a tail is there or it isn't there You
can't make a mistake about it. And yours isn't there!"
"Then what is?"
"Nothing."
"Let's have a look," said Eeyore, and he turned slowly
round to the place where his tail had been a little while ago,
and then, finding that he couldn't catch it up, he turned round
the other way, until he came back to where he was at first, and
then he put his head down and looked between his front legs,
and at last he said, with a long, sad sigh, "I believe you're
right"
"Of course I'm right," said Pooh
"That accounts for a Good Deal," said Eeyore gloomily.
"It explains Everything. No Wonder."
"You must have left it somewhere," said
Winnie-the-Pooh.
"Somebody must have taken it," said Eeyore.
"How Like Them," he added, after a long silence. Pooh
felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but
didn't quite know what.
So he decided to do something helpful instead.
"Eeyore," he said solemnly, "I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will
find your tail for you."
"Thank you, Pooh," answered Eeyore. "You're a real
friend," said he. "Not like Some," he said.
So Winnie-the-Pooh went off to find Eeyore's tail.
It was a fine spring morning in the forest as he
started out. Little soft clouds played happily in a blue sky,
skipping from time to time in front of the sun as if they had
come to put it out, and then sliding away suddenly so that the
next might have his turn. Through them and between them the sun
shone bravely, and a copse which had worn its firs all the year
round seemed old and dowdy now beside the new green lace which
the beeches had put on so prettily. Through copse and spinney
marched Bear; down open slopes of gorse and heather, over rocky
beds of streams, up steep banks of sandstone into the heather
again; and so at last, tired and hungry, to the Hundred Acre
Wood. For it was in the Hundred Acre Wood that Owl lived.
"And if anyone knows anything about anything," said
Bear to himself, "it's Owl who knows something about
something," he said, "or my name's not Winnie-the-Pooh," he
said. "Which it is," he added. "So there you are."
Owl lived at The Chestnuts, and old-world residence of
great charm, which was grander than anybody else's, or seemed
so to Bear, because it had both a knocker and a bell-pull.
Underneath the knocker there was a notice which said:
PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD.
Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said:
PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.
These notices had been written by Christopher Robin,
who was the only one in the forest who could spell; for Owl,
wise though he was in many ways, able to read and write and
spell his own name WOL, yet somehow went all to pieces over
delicate words like MEASLES and BUTTEREDTOAST.
Winnie-the-Pooh read the two notices very carefully,
first from left to right, and afterwards, in case he had missed
some of it, from right to left. Then, to make quite sure, he
knocked and pulled the knocker, and he pulled and knocked the
bell-rope, and he called out in a very loud voice, "Owl! I
require an answer! It's Bear speaking." And the door opened,
and Owl looked out.
"Hallo, Pooh," he said. "How's things?"
"Terrible and Sad," said Pooh, "because Eeyore, who is
a friend of mine, has lost his tail. And he's Moping about it.
So could you very kindly tell me how to find it for him?"
"Well," said Owl, "the customary procedure in such
cases is as follows."
"What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?" said Pooh.
"For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother
me."
"It means the Thing to Do."
"As long as it means that, I don't mind," said Pooh
humbly.
"The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward.
Then -- "
"Just a moment," said Pooh, holding up his paw. "What
do we do to this -- what you were saying? You sneezed just as
you were going to tell me."
"I didn't sneeze."
"Yes, you did, Owl."
"Excuse me, Pooh, I didn't. You can't sneeze without
knowing it."
"Well, you can't know it without something having been
sneezed."
"What I said was, 'First Issue a Reward'."
"You're doing it again," said Pooh sadly.
"A Reward!" said Owl very loudly. "We write a notice to
say that we will give a large something to anybody who finds
Eeyore's tail."
"I see, I see," said Pooh, nodding his head. "Talking
about large somethings," he went on dreamily, "I generally have
a small something about now -- about this time in the morning,"
and he looked wistfully at the cupboard in the corner of Owl's
parlour; "just a mouthful of condensed milk or whatnot, with
perhaps a lick of honey -- "
"Well, then," said Owl, "we write out this notice, and
we put it up all over the Forest."
"A lick of honey," murmured Bear to himself, "or -- or
not, as the case may be." And he gave a deep sigh, and tried
very hard to listen to what Owl was saying.
But Owl went on and on, using longer and longer words,
until at last he came back to where he started, and he
explained that the person to write out this notice was
Christopher Robin.
"It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me.
Did you see them, Pooh?"
For some time now Pooh had been saying "Yes" and "No"
in turn, with his eyes shut, to all that Owl was saying, and
having said, "Yes, yes," last time, he said "No, not at all,"
now, without really knowing what Owl was talking about? "Didn't
you see them?" said Owl, a little surprised. "Come and look at
them now."
So they went outside. And Pooh looked at the knocker
and the notice below it, and he looked at the bell-rope and the
notice below it, and the more he looked at the bell-rope, the
more he felt that he had seen something like it, somewhere
else, sometime before.
"Handsome bell-rope, isn't it?" said Owl.
Pooh nodded.
"It reminds me of something," he said, "but I can't
think what. Where did you get it?"
"I just came across it in the Forest. It was hanging
over a bush, and I thought at first somebody lived there, so I
rang it, and nothing happened, and then I rang it again very
loudly, and it came off in my hand, and as nobody seemed to
want it, I took it home, and"
"Owl," said Pooh solemnly, "you made a mistake.
Somebody did want it."
"Who?"
"Eeyore. My dear friend Eeyore. He was -- he was fond
of it."
"Fond of it?"
"Attached to it," said Winnie-the-Pooh sadly.
So with these words he unhooked it, and carried it back
to Eeyore; and when Christopher Robin had nailed it on its
right place again, Eeyore frisked about the forest, waving his
tail so happily that Winnie-the-Pooh came over all funny, and
had to hurry home for a little snack of something to sustain
him. And wiping his mouth half an hour afterwards, he sang to
himself proudly:
Who found the Tail?
"I," said Pooh,
"At a quarter to two
(Only it was quarter to eleven really),
I found the Tail!"
Chapter 5 ...in which Piglet meets a heffalump
ONE day, when Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and
Piglet were all talking together, Christopher Robin finished
the mouthful he was eating and said carelessly: "I saw a
Heffalump to-day, Piglet."
"What was it doing?" asked Piglet.
"Just lumping along," said Christopher Robin. "I don't
think it saw me."
"I saw one once," said Piglet. "At least, I think I
did," he said. "Only perhaps it wasn't."
"So did I," said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was
like.
"You don't often see them," said Christopher Robin
carelessly.
"Not now," said Piglet.
"Not at this time of year," said Pooh.
Then they all talked about something else, until it was
time for Pooh and Piglet to go home together. At first as they
stumped along the path which edged the Hundred Acre Wood, they
didn't say much to each other; but when they came to the
stream, and had helped each other across the stepping stones,
and were able to walk side by side again over the heather, they
began to talk in a friendly way about this and that, and Piglet
said, "If you see what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh said, "It's just
what I think myself, Piglet," and Piglet said, "But, on the
other hand, Pooh, we must remember," and Pooh said, "Quite
true, Piglet, although I had forgotten it for the moment." And
then, just as they came to the Six Pine Trees, Pooh looked
round to see that nobody else was listening, and said in a very
solemn voice: "Piglet, I have decided something.'
"What have you decided, Pooh?"
"I have decided to catch a Heffalump."
Pooh nodded his head several times as he said this, and
waited for Piglet to say "How?" or "Pooh, you couldn't!" or
something helpful of that sort, but Piglet said nothing. The
fact was Piglet was wishing that he had thought about it first.
"I shall do it," said Pooh, after waiting a little
longer, "by means of a trap. And it must be a Cunning Trap, so
you will have to help me, Piglet."
"Pooh," said Piglet, feeling quite happy again now, "I
will." And then he said, "How shall we do it?" and Pooh said,
"That's just it. How?" And then they sat down together to think
it out.
Pooh's first idea was that they should dig a Very Deep
Pit, and then the Heffalump would come along and fall into the
Pit, and --
"Why?" said Piglet.
"Why what?" said Pooh.
"Why would he fall in?"
Pooh rubbed his nose with his paw, and said that the
Heffalump might be walking along, humming a little song, and
looking up at the sky, wondering if it would rain, and so he
wouldn't see the Very Deep Pit until he was half-way down, when
it would be too late.
Piglet said that this was a very good Trap, but
supposing it were raining already?
Pooh rubbed his nose again, and said that he hadn't
thought of that. And then he brightened up, and said that, if
it were raining already, the Heffalump would be looking at the
sky wondering if it would clear up, and so he wouldn't see the
Very Deep Pit until he was half-way down.... When it would be
too late.
Piglet said that, now that this point had been
explained, he thought it was a Cunning Trap.
Pooh was very proud when he heard this, and he felt
that the Heffalump was as good as caught already, but there was
just one other thing which had to be thought about, and it was
this. Where should they dig the Very Deep Pit?
Piglet said that the best place would be somewhere
where a Heffalump was, just before he fell into it, only about
a foot farther on.
"But then he would see us digging it," said Pooh.
"Not if he was looking at the sky."
"He would Suspect," said Pooh, "if he happened to look
down." He thought for a long time and then added sadly, "It
isn't as easy as I thought. I suppose that's why Heffalumps
hardly ever get caught."
"That must be it," said Piglet.
They sighed and got up; and when they had taken a few
gorse prickles out of themselves they sat down again; and all
the time Pooh was saying to himself, "If only I could think of
something!" For he felt sure that a Very Clever Brain could
catch a Heffalump if only he knew the right way to go about it.
"Suppose," he said to Piglet, "you wanted to catch me, how
would you do it?"
"Well," said Piglet, "I should do it like this. I
should make a Trap, and I should put a Jar of Honey in the
Trap, and you would smell it, and you would go in after it, and
-- "
"And I would go in after it," said Pooh excitedly,
"only very carefully so as not to hurt myself, and I would get
to the Jar of Honey, and I should lick round the edges first of
all, pretending that there wasn't any more, you know, and then
I should walk away and think about it a little, and then I
should come back and start licking in the middle of the jar,
and then -- "
"Yes, well never mind about that where you would be,
and there I should catch you. Now the first thing to think of
is, What do Heffalumps like? I should think acorns, shouldn't
you? We'll get a lot of -- I say, wake up, Pooh!"
Pooh, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a
start, and said that Honey was a much more trappy thing than
Haycorns. Piglet didn't think so; and they were just going to
argue about it, when Piglet remembered that, if they put acorns
in the Trap, he would have to find the acorns, but if they put
honey, then Pooh would have to give up some of his own honey,
so he said, "All right, honey then," just as Pooh remembered it
too, and was going to say, "All right, haycorns." "Honey," said
Piglet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now
settled. "I'll dig the pit, while you go and get the honey."
"Very well," said Pooh, and he stumped off.
As soon as he got home, he went to the larder; and he
stood on a chair, and took down a very large jar of honey from
the top shelf. It had HUNNY written on it, but, just to make
sure, he took off the paper cover and looked at it, and it
looked just like honey. "But you never can tell," said Pooh. "I
remember my uncle saying once that he had seen cheese just this
colour." So he put his tongue in, and took a large lick. "Yes,"
he said, "it is. No doubt about that. And honey, I should say,
right down to the bottom of the jar. Unless, of course," he
said, "somebody put cheese in at the bottom just for a joke.
Perhaps I had better go a little further . . . just in case . .
. in case Heffalumps don't like cheese . . . same as me. . . .
Ah!" And he gave a deep sigh. "I was right. It is honey, right
the way down."
Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to
Piglet, and Piglet looked up from the bottom of his Very Deep
Pit, and said, "Got it?" and Pooh said, "Yes, but it isn't
quite a full jar," and he threw it down to Piglet, and Piglet
said, "No, it isn't! Is that all you've got left?" and Pooh
said, "Yes." Because it was. So Piglet put the jar at the
bottom of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home
together.
"Well, good night, Pooh," said Piglet, when they had
got to Pooh's house. "And we meet at six o'clock to-morrow
morning by the Pine Trees, and see how many Heffalumps we've
got in our Trap."
"Six o'clock, Piglet. And have you got any string?"
"No. Why do you want string?"
"To lead them home with."
"Oh! . . . I think Heffalumps come if you whistle."
"Some do and some don't. You never can tell with
Heffalumps. Well, good night!"
"Good night!"
And off Piglet trotted to his house TRESPASSERS W,
while Pooh made his preparations for bed.
Some hours later, just as the night was beginning to
steal away, Pooh woke up suddenly with a sinking feeling. He
had had that sinking feeling before, and he knew what it meant.
He was hungry. So he went to the larder, and he stood on a
chair and reached up to the top shelf, and found -- nothing.
"That's funny," he thought. "I know I had a jar of
honey there. A full jar, full of honey right up to the top, and
it had HUNNY written on it, so that I should know it was honey.
That's very funny." And then he began to wander up and down,
wondering where it was and murmuring a murmur to himself. Like
this:
It's very, very funny,
'Cos I know I had some honey:
'Cos it had a label on,
Saying HUNNY,
A goloptious full-up pot too,
And I don't know where it's got to,
No, I don't know where it's gone --
Well, it's funny.
He had murmured this to himself three times in a
singing sort of way, when suddenly he remembered. He had put it
into the Cunning Trap to catch the Heffalump.
"Bother!" said Pooh. "It all comes of trying to be kind
to Heffalumps." And he got back into bed.
But he couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep, the
more he couldn't. He tried Counting Sheep, which is sometimes a
good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he
tried counting Heffalumps. And that was worse. Because every
Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of
Pooh's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there
miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh
Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself, "Very
good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better," Pooh
could bear it no longer. He jumped out of bed, he ran out of
the house, and he ran straight to the Six Pine Trees.
The Sun was still in bed, but there was a lightness in
the sky over the Hundred Acre Wood which seemed to show that it
was waking up and would soon be kicking off the clothes. In the
half-light the Pine Trees looked cold and lonely, and the Very
Deep Pit seemed deeper than it was, and Pooh's jar of honey at
the bottom was something mysterious, a shape and no more. But
as he got nearer lo it his nose told him that it was indeed
honey, and his tongue came out and began to polish up his
mouth, ready for it.
"Bother!" said Pooh, as he got his nose inside the jar.
"A Heffalump has been eating it!" And then he thought a little
and said, "Oh, no, I did. I forgot."
Indeed, he had eaten most of it. But there was a little
left at the very bottom of the jar, and he pushed his head
right in, and began to lick....
By and by Piglet woke up. As soon as he woke he said to
himself, "Oh!" Then he said bravely, "Yes," and then, still
more bravely, "Quite so." But he didn't feel very brave, for
the word which was really jiggeting about in his brain was
"Heffalumps."
What was a Heffalump like?
Was it Fierce?
Did it come when you whistled? And how did it come?
Was it Fond of Pigs at all?
If it was Fond of Pigs, did it make any difference what
sort of Pig?
Supposing it was Fierce with Pigs, would it make any
difference if the Pig had a grandfather called TRESPASSERS
WILLIAM?
He didn't know the answer to any of these questions . .
. and he was going to see his first Heffalump in about an hour
from now!
Of course Pooh would be with him, and it was much more
Friendly with two. But suppose Heffalumps were Very Fierce with
Pigs and Bears?
Wouldn't it be better to pretend that he had a
headache, and couldn't go up to the Six Pine Trees this
morning? But then suppose that it was a very fine day, and
there was no Heffalump in the trap, here he would be, in bed
all the morning, simply wasting his time for nothing. What
should he do?
And then he had a Clever Idea. He would go up very
quietly to the Six Pine Trees now, peep very cautiously into
the Trap, and see if there was a Heffalump there. And if there
was, he would go back to bed, and if there wasn't, he wouldn't.
So off he went. At first he thought that there wouldn't
be a Heffalump in the Trap, and then he thought that there
would, and as he got nearer he was sure that there would,
because he could hear it heffalumping about it like anything.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" said Piglet to himself.
And he wanted to run away. But somehow, having got so near, he
felt that he must just see what a Heffalump was like. So he
crept to the side of the Trap and looked in.
And all the time Winnie-the-Pooh had been trying to get
the honey-jar off his head. The more he shook it, the more
tightly it stuck. "Bother!" he said, inside the jar, and "Oh,
help!" and, mostly, "Ow!" And he tried bumping it against
things, but as he couldn't see what he was bumping it against,
it didn't help him; and he tried to climb out of the Trap, but
as he could see nothing but jar, and not much of that, he
couldn't find his way. So at last he lifted up his head, jar
and all, and made a loud, roaring noise of Sadness and Despair
. . . and it was at that moment that Piglet looked down.
"Help, help!" cried Piglet, "a Heffalump, a Horrible
Heffalump!" and he scampered off as hard as he could, still
crying out, "Help, help, a Herrible Hoffalump! Hoff, Hoff, a
Hellible Horralump! Holl, Holl, a Hoffable Hellerump!" And he
didn't stop crying and scampering until he got to Christopher
Robin's house.
"Whatever's the matter, Piglet?" said Christopher
Robin, who was just getting up.
"Heff," said Piglet, breathing so hard that he could
hardly speak, "a Heff -- a Heff -- a Heffalump."
"Where?"
"Up there," said Piglet, waving his paw.
"What did it look like?"
"Like -- like -- It had the biggest head you ever saw,
Christopher Robin. A great enormous thing, like -- like
nothing. A huge big -- well, like a -- I don't know -- like an
enormous big nothing. Like a jar."
"Well," said Christopher Robin, putting on his shoes,
"I shall go and look at it. Come on."
Piglet wasn't afraid if he had Christopher Robin with
him, so off they went....
"I can hear it, can't you?" said Piglet anxiously, as
they got near.
"I can hear something," said Christopher Robin.
It was Pooh bumping his head against a tree-root he had
found.
"There!" said Piglet. "Isn't it awful?" And he held on
tight to Christopher Robin's hand.
Suddenly Christopher Robin began to laugh . . . and he
laughed . . and he laughed . . . and he laughed. And while he
was still laughing -- Crash went the Heffalump's head against
the tree-root, Smash went the jar, and out came Pooh's head
again....
Then Piglet saw what a Foolish Piglet he had been, and
he was so ashamed of himself that he ran straight off home and
went to bed with a headache. But Christopher Robin and Pooh
went home to breakfast together.
"Oh, Bear!" said Christopher Robin. "How I do love
you!"
"So do I," said Pooh.
Chapter 6 ...in which Eeyore has a birthday and
gets two presents
EEYORE, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the
stream, and looked at himself in the water.
"Pathetic," he said. s' That's what it is. Pathetic."
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty
yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other
side. Then he looked at himself in the water again.
"As I thought," he said. "No better from this side. But
nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that's what it is."
There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him,
and out came Pooh.
"Good morning, Eeyore," said Pooh.
"Good morning, Pooh Bear," said Eeyore gloomily. "If it
is a good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of
us don't. That's all there is to it."
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry
bush."
"Oh!" said Pooh. He thought for a long time, and then
asked, "What mulberry bush is that?"
"Bon-hommy," went on Eeyore gloomily. "French word
meaning bonhommy," he explained. "I'm not complaining, but
There It Is."
Pooh sat down on a large stone, and tried to think this
out. It sounded to him like a riddle, and he was never much
good at riddles, being a Bear of Very Little Brain. So he sang
Cottleston Pie instead:
Cottleslon, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."
That was the first verse. When he had finished it,
Eeyore didn't actually say that he didn't like it, so Pooh very
kindly sang the second verse to him:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
A fish can't whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."
Eeyore still said nothing at all, so Pooh hummed the
third verse quietly to himself:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken, I don't know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."
"That's right," said Eeyore. "Sing. Umty-tiddly,
umty-too. Here we go gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself."
"I am," said Pooh.
"Some can," said Eeyore.
"Why, what's the matter?"
"Is anything the matter?"
"You seem so sad, Eeyore."
"Sad? Why should I be sad? It's my birthday. The
happiest day of the year."
"Your birthday?" said Pooh in great surprise.
"Of course it is. Can't you see? Look at all the
presents I have had." He waved a foot from side to side. "Look
at the birthday cake. Candles and pink sugar."
Pooh looked -- first to the right and then to the left.
"Presents?" said Pooh. "Birthday cake?" said Pooh.
"Where?"
"Can't you see them?"
"No," said Pooh.
"Neither can I," said Eeyore. "Joke," he explained. "Ha
ha!"
Pooh scratched his head, being a little puzzled by all
this.
"But is it really your birthday?" he asked.
"It is."
"Oh! Well, Many happy returns of the day, Eeyore."
"And many happy returns to you, Pooh Bear."
"But it isn't my birthday."
"No, it's mine."
"But you said 'Many happy returns' -- "
"Well, why not? You don't always want to be miserable
on my birthday, do you?"
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
"It's bad enough." said Eeyore. almost breaking down
"being miserable myself, what with no presents and no cake and
no candles, and no proper notice taken of me at all, but if
everybody else is going to be miserable too -- "
This was too much for Pooh. "Stay there!" he called to
Eeyore, as he turned and hurried back home as quick as he
could; for he felt that he must get poor Eeyore a present of
some sort at once, and he could always think of a proper one
afterwards.
Outside his house he found Piglet, jumping up and down
trying to reach the knocker.
"Hallo, Piglet," he said.
"Hallo, Pooh," said Piglet.
"What are you trying to do?"
"I was trying to reach the knocker," said Piglet. "I
just came round -- "
"Let me do it for you," said Pooh kindly. So he reached
up and knocked at the door. "I have just seen Eeyore is in a
Very Sad Condition, because it's his birthday, and nobody has
taken any notice of it, and he's very Gloomy -- you know what
Eeyore is -- and there he was, and -What a long time whoever
lives here is answering this door." And he knocked again.
"But Pooh," said Piglet, "it's your own house!"
"Oh!" said Pooh. "So it is," he said. "Well, let's go
in."
So in they went. The first thing Pooh did was to go to
the cupboard to see if he had quite a small jar of honey left;
and he had, so he took it down.
"I'm giving this to Eeyore," he explained, "as a
present. What are you going to give?"
"Couldn't I give it too?" said Piglet. "From both of
us?"
"No," said Pooh. "That would not be a good plan."
"All right, then, I'll give him a balloon. I've got one
left from my party. I'll go and get it now, shall I?"
"That, Piglet, is a very good idea. It is just what
Eeyore wants to cheer him up. Nobody can be uncheered with a
balloon."
So off Piglet trotted; and in the other direction went
Pooh, with his jar of honey.
It was a warm day, and he had a long way to go. He
hadn't gone more than half-way when a sort of funny feeling
began to creep all over him. It began at the tip of his nose
and trickled all through him and out at the soles of his feet.
It was just as if somebody inside him were saying, "Now then,
Pooh, time for a little something."
"Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I didn't know it was as late
as that." So he sat down and took the top off his jar of honey.
"Lucky I brought this with me," he thought. "Many a bear going
out on a warm day like this would never have thought of
bringing a little something with him." And he began to eat.
"Now let me see," he thought! as he took his last lick
of the inside of the jar, "Where was I going? Ah, yes, Eeyore."
He got up slowly.
And then, suddenly, he remembered. He had eaten
Eeyore's birthday present!
"Bother!" said Pooh. "What shall I do? I must give him
something."
For a little while he couldn't think of anything. Then
he thought: "Well, it's a very nice pot, even if there's no
honey in it, and if I washed it clean, and got somebody to
write 'A Happy Birthday' on it, Eeyore could keep things in it,
which might be Useful." So, as he was just passing the Hundred
Acre Wood, he went inside to call on Owl, who lived there.
"Good morning, Owl," he said.
"Good morning, Pooh," said Owl.
"Many happy returns of Eeyore's birthday," said Pooh.
"Oh, is that what it is?"
"What are you giving him, Owl?"
"What are you giving him, Pooh?"
"I'm giving him a Useful Pot to Keep Things In, and I
wanted to ask you "
"Is this it?" said Owl, taking it out of Pooh's paw.
"Yes, and I wanted to ask you -- "
"Somebody has been keeping honey in it," said Owl.
"You can keep anything in it," said Pooh earnestly.
"It's Very Useful like that. And I wanted to ask you -- "
"You ought to write 'A Happy Birthday' on it."
"That was what I wanted to ask you," said Pooh.
"Because my spelling is Wobbly. It's good spelling but it
Wobbles, and the letters get in the wrong places. Would you
write 'A Happy Birthday' on it for me?"
"It's a nice pot," said Owl, looking at it all round.
"Couldn't I give it too? From both of us?"
"No," said Pooh. "That would not be a good plan. Now
I'll just wash it first, and then you can write on it."
Well, he washed the pot out, and dried it, while Owl
licked the end of his pencil, and wondered how to spell
"birthday."
"Can you read, Pooh?" he asked a little anxiously.
"There's a notice about knocking and ringing outside my door,
which Christopher Robin wrote. Could you read it?"
"Christopher Robin told me what it said, and then I
could."
"Well, I'll tell you what this says, and then you'll be
able to."
So Owl wrote . . . and this is what he wrote:
HIPY PAPY BTHUTHDTH THUTHDA
BTHUTHDY.
Pooh looked on admiringly.
"I'm just saying 'A Happy Birthday'," said Owl
carelessly.
"It's a nice long one," said Pooh, very much impressed
by it.
"Well, actually, of course, I'm saying 'A Very Happy
Birthday with love from Pooh.' Naturally it takes a good deal
of pencil to say a long thing like that."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
While all this was happening, Piglet had gone back to
his own house to get Eeyore's balloon. He held it very tightly
against himself, so that it shouldn't blow away, and he ran as
fast as he could so as to get to Eeyore before Pooh did; for he
thought that he would like to be the first one to give a
present, just as if he had thought of it without being told by
anybody. And running along, and thinking how pleased Eeyore
would be, he didn't look where he was going . . . and suddenly
he put his foot in a rabbit hole, and fell down flat on his
face.
BANG!!!???***!!!
Piglet lay there, wondering what had happened. At first
he thought that the whole world had blown up; and then he
thought that perhaps only the Forest part of it had; and then
he thought that perhaps only he had, and he was now alone in
the moon or somewhere, and would never see Christopher Robin or
Pooh or Eeyore again. And then he thought, "Well, even if I'm
in the moon, I needn't be face downwards all the time," so he
got cautiously up and looked about him.
He was still in the Forest!
"Well, that's funny," he thought. "I wonder what that
bang was. I couldn't have made such a noise just falling down.
And where's my balloon? And what's that small piece of damp rag
doing?"
It was the balloon!
"Oh, dear!" said Piglet. "Oh, dear, oh, dearie, dearie,
dear! Well, it's too late now. I can't go back, and I haven't
another balloon, and perhaps Eeyore doesn't like balloons so
very much."
So he trotted on, rather sadly now, and down he came to
the side of the stream where Eeyore was, and called out to him.
"Good morning, Eeyore," shouted Piglet.
"Good morning, Little Piglet," said Eeyore. "If it is a
good morning," he said. "Which I doubt," said he. "Not that it
matters," he said.
"Many happy returns of the day," said Piglet, having
now got closer.
Eeyore stopped looking at himself in the stream, and
turned to stare at Piglet.
"Just say that again," he said.
"Many hap -- "
"Wait a moment."
Balancing on three legs, he began to bring his fourth
leg very cautiously up to his ear. "I did this yesterday," he
explained, as he fell down for the third time. "It's quite
easy. It's so as I can hear better. ... There, that's done it!
Now then, what were you saying?" He pushed his ear forward with
his hoof.
"Many happy returns of the day," said Piglet again.
"Meaning me?"
"Of course, Eeyore."
"My birthday?"
"Yes."
"Me having a real birthday?"
"Yes, Eeyore, and I've brought you a present."
Eeyore took down his right hoof from his right ear,
turned round, and with great difficulty put up his left hoof.
"I must have that in the other ear," he said. "Now
then."
"A present," said Piglet very loudly.
"Meaning me again?"
"Yes."
"My birthday still?"
"Of course, Eeyore."
"Me going on having a real birthday?"
"Yes, Eeyore, and I brought you a balloon."
"Balloon?" said Eeyore. "You did say balloon? One of
those big coloured things you blow up? Gaiety, song-and-dance,
here we are and there we are?"
"Yes, but I'm afraid -- I'm very sorry, Eeyore -- but
when I was running along to bring it you, I fell down."
"Dear, dear, how unlucky! You ran too fast, I expect.
You didn't hurt yourself, Little Piglet?"
"No, but I -- I -- oh, Eeyore, I burst the balloon!"
There was a very long silence.
"My balloon?" said Eeyore at last.
Piglet nodded.
"My birthday balloon?"
"Yes, Eeyore," said Piglet sniffing a little. "Here it
is. With -- with many happy returns of the day." And he gave
Eeyore the small piece of damp rag.
"Is this it?" said Eeyore, a little surprised.
Piglet nodded.
"My present?"
Piglet nodded again.
"The balloon?"
"Yes."
"Thank you, Piglet," said Eeyore. "You don't mind my
asking," he went on, "but what colour was this balloon when it
-- when it was a balloon?"
"Red."
"I just wondered. ... Red," he murmured to himself. "My
favourite colour. ... How big was it?"
"About as big as me."
"I just wondered. ... About as big as Piglet," he said
to himself sadly. "My favourite size. Well, well."
Piglet felt very miserable, and didn't know what to
say. He was still opening his mouth to begin something, and
then deciding that it wasn't any good saying that, when he
heard a shout from the other side of the river, and there was
Pooh.
"Many happy returns of the day," called out Pooh,
forgetting that he had said it already.
"Thank you, Pooh, I'm having them," said Eeyore
gloomily.
"I've brought you a little present," said Pooh
excitedly.
"I've had it," said Eeyore.
Pooh had now splashed across the stream to Eeyore, and
Piglet was sitting a little way off, his head in his paws,
snuffling to himself.
"It's a Useful Pot," said Pooh. "Here it is. And it's
got 'A Very Happy Birthday with love from Pooh' written on it.
That's what all that writing is. And it's for putting things
in. There!"
When Eeyore saw the pot, he became quite excited.
"Why!" he said. "I believe my Balloon will just go into
that Pot!"
"Oh, no, Eeyore," said Pooh. "Balloons are much too big
to go into Pots. What you do with a balloon is, you hold the
balloon "
"Not mine," said Eeyore proudly. "Look, Piglet!" And as
Piglet looked sorrowfully round, Eeyore picked the balloon up
with his teeth, and placed it carefully in the pot; picked it
out and put it on the ground; and then picked it up again and
put it carefully back.
"So it does!" said Pooh. "It goes in!"
"So it does!" said Piglet. "And it comes out!"
"Doesn't it?" said Eeyore. "It goes in and out like
anything."
"I'm very glad," said Pooh happily, "that I thought of
giving you a Useful Pot to put things in."
"I'm very glad," said Piglet happily, "that thought of
giving you something to put in a Useful Pot."
But Eeyore wasn't listening. He was taking the balloon
out, and putting it back again, as happy as could be....
"And didn't I give him anything?" asked Christopher
Robin sadly.
"Of course you did," I said. "You gave him don't you
remember -- a little -- a little "
"I gave him a box of paints to paint things with."
"That was it."
"Why didn't I give it to him in the morning?"
"You were so busy getting his party ready for him. He
had a cake with icing on the top, and three candles, and his
name in pink sugar? and "
"Yes, I remember," said Christopher Robin?
Chapter 7 ...in which Kanga and Baby Roo come
to the forest, and piglet has a bath
NOBODY seemed to know where they came from, but there
they were in the Forest: Kanga and Baby Roo. When Pooh asked
Christopher Robin,
"How did they come here?" Christopher Robin said, "In
the Usual Way, if you know what I mean, Pooh," and Pooh, who
didn't, said "Oh!" Then he nodded his head twice and said, "In
the Usual Way. Ah!" Then he went to call upon his friend Piglet
to see what he thought about it. And at Piglet's house he found
Rabbit. So they all talked about it together.
"What I don't like about it is this," said Rabbit.
"Here are we -- you, Pooh, and you, Piglet, and Me --
and suddenly "
"And Eeyore," said Pooh.
"And Eeyore -- and then suddenly -- "
"And Owl," said Pooh
"And Owl -- and then all of a sudden -- "
"Oh, and Eeyore," said Pooh. "I was forgetting him."
"Here -- we -- are," said Rabbit very slowly and
carefully, all -- or -- us, and then, suddenly, we wake up one
morning, and what do we find? We find a Strange Animal among
us. An animal of whom we had never even heard before! An animal
who carries her family about with her in her pocket! Suppose I
carried my family about with me in my pocket, how many pockets
should I want?"
"Sixteen," said Piglet.
"Seventeen, isn't it?" said Rabbit. "And one more for a
handkerchief -- that's eighteen. Eighteen pockets in one suit!
I haven't time."
There was a long and thoughtful silence? . . and then
Pooh, who had been frowning very hard for some minutes, said:
"I make it fifteen."
"What?" said Rabbit.
"Fifteen."
"Fifteen what?"
"Your family."
"What about them?"
Pooh rubbed his nose and said that he thought Rabbit
had been talking about his family.
"Did I?" said Rabbit carelessly.
"Yes, you said -- "
"Never mind, Pooh," said Piglet impatiently. "The
question is, What are we to do about Kanga?"
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
"The best way," said Rabbit, "would be this. The best
way would be to steal Baby Roo and hide him, and then when
Kanga says, 'Where's Baby Roo?' we say, 'Aha!'"
"Aha!" said Pooh, practising. "Aha! Aha! . . . Of
course," he went on, "we could say 'Aha!' even if we hadn't
stolen Baby Roo."
"Pooh," said Rabbit kindly, "you haven't any brain."
"I know," said Pooh humbly.
"We say 'Aha!' so that Kanga knows that we know where
Baby Roo is. 'Aha!' means 'We'll tell you where Baby Roo is, if
you promise to go away from the Forest and never come back.'
Now don't talk while I think."
Pooh went into a corner and tried saying 'Aha!' in that
sort of voice. Sometimes it seemed to him that it did mean what
Rabbit said, and sometimes it seemed to him that it didn't. "I
suppose it's just practice," he thought. "I wonder if Kanga
will have to practise too so as to understand it."
"There's just one thing," said Piglet, fidgeting a bit.
"I was talking to Christopher Robin, and he said that a Kanga
was Generally Regarded as One of the Fiercer Animals I am not
frightened of Fierce Animals in the ordinary way, but it is
well known that if One of the Fiercer Animals is Deprived of
Its Young, it becomes as fierce as Two of the Fiercer Animals.
In which case 'Aha!' is perhaps a foolish thing to say."
"Piglet," said Rabbit, taking out a pencil, and licking
the end of it, "you haven't any pluck."
"It is hard to be brave," said Piglet, sniffing
slightly, "when you're only a Very Small Animal."
Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up
and said:
"It is because you are a very small animal that you
will be Useful in the adventure before us."
Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful that
he forgot to be frightened any more, and when Rabbit went on to
say that Kangas were only Fierce during the winter months,
being at other times of an Affectionate Disposition, he could
hardly sit still, he was so eager to begin being useful at
once.
"What about me?" said Pooh sadly "I suppose I shan't be
useful?"
"Never mind, Pooh," said Piglet comfortingly. "Another
time perhaps "
"Without Pooh," said Rabbit solemnly as he sharpened
his pencil, "the adventure would be impossible."
"Oh!" said Piglet, and tried not to look disappointed.
But Pooh went into a corner of the room and said proudly to
himself, "Impossible without Me! That sort of Bear."
"Now listen all of you," said Rabbit when he had
finished writing, and Pooh and Piglet sat listening very
eagerly with their mouths open. This was what Rabbit read out:
PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROO
1. General Remarks. Kanga runs faster than any of Us,
even Me.
2. More General Remarks. Kanga never takes her eye off
Baby Roo, except when he's safely buttoned up in her pocket.
3. Therefore. If we are to capture Baby Roo, we must
get a Long Start, because Kanga runs faster than any of Us,
even Me. (See I.)
4. A Thought. If Roo had jumped out of Kanga's pocket
and Piglet had jumped in, Kanga wouldn't know the difference,
because Piglet is a Very Small Animal.
5. Like Roo.
6. But Kanga would have to be looking the other way
first, so as not to see Piglet jumping in.
7. See 2.
8. Another Thought. But if Pooh was talking to her very
excitedly, she might look the other way for a moment.
9. And then I could run away with Roo.
10. Quickly.
11. And Kanga wouldn't discover the difference until
Afterwards
Well, Rabbit read this out proudly, and for a little
while after he had read it nobody said anything And then
Piglet, who had been opening and shutting his mouth without
making any noise, managed to say very huskily:
"And -- Afterwards?"
"How do you mean?"
"When Kanga does Discover the Difference?"
"Then we all say 'Aha!'"
"All three of us?"
"Yes."
"Oh!"
"Why, what's the trouble, Piglet?"
"Nothing," said Piglet, "as long as we all three say
it. As long as we all three say it," said Piglet, "I don't
mind," he said, "but I shouldn't care to say 'Aha!' by myself.
It wouldn't sound nearly so well. By the way," he said, "you
are quite sure about what you said about the winter months?"
"The winter months?"
"Yes, only being Fierce in the Winter Months."
"Oh, yes, yes, that's all right. Well, Pooh You see
what you have to do?"
"No," said Pooh Bear. "Not yet," he said? "What do I
do?"
"Well, you just have to talk very hard to Kanga? so as
she doesn't notice anything."
"Oh! What about?"
"Anything you like."
"You mean like telling her a little bit of poetry or
something?"
"That's it," said Rabbit. "Splendid Now come along."
So they all went out to look for Kanga.
Kanga and Roo were spending a quiet afternoon in a
sandy part of the Forest. Baby Roo was practising very small
jumps in the sand, and falling down mouse-holes and climbing
out of them, and Kanga was fidgeting about and saying "Just one
more jump, dear, and then we must go home." And at that moment
who should come stumping up the hill but Pooh.
"Good afternoon, Kanga."
"Good afternoon, Pooh."
"Look at me jumping," squeaked Roo, and fell into
another mouse-hole.
"Hallo, Roo, my little fellow!"
"We were just going home," said Kanga. "Good afternoon,
Rabbit. Good afternoon, Piglet."
Rabbit and Piglet, who had now come up from the other
side of the hill, said "Good afternoon," and "Hallo, Roo," and
Roo asked them to look at him jumping, so they stayed and
looked.
And Kanga looked too....
"Oh, Kanga," said Pooh, after Rabbit had winked at him
twice, "I don't know if you are interested in Poetry at all?"
"Hardly at all," said Kanga.
"Oh!" said Pooh.
"Roo, dear, just one more jump and then we must go
home."
There was a short silence while Roo fell down another
mouse-hole.
"Go on," said Rabbit in a loud whisper behind his paw.
"Talking of Poetry," said Pooh, "I made up a little
piece as I was coming along. It went like this. Er -- now let
me see -- "
"Fancy!" said Kanga. "Now Roo, dear -- "
"You'll like this piece of poetry," said Rabbit.
"You'll love it," said Piglet.
"You must listen very carefully," said Rabbit.
"So as not to miss any of it," said Piglet.
"Oh, yes," said Kanga, but she still looked at Baby
Roo.
"How did it go, Pooh?" said Rabbit.
Pooh gave a little cough and began.
LINES WRITTEN BY A BEAR OF VERY LITTLE BRAIN
On Monday, when the sun is hot
I wonder to myself a lot:
"Now is it true, or is it not,"
"That what is which and which is what?"
On Tuesday, when it hails and snows,
The feeling on me grows and grows
That hardly anybody knows
If those are these or these are those.
On Wednesday, when the sky is blue,
And I have nothing else to do,
I sometimes wonder if it's true
That who is what and what is who.
On Thursday, when it starts to freeze
And hoar-frost twinkles on the trees,
How very readily one sees
That these are whose -- but whose are these?
On Friday --
"Yes, it is, isn't it?" said Kanga, not waiting to hear
what happened on Friday. "Just one more jump, Roo, dear, and
then we really must be going."
Rabbit gave Pooh a hurrying-up sort of nudge.
"Talking of Poetry," said Pooh quickly "have you ever
noticed that tree right over there?"
"Where?" said Kanga. "Now, Roo -- " "Right over there,"
said Pooh, pointing behind Kanga's back.
"No," said Kanga. "Now jump in, Roo, dear, and we'll go
home."
"You ought to look at that tree right over there," said
Rabbit. "Shall I lift you in, Roo?" And he picked up Roo in his
paws.
"I can see a bird in it from here," said Pooh. "Or is
it a fish?"
"You ought to see that bird from here," said Rabbit.
"Unless it's a fish."
"It isn't a fish, it's a bird," said Piglet.
"So it is," said Rabbit.
"Is it a starling or a blackbird?" said Pooh.
"That's the whole question," said Rabbit. "Is it a
blackbird or a starling?"
And then at last Kanga did turn her head to look. And
the moment that her head was turned, Rabbit said in a loud
voice "In you go, Roo!" and in jumped Piglet into Kanga's
pocket, and off scampered Rabbit, with Roo in his paws, as fast
as he could.
"Why, where's Rabbit?" said Kanga, turning round again.
"Are you all right, Roo, dear?"
Piglet made a squeaky Roo-noise from the bottom of
Kanga's pocket.
"Rabbit had to go away," said Pooh. "I think he thought
of something he had to do and see about suddenly."
"And Piglet?"
"I think Piglet thought of something at the same time.
Suddenly."
"Well, we must be getting home," said Kanga. "Good-bye,
Pooh." And in three large jumps she was gone.
Pooh looked after her as she went.
"I wish I could jump like that," he thought. "Some can
and some can't. That's how it is."
But there were moments when Piglet wished that Kanga
couldn't. Often, when he had had a long walk home through the
Forest, he had wished that he were a bird; but now he thought
jerkily to himself at the bottom of Kanga's pocket,
this
take
"If is shall
really to
flying I never
it."
And as he went up in the air he said, "Ooooooo!" and as
he came down he said, "Ow!" And he was saying, "Ooooooo-ow,
ooooooo-ow, ooooooo-ow" all the way to Kanga's house.
Of course as soon as Kanga unbuttoned her pocket, she
saw what had happened. Just for a moment, she thought she was
frightened, and then she knew she wasn't: for she felt quite
sure that Christopher Robin could never let any harm happen to
Roo. So she said to herself, "If they are having a joke with
me, I will have a joke with them."
"Now then, Roo, dear," she said, as she took Piglet out
of her pocket. "Bed-time."
"Aha!" said Piglet, as well as he could after his
Terrifying Journey. But it wasn't a very good "Aha!" and Kanga
didn't seem to understand what it meant.
"Bath first," said Kanga in a cheerful voice.
"Aha!" said Piglet again, looking round anxiously for
the others. But the others weren't there. Rabbit was playing
with Baby Roo in his own house, and feeling more fond of him
every minute, and Pooh, who had decided to be a Kanga, was
still at the sandy place on the top of the Forest, practising
jumps.
"I am not at all sure," said Kanga in a thoughtful
voice, "that it wouldn't be a good idea to have a cold bath
this evening. Would you like that, Roo, dear?"
Piglet, who had never been really fond of baths,
shuddered a long indignant shudder, and said in as brave a
voice as he could:
"Kanga, I see that the time has come to speak plainly."
"Funny little Roo," said Kanga, as she got the
bath-water ready.
"I am not Roo," said Piglet loudly. "I am Piglet!"
"Yes, dear, yes," said Kanga soothingly. "And imitating
Piglet's voice too! So clever of him," she went on, as she took
a large bar of yellow soap out of the cupboard. "What will he
be doing next"
"Can't you see?" shouted Piglet "Haven't you got eyes?
Look at me!"
"I am looking, Roo, dear," said Kanga rather severely.
"And you know what I told you yesterday about making faces. If
you go on making faces like Piglet's, you will grow up to look
like Piglet -- and then think how sorry you will be. Now then,
into the bath, and don't let me have to speak to you about it
again."
Before he knew where he was, Piglet was in the bath,
and Kanga was scrubbing him firmly with a large lathery
flannel.
"Ow!" cried Piglet. "Let me out! I'm Piglet!"
"Don't open the mouth, dear, or the soap goes in," said
Kanga. "There! What did I tell you?"
"You -- you -- you did it on purpose," spluttered
Piglet, as soon as he could speak again . . . and then
accidentally had another mouthful of lathery flannel.
"That's right, dear, don't say anything," said Kanga,
and in another minute Piglet was out of the bath, and being
rubbed dry with a towel.
"Now," said Kanga, "there's your medicine, and then
bed."
"W-w-what medicine?" said Piglet.
"To make you grow big and strong, dear. You don't want
to grow up small and weak like Piglet, do you? Well, then!"
At that moment there was a knock at the door.
"Come in," said Kanga, and in came Christopher Robin.
"Christopher Robin, Christopher Robin!" cried Piglet.
"Tell Kanga who I am! She keeps saying I'm Roo. I'm not Roo, am
I?"
Christopher Robin looked at him very carefully, and
shook his head.
"You can't be Roo," he said, "because I've just seen
Roo playing in Rabbit's house."
"Well!" said Kanga. "Fancy that! Fancy my making a
mistake like that."
"There you are!" said Piglet. "I told you so. I'm
Piglet."
Christopher Robin shook his head again.
"Oh, you're not Piglet," he said. "I know Piglet well,
and he's quite a different colour."
Piglet began to say that this was because he had just
had a bath, and then he thought that perhaps he wouldn't say
that, and as he opened his mouth to say something else, Kanga
slipped the medicine spoon in, and then patted him on the back
and told him that it was really quite a nice taste when you got
used to it.
"I knew it wasn't Piglet," said Kanga. "I wonder who it
can be."
"Perhaps it's some relation of Pooh's," said
Christopher Robin. "What about a nephew or an uncle or
something?"
Kanga agreed that this was probably what it was, and
said that they would have to call it by some name.
"I shall call it Pootel," said Christopher Robin.
"Henry Pootel for short."
And just when it was decided, Henry Pootel wriggled out
of Kanga's arms and jumped to the ground. To his great joy
Christopher Robin had left the door open. Never had Henry
Pootel Piglet run so fast as he ran then, and he didn't stop
running until he had got quite close to his house. But when he
was a hundred yards away he stopped running, and rolled the
rest of the way home, so as to get his own nice comfortable
colour again.
So Kanga and Roo stayed in the Forest. And every
Tuesday Roo spent the day with his great friend Rabbit, and
every Tuesday Kanga spent the day with her great friend Pooh,
teaching him to jump, and every Tuesday Piglet spent the day
with his great friend Christopher Robin. So they were all happy
again.
Chapter 8 ...in which Christopher Robin leads
an expotition to the north pole
ONE fine day Pooh had stumped up to the top of the
Forest to see if his friend Christopher Robin was interested in
Bears at all. At breakfast that morning (a simple meal of
marmalade spread lightly over a honeycomb or two) he had
suddenly thought of a new song. It began like this:
"Sing Ho! For the life of a Bear."
When he had got as far as this, he scratched his head,
and thought to himself "That's a very good start for a song,
but what about the second line?" He tried singing "Ho," two or
three times, but it didn't seem to help. "Perhaps it would be
better," he thought, "if I sang Hi for the life of a Bear." So
he sang it . . . but it wasn't. "Very well, then," he said, "I
shall sing that first line twice, and perhaps if I sing it very
quickly, I shall find myself singing the third and fourth lines
before I have time to think of them, and that will be a Good
Song. Now then:"
Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear!
Sing Ho! for the life of a Bear!
I don't much mind if it rains or snows,
'Cos I've got a lot of honey on my nice new nose!
I don't much care if it snows or thaws,
'Cos I've got a lot of honey on my nice clean paws!
Sing Ho! for a Bear!
Sing Ho! for a Pooh!
And I'll have a little something in an hour or two!
He was so pleased with this song that he sang it all
the way to the top of the Forest, "and if I go on singing it
much longer," he thought, "it will be time for the little
something, and then the last line won't be true." So he turned
it into a hum instead.
Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting
on his Big Boots. As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew
that an Adventure was going to happen, and he brushed the honey
off his nose with the back of his paw, and spruced himself up
as well as he could, so as to look Ready for Anything.
"Good morning, Christopher Robin," he called out.
"Hallo, Pooh Bear. I can't get this boot on."
"That's bad," said Pooh.
"Do you think you could very kindly lean against me,
'cos I keep pulling so hard that I fall over backwards."
Pooh sat down, dug his feet into the ground, and pushed
hard against Christopher Robin's back, and Christopher Robin
pushed hard against his, and pulled and pulled at his boot
until he had got it on.
"And that's that," said Pooh. "What do we do next?"
"We are all going on an Expedition," said Christopher
Robin, as he got up and brushed himself. "Thank you, Pooh."
"Going on an Expotition?" said Pooh eagerly. "I don't
think I've ever been on one of those. Where are we going to on
this Expotition?"
"Expedition, silly old Bear. It's got an 'x' in it."
"Oh!" said Pooh. "I know." But he didn't really.
"We're going to discover the North Pole."
"Oh!" said Pooh again. "What is the North Pole?" he
asked.
"It's just a thing you discover," said Christopher
Robin carelessly, not being quite sure himself.
"Oh! I see," said Pooh. "Are bears any good at
discovering it?"
"Of course they are. And Rabbit and Kanga and all of
you. It's an Expedition. That's what an Expedition means. A
long line of everybody. You'd better tell the others to get
ready, while I see if my gun's all right. And we must all bring
Provisions."
"Bring what?"
"Things to eat."
"Oh!" said Pooh happily. "I thought you said
Provisions. I'll go and tell them." And he stumped off.
The first person he met was Rabbit.
"Hallo, Rabbit," he said, "is that you?"
"Let's pretend it isn't," said Rabbit, "and see what
happens."
"I've got a message for you."
"I'll give it to him."
"We're all going on an. Expotition with Christopher
Robin!"
"What is it when we're on it?"
"A sort of boat, I think," said Pooh.
"Oh! that sort."
"Yes. And we're going to discover a Pole or something.
Or was it a Mole? Anyhow we're going to discover it."
"We are, are we?" said Rabbit.
"Yes. And we've got to bring Pro-things to eat with us.
In case we want to eat them. Now I'm going down to Piglet's.
Tell Kanga, will you?"
He left Rabbit and hurried down to Piglet's house.
The Piglet was sitting on the ground at the door of his
house blowing happily at a dandelion, and wondering whether it
would be this year, next year, some time or never. He had just
discovered that it would be never, and was trying to remember
what "it" was, and hoping it wasn't anything nice, when Pooh
came up.
"Oh! Piglet," said Pooh excitedly, we're going on an
Expotition, all of us, with things to eat. To discover
something."
"To discover what?" said Piglet anxiously.
"Oh! just something."
"Nothing fierce?"
"Christopher Robin didn't say anything about fierce. He
just said it had an 'x'."
"It isn't their necks I mind," said Piglet earnestly.
"It's their teeth. But if Christopher Robin is coming I don't
mind anything."
In a little while they were all ready at the top of the
Forest, and the Expotition started. First came Christopher
Robin and Rabbit, then Piglet and Pooh; ther Kanga, with Roo in
her pocket, and Owl; then Eeyore; and, at the end, in a long
line, all Rabbit's friends-and-relations.
"I didn't ask them," explained Rabbit carelessly. "They
just came. They always do. They can march at the end, after
Eeyore."
"What I say," said Eeyore, "is that it's unsettling. I
didn't want to come on this Expo -- what Pooh said. I only came
to oblige. But here I am; and if I am the end of the Expo --
what we're talking about -- then let me be the end. But if,
every time I want to sit down for a little rest, I have to
brush away half a dozen of Rabbit's smaller
friends-and-relations first, then this isn't an Expo --
whatever it is -- at all, it's simply a Confused Noise. That's
what I say."
"I see what Eeyore means," said Owl. "If you ask me --"
"I'm not asking anybody," said Eeyore. "I'm just
telling everybody. We can look for the North Pole, or we can
play 'Here we go gathering Nuts and May' with the end part of
an ants' nest. It's all the same to me."
There was a shout from the top of the line.
"Come on!" called Christopher Robin.
"Come on!" called Owl.
"We're starting," said Rabbit. "I must go." And he
hurried off to the front of the Expotition with Christopher
Robin.
"All right," said Eeyore. "We're going. Only Don't
Blame Me."
So off they all went to discover the Pole. And as they
walked, they chattered to each other of this and that, all
except Pooh, who was making up a song.
"This is the first verse," he said to Piglet, when he
was ready with it.
"First verse of what?"
"My song."
"What song?"
"This one."
"Which one?"
"Well, if you listen, Piglet, you'll hear it."
"How do you know I'm not listening?" Pooh couldn't
answer that one, so he began to sing.
They all went off to discover the Pole,
Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all;
It's a Thing you Discover, as I've been tole
By Owl and Piglet and Rabbit and all.
Eeyore, Christopher Robin and Pooh
And Rabbit's relations all went too --
And where the Pole was none of them knew....
Sing Hey! for Owl and Rabbit and all!
"Hush!" said Christopher Robin turning round to Pooh,
"we're just coming to a Dangerous Place."
"Hush!" said Pooh turning round quickly to Piglet.
"Hush!" said Piglet to Kanga.
"Hush!" said Kanga to Owl, while Roo said
"Hush!" several times to himself, very quietly.
"Hush!" said Owl to Eeyore.
"Hush!" said Eeyore in a terrible voice to all Rabbit's
friends-and-relations, and "Hush!" they said hastily to each
other all down the line, until it got to the last one of all.
And the last and smallest friend-and-relation was so upset to
find that the whole Expotition was saying "Hush!" to him, that
he buried himself head downwards in a crack in the ground, and
stayed there for two days until the danger was over, and then
went home in a great hurry, and lived quietly with his Aunt
ever-afterwards. His name was Alexander Beetle.
They had come to a stream which twisted and tumbled
between high rocky banks, and Christopher Robin saw at once how
dangerous it was.
"It's just the place," he explained, "for an Ambush."
"What sort of bush?" whispered Pooh to Piglet. "A
gorse-bush?"
"My dear Pooh," said Owl in his superior way, "don't
you know what an Ambush is?"
"Owl," said Piglet, looking round at him severely,
"Pooh's whisper was a perfectly private whisper, and there was
no need -- "
"An Ambush," said Owl, "is a sort of Surprise."
"So is a gorse-bush sometimes," said Pooh.
"An Ambush, as I was about to explain to Pooh," said
Piglet, "is a sort of Surprise."
"If people jump out at you suddenly, that's an Ambush,"
said Owl.
"It's an Ambush, Pooh, when people jump at you
suddenly," explained Piglet.
Pooh, who now knew what an Ambush was, said that a
gorse-bush had sprung at him suddenly one day when he fell off
a tree, and he had taken six days to get all the prickles out
of himself.
"We are not talking about gorse-bushes," said Owl a
little crossly.
"I am," said Pooh.
They were climbing very cautiously up the stream now,
going from rock to rock, and after they had gone a little way
they came to a place where the banks widened out at each side,
so that on each side of the water there was a level strip of
grass on which they could sit down and rest. As soon as he saw
this, Christopher Robin called "Halt!" and they all sat down
and rested.
"I think," said Christopher Robin, "that we ought to
eat all our Provisions now, so that we shan't have so much to
carry."
"Eat all our what?" said Pooh.
"All that we've brought," said Piglet, getting to work.
"That's a good idea," said Pooh, and he got to work
too.
"Have you all got something?" asked Christopher Robin
with his mouth full.
"All except me," said Eeyore. "As Usual." He looked
round at them in his melancholy way.
I suppose none of you are sitting on a thistle by any
chance?"
"I believe I am," said Pooh. "Ow!" He got up, and
looked behind him. "Yes, I was. I thought so."
"Thank you, Pooh. If you've quite finished with it." He
moved across to Pooh's place, and began to eat.
"It doesn't do them any Good, you know, sitting on
them," he went on, as he looked up munching. "Takes all the
Life out of them. Remember that another time, all of you. A
little Consideration, a little Thought for Others, makes all
the difference."
As soon as he had finished his lunch Christopher Robin
whispered to Rabbit, and Rabbit said "Yes, yes, of course," and
they walked a little way up the stream together.
"I didn't want the others to hear," said Christopher
Robin.
"Quite so," said Rabbit, looking important.
"It's -- I wondered -- It's only -- Rabbit, I suppose
you don't know, What does the North Pole look like?"
"Well," said Rabbit, stroking his whiskers. "Now you're
asking me."
"I did know once, only I've sort of forgotten," said
Christopher Robin carelessly.
"It's a funny thing," said Rabbit, "but I've sort of
forgotten too, although I did know once."
"I suppose it's just a pole stuck in the ground?"
"Sure to be a pole," said Rabbit, "because of calling
it a pole, and if it's a pole, well, I should think it would be
sticking in the ground, shouldn't you, because there'd be
nowhere else to stick it."
"Yes, that's what I thought."
"The only thing," said Rabbit, "is, where is it
sticking?"
"That's what we're looking for," said Christopher
Robin.
They went back to the others. Piglet was lying on his
back, sleeping peacefully. Roo was washing his face and paws in
the stream, while Kanga explained to everybody proudly that
this was the first time he had ever washed his face himself,
and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long
words like Encyclopedia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn't
listening.
"I don't hold with all this washing," grumbled Eeyore.
"This modern Behind-the-ears nonsense. What do you think,
Pooh?"
"Well, said Pooh, "I think -- "
But we shall never know what Pooh thought, for there
came a sudden squeak from Roo, a splash, and a loud cry of
alarm from Kanga.
"So much for washing," said Eeyore.
"Roo's fallen in!" cried Rabbit, and he and Christopher
Robin came rushing down to the rescue.
"Look at me swimming!" squeaked Roo from the middle of
his pool, and was hurried down a waterfall into the next pool.
"Are you all right, Roo dear?" called Kanga anxiously.
"Yes!" said Roo. "Look at me sw -- " and down he went
over the next waterfall into another pool.
Everybody was doing something to help. Piglet, wide
awake suddenly, was jumping up and down and making "Oo, I say"
noises; Owl was explaining that in a case of Sudden and
Temporary Immersion the Important Thing was to keep the Head
Above Water; Kanga was jumping along the bank, saying "Are you
sure you're all right, Roo dear?" to which Roo, from whatever
pool he was in at the moment, was answering "Look at me
swimming!" Eeyore had turned round and hung his tail over the
first pool into which Roo fell, and with his back to the
accident was grumbling quietly to himself, and saying, "All
this washing; but catch on to my tail, little Roo, and you'll
be all right"; and,Christopher Robin and Rabbit came hurrying
past Eeyore, and were calling out to the others in front of
them.
"All right, Roo, I'm coming," called Christopher Robin.
"Get something across the stream lower down, some of
you fellows," called Rabbit.
But Pooh was getting something. Two pools below Roo he
was standing with a long pole in his paws, and Kanga came up
and took one end of it, and between them they held it across
the lower part of the pool; and Roo, still bubbling proudly,
"Look at me swimming," drifted up against it, and climbed out.
"Did you see me swimming?" squeaked Roo excitedly,
while Kanga scolded him and rubbed him down. "Pooh, did you see
me swimming? That's called swimming, what I was doing. Rabbit,
did you see what I was doing? Swimming. Hallo, Piglet! I say,
Piglet! What do you think I was doing! Swimming! Christopher
Robin, did you see me -- "
But Christopher Robin wasn't listening. He was looking
at Pooh.
"Pooh," he said, "where did you find that pole?"
Pooh looked at the pole in his hands.
"I just found it," he said. "I thought it ought to be
useful. I just picked it up."
"Pooh," said Christopher Robin solemnly, "the
Expedition is over. You have found the North Pole!"
"Oh!" said Pooh.
Eeyore was sitting with his tail in the water when they
all got back to him.
"Tell Roo to be quick, somebody," he said. "My tail's
getting cold. I don't want to mention it, but I just mention
it. I don't want to complain, but there it is. My tail's cold."
"Here I am!" squeaked Roo.
"Oh, there you are."
"Did you see me swimming?"
Eeyore took his tail out of the water, and swished it
from side to side.
"As I expected," he said. "Lost all feeling. Numbed it.
That's what it's done. Numbed it. Well, as long as nobody
minds, I suppose it's all right."
"Poor old Eeyore! I'll dry it for you," said
Christopher Robin, and he took out his handkerchief and rubbed
it up.
"Thank you, Christopher Robin. You're the only one who
seems to understand about tails. They don't think -- that's
what's the matter with some of these others. They've no
imagination. A tail isn't a tail to them, it's just a Little
Bit Extra at the back."
"Never mind, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, rubbing
his hardest. "Is that better?"
"It's feeling more like a tail perhaps. It Belongs
again, if you know what I mean."
"Hullo, Eeyore," said Pooh, coming up to them with his
pole.
"Hullo, Pooh. Thank you for asking, but I shall be able
to use it again in a day or two."
"Use what?" said Pooh.
"What we are talking about."
"I wasn't talking about anything," said Pooh, looking
puzzled.
"My mistake again. I thought you were saying how sorry
you were about my tail, being all numb, and could you do
anything to help?"
"No," said Pooh. "That wasn't me," he said. He thought
for a little and then suggested helpfully: "Perhaps it was
somebody else."
"Well, thank him for me when you see him."
Pooh looked anxiously at Christopher Robin.
"Pooh's found the North Pole," said Christopher Robin.
"Isn't that lovely?"
Pooh looked modestly down.
"Is that it?" said Eeyore.
"Yes," said Christopher Robin.
"Is that what we were looking for?"
"Yes," said Pooh.
"Oh!" said Eeyore. "Well, anyhow -- it didn't rain," he
said.
They stuck the pole in the ground, and Christopher
Robin tied a message on to it:
NorTH
PoLE
DICSovERED
By
PooH
PooH
FouND IT
Then they all went home again. And I think, but I am
not quite sure, that Roo had a hot bath and went straight to
bed. But Pooh went back to his own house, and feeling very
proud of what he had done, had a little something to revive
himself.
Chapter 9 ...in which Piglet is entirely
surrounded by water
IT rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told
himself that never in all his life, and he was goodness knows
how old -- three, was it, or four? -- never had he seen so much
rain. Days and days and days.
"If only," he thought, as he looked out of the window,
"I had been in Pooh's house, or Christopher Robin's house, or
Rabbit's house when it began to rain, then I should have had
Company all this time, instead of being here all alone, with
nothing to do except wonder when it will stop." And he imagined
himself with Pooh, saying, "Did you ever see such rain, Pooh?"
and Pooh saying, "Isn't it awful, Piglet?" and Piglet saying,
"I wonder how it is over Christopher Robin's way," and Pooh
saying, "I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by
this time." It would have been jolly to talk like this, and
really, it wasn't much good having anything exciting like
floods, if you couldn't share them with somebody.
For it was rather exciting. The little dry ditches in
which Piglet had nosed about so often had become streams, the
little streams across which he had splashed were rivers, and
the river, between whose steep banks they had played so
happily, had sprawled out of its own bed and was taking up so
much room everywhere, that Piglet was beginning to wonder
whether it would be coming into his bed soon.
"It's a little Anxious," he said to himself, "to be a
Very Small Animal Entirely Surrounded by Water. Christopher
Robin and Pooh could escape by Climbing Trees, and Kanga could
escape by Jumping, and Rabbit could escape by Burrowing, and
Owl could escape by Flying, and Eeyore could escape by -- by
Making a Loud Noise Until Rescued, and here am I, surrounded by
water and I can't do anything."
It went on raining, and every day the water got a
little higher, until now it was nearly up to Piglet's window...
and still he hadn't done anything.
"There's Pooh," he thought to himself. "Pooh hasn't
much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly
things and they turn out right. There's Owl. Owl hasn't exactly
got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would know the Right Thing
to Do when Surrounded by Water. There's Rabbit. He hasn't
Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan.
There's Kanga. She isn't Clever, Kanga isn't, but she would be
so anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to Do
without thinking about it. And then there's Eeyore And Eeyore
is so miserable anyhow that he wouldn't mind about this. But I
wonder what Christopher Robin would do?"
Then suddenly he remembered a story which Christopher
Robin had told him about a man on a desert island who had
written something in a bottle and thrown it in the sea; and
Piglet thought that if he wrote something in a bottle and threw
it in the water, perhaps somebody would come and rescue him!
He left the window and began to search his house, all
of it that wasn't under water, and at last he found a pencil
and a small piece of dry paper, and a bottle with a cork to it.
And he wrote on one side of the paper:
HELP!
PIGLIT (ME)
and on the other side:
IT'S ME PIGLIT, HELP
HELP!
Then he put the paper in the bottle, and he corked the
bottle up as tightly as he could, and he leant out of his
window as far as he could lean without falling in, and he threw
the bottle as far as he could throw -- splash! -- and in a
little while it bobbed up again on the water; and he watched it
floating slowly away in the distance, until his eyes ached with
looking, and sometimes he thought it was the bottle, and
sometimes he thought it was just a ripple on the water which he
was following, and then suddenly he knew that he would never
see it again and that he had done all that he could do to save
himself.
"So now," he thought, "somebody else will have to do
something, and I hope they will do it soon, because if they
don't I shall have to swim, which I can't, so I hope they do it
soon." And then he gave a very long sigh and said, "I wish Pooh
were here. It's so much more friendly with two."
When the rain began Pooh was asleep. It rained, and it
rained, and it rained, and he slept and he slept and he slept.
He had had a tiring day. You remember how he discovered the
North Pole; well, he was so proud of this that he asked
Christopher Robin if there were any other Poles such as a Bear
of Little Brain might discover.
"There's a South Pole," said Christopher Robin, "and I
expect there's an East Pole and a West Pole, though people
don't like talking about them." Pooh was very excited when he
heard this, and suggested that they should have an Expotition
to discover the East Pole, but Christopher Robin had thought of
something else to do with Kanga; so Pooh went out to discover
the East Pole by himself. Whether he discovered it or not, I
forget; but he was so tired when he got home that, in the very
middle of his supper, after he had been eating for little more
than half-an-hour, he fell fast asleep in his chair, and slept
and slept and slept.
Then suddenly he was dreaming. He was at the East Pole,
and it was a very cold pole with the coldest sort of snow and
ice all over it. He had found a bee-hive to sleep in, but there
wasn't room for his legs, so he had left them outside. And Wild
Woozles, such as inhabit the East Pole, came and nibbled all
the fur off his legs to make Nests for their Young. And the
more they nibbled, the colder his legs got, until suddenly he
woke up with an Ow! -- and there he was, sitting in his chair
with his feet in the water, and water all round him!
He splashed to his door and looked out....
"This is Serious," said Pooh. "I must have an Escape."
So he took his largest pot of honey and escaped with it
to a broad branch of his tree, well above the water, and then
he climbed down again and escaped with another pot . . . and
when the whole Escape was finished, there was Pooh sitting on
his branch dangling his legs, and there, beside him, were ten
pots of honey....
Two days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch,
dangling his legs, and there, beside him, were four pots of
honey....
Three days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his
branch, dangling his legs, and there beside him, was one pot of
honey.
Four days later, there was Pooh...
And it was on the morning of the fourth day that
Piglet's bottle came floating past him, and with one loud cry
of "Honey!" Pooh plunged into the water, seized the bottle, and
struggled back to his tree again.
"Bother!" said Pooh, as he opened it. "All that wet for
nothing. What's that bit of paper doing?"
He took it out and looked at it.
"It's a Missage," he said to himself, "that's what it
is. And that letter is a 'P,' and so is that, and so is that,
and 'P' means 'Pooh,' so it's a very important Missage to me,
and I can't read it. I must find Christopher Robin or Owl or
Piglet, one of those Clever Readers who can read things, and
they will tell me what this missage means. Only I can't swim.
Bother!"
Then he had an idea, and I think that for a Bear of
Very Little Brain, it was a good idea. He said to himself:
"If a bottle can float, then a jar can float, and if a
jar floats, I can sit on the top of it, if it's a very big
jar."
So he took his biggest jar, and corked it up.
"All boats have to have a name," he said, "so I shall
call mine The Floating Bear." And with these words he dropped
his boat into the water and jumped in after it.
For a little while Pooh and The Floating Bear were
uncertain as to which of them was meant to be on the top, but
after trying one or two different positions, they settled down
with The Floating Bear underneath and Pooh triumphantly astride
it, paddling vigorously with his feet.
Christopher Robin lived at the very top of the Forest.
It rained, and it rained, and it rained, but the water couldn't
come up to his house. It was rather jolly to look down into the
valleys and see the water all round him, but it rained so hard
that he stayed indoors most of the time, and thought about
things. Every morning he went out with his umbrella and put a
stick in the place where the water came up to, and every next
morning he went out and couldn't see his stick any more, so he
put another stick in the place where the water came up to, and
then he walked home again, and each morning he had a shorter
way to walk than he had had the morning before. On the morning
of the fifth day he saw the water all round him, and he new
that for the first time in his life he was on a real island.
Which is very exciting. It was on this morning that Owl came
flying over the water to say "How do you do?" to his friend
Christopher Robin.
"I say, Owl," said Christopher Robin, "isn't this fun?
I'm on an island!"
"The atmospheric conditions have been very unfavourable
lately," said Owl.
"The what?"
"It has been raining," explained Owl.
"Yes," said Christopher Robin. "It has."
"The flood-level has reached an unprecedented height."
"The who?"
"There's a lot of water about," explained Owl.
"Yes," said Christopher Robin, "there is."
"However, the prospects are rapidly becoming more
favourable. At any moment -- "
"Have you seen Pooh?"
"No. At any moment -- "
"I hope he's all right," said Christopher Robin. "I've
been wondering about him. I expect Piglet's with him. Do you
think they're all right, Owl?"
"I expect so. You see, at any moment -- "
"Do go and see, Owl. Because Pooh hasn't got very much
brain, and he might do something silly, and I do love him so,
Owl. Do you see, Owl?"
"That's all right," said Owl. "I'll go. Back directly."
And he flew off.
In a little while he was back again. Pooh isn't there,"
he said.
"Not there?"
"He's been there. He's been sitting on a branch of his
tree outside his house with nine pots of honey. But he isn't
there now."
"Oh, Pooh!" cried Christopher Robin. "Where are you?"
"Here I am," said a growly voice behind him.
"Pooh!"
They rushed into each other's arms.
"How did you get here, Pooh?" asked Christopher Robin,
when he was ready to talk again.
"On my boat," said Pooh proudly. "I had a Very
Important Missage sent me in a bottle, and owing to having got
some water in my eyes, I couldn't read it, so I brought it to
you. On my boat."
With these proud words he gave Christopher Robin the
missage.
"But it's from Piglet!" cried Christopher Robin when he
had read it.
"Isn't there anything about Pooh in it?" asked Bear,
looking over his shoulder.
Christopher Robin read the message aloud.
"Oh, are those 'P's' piglets? I thought they were
poohs."
"We must rescue him at once! I thought he was with you,
Pooh. Owl, could you rescue him on your back?"
"I don't think so," said Owl, after grave thought. "It
is doubtful if the necessary dorsal muscles "
"Then would you fly to him at once and say that Rescue
is Coming? And Pooh and I will think of a Rescue and come as
quick as ever we can. Oh, don't talk, Owl, go on quick!" And,
still thinking of something to say, Owl flew off.
"Now then, Pooh," said Christopher Robin, "where's your
boat?"
"I ought to say," explained Pooh as they walked down to
the shore of the island, "that it isn't just an ordinary sort
of boat. Sometimes it's a Boat, and sometimes it's more of an
Accident. It all depends."
"Depends on what?"
"On whether I'm on top of it or underneath it."
"Oh! Well, where is it?"
"There!" said Pooh, pointing proudly to The Floating
Bear.
It wasn't what Christopher Robin expected, and the more
he looked at it, the more he thought what a Brave and Clever
Bear Pooh was, and the more Christopher Robin thought this, the
more Pooh looked modestly down his nose and tried to pretend he
wasn't.
"But it's too small for two of us," said Christopher
Robin sadly.
"Three of us with Piglet."
"That makes it smaller still Oh, Pooh Bear, what shall
we do?"
And then this Bear, Pooh Bear, Winnie-the-Pooh, F.O.P.
(Friend of Piglet's), R.C. (Rabbit's Companion), P.D. (Pole
Discoverer), E.C. and T.F. (Eeyore's Comforter and Tail-finder)
-- in fact, Pooh himself -- said something so clever that
Christopher Robin could only look at him with mouth open and
eyes staring, wondering if this was really the Bear of Very
Little Brain whom he had know and loved so long.
"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh.
"?"
"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh?
"??"
"We might go in your umbrella," said Pooh.
"!!!!!!"
For suddenly Christopher Robin saw that they might. He
opened his umbrella and put it point downwards in the water. It
floated but wobbled.
Pooh got in. He was just beginning to say that it was
all right now, when he found that it wasn't, so after a short
drink, which he didn't really want, he waded back to
Christopher Robin. Then they both got in together, and it
wobbled no longer.
"I shall call this boat The Brain of Pooh," said
Christopher Robin, and The Brain of Pooh set sail forthwith in
a south-westerly direction, revolving gracefully.
You can imagine Piglet's joy when at last the ship came
in sight of him. In after-years he liked to think that he had
been in Very Great Danger during the Terrible Flood, but the
only danger he had really been in was the last half-hour of his
imprisonment, when Owl, who had just flown up, sat on a branch
of his tree to comfort him, and told him a very long story
about an aunt who had once laid a seagull's egg by mistake, and
the story went on and on, rather like this sentence, until
Piglet who was listening out of his window without much hope,
went to sleep quietly and naturally, slipping slowly out of the
window towards the water until he was only hanging on by his
toes, at which moment, luckily, a sudden loud squawk from Owl,
which was really part of the story, being what his aunt said,
woke the Piglet up and just gave him time to jerk himself back
into safety and say, "How interesting, and did she?" when --
well, you can imagine his joy when at last he saw the good
ship, Brain of Pooh (Captain, C. Robin; Ist Mate, P. Bear)
coming over the sea to rescue him.. ..
And as that is really the end of the story, and I am
very tired after that last sentence, I think I shall stop
there.
Chapter 10 ...in which Christopher Robin gives
a pooh party, and we say good-bye
ONE day when the sun had come back over the Forest,
bringing with it the scent of may, and all the streams of the
Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own
pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the
life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the
warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his
voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and
wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their
lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow's fault, but
it didn't matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher
Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out
of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.
"Owl," said Christopher Robin, "I am going to give a
party."
"You are, are you?" said Owl.
"And it's to be a special sort of party, because it's
because of what Pooh did when he did what he did to save Piglet
from the flood."
"Oh, that's what it's for, is it?" said Owl.
"Yes, so will you tell Pooh as quickly as you can, and
all the others, because it will be to-morrow?"
"Oh, it will, will it?" said Owl, still being as
helpful as possible.
"So will you go and tell them, Owl?"
Owl tried to think of something very wise to say, but
couldn't, so he flew off to tell the others. And the first
person he told was Pooh.
"Pooh," he said, "Christopher Robin is giving a party."
"Oh!" said Pooh And then seeing that Owl expected him
to say something else, he said, "Will there be those little
cake things with pink sugar icing?"
Owl felt that it was rather beneath him to talk about
little cake things with pink sugar icing, so he told Pooh
exactly what Christopher Robin had said, and flew off to
Eeyore.
"Party for Me?" thought Pooh to himself. "How grand!"
And he began to wonder if all the other animals would know that
it was a special Pooh Party, and if Christopher Robin had told
them about The Floating Bear and the Brain of Pooh, and all the
wonderful ships he had invented and sailed on, and he began to
think how awful it would be if everybody had forgotten about
it, and nobody quite knew what the party was for; and the more
he thought like this, the more the party got muddled in his
mind, like a dream when nothing goes right.
And the dream began to sing itself over in his head
until it became a sort of song. It was an
ANXIOUS POOH SONG.
3 Cheers for Pooh
(For Who?)
For Pooh --
(Why what did he do?)
I thought you knew;
He saved his friend from a wetting!
3 Cheers for Bear!
(For where?)
For Bear --
He couldn't swim,
But he rescued him!
(He rescued who?)
Oh, listen, do!
I am talking of Pooh?
(Of who?)
Of Pooh!
(I'm sorry I keep forgetting).
Well. Pooh was a Bear of Enormous Brain --
(Just say it again!)
Of enormous brain --
(Of enormous what?)
Well, he ate a lot,
And I don't know if he could swim or not,
But he managed to float
On a sort of boat
(On a sort of what?)
Well, a sort of pot --
So now let's give him three hearty cheers
(So now let's give him three hearty whitches?)
And hope he'll be with us for years and years,
And grow in health and wisdom and riches!
3 Cheers for Pooh!
(For who?)
For Pooh --
3 Cheers for Bear
(For where?)
For Bear --
3 Cheers for the wonderful Winnie-the-Pooh!
(Just tell me, somebody -- WHAT DID HE DO?)
While this was going on inside him, Owl was talking to
Eeyore.
"Eeyore," said Owl, "Christopher Robin is giving a
party."
"Very interesting," said Eeyore. "I suppose they will
be sending me down the odd bits which got trodden on. Kind and
Thoughtful. Not at all, don't mention it."
"There is an Invitation for you."
"What's that like?"
"An Invitation!"
"Yes, I heard you. Who dropped it?"
"This isn't anything to eat, it's asking you to the
party. To-morrow."
Eeyore shook his head slowly.
"You mean Piglet. The little fellow with the exited
ears. That's Piglet. I'll tell him."
"No, no!" said Owl, getting quite fussy. "It's you!"
"Are you sure?"
"Of course I'm sure. Christopher Robin said 'All of
them! Tell all of them.'"
"All of them, except Eeyore?"
"All of them," said Owl sulkily.
"Ah!" said Eeyore. "A mistake, no doubt, but still, I
shall come. Only don't blame me if it rains."
But it didn't rain. Christopher Robin had made a long
table out of some long pieces of wood, and they all sat round
it. Christopher Robin sat at one end, and Pooh sat at the
other, and between them on one side were Owl and Eeyore and
Piglet, and between them on the other side were Rabbit, and Roo
and Kanga. And all Rabbit's friends and relations spread
themselves about on the grass, and waited hopefully in case
anybody spoke to them, or dropped anything, or asked them the
time.
It was the first party to which Roo had ever been, and
he was very excited. As soon as ever they had sat down he began
to talk.
"Hallo, Pooh!" he squeaked.
"Hallo, Roo!" said Pooh.
Roo jumped up and down in his seat for a little while
and then began again.
"Hallo, Piglet!" he squeaked.
Piglet waved a paw at him, being too busy to say
anything.
"Hallo, Eeyore!" said Roo.
Eeyore nodded gloomily at him. "It will rain soon, you
see if it doesn't," he said.
Roo looked to see if it didn't, and it didn't, so he
said "Hallo, Owl!" -- and Owl said "Hallo, my little fellow,"
in a kindly way, and went on telling Christopher Robin about an
accident which had nearly happened to a friend of his whom
Christopher Robin didn't know, and Kanga said to Roo, "Drink up
your milk first, dear, and talk afterwards." So Roo, who was
drinking his milk, tried to say that he could do both at once .
. . and had to be patted on the back and dried for quite a long
time afterwards.
When they had all nearly eaten enough, Christopher
Robin banged on the table with his spoon, and everybody stopped
talking and was very silent, except Roo who was just finishing
a loud attack of hiccups and trying to look as if it was one of
Rabbit's relations.
"This party," said Christopher Robin, "is a party
because of what someone did, and we all know who it was, and
it's his party, because of what he did, and I've got a present
for him and here it is." Then he felt about a little and
whispered, "Where is it?"
While he was looking, Eeyore coughed in an impressive
way and began to speak.
"Friends," he said, "including oddments, it is a great
pleasure, or perhaps I had better say it has been a pleasure so
far, to see you at my party. What I did was nothing. Any of
you-except Rabbit and Owl and Kanga -- would have done the
same. Oh, and Pooh. My remarks do not, of course, apply to
Piglet and Roo, because they are too small. Any of you would
have done the same. But it just happened to be Me. It was not,
I need hardly say, with an idea of getting what Christopher
Robin is looking for now" -- and he put his front leg to his
mouth and said in a loud whisper, "Try under the table" --
"that I did what I did -- but because I feel that we should all
do what we can to help. I feel that we should all -- "
"H -- hup!" said Roo accidentally.
"Roo, dear!" said Kanga reproachfully.
"Was it me?" asked Roo, a little surprised.
"What's Eeyore talking about?" Piglet whispered to
Pooh.
"I don't know," said Pooh rather dolefully.
"I thought this was your party."
"I thought it was once. But I suppose it isn't."
"I'd sooner it was yours than Eeyore's," said Piglet.
"So would I," said Pooh.
"H -- hup!" said Roo again.
"AS -- I -- WAS -- SAYING," said Eeyore loudly and
sternly, "as I was saying when I was interrupted by various
Loud Sounds, I feel that -- "
"Here it is!" cried Christopher Robin excitedly. "Pass
it down to silly old Pooh. It's for Pooh."
"For Pooh?" said Eeyore.
"Of course it is. The best bear in all the world."
"I might have known," said Eeyore. "After all, one
can't complain. I have my friends. Somebody spoke to me only
yesterday. And was it last week or the week before that Rabbit
bumped into me and said 'Bother!' The Social Round. Always
something going on."
Nobody was listening, for they were all saying, "Open
it, Pooh," "What is it, Pooh?" "I know what it is," "No, you
don't," and other helpful remarks of this sort. And of course
Pooh was opening it as quickly as ever he could, but without
cutting the string, because you never know when a bit of string
might be Useful. At last it was undone.
When Pooh saw what it was, he nearly fell down, he was
so pleased. It was a Special Pencil Case. There were pencils in
it marked "B" for Bear, and pencils marked "HB " for Helping
Bear, and pencils marked "BB" for Brave Bear. There was a knife
for sharpening the pencils, and indiarubber for rubbing out
anything which you had spelt wrong, and a ruler for ruling
lines for the words to walk on, and inches marked on the ruler
in case you wanted to know how many inches anything was, and
Blue Pencils and Red Pencils and Green Pencils for saying
special things in blue and red and green. And all these lovely
things were in little pockets of their own in a Special Case
which shut with a click when you clicked it. And they were all
for Pooh.
"Oh!" said Pooh.
"Oh, Pooh!" said everybody else except Eeyore.
"Thank-you," growled Pooh.
But Eeyore was saying to himself, "This writing
business. Pencils and what-not. Over-rated, if you ask me.
Silly stuff. Nothing in it."
Later on, when they had all said "Good-bye" and
"Thank-you" to Christopher Robin, Pooh and Piglet walked home
thoughtfully together in the golden evening, and for a long
time they were silent.
"When you wake up in the morning, Pooh," said Piglet at
last, "what's the first thing you say to yourself?"
"What's for breakfast?" said Pooh. "What do you say,
Piglet?"
"I say, I wonder what's going to happen exciting
to-day?" said Piglet. Pooh nodded thoughtfully.
"It's the same thing," he said.
"And what did happen?" asked Christopher Robin.
"When?"
"Next morning."
"I don't know."
"Could you think, and tell me and Pooh some time?"
"If you wanted it very much."
"Pooh does," said Christopher Robin.
He gave a deep sigh, picked his bear up by the leg and
walked off to the door, trailing Winnie-the-Pooh behind him. At
the door he turned and said, "Coming to see me have my bath?"
"I might," I said.
"Was Pooh's pencil case any better than mine?"
"It was just the same," I said.
He nodded and went out . . . and in a moment I heard
Winnie-the-Pooh -- bump, bump, bump -- going up the stairs
behind him.
