"Supposing a tree fell down, Pooh, when we were
underneath it?"
"Supposing it didn't," said Pooh after careful thought.
Piglet was comforted by this, and in a little while
they were knocking and ringing very cheerfully at Owl's door.
"Hallo, Owl," said Pooh. "I hope we're not too late
for-- I mean, how are you, Owl? Piglet and I just came to see
how you were, because it's Thursday."
"Sit down, Pooh, sit down, Piglet," said Owl kindly.
"Make yourselves comfortable."
They thanked him, and made themselves as comfortable as
they could.
"Because, you see, Owl," said Pooh, "we've been
hurrying, so as to be in time for--so as to see you before we
went away again."
Owl nodded solemnly.
"Correct me if I am wrong," he said, "but am I right in
supposing that it is a very Blusterous day outside?"
"Very," said Piglet, who was quietly thawing his ears,
and wishing that he was safely back in his own house.
"I thought so," said O-wl. "It was on just such a
blusterous day as this that my Uncle Robert, a portrait of whom
you see upon the wall on your right, Piglet, while returning in
the late forenoon from a-- What's that?"
There was a loud cracking noise.
"Look out!" cried Pooh. "Mind the clock! Out of the
way, Piglet! Piglet, I'm falling on you!"
"Help!" cried Piglet.
Pooh's side of the room was slowly tilting upwards and
his chair began sliding down on Piglet's. The clock slithered
gently along the mantelpiece, collecting vases on the way,
until they all crashed together on to what had once been the
floor, but was now trying to see what it looked like as a wall.
Uncle Robert, who was going to be the new hearthrug, and was
bringing the rest of his wall with him as carpet, met Piglet's
chair just as Piglet was expecting to leave it, and for a
little while it became very difficult to remember which was
really the north. When there was another loud crack
. . . Owl's room collected itself feverishly . . . and
there was silence.
In a corner of the room, the table-cloth began to
wriggle. Then it wrapped itself into a ball and rolled across
the room. Then it jumped up and down once or twice, and put out
two ears. It rolled across the room again, and unwound itself.
"Pooh," said Piglet nervously.
"Yes?" said one of the chairs.
"Where are we?"
"I'm not quite sure," said the chair.
"Are we--are we in Owl's House?"
"I think so, because we were just going to have tea,
and we hadn't had it."
"Oh!" said Piglet. "Well, did Owl always have a
letter-box in his ceiling?"
"Has he?"
Yes, look.
"I can't," said Pooh. "I'm face downwards under
something, and that, Piglet, is a very bad position for looking
at ceilings."
"Well, he has, Pooh."
"Perhaps he's changed it," said Pooh. "Just for a
change."
There was a disturbance behind the table in the other
corner of the room, and Owl was with them again.
"Ah, Piglet," said Owl, looking very much annoyed;
"where's Pooh?"
"I'm not quite sure," said Pooh.
Owl turned his voice, and frowned at as much of Pooh as
he could see.
"Pooh," said Owl severely, "did you do that?"
"No," said Pooh humbly. "I don't think so."
"Then who did?"
"I think it was the wind," said Piglet. "I think your
house has blown down."
"Oh, is that it? I thought it was Pooh."
"No," said Pooh.
"If it was the wind," said Owl, considering the matter,
"then it wasn't Pooh's fault. No blame can be attached to him."
With these kind words he flew up to look at his new ceiling.
"Piglet!" called Pooh in a loud whisper.
Piglet leant down to him.
"Yes, Pooh?"
"What did he say was attached to me?"
"He said he didn't blame you."
"Oh! I thought he meant-- Oh, I see."
"Owl," said Piglet, "come down and help Pooh." Owl, who
was admiring his letter-box, flew down again. Together they
pushed and pulled at the arm-chair, and in a little while Pooh
came out from underneath, and was able to look round him again.
"Well!" said Owl. "This is a nice state of things!"
"What are we going to do, Pooh? Can you think of
anything?" asked Piglet.
"Well, I had just thought of something," said Pooh. "It
was just a little thing I thought of." And he began to sing:
I lay on my chest
And I thought it best
To pretend I was having an evening rest;
I lay on my tum
And I tried to hum
But nothing particular seemed to come.
My face was flat
On the floor, and that
Is all very well for an acrobat;
But it doesn't seem fair
To a Friendly Bear
To stiffen him out with a basket-chair
And a sort of sqoze
Which grows and grows
Is not too nice for his poor old nose,
And a sort of squch
Is much too much
For his neck and his mouth and his ears and
such
"That was all," said Pooh.
Owl coughed in an unadmiring sort of way, and said
that, if Pooh was sure that was all, they could now give their
minds to the Problem of Escape.
"Because," said Owl, "we can't go out by what used to
be the front door. Something's fallen on it."
"But how else can you go out?" asked Piglet anxiously.
"That is the Problem, Piglet, to which I am asking Pooh
to give his mind."
Pooh sat on the floor which had once been a wall, and
gazed up at the ceiling which had once been another wall, with
a front door in it which had once been a front door, and tried
to give his mind to it.
"Could you fly up to the letter-box with Piglet on your
back?" he asked.
"No," said Piglet quickly. "He couldn't."
Owl explained about the Necessary Dorsal Muscles. He
had explained this to Pooh and Christopher Robin once before,
and had been waiting ever since for a chance to do it again,
because it is a thing which you can easily explain twice before
anybody knows what you are talking about.
"Because you see, Owl, if we could get Piglet into the
letter-box, he might squeeze through the place where the
letters come, and climb down the tree and run for help."
Piglet said hurriedly that he had been getting bigger
lately, and couldn't possibly, much as he would like to, and
Owl said that he had had his letter-box made bigger lately in
case he got bigger letters, so perhaps Piglet might, and Piglet
said, "But you said the necessary you-know-whats wouldn't," and
Owl said, "No, they won't, so it's no good thinking about it,"
and Piglet said "Then we'd better think of something else," and
began to at once. But Pooh's mind had gone back to the day when
he had saved Piglet from the flood, and everybody had admired
him so much; and as that didn't often happen, he thought he
would like it to happen again. And suddenly, just as it had
come before, an idea came to him.
"Owl," said Pooh, "I have thought of something."
"Astute and Helpful Bear," said Owl.
Pooh looked proud at being called a stout and helpful
bear, and said modestly that he just happened to think of it.
You tied a piece of string to Piglet, and you flew up to the
letter-box with the other end in your beak, and you pushed it
through the wire and brought it down to the floor, and you and
Pooh pulled hard at this end, and Piglet went slowly up at the
other end. And there you were.
"And there Piglet is," said Owl. "If the string doesn't
break."
"Supposing it does?" asked Piglet, really wanting to
know.
"Then we try another piece of string."
This was not very comforting to Piglet, because however
many pieces of string they tried pulling up with, it would
always be the same him coming down; but still, it did seem the
only thing to do. So with one last look back in his mind at all
the happy hours he had spent in the Forest not being, pulled up
to the ceiling by a piece of string, Piglet nodded bravely at
Pooh and said that it was a Very Clever pup-pup-pup Clever
pup-pup Plan.
"It won't break," whispered Pooh comfortingly, "because
you're a Small Animal, and I'll stand underneath, and if you
save us all, it will be a Very Grand Thing to talk about
afterwards, and perhaps I'll make up a Song, and people will
say 'It was so grand what Piglet did that a Respectful Pooh
Song was made about it!'"
Piglet felt much better after this, and when everything
was ready, and he found himself slowly going up to the ceiling,
he was so proud that he would have called out "Look at Me!" if
he hadn't been afraid that Pooh and Owl would let go of their
end of the string and look at him.
"Up we go!" said Pooh cheerfully.
"The ascent is proceeding as expected," said Owl
helpfully. Soon it was over. Piglet opened the letter-box and
climbed in. Then, having untied himself, he began to squeeze
into the slit, through which in the old days when front doors
were front doors, many an unexpected letter that WOL had
written to himself, had come slipping.
He squeezed and he sqoze, and then with one squze he
was out. Happy and excited he turned round to squeak a last
message to the prisoners.
"It's all right," he called through the letter-box.
"Your tree is blown right over, Owl, and there's a branch
across the door, but Christopher Robin and I can move it, and
we'll bring a rope for Pooh, and I'll go and tell him now, and
I can climb down quite easily, I mean it's dangerous but I can
do it all right, and Christopher Robin and I will be back in
about half-an-hour. Good-bye, Pooh!" And without waiting to
hear Pooh's answering "Good-bye, and thank you, Piglet," he was
off.
"Half-an-hour," said Owl, settling himself comfortably.
"That will just give me time to finish that story I was telling
you about my Uncle Robert
--a portrait of whom you see underneath you. Now let me
see, where was I? Oh, yes. It was on just such a blusterous day
as this that my Uncle Robert--"
Pooh closed his eyes.
Chapter IX. In which eeyore finds the Wolery
and Owl moves into it
POOH had wandered into the Hundred Acre Wood, and was
standing in front of what had once been Owl's House. It didn't
look at all like a house now; it looked like a tree which had
been blown down; and as soon as a house looks like that, it is
time you tried to find another one. Pooh had had a Mysterious
Missage underneath his front door that morning, saying, "I AM
SCERCHING FOR A NEW HOUSE FOR OWL SO HAD YOU RABBIT," and while
he was wondering what it meant, Rabbit had come in and read it
for him.
"I'm leaving one for all the others," said Rabbit, "and
telling them what it means, and they'll all search too. I'm in
a hurry, good-bye." And he had run off.
Pooh followed slowly. He had something better to do
than to find a new house for Owl; he had to make up a Pooh song
about the old one. Because he had promised Piglet days and days
ago that he would, and whenever he and Piglet had met since,
Piglet didn't actually say anything, but you knew at once why
he didn't; and if anybody mentioned Hums or Trees or String or
Storms-in-the-Night, Piglet's nose went all pink at the tip,
and he talked about something quite different in a hurried sort
of way.
"But it isn't Easy," said Pooh to himself, as he looked
at what had once been Owl's House. "Because Poetry and Hums
aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And
all you can do is to go where they can find you."
He waited hopefully . . .
"Well," said Pooh after a long wait, "I shall begin
'Here lies a tree' because it does, and then I'll see what
happens."
This is what happened:
Here lies a tree which Owl (a bird)
Was fond of when it stood on end,
And Owl was talking to a friend
Called Me (in case you hadn't heard)
When something Oo occurred
For lo! the wind was blusterous
And flattened out his favourite tree;
And things looked bad for him and we--
Looked bad, I mean, for he and us--
I've never known them wuss
Then Piglet (PIGLET) thought a thing
"Courage!" he said "There's always hope
I want a thinnish piece of rope
Or, if there isn't any, bring
A thickish piece of string"
So to the letter-box he rose,
While Pooh and Owl said "Oh!" and "Hum!"
And where the letters always come
(Called "LETTERS ONLY") Piglet sqoze
His head and then his toes,
O gallant Piglet (PIGLET)! Ho!
Did Piglet tremble? Did he blinch?
No, no, he struggled inch by inch
Through LETTERS ONLY, as I know
Because I saw him go.
He ran and ran, and then he stood
And shouted, "Help for Owl, a bird,
And Pooh, a bear!" until he heard
The others coming through the wood
As quickly as they could
"Help-help and Rescue!" Piglet cried,
And showed the others where to go
[Sing ho! for Piglet (PIGLET) ho!]
And soon the door was opened wide,
And we were both outside !
Sing ho! for Piglet, ho!
Ho!
"So there it is," said Pooh, when he had sung this to
himself three times. "It's come different from what I thought
it would, but it's come. Now I must go and sing it to Piglet."
I AM SCERCHING FOR A NEW HOUSE FOR OWL SO HAD YOU RABBIT.
"What's all this?" said Eeyore.
Rabbit explained.
"What's the matter with his old house?"
Rabbit explained.
"Nobody tells me," said Eeyore. "Nobody keeps me
Informed. I make it seventeen days come Friday since anybody
spoke to me."
"It certainly isn't seventeen days--"
"Come Friday," explained Eeyore.
"And to-day's Saturday," said Rabbit. "So that would
make it eleven days. And I was here myself a week ago."
"Not conversing," said Eeyore. "Not first one and then
the other. You said 'Hallo' and Flashed Past. I saw your tail a
hundred yards up the hill as I was meditating my reply. I had
thought of saying 'What?'--but, of course, it was then too
late."
"Well, I was in a hurry."
"No Give and Take," Eeyore went on. "No Exchange of
Thought. 'Hallo--What'-- I mean, it gets you nowhere,
particularly if the other person's tail is only just in sight
for the second half of the conversation."
"It's your fault, Eeyore. You've never been to see any
of us. You just stay here in this one corner of the Forest
waiting for the others to come to you. Why don't you go to them
sometimes?"
Eeyore was silent for a little while, thinking.
"There may be something in what you say, Rabbit," he
said at last. "I have been neglecting you. I must move about
more. I must come and go."
"That's right, Eeyore. Drop in on any of us at any
time, when you feel like it."
"Thank-you, Rabbit. And if anybody says in a Loud Voice
'Bother, it's Eeyore,' I can drop out again."
Rabbit stood on one leg for a moment.
"Well," he said, "I must be going. I am rather busy
this morning."
"Good-bye," said Eeyore.
"What? Oh, good-bye. And if you happen to come across a
good house for Owl, you must let us know."
"I will give my mind to it," said Eeyore.
Rabbit went.
Pooh had found Piglet, and they were walking back to
the Hundred Acre Wood together.
"Piglet," said Pooh a little shyly, after they had
walked for some time without saying anything.
"Yes, Pooh?"
"Do you remember when I said that a Respectful Pooh
Song might be written about You Know What?"
"Did you, Pooh?" said Piglet, getting a little pink
round the nose. "Oh, yes, I believe you did."
"It's been written, Piglet."
The pink went slowly up Piglet's nose to his ears, and
settled there.
"Has it, Pooh?" he asked huskily. "About-- about-- That
Time When?-- Do you mean really written?"
"Yes, Piglet."
The tips of Piglet's ears glowed suddenly, and he tried
to say something; but even after he had husked once or twice,
nothing came out. So Pooh went on:
"There are seven verses in it."
"Seven?" said Piglet as carelessly as he could. "You
don't often get seven verses in a Hum, do you, Pooh?"
"Never," said Pooh. "I don't suppose it's ever been
heard of before."
"Do the Others know yet?" asked Piglet, stopping - for
a moment to pick up a stick and throw it away.
"No," said Pooh. "And I wondered which you would like
best: for me to hum it now, or to wait till we find the others,
and then hum it to all of you?" Piglet thought for a little.
"I think what I'd like best, Pooh, is I'd like you to
hum it to me now-and--and then to hum it to all of us. Because
then Everybody would hear it, but I could say 'Oh, yes, Pooh's
told me,' and pretend not to be listening."
So Pooh hummed it to him, all the seven verses, and
Piglet said nothing, but just stood and glowed. For never
before had anyone sung ho for Piglet (PIGLET) ho all by
himself. When it was over, he wanted to ask for one of the
verses over again, but didn't quite like to. It was the verse
beginning "O gallant Piglet," and it seemed to him a very
thoughtful way of beginning a piece of poetry.
"Did I really do all that?" he said at last.
"Well," said Pooh, "in poetry--in a piece of
poetry--well, you did it, Piglet, because the poetry says you
did. And that's how people know."
"Oh!" said Piglet. "Because I--I thought I did blinch a
little. Just at first. And it says, 'Did he blinch no no.'
That's why."
"You only blinched inside," said Pooh, "and that's the
bravest way for a Very Small Animal not to blinch that there
is."
Piglet sighed with happiness, and began to think about
himself. He was BRAVE. . . .
When they got to Owl's old house, they found everybody
else there except Eeyore. Christopher Robin was telling them
what to do, and Rabbit was telling them again directly
afterwards, in case they hadn't heard, and then they were all
doing it. They had got a rope and were pulling Owl's chairs and
pictures and things out of his old house so as to be ready to
put them into his new one. Kanga was down below tying the
things on, and calling out to Owl, "You won't want this dirty
old dishcloth any more, will you, and what about this carpet,
it's all in holes," and Owl was calling back indignantly, "Of
course I do! It's just a question of arranging the furniture
properly, and it isn't a dish-cloth, it's my shawl." Every now
and then Roo fell in and came back on the rope with the next
article, which flustered Kanga a little because she never knew
where to look for him. So she got cross
with Owl and said that his house was a Disgrace, all damp
and dirty, and it was quite time it did tumble down. Look at
that horrid bunch of toadstools growing out of the corner there
! So Owl looked down, a little surprised because he didn't know
about this, and then gave a short sarcastic laugh, and
explained that that was his sponge, and that if people didn't
know a perfectly ordinary bath-sponge when they saw it, things
were coming to a pretty pass. "Well!" said Kanga, and Roo fell
in quickly, crying, "I must see Owl's sponge! Oh, there it is!
Oh, Owl! Owl, it isn't a sponge, it's a spudge! Do you know
what a spudge is, Owl? It's when your sponge gets all--" and
Kanga said, "Roo, dear!" very quickly, because that's not the
way to talk to anybody who can spell TUESDAY.
But they were all quite happy when Pooh and Piglet came
along, and they stopped working in order to have a little rest
and listen to Pooh's new song. So then they all told Pooh how
good it was, and Piglet said carelessly, It is good, isn't it?
I mean as a song."
"And what about the new house?" asked Pooh. "Have you
found it, Owl?"
"He's found a name for it," said Christopher Robin,
lazily nibbling at a piece of grass, "so now all he wants is
the house."
"I am calling it this," said Owl importantly, and he
showed them what he had been making. It was a square piece of
board with the name of the house painted on it:
THE WOLERY
It was at this exciting moment that something came
through the trees, and bumped into Owl. The board fell to the
ground, and Piglet and Roo bent over it eagerly.
"Oh. it's you," said Owl crossly.
"Hallo, Eeyore!" said Rabbit. "There you are! Where
have you been?" Eeyore took no notice of them.
"Good morning, Christopher Robin," he said brushing
away Roo and Piglet, and sitting down on THE WOLERY. "Are we
alone?"
"Yes," said Christopher Robin, smiling to himself. "I
have been told--the news has worked through to my corner of the
Forest--the damp bit down on the right which nobody wants--that
a certain Person is looking for a house. I have found one for
him."
"Ah, well done," said Rabbit kindly.
Eeyore looked round slowly at him, and then turned back
to Christopher Robin.
"We have been joined by something," he said in a loud
whisper. "But no matter. We can leave it behind. If you will
come with me, Christopher Robin, I will show you the house."
Christopher Robin jumped up.
"Come on, Pooh," he said.
"Come on, Tigger!" cried Roo.
"Shall we go, Owl?" said Rabbit.
"Wait a moment," said Owl, picking up his notice-board,
which had just come into sight again.
Eeyore waved them back.
"Christopher Robin and I are going for a Short Walk,"
he said, "not a Jostle. If he likes to bring Pooh and Piglet
with him, I shall be glad of their company, but one must be
able to Breathe."
"That's all right," said Rabbit, rather glad to be left
in charge of something. "We'll go on getting the things out.
Now then, Tigger, where's that rope? What's the matter, Owl?"
Owl who had just discovered that his new address was
THE SMEAR, coughed at Eeyore sternly, but said nothing, and
Eeyore, with most of
THE WOLERY behind him, marched off with his friends.
So, in a little while, they came to the house which
Eeyore had found, and just before they came to it, Piglet was
nudging Pooh, and Pooh was nudging Piglet, and they were
saying, "It is!" and "It can't be!" and "It's really!" to each
other
"There!" said Eeyore proudly, stopping them outside
Piglet's house. "And the name on it, and everything!"
"Oh!" cried Christopher Robin, wondering whether to
laugh or what.
"Just the house for Owl. Don't you think so, little
Piglet?"
And then Piglet did a Noble Thing, and he did it in a
sort of dream, while he was thinking of all the wonderful words
Pooh had hummed about him.
"Yes, it's just the house for Owl," he said grandly.
"And I hope he'll be very happy in it." And then he gulped
twice, because he had been very happy in it himself.
"What do you think, Christopher Robin?" asked Eeyore a
little anxiously, feeling that something wasn't quite right.
Christopher Robin had a question to ask first, and he
was wondering how to ask it.
"Well," he said at last, "it's a very nice house, and
if your own house is blown down, you must go somewhere else,
mustn't you, Piglet? What would you do, if your house was blown
down?"
Before Piglet could think, Pooh answered for him.
"He'd come and live with me," said Pooh, "wouldn't you,
Piglet?"
Piglet squeezed his paw.
"Thank you, Pooh," he said, "I should love to."
Chapter X. In which Christopher Robin and pooh
come to an enchanted place, and we leave them there
CHRISTOPHER ROBIN was going away. Nobody knew why he was
going; nobody knew where he was going; indeed, nobody even knew
why he knew that Christopher Robin was going away. But somehow
or other everybody in the Forest felt that it was happening at
last. Even Smallest-of-all, a friend-and-relation of Rabbit's
who thought he had once seen Christopher Robin's foot, but
couldn't be quite sure because perhaps it was something else,
even S. of A. told himself that Things were going to be
Different; and Late and Early, two other friends-and-relations,
said, "Well, Early?" and "Well, Late?" to each other in such a
hopeless sort of way that it really didn't seem any good
waiting for the answer.
One day when he felt that he couldn't wait any longer,
Rabbit brained out a Notice, and this is what it said:
"Notice a meeting of everybody will meet at the House
at Pooh Corner to pass a Rissolution By Order Keep to the Left
Signed Rabbit."
He had to write this out two or three times before he
could get the rissolution to look like what he thought it was
going to when he began to spell it; but, when at last it was
finished, he took it round to everybody and read it out to
them. And they all said they would come.
"Well," said Eeyore that afternoon, when he saw them
all walking up to his house, "this is a surprise. Am I asked
too?"
"Don't mind Eeyore," whispered Rabbit to Pooh. "I told
him all about it this morning."
Everybody said "How-do-you-do" to Eeyore, and Eeyore
said that he didn't, not to notice, and then they sat down; and
as soon as they were all sitting down, Rabbit stood up again.
"We all know why we're here," he said, "but I have
asked my friend Eeyore--"
"That's Me," said Eeyore. "Grand."
"I have asked him to Propose a Rissolution." And he sat
down again. "Now then, Eeyore," he said.
"Don't Bustle me," said Eeyore, getting up slowly.
"Don't now-then me." He took a piece of paper from behind his
ear, and unfolded it. "Nobody knows anything about this," he
went on. "This is a Surprise." He coughed in an important way,
and began again: "What-nots and Etceteras, before I begin, or
perhaps I should say, before I end, I have a piece of Poetry to
read to you. Hitherto--hitherto--a long word meaning--well,
you'll see what it means directly--hitherto, as I was saying,
all the Poetry in the Forest has been written by Pooh, a Bear
with a Pleasing Manner but a Positively Startling Lack of
Brain. The Poem which I am now about to read to you was written
by Eeyore, or Myself, in a Quiet Moment. If somebody will take
Roo's bull's-eye away from him, and wake up Owl, we shall all
be able to enjoy it. I call it--POEM." This was it:
Christopher Robin is going
At least I think he is
Where?
Nobody knows
But he is going--
I mean he goes
(To rhyme with knows)
Do we care ?
(To rhyme with where)
We do
Very much
(I haven't got a rhyme for that
"is" in the second line yet.
Bother.)
(Now I haven't got a rhyme for
bother.. Bother.)
Those two bothers will have
to rhyme with each other
Buther
The fact is this is more difficult
than I thought,
I ought--
(Very good indeed)
I ought
To begin again,
But it is easier
To stop
Christopher Robin, good-bye
I
(Good)
I
And all your friends
Sends--
I mean all your friend
Send--
(Very awkward this, it keeps
going wrong)
Well, anyhow, we send
Our love
END
"If anybody wants to clap," said Eeyore when he had
read this, "now is the time to do it."
They all clapped.
"Thank you," said Eeyore. "Unexpected and gratifying,
if a little lacking in Smack."
"It's much better than mine," said Pooh admiringly, and
he really thought it is.
"Well," explained Eeyore modestly, "it was meant to
be."
"The rissolution," said Rabbit, "is that we all sign
it, and take it to Christopher Robin."
So it was signed PooH, WOL, PIGLET, EOR, RABBIT, KANGA,
BLOT, SMUDGE, and they all went off to Christopher Robin's
house with it.
"Hallo, everybody," said Christopher Robin--
"Hallo, Pooh."
They all said "Hello," and felt awkward and unhappy
suddenly, because it was a sort of goodbye they were saying,
and they didn't want to think about it. So they stood around,
and waited for somebody else to speak, and they nudged each
other, and said "Go on," and gradually Eeyore was nudged to the
front, and the others crowded behind him.
"What is it, Eeyore?" asked Christopher Robin.
Eeyore swished his tail from side to side, so as to
encourage himself, and began.
"Christopher Robin," he said, "we've come to say-to
give you-it's called-written by-but we've all--because we've
heard, I mean we all know--well, you see, it's--we--you--well,
that, to put it as shortly as possible, is what it is." He
turned round angrily on the others and said, "Everybody crowds
round so in this Forest. There's no Space. I never saw a more
Spreading lot of animals in my life, and all in the wrong
places. Can't you see that Christopher Robin wants to be alone?
I'm going." And he humped off.
Not quite knowing why, the others began edging away,
and when Christopher Robin had finished reading POEM, and was
looking up to say "Thank you," only Pooh was left.
"It's a comforting sort of thing to have," said
Christopher Robin, folding up the paper, and putting it in his
pocket. "Come on, Pooh," and he walked off quickly.
"Where are we going?" said Pooh, hurrying after him,
and wondering whether it was to be an Explore or a
What-shall-I-do-about-you-know-what.
"Nowhere," said Christopher Robin.
So they began going there, and after they had walked a
little way Christopher Robin said:
"What do you like doing best in the world, Pooh?"
"Well," said Pooh, "what I like best?" and then he had
to stop and think. Because although Eating Honey was a very
good thing to do, there was a moment just before you began to
eat it which was better than when you were, but he didn't know
what it was called. And then he thought that being with
Christopher Robin was a very good thing to do, and having
Piglet near was a very friendly thing to have: and so, when he
had thought it all out, he said, "What I like best in the whole
world is Me and Piglet going to see You, and You saying 'What
about a little something?' and Me saying,' Well, I shouldn't
mind a little something, should you, Piglet,' and it being a
hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing."
"I like that too," said Christopher Robin, "but what I
like doing best is Nothing."
"How do you do Nothing?" asked Pooh, after he had
wondered for a long time.
"Well, it's when people call out at you just as you're
going off to do it 'What are you going to do, Christopher
Robin?' and you say 'Oh, nothing,' and then you go and do it."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh.
"This is a nothing sort of thing that we're doing now."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh again.
"It means just going along, listening to all the things
you can't hear, and not bothering."
"Oh!" said Pooh.
They walked on, thinking of This and That, and
by-and-by they came to an enchanted place on the very top of
the Forest called Galleons Lap, which is sixty-something trees
in a circle; and Christopher Robin knew that it was enchanted
because nobody had ever been able to count whether it was
sixty-three or sixty-four, not even when he tied a piece of
string round each tree after he had counted it. Being
enchanted, its floor was not like the floor the Forest, gorse
and bracken and heather, but close-set grass, quiet and smooth
and green. It was the only place in the Forest where you could
sit down carelessly, without getting up again almost at once
and looking for some where else. Sitting there they could see
the whole world spread out until it reached the sky, and
whatever there was all the world over was with them in Galleons
Lap.
Suddenly Christopher Robin began to tell Pooh about
some of the things: People called Kings and Queens and
something called Factors, and a place called Europe, and an
island in the middle of the sea where no ships came, and how
you make a Suction Pump (if you want to), and when Knights were
Knighted, and what comes from Brazil. And Pooh, his back
against one of the sixty-something trees and his paws folded in
front of him, said "Oh!" and "I didn't know," and thought how
wonderful it would be to have a Real Brain which could tell you
things. And by-and-by Christopher Robin came to an end of the
things, and was silent, and he sat there looking out over the
world, and wishing it wouldn't stop.
But Pooh was thinking too, and he said suddenly to
Christopher Robin:
"Is it a very Grand thing to be an Afternoon, what you
said?"
"A what?" said Christopher Robin lazily, as he listened
to something else.
"On a horse," explained Pooh.
"A Knight?"
"Oh, was that it?" said Pooh. "I thought it was a-- Is
it as Grand as a King and Factors and all the other things you
said?"
"Well, it's not as grand as a King," said Christopher
Robin, and then, as Pooh seemed disappointed, he added quickly,
"but it's grander than Factors."
"Could a Bear be one?"
"Of course he could!" said Christopher Robin. "I'll
make you one." And he took a stick and touched Pooh on the
shoulder, and said, "Rise, Sir Pooh de Bear, most faithful of
all my Knights."
So Pooh rose and sat down and said "Thank you," which
is a proper thing to say when you have been made a Knight, and
he went into a dream again, in which he and Sir Pump and Sir
Brazil and Factors lived together with a horse, and were
faithful Knights (all except Factors, who looked after the
horse) to Good King Christopher Robin . . . and every now and
then he shook his head, and said to himself, "I'm not getting
it right." Then he began to think of all the things Christopher
Robin would want to tell him when he came back from wherever he
was going to, and how muddling it would be for a Bear of Very
Little Brain to try and get them right in his mind. "So,
perhaps," he said sadly to himself, "Christopher Robin won't
tell me
any more," and he wondered if being a Faithful Knight meant
that you just went on being faithful without being told things.
Then, suddenly again, Christopher Robin, who was Still
looking at the world with his chin in his hands, called out
"Pooh!"
"Yes?" said Pooh.
"When I'm--when-- Pooh!"
"Yes, Christopher Robin?"
"I'm not going to do Nothing any more."
"Never again?"
"Well, not so much. They don't let you."
Pooh waited for him to go on, but he was silent again.
"Yes, Christopher Robin?" said Pooh helpfully.
"Pooh, when I'm--you know--when I'm not doing Nothing,
will you come up here sometimes?"
"Just Me?"
"Yes, Pooh."
"Will you be here too?"
"Yes, Pooh, I will be really. I promise I will be,
Pooh."
"That's good," said Pooh.
"Pooh, promise you won't forget about me, ever. Not
even when I'm a hundred."
Pooh thought for a little.
"How old shall I be then?"
"Ninety-nine."
Pooh nodded.
"I promise," he said.
Still with his eyes on the world Christopher Robin put
out a hand and felt for Pooh's paw.
"Pooh," said Christopher Robin earnestly, "if I--if I'm
not quite" he stopped and tried again --". Pooh, whatever
happens, you will understand, won't you?"
"Understand what?"
"Oh, nothing." He laughed and jumped to his feet. "Come
on!"
"Where?" said Pooh.
"Anywhere," said Christopher Robin.
So they went off together. But wherever they go, and
whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on
the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be
playing.