Eeyore

I'd like to meet:

T HE 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 your 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 sloped 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, an 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 BUTTERED TOAST. 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!" I T 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 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 paper, and a bottle with a cork to it. And he wrote on one side of the paper: HELP! PIGLET (ME) and on the other side: IT’S ME PIGLET, 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 of 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 and 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 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 that 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 beehive 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 it 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 morning he went out and couldn’t see his stick any more, so he put another stick in the place where that 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 knew that for the first time in his life he was on a real island. Which was very exciting. It was on this morning that Owl came flying over the water to say "How do you go," 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?" "Has 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 of 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 the 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 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 known 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 and 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 on the last half-hour of him 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, The Brain of Pooh (Captain, C. Robin; 1st Mate, P. Bear) coming over the sea to rescue him. And that is really end of the story, and I am very tired after that last sentence, I think I shall stop there. O NE DAY when Pooh was thinking, he thought he would go and see Eeyore, because he hadn’t seen him since yesterday. And as he walked through the heather, singing to himself, he suddenly remembered that he hadn’t seen Owl since the day before yesterday, so he thought that he would just look in at the Hundred Acre Wood on the way and see of Owl was home. Well, he went on singing, until he came to the part of the stream where the stepping-stones were, and when he was in the middle of the third stone he began to wonder how Kanga and Roo and Tigger were getting on, because they all lived together in a different part of the Forest. And he thought, "I haven’t seen Roo for a long time, and if I don’t see him today it will be a longer time." So he sat down on the stone in the middle of the stream, and sang another verse of his song, while he wondered what to do. The other verse of the song was like this: I could spend a happy morning Seeing Roo I could spend a happy morning Being Pooh. For it doesn’t seem to matter, If I don’t get any fatter (And I don’t get any fatter), What I do. The sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm, too, that Pooh had almost decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of the morning, when he remembered Rabbit. "Rabbit," said Pooh to himself. "I like talking to Rabbit. He talks about sensible things. He doesn’t use long, difficult words, like Owl. He uses short, easy words, like ‘What about lunch?’ and ‘Help yourself, Pooh.’ I suppose really, I out to go and see Rabbit." Which made him think of another verse: Oh, I like his way of talking, Yes, I do. It’s the nicest way of talking Just for two. And a Help-yourself with Rabbit Though it may become a habit, Is a pleasant sort of habit For a Pooh. So when he had sung this, he got up off his stone, walked back across the stream, and set off for Rabbit’s house. But he hadn’t got far before he began to say to himself: "Yes, but suppose Rabbit is out?" "Or suppose I get stuck in his front door again, coming out, as I did once when his front door wasn’t big enough?" "Because I know I’m not getting fatter, but his front door may be getting thinner." "So wouldn’t it better if---" And all the time he was saying things like this he was going more and more westerly, without thinking…until suddenly he found himself at his own front door again. And it was eleven o’clock. Which was Time-for-a-little-something…. Half an hour later he was doing what he had always really meant to do, he was stumping off to Piglet’s house. And as he walked, he wiped his mouth with the back of his paw, and sang rather a fluffy song through the fur. It went like this: I could spend a happy morning Seeing Piglet. And I couldn’t spend a happy morning Not seeing Piglet. And it doesn’t seem to matter If I don’t see Owl and Eeyore (or any of the others), And I’m not going to see Owl or Eeyore (or any of the others) Or Christopher Robin. Written down, like this, it doesn’t seen a very good song, but coming through pale fawn fluff at about half-past eleven on a very sunny morning, it seemed to Pooh to be one of the best songs he had ever sung. So he went on singing it. Piglet was busy digging a small hole in the ground outside his house. "Hallo, Piglet," said Pooh. "Hallo, Pooh," said Piglet, giving a jump of surprise. "I knew it was you." "So did I," said Pooh. "What are you doing?" "I’m planting a haycorn, Pooh, so that it can grow up into an oak-tree and have lots of haycorns just outside the front door instead of having to walk miles and likes, do you see, Pooh?" "Supposing it doesn’t?" said Pooh. "It will, because Christopher Robin says it will, so that’s why I’m planting it." "Well," said Pooh, "if planting a honeycomb outside my house, then it will grow up into a beehive." Piglet wasn’t quite sure about this. "Or a piece of a honeycomb," said Pooh, "so as not to waste too much. Only then I might only get a piece of a beehive, and it might be the wrong piece, where the bees were buzzing and not hunnying. Bother." Piglet agreed that that would be rather bothering. "Besides, Pooh, it’s a very difficult thing, planting unless you know how to do it," he said; and he put the acorn in the hole he had made, and covered it up with earth, and jumped on it. "I do know," said Pooh, "because Christopher Robin gave me a mastershalum seed, and I planted it, and I’m going to have mastershalum all over the front door." "I thought they were called nasturtiums," said Piglet timidly, as he went on jumping. "No," said Pooh. "Not these. These are called mastershalums." When Piglet had finished jumping, he wiped his paws on his front, and said, "What shall we do now?" and Pooh said, "Let’s go and see Kanga and Roo and Tigger," and Piglet said, "Y-yes. L-lets"—because he was still a little anxious about Tigger, who was a Very Bouncy Animal, with a way of saying How-do-you-do, which always left your ears full of sand, even after Kanga had said, "Gently, Tigger dear," and had helped you up again. So they set off for Kanga’s house. Now it happened that Kanga had felt rather motherly that morning, and Wanting to Count Things---like Roo’s vests, and how many pieces of soap there were left, and the two clean spots in Tigger’s feeder; so she sent them out with a packet of watercress sandwiches for Roo and a packet of extract-of-malt sandwiches for Tigger, to have a nice long morning in the Forest not getting into mischief. And off they had gone. And as they went, Tigger told Roo (who wanted to know) all about the things that Tiggers could do. "Can they fly?" asked Roo. "Yes," said Tigger, "they’re very good flyers, Tiggers are, Stornry good flyers." "Oo!" said Roo. "Can they fly as well as Owl?" "Yes," said Tigger. "Only they don’t want to." "Why don’t they want to?" "Well, they just don’t like it, somehow." Roo couldn’t understand this, because he thought it would be lovely to be able to fly, but Tigger said it was difficult to explain to anybody who wasn’t a Tigger himself. "Well," said Roo, "can they jump as far as Kangas?" "Yes," said Tigger. "When they want to." "I love jumping," said Roo. "Let’s see who can jump farthest, you or me." "I can," said Tigger. "But we musn’t stop now, or we shall be late." "Late for what?" "For whatever we want to be in time for," said Tigger, hurrying on. In a little while they came to the Six Pine Trees. "I can swim," said Roo. "I fell into the river, and I swimmed. Can Tiggers swim?" "Of course they can. Tiggers can do everything." "Can they climb trees better than Pooh?" asked Roo, stopping under the tallest Pine Tree, and looking up at it. "Climbing trees it what they do best," said Tigger. "Much better than Poohs." "Could they climb this one?" "They’re always climbing trees like that," said Tigger. "Up and down all day." "Oo, Tigger, are they really?" "I’ll show you," said Tigger bravely, "and you can sit on my back and watch me." For of all the things which he had said Tiggers could do, the only one he felt really certain about suddenly was climbing trees. "Oo, Tigger, oo, Tigger, oo, Tigger!" squeaked Roo excitedly. So he sat on Tigger’s back and up they went. And for the first ten feet Tigger said happily to himself, "Up we go!" And for the next ten feet he said: "I always said Tiggers could climb trees." And for the next ten feet he said: "Not that it’s easy, mind you." And for the next ten feet he said: "Of course, there’s the coming-down too. Backwards." And then he said: "Which will be difficult…" "Unless one fell…" "when it would be…" "EASY." And at the word "easy" the branch he was standing on broke suddenly, and he just managed to clutch at the one above him as he felt himself going…and then slowly he got his chin over it…and then one back paw…and then the other…until at last he was sitting on it, breathing very quickly, and wishing that he had gone in for swimming instead. Roo climbed off, and sat down next to him. "Oo, Tigger," he said excitedly, "are we at the top?" "No," said Tigger. "Are we going to the top?" "No," said Tigger. "Oh," said Roo rather sadly. And then he went on hopefully: "That was a lovely bit just now, when you pretended we were going to fall-bump-to-the-bottom, and we didn’t. Will you do that bit again?" "NO," said Tigger. Roo was silent for a little while, and then he said, "Shall we eat our sandwiches, Tigger?" And Tigger said, "Yes, where are they?" And Roo said, "At the bottom of the tree." And Tigger said, "I don’t think we’d better eat them just yet." So they didn’t. By and by Pooh and Piglet came along. Pooh was telling Piglet in a singing voice that it didn’t seem to matter, if he didn’t get any fatter, what he did; and Piglet was wondering how long it would be before his haycorn came up. "Look, Pooh!" said Piglet suddenly. "There’s something in one of the Pine Trees." "So there is!" said Pooh, looking up wonderingly. "There’s an Animal." Piglet took Pooh’s arm, in case Pooh was frightened. "Is it One of the Fiercer Animals?" he said, looking the other way. Pooh nodded. "It’s a Jagular," he said. "What do Jagulars do?" asked Piglet, hoping that they wouldn’t. "They hide in the branches of trees, and drop on you as you go underneath," said Pooh. "Christopher Robin told me." "Perhaps we better hadn’t go underneath, Pooh. In case he dropped and hurt himself." "They don’t hurt themselves," said Pooh. "They’re such very good droppers." Piglet still felt that to be underneath a Very Good Dropper would be a Mistake, and he was just going to hurry back for something which he had forgotten when the Jagular called out to them. "Help! Help!" it called. "That’s what Jagulars always do," said Pooh, much interested. "They call ‘Help! Help!’ and then when you look up, they drop on you." "I’m looking down," cried Piglet loudly, so as the Jagular shouldn’t do the wrong thing by accident. Something very excited next to the Jagular heard him, and squeaked: "Pooh and Piglet! Pooh and Piglet!" All of a sudden Piglet felt that it was a much nicer day than he had thought it was. All warm and sunny--- "Pooh!" he cried. "I believe it’s Tigger and Roo!" "So it is," said Pooh. "I thought it was a Jagular and another Jagular." "Hallo, Roo!" called Piglet. "What are you doing?" "We can’t get down, we can’t get down!" cried Roo. "Isn’t it fun? Pooh, isn’t it fun, Tigger and I are living in a tree like Owl, and we’re going to stay here for ever and ever. I can see Piglet’s house. Piglet, I can see your house from here. Aren’t we high? Is Owl’s house as high as this?" "How did you get there, Roo?" asked Piglet. "On Tigger’s back! And Tiggers can’t climb downwards, because their tails get in the way, only upwards, and Tigger forgot about that when we started, and he’s only just remembered. So we’ve got to stay here for ever and ever---unless we go higher. What did you say Tigger? Oh, Tigger says if we go higher we shan’t be able to see Piglet’s house so well, so we’re going to stop here." "Piglet," said Pooh solemnly, when he had heard all this, "what shall we do?" And he began to eat Tigger’s sandwiches. "Are they stuck?" asked Piglet anxiously. Pooh nodded. "Couldn’t you climb up to them?" "I might, Piglet, and I might bring Roo down on my back, but I couldn’t bring Tigger down. So we must think of something else." And in a thoughtful way he began to eat Roo’s sandwiches, too.Whether he would have thought of anything before he had finished the last sandwich, I don’t know, but he had just got to the last but one when there was a crackling in the bracken, and Christopher Robin and Eeyore came strolling along together. "I shouldn’t be surprised if it hailed a good deal tomorrow," Eeyore was saying. "Blizzards and whatnot. Being fine today doesn’t Mean Anything. It has no sig---what’s that word? Well, it has none of that. It’s just a small piece of weather." "There’s Pooh!" said Christopher Robin, who didn’t much mind what it did tomorrow, as long as he was out it. "Hallo, Pooh!" "It’s Christopher Robin!" said Piglet. "He’ll know what to do." They hurried up to him. "Oh Christopher Robin," began Pooh. "And Eeyore," said Eeyore. "Tigger and Roo are right up the Six Pine Trees, and they can’t get down, and---" "And I was just saying," put in Piglet, "that if only Christopher Robin---" "And Eeyore---" "If only you were here, then we could think of something to do." Christopher Robin looked up at Tigger and Roo, and tried to think of something. "I thought," said Piglet earnestly, "that if Eeyore stood at the bottom of the tree, and if Pooh stood on Eeyore’s back, and if I stood on Pooh’s shoulders---" "And if Eeyore’s back snapped suddenly, then we could all laugh. Ha ha! Amusing in a quiet way," said Eeyore, "but not really helpful." "Well," said Piglet meekly, "I thought---" "Would it break your back, Eeyore?" asked Pooh, very much surprised. "That’s what would be so interesting, Pooh. Not being quite sure till afterwards." Pooh said "Oh!" and they all began to think again. "I’ve got an idea!" cried Christopher Robin suddenly. "Listen to this, Piglet," said Eeyore, "and then you’ll know what we’re trying to do." "I’ll take off my tunic and we’ll each hold a corner, and then Roo and Tigger can jump into it, and it will be all soft and bouncy for them, and they won’t hurt themselves." "Getting Tigger down," said Eeyore, "and Not hurting anybody. Keep those two ideas in your head, Piglet, and you’ll be all right." But Piglet wasn’t listening, he was so agog at the thought of seeing Christopher Robin’s blue braces again. He had only seen them once before, when he was much younger, and, being a little over-excited by them, had had to go to bed half an hour earlier that usual; and he had always wondered since if they were really as blue as bracing as he had thought them. So when Christopher Robin took his tunic off, and they were, he felt quite friendly to Eeyore again, and held the corner of the tunic next to him and smiled happily at him. And Eeyore whispered back: "I’m not saying there won’t be an Accident now, mind you. They’re funny things, Accidents. You never have them till you’re having them." When Roo understood what he had to do, he was wildly excited, and cried out: "Tigger, Tigger, we’re going to jump! Look at me jumping, Tigger! Like flying, my jumping will be. Can Tiggers do it?" And he squeaked out: "I’m coming, Christopher Robin!" and he jumped---straight into the middle of the tunic. And he was going so fast that he bounced up again almost as high as where he was before---and went on bouncing and saying, "Oo!" for quite a long time---and then at last he stopped and said, "Oo, lovely!" And they put him on the ground. "Come on, Tigger," he called out. "It’s easy." But Tigger was holding on to the branch and saying to himself: "It’s all very well for Jumping Animals like Kangas, but it’s quite different for Swimming Animals like Tiggers." And he thought of himself floating on his back down a river, or striking out from one island to another, and he felt that that was really the life for a Tigger. "Come along," called Christopher Robin. "You’ll be all right." "Just wait a moment," said Tigger nervously. "Small piece of bark in my eye." And he moved slowly along his branch. "Come on, it’s easy!" squeaked Roo. And suddenly Tigger found how easy it was. "Ow!" he shouted as the tree flew past him. "Look out!" cried Christopher Robin to the others. There was a crash, and a tearing noise, and a confused heap of everybody on the ground. Christopher Robin and Pooh and Piglet picked themselves up first, and then they picked Tigger up, and underneath everybody else was Eeyore. "Oh, Eeyore!" cried Christopher Robin, "Are you hurt?" And he felt rather anxiously, and dusted him and helped him to stand up again. Eeyore said nothing for a long time. And then he said: "Is Tigger there?" Tigger was there, feeling Bouncy again already. "Yes," said Christopher Robin. "Tigger’s here." "Well, just thank him for me," said Eeyore.HERE is Pooh 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, of 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." "He’s Winnie-ther-Pooh, Don’t you know what ‘ther’ means?" "Ah, yes, now I do," I said quickly; and 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 quietlyin 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 byhimself 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 themiddle 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, pit 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 abuzzing-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 toclimb 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 stood on that 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 rally too young to go to a party at all; and so you had brought the green and the blue one home with you. "Which one would you like?" you asked Pooh. He put 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 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?" shout 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, bit 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 practicing 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, of 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 nest 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 that 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 tohim again. Because then it’s a real story and not just a remembering." "That’s just how I feel," I said. Christopher Robin gave in 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 might," I said. "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. The wonderful thing about Tiggers Is Tiggers are wonderful things Their tops are made out of rubber Their bottoms are made out of springs They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN! But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers Is I'm the only oneThe wonderful thing about Tiggers Is Tiggers are wonderful chaps They're loaded with vim and with vigor They love to leap in your laps They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy pouncy Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers Is I'm the only one.Tiggers are wonderful fellahs. Tiggers are awfully sweet. Everyone elses is jealous, And thats why I repeat...The wonderful thing about Tiggers Are Tiggers are wonderful things Their tops are made out of rubber Their bottoms are made out of springs They're bouncy, trouncy, flouncy, pouncy Fun, fun, fun, fun, FUN! But the most wonderful thing about Tiggers Is I'm the only one. Yes, I'm the only one (GRRrrrrrr...) ooOOoooOOooooOOOO!!!Deep in the hundred acre wood where Christopher Robin plays You'll find the enchanted neighborhood of Christopher's childhood days A donkey named Eeyore is his friend and Kanga and little Roo There's Rabbit and Piglet and there's Owl, but most of all Winnie the PoohWinnie the Pooh Winnie the Pooh Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff He's Winnie the Pooh Winnie the Pooh Willy nilly silly old bearWinnie the Pooh Winnie the Pooh Tubby little cubby all stuffed with fluff He's Winnie the Pooh Winnie the Pooh Willy nilly silly old bear