The House at Pooh Corner, Page 8

  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 at 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 armchair, 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 squch

  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, 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 letterbox 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 squoze, and then with one last sqooze 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, Po
oh!” 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 Nine

  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 looks 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 sqooze

  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?” asked Eeyore.

  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 today’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 in the distance 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 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.”

  “Good-bye,” said Eeyore.

  “What? Oh, good-bye. And if you do come across a 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.

  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 beginnin
g “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 dish-cloth 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 floor 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.