The house at Pooh Corner
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 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, 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 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, 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?" 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."