The house at Pooh Corner
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 was.
"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, PIGLET, WOL, 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 "Hallo," and felt awkward and unhappy suddenly, because
it was a sort of good-bye 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 of 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 somewhere 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 the proper
thing to say when you have been made a Knight, and he went into a
dream again, in which he and Sir Pomp 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.
* * * * *
BOOKS FOR BOYS AND GIRLS
BY A. A. MILNE
_with Decorations by_ E. H. SHEPARD:
WHEN WE WERE VERY YOUNG
NOW WE ARE SIX
WINNIE-THE-POOH
THE HOUSE AT POOH CORNER
THE CHRISTOPHER ROBIN STORY BOOK
SONG-BOOKS FROM THE POEMS OF A. A. MILNE
_with Music by_ H. FRASER-SIMSON:
FOURTEEN SONGS
THE KING'S BREAKFAST
TEDDY BEAR AND OTHER SONGS
THE HUMS OF POOH
SONGS FROM "NOW WE ARE SIX"
E. P. DUTTON & CO., INC.