The house at Pooh Corner
So the three of them went; and after they had walked and walked and
walked, they came to the part of the Forest where Eeyore was.
"Hallo, Eeyore!" said Pooh. "This is Tigger."
"What is?" said Eeyore.
"This," explained Pooh and Piglet together, and Tigger smiled his
happiest smile and said nothing.
Eeyore walked all round Tigger one way, and then turned and walked all
round him the other way.
"What did you say it was?" he asked.
"Tigger."
"Ah!" said Eeyore.
"He's just come," explained Piglet.
"Ah!" said Eeyore again.
He thought for a long time and then said:
"When is he going?"
Pooh explained to Eeyore that Tigger was a great friend of Christopher
Robin's, who had come to stay in the Forest, and Piglet explained to
Tigger that he mustn't mind what Eeyore said because he was _always_
gloomy; and Eeyore explained to Piglet that, on the contrary, he was
feeling particularly cheerful this morning; and Tigger explained to
anybody who was listening that he hadn't had any breakfast yet.
"I knew there was something," said Pooh. "Tiggers always eat thistles,
so that was why we came to see you, Eeyore."
"Don't mention it, Pooh."
"Oh, Eeyore, I didn't mean that I didn't _want_ to see you----"
"Quite--quite. But your new stripy friend--naturally, he wants his
breakfast. What did you say his name was?"
"Tigger."
"Then come this way, Tigger."
Eeyore led the way to the most thistly-looking patch of thistles that
ever was, and waved a hoof at it.
"A little patch I was keeping for my birthday," he said; "but, after
all, what _are_ birthdays? Here today and gone tomorrow. Help yourself,
Tigger."
Tigger thanked him and looked a little anxiously at Pooh.
"Are these really thistles?" he whispered.
"Yes," said Pooh.
"What Tiggers like best?"
"That's right," said Pooh.
"I see," said Tigger.
So he took a large mouthful, and he gave a large crunch.
"_Ow!_" said Tigger.
He sat down and put his paw in his mouth.
"What's the matter?" asked Pooh.
"_Hot!_" mumbled Tigger.
"Your friend," said Eeyore, "appears to have bitten on a bee."
Pooh's friend stopped shaking his head to get the prickles out, and
explained that Tiggers didn't like thistles.
"Then why bend a perfectly good one?" asked Eeyore.
"But you said," began Pooh--"you _said_ that Tiggers liked everything
except honey and haycorns."
"_And_ thistles," said Tigger, who was now running round in circles
with his tongue hanging out.
Pooh looked at him sadly.
"What are we going to do?" he asked Piglet.
Piglet knew the answer to that, and he said at once that they must go
and see Christopher Robin.
"You'll find him with Kanga," said Eeyore. He came close to Pooh, and
said in a loud whisper:
"_Could_ you ask your friend to do his exercises somewhere else? I
shall be having lunch directly, and don't want it bounced on just
before I begin. A trifling matter, and fussy of me, but we all have our
little ways."
Pooh nodded solemnly and called to Tigger.
"Come along and we'll go and see Kanga. She's sure to have lots of
breakfast for you."
Tigger finished his last circle and came up to Pooh and Piglet.
"Hot!" he explained with a large and friendly smile. "Come on!" and he
rushed off.
Pooh and Piglet walked slowly after him. And as they walked Piglet said
nothing, because he couldn't think of anything, and Pooh said nothing,
because he was thinking of a poem. And when he had thought of it he
began:
What shall we do about poor little Tigger?
If he never eats nothing he'll never get bigger.
He doesn't like honey and haycorns and thistles
Because of the taste and because of the bristles.
And all the good things which an animal likes
Have the wrong sort of swallow or too many spikes.
"He's quite big enough anyhow," said Piglet.
"He isn't _really_ very big."
"Well, he _seems_ so."
Pooh was thoughtful when he heard this, and then he murmured to himself:
But whatever his weight in pounds, shillings, and ounces,
He always seems bigger because of his bounces.
"And that's the whole poem," he said. "Do you like it, Piglet?"
"All except the shillings," said Piglet. "I don't think they ought to
be there."
"They wanted to come in after the pounds," explained Pooh, "so I let
them. It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come."
"Oh, I didn't know," said Piglet.
* * * * *
Tigger had been bouncing in front of them all this time, turning round
every now and then to ask, "Is this the way?"--and now at last they
came in sight of Kanga's house, and there was Christopher Robin. Tigger
rushed up to him.
"Oh, there you are, Tigger!" said Christopher Robin. "I knew you'd be
somewhere."
"I've been finding things in the Forest," said Tigger importantly.
"I've found a pooh and a piglet and an eeyore, but I can't find any
breakfast."
Pooh and Piglet came up and hugged Christopher Robin, and explained
what had been happening.
"Don't _you_ know what Tiggers like?" asked Pooh.
"I expect if I thought very hard I should," said Christopher Robin,
"but I _thought_ Tigger knew."
"I do," said Tigger. "Everything there is in the world except honey and
haycorns and--what were those hot things called?"
"Thistles."
"Yes, and those."
"Oh, well then, Kanga can give you some breakfast."
So they went into Kanga's house, and when Roo had said, "Hallo, Pooh,"
and "Hallo, Piglet" once, and "Hallo, Tigger" twice, because he had
never said it before and it sounded funny, they told Kanga what they
wanted, and Kanga said very kindly, "Well, look in my cupboard, Tigger
dear, and see what you'd like." Because she knew at once that, however
big Tigger seemed to be, he wanted as much kindness as Roo.
"Shall I look, too?" said Pooh, who was beginning to feel a little
eleven o'clockish. And he found a small tin of condensed milk, and
something seemed to tell him that Tiggers didn't like this, so he
took it into a corner by itself, and went with it to see that nobody
interrupted it.
But the more Tigger put his nose into this and his paw into that, the
more things he found which Tiggers didn't like. And when he had found
everything in the cupboard, and couldn't eat any of it, he said to
Kanga, "What happens now?"
But Kanga and Christopher Robin and Piglet were all standing round Roo,
watching him have his Extract of Malt. And Roo was saying, "Must I?"
and Kanga was saying "Now, Roo dear, you remember what you promised."
"What is it?" whispered Tigger to Piglet.
"His Strengthening Medicine," said Piglet. "He hates it."
So Tigger came closer, and he leant over the back of Roo's chair, and
suddenly he put out his tongue, and took one large golollop, and, with
a sudden jump of surprise, Kanga said, "Oh!" and then clutched at the
spoon again just as it was disappearing, and pulled it safely back out
of Tigger's mouth. But the Extract of Malt had gone.
"Tigger _dear_!" said Kanga.
"He's taken my medicine, he's taken my medicine, he's taken my
medicine!" sang Roo happily, thinking it was a tremendous joke.
Then Tigger looked up at the ceiling, and closed his eyes, and his
tongue went round and round his chops, in case he had left any outside,
and a peaceful smile came over his face as he said, "So _that's_ what
Tiggers like!"
* * * * *
Which explains why he always lived at Kanga's house afterwards, and had
Extract of Malt for breakfast, dinner, and tea. And sometimes, when
Kanga thought he wanted strengthening, he had a spoonful or two of
Roo's breakfast after meals as medicine.
"But _I_ think," said Piglet to Pooh, "that he's been strengthened
quite enough."
CHAPTER III
IN WHICH _A Search Is Organdized, and
Piglet Nearly Meets the Heffalump Again_
Pooh was sitting in his house one day, counting his pots of honey, when
there came a knock on the door.
"Fourteen," said Pooh. "Come in. Fourteen. Or was it fifteen? Bother.
That's muddled me."
"Hallo, Pooh," said Rabbit.
"Hallo, Rabbit. Fourteen, wasn't it?"
"What was?"
"My pots of honey what I was counting."
"Fourteen, that's right."
"Are you sure?"
"No," said Rabbit. "Does it matter?"
"I just like to know," said Pooh humbly. "So as I can say to myself:
'I've got fourteen pots of honey left.' Or fifteen, as the case may be.
It's sort of comforting."
"Well, let's call it sixteen," said Rabbit. "What I came to say was:
Have you seen Small anywhere about?"
"I don't think so," said Pooh. And then, after thinking a little more,
he said: "Who is Small?"
"One of my friends-and-relations," said Rabbit carelessly.
This didn't help Pooh much, because Rabbit had so many
friends-and-relations, and of such different sorts and sizes, that he
didn't know whether he ought to be looking for Small at the top of an
oak-tree or in the petal of a buttercup.
"I haven't seen anybody today," said Pooh, "not so as to say 'Hallo,
Small,' to. Did you want him for anything?"
"_I_ don't _want_ him," said Rabbit. "But it's always useful to know
where a friend-and-relation _is_, whether you want him or whether you
don't."
"Oh, I see," said Pooh. "Is he lost?"
"Well," said Rabbit, "nobody has seen him for a long time, so I suppose
he is. Anyhow," he went on importantly, "I promised Christopher Robin
I'd Organize a Search for him, so come on."
Pooh said good-bye affectionately to his fourteen pots of honey, and
hoped they were fifteen; and he and Rabbit went out into the Forest.
"Now," said Rabbit, "this is a Search, and I've Organized it----"
"Done what to it?" said Pooh.
"Organized it. Which means--well, it's what you do to a Search, when
you don't all look in the same place at once. So I want _you_, Pooh,
to search by the Six Pine Trees first, and then work your way towards
Owl's House, and look out for me there. Do you see?"
"No," said Pooh. "What----"
"Then I'll see you at Owl's House in about an hour's time."
"Is Piglet organdized too?"
"We all are," said Rabbit, and off he went.
* * * * *
As soon as Rabbit was out of sight, Pooh remembered that he had
forgotten to ask who Small was, and whether he was the sort of
friend-and-relation who settled on one's nose, or the sort who got
trodden on by mistake, and as it was Too Late Now, he thought he would
begin the Hunt by looking for Piglet, and asking him what they were
looking for before he looked for it.
"And it's no good looking at the Six Pine Trees for Piglet," said Pooh
to himself, "because he's been organdized in a special place of his
own. So I shall have to look for the Special Place first. I wonder
where it is." And he wrote it down in his head like this:
ORDER OF LOOKING FOR THINGS
1. Special Place. (_To find Piglet._)
2. Piglet. (_To find who Small is._)
3. Small. (_To find Small._)
4. Rabbit. (_To tell him I've found Small._)
5. Small Again. (_To tell him I've found Rabbit._)
"Which makes it look like a bothering sort of day," thought Pooh, as he
stumped along.
The next moment the day became very bothering indeed, because Pooh was
so busy not looking where he was going that he stepped on a piece of
the Forest which had been left out by mistake; and he only just had
time to think to himself: "I'm flying. What Owl does. I wonder how you
stop----" when he stopped.
_Bump!_
"Ow!" squeaked something.
"That's funny," thought Pooh. "I said 'Ow!' without really oo'ing."
"Help!" said a small, high voice.
"That's me again," thought Pooh. "I've had an Accident, and fallen down