The house at Pooh Corner
"_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 than usual; and he had
always wondered since if they were _really_ as blue and 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 him
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.
CHAPTER V
IN WHICH _Rabbit Has a Busy Day,
and We Learn What Christopher Robin Does in the Mornings_
It was going to be one of Rabbit's busy days. As soon as he woke up he
felt important, as if everything depended upon him. It was just the
day for Organizing Something, or for Writing a Notice Signed Rabbit,
or for Seeing What Everybody Else Thought About It. It was a perfect
morning for hurrying round to Pooh, and saying, "Very well, then, I'll
tell Piglet," and then going to Piglet, and saying, "Pooh thinks--but
perhaps I'd better see Owl first." It was a Captainish sort of day,
when everybody said, "Yes, Rabbit" and "No, Rabbit," and waited until
he had told them.
He came out of his house and sniffed the warm spring morning as he
wondered what he would do. Kanga's house was nearest, and at Kanga's
house was Roo, who said "Yes, Rabbit" and "No, Rabbit" almost better
than anybody else in the Forest; but there was another animal there
nowadays, the strange and Bouncy Tigger; and he was the sort of Tigger
who was always in front when you were showing him the way anywhere, and
was generally out of sight when at last you came to the place and said
proudly "Here we are!"
"No, not Kanga's," said Rabbit thoughtfully to himself, as he curled
his whiskers in the sun; and, to make quite sure that he wasn't going
there, he turned to the left and trotted off in the other direction,
which was the way to Christopher Robin's house.
"After all," said Rabbit to himself, "Christopher Robin depends on Me.
He's fond of Pooh and Piglet and Eeyore, and so am I, but they haven't
any Brain. Not to notice. And he respects Owl, because you can't help
respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn't spell it
right; but spelling isn't everything. There are days when spelling
Tuesday simply doesn't count. And Kanga is too busy looking after
Roo, and Roo is too young and Tigger is too bouncy to be any help, so
there's really nobody but Me, when you come to look at it. I'll go and
see if there's anything he wants doing, and then I'll do it for him.
It's just the day for doing things."
He trotted along happily, and by-and-by he crossed the stream and came
to the place where his friends-and-relations lived. There seemed to be
even more of them about than usual this morning, and having nodded to a
hedgehog or two, with whom he was too busy to shake hands, and having
said, "Good morning, good morning," importantly to some of the others,
and "Ah, there you are," kindly, to the smaller ones, he waved a paw at
them over his shoulder, and was gone; leaving such an air of excitement
and I-don't-know-what behind him, that several members of the Beetle
family, including Henry Rush, made their way at once to the Hundred
Acre Wood and began climbing trees, in the hope of getting to the top
before it happened, whatever it was, so that they might see it properly.
Rabbit hurried on by the edge of the Hundred Acre Wood, feeling more
important every minute, and soon he came to the tree where Christopher
Robin lived. He knocked at the door, and he called out once or twice,
and then he walked back a little way and put his paw up to keep the sun
out, and called to the top of the tree, and then he turned all round
and shouted "Hallo!" and "I say!" "It's Rabbit!"--but nothing happened.
Then he stopped and listened, and everything stopped and listened
with him, and the Forest was very lone and still and peaceful in the
sunshine, until suddenly a hundred miles above him a lark began to sing.
"Bother!" said Rabbit. "He's gone out."
He went back to the green front door, just to make sure, and he was
turning away, feeling that his morning had got all spoilt, when he saw
a piece of paper on the ground. And there was a pin in it, as if it had
fallen off the door.
"Ha!" said Rabbit, feeling quite happy again. "Another notice!"
This is what it said:
GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON.
C. R.
"Ha!" said Rabbit again. "I must tell the others." And he hurried off
importantly.
The nearest house was Owl's, and to Owl's House in the Hundred Acre
Wood he made his way. He came to Owl's door, and he knocked and he
rang, and he rang and he knocked, and at last Owl's head came out and
said "Go away, I'm thinking--oh it's you?" which was how he always
began.
"Owl," said Rabbit shortly, "you and I have brains. The others have
fluff. If there is any thinking to be done in this Forest--and when I
say thinking I mean _thinking_--you and I must do it."
"Yes," said Owl. "I was."
"Read that."
Owl took Christopher Robin's notice from Rabbit and looked at it
nervously. He could spell his own name WOL, and he could spell
Tuesday so that you knew it wasn't Wednesday, and he could read quite
comfortably when you weren't looking over his shoulder and saying
"Well?" all the time, and he could----
"Well?" said Rabbit.
"Yes," said Owl, looking Wise and Thoughtful. "I see what you mean.
Undoubtedly."
"Well?"
"Exactly," said Owl. "Precisely." And he added, after a little thought,
"If you had not come to me, I should have come to you."
"Why?" asked Rabbit.
"For that very reason," said Owl, hoping that something helpful would
happen soon.
"Yesterday morning," said Rabbit solemnly, "I went to see Christopher
Robin. He was out. Pinned on his door was a notice."
"The same notice?"
"A different one. But the meaning was the same. It's very odd."
"Amazing," said Owl, looking at the notice again, and getting, just
for a moment, a curious sort of feeling that something had happened to
Christopher Robin's back. "What did you do?"
"Nothing."
"The best thing," said Owl wisely.
"Well?" said Rabbit again, as Owl knew he was going to.
"Exactly," said Owl.
For a little while he couldn't think of anything more; and then, all of
a sudden, he had an idea.
"Tell me, Rabbit," he said, "the _exact_ words of the first notice.
This is very important. Everything depends on this. The _exact_ words
of the _first_ notice."
"It was just the same as that one really."
Owl looked at him, and wondered whether to push him off the tree; but,
feeling that he could always do it afterwards, he tried once more to
find out what they were talking about.
"The exact words, please," he said, as if Rabbit hadn't spoken.
"It just said, 'Gon out. Backson.' Same as this, only this says 'Bisy
Backson' too."
Owl gave a great sigh of relief.
"Ah!" said Owl. "_Now_ we know where we are."
"Yes, but where's Christopher Robin?" said Rabbit. "That's the point."
Owl looked at the notice again. To one of his education the reading of
it was easy. "Gone out, Backson. Bisy, Backson"--just the sort of thing
you'd expect to see on a notice.
"It is quite clear what has happened, my dear Rabbit," he said.
"Christopher Robin has gone out somewhere with Backson. He and Backson
are busy together. Have you seen a Backson anywhere about in the Forest
lately?"
"I don't know," said Rabbit. "That's what I came to ask you. What are
they like?"
"Well," said Owl, "the Spotted or Herbaceous Backson is just a----"
"At least," he said, "it's really more of a----"
"Of course," he said, "it depends on the----"
"Well," said Owl, "the fact is," he said, "I don't know _what_ they're
like," said Owl frankly.
"Thank you," said Rabbit. And he hurried off to see Pooh.
Before he had gone very far he heard a noise. So he stopped and
listened. This was the noise.
NOISE, BY POOH
Oh, the butterflies are flying,
Now the winter days are dying,
And the primroses are trying
To be seen.
And the turtle-doves are cooing,
And the woods are up and doing,
For the violets are blue-ing
In the green.
Oh, the honey-bees are gumming
On their little wings, and humming
That the summer, which is coming,
Will be fun.
And the cows are almost cooing,