Winnie-the-Pooh
like a small black cloud. That will deceive them."
"Then you had better have the blue balloon," you said; and so it was
decided.
Well, you both went out with the blue balloon, and you took your gun
with you, just in case, as you always did, and Winnie-the-Pooh went to a
very muddy place that he knew of, and rolled and rolled until he was
black all over; and then, when the balloon was blown up as big as big,
and you and Pooh were both holding on to the string, you let go
suddenly, and Pooh Bear floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed
there--level with the top of the tree and about twenty feet away from
it.
"Hooray!" you shouted.
"Isn't that fine?" shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you. "What do I look
like?"
"You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon," you said.
"Not," said Pooh anxiously, "--not like a small black cloud in a blue
sky?"
"Not very much."
"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different. And, as I say, you
never can tell with bees."
There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed. He
could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn't quite
reach the honey.
After a little while he called down to you.
"Christopher Robin!" he said in a loud whisper.
"Hallo!"
"I think the bees _suspect_ something!"
"What sort of thing?"
"I don't know. But something tells me that they're _suspicious_!"
"Perhaps they think that you're after their honey."
"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."
There was another little silence, and then he called down to you again.
"Christopher Robin!"
"Yes?"
"Have you an umbrella in your house?"
"I think so."
"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and
look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.'
I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are
practising on these bees."
Well, you laughed to yourself, "Silly old Bear!" but you didn't say it
aloud because you were so fond of him, and you went home for your
umbrella.
"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as soon as you got
back to the tree. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered
that the bees are now definitely Suspicious."
"Shall I put my umbrella up?" you said.
"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The important bee to
deceive is the Queen Bee. Can you see which is the Queen Bee from down
there?"
"No."
"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying,
'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do what I can by singing a little
Cloud Song, such as a cloud might sing.... Go!"
So, while you walked up and down and wondered if it would rain,
Winnie-the-Pooh sang this song:
How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!
Every little cloud
_Always_ sings aloud.
"How sweet to be a Cloud
Floating in the Blue!"
It makes him very proud
To be a little cloud.
The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them,
indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the
second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud
for a moment, and then got up again.
"Christopher--_ow!_--Robin," called out the cloud.
"Yes?"
"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important
decision. _These are the wrong sort of bees._"
"Are they?"
"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort
of honey, shouldn't you?"
"Would they?"
"Yes. So I think I shall come down."
"How?" asked you.
Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go of the string,
he would fall--_bump_--and he didn't like the idea of that. So he
thought for a long time, and then he said:
"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you
got your gun?"
"Of course I have," you said. "But if I do that, it will spoil the
balloon," you said.
"But if you _don't_," said Pooh, "I shall have to let go, and that would
spoil _me_."
When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you aimed very
carefully at the balloon, and fired.
"_Ow!_" said Pooh.
"Did I miss?" you asked.
"You didn't exactly _miss_," said Pooh, "but you missed the _balloon_."
"I'm so sorry," you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the
balloon, and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down
to the ground.
But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon
all that time that they stayed up straight in the air for more than a
week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it
off. And I think--but I am not sure--that _that_ is why he was always
called Pooh.
* * * * *
"Is that the end of the story?" asked Christopher Robin.
"That's the end of that one. There are others."
"About Pooh and Me?"
"And Piglet and Rabbit and all of you. Don't you remember?"
"I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget."
"That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the Heffalump----"
"They didn't catch it, did they?"
"No."
"Pooh couldn't, because he hasn't any brain. Did _I_ catch it?"
"Well, that comes into the story."
Christopher Robin nodded.
"I do remember," he said, "only Pooh doesn't very well, so that's why he
likes having it told to him again. Because then it's a real story and
not just a remembering."
"That's just how _I_ feel," I said.
Christopher Robin gave a deep sigh, picked his Bear up by the leg, and
walked off to the door, trailing Pooh behind him. At the door he turned
and said, "Coming to see me have my bath?"
"I might," I said.
"I didn't hurt him when I shot him, did I?"
"Not a bit."
He nodded and went out, and in a moment I heard Winnie-the-Pooh--_bump,
bump, bump_--going up the stairs behind him.
CHAPTER II
IN WHICH POOH GOES VISITING AND
GETS INTO A TIGHT PLACE
Edward Bear, known to his friends as Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for
short, was walking through the forest one day, humming proudly to
himself. He had made up a little hum that very morning, as he was doing
his Stoutness Exercises in front of the glass: _Tra-la-la, tra-la-la_,
as he stretched up as high as he could go, and then _Tra-la-la,
tra-la--oh, help!--la_, as he tried to reach his toes. After breakfast
he had said it over and over to himself until he had learnt it off by
heart, and now he was humming it right through, properly. It went like
this:
_Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,_
_Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,_
_Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum._
_Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,_
_Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,_
_Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um._
Well, he was humming this hum to himself, and walking along gaily,
wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being
somebody else, when suddenly he came to a sandy bank, and in the bank
was a large hole.
"Aha!" said Pooh. (_Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum._) "If I know anything about
anything, that hole means Rabbit," he said, "and Rabbit means Company,"
he said, "and Company means Food and Listening-to-Me-Humming and such
like. _Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um._"
So he bent down, put his head into the hole, and called out:
"Is anybody at home?"
There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the hole, and then
silence.
"What I said was, 'Is anybody at home?'" called out Pooh very loudly.
"No!" said a voice; and then added, "You needn't shout so loud. I heard
you quite well the first time."
"Bother!" said Pooh. "Isn't there anybody here at all?"
"Nobody."
Winnie-the-Pooh took his head out of the hole, and thought for a little,
and he thought to himself, "There must be somebody there, because
somebody must have _said_ 'Nobody.'" So he put his head back in the
hole, and said:
"Hallo, Rabbit, isn't that you?"
"No," said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this time.
"But isn't that Rabbit's voice?"
"I don't _think_ so," said Rabbit. "It isn't _meant_ to be."
"Oh!" said Pooh.
He took his head out of the hole, and had another think, and then he put
it back, and said:
"Well, could you very kindly tell me where Rabbit is?"
"He has gone to see his friend Pooh Bear, who is a great friend of his."
"But this _is_ Me!" said Bear, very much surprised.
"What sort of Me?"
"Pooh Bear."
"Are you sure?" said Rabbit, still more surprised.
"Quite, quite sure," said Pooh.
"Oh, well, then, come in."
So Pooh pushed and pushed and pushed his way through the hole, and at
last he got in.
"You were quite right," said Rabbit, looking at him all over. "It _is_
you. Glad to see you."
"Who did you think it was?"
"Well, I wasn't sure. You know how it is in the Forest. One can't have
_anybody_ coming into one's house. One has to be _careful_. What about a
mouthful of something?"
Pooh always liked a little something at eleven o'clock in the morning,
and he was very glad to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs; and
when Rabbit said, "Honey or condensed milk with your bread?" he was so
excited that he said, "Both," and then, so as not to seem greedy, he
added, "But don't bother about the bread, please." And for a long time
after that he said nothing ... until at last, humming to himself in a
rather sticky voice, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and
said that he must be going on.
"Must you?" said Rabbit politely.
"Well," said Pooh, "I could stay a little longer if it--if you----" and
he tried very hard to look in the direction of the larder.
"As a matter of fact," said Rabbit, "I was going out myself directly."
"Oh, well, then, I'll be going on. Good-bye."
"Well, good-bye, if you're sure you won't have any more."
"_Is_ there any more?" asked Pooh quickly.
Rabbit took the covers off the dishes, and said, "No, there wasn't."
"I thought not," said Pooh, nodding to himself. "Well, good-bye. I must
be going on."
So he started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws,
and pushed with his back paws, and in a little while his nose was out in
the open again ... and then his ears ... and then his front paws ...
and then his shoulders ... and then----
"Oh, help!" said Pooh. "I'd better go back."
"Oh, bother!" said Pooh. "I shall have to go on."
"I can't do either!" said Pooh. "Oh, help _and_ bother!"
Now by this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too, and finding the
front door full, he went out by the back door, and came round to Pooh,
and looked at him.
"Hallo, are you stuck?" he asked.
"N-no," said Pooh carelessly. "Just resting and thinking and humming to
myself."
"Here, give us a paw."
Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and
pulled....
"_Ow!_" cried Pooh. "You're hurting!"
"The fact is," said Rabbit, "you're stuck."
"It all comes," said Pooh crossly, "of not having front doors big
enough."
"It all comes," said Rabbit sternly, "of eating too much. I thought at
the time," said Rabbit, "only I didn't like to say anything," said
Rabbit, "that one of us was eating too much," said Rabbit, "and I knew
if wasn't _me_," he said. "Well, well, I shall go and fetch Christopher
Robin."
Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the Forest, and when he came
back with Rabbit, and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, "Silly old
Bear," in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again.
"I was just beginning to think," said Bear, sniffing slightly, "that
Rabbit might never be able to use his front door again. And I should
_hate_ that," he said.
"So should I," said Rabbit.
"Use his front door again?" said Christopher Robin. "Of course he'll use
his front door again."
"Good," said Rabbit.