So Whatever-it-was came here, and in the light of the candle he and Pooh looked at each other.
"I'm Pooh," said Pooh.
"I'm Tigger," said Tigger.
"Oh!" said Pooh, for he had never seen an animal like this before. "Does Christopher Robin know about you?"
"Of course he does," said Tigger.
"Well," said Pooh, "it's the middle of the night, which is a good time for going to sleep. And to-morrow morning we'll have some honey for breakfast. Do Tiggers like honey?"
"They like everything," said Tigger cheerfully.
"Then if they like going to sleep on the floor, I'll go back to bed," said Pooh, "and we'll do things in the morning. Good night." And he got back into bed and went fast asleep.
When he awoke in the morning, the first thing he saw was Tigger, sitting in front of the glass and looking at himself.
"Hallo!" said Pooh.
"Hallo!" said Tigger. "I've found somebody just like me. I thought I was the only one of them."
Pooh got out of bed, and began to explain what a looking-glass was, but just as he was getting to the interesting part, Tigger said:
"Excuse me a moment, but there's something climbing up your table," and with one loud Worraworraworraworraworra he jumped at the end of the tablecloth, pulled it to the ground, wrapped himself up in it three times, rolled to the other end of the room, and, after a terrible struggle, got his head into the daylight again, and said cheerfully. "Have I won?"
"That's my tablecloth," said Pooh, as he began to unwind Tigger.
"I wondered what it was," said Tigger.
"It goes on the table and you put things on it."
"Then why did it try to bite me when I wasn't looking?"
"I don't think it did," said Pooh.
"It tried," said Tigger, "but I was too quick for it."
Pooh put the cloth back on the table, and he put a large honey-pot on the cloth, and they sat down to breakfast. And as soon as they sat down, Tigger took a large mouthful of honey... and he looked up at the ceiling with his head on one side, and made exploring noises with his tongue, and considering noises, and what-have-we-got-here noises... and then he said in a very decided voice:
"Tiggers don't like honey."
"Oh!" said Pooh, and tried to make it sound Sad and Regretful. "I thought they liked everything."
"Everything except honey," said Tigger.
Pooh felt rather pleased about this, and said that, as soon as he had finished his own breakfast, he would take Tigger round to Piglet's house, and Tigger could try some of Piglet's haycorns.
"Thank you, Pooh," said Tigger, " because haycorns is really what Tiggers like best."
So after breakfast they went round to see Piglet, and Pooh explained as they went that Piglet was a Very Small Animal who didn't like bouncing, and asked Tigger not to be too Bouncy just at first. And Tigger, who had been hiding behind trees and jumping out on Pooh's shadow when it wasn't looking, said that Tiggers were only bouncy before breakfast, and that as soon as they had had a few haycorns they became Quiet and Refined. So by-and-by they knocked at the door of Piglet's house.
"Hallo, Pooh," said Piglet.
"Hallo, Piglet. This is Tigger."
"Oh, is it?" said Piglet, and he edged round to the other side of the table. "I thought Tiggers were smaller than that."
"Not the big ones," said Tigger.
"They like haycorns," said Pooh, "so that's what we've come for, because poor Tigger hasn't had any breakfast yet."
Piglet pushed the bowl of haycorns towards Tigger, and said, "Help yourself," and then he got close up to Pooh and felt much braver, and said, "So you're Tigger? Well, well!" in a careless sort of voice. But Tigger said nothing because his mouth was full of haycorns...
After a long munching noise he said:
"Ee-ers o i a-ors."
And when Pooh and Piglet said "What?" he said "Skoos ee," and went outside for a moment.
When he came back he said firmly:
"Tiggers don't like haycorns."
"But you said they liked everything except honey," said Pooh.
"Everything except honey and haycorns," explained Tigger.
When he heard this, Pooh said, "Oh, I see!" and Piglet, who was rather glad that Tiggers didn't like haycorns, said, "What about thistles?"
"Thistles," said Tigger, "is what Tiggers like best."
"Then lets go along and see Eeyore," said Piglet
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 to-day and gone to-morrow. 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 of
f.
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 Roosbreakfast 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 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 oaktree or in the petal of a buttercup.
"I haven't seen anybody to-day," 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.
I. 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, becau
se 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 a well, and my voice has gone all squeaky and works before I'm ready for it, because I've done something to myself inside. Bother!"
"Help-help!"
"There you are! I say things when I'm not trying. So it must be a very bad Accident." And then he thought that perhaps when he did try to say things he wouldn't be able to; so, to make sure, he said loudly:
"A Very Bad Accident to Pooh Bear."
"Pooh!" squeaked the voice.
"It's Piglet!" cried Pooh eagerly. "Where are you?"
"Underneath," said Piglet in an underneath sort of way.
"Underneath what?"
"You," squeaked Piglet. "Get up!"
"Oh!" said Pooh, and scrambled up as quickly as he could. "Did I fall on you, Piglet?"
"You fell on me," said Piglet, feeling himself all over.
"I didn't mean to," said Pooh sorrowfully.
"I didn't mean to be underneath," said Piglet sadly. "But I'm all right now, Pooh, and I am so glad it was you."
"What's happened?" said Pooh. "Where are we?"
"I think we're in a sort of Pit. I was walking along, looking for somebody, and then suddenly I wasn't any more, and just when I got up to see where I was, something fell on me. And it was you."
"So it was," said Pooh. "Yes," said Piglet. "Pooh," he went on nervously, and came a little closer, "do you think we're in a Trap?"
Pooh hadn't thought about it at all, but now he nodded. For suddenly he remembered how he and Piglet had once made a Pooh Trap for Heffalumps, and he guessed what had happened. He and Piglet had fallen into a Heffalump Trap for Poohs! That was what it was.
"What happens when the Heffalump comes?" asked Piglet tremblingly, when he had heard the news.
"Perhaps he won't notice you, Piglet," said Pooh encouragingly, "because you're a Very Small Animal."
The house at Pooh Corner Page 2