By-and-by Pooh and Piglet came along. Pooh was telling Piglet in a singing voice that it didn't seem to matter, if he didn't get any fatter, and he didn't think he was getting any fatter, what he did; and Piglet was wondering how long it would be before his haycorn came up.
"Look, Pooh!" said Piglet suddenly. "There's something in one of the Pine Trees."
"So there is!" said Pooh, looking up wonderingly. "There's an Animal."
Piglet took Pooh's arm, in case Pooh was frightened.
"Is it One of the Fiercer Animals?" he said, looking the other way.
Pooh nodded.
"It's a Jagular," he said.
"What do Jagulars do?" asked Piglet, hoping that they wouldn't.
"They hide in the branches of trees, and drop on you as you go underneath," said Pooh. "Christopher Robin told me."
"Perhaps we better hadn't go underneath, Pooh. In case he dropped and hurt himself."
"They don't hurt themselves," said Pooh. "They're such very good droppers."
Piglet still felt that to be underneath a Very Good Dropper would be a Mistake, and he was just going to hurry back for something which he had forgotten when the Jagular called out to them.
"Help! Help!" it called.
"That's what Jagulars always do," said Pooh, much interested. "They call 'Help! Help!' and then when you look up, they drop on you."
"I'm looking down," cried Piglet loudly, so as the Jagular shouldn't do the wrong thing by accident. Something very excited next to the Jagular heard him, and squeaked:
"Pooh and Piglet! Pooh and Piglet!"
All of a sudden Piglet felt that it was a much nicer day than he had thought it was. All warm and sunny.
"Pooh!" he cried. "I believe it's Tigger and Roo!"
"So it is," said Pooh. "I thought it was a Jagular and another Jagular."
"Hallo, Roo!" called Piglet. "What are you doing?"
"We can't get down, we can't get down!" cried Roo. "Isn't it fun? Pooh, isn't it fun, Tigger and I are living in a tree, like Owl, and we're going to stay here for ever and ever. I can see Piglet's house. Piglet, I can see your house from here. Aren't we high? Is Owl's house as high up as this?"
"How did you get there, Roo?" asked Piglet.
"On Tigger's back! And Tiggers can't climb downwards, because their tails get in the way, only upwards, and Tigger forgot about that when we started, and he's only just remembered. So we've got to stay here for ever and ever-unless we go higher. What did you say, Tigger? Oh, Tigger says if we go higher we shan't be able to see Piglet's house so well, so we're going to stop here."
"Piglet," said Pooh solemnly, when he had heard all this, "what shall we do?" And he began to eat Tigger's sandwiches.
"Are they stuck?" asked Piglet anxiously.
Pooh nodded.
"Couldn't you climb up to them?"
"I might, Piglet, and I might bring Roo down on my back, but I couldn't bring Tigger down. So we must think of something else. "And in a thoughtful way he began to eat Roo's sandwiches, too.
Whether he would have thought of anything before he had finished the last sandwich, I don't know, but he had just got to the last but one when there was a crackling in the bracken, and Christopher Robin and Eeyore came strolling along together.
"I shouldn't be surprised if it hailed a good deal to-morrow," Eeyore was saying. "Blizzards and what – not. Being fine to-day doesn't Mean Anything. It has no sig – what's that word? Well, it has none of that. It's just a small piece of weather."
"There's Pooh!" said Christopher Robin, who didn't much mind what it did to-morrow, as long as he was out in it. "Hallo, Pooh!"
"It's Christopher Robin!" said Piglet. "He'll know what to do."
They hurried up to him.
"Oh, Christopher Robin," began Pooh.
"And Eeyore," said Eeyore.
"Tigger and Roo are right up the Six Pine Trees, and they can't get down, and …"
"And I was just saying," put in Piglet, "that if only Christopher Robin …"
"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, 'Gone 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 arc up and doing,
For the violets are blueing
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,
And the turtle – doves are mooing,
Which is why a Pooh is poohing
In the sun.
For the spring is really spring
ing;
You can see a skylark singing,
And the blue-bells, which are ringing,
Can be heard.
And the cuckoo isn't cooing,
But he's cucking and he's ooing,
And a Pooh is simply poohing
Like a bird.
"Hallo, Pooh," said Rabbit.
"Hallo, Rabbit," said Pooh dreamily.
"Did you make that song up?"
"Well, I sort of made it up," said Pooh. "It isn't Brain," he went on humbly, "because You Know Why, Rabbit; but it comes to me sometimes."
"Ah!" said Rabbit, who never let things come to him, but always went and fetched them. "Well, the point is, have you seen a Spotted or Herbaceous Backson in the Forest, at all?"
"No," said Pooh. "Not a-no," said Pooh. "I saw Tigger just now."
"That's no good."
"No," said Pooh. I thought it wasn't."
"Have you seen Piglet?"
"Yes," said Pooh. "I suppose that isn't any good either?" he asked meekly.
"Well, it depends if he saw anything."
"He saw me," said Pooh.
Rabbit sat down on the ground next to Pooh and, feeling much less important like that, stood up again.
"What it all comes to is this," he said. "What does Christopher Robin do in the morning nowadays?"
"What sort of thing?"
"Well, can you tell me anything you've seen him do in the morning? These last few days."
"Yes," said Pooh. "We had breakfast together yesterday. By the Pine Trees. I'd made up a little basket, just a little, fair-sized basket, an ordinary biggish sort of basket, full of …"
"Yes, yes," said Rabbit, "but I mean later than that. Have you seen him between eleven and twelve?"
"Well," said Pooh, "at eleven o'clock-at eleven o'clock-well, at eleven o'clock, you see, I generally get home about then. Because I have One or Two Things to Do."
"Quarter past eleven, then?"
"Well…" said Pooh.
"Half past?"
"Yes," said Pooh. "At half past-or perhaps later-I might see him."
And now that he did think of it, he began to remember that he hadn't seen Christopher Robin about so much lately. Not in the mornings. Afternoons, yes; evenings, yes; before breakfast, yes; just after breakfast, yes. And then, perhaps, "See you again, Pooh," and off he'd go.
The house at Pooh Corner Page 4