The House at Pooh Corner

One day when Pooh Bear had nothing else to do, he thought he would do something, so he went round to Piglet’s house to see what Piglet was doing. It was still snowing as he stumped over the white forest track, and he expected to find Piglet warming his toes in front of his fire, but to his surprise he saw that the door was open, and the more he looked inside the more Piglet wasn’t there.

“He’s out,” said Pooh sadly. “That’s what it is. He’s not in. I shall have to go a fast Thinking Walk by myself. Bother!”

But first he thought that he would knock very loudly just to make quite sure⁠ ⁠… and while he waited for Piglet not to answer, he jumped up and down to keep warm, and a hum came suddenly into his head, which seemed to him a Good Hum, such as is Hummed Hopefully to Others.

The more it snows (Tiddely pom), The more it goes (Tiddely pom), The more it goes (Tiddely pom), On snowing. And nobody knows (Tiddely pom), How cold my toes (Tiddely pom), How cold my toes (Tiddely pom), Are growing.

“So what I’ll do,” said Pooh, “is I’ll do this. I’ll just go home first and see what the time is, and perhaps I’ll put a muffler round my neck, and then I’ll go and see Eeyore and sing it to him.”

Winnie-the-Pooh woke up suddenly in the middle of the night and listened. Then he got out of bed, and lit his candle, and stumped across the room to see if anybody was trying to get into his honey-cupboard, and they weren’t, so he stumped back again, blew out his candle, and got into bed. Then he heard the noise again.

“Is that you, Piglet?” he said.

But it wasn’t.

“Come in, Christopher Robin,” he said.

But Christopher Robin didn’t.

“Tell me about it tomorrow, Eeyore,” said Pooh sleepily.

But the noise went on.

“Worraworraworraworraworra,” said Whatever-it-was, and Pooh found that he wasn’t asleep after all.

“What can it be?” he thought. “There are lots of noises in the Forest, but this is a different one. It isn’t a growl, and it isn’t a purr, and it isn’t a bark, and it isn’t the noise-you-make-before-beginning-a-piece-of-poetry, but it’s a noise of some kind, made by a strange animal. And he’s making it outside my door. So I shall get up and ask him not to do it.”

He got out of bed and opened his front door.

“Hallo!” said Pooh, in case there was anything outside.

“Hallo!” said Whatever-it-was.

“Oh!” said Pooh. “Hallo!”

“Hallo!”

“Oh, there you are!” said Pooh. “Hallo!”

“Hallo!” said the Strange Animal, wondering how long this was going on.

Pooh was just going to say “Hallo!” for the fourth time when he thought that he wouldn’t, so he said: “Who is it?” instead.

“Me,” said a voice.

“Oh!” said Pooh. “Well, come here.”

“Can they climb trees better than Pooh?” asked Roo, stopping under the tallest Pine Tree, and looking up at it.

“Climbing trees is what they do best,” said Tigger. “Much better than Poohs.”

“Could they climb this one?”

“They’re always climbing trees like that,” said Tigger. “Up and down all day.”

“Oo, Tigger, are they really?”

“I’ll show you,” said Tigger bravely, “and you can sit on my back and watch me.” For of all the things which he had said Tiggers could do, the only one he felt really certain about suddenly was climbing trees.

“Oo, Tigger, oo, Tigger, oo, Tigger!” squeaked Roo excitedly.

So he sat on Tigger’s back and up they went.

And for the first ten feet Tigger said happily to himself, “Up we go!”

And for the next ten feet he said:

“I always said Tiggers could climb trees.”

And for the next ten feet he said:

“Not that it’s easy, mind you.”

And for the next ten feet he said:

“Of course, there’s the coming-down too. Backwards.”

And then he said:

“Which will be difficult⁠ ⁠…”

“Unless one fell⁠ ⁠…”

“When it would be⁠ ⁠…”

“Easy.”

And at the word “easy” the branch he was standing on broke suddenly, and he just managed to clutch at the one above him as he felt himself going⁠ ⁠… and then slowly he got his chin over it⁠ ⁠… and then one back paw⁠ ⁠… and then the other⁠ ⁠… until at last he was sitting on it, breathing very quickly, and wishing that he had gone in for swimming instead.

Now one day Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit and Roo were all playing Poohsticks together. They had dropped their sticks in when Rabbit said “Go!” and then they had hurried across to the other side of the bridge, and now they were all leaning over the edge, waiting to see whose stick would come out first. But it was a long time coming, because the river was very lazy that day, and hardly seemed to mind if it didn’t ever get there at all.

“I can see mine!” cried Roo. “No, I can’t, it’s something else. Can you see yours, Piglet? I thought I could see mine, but I couldn’t. There it is! No, it isn’t. Can you see yours, Pooh?”

“No,” said Pooh.

“I expect my stick’s stuck,” said Roo. “Rabbit, my stick’s stuck. Is your stick stuck, Piglet?”

“They always take longer than you think,” said Rabbit.

“How long do you think they’ll take?” asked Roo.

“I can see yours, Piglet,” said Pooh suddenly.

“Mine’s a sort of greyish one,” said Piglet, not daring to lean too far over in case he fell in.

“Yes, that’s what I can see. It’s coming over on to my side.”

Rabbit leant over further than ever, looking for his, and Roo wriggled up and down, calling out “Come on, stick! Stick, stick, stick!” and Piglet got very excited because his was the only one which had been seen, and that meant that he was winning.

“It’s coming!” said Pooh.

“Are you sure it’s mine?” squeaked Piglet excitedly.

“Yes, because it’s grey. A big grey one. Here it comes! A very⁠—big⁠—grey⁠—Oh, no, it isn’t, it’s Eeyore.”

“The fact is,” said Rabbit, “we’ve missed our way somehow.”

They were having a rest in a small sandpit on the top of the Forest. Pooh was getting rather tired of that sandpit, and suspected it of following them about, because whichever direction they started in, they always ended up at it, and each time, as it came through the mist at them, Rabbit said triumphantly, “Now I know where we are!” and Pooh said sadly, “So do I,” and Piglet said nothing. He had tried to think of something to say, but the only thing he could think of was, “Help, help!” and it seemed silly to say that, when he had Pooh and Rabbit with him.

“Well,” said Rabbit, after a long silence in which nobody thanked him for the nice walk they were having, “we’d better get on, I suppose. Which way shall we try?”

“How would it be,” said Pooh slowly, “if, as soon as we’re out of sight of this Pit, we try to find it again?”

“What’s the good of that?” said Rabbit.

“Well,” said Pooh, “we keep looking for Home and not finding it, so I thought that if we looked for this Pit, we’d be sure not to find it, which would be a Good Thing, because then we might find something that we weren’t looking for, which might be just what we were looking for, really.”

“I don’t see much sense in that,” said Rabbit.