The House at Pooh Corner quotes

“No,” said Piglet, “it’s you who were out, Pooh.”

“So it was,” said Pooh. “I knew one of us was.”

He looked up at his clock, which had stopped at five minutes to eleven some weeks ago.

“It’s snowing still,” said Eeyore gloomily.

“Yes,” said Eeyore. “However,” he said, brightening up a little, “we haven’t had an earthquake lately.”

“Nothing, Christopher Robin. Nothing important. I suppose you haven’t seen a house or whatnot anywhere about?”

“And Piglet!” said Christopher Robin excitedly.

“Probably,” said Eeyore. “What we want is a Trained Bloodhound.”

The words of the song changed suddenly.

“Why, here is Eeyore,” said Pooh, when he had finished hugging Christopher Robin, and he nudged Piglet, and Piglet nudged him, and they thought to themselves what a lovely surprise they had got ready.

“Same to you, Pooh Bear, and twice on Thursdays,” said Eeyore gloomily.

Before Pooh could say: “Why Thursdays?” Christopher Robin began to explain the sad story of Eeyore’s Lost House. And Pooh and Piglet listened, and their eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger.

“Much better,” said Pooh and Piglet together.

“It just shows what can be done by taking a little trouble,” said Eeyore.

“Do you see, Pooh? Do you see, Piglet? Brains first and then Hard Work. Look at it! That’s the way to build a house,” said Eeyore proudly.

And when he had finished laughing, they all sang the Outdoor Song for Snowy Weather the rest of the way home, Piglet, who was still not quite sure of his voice, putting in the tiddely-poms again.

“And I know it seems easy,” said Piglet to himself, “but it isn’t everyone who could do it.”

“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.

“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 honeypot on the cloth, and they sat down to breakfast.

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 today and gone tomorrow. Help yourself, Tigger.”

Tigger thanked him and looked a little anxiously at Pooh.

“What’s the matter?” asked Pooh.

“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.

“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, 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.

“It’s Piglet!” cried Pooh eagerly. “Where are you?”

“Underneath,” said Piglet in an underneath sort of way.

“You,” squeaked Piglet. “Get up!”

“That it isn’t,” said Pooh.

Pooh knew what he meant, but, being a Bear of Very Little Brain, couldn’t think of the words.

“Well, it just isn’t,” he said again.

There was a moment’s silence.

“Ha-ha,” said Eeyore bitterly. “Merriment and whatnot. Don’t apologize. It’s just what would happen.”

And I couldn’t spend a happy morning Not seeing Piglet. And it doesn’t seem to matter If I don’t see Owl and Eeyore (or any of the others), And I’m not going to see Owl or Eeyore (or any of the others) Or Christopher Robin.

Written down, like this, it doesn’t seem a very good song, but coming through pale fawn fluff at about half-past eleven on a very sunny morning, it seemed to Pooh to be one of the best songs he had ever sung.

So he went on singing it.

“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.

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.

”

“Yes,” said Christopher Robin. “Tigger’s here.”

“Well, just thank him for me,” said Eeyore.

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.”

“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?”

By the time it came to the edge of the Forest the stream had grown up, so that it was almost a river, and, being grown-up, it did not run and jump and sparkle along as it used to do when it was younger, but moved more slowly.

For it knew now where it was going, and it said to itself, “There is no hurry. We shall get there someday.”

“I’ll give you three guesses, Rabbit. Digging holes in the ground? Wrong. Leaping from branch to branch of a young oak tree? Wrong. Waiting for somebody to help me out of the river? Right.

Give Rabbit time, and he’ll always get the answer.

”

“That’s a very good idea,” said Rabbit, and Pooh looked happy again.

“Very,” said Eeyore. “When I want to be washed, Pooh, I’ll let you know.”

“Supposing we hit him by mistake?” said Piglet anxiously.

“Supposing we hit him by mistake?” said Piglet anxiously.

“Or supposing you missed him by mistake,” said Eeyore. “Think of all the possibilities, Piglet, before you settle down to enjoy yourselves.”

But Pooh had got the biggest stone he could carry, and was leaning over the bridge, holding it in his paws.

“I didn’t bounce, I coughed,” said Tigger crossly.

“Bouncy or coffy, it’s all the same at the bottom of the river.”

“Well,” said Rabbit, “all I can say is—well, here’s Christopher Robin, so he can say it.”

“Of course he is,” said Christopher Robin.

“Everybody is really,” said Pooh. “That’s what I think,” said Pooh. “But I don’t suppose I’m right,” he said.

“Of course you are,” said Christopher Robin.

“I think not today, dear. Another day.”

“You’re always seeing, and nothing ever happens,” said Roo sadly.

“Nobody could see on a day like this, Roo,” said Rabbit. “I don’t expect we shall get very far, and then this afternoon we’ll all—we’ll all—we’ll—ah, Tigger, there you are. Come on. Goodbye, Roo! This afternoon we’ll—come on, Pooh! All ready? That’s right. Come on.”

Piglet sidled up to Pooh from behind.

“Nothing,” said Piglet, taking Pooh’s paw. “I just wanted to be sure of you.”

When Tigger had finished waiting for the others to catch him up, and they hadn’t, and when he had got tired of having nobody to say, “I say, come on” to, he thought he would go home. So he trotted back;

… Roo was explaining about his Biscuit Cough and Kanga was telling them not both to talk at once, so it was some time before Christopher Robin guessed that Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit were all lost in the mist on the top of the Forest.

“It’s a funny thing about Tiggers,” whispered Tigger to Roo, “how Tiggers never get lost.”

“They just don’t,” explained Tigger. “That’s how it is.”

“No,” said Pooh. “

But there are twelve pots of honey in my cupboard, and they’ve been calling to me for hours. I couldn’t hear them properly before, because Rabbit would talk, but if nobody says anything except those twelve pots, I think, Piglet, I shall know where they’re calling from.

Come on.”

There was a long silence.

“I suppose,” said Pooh, “that that’s why he never understands anything.”

Christopher Robin was at home by this time, because it was the afternoon, and he was so glad to see them that they stayed there until very nearly teatime, and then they had a Very Nearly tea, which is one you forget about afterwards, and …

“But it isn’t Easy,” said Pooh to himself, as he looked at what had once been Owl’s House. “

Because Poetry and Hums aren’t things which you get, they’re things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.

”

“What’s the matter with his old house?” asked Eeyore.

“Nobody tells me,” said Eeyore. “Nobody keeps me Informed. I make it seventeen days come Friday since anybody spoke to me.”

“It certainly isn’t seventeen days—”

“Oh!” said Piglet. “Because I—I thought I did blinch a little. Just at first. And it says, ‘Did he blinch no no.’ That’s why.”

“You only blinched inside,” said Pooh, “and that’s the bravest way for a Very Small Animal not to blinch that there is.”

Piglet sighed with happiness, and began to think about himself. He was brave. …

And then Piglet did a Noble Thing, and he did it in a sort of dream, while he was thinking of all the wonderful words Pooh had hummed about him.

“Yes, it’s just the house for Owl,” he said grandly. “And I hope he’ll be very happy in it.” And then he gulped twice, because he had been very happy in it himself.

“What do you think, Christopher Robin?” asked Eeyore a little anxiously, feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

and Me saying, ‘Well, I shouldn’t mind a little something, should you, Piglet,’ and it being a hummy sort of day outside, and birds singing.”

“I like that too,” said Christopher Robin, “but what I like doing best is Nothing.”

“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

“How do you do Nothing?” asked Pooh, after he had wondered for a long time.

“Well, it’s when people call out at you just as you’re going off to do it, What are you going to do, Christopher Robin, and you say, Oh, nothing, and then you go and do it.”

“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.