"It won't break," whispered Pooh comfortingly, "because you're a Small Animal, and I'll stand underneath, and if you save us all, it will be a Very Grand Thing to talk about afterwards, and perhaps I'll make up a Song, and people will say 'It was so grand what Piglet did that a Respectful Pooh Song was made about it!'"
Piglet felt much better after this, and when everything was ready, and he found himself slowly going up to the ceiling, he was so proud that he would have called out "Look at Me!" if he hadn't been afraid that Pooh and Owl would let go of their end of the string and look at him.
"Up we go!" said Pooh cheerfully.
"The ascent is proceeding as expected," said Owl helpfully. Soon it was over. Piglet opened the letter-box and climbed in. Then, having untied himself, he began to squeeze into the slit, through which in the old days when front doors were front doors, many an unexpected letter that WOL had written to himself, had come slipping.
He squeezed and he sqoze, and then with one squze he was out. Happy and excited he turned round to squeak a last message to the prisoners.
"It's all right," he called through the letter-box. "Your tree is blown right over, Owl, and there's a branch across the door, but Christopher Robin and I can move it, and we'll bring a rope for Pooh, and I'll go and tell him now, and I can climb down quite easily, I mean it's dangerous but I can do it all right, and Christopher Robin and I will be back in about half-an-hour. Good-bye, Pooh!" And without waiting to hear Pooh's answering "Good-bye, and thank you, Piglet," he was off.
"Half-an-hour," said Owl, settling himself comfortably. "That will just give me time to finish that story I was telling you about my Uncle Robert – a portrait of whom you see underneath you. Now let me see, where was I? Oh, yes. It was on just such a blusterous day as this that my Uncle Robert …"
Pooh closed his eyes.
Chapter IX.
In which eeyore finds the Woleryand Owl moves into it
POOH had wandered into the Hundred Acre Wood, and was standing in front of what had once been Owl's House. It didn't look at all like a house now; it looked like a tree which had been blown down; and as soon as a house looks like that, it is time you tried to find another one. Pooh had had a Mysterious Missage underneath his front door that morning, saying, "I AM SCERCHING FOR A NEW HOUSE FOR OWL SO HAD YOU RABBIT," and while he was wondering what it meant, Rabbit had come in and read it for him.
"I'm leaving one for all the others," said Rabbit, "and telling them what it means, and they'll all search too. I'm in a hurry, good-bye." And he had run off.
Pooh followed slowly. He had something better to do than to find a new house for Owl; he had to make up a Pooh song about the old one. Because he had promised Piglet days and days ago that he would, and whenever he and Piglet had met since, Piglet didn't actually say anything, but you knew at once why he didn't; and if anybody mentioned Hums or Trees or String or Storms-in-the-Night, Piglet's nose went all pink at the tip, and he talked about something quite different in a hurried sort of way.
"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."
He waited hopefully...
"Well," said Pooh after a long wait, "I shall begin 'Here lies a tree' because it does, and then I'll see what happens."
This is what happened:
Here lies a tree which Owl (a bird)
Was fond of when it stood on end,
And Owl was talking to a friend
Called Me (in case you hadn't heard)
When something Oo occurred
For lo! the wind was blusterous
And flattened out his favourite tree;
And things looked bad for him and we-
Looked bad, I mean, for he and us-
I've never known them wuss
Then Piglet (PIGLET) thought a thing
"Courage!" he said "There's always hope
I want a thinnish piece of rope
Or, if there isn't any, bring
A thickish piece of string"
So to the letter-box he rose,
While Pooh and Owl said "Oh!" and "Hum!"
And where the letters always come
(Called "LETTERS ONLY") Piglet sqoze
His head and then his toes,
O gallant Piglet (PIGLET)! Ho!
Did Piglet tremble? Did he blinch?
No, no, he struggled inch by inch
Through LETTERS ONLY, as I know
Because I saw him go.
He ran and ran, and then he stood
And shouted, "Help for Owl, a bird,
And Pooh, a bear!" until he heard
The others coming through the wood
As quickly as they could
"Help-help and Rescue!" Piglet cried,
And showed the others where to go
[Sing ho! for Piglet (PIGLET) ho!]
And soon the door was opened wide,
And we were both outside!
Sing ho! for Piglet, ho!
Ho!
"So there it is," said Pooh, when he had sung this to himself three times. "It's come different from what I thought it would, but it's come. Now I must go and sing it to Piglet."
"What's the matter with his old house?"
Rabbit explained.
"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 …"
"Come Friday," explained Eeyore.
"And to-day's Saturday," said Rabbit. "So that would make it eleven days. And I was here myself a week ago."
"Not conversing," said Eeyore. "Not first one and then the other. You said 'Hallo' and Flashed Past. I saw your tail a hundred yards up the hill as I was meditating my reply. I had thought of saying 'What?'-but, of course, it was then too late."
"Well, I was in a hurry."
"No Give and Take," Eeyore went on. "No Exchange of Thought. 'Hallo-What'– I mean, it gets you nowhere, particularly if the other person's tail is only just in sight for the second half of the conversation."
"It's your fault, Eeyore. You've never been to see any of us. You just stay here in this one corner of the Forest waiting for the others to come to you. Why don't you go to them sometimes?"
Eeyore was silent for a little while, thinking.
"There may be something in what you say, Rabbit," he said at last. "I have been neglecting you. I must move about more. I must come and go."
"That's right, Eeyore. Drop in on any of us at any time, when you feel like it."
"Thank-you, Rabbit. And if anybody says in a Loud Voice 'Bother, it's Eeyore,' I can drop out again."
Rabbit stood on one leg for a moment.
"Well," he said, "I must be going. I am rather busy this morning."
"Good– bye," said Eeyore.
"What? Oh, good-bye. And if you happen to come across a good house for Owl, you must let us know."
"I will give my mind to it," said Eeyore.
Rabbit went.
Pooh had found Piglet, and they were walking back to the Hundred Acre Wood together.
"Piglet," said Pooh a little shyly, after they had walked for some time without saying anything.
"Yes, Pooh?"
"Do you remember when I said that a Respectful Pooh Song might be written about You Know What?"
"Did you, Pooh?" said Piglet, getting a little pink round the nose. "Oh, yes, I believe you did."
"It's been written, Piglet."
The pink went slowly up Piglet's nose to his ears, and settled there.
"Has it, Pooh?" he asked huskily. "About… about… That Time When?– Do you mean really written?"
"Yes, Piglet."
The tips of Piglet's ears glowed suddenly, and he tried to say something; but even after he had husked once or twice, nothing came out. So Pooh went on:
"There are seven verses in it."
"Seven?" said Piglet as carelessly as he could. "You don't often get seven verses in a Hum, do you, Pooh?"
"Never," said Pooh. "I don't suppose it's ever been heard of before."
"Do the Others know yet?" asked Piglet, stopping – for a moment to pick up a stick and throw it away.
"No," said Pooh. "And I wondered which you would like best: for me to hum it now, or to wait till we find the others, and then hum it to all of you?" Piglet thought for a little.
"I think what I'd like best, Pooh, is I'd like you to hum it to me now-and-and then to hum it to all of us. Because then Everybody would hear it, but I could say 'Oh, yes, Pooh's told me,' and pretend not to be listening."
So Pooh hummed it to him, all the seven verses, and Piglet said nothing, but just stood and glowed. For never before had anyone sung ho for Piglet (PIGLET) ho all by himself. When it was over, he wanted to ask for one of the verses over again, but didn't quite like to. It was the verse beginning "O gallant Piglet," and it seemed to him a very thoughtful way of beginning a piece of poetry.
"Did I really do all that?" he said at last.
"Well," said Pooh, "in poetry-in a piece of poetry-well, you did it, Piglet, because the poetry says you did. And that's how people know."
"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...
When they got to Owl's old house, they found everybody else there except Eeyore. Christopher Robin was telling them what to do, and Rabbit was telling them again directly afterwards, in case they hadn't heard, and then they were all doing it. They had got a rope and were pulling Owl's chairs and pictures and things out of his old house so as to be ready to put them into his new one. Kanga was down below tying the things on, and calling out to Owl, "You won't want this dirty old dishcloth any more, will you, and what about this carpet, it's all in holes," and Owl was calling back indignantly, "Of course I do! It's just a question of arranging the furniture properly, and it isn't a dish-cloth, it's my shawl." Every now and then Roo fell in and came back on the rope with the next article, which flustered Kanga a little because she never knew where to look for him. So she got cross with Owl and said that his house was a Disgrace, all damp and dirty, and it was quite time it did tumble down. Look at that horrid bunch of toadstools growing out of the corner there! So Owl looked down, a little surprised because he didn't know about this, and then gave a short sarcastic laugh, and explained that that was his sponge, and that if people didn't know a perfectly ordinary bath-sponge when they saw it, things were coming to a pretty pass. "Well!" said Kanga, and Roo fell in quickly, crying, "I must see Owl's sponge! Oh, there it is! Oh, Owl! Owl, it isn't a sponge, it's a spudge! Do you know what a spudge is, Owl? It's when your sponge gets all-" and Kanga said, "Roo, dear!" very quickly, because that's not the way to talk to anybody who can spell TUESDAY.
But they were all quite happy when Pooh and Piglet came along, and they stopped working in order to have a little rest and listen to Pooh's new song. So then they all told Pooh how good it was, and Piglet said carelessly, It is good, isn't it? I mean as a song."
"And what about the new house?" asked Pooh. "Have you found it, Owl?"
"He's found a name for it," said Christopher Robin, lazily nibbling at a piece of grass, "so now all he wants is the house."
"I am calling it this," said Owl importantly, and he showed them what he had been making. It was a square piece of board with the name of the house painted on it:
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.