HERE is Edward Bear, coming downstairs now, bump, bump, bump, on the back of his head, behind Christopher Robin. It is, as far as he knows, the only way of coming downstairs, but sometimes he feels that there really is another way, if only he could stop bumping for a moment and think of it.
And then he feels that perhaps there isn't. Anyhow, here he is at the bottom, and ready to be introduced to you. Winnie-the-Pooh.
When I first heard his name, I said, just as you are going to say, "But I
"So did I," said Christopher Robin.
"Ah, yes, now I do," I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it is all
Sometimes Winnie-the-Pooh likes a game of some sort when he comes downstairs, and sometimes he likes to sit quietly in front of the fire and listen to a
"I suppose I could," I said. "What sort of stories does he like?"
"About himself. Because he's that sort of Bear."
"I'll try," I said.
Once upon a time, a very long time ago now, about last Friday, Winnie-the-Pooh
("What does 'under the name' mean?" asked Christopher Robin. "It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it."
"Winnie-the-Pooh wasn't quite sure," said Christopher Robin.
"Then I will go on," said I.)
One day when he was out walking, he came to an open place in the middle of the forest, and in the middle of this place was a large oak-tree, and, from the top of the tree, there came a loud buzzing-noise.
Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between his paws
Then he thought another long time, and said: "And the only reason for being a
And then he got up, and said: "And the only reason for making honey is so as I
He climbed and he climbed and he climbed and as he climbed he sang a little song to himself. It went like this:
Then he climbed a little further... and a little further... and then just a little further. By that time he had thought of another song.
It's a very funny thought that, if Bears were Bees,
He was getting rather tired by this time, so that is why he sang a Complaining
Song. He was nearly there now, and if he just s t o o d o n t h a t branch...
"Oh, help!" said Pooh, as he dropped ten feet on the branch below him.
"If only I hadn't-" he said, as he bounced twenty feet on to the next branch.
"You see, what I meant to do," he explained, as he turned head-over-heels, and crashed on to another branch thirty feet below, "what I meant to do-"
"Of course, it was rather-" he admitted, as he slithered very quickly through
"It all comes, I suppose," he decided, as he said good-bye to the last branch, spun round three times, and flew gracefully into a gorse-bush, "it all comes of liking honey so much. Oh, help!"
He crawled out of the gorse-bush, brushed the prickles from his nose, and began to think again. And the first person he thought of was Christopher Robin.
("Was that me?" said Christopher Robin in an awed voice, hardly daring to
Christopher Robin said nothing, but his eyes got larger and larger, and his face
So Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher Robin, who lived behind
"Good morning, Christopher Robin," he said.
"Good morning, Winnie-ther-Pooh," said you.
"I wonder if you've got such a thing as a balloon about you?"
"Yes, I just said to myself coming along: 'I wonder if Christopher Robin has such a thing as a balloon about him?' I just said it to myself, thinking of balloons, and wondering."
Winnie-the-Pooh looked round to see that nobody was listening, put his paw to
"I do," said Pooh.
Well, it just happened that you had been to a party the day before at the house of your friend Piglet, and you had balloons at the party. You had had a big green balloon; and one of Rabbit's relations had had a big blue one, and had left it behind, being really too young to go to a party at all; and so you had
"It's like this," he said. "When you go after honey with a balloon, the great thing is not to let the bees know you're coming. Now, if you have a green balloon, they might think you were only part of the tree, and not notice you, and if you have a blue balloon, they might think you were only part of the sky, and not notice you, and the question is: Which is most likely?"
"Wouldn't they notice you underneath the balloon?" you asked.
"They might or they might not," said Winnie-the-Pooh. "You never can tell with bees." He thought for a moment and said: "I shall try to look like a small black cloud. That will deceive them."
"Then you had better have the blue balloon," you said; and so it was decided.
Well, you both went out with the blue balloon, and you took your gun with you, just in case, as you always did, and Winnie-the-Pooh went to a very muddy place that he knew of, and rolled and rolled until he was black all over; and then, when the balloon was blown up as big as big, and you and Pooh were both holding on to the string, you let go suddenly, and Pooh Bear floated gracefully up into the sky, and stayed there-level with the top of the tree and about twenty feet