"I just found it," he said. "I thought it ought to be useful. I just picked it
"Pooh," said Christopher Robin solemnly, "the Expedition is over. You have found
Eeyore was sitting with his tail in the water when they all got back to him.
"Tell Roo to be quick, somebody," he said. "My tail's getting cold. I don't want to mention it, but I just mention it. I don't want to complain, but there it is.
Eeyore took his tail out of the water, and swished it from side to side.
"As I expected," he said. "Lost all feeling. Numbed it. That's what it's done.
Numbed it. Well, as long as nobody minds, I suppose it's all right."
"Poor old Eeyore! I'll dry it for you," said Christopher Robin, and he took out
"Thank you, Christopher Robin. You're the only one who seems to understand about tails. They don't think-that's what's the matter with some of these others.
They've no imagination. A tail isn't a tail to them, it's just a Little Bit
"It's feeling more like a tail perhaps. It Belongs again, if you know what I
"Hullo, Eeyore," said Pooh, coming up to them with his pole.
"Hullo, Pooh. Thank you for asking, but I shall be able to use it again in a day
"I wasn't talking about anything," said Pooh, looking puzzled.
"My mistake again. I thought you were saying how sorry you were about my tail,
"No," said Pooh. "That wasn't me," he said. He thought for a little and then
"Pooh's found the North Pole," said Christopher Robin. "Isn't that lovely?"
"Yes," said Pooh.
"Oh!" said Eeyore. "Well, anyhow-it didn't rain," he said.
They stuck the pole in the ground, and Christopher Robin tied a message on to it:
Then they all went home again. And I think, but I am not quite sure, that Roo had a hot bath and went straight to bed. But Pooh went back to his own house, and feeling very proud of what he had done, had a little something to revive
IT rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never in all his life, and he was goodness knows how old-three, was it, or four?-never had he seen so much rain. Days and days and days.
"If only," he thought, as he looked out of the window, "I had been in Pooh's house, or Christopher Robin's house, or Rabbit's house when it began to rain, then I should have had Company all this time, instead of being here all alone, with nothing to do except wonder when it will stop." And he imagined himself with Pooh, saying, "Did you ever see such rain, Pooh?" and Pooh saying, "Isn't it awful, Piglet?" and Piglet saying, "I wonder how it is over Christopher
Robin's way," and Pooh saying, "I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by this time." It would have been jolly to talk like this, and really, it wasn't much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn't share
"It's a little Anxious," he said to himself, "to be a Very Small Animal Entirely
Surrounded by Water. Christopher Robin and Pooh could escape by Climbing Trees, and Kanga could escape by Jumping, and Rabbit could escape by Burrowing, and Owl could escape by Flying, and Eeyore could escape by-by Making a Loud Noise Until
Rescued, and here am I, surrounded by water and I can't do anything."
It went on raining, and every day the water got a little higher, until now it was nearly up to Piglet's window... and still he hadn't done anything.
"There's Pooh," he thought to himself. "Pooh hasn't much Brain, but he never comes to any harm. He does silly things and they turn out right. There's Owl.
Owl hasn't exactly got Brain, but he Knows Things. He would know the Right Thing to Do when Surrounded by Water. There's Rabbit. He hasn't Learnt in Books, but he can always Think of a Clever Plan. There's Kanga. She isn't Clever, Kanga isn't, but she would be so anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to
Do without thinking about it. And then there's Eeyore And Eeyore is so miserable anyhow that he wouldn't mind about this. But I wonder what Christopher Robin
He left the window and began to search his house, all of it that wasn't under water, and at last he found a pencil and a small piece of dry paper, and a bottle with a cork to it. And he wrote on one side of the paper:
Then he put the paper in the bottle, and he corked the bottle up as tightly as he could, and he leant out of his window as far as he could lean without falling in, and he threw the bottle as far as he could throw -splash!-and in a little while it bobbed up again on the water; and he watched it floating slowly away in the distance, until his eyes ached with looking, and sometimes he thought it was the bottle, and sometimes he thought it was just a ripple on the water which he was following, and then suddenly he knew that he would never see it again and
"There's a South Pole," said Christopher Robin, "and I expect there's an East
Pole and a West Pole, though people don't like talking about them." Pooh was very excited when he heard this, and suggested that they should have an
Expotition to discover the East Pole, but Christopher Robin had thought of something else to do with Kanga; so Pooh went out to discover the East Pole by himself. Whether he discovered it or not, I forget; but he was so tired when he got home that, in the very middle of his supper, after he had been eating for little more than half-an-hour, he fell fast asleep in his chair, and slept and
"This is Serious," said Pooh. "I must have an Escape."
So he took his largest pot of honey and escaped with it to a broad branch of his tree, well above the water, and then he climbed down again and escaped with another pot... and when the whole Escape was finished, there was Pooh sitting on his branch dangling his legs, and there, beside him, were ten pots of
Three days later, there was Pooh, sitting on his branch, dangling his legs, and there beside him, was one pot of honey.
And it was on the morning of the fourth day that Piglet's bottle came floating past him, and with one loud cry of "Honey!" Pooh plunged into the water, seized the bottle, and struggled back to his tree again.
"Bother!" said Pooh, as he opened it. "All that wet for nothing. What's that bit