"Isn't that fine?" shouted Winnie-the-Pooh down to you. "What do I look like?"
"You look like a Bear holding on to a balloon," you said.
"Not," said Pooh anxiously, "-not like a small black cloud in a blue sky?"
"Ah, well, perhaps from up here it looks different. And, as I say, you never can
There was no wind to blow him nearer to the tree, so there he stayed. He could see the honey, he could smell the honey, but he couldn't quite reach the honey.
"I don't know. But something tells me that they're suspicious!"
"It may be that. You never can tell with bees."
There was another little silence, and then he called down to you again.
"I wish you would bring it out here, and walk up and down with it, and look up at me every now and then, and say 'Tut-tut, it looks like rain.' I think, if you did that, it would help the deception which we are practising on these bees."
Well, you laughed to yourself, "Silly old Bear!" but you didn't say it aloud because you were so fond of him, and you went home for your umbrella.
"Oh, there you are!" called down Winnie-the-Pooh, as soon as you got back to the tree. "I was beginning to get anxious. I have discovered that the bees are now
"Yes, but wait a moment. We must be practical. The important bee to deceive is
"A pity. Well, now, if you walk up and down with your umbrella, saying,
'Tut-tut, it looks like rain,' I shall do what I can by singing a little Cloud
The bees were still buzzing as suspiciously as ever. Some of them, indeed, left their nests and flew all round the cloud as it began the second verse of this song, and one bee sat down on the nose of the cloud for a moment, and then got
"Christopher-ow!-Robin," called out the cloud.
"I have just been thinking, and I have come to a very important decision. These
"Quite the wrong sort. So I should think they would make the wrong sort of
"Yes. So I think I shall come down."
Winnie-the-Pooh hadn't thought about this. If he let go of the string, he would fall-bump-and he didn't like the idea of that. So he thought for a long time, and then he said:
"Christopher Robin, you must shoot the balloon with your gun. Have you got your
When he put it like this, you saw how it was, and you aimed very carefully at the balloon, and fired.
"You didn't exactly miss," said Pooh, "but you missed the balloon."
"I'm so sorry," you said, and you fired again, and this time you hit the balloon and the air came slowly out, and Winnie-the-Pooh floated down to the ground.
But his arms were so stiff from holding on to the string of the balloon all that time that they stayed up straight in the air for more than a week, and whenever a fly came and settled on his nose he had to blow it off. And I think-but I am
"That's the end of that one. There are others."
"I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget."
"That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the Heffalump-"
"Pooh couldn't, because he hasn't any brain. Did I catch it?"
"I do remember," he said, "only Pooh doesn't very well, so that's why he likes having it told to him again. Because then it's a real story and not just a
Christopher Robin gave a deep sigh, picked his Bear up by the leg, and walked off to the door, trailing Pooh behind him. At the door he turned and said,
"Coming to see me have my bath?" "I didn't hurt him when I shot him, did I?"
"Not a bit." He nodded and went out, and in a moment I heard
Winnie-the-Pooh-bump, bump, bump-going up the stairs behind him.
EDWARD BEAR, known to his friends as Winnie-the-Pooh, or Pooh for short, was walking through the forest one day, humming proudly to himself. He had made up a little hum that very morning, as he was doing his Stoutness Exercises in front of the glass: Tra-la-la, tra-la-la, as he stretched up as high as he could go, and then Tra-la-la, tra-la-oh, help!-la, as he tried to reach his toes. After breakfast he had said it over and over to himself until he had learnt it off by heart, and now he was humming it right through, properly. It went like this:
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Well, he was humming this hum to himself, and walking along gaily, wondering what everybody else was doing, and what it felt like, being somebody else, when suddenly he came to a sandy bank, and in the bank was a large hole.
"Aha!" said Pooh. (Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.) "If I know anything about anything, that hole means Rabbit," he said, "and Rabbit means Company," he said, "and
Company means Food and Listening-to-Me-Humming and such like.
There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the hole, and then silence.
"What I said was, 'Is anybody at home?'" called out Pooh very loudly.
"No!" said a voice; and then added, "You needn't shout so loud. I heard you
Winnie-the-Pooh took his head out of the hole, and thought for a little, and he thought to himself, "There must be somebody there, because somebody must have said 'Nobody.'" So he put his head back in the hole, and said: "Hallo, Rabbit,
"I don't think so," said Rabbit. "It isn't meant to be."
He took his head out of the hole, and had another think, and then he put it back, and said: