Some hours later, just as the night was beginning to steal away, Pooh woke up suddenly with a sinking feeling. He had had that sinking feeling before, and he knew what it meant. He was hungry. So he went to the larder, and he stood on a
"That's funny," he thought. "I know I had a jar of honey there. A full jar, full of honey right up to the top, and it had HUNNY written on it, so that I should know it was honey. That's very funny." And then he began to wander up and down, wondering where it was and murmuring a murmur to himself. Like this:
It's very, very funny,
'Cos I know I had some honey:
'Cos it had a label on,
Saying HUNNY,
A goloptious full-up pot too,
And I don't know where it's got to,
No, I don't know where it's gone
Well, it's funny.
He had murmured this to himself three times in a singing sort of way, when suddenly he remembered. He had put it into the Cunning Trap to catch the
But he couldn't sleep. The more he tried to sleep, the more he couldn't. He tried Counting Sheep, which is sometimes a good way of getting to sleep, and, as that was no good, he tried counting Heffalumps. And that was worse. Because every Heffalump that he counted was making straight for a pot of Pooh's honey, and eating it all. For some minutes he lay there miserably, but when the five hundred and eighty-seventh Heffalump was licking its jaws, and saying to itself,
"Very good honey this, I don't know when I've tasted better," Pooh could bear it no longer. He jumped out of bed, he ran out of the house, and he ran straight to
The Sun was still in bed, but there was a lightness in the sky over the Hundred
Acre Wood which seemed to show that it was waking up and would soon be kicking off the clothes. In the half-light the Pine Trees looked cold and lonely, and the Very Deep Pit seemed deeper than it was, and Pooh's jar of honey at the bottom was something mysterious, a shape and no more. But as he got nearer lo it his nose told him that it was indeed honey, and his tongue came out and began to
If it was Fond of Pigs, did it make any difference what sort of Pig?
Supposing it was Fierce with Pigs, would it make any difference if the Pig had a
He didn't know the answer to any of these questions... and he was going to
Wouldn't it be better to pretend that he had a headache, and couldn't go up to the Six Pine Trees this morning? But then suppose that it was a very fine day, and there was no Heffalump in the trap, here he would be, in bed all the morning, simply wasting his time for nothing. What should he do?
And then he had a Clever Idea. He would go up very quietly to the Six Pine Trees now, peep very cautiously into the Trap, and see if there was a Heffalump there.
And if there was, he would go back to bed, and if there wasn't, he wouldn't.
So off he went. At first he thought that there wouldn't be a Heffalump in the
Trap, and then he thought that there would, and as he got nearer he was sure that there would, because he could hear it heffalumping about it like anything.
"Oh, dear, oh, dear, oh, dear!" said Piglet to himself. And he wanted to run away. But somehow, having got so near, he felt that he must just see what a
Heffalump was like. So he crept to the side of the Trap and looked in.
And all the time Winnie-the-Pooh had been trying to get the honey-jar off his head. The more he shook it, the more tightly it stuck. "Bother!" he said, inside the jar, and "Oh, help!" and, mostly, "Ow!" And he tried bumping it against things, but as he couldn't see what he was bumping it against, it didn't help him; and he tried to climb out of the Trap, but as he could see nothing but jar, and not much of that, he couldn't find his way. So at last he lifted up his head, jar and all, and made a loud, roaring noise of Sadness and Despair...
"Whatever's the matter, Piglet?" said Christopher Robin, who was just getting
"Heff," said Piglet, breathing so hard that he could hardly speak, "a Heff-a
"Up there," said Piglet, waving his paw.
"Like-like- It had the biggest head you ever saw, Christopher Robin. A great enormous thing, like-like nothing. A huge big-well, like a-I don't know-like an enormous big nothing. Like a jar."
"Well," said Christopher Robin, putting on his shoes, "I shall go and look at it. Come on."
Piglet wasn't afraid if he had Christopher Robin with him, so off they went...
"I can hear it, can't you?" said Piglet anxiously, as they got near.
"I can hear something," said Christopher Robin.
It was Pooh bumping his head against a tree-root he had found.
"There!" said Piglet. "Isn't it awful?" And he held on tight to Christopher
Then Piglet saw what a Foolish Piglet he had been, and he was so ashamed of himself that he ran straight off home and went to bed with a headache. But
"So do I," said Pooh.
EEYORE, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at
"Pathetic," he said. s' That's what it is. Pathetic."
He turned and walked slowly down the stream for twenty yards, splashed across it, and walked slowly back on the other side. Then he looked at himself in the
"Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can't all, and some of us don't. That's all
"Can't all what?" said Pooh, rubbing his nose.
"Gaiety. Song-and-dance. Here we go round the mulberry bush."
"Oh!" said Pooh. He thought for a long time, and then asked, "What mulberry bush
"Bon-hommy," went on Eeyore gloomily. "French word meaning bonhommy," he explained. "I'm not complaining, but There It Is."
Pooh sat down on a large stone, and tried to think this out. It sounded to him like a riddle, and he was never much good at riddles, being a Bear of Very
Little Brain. So he sang Cottleston Pie instead:
Cottleslon, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.
A fly can't bird, but a bird can fly.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
"Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie."
That was the first verse. When he had finished it, Eeyore didn't actually say that he didn't like it, so Pooh very kindly sang the second verse to him:
Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
"You seem so sad, Eeyore."
"Sad? Why should I be sad? It's my birthday. The happiest day of the year."