-the-

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 thought he was a boy?�

�So did I,� said Christopher Robin.

�Then you can�t call him Winnie?�

�I don�t.�

�But you said��

�He�s Winnie-ther-Pooh. Don�t you know what �ther� means?�

�Ah, yes, now I do,� I said quickly; and I hope you do too, because it is all the explanation you are going to get.

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 story. This evening�

�What about a story?� said Christopher Robin.

�What about a story?� I said.

�Could you very sweetly tell Winnie-the-Pooh one?�

�I suppose I could,� I said. �What sort of stories does he like?�

�About himself. Because he�s that sort of Bear.�

�Oh, I see.�

�So could you very sweetly?�

�I�ll try,� I said. So I tried.

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,

The Piglet lived in a very grand house in the middle of a beech-tree, and the beech-tree was in the middle of the Forest, and the Piglet lived in the middle of the house. Next to his house was a piece of broken board which had: �TRESPASSERS W� on it. When Christopher Robin asked the Piglet what it meant, he said it was his grandfather�s name, and had been in the family for a long time. Christopher Robin said you couldn�t be called Trespassers W, and Piglet said yes, you could, because his grandfather was, and it was short for Trespassers Will, which was short for Trespassers William. And his grandfather had had two names in case he lost one � Trespassers after an uncle, and William after Trespassers.

�I�ve got two names,� said Christopher Robin carelessly.

�Well, there you are, that proves it,� said Piglet.

One fine winter�s day when Piglet was brushing away the snow in front of his house, he happened to look up, and there was Winnie-the-Pooh. Pooh was walking round and round in a circle, thinking of something else, and when Piglet called to him, he just went on walking.

�Hallo!� said Piglet, �what are you doing?�

�Hunting,� said Pooh.

�Hunting what?�

�Tracking something,� said Winnie-the-Pooh very mysteriously.

�Tracking what?� said Piglet, coming closer.

�That�s just what I ask myself. I ask myself, What?�

�What do you think you�ll answer?�

�I shall have to wait until I catch up with it,� said Winnie-the-Pooh. �Now, look there.� He pointed to the ground in front of him. �What do you see there?�

�Tracks,� said Piglet. �Paw-marks.� He gave a little squeak of excitement. �Oh, Pooh! Do you think it�s a � a � a Woozle?�

�It may be,� said Pooh. �Sometimes it is, and sometimes it isn�t. You never can tell with paw-marks.�

With these few words he went on tracking, and Piglet, after watching him for a minute or two, ran after him. Winnie-the-Pooh had come to a sudden stop, and was bending over the tracks in a puzzled sort of way.

�What�s the matter?� asked Piglet.

�It�s a very funny thing,� said Bear, �but there seem to be two animals now. This � whatever-it-is � has been joined by another � whatever-it-is � and the two of them are now proceeding in company. Would you mind coming with me, Piglet, in case they turn out to be Hostile Animals?�

Piglet scratched his ear in a nice sort of way, and said that he had nothing to do until Friday, and would be delighted to come, in case it really was a Woozle.

�You mean, in case it really is two Woozles,� said Winnie-the-Pooh, and Piglet said that anyhow he had nothing to do until Friday. So off they went together.

There was a small spinney of larch-trees just here, and it seemed as if the two Woozles, if that is what they were, had been going round this spinney; so round this spinney went Pooh and Piglet after them; Piglet passing the time by telling Pooh what his grandfather Trespassers W had done to Remove Stiffness after Tracking, and how his grandfather Trespassers W had suffered in his later years from Shortness of Breath, and other matters of interest, and Pooh wondering what a grandfather was like, and if perhaps this was Two Grandfathers they were after now, and, if so, whether he would be allowed to take one home and keep it, and what Christopher Robin would say. And still the tracks went on in front of them. �

Suddenly Winnie-the-Pooh stopped, and pointed excitedly in front of him. �Look!�

�What?� said Piglet, with a jump. And then, to show that he hadn�t been frightened, he jumped up and down once or twice more in an exercising sort of way.

�The tracks!� said Pooh. �A third animal has joined the other two!�

�Pooh!� cried Piglet. �Do you think it is another Woozle?�

�No,� said Pooh, �because it makes different marks. It is either Two Woozles and one, as it might be, Wizzle, or Two, as it might be, Wizzles and one, if so it is, Woozle. Let us continue to follow them.�

So they went on, feeling just a little anxious now, in case the three animals in front of them were of Hostile Intent. And Piglet wished very much that his grandfather T. W. were there, instead of elsewhere, and Pooh thought how nice it would be if they met Christopher Robin suddenly but quite accidentally, and only because he liked Christopher Robin so much. And then, all of a sudden, Winnie-the-Pooh stopped again, and licked the tip of his nose in a cooling manner, for he was feeling more hot and anxious than ever in his life before. There were four animals in front of them!

�Do you see, Piglet? Look at their tracks! Three, as it were, Woozles, and one, as it was, Wizzle. Another Woozle has joined them!�

And so it seemed to be. There were the tracks; crossing over each other here, getting muddled up with each other there; but, quite plainly every now and then, the tracks of four sets of paws.

�I think,� said Piglet, when he had licked the tip of his nose too, and found that it brought very little comfort, �I think that I have just remembered something. I have just remembered something that I forgot to do yesterday and shan�t be able to do to-morrow. So I suppose I really ought to go back and do it now.�

�We�ll do it this afternoon, and I�ll come with you,� said Pooh.

�It isn�t the sort of thing you can do in the afternoon,� said Piglet quickly. �It�s a very particular morning thing, that has to be done in the morning, and, if possible, between the hours of � What would you say the time was?�

�About twelve,� said Winnie-the-Pooh, looking at the sun.

�Between, as I was saying, the hours of twelve and twelve five. So, really, dear old Pooh, if you�ll excuse me � What�s that?�

Pooh looked up at the sky, and then, as he heard the whistle again, he looked up into the branches of a big oak-tree, and then he saw a friend of his.

�It�s Christopher Robin,� he said.

�Ah, then you�ll be all right,� said Piglet. �You�ll be quite safe with him. Good-bye,� and he trotted off home as quickly as he could, very glad to be Out of All Danger again.

The Old Grey Donkey, Eeyore, stood by himself in a thistly corner of the Forest, his front feet well apart, his head on one side, and thought about things.

Sometimes he thought sadly to himself, �Why?� and sometimes he thought, �Wherefore?� and sometimes he thought, �Inasmuch as which?� � and sometimes he didn�t quite know what he was thinking about. So when Winnie-the-Pooh came stumping along, Eeyore was very glad to be able to stop thinking for a little, in order to say �How do you do?� in a gloomy manner to him.

�And how are you?� said Winnie-the-Pooh.

Eeyore shook his head from side to side.

�Not very how,� he said. �I don�t seem to have felt at all how for a long time.�

�Dear, dear,� said Pooh, �I�m sorry about that. Let�s have a look at you.�

So Eeyore stood there, gazing sadly at the ground, and Winnie-the-Pooh walked all round him once.

�Why, what�s happened to your tail?� he said in surprise.

�What has happened to it?� said Eeyore.

�It isn�t there!�

�Are you sure?�

�Well, either a tail is there or it isn�t there. You can�t make a mistake about it, and yours isn�t there!�

�Then what is?�

�Nothing.�

�Let�s have a look,� said Eeyore, and he turned slowly round to the place where his tail had been a little while ago, and then, finding that he couldn�t catch it up, he turned round the other way, until he came back to where he was at first, and then he put his head down and looked between his front legs, and at last he said, with a long, sad sigh, �I believe you�re right.�

�Of course I�m right,� said Pooh.

�That Accounts for a Good Deal,� said Eeyore gloomily. �It Explains Everything. No Wonder.�

�You must have left it somewhere,� said Winnie-the-Pooh.

�Somebody must have taken it,� said Eeyore. �How Like Them,� he added, after a long silence.

Pooh felt that he ought to say something helpful about it, but didn�t quite know what. So he decided to do something helpful instead.

�Eeyore,� he said solemnly, �I, Winnie-the-Pooh, will find your tail for you.�

�Thank you, Pooh,� answered Eeyore. �You�re a real friend,� said he. �Not Like Some,� he said.

So Winnie-the-Pooh went off to find Eeyore�s tail.

It was a fine spring morning in the Forest as he started out. Little soft clouds played happily in a blue sky, skipping from time to time in front of the sun as if they had come to put it out, and then sliding away suddenly so that the next might have his turn. Through them and between them the sun shone bravely; and a copse which had worn its firs all the year round seemed old and dowdy now beside the new green lace which the beeches had put on so prettily. Through copse and spinney marched Bear; down open slopes of gorse and heather, over rocky beds of streams, up steep banks of sandstone into the heather again; and so at last, tired and hungry, to the Hundred Acre Wood. For it was in the Hundred Acre Wood that Owl lived.

�And if anyone knows anything about anything,� said Bear to himself, �it�s Owl who knows something about something,� he said, �or my name�s not Winnie-the-Pooh,� he said. �Which it is,� he added. �So there you are.�

Owl lived at The Chestnuts, an old-world residence of great charm, which was grander than anybody else�s, or seemed so to Bear, because it had both a knocker and a bell-pull. Underneath the knocker there was a notice which said:

One day, when Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh and Piglet were all talking together, Christopher Robin finished the mouthful he was eating and said carelessly: �I saw a Heffalump to-day, Piglet.�

�What was it doing?� asked Piglet.

�Just lumping along,� said Christopher Robin. �I don�t think it saw me.�

�I saw one once,� said Piglet. �At least, I think I did,� he said. �Only perhaps it wasn�t.�

�So did I,� said Pooh, wondering what a Heffalump was like.

�You don�t often see them,� said Christopher Robin carelessly.

�Not now,� said Piglet.

�Not at this time of year,� said Pooh.

Then they all talked about something else, until it was time for Pooh and Piglet to go home together. At first as they stumped along the path which edged the Hundred Acre Wood, they didn�t say much to each other; but when they came to the stream, and had helped each other across the stepping stones, and were able to walk side by side again over the heather, they began to talk in a friendly way about this and that, and Piglet said, �If you see what I mean, Pooh,� and Pooh said, �It�s just what I think myself, Piglet,� and Piglet said, �But, on the other hand, Pooh, we must remember,� and Pooh said, �Quite true, Piglet, although I had forgotten it for the moment.� And then, just as they came to the Six Pine Trees, Pooh looked round to see that nobody else was listening, and said in a very solemn voice:

�Piglet, I have decided something.�

�What have you decided, Pooh?�

�I have decided to catch a Heffalump.�

Pooh nodded his head several times as he said this, and waited for Piglet to say �How?� or �Pooh, you couldn�t!� or something helpful of that sort, but Piglet said nothing. The fact was Piglet was wishing that he had thought about it first.

�I shall do it,� said Pooh, after waiting a little longer, �by means of a trap. And it must be a Cunning Trap, so you will have to help me, Piglet.�

�Pooh,� said Piglet, feeling quite happy again now, �I will.� And then he said, �How shall we do it?� and Pooh said, �That�s just it. How?� And then they sat down together to think it out.

Pooh�s first idea was that they should dig a Very Deep Pit, and then the Heffalump would come along and fall into the Pit, and�

�Why?� said Piglet.

�Why what?� said Pooh.

�Why would he fall in?�

Pooh rubbed his nose with his paw, and said that the Heffalump might be walking along, humming a little song, and looking up at the sky, wondering if it would rain, and so he wouldn�t see the Very Deep Pit until he was half-way down, when it would be too late.

Piglet said that this was a very good Trap, but supposing it were raining already?

Pooh rubbed his nose again, and said that he hadn�t thought of that. And then he brightened up, and said that, if it were raining already, the Heffalump would be looking at the sky wondering if it would clear up, and so he wouldn�t see the Very Deep Pit until he was half-way down. � When it would be too late.

Piglet said that, now that this point had been explained, he thought it was a Cunning Trap.

Pooh was very proud when he heard this, and he felt that the Heffalump was as good as caught already, but there was just one other thing which had to be thought about, and it was this. Where should they dig the Very Deep Pit?

Piglet said that the best place would be somewhere where a Heffalump was, just before he fell into it, only about a foot further on.

�But then he would see us digging it,� said Pooh.

�Not if he was looking at the sky.�

�He would Suspect,� said Pooh, �if he happened to look down.� He thought for a long time and then added sadly, �It isn�t as easy as I thought. I suppose that�s why Heffalumps hardly ever get caught.�

�That must be it,� said Piglet.

They sighed and got up; and when they had taken a few gorse prickles out of themselves they sat down again; and all the time Pooh was saying to himself, �If only I could think of something!� For he felt sure that a Very Clever Brain could catch a Heffalump if only he knew the right way to go about it.

�Suppose,� he said to Piglet, �you wanted to catch me, how would you do it?�

�Well,� said Piglet, �I should do it like this. I should make a Trap, and I should put a Jar of Honey in the Trap, and you would smell it, and you would go in after it, and��

�And I would go in after it,� said Pooh excitedly, �only very carefully so as not to hurt myself, and I would get to the Jar of Honey, and I should lick round the edges first of all, pretending that there wasn�t any more, you know, and then I should walk away and think about it a little, and then I should come back and start licking in the middle of the jar, and then��

�Yes, well never mind about that. There you would be, and there I should catch you. Now the first thing to think of is, What do Heffalumps like? I should think acorns, shouldn�t you? We�ll get a lot of � I say, wake up, Pooh!�

Pooh, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a start, and said that Honey was a much more trappy thing than Haycorns. Piglet didn�t think so; and they were just going to argue about it, when Piglet remembered that, if they put acorns in the Trap, he would have to find the acorns, but if they put honey, then Pooh would have to give up some of his own honey, so he said, �All right, honey then,� just as Pooh remembered it too, and was going to say, �All right, haycorns.�

�Honey,� said Piglet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now settled. �I�ll dig the pit, while you go and get the honey.�

�Very well,� said Pooh, and he stumped off.

As soon as he got home, he went to the larder; and he stood on a chair, and took down a very large jar of honey from the top shelf. It had HUNNY written on it, but, just to make sure, he took off the paper cover and looked at it, and it looked just like honey. �But you never can tell,� said Pooh. �I remember my uncle saying once that he had seen cheese just this colour.� So he put his tongue in, and took a large lick. �Yes,� he said, �it is. No doubt about that. And honey, I should say, right down to the bottom of the jar. Unless, of course,� he said, �somebody put cheese in at the bottom just for a joke. Perhaps I had better go a little further � just in case � in case Heffalumps don�t like cheese � same as me � Ah!� And he gave a deep sigh. �I was right. It is honey, right the way down.�

Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to Piglet, and Piglet looked up from the bottom of his Very Deep Pit, and said, �Got it?� and Pooh said, �Yes, but it isn�t quite a full jar,� and he threw it down to Piglet, and Piglet said, �No, it isn�t! Is that all you�ve got left?� and Pooh said, �Yes.� Because it was. So Piglet put the jar at the bottom of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home together.

�Well, good night, Pooh,� said Piglet, when they had got to Pooh�s house. �And we meet at six o�clock to-morrow morning by the Pine Trees, and see how many Heffalumps we�ve got in our Trap.�

�Six o�clock, Piglet. And have you got any string?�

�No. Why do you want string?�

�To lead them home with.�

�Oh! � I think Heffalumps come if you whistle.�

�Some do and some don�t. You never can tell with Heffalumps. Well, good night!�

�Good night!�

And off Piglet trotted to his house TRESPASSERS W, while Pooh made his preparations for bed.

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 chair and reached up to the top shelf, and found � nothing.

�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:

Eeyore, the old grey Donkey, stood by the side of the stream, and looked at himself in the water.

�Pathetic,� he said. �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 water again.

�As I thought,� he said. �No better from this side. But nobody minds. Nobody cares. Pathetic, that�s what it is.�

There was a crackling noise in the bracken behind him, and out came Pooh.

�Good morning, Eeyore,� said Pooh.

�Good morning, Pooh Bear,� said Eeyore gloomily. �If it is a good morning,� he said. �Which I doubt,� said he.

�Why, what�s the matter?�

�Nothing, Pooh Bear, nothing. We can�t all, and some of us don�t. That�s all there is to it.�

�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 is that?�

�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:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,

Nobody seemed to know where they came from, but there they were in the Forest: Kanga and Baby Roo. When Pooh asked Christopher Robin, �How did they come here?� Christopher Robin said, �In the Usual Way, if you know what I mean, Pooh,� and Pooh, who didn�t, said �Oh!� Then he nodded his head twice and said, �In the Usual Way. Ah!� Then he went to call upon his friend Piglet to see what he thought about it. And at Piglet�s house he found Rabbit. So they all talked about it together.

�What I don�t like about it is this,� said Rabbit. �Here are we � you, Pooh, and you, Piglet, and Me � and suddenly��

�And Eeyore,� said Pooh.

�And Eeyore � and then suddenly��

�And Owl,� said Pooh.

�And Owl � and then all of a sudden��

�Oh, and Eeyore,� said Pooh. �I was forgetting him.�

�Here � we � are,� said Rabbit very slowly and carefully, �all � of � us, and then, suddenly, we wake up one morning, and what do we find? We find a Strange Animal among us. An animal of whom we had never even heard before! An animal who carries her family about with her in her pocket! Suppose I carried my family about with me in my pocket, how many pockets should I want?�

�Sixteen,� said Piglet.

�Seventeen, isn�t it?� said Rabbit. �And one more for a handkerchief � that�s eighteen. Eighteen pockets in one suit! I haven�t time.�

There was a long and thoughtful silence � and then Pooh, who had been frowning very hard for some minutes, said: �I make it fifteen.�

�What?� said Rabbit.

�Fifteen.�

�Fifteen what?�

�Your family.�

�What about them?�

Pooh rubbed his nose and said that he thought Rabbit had been talking about his family.

�Did I?� said Rabbit carelessly.

�Yes, you said��

�Never mind Pooh,� said Piglet impatiently. �The question is, What are we to do about Kanga?�

�Oh, I see,� said Pooh.

�The best way,� said Rabbit, �would be this. The best way would be to steal Baby Roo and hide him, and then when Kanga says, �Where�s Baby Roo?� we say, �Aha!� �

�Aha!� said Pooh, practising. �Aha! Aha! � Of course,� he went on, �we could say �Aha!� even if we hadn�t stolen Baby Roo.�

�Pooh,� said Rabbit kindly, �you haven�t any brain.�

�I know,� said Pooh humbly.

�We say �Aha!� so that Kanga knows that we know where Baby Roo is. �Aha!� means �We�ll tell you where Baby Roo is, if you promise to go away from the Forest and never come back.� Now don�t talk while I think.�

Pooh went into a corner and tried saying �Aha!� in that sort of voice. Sometimes it seemed to him that it did mean what Rabbit said, and sometimes it seemed to him that it didn�t. �I suppose it�s just practice,� he thought. �I wonder if Kanga will have to practise too so as to understand it.�

�There�s just one thing,� said Piglet, fidgeting a bit. �I was talking to Christopher Robin, and he said that a Kanga was Generally Regarded as One of the Fiercer Animals. I am not frightened of Fierce Animals in the ordinary way, but it is well known that if One of the Fiercer Animals is Deprived of Its Young, it becomes as fierce as Two of the Fiercer Animals. In which case �Aha!� is perhaps a foolish thing to say.�

�Piglet,� said Rabbit, taking out a pencil, and licking the end of it, �you haven�t any pluck.�

�It is hard to be brave,� said Piglet, sniffing slightly, �when you�re only a Very Small Animal.�

Rabbit, who had begun to write very busily, looked up and said:

�It is because you are a very small animal that you will be Useful in the adventure before us.�

Piglet was so excited at the idea of being Useful that he forgot to be frightened any more, and when Rabbit went on to say that Kangas were only Fierce during the winter months, being at other times of an Affectionate Disposition, he could hardly sit still, he was so eager to begin being useful at once.

�What about me?� said Pooh sadly. �I suppose I shan�t be useful?�

�Never mind, Pooh,� said Piglet comfortingly. �Another time perhaps.�

�Without Pooh,� said Rabbit solemnly as he sharpened his pencil, �the adventure would be impossible.�

�Oh!� said Piglet, and tried not to look disappointed. But Pooh went into a corner of the room and said proudly to himself, Impossible without Me! That sort of Bear.

�Now listen all of you,� said Rabbit when he had finished writing, and Pooh and Piglet sat listening very eagerly with their mouths open. This was what Rabbit read out: PLAN TO CAPTURE BABY ROO

One fine day Pooh had stumped up to the top of the Forest to see if his friend Christopher Robin was interested in Bears at all. At breakfast that morning (a simple meal of marmalade spread lightly over a honeycomb or two) he had suddenly thought of a new song. It began like this:

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 them with somebody.

For it was rather exciting. The little dry ditches in which Piglet had nosed about so often had become streams, the little streams across which he had splashed were rivers, and the river, between whose steep banks they had played so happily, had sprawled out of its own bed and was taking up so much room everywhere, that Piglet was beginning to wonder whether it would be coming into his bed soon.

�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 would do?�

Then suddenly he remembered a story which Christopher Robin had told him about a man on a desert island who had written something in a bottle and thrown it into the sea; and Piglet thought that if he wrote something in a bottle and threw it in the water, perhaps somebody would come and rescue him!

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:

One day when the sun had come back over the Forest, bringing with it the scent of may, and all the streams of the Forest were tinkling happily to find themselves their own pretty shape again, and the little pools lay dreaming of the life they had seen and the big things they had done, and in the warmth and quiet of the Forest the cuckoo was trying over his voice carefully and listening to see if he liked it, and wood-pigeons were complaining gently to themselves in their lazy comfortable way that it was the other fellow�s fault, but it didn�t matter very much; on such a day as this Christopher Robin whistled in a special way he had, and Owl came flying out of the Hundred Acre Wood to see what was wanted.

�Owl,� said Christopher Robin, �I am going to give a party.�

�You are, are you?� said Owl.

�And it�s to be a special sort of party, because it�s because of what Pooh did when he did what he did to save Piglet from the flood.�

�Oh, that�s what it�s for, is it?� said Owl.

�Yes, so will you tell Pooh as quickly as you can, and all the others, because it will be to-morrow?�

�Oh, it will, will it?� said Owl, still being as helpful as possible.

�So will you go and tell them, Owl?�

Owl tried to think of something very wise to say, but couldn�t, so he flew off to tell the others. And the first person he told was Pooh.

�Pooh,� he said. �Christopher Robin is giving a party.�

�Oh!� said Pooh. And then seeing that Owl expected him to say something else, he said, �Will there be those little cake things with pink sugar icing?�

Owl felt that it was rather beneath him to talk about little cake things with pink sugar icing, so he told Pooh exactly what Christopher Robin had said, and flew off to Eeyore.

�A party for Me?� thought Pooh to himself. �How grand!� And he began to wonder if all the other animals would know that it was a special Pooh Party, and if Christopher Robin had told them about The Floating Bear and The Brain of Pooh and all the wonderful ships he had invented and sailed on, and he began to think how awful it would be if everybody had forgotten about it, and nobody quite knew what the party was for; and the more he thought like this, the more the party got muddled in his mind, like a dream when nothing goes right. And the dream began to sing itself over in his head until it became a sort of song. It was an