by A. A. Milne
‘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:
PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD
Underneath the bell-pull there was a notice which said:
PLEZ CNOKE IF AN RNSR IS NOT REQID.
These notices had been written by Christopher Robin, who was the only one in the forest who could spell; for Owl, wise though he was in many ways, able to read and write and spell his own name WOL, yet somehow went all to pieces over delicate words like MEASLES and BUTTEREDTOAST.
Winnie-the-Pooh read the two notices very carefully, first from left to right, and afterwards, in case he had missed some of it, from right to left. Then, to make quite sure, he knocked and pulled the knocker, and he pulled and knocked the bell-rope, and he called out in a very loud voice, ‘Owl! I require an answer! It’s Bear speaking.’ And the door opened, and Owl looked out.
‘Hallo, Pooh,’ he said. ‘How’s things?’
‘Terrible and Sad,’ said Pooh, ‘because Eeyore, who is a friend of mine, has lost his tail. And he’s Moping about it. So could you very kindly tell me how to find it for him?’
‘Well,’ said Owl, ‘the customary procedure in such cases is as follows.’
‘What does Crustimoney Proseedcake mean?’ said Pooh. ‘For I am a Bear of Very Little Brain, and long words Bother me.’
‘It means the Thing to Do.’
‘As long as it means that, I don’t mind,’ said Pooh humbly.
‘The thing to do is as follows. First, Issue a Reward. Then—’
‘Just a moment,’ said Pooh, holding up his paw. ‘What do we do to this – what you were saying? You sneezed just as you were going to tell me.’
‘I didn’t sneeze.’
‘Yes, you did, Owl.’
‘Excuse me, Pooh, I didn’t. You can’t sneeze without knowing it.’
‘Well, you can’t know it without something having been sneezed.’
‘What I said was, “First Issue a Reward”.’
‘You’re doing it again,’ said Pooh sadly.
‘A Reward!’ said Owl very loudly. ‘We write a notice to say that we will give a large something to anybody who finds Eeyore’s tail.’
‘I see, I see,’ said Pooh, nodding his head. ‘Talking about large somethings,’ he went on dreamily, ‘I generally have a small something about now – about this time in the morning,’ and he looked wistfully at the cupboard in the corner of Owl’s parlour; ‘just a mouthful of condensed milk or what-not, with perhaps a lick of honey—’
‘Well, then,’ said Owl, ‘we write out this notice, and we put it up all over the Forest.’
‘A lick of honey,’ murmured Bear to himself, ‘or – or not, as the case may be.’ And he gave a deep sigh, and tried very hard to listen to what Owl was saying.
But Owl went on and on, using longer and longer words, until at last he came back to where he started, and he explained that the person to write out this notice was Christopher Robin.
‘It was he who wrote the ones on my front door for me. Did you see them, Pooh?’
For some time now Pooh had been saying ‘Yes’ and ‘No’ in turn, with his eyes shut, to all that Owl was saying, and having said, ‘Yes, yes,’ last time, he said, ‘No, not at all,’ now, without really knowing what Owl was talking about.
‘Didn’t you see them?’ said Owl, a little surprised. ‘Come and look at them now.’
So they went outside. And Pooh looked at the knocker and the notice below it, and he looked at the bell-rope and the notice below it, and the more he looked at the bell-rope, the more he felt that he had seen something like it, somewhere else, sometime before.
‘Handsome bell-rope, isn’t it?’ said Owl.
Pooh nodded.
‘It reminds me of something,’ he said, ‘but I can’t think what. Where did you get it?’
‘I just came across it in the Forest. It was hanging over a bush, and I thought at first somebody lived there, so I rang it, and nothing happened, and then I rang it again very loudly, and it came off in my hand, and as nobody seemed to want it, I took it home, and—’
‘Owl,’ said Pooh solemnly, ‘you made a mistake. Somebody did want it.’
‘Who?’
‘Eeyore. My dear friend Eeyore. He was – he was fond of it.’
‘Fond of it?’
‘Attached to it,’ said Winnie-the-Pooh sadly.
So with these words he unhooked it, and carried it back to Eeyore; and when Christopher Robin had nailed it on in its right place again, Eeyore frisked about the forest, waving his tail so happily that Winnie-the-Pooh came over all funny, and had to hurry home for a little snack
of something to sustain him. And, wiping his mouth half an hour afterwards, he sang to himself proudly:
Who found the Tail?
‘I,’ said Pooh,
‘At a quarter to two
(Only it was quarter to eleven really),
I found the Tail!’
CHAPTER FIVE
in which Piglet meets a Heffalump
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:
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 Heffalump.
‘Bother!’ said Pooh. ‘It all comes of trying to be kind to Heffalumps.’ And he got back into bed.
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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 Six Pine Trees.
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 to it his nose told him that it was indeed honey, and his tongue came out and began to polish up his mouth, ready for it.
‘Bother!’ said Pooh, as he got his nose inside the jar. ‘A Heffalump has been eating it!’ And then he thought a little and said, ‘Oh, no, I did. I forgot.’
Indeed, he had eaten most of it. But there was a little left at the very bottom of the jar, and he pushed his head right in, and began to lick. …
By and by Piglet woke up. As soon as he woke he said to himself, ‘Oh!’ Then he said bravely, ‘Yes,’ and then, still more bravely, ‘Quite so.’ But he didn’t feel very brave, for the word which was really jiggeting about in his brain was ‘Heffalumps.’
What was a Heffalump like?
