Alan Alexander Milne

It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come.’

("What does 'under the name' mean?" asked Christopher Robin. "It means he had the name over the door in gold letters, and lived under it."

One day when he was out walking, he came to an open place in the middle of the forest, and in the middle of this place was a large oak-tree, and, from the top of the tree, there came a loud buzzing-noise.

Winnie-the-Pooh sat down at the foot of the tree, put his head between his paws, and began to think.

First of all he said to himself: That buzzing-noise means something. You don’t get a buzzing-noise like that, just buzzing and buzzing, without its meaning something. If there’s a buzzing-noise,

somebody’s making a buzzing-noise, and the only reason for making a buzzing-noise that I know of is because you’re a bee.

You see, what I meant to do,’ he explained, as he turned head-over-heels, and crashed on to another branch thirty feet below, ‘what I meant to do—’

‘Of course, it was rather—’ he admitted, as he slithered very quickly through the next six branches.

‘It all comes, I suppose,’ he decided, as he said good-bye to the last branch, spun round three times, and flew gracefully into a gorse-bush, ‘it all comes of liking honey so much. Oh, help!’

He crawled out of the gorse-bush, brushed the prickles from his nose, and began to think again. And the first person he thought of was Christopher Robin.

(‘Was that me?’ said Christopher Robin in an awed voice, hardly daring to believe it.

‘That was you.’

Christopher Robin said nothing, but his eyes got larger and larger, and his face got pinker and pinker.)

So Winnie-the-Pooh went round to his friend Christopher Robin, who lived behind a green door in another part of the Forest.

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 not sure – that that is why he was always called Pooh.

‘Is that the end of the story?’ asked Christopher Robin.

‘That’s the end of that one. There are others.’

‘About Pooh and Me?’

‘And Piglet and Rabbit and all of you. Don’t you remember?’

‘I do remember, and then when I try to remember, I forget.’

‘That day when Pooh and Piglet tried to catch the Heffalump—’

‘They didn’t catch it, did they?’

‘No.’

‘Pooh couldn’t because he hasn’t any brain. Did I catch it?’

‘Well, that comes into the story.’

Christopher Robin nodded.

‘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 remembering.’

‘That’s just how I feel,’ I said.

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 might,’ I said.

‘I didn’t hurt him when I shot him, did I?’

‘Not a bit.’

CHAPTER TWO
in which Pooh goes visiting and gets into a tight place
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,
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.

So for a week Christopher Robin read that sort of book at the North end of Pooh, and Rabbit hung his washing on the South end …

and in between Bear felt himself getting slenderer and slenderer. And at the end of the week Christopher Robin said, ‘Now!’

So he took hold of Pooh’s front paws and Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin, and all Rabbit’s friends and relations took hold of Rabbit, and they all pulled together. …

And for a long time Pooh only said ‘Ow!’. …

And ‘Oh!’. …

And then, all of a sudden, he said ‘Pop!’ just as if a cork were coming out of a bottle.

And Christopher Robin and Rabbit and all Rabbit’s friends and relations went head-over-heels backwards … and on the top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh – free!

So, with a nod of thanks to his friends, he went on with his walk through the forest, humming proudly to himself. But Christopher Robin looked after him lovingly, and said to himself, ‘Silly old Bear!’

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.