Winnie-the-Pooh - A. A. Milne (pocket ebook reader TXT) 📗

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 ⁠… and it was at that moment that Piglet looked down.

“Help, help!” cried Piglet, “a Heffalump, a Horrible Heffalump!” and he scampered off as hard as he could, still crying out, “Help, help, a Herrible Hoffalump! Hoff, Hoff, a Hellible Horralump! Holl, Holl, a Hoffable Hellerump!” And he didn’t stop crying and scampering until he got to Christopher Robin’s house.

“Whatever’s the matter, Piglet?” said Christopher Robin, who was just getting up.

“Heff,” said Piglet, breathing so hard that he could hardly speak, “a Heff⁠—a Heff⁠—a Heffalump.”

“Where?”

“Up there,” said Piglet, waving his paw.

“What did it look like?”

“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 Robin’s hand.

Suddenly Christopher Robin began to laugh⁠ ⁠… and he laughed⁠ ⁠… and he laughed⁠ ⁠… and he laughed. And while he was still laughing⁠—Crash went the Heffalump’s head against the tree-root, Smash went the jar, and out came Pooh’s head again.⁠ ⁠…

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 Christopher Robin and Pooh went home to breakfast together.

“Oh, Bear!” said Christopher Robin. “How I do love you!”

“So do I,” said Pooh.

VI In Which Eeyore Has a Birthday and Gets Two Presents

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,
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,
A fish can’t whistle and neither can I.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

Eeyore still said nothing at all, so Pooh hummed the third verse quietly to himself:

Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie,
Why does a chicken, I don’t know why.
Ask me a riddle and I reply:
“Cottleston, Cottleston, Cottleston Pie.”

“That’s right,” said Eeyore. “Sing. Umty-tiddly, umty-too. Here we go gathering Nuts and May. Enjoy yourself.”

“I am,” said Pooh.

“Some can,” said Eeyore.

“Why, what’s the matter?”

“Is anything the matter?”

“You seem so sad, Eeyore.”

“Sad? Why should I be sad? It’s my birthday. The happiest day of the year.”

“Your birthday?” said Pooh in great surprise.

“Of course it is. Can’t you see? Look at all the presents I have had.” He waved a foot from side to side. “Look at the birthday cake. Candles and pink sugar.”

Pooh looked⁠—first to the right and then to the left.

“Presents?” said Pooh. “Birthday cake?” said Pooh. “Where?”

“Can’t you see them?”

“No,” said Pooh.

“Neither can I,” said Eeyore. “Joke,” he explained. “Ha ha!”

Pooh scratched his head, being a little puzzled by all this.

“But is it really your birthday?” he asked.

“It is.”

“Oh! Well, Many happy returns of the day, Eeyore.”

“And many happy returns to you, Pooh Bear.”

“But it isn’t my birthday.”

“No, it’s mine.”

“But you said ‘Many happy returns’⁠—”

“Well, why not? You don’t always want to be miserable on my birthday, do you?”

“Oh, I see,” said Pooh.

“It’s bad enough,” said Eeyore, almost breaking down, “being miserable myself, what with no presents and no cake and no candles, and no proper notice taken of me at all, but if everybody else is going to be miserable too⁠—”

This was too much for Pooh. “Stay there!” he called to Eeyore, as he turned and hurried back home as quick as he could; for he felt that he must get poor Eeyore a present of some sort at once, and he could always think of a proper one afterwards.

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