Alan Alexander Milne

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

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?’

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.’

Piglet meets a Heffalump

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.’

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.’

‘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.’

‘Good morning, Christopher Robin,’ he said.

‘Good morning, Winnie-ther-Pooh,’ said you.

‘I wonder if you’ve got such a thing as a balloon about you?’

‘A balloon?’

‘Yes, I just said to myself coming along: “I wonder if Christopher Robin has such a thing as a balloon about him?” I just said it to myself, thinking of balloons, and wondering.’

‘What do you want a balloon for?’ you said.

Winnie-the-Pooh looked round to see that nobody was listening, put his paw to his mouth, and said in a deep whisper: ‘Honey!’

‘But you don’t get honey with balloons!’

‘I do,’ said Pooh.

Well, it just happened that you had been to a party the day before at the house of your friend Piglet, and you had balloons at the party. You had had a big green balloon; and one of Rabbit’s relations had had a big blue one, and had left it behind, being really too young to go to a party at all; and so you had brought the green one and the blue one home with you.

‘Which one would you like?’ you asked Pooh. He put his head between his paws and thought very carefully.