Alan Milne - The house at Pooh Corner

Eeyore looked round slowly at him, and then turned back to Christopher Robin.

"We have been joined by something," he said in a loud whisper. "But no matter. We can leave it behind. If you will come with me, Christopher Robin, I will show you the house."

Christopher Robin jumped up.

"Come on, Pooh," he said.

"Come on, Tigger!" cried Roo.

"Shall we go, Owl?" said Rabbit.

"Wait a moment," said Owl, picking up his notice-board, which had just come into sight again.

Eeyore waved them back.

"Christopher Robin and I are going for a Short Walk," he said, "not a Jostle. If he likes to bring Pooh and Piglet with him, I shall be glad of their company, but one must be able to Breathe."

"That's all right," said Rabbit, rather glad to be left in charge of something. "We'll go on getting the things out. Now then, Tigger, where's that rope? What's the matter, Owl?"

Owl who had just discovered that his new address was THE SMEAR, coughed at Eeyore sternly, but said nothing, and Eeyore, with most of THE WOLERY behind him, marched off with his friends.

So, in a little while, they came to the house which Eeyore had found, and just before they came to it, Piglet was nudging Pooh, and Pooh was nudging Piglet, and they were saying, "It is!" and "It can't be!" and "It's really!" to each other.

"There!" said Eeyore proudly, stopping them outside Piglet's house. "And the name on it, and everything!"

"Oh!" cried Christopher Robin, wondering whether to laugh or what.

"Just the house for Owl. Don't you think so, little Piglet?"

And then Piglet did a Noble Thing, and he did it in a sort of dream, while he was thinking of all the wonderful words Pooh had hummed about him.

"Yes, it's just the house for Owl," he said grandly. "And I hope he'll be very happy in it." And then he gulped twice, because he had been very happy in it himself.

"What do you think, Christopher Robin?" asked Eeyore a little anxiously, feeling that something wasn't quite right.

Christopher Robin had a question to ask first, and he was wondering how to ask it.

"Well," he said at last, "it's a very nice house, and if your own house is blown down, you must go somewhere else, mustn't you, Piglet? What would you do, if your house was blown down?"

Before Piglet could think, Pooh answered for him.

"He'd come and live with me," said Pooh, "wouldn't you, Piglet?"

Piglet squeezed his paw.

"Thank you, Pooh," he said, "I should love to."

CHRISTOPHER ROBIN was going away. Nobody knew why he was going; nobody knew where he was going; indeed, nobody even knew why he knew that Christopher Robin was going away. But somehow or other everybody in the Forest felt that it was happening at last. Even Smallest-of-all, a friend-and-relation of Rabbit's who thought he had once seen Christopher Robin's foot, but couldn't be quite sure because perhaps it was something else, even S. of A. told himself that Things were going to be Different; and Late and Early, two other friends-and-relations, said, "Well, Early?" and "Well, Late?" to each other in such a hopeless sort of way that it really didn't seem any good waiting for the answer.

One day when he felt that he couldn't wait any longer, Rabbit brained out a Notice, and this is what it said:

"Notice a meeting of everybody will meet at the House at Pooh Corner to pass a Rissolution By Order Keep to the Left Signed Rabbit."

He had to write this out two or three times before he could get the rissolution to look like what he thought it was going to when he began to spell it; but, when at last it was finished, he took it round to everybody and read it out to them. And they all said they would come.

"Well," said Eeyore that afternoon, when he saw them all walking up to his house, "this is a surprise. Am I asked too?"

"Don't mind Eeyore," whispered Rabbit to Pooh. "I told him all about it this morning."

Everybody said "How-do-you-do" to Eeyore, and Eeyore said that he didn't, not to notice, and then they sat down; and as soon as they were all sitting down, Rabbit stood up again.

"We all know why we're here," he said, "but I have asked my friend Eeyore…"

"That's Me," said Eeyore. "Grand."

"I have asked him to Propose a Rissolution." And he sat down again. "Now then, Eeyore," he said.

"Don't Bustle me," said Eeyore, getting up slowly. "Don't now-then me." He took a piece of paper from behind his ear, and unfolded it. "Nobody knows anything about this," he went on. "This is a Surprise." He coughed in an important way, and began again: "What-nots and Etceteras, before I begin, or perhaps I should say, before I end, I have a piece of Poetry to read to you. Hitherto-hitherto-a long word meaning-well, you'll see what it means directly-hitherto, as I was saying, all the Poetry in the Forest has been written by Pooh, a Bear with a Pleasing Manner but a Positively Startling Lack of Brain. The Poem which I am now about to read to you was written by Eeyore, or Myself, in a Quiet Moment. If somebody will take Roo's bull's-eye away from him, and wake up Owl, we shall all be able to enjoy it. I call it-POEM." This was it:

"If anybody wants to clap," said Eeyore when he had read this, "now is the time to do it."

They all clapped.

"Thank you," said Eeyore. "Unexpected and gratifying, if a little lacking in Smack."

"It's much better than mine," said Pooh admiringly, and he really thought it is.

"Well," explained Eeyore modestly, "it was meant to be."

"The rissolution," said Rabbit, "is that we all sign it, and take it to Christopher Robin."

So it was signed PooH, WOL, PIGLET, EOR, RABBIT, KANGA, BLOT, SMUDGE, and they all went off to Christopher Robin's house with it.

"Hallo, everybody," said Christopher Robin – "Hallo, Pooh."

They all said "Hello," and felt awkward and unhappy suddenly, because it was a sort of goodbye they were saying, and they didn't want to think about it. So they stood around, and waited for somebody else to speak, and they nudged each other, and said "Go on," and gradually Eeyore was nudged to the front, and the others crowded behind him.

"What is it, Eeyore?" asked Christopher Robin.

Eeyore swished his tail from side to side, so as to encourage himself, and began.

"Christopher Robin," he said, "we've come to say-to give you-it's called-written by-but we've all-because we've heard, I mean we all know-well, you see, it's-we-you-well, that, to put it as shortly as possible, is what it is." He turned round angrily on the others and said, "Everybody crowds round so in this Forest. There's no Space. I never saw a more Spreading lot of animals in my life, and all in the wrong places. Can't you see that Christopher Robin wants to be alone? I'm going." And he humped off.