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| "And how are you?" said Winnie-the-Pooh. "Not very how," he said. "I don't seem to have felt at all how for a long time." "Dear, dear," said Pooh, "I'm sorry about that. Let's have a look at you." So Eeyore stood there, gazing sadly at the ground, and Winnie-the-Pooh walked all round him once. "Why, what's happened to your tail?' he said in surprise. "What has happened to it?" said Eeyore. "It isn't there!" "Are you sure?" "Well, either a tail is there or it isn't there. You can't make a mistake about it. And yours isn't there!" "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...... .....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..... 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..... .....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 and 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?"..... ....."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."..... .....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 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. |
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| So with these words he unhooked it, and carried it back to Eeyore; and when Christopher Robin had nailed it on to it's 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!" |
| ~excerpts from 'Winnie-The-Pooh'~ |
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| "I've been thinking," said Pooh, "and what I've been thinking about is this. I 've been thinking about Eeyore." "What about Eeyore?" "Well, poor Eeyore has nowhere to live." "Nor he has," said Piglet. "You have a house, Piglet, and I have a house, and they are very good houses. And Christopher Robin has a house, and Owl and Kanga and Rabbit have houses, and even Rabbit's friends and relations have houses or somethings, but poor Eeyore has nothing. So what I've been thinking is: Let's build him a house." "That," said Piglet, "is a Grand Idea. Where shall we build it?" "We will build it here," said Pooh, "just by this wood, out of |
| the wind, because this is where I thought of it. And we will call this Pooh Corner. And we will build an Eeyore House with sticks at Pooh Corner for Eeyore." "There was a heap of sticks on the othere side of the wood," said Piglet. "I saw them. Lots and lots. All piled up." "Thank you Piglet," said Pooh. "What you have just said will be a Great Help to us, and because of it I could call this place Poohanpiglet Corner if Pooh Corner didn't sound better, which it does, being smaller and more like a corner. Come along." So they got down off the gate and went around to the other side of the wood to fetch the sticks...... |
| ....."Hallo, Eeyore," said Christopher Robin, as he opened the door and came out. "How are you?" "It's snowing still," said Eeyore gloomily. "So it is." "And freezing." "Is it?" "Yes," said Eeyore. "However," he said, brightening up a little, "we haven't had an earthquake lately." "What's the matter, Eeyore?" "Nothing, Christopher Robin. Nothing important. I |
| suppose you haven't seen a house of whatnot anywhere about?" "What sort of a house?" "Just a house." "Who lives there?" "I do. At least I thought I did. But I suppose I don't. After all, we can't all have houses." "But Eeyore, I didn't know. I always thought-----" "I don't know how it is, Christopher Robin, but what with all this snow and one thing and another, not to mention icicles and such-like, it isn't so Hot in my field about three o'clock in the morning as some people think it is. It isn't Close, if you know what I mean-not so as to be uncomfortable. It isn't Stuffy. In fact, Christopher Robin," he went on in a loud whisper, "quite-between-ourselves- and-don't-tell-anybody, it's Cold. "Oh, Eeyore!" "And I said to myself: The others will be sorry if I'm geting myself all cold. They haven't got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that's blown into thier heads by mistake, and they don't Think, but if it goes on snowing for another six weeks or so, one of them will begin to say to himself: "Eeyore can't be so very much too Hot about three o'clock in the morning.' And then it will Get About. And they'll be Sorry." |
| "Oh Eeyore!" said Christopher Robin, feeling very sorry already. "I don't mean you, Christopher Robin. You're different. So what it all comes to is that I built myself a house down by my little wood." "Did you really? How exciting!" "The really exciting part," said Eeyore in his most melancholy voice, "is that when I left it this morning it was there, and when I came back it wasn't. Not at all, very natural, and it was only Eeyore's house. But still I just wondered."..... ....."We'll go and look for it at once," he called out to Eeyore. |
| ....."Pooh!" shouted Christopher Robin... "It's Christopher Robin!" said Pooh eagerly. "He's round by the place where we got all those sticks from," said Piglet. "Come on," said Pooh. They climbed down their gate and hurried |
| round the corner of the wood, Pooh making welcoming noises all the way. "Why, here is Eeyore," said Pooh, when he had finished hugging Christopher Robin, and he nudged Piglet, and Piglet nudged him, and they thought to themselves what a lovely surprise they had got ready..... .....Christopher Robin began to explain the sad story of Eeyore's Lost House. And Pooh and Piglet listened, and their eyes seemed to get bigger and bigger. "Where did you say it was?" asked Pooh. "Just here," said Eeyore. "Made of sticks?" "Yes." "Oh!" said Piglet. "What?" said Eeyore..... ....."Come and look," said Piglet simply, and he led the way. |
| They came round the corner, and there was Eeyore's house, looking comfy as anything. "There you are," said Piglet. "Inside as well as outside," said Pooh proudly. Eeyore went inside...and came out again. "It's a remarkable thing," he said. "It is my house, and I built it where I said I did, so the wind must have blown it here. And the wind blew it right over the wood, and blew it down here, and here it is as good as ever. In fact, better in places." "Much better," said Pooh and Piglet together. "It just shows what can be done by taking a little trouble," said Eeyore. "Do you see, Pooh? Do you see, Piglet? Brains first and then Hard Work. Look at it!! That's the way to build a house," said Eeyore proudly. ~excerpts from Winnie-the-Pooh~ |
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