Pooh  was  thoughtful  when  he heard this, and then he murmured to himself:


            But whatever his weight in pounds, shillings, and ounces,
            He always seems bigger because of his bounces.

        "And that's the whole poem," he said. "Do you like  it, Piglet?"
        "All except the shillings," said Piglet. "I don't think they ought to be there."
        "They  wanted  to  come in after the pounds," explained Pooh, " so I let them. It is the  best  way  to  write  poetry, letting things come."
        "Oh, I didn't know," said Piglet.
        Tigger  had  been  bouncing  in  front of them all this time, turning round every now and then to  ask,  "Is  this  the way?"--and now at last they came in sight of Kanga's house, and there was Christopher Robin. Tigger rushed up to him.
        "Oh, there you are, Tigger!" said Christopher Robin. "I knew you'd be somewhere."
        "I've  been  finding things in the Forest," said Tigger importantly. "I've found a pooh and a piglet and an eeyore, but I can't find any breakfast."
        Pooh and Piglet came up and hugged  Christopher  Robin, and explained what had been happening.
        "Don't you know what Tiggers like?" asked Pooh.
        "I  expect  if  I  thought  very  hard  I should," said Christopher Robin, "but I thought Tigger knew."
        "I do," said Tigger. "Everything there is in the  world except  honey  and  haycorns  and--what  were  those hot things called?"
        "Thistles."
        Yes, and those."
        "Oh, well then, Kanga can give you some breakfast."
        So they went into Kanga's house, and when Roo had said, "Hallo, Pooh," and "Hallo, Piglet" once,  and  "Hallo,  Tigger" twice,  because  he  had  never  said  it before and it sounded funny, they told Kanga what they wanted, and  Kanga  said  very kindly,  "Well,  look in my cupboard, Tigger dear, and see what you'd like." Because she knew at once that, however big  Tigger seemed to be, he wanted as much kindness as Roo.
        "Shall  I  look,  too?" said Pooh, who was beginning to feel a little eleven o'clockish. And he found a  small  tin  of condensed  milk,  and something seemed to tell him that Tiggers didn't like this, so he took it into a corner  by  itself,  and went with it to see that nobody interrupted it.
        But  the more Tigger put his nose into this and his paw into that, the more things he found which Tiggers didn't  like. And  when he had found everything in the cupboard, and couldn't eat any of it, he said to Kanga, "What happens now?"
        But Kanga and Christopher Robin  and  Piglet  were  all standing  round Roo, watching him have his Extract of Malt. And Roo was saying, "Must I?" and Kanga was saying "Now, Roo  dear, you remember what you promised."
        "What is it?" whispered Tigger to Piglet.
        "His  Strengthening  Medicine,"  said Piglet. "He hates it."
        So Tigger came closer, and he leant over  the  back  of Roo's  chair,  and suddenly he put out his tongue, and took one large golollop, and, with a  sudden  jump  of  surprise,  Kanga said, "Oh!" and then clutched at the spoon again just as it was disappearing,  and pulled it safely back out of Tigger's mouth. But the Extract of Malt had gone.
        "Tigger dear!" said Kanga.
        "He's taken my medicine, he's taken my  medicine,  he's taken  my  medicine!"  sang  Roo  happily,  thinking  it  was a tremendous joke.

Then Tigger looked up at the ceiling,  and  closed  his eyes, and his tongue went round and round his chops, in case he had  left  any outside, and a peaceful smile came over his face as he said, "So that's what Tiggers like!"




    Which  explains  why  he  always  lived  at  Kanga's  house afterwards,  and had Extract of Malt for breakfast, dinner, and tea. And sometimes, when Kanga thought he wanted strengthening, he had a spoonful  or  two  of  Roosbreakfast  after  meals  as medicine.
        "But  I  think,"  said  Piglet to Pooh, "that he's been strengthened quite enough."

     POOH  was  sitting in his house one day, counting his pots of honey, when there came a knock on the door.
        "Fourteen," said Pooh. "Come in. Fourteen.  Or  was  it fifteen? Bother. That's muddled me."
        "Hallo, Pooh," said Rabbit.
        "Hallo, Rabbit. Fourteen, wasn't it?"
        "What was?"
        "My pots of honey what I was counting."
        "Fourteen, that's right."
        "Are you sure?"
        "No," said Rabbit. "Does it matter?"
        "I  just  like to know," said Pooh humbly, "So as I can say to myself: 'I've got  fourteen  pots  of  honey  left.' Or fifteen, as the case may be. It's sort of comforting."
        "Well,  let's  call  it  sixteen," said Rabbit. "What I came to say was: Have you seen Small anywhere about?"
        "I don't think so," said Pooh. And then, after thinking a little more, he said? Who is Small?"
        "One  of   my   friends-and-relations,"   said   Rabbit carelessly.
        This  didn't help Pooh much, because Rabbit had so many friends-and-relations, and of such different sorts  and  sizes, that he didn't know whether he ought to be looking for Small at the top of an oaktree or in the petal of a buttercup.
        "I  haven't seen anybody to-day," said Pooh, "not so as to say 'Hallo, Small!' to. Did you want him for anything?"
        "I don't want  him,"  said  Rabbit.  "But  it's  always useful to know where a friend-and-relation is, whether you want him or whether you  don't."
        "Oh, I see," said Pooh. "Is he lost?"
        "Well,"  said  Rabbit,  "nobody has seen him for a long time, so I suppose he is. Anyhow," he went on  importantly,  "I promised Christopher  Robin I'd Organize a Search for him, so come on."
        Pooh  said good-bye affectionately to his fourteen pots of honey, and hoped they were fifteen; and he and  Rabbit  went out into the Forest.
        "Now,"  said  Rabbit,  "this  is  a  Search,  and  I've Organized it----"
        "Done what to it?" said Pooh.
        "Organized it. Which means--well, it's what you do to a Search, when you don't all look in the same place at once. So I want you, Pooh, to search by the Six Pine Trees first, and then work your way towards Owl's House, and look out for  me  there. Do you see?"
        "No," said Pooh. "What "
        "Then  I'll  see  you at Owl's House in about an hour's time."
        "Is Piglet organdized too?"
        "We all are," said Rabbit, and off he went.

As soon as Rabbit was out  of  sight,  Pooh  remembered that  he had forgotten to ask who Small was, and whether he was the sort of friend-and-relation who settled on one's  nose,  or the  sort who got trodden on by mistake, and as it was Too Late Now, he thought he would begin the Hunt by looking for  Piglet, and  asking him what they were looking for before he looked for it.
        "And it's no good looking at the  Six  Pine  Trees  for Piglet," said Pooh to himself, "because he's been organdized in a  special  place  of  his own. So I shall have to look for the Special Place first. I wonder where it is." And  he  wrote  it down in his head like this:

            ORDER OF LOOKING FOR THINGS.

    I. Special Place. (To find Piglet.)
    2. Piglet. (To find who Small is.)
    3. Small. (To find Small.)
    4. Rabbit. (To tell him I've found Small.)
    5. Small Again. (To tell him I've found Rabbit.)

        "Which  makes  it  look  like a bothering sort of day," thought Pooh, as he stumped along.
        The next moment the day became very  bothering  indeed, because Pooh was so busy not looking where he was going that he stepped on a piece of  the  Forest  which had been left out by mistake; and he only just had time to think to himself: "I'm flying.  What  Owl does. I wonder how you stop--" when he stopped.
        Bump!
        "Ow!" squeaked something.
        "That's  funny,"  thought  Pooh.  "I  said 'Ow! without really oo'ing."
        "Help!" said a small, high voice.
        "That's me again," thought Pooh. "I've had an Accident, and fallen down a well, and my voice has gone all  squeaky  and works  before  I'm ready for it, because I've done something to myself inside. Bother!"
        "Help--help!"
        "There you are! I say things when I'm not trying. So it must be a very bad Accident." And then he thought that  perhaps when  he  did  try to say things he wouldn't be able to; so, to make sure, he said loudly:
        "A Very Bad Accident to Pooh Bear."
        "Pooh!" squeaked the voice.
        "It's Piglet!" cried Pooh eagerly. "Where are you?"
        "Underneath," said Piglet in an underneath sort of way.
        "Underneath what?"
        "You," squeaked Piglet. "Get up!"
        "Oh!" said Pooh, and scrambled  up  as  quickly  as  he could. "Did I fall on you, Piglet?"
        "You  fell  on  me,"  said  Piglet, feeling himself all over.
        "I didn't mean to," said Pooh sorrowfully.
        "I didn't mean to be underneath,"  said  Piglet  sadly. "But I'm all right now, Pooh, and I am so glad it was you."
        "What's happened?" said Pooh. "Where are we?"
        "I  think  we're in a sort of Pit. I was walking along, looking for somebody, and then suddenly I wasn't any more,  and just  when  I  got up to see where I was, something fell on me. And it was you."
        "So it was," said Pooh. "Yes," said Piglet. "Pooh,"  he went  on  nervously,  and  came  a little closer, "do you think we're in a Trap?"

   Pooh hadn't thought about it at all, but now he nodded. For suddenly he remembered how he and Piglet had  once  made  a Pooh  Trap for Heffalumps, and he guessed what had happened. He and Piglet had fallen into a Heffalump Trap for Poohs! That was what it was.
        "What happens when the Heffalump comes?"  asked  Piglet tremblingly, when he had heard the news.
        "Perhaps  he  won't  notice  you,  Piglet,"  said  Pooh encouragingly, "because you're a Very Small Animal."
        "But he'll notice you, Pooh."
        "He'll notice me, and I shall notice him,"  said  Pooh, thinking  it out. "We'll notice each other for a long time, and then he'll say: 'Ho-ho!'"
        Piglet  shivered  a  little  at  the  thought  of  that "Ho-ho!" and his ears began to twitch.
        "W-what will you say?" he asked.
        Pooh  tried to think of something he would say, but the more he thought, the more he felt that there is no real  answer to  "Ho-ho!"  said  by  a  Heffalump  in the sort of voice this Heffalump was going to say it in.
        "I shan't say anything," said Pooh at  last.  "I  shall just hum to myself, as if I was waiting for something."
        "Then  perhaps  he'll  say  'Ho-ho!'  again?" suggested Piglet anxiously.
        "He will," said Pooh.
        Piglet's ears twitched so quickly that he had  to  lean them against the side of the Trap to keep them quiet.
        "He  will  say it again," said Pooh, "and I shall go on humming. And that will Upset him. Because when you say 'Ho-ho!' twice, in a gloating sort of way, and  the  other  person  only hums,  you suddenly find, just as you begin to say it the third time that --that--well, you find----"
        "What?"
        "That it isn't," said Pooh.
        "Isn't what?"
        Pooh knew what he meant, but,  being  a  Bear  of  Very Little Brain, couldn't think of the words.
        "Well, it just isn't," he said again.
        "You  mean  it  isn't  ho-ho-ish any more?" said Piglet hopefully.
        Pooh looked at him admiringly and said  that  that  was what he meant--if you went on humming all the time, because you couldn't go on saying "Ho-ho!" for ever.
        "But he'll say something else," said Piglet.
        "That's  just it. He'll say? What's all this?" And then I shall say--and this is a very good idea, Piglet,  which  I've just  thought  of--I  shall  say:  `It's a trap for a Heffalump which I've made, and I'm waiting for the Heffalump to fall in.' And I shall go on humming. That will Unsettle him."
        "Pooh!" cried Piglet, and now it was his turn to be the admiring one. "You've saved us!"
        "Have I?" said Pooh, not feeling quite sure.

But Piglet was quite sure; and his mind ran on, and  he saw  Pooh  and  the  Heffalump  talking  to  each other, and he thought suddenly, and a little sadly, that it would  have  been rather  nice if it had been Piglet and the Heffalump talking so grandly to each other, and not Pooh, much  as  he  loved  Pooh; because   he   really   had  more  brain  than  Pooh,  and  the conversation would go better if he and not Pooh were doing  one side  of  it,  and  it  would  be  comforting afterwards in the evenings to look back on the day when he answered  a  Heffalump back  as bravely as if the Heffalump wasn't there. It seemed so easy now. He knew just what he would say:

        HEFFALUMP (gloatingly): "Ho-ho!"
        PIGLET (carelessly): "Tra-la-la, tra-la-la."
        HEFFALUMP  (surprised,  and  not  quite  so   sure   of himself): "Ho-ho!"
        PIGLET   (more   carelessly   still):   "Tiddle-um-tum, tiddle-um-tum."
        HEFFALUMP  (beginning  to  say  Ho-ho  and  turning  it awkwardly into a cough): "H'r'm! What's all this?"
        PIGLET  (surprised):  "Hullo! This is a trap I've made, and I'm waiting for a Heffalump to fall into it."
        HEFFALUMP (greatly disappointed): "Oh!" (After  a  long silence): "Are you sure?"
        PIGLET: "Yes."
        HEFFALUMP:  "Oh!"  (nervously):  "I--I thought it was a trap I'd made to catch Piglets."
        PIGLET (surprised): "Oh, no!"
        HEFFALUMP: "Oh!" (Apologetically): "I--I must have  got it wrong then."
        PIGLET:  "I'm  afraid so." (Politely): "I'm sorry." (He goes on humming.)
        HEFFALUMP: "Well-well-I-well. I suppose I'd  better  be getting back?"
        PIGLET (looking up carelessly): "Must you? Well, if you see Christopher Robin anywhere, you might tell him I want him."
        HEFFALUMP  (eager  to  please): "Certainly! Certainly!"(He hurries off.)
        POOH (who wasn't going to be  there,  but  we  find  we can't  do without him."): "Oh, Piglet, how brave and clever you are!"
        PIGLET (modestly): "Not at all, Pooh." (And then,  when Christopher Robin comes, Pooh can tell him about it.)
        While  Piglet  was  dreaming this happy dream, and Pooh was wondering again whether it was  fourteen  or  fifteen,  the Search  for  Small  was  still  going  on  all over the Forest. Small's real name was Very Small  Beetle,  but  he  was  called Small  for  short,  when  he was spoken to at all, which hardly ever happened except when somebody said:  "Really,  Small!"  He had  been staying with Christopher Robin for a few seconds, and he had started round a gorse-bush for exercise, but instead  of coming  back  the  other way, as expected, he hadn't, so nobody knew where he was.
        "I expect he's just gone home," said Christopher  Robin to Rabbit.
        "Did  he  say  Good-bye-and-thank-you-for-a-nice-time?" said Rabbit.
        "He'd only just said how-do-you-do,"  said  Christopher Robin.
        "Ha!" said Rabbit. After thinking a little, he went on: "Has he written  a  letter  saying how much he enjoyed himself, and how sorry he was he had to go so suddenly?"
        Christopher Robin didn't think he had.
        "Ha!" said Rabbit again,  and  looked  very  important. "This  is  Serious.  He  is  Lost.  We must begin the Search at once."
        Christopher Robin, who was thinking of something  else, said: "Where's Pooh?"--but Rabbit had gone. So he went into his house  and  drew  a  picture of Pooh going a long walk at about seven o'clock in the morning, and then he climbed to the top of his tree and climbed down again, and then he wondered what Pooh was doing, and went across the Forest to see.
        It was not long before he came to the Gravel  Pit,  and
he  looked  down,  and  there  were Pooh and Piglet, with their
backs to him, dreaming happily.

       "Ho-ho!" said Christopher Robin loudly and suddenly.
        Piglet jumped six inches in the air with  Surprise  and Anxiety, but Pooh went on dreaming.
        "It's  the  Heffalump!" thought Piglet nervously. "Now, then!" He hummed in his throat a little, so that  none  of  the words  should  stick,  and  then, in one most delightfully easy way, he said: "Tra-la-la, tra-la-la," as if he had just thought of it. But he didn't look round, because if you look round  and see  a Very Fierce Heffalump looking down at you, sometimes you forget what you were going to say.
        "Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um," said Christopher  Robin  in  a voice  like Pooh's. Because Pooh had once invented a song which went:

                     Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
                Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
               Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.

        So whenever Christopher Robin sings it, he always sings it in a Pooh-voice, which seems to suit it better.
        "He's said the wrong thing," thought Piglet  anxiously. "He  ought  to  have said, 'Ho-ho!' again. Perhaps I had better say it for him." And, as fiercely as  he  could,  Piglet  said: "Ho-ho!"
        "How did you get there, Piglet?" said Christopher Robin in his ordinary voice.
        "This  is Terrible," thought Piglet. "First he talks in Pooh's voice, and then he talks in Christopher  Robin's  voice, and  he's  doing  it  so  as  to  Unsettle  me.  "And being now Completely Unsettled, he said very quickly and squeakily: "This is a trap for Poohs, and I'm waiting  to  fall  in  it,  ho-ho, what's all this, and then I say ho-ho again."
        "What?" said Christopher Robin.
        "A  trap  for ho-ho's," said Piglet huskily. "I've just made it, and I'm waiting for the ho-ho to come-come."
        How long Piglet would have gone on like  this  I  don't know, but at that moment Pooh woke up suddenly and decided that it  was  sixteen. So he got up; and as he turned his head so as to soothe himself in that awkward place in the  middle  of  the back  where  something  was  tickling  him,  he saw Christopher Robin.

        "Hallo!" he shouted joyfully.
        "Hallo, Pooh."
        Piglet looked up, and looked away again. And he felt so Foolish and Uncomfortable that he had  almost  decided  to  run away to Sea and be a Sailor, when suddenly he saw something.
        "Pooh!"  he  cried. "There's something climbing up your back."
        "I thought there was," said Pooh.
        "It's Small!" cried Piglet.
        "Oh, that's who it is, is it?" said Pooh.
        "Christopher Robin, I've found Small!" cried Piglet.
        "Well done, Piglet," said Christopher Robin.
        And at these encouraging words Piglet felt quite  happy again,  and  decided  not  to  be  a  Sailor after all. So when Christopher Robin had helped them out of the Gravel  Pit,  they all went off together hand-in-hand.
        And  two  days  later Rabbit happened to meet Eeyore in the Forest.
        "Hallo, Eeyore," he said, "what are you looking for?"
        "Small, of  course,"  said  Eeyore.  "Haven't  you  any brain?"
        "Oh,  but  didn't  I tell you?" said Rabbit. "Small was found two days ago."
        There was a moment's silence.
        "Ha-ha," said Eeyore bitterly. "Merriment and what-not. Don't apologize. It's just what would happen."

     One day when Pooh was thinking, he thought he would go and see Eeyore, because he hadn't seen him since yesterday. And  as he walked through the  heather,  singing  to  himself, he suddenly remembered that he hadn't seen Owl since the day before yesterday, so he thought  that he would just look in at the Hundred Acre Wood on the way and see if Owl was at home.
        Well, he went on singing, until he came to the part  of the  stream  where the stepping-stones were, and when he was in the middle of the third stone he began to wonder how Kanga  and Roo and Tigger were getting on, because they all lived together in  a  different part of the Forest. And he thought, "I haven't seen Roo for a long time, and if I don't see him to-day it will be a still longer time." So he sat down on  the  stone  in  the middle of the stream, and sang another verse of his song, while he wondered what to do.
        The other verse of the song was like this:

                        I could spend a happy morning
                     Seeing Roo,
                 I could spend a happy morning
                     Being Pooh.
                 For it doesn't seem to matter,
                 If I don't get any fatter
                 (And I don't get any fatter),
                     What I do.

        The  sun was so delightfully warm, and the stone, which had been sitting in it for a long time, was so warm,  too  that Pooh  had  almost  decided to go on being Pooh in the middle of the stream for the rest of  the  morning,  when  he  remembered Rabbit.
        "Rabbit,"  said  Pooh  to  himself.  "I like talking to Rabbit. He talks about sensible things. He  doesn't  use  long, difficult  words,  like  Owl.  He  uses short, easy words, like 'What about lunch?'  and  'Help  yourself,  Pooh.'  I  suppose, really, I ought to go and see Rabbit."
        Which made him think of another verse:

                      Oh, I like his way of talking,
                    Yes, I do.
                It's the nicest way of talking
                    Just for two.
                And a Help-yourself with Rabbit
                Though it may become a habit,
                Is a pleasant sort of habit
                    For a Pooh.

        So  when  he  had  sung  this, he got up off his stone, walked back across the stream, and set off for Rabbit's house.
        But he hadn't  got  far  before  he  began  to  say  to himself:
        "Yes, but suppose Rabbit is out?"
        "Or suppose I get stuck in his front door again, coming out, as I did once when his front door wasn't big enough?"
        "Because  I  know I'm not getting fatter, but his front door may be getting thinner."
        "So wouldn't it be better if----"
        And all the time he was saying things like this he  was going  more  and  more  westerly,  without thinking . . . until suddenly he found himself at his own front door again.
        And it was eleven o'clock.
        Which was Time-for-a-little-something....

        Half an hour later he was  doing  what  he  had  always really  meant to do, he was stumping off to Piglet's house. And as he walked, he wiped his mouth with the back of his paw,  and sang rather a fluffy song through the fur. It went like this:

                 I could spend a happy morning
               Seeing Piglet.
           And I couldn't spend a happy morning
               not seeing Piglet.
           And it doesn't seem to matter
           If  I  don't  see  Owl  and  Eeyore  (or  any of the others),
           And I'm not going to see Owl or Eeyore  (or  any  of the others)
               Or Christopher Robin.

        Written  down  like  this,  it doesn't seem a very good song, but coming through pale fawn  fluff  at  about  half-past eleven  on a very sunny morning, it seemed to Pooh to be one of the best songs he had ever sung. So he went on singing it.
        Piglet was busy digging a  small  hole  in  the  ground outside his house.
        "Hallo, Piglet," said Pooh.
        "Hallo,   Pooh,--"   said  Piglet,  giving  a  jump  of surprise. "I knew it was you."
        "So did I," said Pooh. "What are you doing?"
        "I'm planting a haycorn, Pooh, so that it can  grow  up into  an  oak-tree,  and have lots of haycorns just outside the front door instead of having to walk miles and  miles,  do  you see, Pooh?"
        "Supposing it doesn't?" said Pooh.
        "It  will,  because  Christopher Robin says it will, so that's why I'm planting it."



        "Well," said Pooh, "if I plant a honeycomb  outside  my house, then it will grow up into a beehive."
        Piglet wasn't quite sure about this.
        "Or  a  piece of a honeycomb," said Pooh, "so as not to waste too much. Only then  I  might  only  get  a  piece  of  a beehive,  and  it might be the wrong piece, where the bees were buzzing and not hunnying. Bother."
        Piglet agreed that that would be rather bothering.
        "Besides, Pooh, it's a very difficult  thing,  planting unless you know how to do it," he said; and he put the acorn in the  hole he had made, and covered it up with earth, and jumped on it.
        "I do know," said Pooh, "because Christopher Robin gave me a mastershalum seed, and I planted it, and I'm going to have mastershalums all over the front door."
        "I thought they were called nasturtiums,"  said  Piglet timidly, as he went on jumping.
        "No,"   said   Pooh.   "Not  these.  These  are  called mastershalums."
        When Piglet had finished jumping, he wiped his paws  on his  front,  and  said,  "What shall we do now?" and Pooh said, "Let's go and see Kanga and Roo and Tigger," and  Piglet  said, "Y-yes.  L-let's"--because  he was still a little anxious about Tigger, who was a Very Bouncy Animal,  with  a  way  of  saying How-do-you-do,  which  always left your ears full of sand, even after Kanga had said, "Gently, Tigger dear," and had helped you up again. So they set off for Kanga's house.