The House at Pooh Corner - A. A. Milne [32]
But they were all quite happy when Pooh and Piglet came along, and they stopped working in order to have a little rest and listen to Pooh’s new song. So then they all told Pooh how good it was and Piglet said carelessly, “It is good, isn’t it? I mean as a song.”
“And what about the new house?” asked Pooh. “Have you found it, Owl?”
“He’s found a name for it,” said Christopher Robin, lazily nibbling at a piece of grass, “so now all he wants is the house.”
“I am calling it this,” said Owl importantly, and he showed them what he had been making. It was a square piece of board with the name of the house painted on it.
THE WOLERY
It was at this exciting moment that something came through the trees, and bumped into Owl. The board fell to the ground, and Piglet and Roo bent over it eagerly.
“Oh, it’s you,” said Owl crossly.
“Hallo, Eeyore!” said Rabbit. “There you are! Where have you been?” Eeyore took no notice of them.
“Good morning, Christopher Robin,” he said, brushing away Roo and Piglet, and sitting down on THE WOLERY. “Are we alone?”
“Yes,” said Christopher Robin, smiling to himself.
“I have been told—the news has worked through to my corner of the Forest—the damp bit down on the right which nobody wants—that a certain Person is looking for a house. I have found one for him.”
“Ah, well done,” said Rabbit kindly.
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 SMUDGE, 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 for some minutes 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 is, really!” to each other.
And when they got there, it really was.
“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