Winnie-the-Pooh - A. A. Milne [11]
“Yes, well never mind about that. There you would be, and there I should catch you. Now the first thing to think of is, What do Heffalumps like? I should think acorns, shouldn’t you? We’ll get a lot of—I say, wake up, Pooh!”
Pooh, who had gone into a happy dream, woke up with a start, and said that Honey was a much more trappy thing than Haycorns. Piglet didn’t think so; and they were just going to argue about it, when Piglet remembered that, if they put acorns in the Trap, he would have to find the acorns, but if they put honey, then Pooh would have to give up some of his own honey, so he said, “All right, honey then,” just as Pooh remembered it too, and was going to say, “All right, haycorns.”
“Honey,” said Piglet to himself in a thoughtful way, as if it were now settled. “I’ll dig the pit, while you go and get the honey.”
“Very well,” said Pooh, and he stumped off.
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.”
Having made certain of this, he took the jar back to Piglet, and Piglet looked up from the bottom of his Very Deep Pit, and said “Got it?” and Pooh said, “Yes, but it isn’t quite a full jar,” and he threw it down to Piglet, and Piglet said, “No, it isn’t! Is that all you’ve got left?” and Pooh said “Yes.” Because it was. So Piglet put the jar at the bottom of the Pit, and climbed out, and they went off home together.
“Well, good night, Pooh,” said Piglet, when they had got to Pooh’s house. “And we meet at six o’clock tomorrow morning by the Pine Trees, and see how many Heffalumps we’ve got in our Trap.”
“Six o’clock, Piglet. And have you got any string?”
“No. Why do you want string?”
“To lead them home with.”
“Oh!…I think Heffalumps come if you whistle.”
“Some do and some don’t. You never can tell with Heffalumps. Well, good night!”
“Good night!”
And off Piglet trotted to his house, TRESPASSERS W, while Pooh made his preparations for bed.
Some hours later, just as the night was beginning to steal away, Pooh woke up suddenly with a sinking feeling. He had had that sinking feeling before, and he knew what it meant. He was hungry. So he went to the larder, and he stood on a chair and reached up to the top shelf, and found—nothing.
“That’s funny,” he thought. “I know I had a jar of honey there. A full jar, full of honey right up to the top, and it had HUNNY written on it, so that I should know it was honey. That’s very funny.” And then he began to wander up and down, wondering where it was and murmuring a murmur to himself. Like this:
It’s very, very funny,
’Cos I know I had some honey;
’Cos it had a label on,
Saying HUNNY.
A goloptious full-up pot too,
And I don’t know where it’s got to,
No, I don’t know where it’s gone—
Well, it’s funny.
He had murmured this to himself three times in a singing sort of way, when suddenly he remembered. He had put it into the Cunning Trap to catch the Heffalump.
“Bother!” said Pooh. “It all comes of trying to be kind to Heffalumps.” And he got back into bed.
But he couldn’t sleep. The