into a little pine-wood, and sat down on the gate which led into it. They were out of the snow now, but it was very cold, and to keep themselves warm they sang Pooh’s song right through six times, Piglet doing the tiddely-poms and Pooh doing the rest of it, and both of them thumping on the top of the gate with pieces of stick at the proper places. And in a little while they felt much warmer, and were able to talk again.
‘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 other 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 round to the other side of the wood to fetch the sticks.
Christopher Robin had spent the morning indoors going to Africa and back, and he had just got off the boat and was wondering what it was like outside, when who should come knocking at the door but Eeyore.
‘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 or what-not 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 getting myself all cold. They haven’t got Brains, any of them, only grey fluff that’s blown into their 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.’
Christopher Robin didn’t stop to wonder. He was already back in his house, putting on his waterproof hat, his waterproof boots, and his waterproof macintosh as fast as he could.
‘We’ll go and look for it at once,’ he called out to Eeyore.
‘Sometimes,’ said Eeyore, ‘when people have quite finished taking a person’s house, there are one or two bits which they don’t want and are rather glad for the person to take back, if you know what I mean. So I thought if we just went –’
‘Come on,’ said Christopher Robin, and off they hurried, and in a very little time they got to the corner of the field by the side of the pine-wood, where Eeyore’s house wasn’t any longer.
‘There!’ said Eeyore. ‘Not a stick of it left! Of course, I’ve still got all this snow to do what I like with. One mustn’t complain.’
But Christopher Robin wasn’t listening to Eeyore, he was listening to something else.
‘Can you hear it?’ he asked.
‘What is it? Somebody laughing?’
‘Listen.’
They both listened … and they heard a deep gruff voice saying in a singing voice that the more it snowed the more it went on snowing, and a small high voice tiddely-pomming in between.
‘It’s Pooh,’ said Christopher Robin excitedly …
‘Possibly,’ said Eeyore.
‘And Piglet!’ said Christopher Robin excitedly. ‘Probably,’ said Eeyore. ‘What we want is a Trained Bloodhound.’
The words of the song changed suddenly.
‘We’ve finished our HOUSE!’ sang the gruff voice.
‘Tiddely pom!’ sang the squeaky one.
