Part 1
Humming a Tune
Winnie-the-Pooh was walking through the forest one day and humming proudly to himself.
Earlier that morning, he was doing exercises in front of the mirror. That was when he had begun humming.
As he stretched up as high as he could go, he sang:
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la
Then, as he bent over and tried to reach his toes, he sang:
Tra-la-la, tra-la -oh, help!- la
After breakfast, he had rehearsed it over and over to himself. Now, he knew it by heart.
Walking through the forest, he hummed the tune all the way through from beginning to end. It went like this:
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Tra-la-la, tra-la-la,
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum.
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Tiddle-iddle, tiddle-iddle,
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um.
Part 2
“Is anybody home?”
It was a fine morning to be humming and walking about.
Pooh began to wonder what everybody else was doing this fine morning.
He came to a sandy bank. In the bank was a large hole.
Rum-tum-tiddle-um-tum
“Aha!” said Pooh. “If I know anything about anything, that hole means Rabbit.”
He moved closer for a better look. “And Rabbit means company,” he continued, “…and company means food and listening-to-me-humming and any number of things.”
Rum-tum-tum-tiddle-um
So, he bent down and put his head into the hole.
Pooh called out, “Is anybody home?”
There was a sudden scuffling noise from inside the hole, and then silence.
“What I said was, ‘Is anybody at home?’” he said again, very loudly this time.
“No,” said a voice, “and you don’t need to shout. I heard you quite well the first time.”
“Oh bother!” said Pooh. “You mean there isn’t anybody here at all?”
“Nobody!”
Part 3
Very Much and Even More
Winnie-the-Pooh took his head out of the hole and thought about this for a little while. “There must be somebody in there,” he thought to himself, “because somebody shouted ‘Nobody!’”
So, he put his head back in the hole, and said, “Hey, Rabbit, that is you in there, isn’t it?”
“No,” said Rabbit, in a different sort of voice this time.
“But isn’t that Rabbit’s voice I hear?”
“I don’t think so,” said Rabbit. “It’s probably someone else.”
“Oh!” said Pooh. He took his head out of the hole to think some more. Then he put it back in and said, “Well, could you kindly tell me where Rabbit is?”
“He has gone out to see a very good friend of his named Winnie-the-Pooh.”
“But…but that’s me!” said Pooh, very much surprised.
“Me who?”
“Me! Pooh Bear!”
“Wait, are you sure?” said the rabbit, even more surprised than the bear.
“Yes, quite sure,” said Pooh.
“Oh, well, then in that case, come on in.”
Pooh pushed and pushed and pushed his way through the hole. At last, he got in.
“You were right,” said Rabbit. “It is you!” Rabbit looked him over and smiled. “It is so good to see you.”
“Who did you think it was?”
“I wasn’t at all sure. You know how it is in the forest. You can’t let just anybody come into your house. One must be careful.”
Both animals nodded in silence.
Part 4
Time To Go
Rabbit headed toward the kitchen. Speaking over his shoulder as he went, he asked, “Would you care for a bite to eat?”
Pooh always liked a little something around eleven o’clock in the morning. He was delighted to see Rabbit getting out the plates and mugs.
Rabbit asked, “Would you like honey or condensed milk with your bread?”
Pooh was so excited that he said, “Both!” Then, so as not to seem greedy, he added, “But don’t bother with the bread. It’s fine.”
For a long time after that, Pooh said nothing. He licked sticky stuff off his fingers and hummed to himself. Then, he got up, shook Rabbit lovingly by the paw, and explained that he must be going.
“Must you?” said Rabbit politely.
“Well,” said Pooh, “I could stay a little longer if it…uh…if you—” and he tried very hard to look in the direction of the food pantry.
“As a matter of fact,” said Rabbit, “I was going out myself.”
“Well, then, I suppose it’s time for me to go.”
“OK, good-bye, if you’re sure you won’t have any more.”
“Is there more?” asked Pooh quickly.
Rabbit held out his arms toward Pooh. The jar of honey was in one hand and can of condensed milk was in the other. Then, he turned them both upside-down. “No, there isn’t.”
“I thought not,” said Pooh, nodding to himself. “Well, good-bye, then. I really must get going.”
Part 5
Stuck
Pooh started to climb out of the hole. He pulled with his front paws and pushed with his back paws.
After a little while, his nose was out in the open. Then came his ears and his front paws. His shoulders came out next, as you would expect, but then—
“Oh, help!” said Pooh. He couldn’t go any further. “I’d better go back.”
He reversed his efforts for a while: pushing with his front paws and trying to pull with his back paws. He couldn’t make any progress in that direction either.
“Oh, bother! There is no going back,” said Pooh. “I shall have to go forward after all.”
He put all his strength into getting himself out that hole, but he did not move.
“I can’t do either!” said Pooh. “I can’t go forward or backward!”
By this time Rabbit wanted to go for a walk too. The front door was blocked, so he left by the back door.
He came round to the front to speak to Pooh.
“Hello, there! Are you stuck?” he asked.
“N-no,” said Pooh carelessly. “Just resting and thinking and humming to myself.”
“Here, give us a paw.”
Pooh Bear stretched out a paw, and Rabbit pulled and pulled and pulled.
“Ow!” cried Pooh. “You’re hurting me!”
“The fact is,” said Rabbit, “you’re stuck.”
Pooh spoke crossly, “It all comes from not having front doors that are big enough.”
“It all comes,” said Rabbit sternly, “from eating too much.”
Rabbit didn’t give Pooh a chance to respond. “I thought so at the time, only I didn’t want to say anything. I knew someone was eating too much, and I was certain that it wasn’t me.”
Pooh had completely stopped his pushing and pulling. He had no desire to talk.
“Well, I’ll have to go and fetch Christopher Robin.”
Part 6
Out is better than in.
Christopher Robin lived at the other end of the forest.
When he arrived with Rabbit and saw the front half of Pooh, he said, “Silly old Bear,” in such a loving voice that everybody felt quite hopeful again.
“I was just beginning to think,” said the bear, sniffing slightly, “perhaps Rabbit will never be able to use his front door again. I would hate for that to happen.”
“So would I,” said Rabbit.
“Use his front door again?” said Christopher Robin. “Of course, he’ll use his front door again.”
“Good,” said Rabbit.
“If we can’t pull you out, Pooh, we might be able to push you back in.”
Rabbit scratched his whiskers thoughtfully. As it was clear he wanted to make a point, both Christopher Robin and Winnie-the-Pooh waited to hear what it was.
“As for the prospect of having a big bear living in your home,” began Rabbit, “well, no one could be more thrilled about that than I.”
Rabbit always spoke quickly, but at this point he began to speak very quickly indeed.
“The concern comes with how many different sorts of animals there are. Some of you stroll about leisurely, and others of us dart to and fro. We can’t exactly swap one for the other, can we?”
When rabbits run, it is never entirely clear where they are going. It throws off anyone who might try to follow. The same can be said of their arguments.
“A bear who never strolls through the woods is no bear at all! This much is a given. Now, if we were to succeed in getting Pooh pushed back in, then he’d only be that much further away from taking his next stroll. At some point, he would just have to give up altogether on being a bear.”
“You mean that you’ll shove me underground to stay forever?” cried Pooh.
“I mean,” said Rabbit, “that having got this far already, it seems a pity to waste such progress. Why go backwards and down, when there is onwards and up?”
They all three nodded in silence.
“There’s only one thing to be done,” said Christopher Robin. “We must wait for you to get thin again.”
“How long does getting thin take?” asked Pooh anxiously.
“About a week, I suppose.”
“But I can’t stay here for a week!”
“No, you can. Staying here is not the problem. It’s getting you moving that’ll be difficult.”
“In the meantime, we can read to you,” said Rabbit cheerfully. “We all know how much you like stories.”
Then, looking up at the sky, he said, “I hope it doesn’t snow this week.”
Rabbits run fast, but they can think even faster. This rabbit’s mind was racing.
“I say, old fellow, you’re taking up a good deal of room in my house. Would you mind if I use your back legs as a towel rack? Because, I mean, there they are—two legs, doing nothing. It would be very convenient just to hang the towels on them.”
Part 7
No Alternatives
Part 8
Sustaining Without Sustenance
Rabbit kept thinking aloud about how best to live with half a bear.
“A week,” said Pooh gloomily to himself. He turned to Christopher Robin. “What about meals?”
“I’m afraid there will be no meals. Eating won’t help you get any thinner, and that is what we’re after. But we will read to you whatever stories you wish.” He turned to Rabbit. “That was an excellent idea you had.”
Pooh Bear felt himself trying to sigh, but he was only trying. He couldn’t actually sigh, because he couldn’t take in the deep breath he needed before letting out his sigh. He was stuck so tightly, he could only make short, rapid inhalations.
A tear rolled down his eye.
“Would you please read me sustaining books?” he suggested. “Perhaps there is one entitled Wedged Bear: In Great Tightness?”
For a whole week, Christopher Robin did read just those sorts of book to Pooh—anything that would sustain his troubled spirit. However, he never found one with that exact title.
Part 9
Thanks To Friends
While Christopher Robin was reading books at the north end of Pooh, Rabbit hung his washing on the south end.
Pooh Bear felt himself getting thinner and thinner.
At the end of the week Christopher Robin said, “Now!”
He took hold of Pooh’s front paws. Rabbit took hold of Christopher Robin. All Rabbit’s relations and several of his friends took hold of Rabbit and each other.
The whole line pulled and tugged for a long time.
Pooh couldn’t help much with his front legs, since Christopher Robin had ahold of them. His back legs were squirming, but they weren’t much help either. There wasn’t anything for him push against.
All he could do was mutter. He didn’t speak words. He just made a sound between “Ow!” and “Oh!”
Then, all of a sudden, he made a completely different sound:
Pop!
It was just like a cork coming out of a bottle.
Christopher Robin, Rabbit, Rabbit’s friends, and all of Rabbit’s relations went head-over-heels backwards. Flying out on the top of them came Winnie-the-Pooh.
He was free!
With a nod of thanks to his friends, Pooh Bear went on with his walk through the forest. He was humming proudly to himself.
Christopher Robin looked after him lovingly. He said to himself, “Silly old bear!” but he didn’t say it out loud.