'But how else can you go out?' asked Piglet anxiously.
'That is the Problem, Piglet, to which I am asking Pooh to give his mind.'
Pooh sat on the floor which had once been a wall, and gazed up at the ceiling which had once been another wall, with a front door in it which had once been a front door, and tried to give his mind to it.
'Could you fly up to the letter-box with Piglet on your back?' he asked.
'No,' said Piglet quickly. 'He couldn't.'
Owl explained about the Necessary Dorsal Muscles. He had explained this to Pooh and Christopher Robin once before, and had been waiting ever since for a chance to do it again, because it is a thing which you can easily explain twice before anybody knows what you are talking about.
'Because you see, Owl, if we could get Piglet into the letter-box, he might squeeze through the place where the letters come, and climb down the tree and run for help.'
Piglet said hurriedly that he had been getting bigger lately, and couldn't possibly, much as he would like to, and Owl said that he had had his letter-box made bigger lately in case he got bigger letters, so perhaps Piglet might, and Piglet said, 'But you said the necessary you-know-whats wouldn't,' and Owl said, 'No, they won't, so it's no good thinking about it,' and Piglet said 'Then we'd better think of something else,' and began to at once. But Pooh's mind had gone back to the day when he had saved Piglet from the flood, and everybody had admired him so much; and as that didn't often happen, he thought he would like it to happen again. And suddenly, just as it had come before, an idea came to him.
'Owl,' said Pooh, 'I have thought of something.'
'Astute and Helpful Bear,' said Owl.
Pooh looked proud at being called a stout and helpful bear, and said modestly that he just happened to think of it. You tied a piece of string to Piglet, and you flew up to the letter-box with the other end in your beak, and you pushed it through the wire and brought it down to the floor, and you and Pooh pulled hard at this end, and Piglet went slowly up at the other end. And there you were.
'And there Piglet is,' said Owl. 'If the string doesn't break.'
'Supposing it does?' asked Piglet, really wanting to know.
'Then we try another piece of string.'
This was not very comforting to Piglet, because however many pieces of string they tried pulling up with, it would always be the same him coming down; but still, it did seem the only thing to do. So with one last look back in his mind at all the happy hours he had spent in the Forest not being, pulled up to the ceiling by a piece of string, Piglet nodded bravely at Pooh and said that it was a Very Clever pup-pup-pup Clever pup-pup Plan.
'It won't break,' whispered Pooh comfortingly, 'because you're a Small Animal, and I'll stand underneath, and if you save us all, it will be a Very Grand Thing to talk about afterwards, and perhaps I'll make up a Song, and people will say 'It was so grand what Piglet did that a Respectful Pooh Song was made about it!''
Piglet felt much better after this, and when everything was ready, and he found himself slowly going up to the ceiling, he was so proud that he would have called out 'Look at Me!' if he hadn't been afraid that Pooh and Owl would let go of their end of the string and look at him.
'Up we go!' said Pooh cheerfully.
'The ascent is proceeding as expected,' said Owl helpfully. Soon it was over. Piglet opened the letter-box and climbed in. Then, having untied himself, he began to squeeze into the slit, through which in the old days when front doors were front doors, many an unexpected letter that WOL had written to himself, had come slipping.
He squeezed and he sqoze, and then with one squze he was out. Happy and excited he turned round to squeak a last message to the prisoners.
'It's all right,' he called through the letter-box. 'Your tree is blown right over, Owl, and there's a branch across the door, but Christopher Robin and I can move it, and we'll bring a rope for Pooh, and I'll go and tell him now, and I can climb down quite easily, I mean it's dangerous but I can do it all right, and Christopher Robin and I will be back in about half-an-hour. Good-bye, Pooh!' And without waiting to hear Pooh's answering 'Good-bye, and thank you, Piglet,' he was off.
'Half-an-hour,' said Owl, settling himself comfortably. 'That will just give me time to finish that story I was telling you about my Uncle Robert – a portrait of whom you see underneath you. Now let me see, where was I? Oh, yes. It was on just such a blusterous day as this that my Uncle Robert …'
Pooh closed his eyes.
Chapter IX.
In which eeyore finds the Woleryand Owl moves into it
POOH had wandered into the Hundred Acre Wood, and was standing in front of what had once been Owl's House. It didn't look at all like a house now; it looked like a tree which had been blown down; and as soon as a house looks like that, it is time you tried to find another one. Pooh had had a Mysterious Missage underneath his front door that morning, saying, 'I AM SCERCHING FOR A NEW HOUSE FOR OWL SO HAD YOU RABBIT,' and while he was wondering what it meant, Rabbit had come in and read it for him.
'I'm leaving one for all the others,' said Rabbit, 'and telling them what it means, and they'll all search too. I'm in a hurry, good-bye.' And he had run off.
Pooh followed slowly. He had something better to do than to find a new house for Owl; he had to make up a Pooh song about the old one. Because he had promised Piglet days and days ago that he would, and whenever he and Piglet had met since, Piglet didn't actually say anything, but you knew at once why he didn't; and if anybody mentioned Hums or Trees or String or Storms-in-the-Night, Piglet's nose went all pink at the tip, and he talked about something quite different in a hurried sort of way.
'But it isn't Easy,' said Pooh to himself, as he looked at what had once been Owl's House. 'Because Poetry and Hums aren't things which you get, they're things which get you. And all you can do is to go where they can find you.'
He waited hopefully...
'Well,' said Pooh after a long wait, 'I shall begin 'Here lies a tree' because it does, and then I'll see what happens.'
