Alan Alexander Milne

. It is the best way to write poetry, letting things come.”

He was so pleased with this song that he sang it all the way to the top of the Forest, ‘and if I go on singing it much longer,’ he thought, ‘it will be time for the little something, and then the last line won’t be true.’ So he turned it into a hum instead.

Christopher Robin was sitting outside his door, putting on his Big Boots. As soon as he saw the Big Boots, Pooh knew that an Adventure was going to happen, and he brushed the honey off his nose with the back of his paw, and spruced himself up as well as he could, so as to look Ready for Anything.

‘Good morning, Christopher Robin,’ he called out.

‘Hallo, Pooh Bear. I can’t get this boot on.’

‘That’s bad,’ said Pooh.

‘Do you think you could very kindly lean against me, ‘cos I keep pulling so hard that I fall over backwards.’

Pooh sat down, dug his feet into the ground, and pushed hard against Christopher Robin’s back, and Christopher Robin pushed hard against his, and pulled and pulled at his boot until he had got it on.

CHAPTER NINE
in which Piglet is entirely surrounded by water
It rained and it rained and it rained. Piglet told himself that never in all his life, and he was goodness knows how old – three, was it, or four? – never had he seen so much rain. Days and days and days.

‘If only,’ he thought, as he looked out of the window, ‘I had been in Pooh’s house, or Christopher Robin’s house, or Rabbit’s house when it began to rain, then I should have had Company all this time, instead of being here all alone, with nothing to do except wonder when it will stop.’ And he imagined himself with Pooh, saying, ‘Did you ever see such rain, Pooh?’ and Pooh saying, ‘Isn’t it awful, Piglet?’ and Piglet saying, ‘I wonder how it is over Christopher Robin’s way,’ and Pooh saying, ‘I should think poor old Rabbit is about flooded out by this time.’ It would have been jolly to talk like this, and really, it wasn’t much good having anything exciting like floods, if you couldn’t share them with somebody.

For it was rather exciting. The little dry ditches in which Piglet had nosed about so often had become streams, the little streams across which he had splashed were rivers, and the river, between whose steep banks they had played so happily, had sprawled out of its own bed and was taking up so much room everywhere, that Piglet was beginning to wonder whether it would be coming into his bed soon.