Page:The House at Pooh Corner (1961).pdf/109

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Eeyore Joins the Game
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more fun to stand on the bottom rail, so that he could lean right over, and watch the river slipping slowly away beneath him. Pooh could get his chin on to the bottom rail if he wanted to, but it was more fun to lie down and get his head under it, and watch the river slipping slowly away beneath him. And this was the only way in which Piglet and Roo could watch the river at all, because they were too small to reach the bottom rail. So they would lie down and watch it . . . and it slipped away very slowly, being in no hurry to get there.

One day, when Pooh was walking towards this bridge, he was trying to make up a piece of poetry about fir-cones, because there they were, lying about on each side of him, and he felt singy. So he picked a fir-cone up, and looked at it, and said to himself, “This is a very good fir-cone, and something ought to rhyme to it.” But he couldn’t think of anything. And then this came into his head suddenly:

Here is a myst’ry
About a little fir-tree.
Owl says it’s his tree,
And Kanga says it’s her tree.