Alan Alexander Miln. The house at Pooh Corner -
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then he turned all round and shouted "Hallo!" and "I say!"
"It's Rabbit!"--but nothing happened. Then he stopped and
listened, and everything stopped and listened with him, and the
Forest was very lone and still and peaceful in the sunshine,
until suddenly a hundred miles above him a lark began to sing.
"Bother!" said Rabbit. "He's gone out." He went back to
the green front door, just to make sure, and he was turning
away, feeling that his morning had got all spoilt, when he saw
a piece of paper on the ground. And there was a pin in it, as
if it had fallen off the door.
"Ha!" said Rabbit, feeling quite happy again. "Another
notice!"
This is what it said:
GON OUT
BACKSON
BISY
BACKSON
C. R.
"Ha!" said Rabbit again. "I must tell the others." And
he hurried off importantly.
The nearest house was Owl's, and to Owl's House in the
Hundred Acre wood he made his way. He came to Owl's door, and
he knocked and he rang, and he rang and he knocked, and at last
Owl's head came out and said "Go away, I'm thinking--oh, it's
you?" which was how he always began.
"Owl," said Rabbit shortly, "you and I have brains. The
others have fluff. If there is any thinking to be done in this
Forest--and when I say thinking I mean thinking--you and I must
do it."
"Yes," said Owl. "I was."
"Read that."
Owl took Christopher Robin's notice from Rabbit and
looked at it nervously. He could spell his own name WOL, and he
could spell Tuesday so that you knew it wasn't Wednesday, and
he could read quite comfortably when you weren't looking over
his shoulder and saying "Well?" all the time, and he could----