Page Twelve
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Friday, December 5, 1969
Page Twelve THE MICHIGAN DAILY Friday, December 5, 1969
A STORY TO BE READ ALOUD
How the Pooh found Christmas-really
By MICHAEL DOVER
In Which Pooh and Party
Look for Haycorns and Discov-
er Christmas.
(To be read aloud, if possible,
beneath a large quilt, on a Sun-
day morning, with someone you
love, for, that is how it was
written.)
IT FELT LIKE snowing that
day, and, to Pooh's surprise,
it did. About half past a little
something that morning, we
find Pooh sitting beneath one of
his favorite haycorn trees. Just
sitting there in a pleasant daze
dreaming of pleasant days and
a hazy world where it rained
honey.
All of a sudden, who cane
along but a snowflake. It didn't
announce itself, or say "Hello,
how are you?" (Say fine, thank-
you). It just fluffed down and
landed on the tippy-tip-tip of
Pooh's cold little nose.
Now Winnie-the-Pooh was not
used to snow. In fact, he didn't
even know what it was. Last
winter, we can remember, he
buried himself in a brown fur
knicker and a big fur cap and
fu'rydoawnmittens i a big fur
bed and slept the whole winter
away dreaming of big fur bears.
Having gone to bed about the
time the leaves turn from honey
to brown, he hadn't seen the
snow until the next spring, when
it was water. (And believe it or
not, none of the other animals
knew what snow was either, be-
cause they hadn't been looking
in the right direction in past
winters!)
So then, we can see that Pooh
could be very disturbed at this
airborne intruder into his land
of dreams. But what was even
more disturbing to Pooh was
that, his eyeballs being where
they were used to being, and not
feeling too much like moving, it
was impossible for him to see
this white fleck of fluff. And, of
course, said Pooh, "If I can't see
it, well then, it isn't there." And
pretty soon he was right! Be-
cause, while Pooh Bear does
have a cold nose, he doesn't have
that cold a nose, and after a
short wait all that was left was
a trickle of water.
Although Pooh never really
figured out what it was that
landed on his nose, he did notice
that this strange fluff was fall-
ing all over the place. He stuck
out his paw to catch some, but
no sooner had he caught it than
it wasn't there anymore. Pooh
just didn't know quite what to
think. And when Winnie-the-
Pooh doesn't know what to
think, he knows someone who
does. So off he went towards
Christopher Robin's.
COn the way lie stumbled into
Rabbit and Owl, who had notic-
ed that the ground seemed to be
changing color. Owl had been
flying around surveying his ter-
ritory, when he first observed
this strange phenomena. As
Pooh approached, Owl was con-
ferring with his colleague Rab-
bit as to the probable nature of
this variance in the environ-
nient.
"Undoubtedly." Rabbit was
saying, "I agree with your theory
that this is a perfectly natural
and cyclical result of a change
in the seasons. However, I can
not help but wonder what type
of seasoning has brought about
this change in the color of the
ground."
"That is a good question, Prof.
Rabbit, which requires Earnest
Thought." Rabbit pondered, "I
thing we can find the answer
through the process of logic
called parallel transference. Give
me just a moment to think." For
about as long as it takes to screw
in a lightbulb, Owl and Rabbit
gazed steadfastly at the ground
beneath their feet.
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Had they looked up, they
might have seen the Bear stand-
ing there, face uplifted, paws
outstretched, taking it all in,
waiting for Owl and Rabbit to
finish their little dissertation.
"Ah yes," Owl said inspiratIon-
ally, "I have it. Let us assume
leaves. Then we add that leaves
change color over time. If we
add the seasoning which you so
astutely mentioned, we are like-
ly to find that ground (earthus
dirtius) as well as leaves change
color over time."
THE SNOW was beginning to
fall fairly rapidly by this
time. Rabbit and Owl, however,
were so busy studying the ge-
netic composition of the ground
beneath their studious eyes, that
they hadn't bothered to notice
that by this time the sun was
taking a nap behind the clouds.
The snow had by now complete-
ly covered the ground and was
almost as high as Rabbit's toe-
nail.
"Still, how are we to account
for this Change in the Mass of
the Earth?" Owl queried, "If
my calculations are correct, and
the whole world, indeed, all my
territory from the Big Stones
and Rocks to the Floody Place s
covered with this fluff, then
there is at least a statistically
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significant amount of fluff pre-
sent. Simply a change in color
could not account for all this.
Where is it all coming from?"
Before he could hear Rabbit's
response, Pooh was upon them.
Rabbit and Owl responded to
Pooh's greetings by raising their
eyes from the ground long
enough to give Pooh the cour-
tesy and privilege o fa look, (al-
though, believe it or not, the
small bear was their friend).
"Strange," said Pooh, "This fluff
is falling all over the place, but
none of it seems to land on me.
I'm almost blind there's so much
of it, but just as it lands on me
it disappears.
"This is a strange disorder,"
said Owl, "Unique in the history
of man. We had been pondering
the same thing, hadn't we Rab-
bit?"
"Why, why, why yes we had
Pooh and-"
"Why, y-yes we had Pooh,"
Owl panicked, having begun to
look up uneasily at the sky,
"And the conclusion we had
come to was that, HELP, HELP
Rabbit, the sky is falling, the
sky is falling." The origin of all
this fluff had finally impressed
itself on Owl. He thought about
flying away, but was scared he
too would fall.
Rabbit, of course, was some-
what shaken himself. But seeing
as Owl panicked first, he could
see no point in it. Besides, the
more that the stuff fell, the
taller the rabbit seemed to get!
Rabbit tried to calm Owl down,
with some success. "All. I can
say," said Owl, "is that those
things look an awful lot like
feathers."
"Now be still, Owl," Rabbit
pacified. "It is not feathers, that
is falling, what it is is simply, is
is the-clouds-breaking-up
into-small-pieces-and-falling -
back-to-earth! I think we should
tell Robin immediately."
"Yes let's ask Robin," said
Pooh, anxious (as, you know,
bears will be) to be on his way.
So all three trundled off to
Christopher Robin's. On the
way, they stopped by to pick up
Piglet, who rode on Pooh's back
seeing that the snow was get-
ting very deep for small pigs.
Piglet, too, was scared: "How
am I going to find my haycorns
with all this snow on the
ground?" he worried.
"Well, it's too late now," said
the Rabbit. "You should have
saved for the winter." But before
Pooh could intervene with a
Helpful Comment it occurred to
Owl: "What did you call this
stuff?" he asked, looking up at
the sky and then back at the
ground again and again, as if he
wondered whether to believe his
own eyes.
"Snow," Piglet answered.
"Oh... Oh????? What were
your sources?"
See ON, Page 13