we need to make sure that there’s water in it, and the way to do that is to throw something down and listen for a splash. Does anyone have a pebble?”
“I have,”said Tigger,“but it’s avery special one that I was keeping for my Collection of Special and Interesting Stones.”
“Tigger,”said Rabbit severely, “what we have to consider here is the Greater Good of the Greater Number. Give me your pebble.”
“Must I?”But even as Tigger asked, he knew what the answer would be.
Then Rabbit took Tigger’s pebble and held it high above the shaft and called for silence and let it drop. The animals listened for what seemed like several minutes but was probably just a few seconds, and then unmistakably there could be heard a faint splosh.
“Well,” said Christopher Robin, “that is very good news indeed.”
“It is good news, I quite see that, Christopher Robin,” said Pooh, “but if the water is down there and we are up here...”
“The answer is the bucket,” said Christopher Robin. “We let down the bucket, and it gets filled with water, and then we pull it up.”
This suggestion met with general approval, and Pooh said, “What it is to have a Brain!”
And Christopher Robin said, “Silly old Pooh!” and dropped the bucket down the well. They all watched as the chain unwound and the winch spun with a racket like a hundred saucepans being thrown onto a tin roof, until suddenly everything stopped. The bucket stopped and the winch stopped and the noise stopped.
“Machinery!” muttered Eeyore. “Modern inventions! Never as good as they’re cracked up to be.”
“There must be a blockage,” said Christopher Robin. “The pebble missed it but the bucket didn’t. What we need is . . .” and then he stopped and glanced around the animals, and cleared his throat, and continued, “What we need is a Brave Volunteer to go down in the bucket to Clear the Obstruction and come back up with some water.”
There was a long silence in Galleon’s Lap, broken only by the wind in the pine trees and a distant buzzing of bees.
“Of course it has to be somebody who is not only brave but small.”
There was another long silence. When Piglet looked at the other animals, he noticed that they were all staring at him.
“Oh dear,”he squeaked.“Why is everyone looking at me ?” But he already knew why. “Oh dear,” he repeated, “oh dearie me.”
So then he climbed into the bucket, and stood with his face just peeping over the edge.
“I don’t much want to be here,” he said.
Eeyore took hold of the winch. “If you want me to pull you up, little Piglet, just shout ‘Up!’ and if you want to go deeper—”
“Deeper?”squeaked Piglet.
“—just shout ‘Deeper!’”
“Oh,”squeaked Piglet again. “Oh dearie, dearie me.”
“Winch away!” cried Christopher Robin, and away Eeyore winched. The wood creaked and the chain rattled and ever so slowly the bucket vanished from sight.
Piglet, peering over the top of the bucket, could see the faces of his friends growing smaller and smaller. He could not quite smother a squeak of alarm, which echoed around him. The rope swayed, and it grew ever darker, and Piglet clutched the edge of the bucket with all his might.
“What if the chain breaks?” he whispered to himself. “And what if the bucket falls to bits, and what if the blockage is a Woozle, or Several Woozles, and what if they forget that I’m down here and go home and have tea and toasted buns?”
All around him came ghostly echoes whispering “toasted buns, toasted buns,” and Piglet kept trying to think of a hum to cheer himself up, but he couldn’t.
Then suddenly the bucket stopped.
Piglet could just make out the blockage. It was a holly branch that was jammed in the wall.
Piglet grabbed hold of it, and shook it as hard as he dared. It fell right away, and there was a splash, and the bucket went down very fast after the tree branch—until there was another splash, and Piglet found himself bobbing around on an ocean of dark, glittering water.
Now he knew what had to be done.
1. He tilted the bucket and pushed it under the water until it was half full and he was three-quarters wet. Then,
2. He stood on the rim of the bucket and held very tight onto the chain. And then,
3. He shouted at the very top of his little voice, “Up! Up! Up, Eeyore, UP!”
He heard his voice echoing all around. After a while, the bucket began to rise and Piglet, balancing carefully