you were who Rabbit thought you ought to be, you would be invited in.
Rabbit’s front room had sensible things in it like calendars and colanders and fireside rugs, and fire irons and sturdy Royal Doulton china, and a map of Bournemouth on the wall. Once you were seated, Rabbit would bring you a sensible cup of tea on a large saucer in case of drips and, by way of a treat, a small piece of shortbread from a tin with a picture of Edinburgh Castle on the top. Then, having made sure that you didn’t scatter any crumbs, he would send you back where you’d come from.
“It’s just as well there’s somebody around these parts who has some sense,” Rabbit used to say on these occasions, “otherwise anything might happen.”
If someone asked Rabbit what that anything might be, he would reply: “Pirates, revolution, things thrown on the ground and not picked up. And you should always carry a clean handkerchief with you just in case.”
One day, when Rabbit and Christopher Robin and Pooh were having tea on a sunny bank not far from Rabbit’s house, they found the conversation going just this way. They’d got to the bit about revolution, at which point Pooh stuck his head right into his pot of honey.
“Which reminds me,” continued Rabbit regardless, “nobody eats sensibly around here. Everyone should have gardens like mine. Then we could grow vegetables in rows like the Romans did.”
“Did the Romans grow vegetables in rows?” asked Christopher Robin.
“Well,” Rabbit replied, “if they had grown vegetables they would have been in rows, because it’s too difficult to grow things in circles.”
Then, leaning in close to Pooh, he said: “Consider all that honey and condensed milk. It cannot be good for you. You should eat as I do.”
Pooh pulled his head out of the honey-pot, and stared at Rabbit.
“I propose rationing you to one pot a month and replacing the honey with homegrown carrots and radishes.”
“Radishes!”Pooh cried in dismay. “Just joking,” said Rabbit. But if Rabbit was only teasing Pooh about his honey, he was serious about organizing things in the Forest.
“What we most need around here,”he announced,“apart from gardens and sensible diets and some overdue hedging and ditching, is a Census.”
Pooh licked the honey from his nose and asked Rabbit what he meant.
“A Census is when you write down the names of everyone who is living in a place, and how many of them, and so on.”
“But why, Rabbit?”
“So that if anyone wants to know you can tell them straightaway. The Ancient Britons did it in the Domesday Book, and once they knew who there was and where they were . . .” Rabbit paused to catch up with himself, “they could tax them.”
“Why did they want to?” Christopher Robin asked, reasonably enough.
“To pay for the Census, of course,” answered Rabbit. “I thought everybody knew that.”
As word got about, the other animals expressed their doubts.
“It seems to me,” Kanga remarked, “that you can’t count everything.”
Piglet said: “It’s not a Census, it’s a Nonsensus,” and then blushed at his cleverness.
Having announced to the world that a Census was what the Forest needed, Rabbit had no choice but to organize one. His first port of call was Owl’s house. He pulled on the bell-pull, then went in without waiting for an answer.
Owl was toying with a metal puzzle that he had found in his Christmas cracker three years ago, along with a paper hat and a joke about giraffes.
“What is it now, Rabbit?” he complained.
“I have to ask you questions for the Census.”
“Very well. But be quick about it.”
“Name?”
“Owl.”
“Spell it.”
“W-O-L.”
“Age?”
“Mind your own business!”
“Occupation?”
“Enough, Rabbit, enough!”
Owl flapped his wings so crossly that Rabbit flattened his ears and scuttled out of the house.
His next destination was Eeyore’s Gloomy Place where the old grey donkey was standing in the sun, dreaming of being young again in a field of poppies.
“Go away, Rabbit,” he muttered, opening an eye. “I was happy.”
“Happy may be all very well, Eeyore, but it doesn’t butter any parsnips.”
“Then leave them unbuttered,” said Eeyore, and he put his head between his legs, which is the second rudest thing a donkey can do.
“Well, really,” said Rabbit, “some animals!”
But Eeyore had shut his eyes and was trying to get back into the dream.
Next on Rabbit’s list was Christopher Robin, whom he found sketching the Six Pine Trees.
“Hallo, Rabbit. How’s the Census going?”
“Very well, very well, if we exclude certain donkeys. After all, a thing begun is a thing half done.”
Christopher Robin frowned over his