Now We Are Six

Now We Are Six

A. A. Milne

with the originalillustrations by E. H. Shepard, in colour

www.egmont.co.uk

Copyright

First published 13 October 1927 by Methuen & Co. Ltd

Published in this edition 2004 by Egmont Books Limited

239 Kensington High Street, London W8 6SA

Text by A. A. Milne copyright © Trustees of the Pooh Properties

Line illustrations copyright © E. H. Shepard

Colouring of the illustrations by Mark Burgess

copyright © 1989 Egmont UK Limited

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, distributed, or transmitted in any form or by any means, or stored in a database or retrieval system, without the prior written permission of the publisher.

First e-book edition April 2010

ISBN 978 1 4052 55844

1 3 5 7 9 10 8 6 4 2

A CIP catalogue record for this title is available

from the British Library

This paperback is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, resold, hired out, or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.

Dedication

TO

Anne Darlington NOW SHE IS SEVEN AND BECAUSE SHE IS SO SPESHAL

INTRODUCTION

When you are reciting poetry, which is a thing we never do, you find sometimes, just as you are beginning, that Uncle John is still telling Aunt Rose that if he can’t find his spectacles he won’t be able to hear properly, and does she know where they are; and by the time everybody has stopped looking for them, you are at the last verse, and in another minute they will be saying, ‘Thank-you, thank-you,’ without really knowing what it was all about. So, next time, you are more careful; and, just before you begin you say, ‘Er-h’r’m!’ very loudly, which means, ‘Now then, here we are’; and everybody stops talking and looks at you; which is what you want. So then you get in the way of saying it whenever you are asked to recite … and sometimes it is just as well, and sometimes it isn’t … and by and by you find yourself saying it without thinking. Well, this bit which I am writing, called Introduction, is really the er-h’r’m of the book, and I have put it in, partly so as not to take you by surprise, and partly because I can’t do without it now. There are some very clever writers who say that it is quite easy not to have an er-h’r’m, but I don’t agree with them. I think it is much easier not to have all the rest of the book.

What I want to explain in the Introduction is this. We have been nearly three years writing this book. We began it when we were very young … and now we are six. So, of course, bits of it seem rather babyish to us, almost as if they had slipped out of some other book by mistake. On page whatever-it-is there is a thing which is simply three-ish, and when we read it to ourselves just now we said, ‘Well, well, well,’ and turned over rather quickly. So we want you to know that the name of the book doesn’t mean that this is us being six all the time, but that it is about as far as we’ve got at present, and we half think of stopping there.

A. A. M.

P. S. – Pooh wants us to say that he thought it was a different book; and he hopes you won’t mind, but he walked through it one day, looking for his friend Piglet, and sat down on some of the pages by mistake.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

INTRODUCTION

SOLITUDE

KING JOHN’S CHRISTMAS

BUSY

SNEEZLES

BINKER

CHERRY STONES

THE KNIGHT WHOSE ARMOUR DIDN’T SQUEAK

BUTTERCUP DAYS

THE CHARCOAL-BURNER

US TWO

THE OLD SAILOR

THE ENGINEER

JOURNEY’S END

FURRY BEAR

FORGIVEN

THE EMPEROR’S RHYME

KNIGHT-IN-ARMOUR

COME OUT WITH ME

DOWN BY THE POND

THE LITTLE BLACK HEN

THE FRIEND

THE GOOD LITTLE GIRL

A THOUGHT

KING HILARY AND THE BEGGARMAN

SWING SONG

EXPLAINED

TWICE TIMES

THE MORNING WALK

CRADLE SONG

WAITING AT THE WINDOW

PINKLE PURR

WIND ON THE HILL

FORGOTTEN

IN THE DARK

THE END

SOLITUDE

I have a house where I go

When there’s too many people,

I have a house where I go

Where no one can be;

I have a house where I go,

Where nobody ever says ‘No’;

Where no one says anything – so

There is no one but me.

KING JOHN’S CHRISTMAS

King John was not a good man –

He had his little ways.

And sometimes no one spoke to him

For days and days and days.

And men who came across him,

When walking in the town,

Gave him a supercilious stare,

Or passed with noses in the air –

And bad King John stood dumbly there,

Blushing beneath his crown.

King John was not a good man,

And no good friends had he.

He stayed in every afternoon …

But no one came to tea.

And, round about December,

The cards upon his shelf

Which wished him lots of Christmas cheer,

And fortune in the coming year,

Were never from his near and dear,

But only from himself.

King John was not a good man,

Yet had his hopes and fears.

They’d given him no present now

For years and years and years.

But every year at Christmas,

While minstrels stood about,

Collecting tribute from the young

For all the songs they might have sung,

He stole away upstairs and hung

A hopeful stocking out.

King John was not a good man,

He lived his life aloof;

Alone he thought a message out

While climbing up the roof.

He wrote it down and propped it

Against the chimney stack:

‘TO ALL AND SUNDRY – NEAR AND FAR –

F. CHRISTMAS IN PARTICULAR.’

And signed it not ‘Johannes R.’

But very humbly, ‘JACK.’

‘I want some crackers,

And I want some candy;

I think a box of chocolates

Would come in handy;

I don’t mind oranges,

I do like nuts!

And I SHOULD like a pocket-knife

That really cuts.

And, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,

Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!’

King John was not a good man –

He wrote this message out,

And gat him to his room again,

Descending by the spout.

And all that night he lay there,

A prey to hopes and fears.

‘I think that’s him a-coming now,’

(Anxiety bedewed his brow.)

‘He’ll bring one present, anyhow –

The first I’ve had for years.’

‘Forget about the crackers,

And forget about the candy;

I’m sure a box of chocolates

Would never come in handy;

I don’t like oranges,

I don’t want nuts,

And I HAVE got a pocket-knife

That almost cuts.

But, oh! Father Christmas, if you love me at all,

Bring me a big, red india-rubber ball!’

King John was not a good man –

Next morning when the sun

Rose up to tell a waiting world

That Christmas had begun,

And people seized their stockings,

And opened them with glee,

And crackers, toys and games appeared,

And lips with sticky sweets were smeared,

King John said grimly: ‘As I feared,

Nothing again for me!’

‘I did want crackers,

And I did want candy;

I know a box of chocolates

Would come in handy;

I do love oranges,

I did want nuts.

I haven’t got a pocket-knife –

Not one that cuts.

And, oh! if Father Christmas had loved me at all,

He would have brought a big, red india-rubber ball!’

King John stood by the window,

And frowned to see below

The happy bands of boys and girls

All playing in the snow.

A while he stood there watching,

And envying them all …

When through the window big and red

There hurtled by his royal head,

And bounced and fell upon the bed,

An india-rubber ball!

AND OH, FATHER CHRISTMAS

MY BLESSINGS ON YOU FALL

FOR BRINGING HIM

A BIG, RED

INDIA-RUBBER

BALL!

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