In Which Evelyn Learns How To Button a Button, and Owl Gives an Etymology Lesson
As it was only a little past lunchtime when Piglet had left Evelyn and Red Zoomer to their own devices, girl and scooter decided – though really it was mostly Evelyn doing the deciding – to spend a bit more time in the Hundred Acre Wood that day and see what other friends they could meet. So she turned southward, and before long, came to the part of the wood known as Pooh Corner, where the old gray donkey Eeyore had once built himself a house, and a short while later, his friends had disassembled it and then built it again.
And there, thankfully where it had been left the second time, was the little house, and there, beside it, was Eeyore, gloomily munching on some thistles. “Hello Eeyore,” said Evelyn.
Eeyore said nothing, but looked up from his thistles and glanced about himself, then returned to them with a gloomy sigh. “Would you like to find some treasure?” Evelyn asked.
Again, the donkey looked up, and looked all about himself, and gave another gloomy sigh. “I beg your pardon, small child,” he finally said. “But you seem to be looking for someone.”
“I’m saying hello to you, Eeyore,” Evelyn said, patiently. “I want to take you on an adventure.”
“Ah,” said Eeyore. “I fear you are mistaken. It’s Pooh Bear you want. Visitors to this wood are always looking for him.”
“No, Eeyore, I was looking for you.”
“Piglet then,” said the donkey. “He’s not so well known as Pooh, of course, but charming in his way.”
“Eeyore,” said Evelyn, “I’ve already visited with Pooh, and Piglet, and Tigger too. And now I want you to come with me to find treasure.”
“Me?” asked Eeyore, not at all convinced.
“You,” Evelyn repeated.
Eeyore turned around in a circle, just to be certain, then gave a little nod of resignation. “I suppose it must be, then,” he said. And off they went.
Evelyn was by this point getting quite good at finding the shady spot quite near the north pole, but she made a great show of checking her map, for Eeyore’s benefit. When they finally got there, Eeyore looked around the place and sighed. “I see,” he said. “I understand now. Finding a treasure is an Expotition which calls for Brain. And Pooh, and Piglet, and Tigger, and even Little Roo, well, they are of course quite agreeable for spending a lazy afternoon playing Pooh Sticks or catching butterflies. But they haven’t a single brain between them, just fluff. This, I think, is a job that calls for some other animal. I shall set myself to it.”
And so he did. He set himself to the search with all the speed and vigor of a tired old gray donkey. And quite some time passed as he looked all around the shady spot, under leaves, and between blades of grass, and on top of mushrooms. Evelyn passed the time by trying to teach herself to climb trees (without much success) and how to button buttons (with a little more success), and by sometimes making a loud “Ahem” sound while tapping the fallen log with her foot.
But eventually, as it was starting to get a bit late, Evelyn said, “Eeyore, have you tried looking inside this log?”
“What?” said Eeyore. “What’s that? How is anyone to search for treasure with these constant interruptions? Here I am, just about to search inside this fallen log, when all of a sudden, I am interrupted. Honestly.” Then, Eeyore looked inside the log, and nodded very sagely to himself. “Aha,” he said.
“Have you found something?” Evelyn said, as casually as she could, given how long this particular Expotition had taken.
“I have found A Something,” Eeyore said. “Of a very suspicious kind.”
Evelyn helped Eeyore take the jar out of the log and declared, “Eeyore, you’ve found the treasure!”
“Have I?” he asked.
“Yes, look,” Evelyn said, and opened the jar. And there inside, Eeyore saw all the various treasures, such as the pretty rock from Pooh, and Tigger’s spring, and Roo’s marbles, and Piglet’s button.
“Oh,” said Eeyore, with a little longing look in his eye. “Well I don’t suppose… No, no, it could never be…”
“What is it, Eeyore?” asked Evelyn. “Would you like a piece of treasure?”
“It’s just… If no one would object… That button…”
Evelyn took the button out of the jar. It was the one that Piglet had put in that morning. “Do you want the button, Eeyore?” she asked.
Eeyore looked over his shoulder. “I think that a button like that would be just the thing to attach my tail. Nails can be fickle things, you know.” Evelyn looked at Eeyore’s backside and saw that his tail was held on with a nail, and could tell that it would take only a very little bit of pulling for the nail to come out.
“You could have the button, Eeyore,” Evelyn said. “If you have something to trade.”
“Hm,” said Eeyore. “Hm indeed. Aha.” And he took out a length of ribbon. “I had been saving this ribbon to replace my tail in the event I lost it again,” he explained. “But with that button, I don’t expect I’ll be needing it any more.”
Evelyn agreed that the ribbon would be a very grand thing to trade for the button. So she put the ribbon in the jar and took out the button. And while Eeyore was writing his name in the log book, Evelyn, who, as you will recall, had just been practicing a little while ago, buttoned the button onto Eeyore’s tail so that it was fixed firmly to him and wouldn’t fall off.
Once the treasure was safely put away back in its log, Eeyore swished his tail a few times, and nodded contentedly. “Thank you, small child,” he said. “You have done a great kindness to an old donkey.”
“You’re very welcome, Eeyore,” said Evelyn.
And so Eeyore went back about his business, and as it was getting late, Evelyn went home for the night. But the next morning, she returned to the Hundred Acre Wood, and this time, she made her way to The Chestnuts, and climbed up to the house of Owl. The sign on Owl’s door read, “PLES RING IF AN RNSER IS REQIRD. PLES CNOKE IF AN RNSER IS NOT REQID.” Evelyn could not read this sign, but it hardly mattered as there did not seem to be a bell pull anyway, so Evelyn knocked on Owl’s door.
“Hoo-oo’s there?” called the voice of Owl from behind the door.
“It’s Evelyn,” Evelyn said. “And you’re Owl.”
“Hm, yes,” said Owl as he opened the door. “You must be the little girl who has been taking all the animals in the wood on an Expotition?”
“Yes. I want you take you to find a Geode Catch,” she said.
“Ah,” said Owl. “Hm. Yes. The spotted or herbacious Geocache. Geode, From the Greek, geodes.” He took down a book from his shelf and consulted it, very importantly, then turned it the right way up and consulted it more. “Meaning a sort of hollow rock with crystals lining the inside. And catch from the Anglo-Norman cachier, meaning… Hm… Um… To… To catch. I see. Yes. Well, we’d best be off then,” he said.
And so they were. And along the way, they happened upon Rabbit, who had been busy gardening all week, and thought that an Expotition to find a Geocache would be a good way to pass the time while he waited for his carrots to sprout. So along they went, once again, to the shady spot quite near the North Pole.
Owl found a convenient branch and busied himself with searching in all the high places, in between breaks to tell the story of his cousin Owlsworth, who once caught a geode that was hidden underneath a stage by the lake. Evelyn thought it was very lucky that the treasure was not hidden somewhere up high, because with all the story-telling, Owl got very little actual looking done.
Rabbit, meanwhile, looked in all the low places: between the flowers, and under the leaves and he even dug a few small holes, being something of an expert at digging. But before long, he looked in the hole in the log, and up he came with the treasure. “You found the treasure, Rabbit!” Evelyn exclaimed.
“Well so I did,” said Rabbit. “Let’s see what’s inside.” Evelyn helped him open the jar, and they looked at the treasures inside.
“Oh no,” Evelyn said. “The pen got lost. Now you can’t write your names in the book.”
“I believe I can help with that,” said Owl, and took one of his feathers to use as a quill pen. He flapped down from the convenient branch and wrote his name in the book, WOL. Then he gave the quill pen to Rabbit, to write his name. Once signing the book was done, Owl put the feather in the jar for the next person to use, and added a second feather as a treasure to trade. In return, he took the ribbon that Eeyore had left, because it would make a very nice bell-pull.
Rabbit looked in the jar as well, and after a bit, he saw the spring. “Why, I plant my carrots in the spring,” he said. “This spring is the perfect thing to put on my mantle to remind me of how much I like spring. Whenever I look at it, I’ll remember that when springtime comes along, I have to plant my carrots.”
Evelyn thought that was very funny, because the spring had been left by Tigger, and Evelyn knew that Tigger and Rabbit didn’t always get along. So it was very funny to her that Rabbit would be so excited to have one of Tigger’s springs. In its place, Rabbit left his extra gardening glove.
Rabbit was so excited to put his new spring on his mantle that he hopped straight off home once they had put the geocache back in its hiding place. Owl began to tell a story about his great aunt Muriel, who owned a pen shop specializing in quill pens, but Evelyn suddenly remembered that she had wanted to visit the bridge to nowhere near the lake, and so she said goodbye to Owl and headed home.