Roo Quotes

She isn’t Clever, Kanga isn’t, but she would be so anxious about Roo that she would do a Good Thing to Do without thinking about It.

Nobody seemed to know where they came from, but there they were in the Forest: Kanga and Baby Roo. When Pooh asked Christopher Robin, “How did they come here?” Christopher Robin said, “In the Usual Way, if you know what I mean, Pooh,” and Pooh, who didn’t, said “Oh!” Then he nodded his head twice and said, “In the Usual Way. Ah!”

Kanga never takes her eye off Baby Roo, except when he’s safely buttoned up in her pocket.

Just for a moment, she thought she was frightened, and then she knew she wasn’t; for she felt quite sure that Christopher Robin would never let any harm happen to Roo.

Roo was washing his face and paws in the stream, while Kanga explained to everybody proudly that this was the first time he had ever washed his face himself, and Owl was telling Kanga an Interesting Anecdote full of long words like Encyclopædia and Rhododendron to which Kanga wasn’t listening.

Everybody was doing something to help. Piglet, wide awake suddenly, was jumping up and down and making “Oo, I say” noises; Owl was explaining that in a case of Sudden and Temporary Immersion the Important Thing was to keep the Head Above Water; Kanga was jumping along the bank, saying “Are you sure you’re all right, Roo dear?” to which Roo, from whatever pool he was in at the moment, was answering “Look at me swimming!”

“What I did was nothing. Any of you—except Rabbit and Owl and Kanga—would have done the same. Oh, and Pooh. My remarks do not, of course, apply to Piglet and Roo, because they are too small. Any of you would have done the same.”

So Kanga and Roo stayed in the Forest. And every Tuesday Roo spent the day with his great friend Rabbit, and every Tuesday Kanga spent the day with her great friend Pooh, teaching him to jump, and every Tuesday Piglet spent the day with his great friend Christopher Robin. So they were all happy again.

“Well, look in my cupboard, Tigger dear, and see what you’d like.” Because she knew at once that, however big Tigger seemed to be, he wanted as much kindness as Roo. “Shall I look, too?” said Pooh, who was beginning to feel a little eleven o’clockish.

Now it happened that Kanga had felt rather motherly that morning, and Wanting to Count Things—like Roo’s vests, and how many pieces of soap there were left, and the two clean spots in Tigger’s feeder; so she had sent them out with a packet of watercress sandwiches for Roo and a packet of extract-of-malt sandwiches for Tigger, to have a nice long morning in the Forest not getting into mischief.

When Piglet had finished jumping, he wiped his paws on his front, and said, “What shall we do now?” and Pooh said, “Let’s go and see Kanga and Roo and Tigger,” and Piglet said, “Y-yes. L-lets”—because he was still a little anxious about Tigger, who was a Very Bouncy Animal, with a way of saying How-do-you-do, which always left your ears full of sand, even after Kanga had said, “Gently, Tigger dear,” and had helped you up again.

“After all,” said Rabbit to himself, “Christopher Robin depends on Me. He’s fond of Pooh and Piglet and Eeyore, and so am I, but they haven’t any Brain. Not to notice. And he respects Owl, because you can’t help respecting anybody who can spell TUESDAY, even if he doesn’t spell it right; but spelling isn’t everything. There are days when spelling Tuesday simply doesn’t count. And Kanga is too busy looking after Roo, and Roo is too young and Tigger is too bouncy to be any help, so there’s really nobody but Me, when you come to look at it. I’ll go and see if there’s anything he wants doing, and then I’ll do it for him. It’s just the day for doing things.”

“Can they fly?” asked Roo. “Yes,” said Tigger, “they’re very good flyers, Tiggers are. Stornry good flyers.” “Oo!” said Roo. “Can they fly as well as Owl?” “Yes,” said Tigger. “Only they don’t want to.”

Now one day Pooh and Piglet and Rabbit and Roo were all playing Poohsticks together. They had dropped their sticks in when Rabbit said “Go!” and then they had hurried across to the other side of the bridge, and now they were all leaning over the edge, waiting to see whose stick would come out first. But it was a long time coming, because the river was very lazy that day, and hardly seemed to mind if it didn’t ever get there at all.

“Tomorrow?” said Roo hopefully. “We’ll see,” said Kanga. “You’re always seeing, and nothing ever happens,” said Roo sadly.

“Nasty cold day,” said Rabbit, shaking his head. “And you were coughing this morning.” “How do you know?” asked Roo indignantly. “Oh, Roo, you never told me,” said Kanga reproachfully. “It was a Biscuit Cough,” said Roo, “not one you tell about.”

“Oh, there it is! Oh, Owl! Owl, it isn’t a sponge, it’s a spudge! Do you know what a spudge is, Owl? It’s when your sponge gets all——” and Kanga said, “Roo, dear!” very quickly, because that’s not the way to talk to anybody who can spell TUESDAY.

“I shall have to go and find them,” explained Tigger to Roo. “May I find them too?” asked Roo eagerly. “I think not today, dear,” said Kanga. “Another day.” “Well, if they’re lost tomorrow, may I find them?” “We’ll see,” said Kanga, and Roo, who knew what that meant, went into a corner, and practised jumping out at himself, partly because he wanted to practise this, and partly because he didn’t want Christopher Robin and Tigger to think that he minded when they went off without him.

“It’s a funny thing about Tiggers,” whispered Tigger to Roo, “how Tiggers never get lost.”

“You can go and collect some fir-cones for me,” said Kanga, giving them a basket. So they went to the Six Pine Trees, and threw fir-cones at each other until they had forgotten what they came for, and they left the basket under the trees and went back to dinner.