Piglet's Radical Hospitality

Most days, I read to my children during lunchtime. This is how we enjoy longer-form books together: over the last two years we’ve ambled through The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe; The Little Pilgrim’s Progress; The Voyage of the Dawn Treader; and Winne-the-Pooh. We’re currently a chapter or two from the end of The House at Pooh Corner, and it is, not surprisingly, a delight. My six-year-old and four-year-old are just the right ages to laugh over Pooh and Piglet’s adventures, and there’s enough true wit to keep me engaged, as well.

All of which is to say, we’ve enjoyed both Pooh volumes very much. I was not, however, expecting to find myself sobbing over the conclusion to chapter IX: “In Which Eeyore Finds the Wolery and Owl Moves Into It.” In the previous chapter, Pooh and Piglet were visiting Owl’s treehouse during a windstorm, when the strong winds brought the tree down— and Owl’s house with it. After fearing they were trapped in the topsy-turvy house (the front door now being on the '“ceiling”), Owl and Pooh were able to hoist Piglet through the letterbox of the front door, so that he could fetch Christopher Robin to help.

Chapter IX, then, opens with all the creatures in the wood trying to help Owl in the aftermath of this disaster. It’s a sweet picture of community support after calamity: Kanga and Roo are helping Owl salvage his furniture and other possessions from the wrecked house, while Rabbit is encouraging all the other animals to help Owl find a new house. Pooh, meanwhile, is composing a rather grand poem in honor of Piglet’s heroism in escaping and bringing help: “O gallant Piglet (PIGLET)! Ho!”

All of this activity proceeds with the sort of merry, bumbling bustle we’ve come to expect from Pooh and his friends. It’s not surprising, then, when Eeyore comes along and, trying to help, makes a comical blunder: he excitedly announces that he has found the perfect new home for Owl, and proudly leads Christopher Robin, Pooh, and Piglet to see it. The catch? Eeyore has led them to Piglet’s house, not realizing it is already someone else’s home.

At this point, something happens which I did not expect, and I found myself reading it aloud through tears:

“Just the house for Owl,” [said Eeyore]. “Don’t you think so, little Piglet?”

And then Piglet did a Noble Thing, and he did it in a sort of dream, while he was thinking of all the wonderful words Pooh had hummed about him.

“Yes, it’s just the house for Owl,” he said grandly. “And I' hope he’ll be very happy in it.” And then he gulped twice, because he had been very happy in it himself.

“What do you think, Christopher Robin?” asked Eeyore a little anxiously, feeling that something wasn’t quite right.

Christopher Robin had a question to ask first, and he was wondering how to ask it.

“Well,” he said at last, “it’s a very nice house, and if your own house is blown down, you must go somewhere else, musn’t you Piglet? What would you do, if your house was blown down?”

Before Piglet could think, Pooh answered for him.

“He’d come and live with me,” said Pooh, “wouldn’t you, Piglet?”

Piglet squeezed his paw.

“Thank you, Pooh,” he said. “I should love to.”

There’s layer upon layer of beauty here: first in Eeyore himself, who earlier in the chapter had been lamenting his loneliness. Hearing this, Rabbit had invited Eeyore to join everyone in the search for a new home (a new “Wolery” for Owl). Eeyore courageously accepts Rabbit’s invitation, but like so many guests, he doesn’t fully understand what’s going on, or what’s needed. Rather than put him to shame, Christopher Robin and Piglet decided (scandalously!) to accept the wisdom lurking in Eeyore’s foolishness.

And dear Piglet, so fearful through the book’s earlier adventures, does the most courageous thing of all. He gives his home away. He does this not entirely on his own power, either; his moral courage has been strengthened by a poem: “the wonderful words Pooh had hummed about him” — language that tells the truth and helps us believe it.

Piglet is willing to become a needy guest, a stranger, not only for Owl, who has lost his home, but also for Eeyore, who is trying desperately to move from the margins of the community to its heart. As I watched my children leaning forward, waiting to hear how Piglet would reply to Christopher Robin, I could only pray that when they encounter the needs of Owl, home swept away, that they would have the courage of Piglet to give even to the uttermost. And even more, I pray that when the reality of their sacrifice sweeps over them—when they must “gulp twice” like Piglet, counting the cost of their faithfulness—that there would be friends like Pooh to take their hands and make the plan for the next step, before they even need to speak a word.

If I were still teaching, I think I’d like to put together a syllabus on “The Literature of Hospitality.” It would features all the greats—The Odyssey of course, and much from the Bible. But I think that we might need to begin in the 100-Acre Wood, with an unlikely host who “did a Noble Thing” indeed.