The Sunny Side: Short Stories and Poems for Proper Grown-Ups by A. A. Milne was first published in 1921 and it remains largely unknown, or thoroughly forgotten, or something. I bought this hardcover edition of the book in Oxfam (where I buy most of my books), but the full text is freely available thanks to Project Gutenberg. My favourite story from this book is The Arrival of Blackman’s Warbler.
I have become an Authority on Birds. It happened in this way.
The other day we heard the Cuckoo in Hampshire. (The next morning the papers announced that the Cuckoo had been heard in Devonshire—possibly a different one, but in no way superior to ours except in the matter of its Press agent.) Well, everybody in the house said, “Did you hear the Cuckoo?” to everybody else, until I began to get rather tired of it; and, having told everybody several times that I had heard it, I tried to make the conversation more interesting. So, after my tenth “Yes,” I added quite casually:
“But I haven’t heard the Tufted Pipit yet. It's funny why it should be so late this year.”
“Is that the same as the Tree Pipit?” said my hostess, who seemed to know more about birds than I had hoped.
“Oh, no,” I said quickly.
“What's the difference exactly?”
“Well, one is tufted,” I said, doing my best, “and the other—er—climbs trees.”
And so on. Read it.
No comments:
Post a Comment