Noble Things

(Here, the permanently grumpy Eeyore has decided to do a good deed: he finds a new house for Owl, whose abode was destroyed. What he does not know, however, is that the house he selected currently belongs to little Piglet. Of course, nobody wants to do anything to impede Eeyore's change of heart...)

"There!" said Eeyore proudly, stopping them outside Piglet's house. "And the name on it, and everything!"
"Oh!" cried Christopher Robin, wondering whether to laugh or what.
"Just the house for Owl. 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, mustn'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."

That passage from A.A. Milne's classic work never fails to cheer me up. It is so full of honest goodness in an understated and gentle way. Of course, it is purely a fictional tale from long, long ago but how I would love to open a newspaper or see on television that such kindness is taking place in some part of the planet. I am sure it would not take much for the world to look a little brighter; these days if a store cashier so much as smiles at us we are pleasantly surprised.

My aim, then, is to root out as many decent, good natured stories as I can for the purposes of reminding myself and others that the world can be a nice place when it wants to be. I am positive that they exist.