LITTLE MITCHELL’S FIRST RIDE, AND HOW HE AND HIS LADY GET HOME

Oh, no, indeed! They didn’t try to go back the way they came up. They went down the sensible side of the mountain. The distance was more than twice as great, but there was a plain path all the way.

But first they stopped a minute to look at the Mitchell monument. I must tell you about this. It is made of metal, and is fastened with four strong wire cables, to keep it from blowing down,—for there are terrible winds on the top of Mount Mitchell. The monument is placed over the grave of Dr. Mitchell, for whom the big mountain is named, because he loved it so, and went up to the top of it a great many times, and measured it to find out how high it is; but one day the clouds came down, and he stayed so long that he got lost on his beautiful mountain, and died there.

So the mountain was named after Dr. Mitchell; and Baby Mitchell, as you have guessed long before this, was named after the mountain, because the lady found him on the side of it.

Well, they started down in the rain, and the path was plain enough, for mules sometimes came up it as I have told you. But it was a hard path to walk in, for the roots of the big trees that grew so close together had come up out of the ground, as tree roots do, and had twisted about everywhere. Sometimes it was like going down a flight of break-neck stairs, the path was so steep, and the twisted roots made the steps. Besides, there were deep holes full of water that your feet kept sinking down into.

But in spite of all this, it was a beautiful forest. And soon the lady forgot how cold and tired she had been, and went along as happy as could be. You see, the forest was so lovely, all dripping wet, and the air was so fine, she had to feel happy. The dampness made the moss like king’s velvet, so soft and deep and green.

And the great fir trees towered high up toward the sky, and stood so close together there was scarcely room to pass between them; and it was all dim and half dark, because of the trees overhead, and the cloud over the trees.

After a while they got out of the firs into the briar patch; and here the sun was trying to break through the clouds. And after the briar patch, where it was not so steep, they came into another kind of forest.

They had got below the fir trees, and now went along under the broad-leaved oaks, and chestnuts, and lindens, and many other mountain trees.

The path got smoother, excepting where they had to cross the beds of rocky streams, full and roaring from the rain. It wound back and forth on the mountain-side, and was not so steep, and the lady kept on feeling very happy, the forest was so lovely.

At last they got down the mountain and came to a river that was hard to cross. It went rushing along, and they had to jump from rock to rock to get over. But they managed it, and then went on through more lovely woods, till they got to Mr. Dolph Wilson’s house.

This house had several rooms, and the Wilsons were used to having strangers come and stay with them on their way to or from the mountain. They had a mule named Belle, that had been up,—oh, I don’t know how many times,—and she could walk in the holes between the tree roots on the steep part, and over the rocky beds of the streams, without tumbling down.

As soon as the lady got into the house, she asked for some milk, which she warmed over the kitchen stove, not to drink herself,—oh dear, no,—but for the poor little baby squirrel that was lying all snuggled up asleep under her belt.

At first he would not drink from the spoon; it was hard and cold, and he did not know how to drink in that way. But presently he happened to get the edge of it in his mouth, and tasted the good warm milk. How he did drink it then! He held the spoon between his lips, and drank just as you drink from a tumbler; and I don’t suppose anything in the world ever tasted better to any one than that milk did to Baby Mitchell.

Then the lady took a piece of soft cloth for a blanket, and wrapped him up in it, and took him to her bedroom, where she put him to bed, and left him while she got warm and dry and had her supper.

Do you want to know about his bed?

Well, you see, the mountain people use feather-beds, and they have two or three beds in one room. That is the way they like to live,—a great many people together in one room.

But the lady did not like this way, so she had a room to herself, with two big beds in it, and there was a thick feather-bed on each of them. She punched her fists down into one of the feather-beds until she had made quite a deep hole, and in this she buried Little Mitchell in his blanket.

You see, young squirrels, like other babies, need to be kept warm.

So Baby Mitchell had a whole feather-bed to himself that night, and he slept without a sound until the lady unrolled him the next morning.

She hardly expected to find him alive, he was such a tender little thing to undergo such hardships. Starving, and sleeping under ladies’ belts, and being carried in that way up a rough mountain and then down again, and fed on condensed milk and cow’s milk, and put to sleep at last in a feather-bed, one would think would be enough to wear out any squirrel so young it couldn’t open its eyes.

But it didn’t wear out Baby Mitchell.

When the lady unrolled him, there he was, as alive as could be and as warm as a kitten. She laughed when she saw him, he was so little and the bed so big!

As soon as she unrolled him, he lifted up his head, and then he opened his mouth and screamed for his breakfast. He was used to being cared for earlier in the morning, in his home in the tree, and he was starving hungry.

The lady hurried to give him some warm milk, and when he had drunk it he went fast asleep right away, and she wrapped him up and put him in the feather-bed again, and went off.

When she came back he had squirmed out of the blanket and was standing up as straight as he could on his funny little legs, and holding up his funny head, with his eyes still tight shut. And he was screaming at the top of his voice, “Oh, come and take me! come and take me!” At least that is what the lady said he meant, for the minute she put her hand on him he stopped crying.

So of course she cuddled him up against her cheek for a minute, and talked to him, and comforted him, and then gave him another drink of warm milk.

You see, she had left him until he got hungry, and then he had squirmed out to look for his lady; and when he could not find her he screamed and cried. He always did make a great fuss when he was hungry.

Little Mitchell and his lady were comfortable enough at the home of Mr. Dolph Wilson, who, you must not forget, lives at the foot of the sensible side of the great Mount Mitchell; and if you ever decide to go to the top of that mountain, that is the very best way to go. Only it will take you a long time to get to the Wilsons’ from anywhere,—almost as long as it would take to go to the moon if there were a rapid-transit trolley up there.

But you will see a very lovely valley if you do go,—not to the moon, to Mr. Adolph Wilson’s, I mean,—and a beautiful cold river with a great many large smooth rocks in its bottom, and as handsome a forest as exists this side of the moon, or the other side either, as far as I know.

Besides, there are the young Wilsons, who will be glad to see you, and who will show you over the mountains round about; and, finally, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson will take you up Mount Mitchell on Belle, the mule, if you want to go that way.

Mr. Dolph Wilson is the son of “Big Tom,” the most famous bear-hunter in these parts. It was he who found the body of Dr. Mitchell when every one else had given up the search. He loves to tell the story of that search, and it would make you cry, it is so sad,—for “Big Tom” loved Dr. Mitchell. But if you want to hear him tell the story, which is well worth going a long distance for, you will need to go soon, for “Big Tom” is a very old man now, so old that he cannot have a great many more years to live.

Well, the lady had to get back home; so the day after she got to his house Mr. Dolph Wilson drove her and the guide and Baby Mitchell, in his carriage, with the two little, lazy, long-eared mules, for ten miles. They stopped at “Big Tom’s” log-cabin to see him and hear him tell his story, and then they went on.

Their way was over a rough mountain road, where they had to ford a great many stony streams and a shining river two or three times.

But Baby Mitchell did not care anything about this, for he was asleep in the guide’s hand. You see, at that time of his life he did almost nothing but sleep and eat, and he never cried at all excepting when he was hungry.

The big, kind-hearted guide looked very funny holding Baby Mitchell so carefully in one hand, and the little can of condensed milk in the other, while the carriage bumped and jerked over the rough road. For of course they had to take along the can of milk for fear they might not be able to get anything else for Baby Mitchell’s dinner.

Mr. Dolph Wilson could take them only ten miles on their way, because he had to go back home and attend to some men who had come from ever so far to go fishing for trout in the river by his house.

But ten miles was enough, for the lady could easily walk to her next stopping-place, which she did, along a lovely valley with the high mountains on all sides of her; and she carried Little Mitchell now, while the guide took her bag and the can of milk.

At noon she sat down under a tree by the roadside. So few people live along here that it was as quiet and lonely where the lady stopped to rest as though it had been in the midst of the forest.

She unrolled Baby Mitchell and let him lie and stretch his limbs in the warm sun, which he did in a very comical manner,—for all the world like a nice, comfortable human baby. Then she gave him some condensed milk, and he had no sooner eaten it than he fell fast asleep again, and she rolled him up in his blanket and laid him on a stone while she ate her lunch.

When she was rested, they went on until they reached the place where the lady was to spend the night. The guide went home, and he wanted very much to take Baby Mitchell for his children to play with. But of course the lady could not allow that. The little fellow was altogether too young and tender to be handled by careless children who might not know how to avoid hurting him. So she kept him with her; and again he had good warm milk for his supper, and was put to sleep in a whole feather-bed.

The next morning Baby Mitchell and the lady took another long drive. This time they had to go in a lumber wagon, over a road that was, oh, so rough! Even Baby Mitchell kept waking up, the wagon jolted so. They forded deep rivers, and they went down mountains and up mountains; but by noon they got back to the place where the lady started from when she went ever so far to the foot of Mount Mitchell.

This place was a log-house, but it was not like the log-houses of the mountain people. It was a beautiful house, and belonged to dear friends of the lady. They had built it that they might come deep into the mountains to live every summer.

There were no feather-beds here, and there were a number of cats. But you will want to know more about them, for they were very remarkable cats.

The gentleman at this house where Baby Mitchell’s lady was visiting gave him a nice little wooden box, with a great many holes bored in it to let in the air; and the gentleman’s wife gave him some soft cotton for a bed. Then Baby Mitchell’s lady, and the gentleman, and the gentleman’s wife, all looked at Baby Mitchell. His lady had scarcely taken time for that before, she was so occupied in getting him safe through.

Such a funny Baby Mitchell! All head and feet, you know, with the queerest little fuzzy tail! And those eyes tight shut! The gentleman said he never would have any eyes; but he only said that to tease the lady, and the gentleman’s wife said, “Oh, shame!” for she had quite fallen in love with the ridiculous-looking little furry baby.

Then the lady took Baby Mitchell up to her own pretty room and laid him on the bed, rolled up in his blanket, while she went to eat her supper. When she came back with a cup of warm milk for him, she took up the little roll of blanket, and what do you think!

It was empty. No Baby Mitchell there!

The lady thought of the cats; but the door was tight shut, and there were screens in the windows. She looked on the bed and on the floor, but saw no Baby Mitchell. Then she began, as well as she could, to make the little noise that Baby Mitchell made when he was hungry; and presently, if you will believe it, she heard something answer her. So she kept calling, and Baby Mitchell kept answering, until at last she found him; and where do you think he was?

He had managed to crawl out of his blanket, and no doubt he felt very lonely and tired and hungry, so he started out to find his lady. He had scrambled down to the floor, and gone across the room, and climbed upon a low couch under the window; and on the pillow of the couch was lying his lady’s cap, where she had left it a few minutes before. And here she found him, all curled up into a little round ball on the top of her cap. He must have smelled it, and gone there.

So the lady said, “It is time now for you to have a room of your own, where you cannot get lost.”

Then she took the cotton that her friend, the gentleman’s wife, had given her, and put it into the box that her friend the gentleman had bored full of holes, and made a soft bed for Baby Mitchell. Then she gave him a good supper of warm milk, and put him to bed in his box, and he went fast asleep and slept soundly until the next morning.

After breakfast next day the lady put Baby Mitchell on the couch while she fixed his box, and when she went to take him,—what do you think? He had one round black eye wide open! He didn’t seem to know he had an open eye, though, and went nosing about just as he did when he had no eye at all.

Next day open came the other round black eye, and then all at once Baby Mitchell seemed to be able to see. And if you will believe it, he was now afraid of his lady! He probably had not expected to open his eyes on a lady instead of on a furry little bunny mother; and so he was as badly frightened as though he had never licked condensed milk from her finger, nor been taken care of by her through more than half of his short life.

No, not quite so badly frightened, either; for when his lady caught himand covered up his bright eyes, he smelled her hands and was not afraid, and very soon he got to know her by sight.

She used to give him warm milk out of a spoon three or four times a day, and every day he took a little more, and every day he grew a little larger. After he had eaten he would climb all over his lady, and sit on her shoulder or on her knee for a few minutes; but he would soon get sleepy and be glad to creep into his warm nest, when his lady would shut the box cover down tight over him—so that if a cat should happen to get into the room and find his box, and should try ever so hard to get him out, she could not do it.

Sometimes Baby Mitchell would climb up on the wire screen that stood before the fireplace; and in the early morning, when the air was cool and there was a fire blazing in the fireplace, he used to like to flatten out on the screen and warm the little white underside of his body. But soon it would get too hot for him; and then do you think he would climb down again? Not at all. He would look at his lady out of his big black eyes, and nod his head at her as much as to say, “Come and take me down,”—which she always did.

So, you see, he was very much petted and spoiled. Everybody in the house petted and spoiled him—excepting the cats, and they longed to pet him, and I am perfectly sure that if they had done so they would have completely spoiled him.

---