LITTLE MITCHELL REFUSES TO LEAVE HIS LADY

Little Mitchell in his box, and the lady on her two feet, started off to go to the other side of Grandfather Mountain. They were on the south side now, you know, and they wanted to get to the north side.

The way is to go across a sheep pasture, and climb a fence, and go across an old garden, or what once was a garden, and climb another fence, and then you are in the wild woods, with a pretty winding path in front of you and service trees overhead dropping down ripe red berries for you to eat, if you go at the right time of year. Little Mitchell and his lady were too late for the berries, but they went along under the pretty service trees.

Well, you go on down the path into the deep, deep forest, with the big old oaks and beeches and other trees about you, and the sunbeams dancing in and out, making the forest all motley like the skin of a leopard.

You go down steeper and steeper, until you come to the end of the path and enter a road that runs at right angles to it.

It is a fearful road, full of loose stones and great rocks, such as you find in the bed of a stream. Indeed, it is the dry bed of a stream, and the stream itself, in another bed near by, is the very beginning of the Linville River, and you keep having to cross over the river any way you can, by jumping from stone to stone, and sometimes slipping off and getting wet.

Sometimes this queer road runs right up the river bed; and then you walk along the edge of it, along a winding path through the rhododendrons.

There were some mountain people going along the road when Little Mitchell and the lady got to it that day. There were a man, a boy, a horse and wagon, and two young girls; and they were all walking, because it was easier to walk than to go tilting and jolting and jiggling over all those stones. Besides, the horse was not strong enough to pull anything but the wagon over such a road, and so they showed Little Mitchell’s lady how to get across the young Linville by jumping on the stones.

Little Mitchell was asleep in his box, which of course the lady carried as carefully as she could, so that he didn’t know nor care anything about all this.

They went gayly along together, until they got to the house where Little Mitchell’s lady was to stop. It was a wild place, close to the great Grandfather Mountain; but it was very sweet, with the fresh air and the tinkly stream across the road in front of the house.

The stream was not the Linville,—they had left that behind. It was the beginning of the Watauga River, that flows in exactly the opposite direction from the Linville, and has trout hiding in its pools.

The house stands on such a steep slope! You look out of the front windows across the narrow Watauga valley, which is nothing but a gorge here, and see the Grandfather Mountain rising up like a tremendous wall all covered with trees.

But back of the house, where the trees have been cut away, the steep slopes are just covered with wild strawberries. Such big, sweet berries! Why, they are as big as your thumb; mind, I say as big as your thumb, not as big as mine, which is quite another matter. But anyway they are big enough. Of course there were none then,—it was too late; but in the early summer I should like to see you climb that slope without wetting your feet in strawberry juice! You couldn’t do it, they are so thick. And sweet?—Well, you should just taste them!

Little Mitchell and his lady stayed all night in the house at the foot of the strawberry slope, and the people who lived there were pleased, for they knew Little Mitchell’s lady, and were glad to see him too. They thought him the cunningest baby they had ever seen. He ran about the room, and climbed on the table, and washed his face, and played with his lady, and looked up the big stone chimney. He almost had a mind to run up it; but his lady said no, so he ate his supper of roasted chestnuts and fresh milk, and went to bed in his little box.

Next morning the woman who kept the house went with Little Mitchell and his lady on a lovely walk over the mountains to where her mother lived.

When noon came, they were only half-way there; so they sat down on a sweet mountain-side, to rest and eat, and Little Mitchell’s lady took him out of his box and gave him sugar cooky and roasted chestnuts for his dinner. She thought he could get along without milk now for a little while, because it was so hard to carry it.

He had grown to be quite a squirrel by this time, and the lady thought that perhaps he was old enough to care for himself, and would like to be set free in the woods, which is the best home for the little squirrel-folk, you know.

So she looked at him as he sat on her knee eating his chestnuts, which he held in his funny little hands and nibbled very fast indeed. He could sit up pretty well now, and yet he did look like such a baby!

Still, she thought perhaps she ought to let him go free; and here in this wild spot, where there were no cats to catch him, was a good place.

So when he had finished his dinner she put him down on the ground near a little tree, and then went back and sat down where she had been before, some distance away.

What do you think Little Mitchell did now?

He looked around at the big, wild, lonely forest, and then at his dear lady, and he ran and scrambled and scampered as fast as his little legs could carry him,—not up the tree, oh no, indeed!—but straight back to his lady. He climbed into her lap and stuck his head up her sleeve, and seemed glad to be at home again.

You see, the little fellow was afraid, and no doubt it made him feel very bad to think that maybe he was to be left there all alone.

But you may be sure the lady did not leave him after that. She tucked him into his little box, where he curled right up and went to sleep; and when they started on again, she carried along the box with Little Mitchell in it.

After all, there were no sugar cookies and roasted chestnuts in the woods for the little fellow.

They spent the night at the woman’s mother’s house, and next morning Little Mitchell and his lady went on to Blowing Rock, which is several miles away.

But it was a glorious walk,—first through the beautiful forest, and then out into a corn-field where the cornstalks were rustling their brown leaves in the breeze.

When they got to the corn-field, the lady took Little Mitchell out of the box; the sun was warm, and she thought he would enjoy it,—for he was getting too big now to stay shut up all day.

So she opened the box-cover and out popped Little Mitchell. He climbed quickly up to her shoulder, and sat there and washed his face with his hands very fast indeed.

He looked so cunning washing his face, that the lady always liked to see him do it. First he would flatten his ears down close to his head, then he would put his face into his two hands held close together, and scrub very fast, rubbing all over his ears and back of them.

He did not lick his paws to moisten them, as a cat does, for he did not seem to have much moisture in his little mouth. His tongue was very small, and as soft as velvet. But when he wanted to wash his face, now, what do you think he did? Why, he blew his nose hard into his hands, and then washed away! What he got from his little nose was very clean and watery, just as clean as what puss gets on her paws when she licks them. Yes, it does seem strange to you, but that is the way the squirrel-folk all do. If you were a squirrel, you would think it queer to do any other way.

Well, Little Mitchell, out there in the corn-field, sat up on his lady’s shoulder and washed his face until he was satisfied; then he climbed all over her, up and down and around, clear down to the hem of her dress.

She was afraid he would get a little too frisky, and jump down to the ground and get lost; but, dear me! she needn’t have worried about that. Jump down? He wouldn’t have left his lady that day among those rustling cornstalks, not for the whole world. He just climbed about for fun and exercise; but when the corn-leaves rustled, how scared he was! He scrambled as fast as he could down the lady’s arm and up into her coat-sleeve; and when she got him out, back he went as soon as a corn-blade rustled near them.

“You must be hungry,” she said, when at last she had him cuddled up in her hand. So she picked an ear of corn, and they sat down and pulled off the husk and all the long soft silk that was inside, and Little Mitchell had some of the kernels.

He took them in his little hands, one at a time, and looked up at his lady out of his bright eyes with such a wise air! He turned the kernel of corn over, and sniffed at it until he found the germ that lies in one side,—the little thing that sprouts when you plant the corn,—and he pulled this out with his sharp front teeth, and ate it very fast; but the rest of the kernel he threw away. Not a bit of it would he eat but that! You see the germ was soft and sweet, and pleased the little chap.

If all squirrels eat corn in that way, it is no wonder the farmers worry when they make a raid on the cornfields in the early autumn!

When Mitchell had eaten all the tender corn-germs he wanted, they went on; and the very next blade that rustled near them—pop!—he was over the lady’s shoulder, up under her jacket, and in the top of her sleeve. She had to stop and take off her jacket and extract him. He kept on at this trick until finally she put him in his box and fastened the cover down,—which, after all, was just what he wanted, for he was tired, and he curled right up and went fast asleep and gave her no more trouble.

Away they went, down the mountain, across the valley, up another mountain, and down into the Watauga valley, where the river is larger and where the chinkapins grow.

It is the same valley where stands the house on the strawberry slope,—only the Watauga River is not a tinkling trout-brook down here, but quite a proud stream, though it still has trout in its pools.

Of course, when they got among the chinkapins they stopped to gather some,—for these were ripe, if the strawberries were not, and there were plenty of them too.

What are chinkapins?

Why, don’t you know? All the children who live in the South know what chinkapins are,—at least, all who live where they grow know.

They are not berries! No, guess again.

Yes, nuts; little shiny brown nuts, like baby chestnuts. The mountain children often string them for beads, they are so pretty. They grow in little burrs, like tiny chestnut burrs; but there is only one nut in a burr instead of two or three, and they grow on bushes or little trees, with leaves like chestnut leaves, only smaller.

No, chinkapins are not shaped quite like chestnuts; they are not flat anywhere. Chestnuts have to be flat on at least one side, because they grow three in a burr, and are squeezed against each other, so the middle chestnut is flat on both sides, but the others are flat only on the inside and rounded on the outside. But the chinkapin is rounded on both sides, because it is alone in its burr, with nothing to flatten against. Oh no, it is not round all over like a marble,—it is like a tiny chestnut, only it is rounded instead of being flattened on its sides.

I wish I could give you a handful of shiny chinkapins, then you would know just how they look.

Children who do not live near chinkapins need to know about them because of “Uncle Remus.” When you read how “Brer Rabbit” sat on a chinkapin log, combing his hair with a chip, you ought to know what a chinkapin log is like.

Chinkapins being so small, and only one in a burr, you can imagine they are not easy to gather until Jack Frost comes along with his sharp fingers and splits open all the tiny burrs on all the little chinkapin trees. Then you have only to shake the trees or beat the bushes, and patter! patter! patter!—out will come jumping the pretty brown chinkapins, as thick as rain-drops in a summer shower, and all you have to do is to get down and pick them up.

Mitchell liked the little nuts, they are so sweet, and he could crack them for himself because the shells are soft, like chestnut shells. So he sat on the lady’s knee in the chinkapin patch, and cracked chinkapins, and when he had succeeded in getting a shell off he would give it a toss that sent it far away.

The lady ate chinkapins too, they were so sweet and good; but Little Mitchell did not quite like that,—he seemed to think she was eating his nuts, and once in a while he would reach up and snatch away her chinkapin, and scold and chatter at her. That was because he was hungry, and thought he wanted them all; but when he had had enough he let her eat what she wanted too.

Presently along came Phyllis Amaranth, Lucy Ansonia Belindy, and Mollie May. Of course they came with their pretty feet bare, and none of them were more than seven years old.

They just smiled and smiled, and clasped their hands tight together, when they saw Little Mitchell. But he kept one eye on them, and when they came too near he ran and hid in the folds of his lady’s dress. He didn’t care for little girls, and he was terribly afraid they might touch him.

So Phyllis Amaranth, Lucy Ansonia Belindy, and Mollie May ran to the chinkapin bushes and shook them, and picked up the chinkapins very fast, and gave them to Mitchell’s lady for him, so that she soon had all she could carry without the trouble of picking any up. That is the way with these mountain people; they will give you something if they possibly can.

Then they all said good-bye to each other, and Little Mitchell and the lady went on. They crossed the Watauga valley, which is easy enough, it is so narrow; then they crossed the Watauga River, which is hard enough, the bridge is so narrow, and so high up in the air, and wobbles so you are afraid of your life to go over it,—but you have to, or else stay on the wrong side of the river, which, you understand, is quite a river here, very swift and rather deep.

But they got safely over the wobbly bridge, and went on through the forest, only stopping a few minutes to look at a birch-still.

A birch-still is a place where they distil birch-oil out of birch-bark. Do you know how it is done? Well, you ought to, for you eat so much birch-oil. You don’t think you ever ate any birch-oil in your life? Oh, but I know you have eaten it. I am perfectly sure you sometimes eat wintergreen candy and other things flavored with wintergreen. That is, you call it wintergreen; but it is not that at all, it is birch. You see the flavor is the same, and it is much easier to get it out of the birch.

The way they do is to strip the bark from the young black-birch trees,—which of course kills the trees, and that is too bad; but they do it, and chop the bark into little pieces, which they put into a long wooden box with a zinc bottom.

When the box is full of bark, they put in some water, and fit on the cover, and plaster all the cracks with clay until the box is air-tight,—all but a little round hole in the cover that has a lead pipe fitted into it.

Then they build a fire in the fire-hole under the box, and soon the steam from the boiling water escapes through the pipe that is fitted in the cover. The pipe is coiled up in a barrel of water when it leaves the box, and is kept cool by a little stream of water which runs into the barrel all the time.

Of course the steam that escapes through the pipe is turned back to water when it becomes cooled, passing through the coil in the barrel, and finally runs out of the other end of the pipe into a bottle. There is birch-oil in the steam that goes over, and the oil runs into the bottle with the water, but being heavier than water it sinks to the bottom of the bottle. When the bottle is full, the water runs out at the top; but when it gets full of oil, they do not allow that to run over,—they take away the bottle of oil and put an empty bottle in its place.

Yes, I know that oil is said to float on water, and some oil does, but birch-oil is heavy, as I have told you, and sinks to the bottom.

The people take the oil to the store and exchange it for shoes and calico and safety-pins, and all the things they need. The storekeeper sells the oil to the manufacturers, who purify it and make it into flavoring extracts, and then the druggists use it in making medicines and tooth-powder, and the candy-makers flavor some of their candies with it, and the perfumers mix it with other things to make perfumes and scented soap. A great deal of this oil comes from the North Carolina mountains, and is made in the woods, as I have told you.

Well, when Little Mitchell’s lady had looked at the birch-still long enough, they went on until they got to Blowing Rock. And this is a very wonderful place.