Part 12

Here the driver left them and returned to his own home; but Little Mitchell and the lady stayed there several days.

Little Mitchell did not care about the beauty of the mountains, but the lady did. She used to go out and walk, and leave him at home asleep. Sometimes she walked up toward the top of the great Grandfather Mountain,—that rocky top, as black as ink, which you can see miles and miles away. It is black because the sharp rocky ridge wears a dress of lichens as black as coals. I don’t know why such black lichens grow all over Grandfather’s top, but they do, and below the black rocks is a wide belt of dark green balsam firs that you know look black in the distance; so it is a very stern-looking Grandfather Mountain indeed.

Why is it called the Grandfather Mountain?

Well, if you walk along a road that is at the north side of it you will come to a place where you can look across and see standing out from the side of the mountain a great stone face, like the face of an old, old man; and it is from this profile the mountain gets its name.

Where Little Mitchell’s lady walked down in the woods below, it was not black at all, but very bright and sweet, with fine trees growing; for it is only near the top that the balsam firs are found.

Some of the forest leaves had already changed their color; for it was early fall now, and the woods were all golden in the sunshine, and the yellow witch hazel was everywhere in bloom.

Along the edges of the road were little piles of acorn shells. These were the work of the squirrel folk. They had shelled out the green acorns, and of course they must have eaten the inside part, or kernel. Every little pile of shells showed where a squirrel had sat and eaten acorns, or perhaps he had been on a limb of the tree above and dropped the shells down.

The lady tasted one of the green acorns, but it was so bitter and puckery she made up a queer face over it. But she put some of the acorns in her pocket for Little Mitchell. Since the other squirrels liked them so much, she thought perhaps he would like them too; but when she gave them to him he only played with them, and did not even try to eat one.

It was about this time that Little Mitchell began to sit up. Such a funny, floppy sitting up as it was! He did not hold his back up straight, but got himself all into a queer little heap, and the best he could do was to keep from tumbling over. But no doubt he felt very proud of himself, and imagined he was a big grown-up squirrel.

He wasn’t, though, for he could not crack even an acorn; and he still drank milk, though he had learned to love sugar cookies. His lady would give him a little piece of one, and he liked it so much he almost choked himself to death trying to stuff it down his throat too fast.

You may know what a baby he was when I tell you how he ran into the fireplace.

The first time he tried it, there was no fire there, and he started to go up the chimney, and his lady caught him just in time and pulled him down all black and sooty.

The next time there was a fire; but that didn’t matter to Little Mitchell. He ran right into it, and burned the whiskers all off one side of his face, and the lady snatched him out just in time to prevent his poor little nose from getting burned too. He was so surprised that he didn’t even try to get out. You see, he was such a baby!

Of course he slept in his little box of cotton, and one cold night his lady was awakened in the middle of the night by a great commotion. She heard something scratching frantically somewhere, and Little Mitchell was screaming and crying like everything.

She jumped up and got a light, and there was Little Mitchell’s box wiggling about as though bewitched. He was inside, scratching and thumping about and crying with all his might. What could be the matter?

You remember it was a cold night, and the lady concluded the little fellow was cold, and so she took him out. The moment he got into her warm hand, he stopped crying; so, not knowing what else to do, she took him to bed with her, and he curled down at her side under her hand and went to sleep like a good little kitten.

When he woke up in the morning, what do you think he did? He licked his lady’s hand first; then he began to play with her fingers, making believe to bite them, and patting them with his little paws and jumping away just as a kitten does.

They had a real good frolic. Little Mitchell would scamper down to the foot of the bed under the covers, then come creeping up until close to the lady’s hand, when she would poke it at him and he would scurry off again.

So he kept on playing until it was time to get up; then the lady left him alone, all covered up in the warm bed, and he curled right up and went to sleep until she was ready to go downstairs, when she put him in his little box, which he didn’t like at all, you may be sure. But there was a fire now, so the room was warm; and soon his lady brought him his breakfast of warm milk and a little piece of sugar cooky.

Of course the lady always remembered the baby bunny asleep in his nest at home, when she went out to walk; and if she saw anything she thought he would like, she brought it home to him.

One day she brought him some chestnuts. They were the very first ones to get ripe. Indeed, they were not ripe enough to fall out of their burrs of themselves; but when their burrs were pounded open with a stone, out they slipped, fine, fat, shiny brown ones. And so big they were! That is because they grew on the dear and lovely Grandmother Mountain, which you know is not so high as Grandfather Mountain, but close to it, and very beautiful, covered with all sorts of delightful growths. And its chestnuts are so big! They grow on little low trees, so little you would hardly expect to find any nuts on them; but their tops are just covered with big, round, splendid burrs full of big, plump, brown nuts that are as sweet as any nuts can be. The lady took some of these nuts home, but she did not give them to Little Mitchell until she had roasted them in the hot ashes and made them quite soft. Then she gave him one, and the baby took it in his hands, and sat up as well as he could, and looked very wise indeed. But he was just making believe, for he didn’t know in the least what to do with that nut. He sniffed at it, but seemed to have no idea what was inside, until the lady opened it for him. Then he ate a piece of it, gnawing it with his four little front teeth, and liked it very much.

Every day after that he had roasted chestnuts with his milk.

Oh yes, indeed, he soon learned to know them with the shell on, and to take it off too. He would bite it loose, and then give it a fling that sent it ever so far.

Thus they lived and had good times on the side of the beautiful Grandfather Mountain for more than a week. Then one day the lady’s trunk was taken off by a mule team to Blowing Rock; but she and Little Mitchell did not go with it. They went around on the other side of the mountain.

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.