Part 13

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.