Part 15

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.

VII

LITTLE MITCHELL’S FIRST CAR-RIDE

You can see three thunder-storms at once from Blowing Rock.

Perhaps sometimes you can see more than that number.

This is because Blowing Rock is on the edge of a mountain, where you can look off and off and off,—oh, so far, over a sea of mountains, where the storms gather. You know a thunder-storm is not very big; it is only as big as two or three clouds close together, and these clouds may be rather small.

It is queer to see the rain pouring down in long straight lines over one part of the mountains, while all the rest is in sunshine.

Little Mitchell’s lady used to like to watch the thunder-storms, but Little Mitchell did not care anything about them. He preferred going with the lady to the big rock from which the little village of Blowing Rock gets its name. The Indians named it long ago, because when the wind is in the right quarter it blows so hard you cannot throw anything over the rock. If you try to throw your handkerchief or your hat over, you cannot do it, because the wind flings it back to you. Sometimes it blows so strong you couldn’t even jump over,—so people say. But I should not like to try that, no matter how hard the wind blew; it is such a very long way down to the tree-tops at the foot of the rock!

What Little Mitchell liked at the big rock was the sunshine and the fine places to run about; but he never ran far from his lady, and at the slightest noise he would scurry back to her.

There were some dear little children at Blowing Rock; but you know how Mitchell felt on that subject! He would have nothing to do with them, and if one of them took him up he would squirm and squeal so that he was quickly dropped.

It was at Blowing Rock that he found out he could hop.

His lady used to let him out of his box early in the morning, so that he could run around the room and exercise his muscles. She was afraid to take him outside with her unless she went a long way off, on account of the cats.

So he would frolic with her, and jump at her hand under the bed-covers in the early morning, and when she got up he would play about the room, run over the table, look at everything on the bureau, including his own funny little face in the looking-glass; and one day he found out he could hop.

He went hop, hop, hop, just like a grown-up squirrel, the whole length of the room.

Hop, hop went Little Mitchell. He had always crawled or crept about before this; but that day he went hop, hop, hop, all up and down the room, and then up and down again.

When the lady was ready to go out, she thought she would put him in his box. He had never given her any trouble before, but this time he scampered under the bed, away over against the wall out of reach, and there he went hop, hop, hop, up and down, up and down; but he never came out from under the bed, because he did not want the lady to catch him.

He looked so funny, hopping up and down, and he was having such a glorious time, that his lady did not like to end it, and waited ever so long; but as he kept on hopping, and showed no sign of ever going to stop, she finally got under the bed and captured him.

You see he had found something new to do, and he was as excited over it as a child is over a new and delightful game. When the lady put him in his box, he squirmed and screamed; and when she fastened the cover down, he cried and scratched to get out. It was too bad,—but what else could the lady do? She did not want to stay shut up in her room all day, and she dared not leave him alone for fear some one might open the door and a cat get in.

But he was really tired by this time; and when he found that crying and scratching did no good, he curled up and went to sleep. When the lady peeped into the room before going off, he was as quiet as a mouse; and when she returned, he was still sound asleep in his little box.

Now about hopping,—that is the way grown squirrels get over the ground, in little jumps; and Baby Mitchell was growing every day, not only in size but in squirrel habits. How do you suppose he knew about hopping, when he had never seen a squirrel hop? And how do you suppose he knew about sitting up and holding his nuts in his hands, when he had never seen a squirrel do these things? And how do you suppose he knew about washing his face after the funny manner of the squirrel folk, when he had never seen another squirrel do it?

I cannot tell you how he knew all these things; but he did know them, and as he grew older, more and more squirrel habits came to him, as you shall see.

The lady stayed at Blowing Rock only a few days; then one morning she and Little Mitchell started off down the long winding road in a carriage,—and this was the end of their life in the mountains.

At the end of that drive they got onto a railway train, and went a little way, and then changed to another train,—only they had to wait a long time between trains.

Little Mitchell’s lady was very sorry for him now, because you see he was getting big enough to run about, and he had to take this long journey all shut up in his little box.

But when they got to the station where they had to wait so long, she opened his box, and out he came. He ran all over her as fast as he could go, even jumping from her shoulder to the top of her head, and played with her hair, which she told him was naughty. Then he jumped down and ran all around the tops of the benches, for there was nobody else in the waiting-room.

After a while a gentleman came in to wait for the train too, and he fell quite in love with the playful little fellow, and wanted to buy him to take home to his children; but of course the lady would not sell him.