Part 22

His lady had to be gone all one day, so she left him in his cage as she always did when she went out. When she got back, there was poor Little Mitchell with the cotton in his nest wrapped all tight about his tail. He had struggled to get free until his tail was all twisted and torn. Oh, but he was glad to see the lady! She did not even stop to take off her things before she pulled the cotton out of the nest, and took Little Mitchell out and carefully untwisted the poor tail, from which the skin was off for a third of its length. You can imagine he was a queer-looking fellow then! But the lady took good care of him, and bathed the tail every day, and put oil on it to make the hair grow. It was a pretty sad-looking tail, and she feared the hair never would grow on it again; but it did.

After a while rows of short hairs began to come out all along the bare spot; and then his tail looked funny enough. Do you remember how the little scouring rush that grows in swampy places looks? Do you remember the rings of stiff little bristles all down it? Well, Little Mitchell’s tail reminded his lady of the scouring rush. The hairs came out in rings, a ring of them at each joint; but they grew ever so fast, and in the end that part of the tail was almost the handsomest of all!

But what a lot of trouble it made for both of them,—that tail! It had to be bathed often,—and Little Mitchell did hate so to have it put into the water. At first, as soon as the water touched it he would squirm loose and run off, and the lady would catch him, and, holding him before her face, would talk to him and tell him all about it, and that he must be good and let her wash it. And then—will you believe it?—Little Mitchell would be good, and let her finish washing him in the warm soapy water.

Yes, he had a bath all over once in a while with nice warm water. He didn’t like it very well, though the lady was ever so careful not to get the soap in his eyes. But what came after the bath,—the rubbing, and the sitting on his lady’s knee in the warm sun until he was perfectly dry,—he liked very much indeed. And then, when his coat changed, the bath and the rubbing stopped that dreadful itching.

His baby coat was very soft and fine and of the same gray color all over, excepting of course on the under side of his body, and there it was white. But when he was three or four months old, he began to change in many curious ways. For one thing, there came a queer growth under his coat that surprised the lady very much. When she brushed him, instead of a dainty white skin under his fur he seemed covered with a sort of gray felt. Pretty soon this felt got to be a coat of long close hair, that was very pretty, and quite different in coloring from the baby coat, which soon began to fall out. That is why he itched so; the loose hairs tickled him, and he was all the time biting and scratching himself, so that it was almost impossible for the lady to brush him, he wriggled about so.

His new coat was light gray on the sides, with a dark stripe down the middle of the back; and there was such a pretty reddish brown stripe between his gray sides and the pure white on the under side of his body. At the same time, he got a reddish stripe on each side of his face, and his face changed its shape, or else the new markings made it look changed. You see now what was happening,—Little Mitchell was no longer a baby. He was fast getting to be a handsome grown-up squirrel, with all the stripes and markings of one. His face seemed to shorten up and change in expression,—just as people change when they grow out of childhood into grown-up men and women. Only their faces grow longer instead of shorter.

It was very pretty to watch these changes come over Little Mitchell; but one thing troubled his lady,—as time went on he did not get well. He would seem pretty well for a long time, but the poor little hind legs got weaker and weaker. The lady comforted him by rubbing them,—they seemed so stiff, just as though he were a little old man with the rheumatism. He liked the rubbing every morning. The lady would gently knead the muscles of his back, and then of his hind legs, one after the other. When she got to the leg, he would stick it out straight in her hand, it felt so good to have it rubbed.

When she had finished and put him down, he would look up at her and nod his head,—which was his way of coaxing her to rub him some more.

The rubbing seemed to help the little legs, but it did not give them strength; and soon Little Mitchell could not climb his screen at all. He could climb up the table-cover, though, to the table, where he loved to poke around among the books and papers,—and I am sorry to say he would sometimes gnaw at a book-cover unless he were watched.

He could climb up the lady’s dress, too, quite easily, and get into her lap, where he loved to lie stretched out. And he could climb up the dresses that hung in the closet. The best thing there was the woolly wrapper; he used to climb up to the hook it hung on, and sit there, and after a while slip into the top of the sleeve and take a nap.

One day his lady hung the cuff of the sleeve on another hook, and so made a fine hammock for him to creep into. He lay there a long while, having the most beautiful time,—and what do you suppose he was doing? He was pulling the fuzz all off the inside of the sleeve! He did not gnaw the cloth at all,—he just amused himself pulling off the fuzz and rolling it into balls.

As Little Mitchell became weaker, he would often lie in his little hammock in the closet half a day at a time. And when, finally, he got to be too weak to climb even the woolly wrapper, the lady would lift him up and put him into the sleeve, and he would stay there until he wanted to come out, when he would get up on the hook from which the wrapper hung, and wait for the lady to take him down. He was very much afraid of falling; so he did not try to climb much. He did fall once in a while, and it seemed to hurt him dreadfully.

But though he had become so weak, he was not at all stupid. Even in his nest in the dark sleeve, he knew when the lady came into the closet. I suppose it was that wonderful nose of his that told him. It did not disturb him to have her come, even when she brushed against him. It did not seem even to wake him up.

But one day a friend of the lady went into the big closet for something, and passed Little Mitchell as he lay asleep in his hammock. She did not touch him at all; but his quick little nose must have smelled a stranger, and how he did growl and scold at her! She did not know what it was at first, and jumped out of the closet as though a bear had been in there.

Little Mitchell seldom sat in his little chair in those days; but the day when Margaret and George and the baby came to see him, the lady set him in his chair before his table and gave him a nut.

You should have seen the children,—how pleased they were! George had the jolliest laugh you ever heard; and he was the jolliest boy, anyway. But he was careful about laughing out loud, for fear of scaring Little Mitchell; and Margaret was careful too. Even the baby was used to playing with the kitten without hurting it; so that Little Mitchell was perfectly safe with those dear little children, if he had only known it. But he didn’t know it,—and you remember how he felt about children.

Now, what do you think he did? He ate his nut as fast as he could, and then he tumbled out of his chair and went off to bed! Yes, he scrambled down into his own corner, and crept into his bed—without a good-bye look at his pretty visitors.

As time passed, Little Mitchell grew still weaker. The lady again had to be away for a day or two, but this time she would not leave him in his cage. She fixed his corner like a little room,—the screen, which he could no longer climb, at one end, and the wall opposite it. The edge of the platform, upon which he could no longer get without help, made the third wall, and a box the fourth. In the end of his little room opposite his bed the lady put a little dish of water, some cracked nuts, and a bunch of grapes.

When she returned from her visit, she went right away to see how Little Mitchell was; and what do you think? When she touched the rug, which you remember was his bed, something like a little bear inside growled at her!

It was funny to hear Little Mitchell growl. It was like a very mite of a bear; but the lady was not afraid of such bears, and boldly put her hand right into its den, when the wild bear inside gently licked her finger and was as glad as could be to see her.

She took him out and shook out the rug, for he had carried his nuts inside, but his grapes he had eaten outside like a nice, neat little bear.

He got so at last that he would not eat unless he sat in his lady’s lap. He could not sit up unless she put her hand against his back and helped him. He would sit in her lap and look up in her face while he ate his nuts and grapes.

When he wanted to go to her he would get as close as he could and nod at her to take him. When he wanted anything, he would nod his head at his lady, which was his way of saying “Please do it for me,” and she generally understood what he wanted and did it for him.

As soon as he stopped climbing, his toe-nails grew very long and curved, and he had not strength to pull them out of the couch-cover or the blanket-wrapper or his lady’s dress, and she would have to help him. Sometimes he would try to go from the couch to the floor, and his toes would catch, and there he would hang until the lady saw him and jumped to help him get loose.

One day she cut the tips off those troublesome nails. Her friends said it would spoil him; but she tried it, and he was very comfortable until they grew again, when she again very carefully cut off the sharp curved points, and kept them short enough to be out of his way.

Sometimes when he was on the floor and wanted to get into her lap, he would stand in front of her and nod his head, when she would reach out her foot and he would clamber upon it. Then she would raise her foot, and he would walk along up to her knee. When he wanted to get down from her lap, he would reach down with his hands, and she would raise her foot until he could walk down to it without falling; then she would lower him to the floor.

If he wanted to go from one place to another, he just told his lady,—by nodding, you know,—and she would put out her hand to him. He would get upon it and keep still until she had carried him to the right place. You see, they had got to be such friends they understood each other very well.

Sometimes he would slip when trying to get down from the platform, or from a chair where the lady had put him. One day he slipped and caught by the edge of the platform, but had not strength to pull himself up again. The lady did not see him until his strength was about gone, and he was letting go, and about to get a fall that would hurt his poor little crippled body; so she said, “Mitchell, hold fast a minute more; hold fast, I’m coming,” and put down her work and hurried to him. As she spoke, she saw him tighten up for another effort, and he held until she got to him.