Part 8

This house had several rooms, and the Wilsons were used to having strangers come and stay with them on their way to or from the mountain. They had a mule named Belle, that had been up,—oh, I don’t know how many times,—and she could walk in the holes between the tree roots on the steep part, and over the rocky beds of the streams, without tumbling down.

As soon as the lady got into the house, she asked for some milk, which she warmed over the kitchen stove, not to drink herself,—oh dear, no,—but for the poor little baby squirrel that was lying all snuggled up asleep under her belt.

At first he would not drink from the spoon; it was hard and cold, and he did not know how to drink in that way. But presently he happened to get the edge of it in his mouth, and tasted the good warm milk. How he did drink it then! He held the spoon between his lips, and drank just as you drink from a tumbler; and I don’t suppose anything in the world ever tasted better to any one than that milk did to Baby Mitchell.

Then the lady took a piece of soft cloth for a blanket, and wrapped him up in it, and took him to her bedroom, where she put him to bed, and left him while she got warm and dry and had her supper.

Do you want to know about his bed?

Well, you see, the mountain people use feather-beds, and they have two or three beds in one room. That is the way they like to live,—a great many people together in one room.

But the lady did not like this way, so she had a room to herself, with two big beds in it, and there was a thick feather-bed on each of them. She punched her fists down into one of the feather-beds until she had made quite a deep hole, and in this she buried Little Mitchell in his blanket.

You see, young squirrels, like other babies, need to be kept warm.

So Baby Mitchell had a whole feather-bed to himself that night, and he slept without a sound until the lady unrolled him the next morning.

She hardly expected to find him alive, he was such a tender little thing to undergo such hardships. Starving, and sleeping under ladies’ belts, and being carried in that way up a rough mountain and then down again, and fed on condensed milk and cow’s milk, and put to sleep at last in a feather-bed, one would think would be enough to wear out any squirrel so young it couldn’t open its eyes.

But it didn’t wear out Baby Mitchell.

When the lady unrolled him, there he was, as alive as could be and as warm as a kitten. She laughed when she saw him, he was so little and the bed so big!

As soon as she unrolled him, he lifted up his head, and then he opened his mouth and screamed for his breakfast. He was used to being cared for earlier in the morning, in his home in the tree, and he was starving hungry.

The lady hurried to give him some warm milk, and when he had drunk it he went fast asleep right away, and she wrapped him up and put him in the feather-bed again, and went off.

When she came back he had squirmed out of the blanket and was standing up as straight as he could on his funny little legs, and holding up his funny head, with his eyes still tight shut. And he was screaming at the top of his voice, “Oh, come and take me! come and take me!” At least that is what the lady said he meant, for the minute she put her hand on him he stopped crying.

So of course she cuddled him up against her cheek for a minute, and talked to him, and comforted him, and then gave him another drink of warm milk.

You see, she had left him until he got hungry, and then he had squirmed out to look for his lady; and when he could not find her he screamed and cried. He always did make a great fuss when he was hungry.

Little Mitchell and his lady were comfortable enough at the home of Mr. Dolph Wilson, who, you must not forget, lives at the foot of the sensible side of the great Mount Mitchell; and if you ever decide to go to the top of that mountain, that is the very best way to go. Only it will take you a long time to get to the Wilsons’ from anywhere,—almost as long as it would take to go to the moon if there were a rapid-transit trolley up there.

But you will see a very lovely valley if you do go,—not to the moon, to Mr. Adolph Wilson’s, I mean,—and a beautiful cold river with a great many large smooth rocks in its bottom, and as handsome a forest as exists this side of the moon, or the other side either, as far as I know.

Besides, there are the young Wilsons, who will be glad to see you, and who will show you over the mountains round about; and, finally, Mr. and Mrs. Wilson will take you up Mount Mitchell on Belle, the mule, if you want to go that way.

Mr. Dolph Wilson is the son of “Big Tom,” the most famous bear-hunter in these parts. It was he who found the body of Dr. Mitchell when every one else had given up the search. He loves to tell the story of that search, and it would make you cry, it is so sad,—for “Big Tom” loved Dr. Mitchell. But if you want to hear him tell the story, which is well worth going a long distance for, you will need to go soon, for “Big Tom” is a very old man now, so old that he cannot have a great many more years to live.

Well, the lady had to get back home; so the day after she got to his house Mr. Dolph Wilson drove her and the guide and Baby Mitchell, in his carriage, with the two little, lazy, long-eared mules, for ten miles. They stopped at “Big Tom’s” log-cabin to see him and hear him tell his story, and then they went on.

Their way was over a rough mountain road, where they had to ford a great many stony streams and a shining river two or three times.

But Baby Mitchell did not care anything about this, for he was asleep in the guide’s hand. You see, at that time of his life he did almost nothing but sleep and eat, and he never cried at all excepting when he was hungry.

The big, kind-hearted guide looked very funny holding Baby Mitchell so carefully in one hand, and the little can of condensed milk in the other, while the carriage bumped and jerked over the rough road. For of course they had to take along the can of milk for fear they might not be able to get anything else for Baby Mitchell’s dinner.

Mr. Dolph Wilson could take them only ten miles on their way, because he had to go back home and attend to some men who had come from ever so far to go fishing for trout in the river by his house.

But ten miles was enough, for the lady could easily walk to her next stopping-place, which she did, along a lovely valley with the high mountains on all sides of her; and she carried Little Mitchell now, while the guide took her bag and the can of milk.

At noon she sat down under a tree by the roadside. So few people live along here that it was as quiet and lonely where the lady stopped to rest as though it had been in the midst of the forest.