It is usually that way on Mount Mitchell. No matter how clear it is when you start, there is a watchful cloud that goes sneaking up after you, or else comes sneaking down from its hiding-place back of the sky as soon as you come, and the first thing you know it has folded itself down over the mountain-top and blotted out everything from sight.
There is a cave on the top of Mount Mitchell, made by a large overhanging rock. People generally go up from the sensible side of the mountain,—which is not the side the lady went up, because she didn’t know any better, you see.
The people who go up from the sensible side take blankets and food on the backs of mules, and stay all night in the cave. That is good fun.
But the lady had no blankets and no mule,—only a very tired guide, who was so tired because he got frightened on the mountain thinking he had lost the way, and a poor little hungry baby squirrel fast asleep under her belt.
The lady looked into the cave, and what do you think she found?
A couch of balsam boughs; but that doesn’t count.
An old coffee-pot; but that doesn’t count.
A little can partly full of condensed milk; and that does count,—for, you see, it saved Baby Mitchell’s life.
Somebody had been camping there sometime, and had left the can of milk, and it had not turned sour because it is so cold up there even in midsummer.
While the guide was trying to make a fire out of wet sticks, the lady took Little Mitchell out from under her belt,—and a very limp baby he was by this time, for he was nearly starved to death, of course.