Little Mitchell: The Story of a Mountain Squirrel

by Margaret Warner Morley

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.

She unrolled Baby Mitchell and let him lie and stretch his limbs in the warm sun, which he did in a very comical manner,—for all the world like a nice, comfortable human baby. Then she gave him some condensed milk, and he had no sooner eaten it than he fell fast asleep again, and she rolled him up in his blanket and laid him on a stone while she ate her lunch.

When she was rested, they went on until they reached the place where the lady was to spend the night. The guide went home, and he wanted very much to take Baby Mitchell for his children to play with. But of course the lady could not allow that. The little fellow was altogether too young and tender to be handled by careless children who might not know how to avoid hurting him. So she kept him with her; and again he had good warm milk for his supper, and was put to sleep in a whole feather-bed.

The next morning Baby Mitchell and the lady took another long drive. This time they had to go in a lumber wagon, over a road that was, oh, so rough! Even Baby Mitchell kept waking up, the wagon jolted so. They forded deep rivers, and they went down mountains and up mountains; but by noon they got back to the place where the lady started from when she went ever so far to the foot of Mount Mitchell.