They went gayly along together, until they got to the house where Little Mitchell’s lady was to stop. It was a wild place, close to the great Grandfather Mountain; but it was very sweet, with the fresh air and the tinkly stream across the road in front of the house.
The stream was not the Linville,—they had left that behind. It was the beginning of the Watauga River, that flows in exactly the opposite direction from the Linville, and has trout hiding in its pools.
The house stands on such a steep slope! You look out of the front windows across the narrow Watauga valley, which is nothing but a gorge here, and see the Grandfather Mountain rising up like a tremendous wall all covered with trees.
Little Mitchell in his Box
“There he lay on his back, like a hot, tired, human little baby.” (Page [152])
But back of the house, where the trees have been cut away, the steep slopes are just covered with wild strawberries. Such big, sweet berries! Why, they are as big as your thumb; mind, I say as big as your thumb, not as big as mine, which is quite another matter. But anyway they are big enough. Of course there were none then,—it was too late; but in the early summer I should like to see you climb that slope without wetting your feet in strawberry juice! You couldn’t do it, they are so thick. And sweet?—Well, you should just taste them!
Little Mitchell and his lady stayed all night in the house at the foot of the strawberry slope, and the people who lived there were pleased, for they knew Little Mitchell’s lady, and were glad to see him too. They thought him the cunningest baby they had ever seen. He ran about the room, and climbed on the table, and washed his face, and played with his lady, and looked up the big stone chimney. He almost had a mind to run up it; but his lady said no, so he ate his supper of roasted chestnuts and fresh milk, and went to bed in his little box.