Little Mitchell: The Story of a Mountain Squirrel

by Margaret Warner Morley

After a while a gentleman came in to wait for the train too, and he fell quite in love with the playful little fellow, and wanted to buy him to take home to his children; but of course the lady would not sell him.

At last the train came, and they got on and rode awhile, and then got off again to wait for another train. This was in a large station, full of people and lighted by electric lights.

Little Mitchell’s lady saw his box bumping about, and heard something inside go scratch, scratch, scratch. So she took off the cover, and out came Little Mitchell. He was very tired from being shut up so long and carried so fast in the jolty train, and he wanted to come out and see what was going on. The electric lights and the crowd and the strange sights and sounds all excited him. His eyes shone, and he was not satisfied to sit on his lady’s shoulder and look about. He wanted to leap upon the back of a lady who was dressed in laces and furs. He was determined to do it, too; but every time his lady caught him just as he was about to spring, and told him he mustn’t.

How surprised the strange lady would have been if he had done it! And how frightened Little Mitchell would have been! For, once there, he would not have known what to do, and would have wished himself back on his own lady’s shoulder.

At last she went into a dark corner with him, and let him sit on the seat by her and look at the people while he ate a piece of sugar cooky.

Then the train came, and they got into the sleeping-car,—Little Mitchell in his little box, of course.

He was a good squirrel all night, and early in the morning the lady let him look out of the window; but he did not like that,—it frightened him to see things rushing by so fast. He preferred to race up and down in the berth, and jump at the lady’s fingers from under the edge of the blanket, and turn somersaults when she made believe catch him.

After a little while he got tired of this play, and was quite willing to be put into his box, where he stayed quietly until they got to Jersey City, and crossed the ferry, and went to the Grand Central Station in New York City, and got upon another train that soon left the noisy city behind.

The noise and motion of the train seemed to tire and confuse the little fellow, so that he was glad to stay hidden away in his own box, which was now the only thing that really seemed like home to him,—for even the lady had changed her skin, or at least she had put on strange clothes, which must have seemed to him just like changing her skin.