Little Mitchell: The Story of a Mountain Squirrel

by Margaret Warner Morley

But funniest of all was to see him hang by his hind toes, head down, and play with his tail! He was very fond of playing with his tail, and when he was on the floor he would often chase it just as a kitten does. It was a fine tail by this time, long and bushy; and when he got excited he would fluff it out until it looked like a real grown-up squirrel’s tail.

But talking of tails, the most outrageously funny thing Little Mitchell ever did was to roll himself up into a ball, with his tail hugged in his arms and held between his teeth, then go over and over, like a ball, from one end of the platform to the other.

The first time the lady saw him, she was rather startled,—she could not imagine for a moment what that queer soft-looking ball was, rolling so fast about the platform. How she did laugh when she saw that it was only Little Mitchell amusing himself! She had never seen a squirrel or anything else act like that before.

He was so funny playing about the room, hanging by his toes from the screen and rolling around like a ball, that the lady could do nothing but watch him when he was out of the cage. She said he wasted all her time; and he certainly did waste a great deal of it.

The first thing in the morning, he had to be fed and given a drink of fresh water. He ate all sorts of nuts now, but he would not crack the hard ones himself. The lady used to bring home any nice new nuts that she saw when she was out, and Little Mitchell was always on hand to open her parcels. He enjoyed opening them as much as you do when your mother comes home from shopping. If he found nuts, he would get into the bag and paw them all over, and at last run off with one. If there were no nuts, he would sniff at everything, and then go off, though sometimes he found something he liked to play with in the parcels.

When he was hungry, he insisted on sitting upon the lady’s knee to eat his nuts. Of course he could sit up as well as anybody now, and hold the nut in his funny little hands. Some people would say paws; but if a squirrel has not hands, then nobody has. Just watch one take a nut and turn it over and over with those hands, and finally hold it firmly between those ridiculous little nubbins that are his thumbs, while he gnaws it. And then watch him comb his tail with his fingers, and wash his face with his hands, and catch your watch-chain when you dangle it in front of him. Only, you see, he always uses both hands at once. At least Little Mitchell did, for the lady never saw him take anything in one hand alone. And he did not pick up things with his hands,—he picked up his nuts with his mouth, and then took them in his hands.

Didn’t he crack any of his nuts himself? Oh yes, indeed, he cracked the almonds and beech-nuts, and such soft-shelled ones, as cleverly as you could have done it yourself. But when it came to hickory nuts and filberts, he wouldn’t even try to crack them; he would go and poke them into his lady’s hand for her to crack, or else he would hide them away.

He knew perfectly well, when she got out the little hammer, that she was going to crack his nuts,—and a hard time she had not to crack his nose too, for he insisted upon poking it under the hammer, to see how the nuts were getting on, I suppose.