Such a thing had never happened before; for coming along the path out of the woods were two strangers,—a lady from away off, and a mountain man who was acting as her guide.
The lady, on her part, was very much astonished too. She wanted to climb to the top of Mount Mitchell; and somebody had told somebody who had told her that the shortest way up was from a house at the foot, on the east side of the mountain, and that this house was a little hotel where strangers usually went to spend the night before starting up the high mountain.
So the lady came from away off, until she got within a few miles of the foot of the high mountain. Here she spent the night in a farmhouse, and next morning took a mountain man for a guide, who said he knew the way; and they started to walk to the little hotel, which she found was no hotel at all, but only the tiny log-cabin where the father and mother and their children lived.
The lady had to walk, because that was the only way to get there. There was no road through the forest, only a narrow path that went waggling along over rocks and rivers and tangly tree-roots, and nobody but a mountaineer could have found it. The lady followed her guide miles and miles, and would have felt very tired, only the air is so refreshing up by the big mountain that you cannot feel very tired, not if you walk ever so far.
The lady wore shoes, of course, and she could not get through the woods and over the foot-logs as easily as the little barefooted children. But at last, just before dark, they crossed one more stream over a particularly small and wabbly foot-log, and there they were.
“That is the house,” said the guide, as they came out into the clearing where the cabbages and cornstalks were growing.
“Where?” said the lady.
“There,” said the guide, pointing to the cabin.
It was then that the lady felt very much astonished.
Ladies always feel very much astonished in these mountains, because nothing ever turns out as they expect.