Little Mitchell: The Story of a Mountain Squirrel

by Margaret Warner Morley

But the extra taste of phosphorus soon had its effect, and next day the poor little fellow was sick again. But he recovered as before.

Then he had another misfortune. He got his tail skinned.

His lady had to be gone all one day, so she left him in his cage as she always did when she went out. When she got back, there was poor Little Mitchell with the cotton in his nest wrapped all tight about his tail. He had struggled to get free until his tail was all twisted and torn. Oh, but he was glad to see the lady! She did not even stop to take off her things before she pulled the cotton out of the nest, and took Little Mitchell out and carefully untwisted the poor tail, from which the skin was off for a third of its length. You can imagine he was a queer-looking fellow then! But the lady took good care of him, and bathed the tail every day, and put oil on it to make the hair grow. It was a pretty sad-looking tail, and she feared the hair never would grow on it again; but it did.

After a while rows of short hairs began to come out all along the bare spot; and then his tail looked funny enough. Do you remember how the little scouring rush that grows in swampy places looks? Do you remember the rings of stiff little bristles all down it? Well, Little Mitchell’s tail reminded his lady of the scouring rush. The hairs came out in rings, a ring of them at each joint; but they grew ever so fast, and in the end that part of the tail was almost the handsomest of all!

But what a lot of trouble it made for both of them,—that tail! It had to be bathed often,—and Little Mitchell did hate so to have it put into the water. At first, as soon as the water touched it he would squirm loose and run off, and the lady would catch him, and, holding him before her face, would talk to him and tell him all about it, and that he must be good and let her wash it. And then—will you believe it?—Little Mitchell would be good, and let her finish washing him in the warm soapy water.

Yes, he had a bath all over once in a while with nice warm water. He didn’t like it very well, though the lady was ever so careful not to get the soap in his eyes. But what came after the bath,—the rubbing, and the sitting on his lady’s knee in the warm sun until he was perfectly dry,—he liked very much indeed. And then, when his coat changed, the bath and the rubbing stopped that dreadful itching.

His baby coat was very soft and fine and of the same gray color all over, excepting of course on the under side of his body, and there it was white. But when he was three or four months old, he began to change in many curious ways. For one thing, there came a queer growth under his coat that surprised the lady very much. When she brushed him, instead of a dainty white skin under his fur he seemed covered with a sort of gray felt. Pretty soon this felt got to be a coat of long close hair, that was very pretty, and quite different in coloring from the baby coat, which soon began to fall out. That is why he itched so; the loose hairs tickled him, and he was all the time biting and scratching himself, so that it was almost impossible for the lady to brush him, he wriggled about so.

His new coat was light gray on the sides, with a dark stripe down the middle of the back; and there was such a pretty reddish brown stripe between his gray sides and the pure white on the under side of his body. At the same time, he got a reddish stripe on each side of his face, and his face changed its shape, or else the new markings made it look changed. You see now what was happening,—Little Mitchell was no longer a baby. He was fast getting to be a handsome grown-up squirrel, with all the stripes and markings of one. His face seemed to shorten up and change in expression,—just as people change when they grow out of childhood into grown-up men and women. Only their faces grow longer instead of shorter.

It was very pretty to watch these changes come over Little Mitchell; but one thing troubled his lady,—as time went on he did not get well. He would seem pretty well for a long time, but the poor little hind legs got weaker and weaker. The lady comforted him by rubbing them,—they seemed so stiff, just as though he were a little old man with the rheumatism. He liked the rubbing every morning. The lady would gently knead the muscles of his back, and then of his hind legs, one after the other. When she got to the leg, he would stick it out straight in her hand, it felt so good to have it rubbed.

When she had finished and put him down, he would look up at her and nod his head,—which was his way of coaxing her to rub him some more.