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. [Illustration: 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. Next morning the woman who kept the house went with Little Mitchell and his lady on a lovely walk over the mountains to where her mother lived. When noon came, they were only half-way there; so they sat down on a sweet mountain-side, to rest and eat, and Little Mitchell’s lady took him out of his box and gave him sugar cooky and roasted chestnuts for his dinner. She thought he could get along without milk now for a little while, because it was so hard to carry it. He had grown to be quite a squirrel by this time, and the lady thought that perhaps he was old enough to care for himself, and would like to be set free in the woods, which is the best home for the little squirrel-folk, you know. So she looked at him as he sat on her knee eating his chestnuts, which he held in his funny little hands and nibbled very fast indeed. He could sit up pretty well now, and yet he did look like such a baby! Still, she thought perhaps she ought to let him go free; and here in this wild spot, where there were no cats to catch him, was a good place. So when he had finished his dinner she put him down on the ground near a little tree, and then went back and sat down where she had been before, some distance away. What do you think Little Mitchell did now?