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. The rubbing seemed to help the little legs, but it did not give them strength; and soon Little Mitchell could not climb his screen at all. He could climb up the table-cover, though, to the table, where he loved to poke around among the books and papers,—and I am sorry to say he would sometimes gnaw at a book-cover unless he were watched. He could climb up the lady’s dress, too, quite easily, and get into her lap, where he loved to lie stretched out. And he could climb up the dresses that hung in the closet. The best thing there was the woolly wrapper; he used to climb up to the hook it hung on, and sit there, and after a while slip into the top of the sleeve and take a nap. One day his lady hung the cuff of the sleeve on another hook, and so made a fine hammock for him to creep into. He lay there a long while, having the most beautiful time,—and what _do_ you suppose he was doing? He was pulling the fuzz all off the inside of the sleeve! He did not gnaw the cloth at all,—he just amused himself pulling off the fuzz and rolling it into balls.