I do not know how long he had been clinging there and crying before the lady came. For now it is time for his lady to come along, and when she once comes Little Mitchell will be in the story every minute until it ends. You see, as soon as breakfast was over and they had all eaten all the hot corn-pone and fried cabbage they wanted, the lady was ready to start up the mountain. The little children and their mother and the school-teacher were sorry to see the lady go, and the father looked anxious,—for Mount Mitchell is a very wild mountain and a very big one, and he was afraid they would get lost. He offered to go and show them; but the guide said no, he knew the way. So the lady and her guide started on up the mountain in the cold morning air, and it became so steep right away that the lady had to keep stopping to get her breath. It was while she was stopping to breathe that the guide said,— “Listen! I hear a boomer, and I would like to get to see it.” “Boomer” is their name for the little red squirrel, of which the mountaineers are very fond, and which is not nearly so common there as the big gray squirrel. The people who live down below call the mountain people “mountain boomers,”—why, I do not know, unless perhaps they think they live in the mountains like squirrels. Well, the guide began to look around to find the boomer, and the lady looked around too, and at last they spied a little squirrel clinging to the bark of a tall chestnut tree, twenty feet from the ground, and crying very hard. They soon found that it was no boomer, but a tiny gray squirrel. The guide threw up small sticks and bits of bark to make him run; but he did not stir, even when a bit of bark hit his tail. Then said the guide, “I’m going up to get him.” So up the tree he went, clinging with arms and knees, for the tree-trunk was so big his arms could not reach half-way around it. It was a very hard climb, but the man got there at last, and, catching the little fellow by the tail, came sliding down, the little squirrel squeaking frantically, for it was both frightened and hurt at being handled in that rough way. Its own little bunny mother never picked it up by the tail, you know. The man put the little fellow in the lady’s hand, and, to her surprise, she saw it was a young gray squirrel with its eyes not yet open. [Illustration: LITTLE MITCHELL’S FIRST MEAL “The Lady dipped the end of her finger in the milk and put it in Little Mitchell’s mouth.” (Page 52)] And now you know it was Little Mitchell, who had fallen out of his nest and was lying there in the lady’s hand. Such a funny little fellow as he was!—all head and feet, with almost no body at all, and a queer little stub of a tail that was hardly as long as his queer little body. The lady laughed when she saw him, and then she felt very sorry for the helpless little one.