THE TOMTIT GIVES FUZZ AND BUZZ SOME BAD NEWS
BUT it was not nearly such a nice day as it had been yesterday. The
sun never shone at all, and the snow fell in such big, thick flakes
that sometimes they could hardly see a yard in front of them.
Besides, a cold north wind was blowing, and it made the stream so
rough that their raft danced up and down on the tiny waves, and more
than once they were nearly upset.
The fields that lay on either side of the stream were quite empty,
and it seemed as if everybody but Fuzz and Buzz thought it wiser to
stay at home on such a cold day.
But about twelve o'clock they saw a tomtit hopping about on the
branches of a willow-tree that grew near the water, and after
looking at them in surprise for a moment he asked them where they
were going.
They told him that they were going to see their aunt, Miss Patty
Grey-Fur.
"Oh, are you?" said the tomtit. "Well, I should be sorry to call
Miss Patty Grey-Fur an aunt of mine. Why are you going to see her?"
"Because we want some corn," said Fuzz.
"She won't give you any," said the tomtit. "She is the meanest old
mouse that ever lived in a barn. You should just hear some of the
tales that are told of her in these parts. You would turn round and
go home if I told you one-half of what I know about her."
"Then we would rather not hear it, thank you," said Fuzz quickly,
"for we must go on."
"Just as you like, of course," said the tomtit. But he was very
sorry all the same to find that they would not listen to him, for
tomtits like telling tales about their friends. That is why they are
often called "tale-tits". Then he flew away; and as Fuzz and Buzz
floated on alone, they asked each other what sort of a mouse their
aunt could be.
"We shall soon know," said Buzz; "and it can't be true that she
won't give us any corn."
All that afternoon their tiny raft sailed on and on, and at last,
just as it was beginning to get dark, they heard the loud roar of
the river into which their stream would soon flow. As they had no
wish to be carried down by it to the sea, they stood up on their
little hind legs, so as to be ready to catch hold of the first
branch that came within their reach. And a minute or two later they
were both clinging to the branch of a weeping-willow tree, and,
running along it, they soon reached the bank, from which they
watched the little piece of wood which had carried them so far and
so well floating on without them.
Luckily for Fuzz and Buzz the top of the snow was frozen quite hard,
so that they could walk over it quite easily, and after crossing a
big white field they arrived at the barn where Miss Patty Grey-Fur
lived.
"The next thing," said Fuzz, "is to find the way into the barn."
"You will be very clever if you do that," said a poor little weak
voice beside them; and, looking down, they saw a tiny house-mouse
shivering in the snow. "I have been trying to find a way in all day,
but unless you go past Miss Patty Grey-Fur's hole there is no other
way."
"Show me where Miss Patty Grey-Fur's hole is, then," said Fuzz
boldly, "and I will knock at the door and tell her that we want to
come in."
The little mouse opened his eyes wide at this, but he said nothing,
and led the way round to the back of the barn. Now this barn was
not, like most country barns, a tumble-down sort of place into which
a mouse might make his way by any number of holes. It was quite a
new barn, built of iron, and as Fuzz and Buzz followed the
house-mouse they could not see a single hole anywhere. When they had
walked nearly all round it, the house-mouse stopped beside a pipe
that led up from the floor of the barn to the roof. Now this pipe
did not go straight up in the way that pipes usually go, but it
leaned to one side, so that an active mouse could easily walk up it.
"You must go up this pipe," said the house-mouse, "and when you get
to the top you must walk along the gutter until you see a tiny hole
in the roof, and then if you put your head inside it, you will see
Miss Patty Grey-Fur sitting there."
So Fuzz and Buzz ran up the pipe and along the gutter as they had
been told, until they came to the little hole in the roof. But just
as Fuzz was going to put his head inside it, Miss Patty Grey-Fur
popped hers out so suddenly that Fuzz very nearly tumbled backwards
off the roof.
"What are you doing here?" she said in an angry squeak. "I have had
nothing but beggars at my door all day long, and I am quite tired of
telling them to go away."
"We aren't beggars, Aunt Patty," said Fuzz bravely. She looked such
a very cross old mouse that he would have liked to run away. "We are
your nephew and niece, Fuzz and Buzz Brownie."
[Illustration]
But if he thought that she would be pleased to see them, he was very
much mistaken.
"Oh, are you?" she said with a sort of sniff. "Well, then, the
sooner you go home again the better. This is not at all a safe place
for field-mice. There are dogs, and cats too, in the yard. Besides,
there are a great many children, and if they saw you they would be
sure to want to catch you and put you in a cage and keep you as a
pet. How would you like that?"
"We should not like it at all, Aunt Patty," Fuzz said; "so if you
will let us come inside the barn we shall feel much safer. And then
tomorrow, when we have got enough corn, we will go home again."
"I shall do nothing of the sort," said Miss Patty Grey-Fur; and now
her long whiskers were quite stiff with rage. "How dare you want my
corn! There is not enough here to last me through the winter if I am
not very careful of it. And I cannot afford to give you one single
grain."
Now, as Fuzz, who had been peeping in through the hole, could see
for himself, this was not true. The barn was full of corn from the
roof to the floor. Then quite suddenly Fuzz began to laugh, and he
laughed and laughed until the tears ran down his face.
"What are you laughing at?" said Miss Patty Grey-Fur. "You are a
very rude young mouse indeed."
"I did not mean to be rude," said Fuzz, "but I could not help
thinking, that if you did really eat all this corn you would be as
big as the barn by the time the spring came." But before he had
finished speaking Miss Patty Grey-Fur pulled her head in with a
sudden jerk, and then shut the door in their faces.
And so Fuzz and Buzz were left standing outside in the gutter, and
they had to climb down the pipe again, and tell the little
house-mouse, who was waiting for them in the snow, that their aunt
would not let them in either.
The next thing to be done was to find a place in which to spend the
night, and the little house-mouse was just telling them that the
only place he knew of was a cold, draughty hole behind the
water-butt, when he suddenly stopped and pricked up his ears.
"We must hide," he said, "somebody is coming. Let us get inside the
water-pipe."
And just as they had all three safely hidden themselves inside the
end of the pipe that led up to Miss Patty Grey-Fur's door, four or
five mice came round the corner of the barn and sat down in the snow
underneath the pipe.
"I hope the others wont be long," said one of the mice, a big fat
fellow with a very long tail. "It's cold work waiting here in the
snow."
"Then why do they wait'?" whispered Buzz to the house-mouse. But he
frowned at her not to talk.
Then several frozen-looking sparrows flew over the barn and sat down
beside the mice, then came two pigeons, then some more mice, and
then two barn-door fowls.
"I think we are all here now," said the big mouse who had spoken
before, "and you all know that we are here to talk about Miss Patty
Grey-Fur, and to make up our minds how we are to turn her out of the
barn."
But when he had got as far as that, the other mice, and the sparrows
and the pigeons and the fowls, all began to talk at once, and it was
some time before Fuzz and Buzz and the house-mouse could hear what
any of them were saying. But there was no doubt that they were all
speaking of Miss Patty Grey-Fur, and calling her all sorts of names;
and soon Fuzz heard the sparrows say, that though they had gone to
her door and begged for a little corn because the snow had covered
up all their other food, she had not given them one single grain.
The pigeons had the same tale to tell of her, and so had everybody
who had come to the meeting.
"Well," said the fat mouse, "listen to this plan of mine, and tell
me if you think that it is a good one. Miss Patty Grey-Fur loves
toasted cheese, and if nothing else will make her come out of her
barn a piece of toasted cheese will. I have got a bit that I took
out of a mouse-trap last night, and I will put it just outside her
door. She will smell it and come out, and then we will push her off
the roof. She will fall down to the ground, and then Rags the
terrier will soon snap her up. That will be the end of Miss Patty
Grey-Fur, and we shall have her barn all to ourselves."
Now, though Miss Patty Grey-Fur had been as unkind to them as she
had been to everybody else, Fuzz and Buzz could not listen to this
plot against her without feeling very angry, and as soon as the
meeting was over, and the mice had gone back to their holes and the
birds had flown away, Fuzz said that they must go up and tell her of
the danger she was in. But they would have to be quick, for the big
mouse had said that they would be back with the toasted cheese in a
very few minutes.