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.