Mollie.

"Comrade," said Snowball, "those ribbons that you are so devoted to

are the badge of slavery. Can you not understand that liberty is worth

more than ribbons? "

Mollie agreed, but she did not sound very convinced.

The pigs had an even harder struggle to counteract the lies put about by

Moses, the tame raven. Moses, who was Mr. Jones's especial pet, was a

spy and a tale-bearer, but he was also a clever talker. He claimed to

know of the existence of a mysterious country called Sugarcandy

Mountain, to which all animals went when they died. It was situated

somewhere up in the sky, a little distance beyond the clouds, Moses

said. In Sugarcandy Mountain it was Sunday seven days a week, clover

was in season all the year round, and lump sugar and linseed cake grew

on the hedges. The animals hated Moses because he told tales and did

no work, but some of them believed in Sugarcandy Mountain, and the

pigs had to argue very hard to persuade them that there was no such

place.

Their most faithful disciples were the two cart-horses, Boxer and

Clover. These two had great difficulty in thinking anything out for

themselves, but having once accepted the pigs as their teachers, they

absorbed everything that they were told, and passed it on to the other

animals by simple arguments. They were unfailing in their attendance

at the secret meetings in the barn, and led the singing of Beasts of

England, with which the meetings always ended.

Now, as it turned out, the Rebellion was achieved much earlier and

more easily than anyone had expected. In past years Mr. Jones,

although a hard master, had been a capable farmer, but of late he had

fallen on evil days. He had become much disheartened after losing

money in a lawsuit, and had taken to drinking more than was good for

him. For whole days at a time he would lounge in his Windsor chair in

the kitchen, reading the newspapers, drinking, and occasionally feeding

Moses on crusts of bread soaked in beer. His men were idle and

dishonest, the fields were full of weeds, the buildings wanted roofing,

the hedges were neglected, and the animals were underfed.

June came and the hay was almost ready for cutting. On Midsummer's

Eve, which was a Saturday, Mr. Jones went into Willingdon and got so

drunk at the Red Lion that he did not come back till midday on Sunday.

The men had milked the cows in the early morning and then had gone

out rabbiting, without bothering to feed the animals. When Mr. Jones

got back he immediately went to sleep on the drawing-room sofa with

the News of the World over his face, so that when evening came, the

animals were still unfed. At last they could stand it no longer. One of

the cows broke in the door of the store-shed with her horn and all the

animals began to help themselves from the bins. It was just then that

Mr. Jones woke up. The next moment he and his four men were in the

store-shed with whips in their hands, lashing out in all directions. This

was more than the hungry animals could bear. With one accord, though

nothing of the kind had been planned beforehand, they flung

themselves upon their tormentors. Jones and his men suddenly found

themselves being butted and kicked from all sides. The situation was

quite out of their control. They had never seen animals behave like this

before, and this sudden uprising of creatures whom they were used to

thrashing and maltreating just as they chose, frightened them almost out

of their wits. After only a moment or two they gave up trying to defend

themselves and took to their heels. A minute later all five of them were

in full flight down the cart-track that led to the main road, with the

animals pursuing them in triumph.

Mrs. Jones looked out of the bedroom window, saw what was

happening, hurriedly flung a few possessions into a carpet bag, and

slipped out of the farm by another way. Moses sprang off his perch and

flapped after her, croaking loudly. Meanwhile the animals had chased

Jones and his men out on to the road and slammed the five-barred gate

behind them. And so, almost before they knew what was happening, the

Rebellion had been successfully carried through: Jones was expelled,

and the Manor Farm was theirs.

For the first few minutes the animals could hardly believe in their good

fortune. Their first act was to gallop in a body right round the

boundaries of the farm, as though to make quite sure that no human

being was hiding anywhere upon it; then they raced back to the farm

buildings to wipe out the last traces of Jones's hated reign. The

harness-room at the end of the stables was broken open; the bits, the

nose-rings, the dog-chains, the cruel knives with which Mr. Jones had

been used to castrate the pigs and lambs, were all flung down the well.

The reins, the halters, the blinkers, the degrading nosebags, were

thrown on to the rubbish fire which was burning in the yard. So were

the whips. All the animals capered with joy when they saw the whips

going up in flames. Snowball also threw on to the fire the ribbons with

which the horses' manes and tails had usually been decorated on market

days.

"Ribbons," he said, "should be considered as clothes, which are the

mark of a human being. All animals should go naked."

When Boxer heard this he fetched the small straw hat which he wore in

summer to keep the flies out of his ears, and flung it on to the fire with

the rest.

In a very little while the animals had destroyed everything that

reminded them of Mr. Jones. Napoleon then led them back to the

store-shed and served out a double ration of corn to everybody, with

two biscuits for each dog. Then they sang Beasts of England from end

to end seven times running, and after that they settled down for the

night and slept as they had never slept before.

But they woke at dawn as usual, and suddenly remembering the

glorious thing that had happened, they all raced out into the pasture

together. A little way down the pasture there was a knoll that

commanded a view of most of the farm. The animals rushed to the top

of it and gazed round them in the clear morning light. Yes, it was

theirs-everything that they could see was theirs! In the ecstasy of that

thought they gambolled round and round, they hurled themselves into

the air in great leaps of excitement. They rolled in the dew, they

cropped mouthfuls of the sweet summer grass, they kicked up clods of

the black earth and snuffed its rich scent. Then they made a tour of

inspection of the whole farm and surveyed with speechless admiration

the ploughland, the hayfield, the orchard, the pool, the spinney. It was

as though they had never seen these things before, and even now they

could hardly believe that it was all their own.

Then they filed back to the farm buildings and halted in silence outside

the door of the farmhouse. That was theirs too, but they were frightened

to go inside. After a moment, however, Snowball and Napoleon butted

the door open with their shoulders and the animals entered in single

file, walking with the utmost care for fear of disturbing anything. They

tiptoed from room to room, afraid to speak above a whisper and gazing

with a kind of awe at the unbelievable luxury, at the beds with their

feather mattresses, the looking-glasses, the horsehair sofa, the Brussels

carpet, the lithograph of Queen Victoria over the drawing-room

 

mantelpiece. They were lust coming down the stairs when Mollie was

discovered to be missing. Going back, the others found that she had

remained behind in the best bedroom. She had taken a piece of blue

ribbon from Mrs. Jones's dressing-table, and was holding it against her

shoulder and admiring herself in the glass in a very foolish manner. The

others reproached her sharply, and they went outside. Some hams

hanging in the kitchen were taken out for burial, and the barrel of beer

in the scullery was stove in with a kick from Boxer's hoof,-otherwise

nothing in the house was touched. A unanimous resolution was passed

on the spot that the farmhouse should be preserved as a museum. All

were agreed that no animal must ever live there.

The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowball and Napoleon

called them together again.

"Comrades," said Snowball, "it is half-past six and we have a long day

before us. Today we begin the hay harvest. But there is another matter

that must be attended to first."

The pigs now revealed that during the past three months they had

taught themselves to read and write from an old spelling book which

had belonged to Mr. Jones's children and which had been thrown on the

rubbish heap. Napoleon sent for pots of black and white paint and led

the way down to the five-barred gate that gave on to the main road.

Then Snowball (for it was Snowball who was best at writing) took a

brush between the two knuckles of his trotter, painted out MANOR

FARM from the top bar of the gate and in its place painted ANIMAL

FARM. This was to be the name of the farm from now onwards. After

this they went back to the farm buildings, where Snowball and

Napoleon sent for a ladder which they caused to be set against the end

wall of the big barn. They explained that by their studies of the past

three months the pigs had succeeded in reducing the principles of

Animalism to Seven Commandments. These Seven Commandments

would now be inscribed on the wall; they would form an unalterable

law by which all the animals on Animal Farm must live for ever after.

With some difficulty (for it is not easy for a pig to balance himself on a

ladder) Snowball climbed up and set to work, with Squealer a few

rungs below him holding the paint-pot. The Commandments were

written on the tarred wall in great white letters that could be read thirty

yards away. They ran thus:

THE SEVEN COMMANDMENTS

1. Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.

2. Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.

3. No animal shall wear clothes.

4. No animal shall sleep in a bed.

5. No animal shall drink alcohol.

6. No animal shall kill any other animal.

7. All animals are equal.

It was very neatly written, and except that "friend" was written "freind"

and one of the "S's" was the wrong way round, the spelling was correct

all the way through. Snowball read it aloud for the benefit of the others.

All the animals nodded in complete agreement, and the cleverer ones at

once began to learn the Commandments by heart.

"Now, comrades," cried Snowball, throwing down the paint-brush, "to

the hayfield! Let us make it a point of honour to get in the harvest more

quickly than Jones and his men could do."

But at this moment the three cows, who had seemed uneasy for some

time past, set up a loud lowing. They had not been milked for

twenty-four hours, and their udders were almost bursting. After a little

thought, the pigs sent for buckets and milked the cows fairly

successfully, their trotters being well adapted to this task. Soon there

were five buckets of frothing creamy milk at which many of the

animals looked with considerable interest.

"What is going to happen to all that milk?" said someone.

"Jones used sometimes to mix some of it in our mash," said one of the

hens.

"Never mind the milk, comrades!" cried Napoleon, placing himself in

front of the buckets. "That will be attended to. The harvest is more

important. Comrade Snowball will lead the way. I shall follow in a few

minutes. Forward, comrades! The hay is waiting."

So the animals trooped down to the hayfield to begin the harvest, and

when they came back in the evening it was noticed that the milk had

disappeared.