THREE nights later old Major died
peacefully in his sleep. His body was buried at the foot of the orchard.
This was early in March. During the next three months there was much
secret activity. Major's speech had given to the more intelligent animals on
the farm a completely new outlook on life. They did not know when the
Rebellion predicted by Major would take place, they had no reason for thinking
that it would be within their own lifetime, but they saw clearly that it was
their duty to prepare for it. The work of teaching and organising the others
fell naturally upon the pigs, who were generally recognised as being the
cleverest of the animals. Pre-eminent among the pigs were two young boars
named Snowball and Napoleon, whom Mr. Jones was breeding up for sale. Napoleon
was a large, rather fierce-looking Berkshire boar, the only Berkshire on the
farm, not much of a talker, but with a reputation for getting his own way.
Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more
inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character. All the
other male pigs on the farm were porke rs. The best known among them was a
small fat pig named Squealer, with very round cheeks, twinkling eyes, nimble
movements, and a shrill voice. He was a brilliant talker, and when he was
arguing some difficult point he had a way of skipping from side to side and
whisking his tail which was somehow very persuasive. The others said of
Squealer that he could turn black into white.
These three had elaborated old Major's teachings into a complete system of
thought, to which they gave the name of Animalism. Several nights a week,
after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and
expounded the principles of Animalism to the others. At the beginning they met
with much stupidity and apathy. Some of the animals talked of the duty of
loyalty to Mr. Jones, whom they referred to as "Master," or made elementary
remarks such as "Mr. Jones feeds us. If he were gone, we sho uld starve to
death." Others asked such questions as "Why should we care what happens after
we are dead?" or "If this Rebellion is to happen anyway, what difference does
it make whether we work for it or not?", and the pigs had great difficulty in
making them see that this was contrary to the spirit of Animalism. The
stupidest questions of all were asked by Mollie, the white mare. The very
first question she asked Snowball was: "Will there still be sugar after the
Rebellion? "
"No," said Snowball firmly. "We have no means of making sugar on this
farm. Besides, you do not need sugar. You will have all the oats and hay you
want."
"And shall I still be allowed to wear ribbons in my mane?" asked 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 unf ed. 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 pig s 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 theirseverything 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 matt resses, 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 woul d 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
Whatever goes upon two legs is an enemy.
Whatever goes upon four legs, or has wings, is a friend.
No animal shall wear clothes.
No animal shall sleep in a bed.
No animal shall drink alcohol.
No animal shall kill any other animal.
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.
