For the next two days Boxer remained in his stall. The pigs had sent out a large bottle of pink medicine which they had found in the medicine chest in the bathroom, and Clover administered it to Boxer twice a day after meals. 🔊 In the evenings she lay in his stall and talked to him, while Benjamin kept the flies off him. 🔊 Boxer professed not to be sorry for what had happened. If he made a good recovery, he might expect to live another three years, and he looked forward to the peaceful days that he would spend in the corner of the big pasture. 🔊 It would be the first time that he had had leisure to study and improve his mind. 🔊 He intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to learning the remaining twenty−two letters of the alphabet. 🔊 However, Benjamin and Clover could only be with Boxer after working hours, and it was in the middle of the day when the van came to take him away. 🔊 The animals were all at work weeding turnips under the supervision of a pig, when they were astonished to see Benjamin come galloping from the direction of the farm buildings, braying at the top of his voice. 🔊 It was the first time that they had ever seen Benjamin excited−indeed, it was the first time that anyone had ever seen him gallop. 🔊 "Quick, quick!" he shouted. "Come at once! They're taking Boxer away!" Without waiting for orders from the pig, the animals broke off work and raced back to the farm buildings. 🔊 Sure enough, there in the yard was a large closed van, drawn by two horses, with lettering on its side and a sly−looking man in a low−crowned bowler hat sitting on the driver's seat. 🔊 And Boxer's stall was empty.

The animals crowded round the van. "Good−bye, Boxer!" they chorused, "good−bye!" 🔊 "Fools! Fools!" shouted Benjamin, prancing round them and stamping the earth with his small hoofs. 🔊 "Fools! Do you not see what is written on the side of that van?"

That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush. 🔊 Muriel began to spell out the words. But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of a deadly silence he read: " 'Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon. 🔊 Dealer in Hides and Bone−Meal. Kennels Supplied.' Do you not understand what that means? 🔊 They are taking Boxer to the knacker's! "

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