← The whole farm was deeply divided on the subject of the windmill. Snowball did not deny that to build it would be a difficult business. 🔊
← Stone would have to be carried and built up into walls, then the sails would have to be made and after that there would be need for dynamos and cables. 🔊
← When the animals had assembled in the big barn, Snowball stood up and, though occasionally interrupted by bleating from the sheep, set forth his reasons for advocating the building of the windmill. 🔊
← On the third Sunday after Snowball's expulsion, the animals were somewhat surprised to hear Napoleon announce that the windmill was to be built after all. 🔊
← The building of the windmill, with various other improvements, was expected to take two years. 🔊
← There was a good quarry of limestone on the farm, and plenty of sand and cement had been found in one of the outhouses, so that all the materials for building were at hand. 🔊
← By late summer a sufficient store of stone had accumulated, and then the building began, under the superintendence of the pigs. 🔊
← The hens, said Napoleon, should welcome this sacrifice as their own special contribution towards the building of the windmill. 🔊
← It was almost half built now. After the harvest there was a stretch of clear dry weather, and the animals toiled harder than ever, thinking it well worth while to plod to and fro all day with blocks of stone if by doing so they could raise the walls another foot. 🔊
← In their spare moments the animals would walk round and round the half−finished mill, admiring the strength and perpendicularity of its walls and marvelling that they should ever have been able to build anything so imposing. 🔊
← November came, with raging south−west winds. Building had to stop because it was now too wet to mix the cement. 🔊
← This very morning we begin rebuilding the windmill, and we will build all through the winter, rain or shine. 🔊
← The animals knew that this was not the case. Still, it had been decided to build the walls three feet thick this time instead of eighteen inches as before, which meant collecting much larger quantities of stone. 🔊
← It was not for this that they had built the windmill and faced the bullets of Jones's gun. 🔊
← At the same time there were renewed rumours that Frederick and his men were plotting to attack Animal Farm and to destroy the windmill, the building of which had aroused furious jealousy in him. 🔊
← Tired out but proud, the animals walked round and round their masterpiece, which appeared even more beautiful in their eyes than when it had been built the first time. 🔊
← They were going to knock the windmill down. "Impossible!" cried Napoleon. "We have built the walls far too thick for that. 🔊
← "What matter? We will build another windmill. We will build six windmills if we feel like it. 🔊
← It was announced that later, when bricks and timber had been purchased, a schoolroom would be built in the farmhouse garden. 🔊
← It was used for milling corn, and brought in a handsome money profit. The animals were hard at work building yet another windmill; when that one was finished, so it was said, the dynamos would be installed. 🔊