← 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. 🔊
← Nobody shirked−or almost nobody. Mollie, it was true, was not good at getting up in the mornings, and had a way of leaving work early on the ground that there was a stone in her hoof. 🔊
← First came the hoisting of the flag. Snowball had found in the harness−room an old green tablecloth of Mrs. Jones's and had painted on it a hoof and a horn in white. 🔊
← This was run up the flagstaff in the farmhouse garden every Sunday morning. The flag was green, Snowball explained, to represent the green fields of England, while the hoof and horn signified the future Republic of the Animals which would arise when the human race had been finally overthrown. 🔊
← Clover learnt the whole alphabet, but could not put words together. Boxer could not get beyond the letter D. He would trace out A, B, C, D, in the dust with his great hoof, and then would stand staring at the letters with his ears back, sometimes shaking his forelock, trying with all his might to remember what came next and never succeeding. 🔊
← Snowball now launched his second line of attack. Muriel, Benjamin, and all the sheep, with Snowball at the head of them, rushed forward and prodded and butted the men from every side, while Benjamin turned around and lashed at them with his small hoofs. 🔊
← But the most terrifying spectacle of all was Boxer, rearing up on his hind legs and striking out with his great iron−shod hoofs like a stallion. 🔊
← All the men were gone except one. Back in the yard Boxer was pawing with his hoof at the stable−lad who lay face down in the mud, trying to turn him over. 🔊
← A thought struck Clover. Without saying anything to the others, she went to Mollie's stall and turned over the straw with her hoof. 🔊
← Boxer saw them coming and put out his great hoof, caught a dog in mid−air, and pinned him to the ground. 🔊
← But the men did not go unscathed either. Three of them had their heads broken by blows from Boxer's hoofs; another was gored in the belly by a cow's horn; another had his trousers nearly torn off by Jessie and Bluebell. 🔊
← said Boxer. His knees were bleeding, he had lost a shoe and split his hoof, and a dozen pellets had lodged themselves in his hind leg. 🔊
← BOXER'S split hoof was a long time in healing. They had started the rebuilding of the windmill the day after the victory celebrations were ended. Boxer refused to take even a day off work, and made it a point of honour not to let it be seen that he was in pain. 🔊
← In the evenings he would admit privately to Clover that the hoof troubled him a great deal. 🔊
← Boxer and Clover always carried between them a green banner marked with the hoof and the horn and the caption, "Long live Comrade Napoleon! " 🔊
← After his hoof had healed up, Boxer worked harder than ever. Indeed, all the animals worked like slaves that year. 🔊
← It was uncertain whether Boxer had understood what Clover had said. But a moment later his face disappeared from the window and there was the sound of a tremendous drumming of hoofs inside the van. 🔊
← He was trying to kick his way out. The time had been when a few kicks from Boxer's hoofs would have smashed the van to matchwood. 🔊
← But alas! his strength had left him; and in a few moments the sound of drumming hoofs grew fainter and died away. 🔊
← If so, they would perhaps have noted that the white hoof and horn with which it had previously been marked had now been removed. 🔊