← But it reminded me of something that I had long forgotten. Many years ago, when I was a little pig, my mother and the other sows used to sing an old song of which they knew only the tune and the first three words. 🔊
← In a very little while the animals had destroyed everything that reminded them of Mr. Jones. 🔊
← A little way down the pasture there was a knoll that commanded a view of most of the farm. 🔊
← After a little thought, the pigs sent for buckets and milked the cows fairly successfully, their trotters being well adapted to this task. 🔊
← At the graveside Snowball made a little speech, emphasising the need for all animals to be ready to die for Animal Farm if need be. 🔊
← He was closeted there for hours at a time. With his books held open by a stone, and with a piece of chalk gripped between the knuckles of his trotter, he would move rapidly to and fro, drawing in line after line and uttering little whimpers of excitement. 🔊
← He walked heavily round the shed, looked closely at every detail of the plans and snuffed at them once or twice, then stood for a little while contemplating them out of the corner of his eye; then suddenly he lifted his leg, urinated over the plans, and walked out without uttering a word. 🔊
← Even so, it was found necessary to leave certain tasks undone. The harvest was a little less successful than in the previous year, and two fields which should have been sown with roots in the early summer were not sown because the ploughing had not been completed early enough. 🔊
← Every Monday Mr. Whymper visited the farm as had been arranged. He was a sly−looking little man with side whiskers, a solicitor in a very small way of business, but sharp enough to have realised earlier than anyone else that Animal Farm would need a broker and that the commissions would be worth having. 🔊
← Almost immediately the footprints of a pig were discovered in the grass at a little distance from the knoll. 🔊
← "Comrades!" cried Squealer, making little nervous skips, "a most terrible thing has been discovered. Snowball has sold himself to Frederick of Pinchfield Farm, who is even now plotting to attack us and take our farm away from us! 🔊
← At first it was a little difficult to see how this fitted in with his being on Jones's side. 🔊
← But Boxer was still a little uneasy. 🔊
← "That is the true spirit, comrade!" cried Squealer, but it was noticed he cast a very ugly look at Boxer with his little twinkling eyes. 🔊
← They had made their way on to the little knoll where the half−finished windmill stood, and with one accord they all lay down as though huddling together for warmth−Clover, Muriel, Benjamin, the cows, the sheep, and a whole flock of geese and hens−everyone, indeed, except the cat, who had suddenly disappeared just before Napoleon ordered the animals to assemble. 🔊
← And for a little while they halted in sorrowful silence at the place where the windmill had once stood. 🔊
← It was only his appearance that was a little altered; his hide was less shiny than it had used to be, and his great haunches seemed to have shrunken. 🔊
← The animals felt a little uneasy at this. Except for Mollie and Snowball, no other animal had ever left the farm, and they did not like to think of their sick comrade in the hands of human beings. 🔊
← Only old Benjamin was much the same as ever, except for being a little greyer about the muzzle, and, since Boxer's death, more morose and taciturn than ever. 🔊
← The animals found the problem insoluble; in any case, they had little time for speculating on such things now. 🔊