← 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. 🔊
← The pellets scored bloody streaks along Snowball's back, and a sheep dropped dead. Without halting for an instant, Snowball flung his fifteen stone against Jones's legs. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← But the problem the animals could not at first solve was how to break up the stone into pieces of suitable size. 🔊
← Transporting the stone when it was once broken was comparatively simple. The horses carried it off in cart−loads, the sheep dragged single blocks, even Muriel and Benjamin yoked themselves into an old governess−cart and did their share. 🔊
← By late summer a sufficient store of stone had accumulated, and then the building began, under the superintendence of the pigs. 🔊
← And in his spare moments, of which there were not many nowadays, he would go alone to the quarry, collect a load of broken stone, and drag it down to the site of the windmill unassisted. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← Napoleon, who seldom moved out of a walk, raced ahead of them all. Yes, there it lay, the fruit of all their struggles, levelled to its foundations, the stones they had broken and carried so laboriously scattered all around. 🔊
← Unable at first to speak, they stood gazing mournfully at the litter of fallen stone Napoleon paced to and fro in silence, occasionally snuffing at the ground. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← Having got there, he collected two successive loads of stone and dragged them down to the windmill before retiring for the night. 🔊
← And in rebuilding it they could not this time, as before, make use of the fallen stones. 🔊
← This time the stones had vanished too. The force of the explosion had flung them to distances of hundreds of yards. 🔊
← His twelfth birthday was approaching. He did not care what happened so long as a good store of stone was accumulated before he went on pension. 🔊
← He had gone out alone to drag a load of stone down to the windmill. 🔊
← There is a pretty good store of stone accumulated. I had only another month to go in any case. 🔊
← Napoleon was now a mature boar of twenty−four stone. Squealer was so fat that he could with difficulty see out of his eyes. 🔊