← The two cart−horses, Boxer and Clover, came in together, walking very slowly and setting down their vast hairy hoofs with great care lest there should be some small animal concealed in the straw. 🔊
← Boxer was an enormous beast, nearly eighteen hands high, and as strong as any two ordinary horses put together. 🔊
← Nevertheless, without openly admitting it, he was devoted to Boxer; the two of them usually spent their Sundays together in the small paddock beyond the orchard, grazing side by side and never speaking. 🔊
← But they woke at dawn as usual, and suddenly remembering the glorious thing that had happened, they all raced out into the pasture together. 🔊
← All were agreed that no animal must ever live there. The animals had their breakfast, and then Snowball and Napoleon called them together again. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← At the sight, several men dropped their sticks and tried to run. Panic overtook them, and the next moment all the animals together were chasing them round and round the yard. 🔊
← Nowadays they did not sit all together as they had done in the past. Napoleon, with Squealer and another pig named Minimus, who had a remarkable gift for composing songs and poems, sat on the front of the raised platform, with the nine young dogs forming a semicircle round them, and the other pigs sitting behind. 🔊
← The animals lashed ropes round these, and then all together, cows, horses, sheep, any animal that could lay hold of the rope−even the pigs sometimes joined in at critical moments−they dragged them with desperate slowness up the slope to the top of the quarry, where they were toppled over the edge, to shatter to pieces below. 🔊
← Nothing could have been achieved without Boxer, whose strength seemed equal to that of all the rest of the animals put together. 🔊
← In the evening Squealer called them together, and with an alarmed expression on his face told them that he had some serious news to report. 🔊
← When they were all gathered together, Napoleon emerged from the farmhouse, wearing both his medals (for he had recently awarded himself "Animal Hero, First Class," and "Animal Hero, Second Class"), with his nine huge dogs frisking round him and uttering growls that sent shivers down all the animals' spines. 🔊
← 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. 🔊
← To rebuild the windmill, with walls twice as thick as before, and to finish it by the appointed date, together with the regular work of the farm, was a tremendous labour. 🔊
← Two days later the animals were called together for a special meeting in the barn. 🔊
← Napoleon called the animals together immediately and in a terrible voice pronounced the death sentence upon Frederick. 🔊
← He called the animals together and told them that he had a terrible piece of news to impart. 🔊
← There was a deadly silence. Amazed, terrified, huddling together, the animals watched the long line of pigs march slowly round the yard. 🔊