---
title: "Animal Farm"
author: "George Orwell"
languages: [en]
shelf: "Literature"
section: 9 of 10
url: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-animal-farm-fp201410e7/9/
cite: "George Orwell, Animal Farm, section 9. Scriptura (scriptura.si), https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-animal-farm-fp201410e7/9/"
---

# Animal Farm

*George Orwell*

> * A Distributed Proofreaders Canada Ebook *

> This ebook is made available at no cost and with very few
restrictions. These restrictions apply only if (1) you make
a change in the ebook (other than alteration for different
display devices), or (2) you are making commercial use of
the ebook. If either of these conditions applies, please
check with an FP administrator before proceeding.

> This work is in the Canadian public domain, but may be
under copyright in some countries. If you live outside Canada,
check your country's copyright laws. IF THE BOOK IS UNDER
COPYRIGHT IN YOUR COUNTRY, DO NOT DOWNLOAD
OR REDISTRIBUTE THIS FILE.

> Title: Animal Farm
Author: Orwell, George [Blair, Eric Arthur] (1903-1950)
Date of first publication: 1945
Edition used as base for this ebook:
   New York: Harcourt, Brace
   [copyright date 1946]
Date first posted: 12 May 2011
Date last updated: Sep. 5, 2024
Faded Page ebook#201410E7

> This ebook was produced by Al Haines

> ANIMAL FARM

> _George Orwell_

> NEW YORK

> HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY

> COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY

> HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC.

> _All rights reserved, including
  the right to reproduce this book
  or portions thereof in any form._

> PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA

> BY THE HADDON CRAFTSMEN

> SCRANTON, PA.

> ANIMAL FARM

> [End of Animal Farm, by George Orwell]

## 9. CHAPTER IX

Source: https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-animal-farm-fp201410e7/9/ · cite a paragraph as https://scriptura.si/works/orwell-animal-farm-fp201410e7/9/#p-N

[¶0] 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.  Clover treated the hoof with poultices of herbs which she
prepared by chewing them, and both she and Benjamin urged Boxer to work
less hard.  "A horse's lungs do not last for ever," she said to him.
But Boxer would not listen.  He had, he said, only one real ambition
left--to see the windmill well under way before he reached the age for
retirement.

[¶1] At the beginning, when the laws of Animal Farm were first formulated,
the retiring age had been fixed for horses and pigs at twelve, for cows
at fourteen, for dogs at nine, for sheep at seven, and for hens and
geese at five.  Liberal old-age pensions had been agreed upon.  As yet
no animal had actually retired on pension, but of late the subject had
been discussed more and more.  Now that the small field beyond the
orchard had been set aside for barley, it was rumoured that a corner of
the large pasture was to be fenced off and turned into a grazing-ground
for superannuated animals.  For a horse, it was said, the pension would
be five pounds of corn a day and, in winter, fifteen pounds of hay,
with a carrot or possibly an apple on public holidays.  Boxer's twelfth
birthday was due in the late summer of the following year.

[¶2] Meanwhile life was hard.  The winter was as cold as the last one had
been, and food was even shorter.  Once again all rations were reduced,
except those of the pigs and the dogs.  A too rigid equality in
rations, Squealer explained, would have been contrary to the principles
of Animalism.  In any case he had no difficulty in proving to the other
animals that they were _not_ in reality short of food, whatever the
appearances might be.  For the time being, certainly, it had been found
necessary to make a readjustment of rations (Squealer always spoke of
it as a "readjustment," never as a "reduction"), but in comparison with
the days of Jones, the improvement was enormous.  Reading out the
figures in a shrill, rapid voice, he proved to them in detail that they
had more oats, more hay, more turnips than they had had in Jones's day,
that they worked shorter hours, that their drinking water was of better
quality, that they lived longer, that a larger proportion of their
young ones survived infancy, and that they had more straw in their
stalls and suffered less from fleas.  The animals believed every word
of it.  Truth to tell, Jones and all he stood for had almost faded out
of their memories.  They knew that life nowadays was harsh and bare,
that they were often hungry and often cold, and that they were usually
working when they were not asleep.  But doubtless it had been worse in
the old days.  They were glad to believe so.  Besides, in those days
they had been slaves and now they were free, and that made all the
difference, as Squealer did not fail to point out.

[¶3] There were many more mouths to feed now.  In the autumn the four sows
had all littered about simultaneously, producing thirty-one young pigs
between them.  The young pigs were piebald, and as Napoleon was the
only boar on the farm, it was possible to guess at their parentage.  It
was announced that later, when bricks and timber had been purchased, a
schoolroom would be built in the farmhouse garden.  For the time being,
the young pigs were given their instruction by Napoleon himself in the
farmhouse kitchen.  They took their exercise in the garden, and were
discouraged from playing with the other young animals.  About this
time, too, it was laid down as a rule that when a pig and any other
animal met on the path, the other animal must stand aside: and also
that all pigs, of whatever degree, were to have the privilege of
wearing green ribbons on their tails on Sundays.

[¶4] The farm had had a fairly successful year, but was still short of
money.  There were the bricks, sand, and lime for the schoolroom to be
purchased, and it would also be necessary to begin saving up again for
the machinery for the windmill.  Then there were lamp oil and candles
for the house, sugar for Napoleon's own table (he forbade this to the
other pigs, on the ground that it made them fat), and all the usual
replacements such as tools, nails, string, coal, wire, scrap-iron, and
dog biscuits.  A stump of hay and part of the potato crop were sold
off, and the contract for eggs was increased to six hundred a week, so
that that year the hens barely hatched enough chicks to keep their
numbers at the same level.  Rations, reduced in December, were reduced
again in February, and lanterns in the stalls were forbidden to save
oil.  But the pigs seemed comfortable enough, and in fact were putting
on weight if anything.  One afternoon in late February a warm, rich,
appetising scent, such as the animals had never smelt before, wafted
itself across the yard from the little brew-house, which had been
disused in Jones's time, and which stood beyond the kitchen.  Someone
said it was the smell of cooking barley.  The animals sniffed the air
hungrily and wondered whether a warm mash was being prepared for their
supper.  But no warm mash appeared, and on the following Sunday it was
announced that from now onwards all barley would be reserved for the
pigs.  The field beyond the orchard had already been sown with barley.
And the news soon leaked out that every pig was now receiving a ration
of a pint of beer daily, with half a gallon for Napoleon himself, which
was always served to him in the Crown Derby soup tureen.

[¶5] But if there were hardships to be borne, they were partly offset by the
fact that life nowadays had a greater dignity than it had had before.
There were more songs, more speeches, more processions.  Napoleon had
commanded that once a week there should be held something called a
Spontaneous Demonstration, the object of which was to celebrate the
struggles and triumphs of Animal Farm.  At the appointed time the
animals would leave their work and march round the precincts of the
farm in military formation, with the pigs leading, then the horses,
then the cows, then the sheep, and then the poultry.  The dogs flanked
the procession and at the head of all marched Napoleon's black
cockerel.  Boxer and Clover always carried between them a green banner
marked with the hoof and the horn and the caption, "Long live Comrade
Napoleon!"  Afterwards there were recitations of poems composed in
Napoleon's honour, and a speech by Squealer giving particulars of the
latest increases in the production of foodstuffs, and on occasion a
shot was fired from the gun.  The sheep were the greatest devotees of
the Spontaneous Demonstration, and if anyone complained (as a few
animals sometimes did, when no pigs or dogs were near) that they wasted
time and meant a lot of standing about in the cold, the sheep were sure
to silence him with a tremendous bleating of "Four legs good, two legs
bad!"  But by and large the animals enjoyed these celebrations.  They
found it comforting to be reminded that, after all, they were truly
their own masters and that the work they did was for their own benefit.
So that, what with the songs, the processions, Squealer's lists of
figures, the thunder of the gun, the crowing of the cockerel, and the
fluttering of the flag, they were able to forget that their bellies
were empty, at least part of the time.

[¶6] In April, Animal Farm was proclaimed a Republic, and it became
necessary to elect a President.  There was only one candidate,
Napoleon, who was elected unanimously.  On the same day it was given
out that fresh documents had been discovered which revealed further
details about Snowball's complicity with Jones.  It now appeared that
Snowball had not, as the animals had previously imagined, merely
attempted to lose the Battle of the Cowshed by means of a stratagem,
but had been openly fighting on Jones's side.  In fact, it was he who
had actually been the leader of the human forces, and had charged into
battle with the words "Long live Humanity!" on his lips.  The wounds on
Snowball's back, which a few of the animals still remembered to have
seen, had been inflicted by Napoleon's teeth.

[¶7] In the middle of the summer Moses the raven suddenly reappeared on the
farm, after an absence of several years.  He was quite unchanged, still
did no work, and talked in the same strain as ever about Sugarcandy
Mountain.  He would perch on a stump, flap his black wings, and talk by
the hour to anyone who would listen.  "Up there, comrades," he would
say solemnly, pointing to the sky with his large beak--"up there, just
on the other side of that dark cloud that you can see--there it lies,
Sugarcandy Mountain, that happy country where we poor animals shall
rest for ever from our labours!"  He even claimed to have been there on
one of his higher flights, and to have seen the everlasting fields of
clover and the linseed cake and lump sugar growing on the hedges.  Many
of the animals believed him.  Their lives now, they reasoned, were
hungry and laborious; was it not right and just that a better world
should exist somewhere else?  A thing that was difficult to determine
was the attitude of the pigs towards Moses.  They all declared
contemptuously that his stories about Sugarcandy Mountain were lies,
and yet they allowed him to remain on the farm, not working, with an
allowance of a gill of beer a day.

[¶8] After his hoof had healed up, Boxer worked harder than ever.  Indeed,
all the animals worked like slaves that year.  Apart from the regular
work of the farm, and the rebuilding of the windmill, there was the
schoolhouse for the young pigs, which was started in March.  Sometimes
the long hours on insufficient food were hard to bear, but Boxer never
faltered.  In nothing that he said or did was there any sign that his
strength was not what it had been.  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 others said, "Boxer
will pick up when the spring grass comes on"; but the spring came and
Boxer grew no fatter.  Sometimes on the slope leading to the top of the
quarry, when he braced his muscles against the weight of some vast
boulder, it seemed that nothing kept him on his feet except the will to
continue.  At such times his lips were seen to form the words, "I will
work harder"; he had no voice left.  Once again Clover and Benjamin
warned him to take care of his health, but Boxer paid no attention.
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.

[¶9] Late one evening in the summer, a sudden rumour ran round the farm that
something had happened to Boxer.  He had gone out alone to drag a load
of stone down to the windmill.  And sure enough, the rumour was true.
A few minutes later two pigeons came racing in with the news: "Boxer
has fallen!  He is lying on his side and can't get up!"

[¶10] About half the animals on the farm rushed out to the knoll where the
windmill stood.  There lay Boxer, between the shafts of the cart, his
neck stretched out, unable even to raise his head.  His eyes were
glazed, his sides matted with sweat.  A thin stream of blood had
trickled out of his mouth.  Clover dropped to her knees at his side.

[¶11] "Boxer!" she cried, "how are you?"

[¶12] "It is my lung," said Boxer in a weak voice.  "It does not matter.  I
think you will be able to finish the windmill without me.  There is a
pretty good store of stone accumulated.  I had only another month to go
in any case.  To tell you the truth, I had been looking forward to my
retirement.  And perhaps, as Benjamin is growing old too, they will let
him retire at the same time and be a companion to me."

[¶13] "We must get help at once," said Clover.  "Run, somebody, and tell
Squealer what has happened."

[¶14] All the other animals immediately raced back to the farmhouse to give
Squealer the news.  Only Clover remained, and Benjamin, who lay down at
Boxer's side, and, without speaking, kept the flies off him with his
long tail.  After about a quarter of an hour Squealer appeared, full of
sympathy and concern.  He said that Comrade Napoleon had learned with
the very deepest distress of this misfortune to one of the most loyal
workers on the farm, and was already making arrangements to send Boxer
to be treated in the hospital at Willingdon.  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.  However, Squealer easily
convinced them that the veterinary surgeon in Willingdon could treat
Boxer's case more satisfactorily than could be done on the farm.  And
about half an hour later, when Boxer had somewhat recovered, he was
with difficulty got on to his feet, and managed to limp back to his
stall, where Clover and Benjamin had prepared a good bed of straw for
him.

[¶15] For the next two days Boxer remained in his stall.  The pigs had sent
out a large bottle of pink medicine which they had found in the
medicine chest in the bathroom, and Clover administered it to Boxer
twice a day after meals.  In the evenings she lay in his stall and
talked to him, while Benjamin kept the flies off him.  Boxer professed
not to be sorry for what had happened.  If he made a good recovery, he
might expect to live another three years, and he looked forward to the
peaceful days that he would spend in the corner of the big pasture.  It
would be the first time that he had had leisure to study and improve
his mind.  He intended, he said, to devote the rest of his life to
learning the remaining twenty-two letters of the alphabet.

[¶16] However, Benjamin and Clover could only be with Boxer after working
hours, and it was in the middle of the day when the van came to take
him away.  The animals were all at work weeding turnips under the
supervision of a pig, when they were astonished to see Benjamin come
galloping from the direction of the farm buildings, braying at the top
of his voice.  It was the first time that they had ever seen Benjamin
excited--indeed, it was the first time that anyone had ever seen him
gallop.  "Quick, quick!" he shouted.  "Come at once!  They're taking
Boxer away!"  Without waiting for orders from the pig, the animals
broke off work and raced back to the farm buildings.  Sure enough,
there in the yard was a large closed van, drawn by two horses, with
lettering on its side and a sly-looking man in a low-crowned bowler hat
sitting on the driver's seat.  And Boxer's stall was empty.

[¶17] The animals crowded round the van.  "Good-bye, Boxer!" they chorused,
"good-bye!"

[¶18] "Fools!  Fools!" shouted Benjamin, prancing round them and stamping the
earth with his small hoofs.  "Fools!  Do you not see what is written on
the side of that van?"

[¶19] That gave the animals pause, and there was a hush.  Muriel began to
spell out the words.  But Benjamin pushed her aside and in the midst of
a deadly silence he read:

[¶20] "'Alfred Simmonds, Horse Slaughterer and Glue Boiler, Willingdon.
Dealer in Hides and Bone-Meal.  Kennels Supplied.'  Do you not
understand what that means?  They are taking Boxer to the knacker's!"

[¶21] A cry of horror burst from all the animals.  At this moment the man on
the box whipped up his horses and the van moved out of the yard at a
smart trot.  All the animals followed, crying out at the tops of their
voices.  Clover forced her way to the front.  The van began to gather
speed.  Clover tried to stir her stout limbs to a gallop, and achieved
a canter.  "Boxer!" she cried.  "Boxer!  Boxer!  Boxer!"  And just at
this moment, as though he had heard the uproar outside, Boxer's face,
with the white stripe down his nose, appeared at the small window at
the back of the van.

[¶22] "Boxer!" cried Clover in a terrible voice.  "Boxer!  Get out!  Get out
quickly!  They are taking you to your death!"

[¶23] All the animals took up the cry of "Get out, Boxer, get out!"  But the
van was already gathering speed and drawing away from them.  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.  In desperation the animals began appealing to
the two horses which drew the van to stop.  "Comrades, comrades!" they
shouted.  "Don't take your own brother to his death!"  But the stupid
brutes, too ignorant to realise what was happening, merely set back
their ears and quickened their pace.  Boxer's face did not reappear at
the window.  Too late, someone thought of racing ahead and shutting the
five-barred gate; but in another moment the van was through it and
rapidly disappearing down the road.  Boxer was never seen again.

[¶24] Three days later it was announced that he had died in the hospital at
Willingdon, in spite of receiving every attention a horse could have.
Squealer came to announce the news to the others.  He had, he said,
been present during Boxer's last hours.

[¶25] "It was the most affecting sight I have ever seen!" said Squealer,
lifting his trotter and wiping away a tear.  "I was at his bedside at
the very last.  And at the end, almost too weak to speak, he whispered
in my ear that his sole sorrow was to have passed on before the
windmill was finished.  'Forward, comrades!' he whispered.  'Forward in
the name of the Rebellion.  Long live Animal Farm!  Long live Comrade
Napoleon!  Napoleon is always right.'  Those were his very last words,
comrades."

[¶26] Here Squealer's demeanour suddenly changed.  He fell silent for a
moment, and his little eyes darted suspicious glances from side to side
before he proceeded.

[¶27] It had come to his knowledge, he said, that a foolish and wicked rumour
had been circulated at the time of Boxer's removal.  Some of the
animals had noticed that the van which took Boxer away was marked
"Horse Slaughterer," and had actually jumped to the conclusion that
Boxer was being sent to the knacker's.  It was almost unbelievable,
said Squealer, that any animal could be so stupid.  Surely, he cried
indignantly, whisking his tail and skipping from side to side, surely
they knew their beloved Leader, Comrade Napoleon, better than that?
But the explanation was really very simple.  The van had previously
been the property of the knacker, and had been bought by the veterinary
surgeon, who had not yet painted the old name out.  That was how the
mistake had arisen.

[¶28] The animals were enormously relieved to hear this.  And when Squealer
went on to give further graphic details of Boxer's death-bed, the
admirable care he had received, and the expensive medicines for which
Napoleon had paid without a thought as to the cost, their last doubts
disappeared and the sorrow that they felt for their comrade's death was
tempered by the thought that at least he had died happy.

[¶29] Napoleon himself appeared at the meeting on the following Sunday
morning and pronounced a short oration in Boxer's honour.  It had not
been possible, he said, to bring back their lamented comrade's remains
for interment on the farm, but he had ordered a large wreath to be made
from the laurels in the farmhouse garden and sent down to be placed on
Boxer's grave.  And in a few days' time the pigs intended to hold a
memorial banquet in Boxer's honour.  Napoleon ended his speech with a
reminder of Boxer's two favourite maxims, "I will work harder" and
"Comrade Napoleon is always right"--maxims, he said, which every animal
would do well to adopt as his own.

[¶30] On the day appointed for the banquet, a grocer's van drove up from
Willingdon and delivered a large wooden crate at the farmhouse.  That
night there was the sound of uproarious singing, which was followed by
what sounded like a violent quarrel and ended at about eleven o'clock
with a tremendous crash of glass.  No one stirred in the farmhouse
before noon on the following day, and the word went round that from
somewhere or other the pigs had acquired the money to buy themselves
another case of whisky.