Animal Farm

Chapter III

Chapter III

How they toiled and sweated to get the hay in! But their efforts were

rewarded, for the harvest was an even bigger success than they had hoped.

Sometimes the work was hard; the implements had been designed for human

beings and not for animals, and it was a great drawback that no animal was

able to use any tool that involved standing on his hind legs. But the pigs

were so clever that they could think of a way round every difficulty. As

for the horses, they knew every inch of the field, and in fact understood

the business of mowing and raking far better than Jones and his men had

ever done. The pigs did not actually work, but directed and supervised the

others. With their superior knowledge it was natural that they should

assume the leadership. Boxer and Clover would harness themselves to the

cutter or the horse-rake (no bits or reins were needed in these days, of

course) and tramp steadily round and round the field with a pig walking

behind and calling out "Gee up, comrade!" or "Whoa back, comrade!" as the

case might be. And every animal down to the humblest worked at turning the

hay and gathering it. Even the ducks and hens toiled to and fro all day in

the sun, carrying tiny wisps of hay in their beaks. In the end they

finished the harvest in two days' less time than it had usually taken

Jones and his men. Moreover, it was the biggest harvest that the farm had

ever seen. There was no wastage whatever; the hens and ducks with their

sharp eyes had gathered up the very last stalk. And not an animal on the

farm had stolen so much as a mouthful.

All through that summer the work of the farm went like clockwork. The

animals were happy as they had never conceived it possible to be. Every

mouthful of food was an acute positive pleasure, now that it was truly

their own food, produced by themselves and for themselves, not doled out

to them by a grudging master. With the worthless parasitical human beings

gone, there was more for everyone to eat. There was more leisure too,

inexperienced though the animals were. They met with many difficulties--for

instance, later in the year, when they harvested the corn, they had to

tread it out in the ancient style and blow away the chaff with their

breath, since the farm possessed no threshing machine--but the pigs with

their cleverness and Boxer with his tremendous muscles always pulled them

through. Boxer was the admiration of everybody. He had been a hard worker

even in Jones's time, but now he seemed more like three horses than one;

there were days when the entire work of the farm seemed to rest on his

mighty shoulders. From morning to night he was pushing and pulling, always