"Animal Farm" - George Orwell - Vocabulary from Chapters 1-3

Several nights a week, after Mr. Jones was asleep, they held secret meetings in the barn and expounded the principles of Animalism to the others.

He seldom talked, and when he did, it was usually to make some
cynical remark−for instance, he would say that God had given him a tail to keep the flies off, but that he would sooner have had no tail and no flies.

With the ring of light from his lantern dancing from side to side, he lurched across the yard, kicked off his boots at the back door, drew himself a last glass of beer from the barrel in the scullery, and made his way up to bed, where Mrs. Jones was already snoring

All the animals capered with joy when they saw the whips going up in flames.

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.

In the ecstasy of that thought they gambolled round and round, they hurled themselves into the air in great leaps of excitement.

The others reproached her sharply, and they went outside.

Snowball was a more vivacious pig than Napoleon, quicker in speech and more inventive, but was not considered to have the same depth of character.

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.

When asked whether he was not happier now that Jones was gone, he would say only "Donkeys live a long time. None of you has ever seen a dead donkey," and the others had to be content with this cryptic answer.

He was indefatigable at this.

After much thought Snowball declared that the Seven Commandments could in effect be reduced to a single maxim, namely: "Four legs good, two legs bad."

He did his work in the same slow obstinate way as he had done it in Jones's time, never shirking and never volunteering for extra work either.

"And remember, comrades, your resolution must never falter.

He was twelve years old and had lately grown rather stout, but he was still a majestic−looking pig, with a wise and benevolent appearance in spite of the fact that his tushes had never been cut.

I merely repeat, remember always your duty of enmity towards Man and all his ways.

Their most faithful disciples were the two cart−horses, Boxer and Clover.

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.