Schoolroom

In the autumn, after the four sows littered simultaneously and produced thirty-one piebald young pigs, the pigs announced that a schoolroom would be built in the farmhouse garden once bricks and timber could be purchased. Until then, Napoleon himself instructed the young pigs in the farmhouse kitchen, and they were discouraged from playing with the other young animals. At the same time, new rules were laid down: when a pig and any other animal met on a path, the other animal must stand aside, and all pigs, of whatever degree, were to wear green ribbons on their tails on Sundays. These measures together marked the pigs' intent to separate their offspring from the rest of the farm and to embed privilege into daily life.

The farm's finances were strained by the need to buy bricks, sand, and lime for the schoolroom, alongside machinery for the windmill, lamp oil, candles, sugar for Napoleon, and various replacements. A stump of hay and part of the potato crop were sold off, and the egg contract was increased to six hundred a week, so that the hens barely hatched enough chicks to maintain their numbers. Rations, already reduced in December, were cut again in February, and lanterns in the stalls were forbidden to save oil. Yet the pigs seemed comfortable and were putting on weight. The schoolroom became a material expression of the sacrifices the other animals were forced to make for the pigs' benefit.

In March, the schoolhouse for the young pigs was started. By then Boxer's split hoof had healed, and he worked harder than ever. All the animals laboured like slaves that year, with the regular farm work, the rebuilding of the windmill, and now the construction of the schoolhouse. The long hours on insufficient food were hard to bear, but Boxer never faltered. His appearance changed: his hide grew less shiny, his great haunches seemed to have shrunken. The schoolroom, far from being a neutral educational facility, was another demand on the animals' dwindling strength, and its construction was woven into the fabric of their growing exhaustion.