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On the third Sunday after Snowball's expulsion, the animals were somewhat surprised to hear Napoleon announce that the windmill was to be built after all.

He did not give any reason for having changed his mind, but merely warned the animals that this extra task would mean very hard work, it might even be necessary to reduce their rations.

The plans, however, had all been prepared, down to the last detail.

A special committee of pigs had been at work upon them for the past three weeks.

The building of the windmill, with various other improvements, was expected to take two years.

That evening Squealer explained privately to the other animals that Napoleon had never in reality been opposed to the windmill.

On the contrary, it was he who had advocated it in the beginning, and the plan which Snowball had drawn on the floor of the incubator shed had actually been stolen from among Napoleon's papers.

The windmill was, in fact, Napoleon's own creation.

Why, then, asked somebody, had he spoken so strongly against it? Here Squealer looked very sly.

That, he said, was Comrade Napoleon's cunning.

He had SEEMED to oppose the windmill, simply as a manoeuvre to get rid of Snowball, who was a dangerous character and a bad influence.

Now that Snowball was out of the way, the plan could go forward without his interference.

This, said Squealer, was something called tactics.

He repeated a number of times, "Tactics, comrades, tactics!" skipping round and whisking his tail with a merry laugh.

The animals were not certain what the word meant, but Squealer spoke so persuasively, and the three dogs who happened to be with him growled so threateningly, that they accepted his explanation without further questions.

All that year the animals worked like slaves. But they were happy in their work; they grudged no effort or sacrifice, well aware that everything that they did was for the benefit of themselves and those of their kind who would come after them, and not for a pack of idle, thieving human beings.

Throughout the spring and summer they worked a sixty-hour week, and in August Napoleon announced that there would be work on Sunday afternoons as well.

This work was strictly voluntary, but any animal who absented himself from it would have his rations reduced by half.

Even so, it was found necessary to leave certain tasks undone.

The harvest was a little less successful than in the previous year, and two fields which should have been sown with roots in the early summer were not sown because the ploughing had not been completed early enough.

It was possible to foresee that the coming winter would be a hard one.

The windmill presented unexpected difficulties.

There was a good quarry of limestone on the farm, and plenty of sand and cement had been found in one of the outhouses, so that all the materials for building were at hand.

But the problem the animals could not at first solve was how to break up the stone into pieces of suitable size.

Chapter 6

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