Snowball's Chance Page 6

  Work when you want to.…

  Filmont the Labrador loved these slow, warm days. Having long since recovered from his injuries, Filmont had established himself as not only an adept student of the humanization classes (he walked and wore clothing quite smartly) but as an able worker, when there was work to be done. With his ever-willingness to lend a paw, and his boundless generosity, he had become, perhaps, the most popular animal on the farm. (Except for Snowball—oh, and Minimus, by all means, not to forget Minimus.) And in those languorous days of spring and summer, Filmont wandered from stall to stall—and shared, with one animal and the next, long draughts from buckets of water, which he frequently flavored with a few drops of whiskey. And he and his hosts would talk of their loves and pains—and then, in graceful transition, the animals would sit back, and listen to Filmont as he dreamily reminisced of the places he had been when he was a pup.

  Filmont had once been loved by a girl named Madeline Frederick (whom he had not seen in so long that he assumed she was dead) and she had brought him absolutely everywhere. He spoke of carnivals and fairgrounds. And even a circus that he had watched while sitting on the young lady’s lap—he’d been rolled up in her sweater. Bless her soul, he would sigh, those were the days—cotton candy and smoked sausage and turkeys roasted on skewers. “Oh, excuse me,” he’d apologize to any pig that might be in hearing distance, or bird who might take offense. But even so—entirely disregarding the meat—he described a place of leisurely distraction that eclipsed all of life’s miseries. And the animals, without so much as setting a hoof in such a paradise, did indeed experience a forgetting—a blissful release from their every woe.

  Yes, there could be a light-hearted laugh! Yes, there could be a light-hearted land!

  And when Filmont remembered the song that his Madeline had sung to him as she cradled him in her arms, well, it didn’t take long before he had howled himself hoarse and, in his stead, the other animals were taking up the old folk melody—some called it a spiritual—to harmonize as they sat around the campfire, roasting earthworms.

  I went to the Animal Fair. The birds and the beasts were there,

  The big raccoon, by the light of the moon, was combing his auburn hair.

  The monkey he got drunk, and fell on the elephant’s trunk,

  The elephant sneezed, and fell on his knees, And that was the end of the monk! The monk! The monk! The monk!

  And as it turned out, Snowball too was listening—to Filmont and the animals. And Snowball too was learning—from Filmont and the animals. And it was in mid-June, the first item on the agenda of a Sunday Meeting, that Snowball proposed his own carnival, which, to the oohs and ahhs of half a dozen campfire regulars, he called, “Animal Fair.” (Several of the sheep, who immediately started out, “We went to the Animal Fair …” were quieted with a few sharp nips by a pair of shepherds who, perhaps, had been appointed to this very contingency.)

  Snowball’s proposition was to open the farm—

  “Open the farm to the village, as, when we erected our windmills, we opened the farm to the wind.”

  “Our lives,” said Snowball, “will be easy. Our profits large—our expenses low. Where now there are trees—tomorrow, lights. Glowing electric lights like ten million fireflies. Animal Farm will become Animal Fair—a land where dreams come true. Hot baths, air-conditioning—have we not made our own dreams come true? We have! So now, let us help to make everyone else’s dream come true. It will be, not just an amusement park, but a wondrous demonstration of the pure spirit of the animal! We will share with all the village—our own magic! And from it, we will feed not only our renown, but our stomachs, and the stomachs of our young—as our vision rewards us with every conceivable animal comfort!”

  To this, there were honks, snorts, and grunts all around, and the sheep burst out, “Animal comfort! Animal comfort!”

  Over the clamor and natter, Minimus asserted his disagreement. But his arguments seemed so feeble (as he seemed so feeble—that old fat pig) so as to be almost nonexistent. He called the carnival a zoo. Snowball’s retort that Animal Fair would not be a zoo, that it would not be a zoo at all, was gratefully received by the animals. They understood the theme park as Snowball saw it—an educational resort that would spread the word, and teach the village, about the victories of Animal Farm, and the lives of animals free!

  Minimus, glowering through his jowls, was not convinced—though the resistance he offered was marginal. Truth be told, Minimus was increasingly marginalized himself. Snowball, with his educated goats and the support of the next generation of pigs, was firmly placed at the nexus of decision-making. Minimus, meanwhile, had moldered, gone mushy—not only in the flesh, but in the brain. Though seldom discussed, Minimus was often noticed, during Sunday Meeting, dozing off at the most crucial moments.

  So, Snowball had wrested power from Minimus. So, Minimus had become Snowball’s rival. All that was clear but … So what? Minimus was no more than a specter—a shadowy figure at the rear of the barn. And yet, there remained some undercurrent of nervousness, as surely one could not ignore Minimus entirely. Though zizzing pacifically at his place along the back wall, Minimus was still flanked by the power-hungry Pinkeye, and the I’ll-eat-anyone-if-you-give-me-the-order Brutus.…

  At the first Sunday Meeting of December, it was resolved that the farm should undertake the ambitious project of the fair—and Snowball (his approval ratings at an all time high) told the animals what he would need.

  He would need all the eggs laid by the chickens—and he would need them for some time to come.

  To every species but the chickens, the justification that the farm had exhausted its resources on the Twin Mills seemed a reasonable one. Though profitable, the Mills had not yet paid off the “bank loan” that had, in the end, been taken out to fund the construction. As Snowball explained it, a “bank loan” was like borrowing something from a friend, but the something was money, and the friend was the bank. Currently, the moneys generated by the mills were only enough to repay that friend. The chicken eggs would be used to finance a new loan, which in turn would be used to finance Henron, a collectively owned pig and hen corporation (the pigs would take on the onerous task of administration), which in turn would be used to finance the amusement park. He was sorry, Snowball told the chickens, but milling grain and lumber just wouldn’t pay the bills.

  It was in silence that the black Minorca hens toddled from the Sunday Meeting. And it was in silence, without a peep of justification, that they rebelled—as they had in Napoleon’s time. The eggs already in their nests—they pushed out. They would have considered it barbaric to sell them for food, as close to hatching as those eggs had been. Their new eggs—they laid on the slanted roof of their coop. The eggs would roll down the shingles and smash on the packed ground—financing nothing, and hatching for no blushing Minorca mother.

  Snowball did not apply force to the chickens, as had Napoleon years before. Minimus, harkening to Napoleon, and briefly backed by popular opinion (the animals wanted that park!), argued for starving them out. But where Napoleon had ceased their rations, Snowball increased them, and congratulated the chickens on their independence—whereupon, with the encouragement of one chicken in particular (who was suddenly wearing an exquisitely tailored red-knit afternoon suit) the birds began to lose their resolve. Upon return to her nesting box, each chicken, courtesy of Henron, found a shortbread cookie.

  The next matter was that of filling the high-level managerial positions necessary to an amusement park. As always, in the presentations, Hobart the bull was spectacular. So forthright, so knowledgeable—it was always said of the popular bull, “surely Hobart has won this time!”

  But it was never Hobart.

  The first winner, who had gained the position of Master Mason, was a chicken who had not managed to lift her brick. It was iterated in the Trotter that, as an overseer, she would not be required to lift bricks, and that her theoretical knowledge of the subject was, in toto, detailed
and extensive. Yet, excepting the pigs and goats, her statement that bricks were “hard red blocks” left few impressed. It immediately went about the farm that there was a predisposition to chickens—indeed, that Temescula herself had been chosen because the pigs and goats knew they would soon require the henhouse eggs, and that this Mason bird had been assigned because the pigs and goats still needed them.

  Always alert to farm gossip, the pigs and goats emphatically denied the slanderous slur. An editorial in the Trotter asked if it had not once been whispered that the goats had given out positions based upon nepotism—and, further queried the essay, had that assertion not been proven false? And yes, agreed those animals who could read (and moreover, knew what “nepotism” meant), yes, it was true that it had not only been goats who were appointed, as the last two managerial appointees had been, undeniably, chickens. And, asked a follow-up op-ed several weeks later, had not the Twin Mills been functioning at levels of peak efficiency under the two managers that had been chosen? Well yes, agreed the animals (who had wearied of having their own opinions, as having one’s own opinion seemed to mean dedicating every respite to the endlessly grueling endeavor of making sense of The Daily Trotter) yes, they supposed that was also so.…

  Temescula knew for a fact it was so. In response to questions about her work schedule, the hen was quoted in the Trotter as saying that she was so efficient she didn’t need to go to work to do her job. (Since her posting, she’d become what some of the geese called “arrogant.”) It was commonly disbelieved by the animals on the farm that Temescula, as she claimed, invented water. Neither the pigs nor the goats had any comment.

  In the following weeks, to further disprove any allegation of malfeasance in the managerial selection process, the animals posted were of every variety. A sheep was given the “Innovative Design” position. A bat and a mole, jointly, were appointed to the “Scenic Vistas” position. And, rather startlingly, a woodpecker was appointed to the “Structural Engineering” position.

  Always, it must be said, Hobart presented superbly—although, sadly, as the pigs were all so fond of Hobart, he just never seemed to “cut the mustard.”

  Still, for the “Rousing the Village” position, it seemed that Hobart had again carried the day. Filmont the Labrador, competing for the first time, also made an excellent presentation, and as Filmont had such a charming manner and excellent way of relating to animals and people alike, and what’s more, such an intense love and loyalty for the farm, some held that he would attain the post. His demeanor over the weeks previous to the posting presentations had been so very upbeat and generally genial that he had earned the designation, “Filmont the if-you-just-have-a-positive-attitude Labrador.” But, as always, a surprise was in store for the speculators, as the public-relations title was pawed off to a sheep named Elsworth, who had never had much to say (not even in his presentation), but an oh-so enthusiastic and friendly—

  “What ho?”

  Some discussion immediately followed as to whether the bestest animal had been chosen. Thomas the goat reminded the animals that public relations was not about being the bestest, but instead, the chipperestest, which this sheep, Elsworth, was. And Snowball remarked how excellent the sheep were, as evidenced during the construction of the Twin Mills, at crowd control. Everybody tried to remember that—but couldn’t. Though Benjamin surely remembered, as usual, he had nothing to say, so the animals, hearing from Snowball that this was the case, quite naturally assumed that it was true. True as cool rain on a hot day.

  But that night, that very Sunday of his appointment, Elsworth was bitten on the neck, bled to death from his jugular vein, and partially devoured by an unknown culprit. The body was found at dawn. The murder—the first like it that anyone remembered—would never be solved. (“What Ho?” read the headline of the Trotter.) It was hypothesized that the culprit was some lone wolf, who had committed the senseless act of violence for no reason better than that he was passing through. A cow named Bell, who had, fittingly enough, dedicated her life to the study of all the different bells that a cow might wear (brass, iron, or steel), replaced the fallen sheep in the coveted position. Bell was given a cowbell of solid silver. And that, said the pigs, was publicity! The sheep was made Animal Hero, Seventh Class, and the remainder of his corpse was sent to the butcher. He would, as the pigs put it, have wanted it that way.

  The next position filled was that of “Scout,” and the appointing of this post was perhaps the first that any of the animals could fathom. The assignment was given to a pigeon who scoured the countryside for the future animal attractions of the park. As was typical of his species, the bird was quite outgoing—conducting interviews at every crossroads, he easily covered eight circular miles a day. Thus, it was straightway that discoveries were made, freedoms were bought, and performers were en route to their new home—Animal Farm, soon to be Animal Fair!

  Among the newcomers was a pleasing and attractive donkey by the name of Emerald. She was not a young animal, but not old either—and had a mother’s air of kindness and wisdom. Her young son, Kip, was a somewhat unsteady youth—as he had never known his father. Benjamin, normally touched by nothing, showed a generosity to the pair that would have been thought previously impossible. He was so solicitous of the mother and son that some of the more sentimental geese openly wept for his kindness shown the lone mother and her fatherless child.

  And it was not just the geese—Emerald too was moved by old Benjamin’s gentleness. It had been several years since, besides her son, she had even seen another donkey.

  Emerald, a mathematical genius, could solve any mathematical question a human could pose. And the animals looked forward to the day she would perform—that would show those humans that an animal was just as good as they were! Though not what the Trotter referred to as a “headliner,” Emerald would be one of the many entertainers in the “tradeshow,” which would make up the majority of the fair’s attractions—the performers fulfilling roles ranging from solving mathematical theorems, such as the case of Emerald, to removing mislocated bubble gum from hair or fur, such as the case of a one-winged duck who went by the name Worm.

  Everyone could be a part of the triumph!

  And, as everybody anticipated everybody’s triumph, solidarity on the farm rose to an all-time high. Animal Fair was sung with unsurpassed vigor … that is, until a shocking discovery was made by one of the rats. The blueprints for the Twin Mills had been sold to Mr. Frederick of the Pinchfield Farm. And probably, the blueprints had been sold by an animal! Despite an extensive investigation, the identity of this betrayer-of-all-animals was not determined. Yet, apparent as it may have seemed that the security of the Twin Mills had been compromised, the pigs argued persuasively that Mr. Frederick was already under court-order not to set foot on Animal Farm—and that the legal (hence financial) repercussions of either him or Pilkington sallying forth a single toe onto the grounds would be so severe as to thwart even the most stalwart enemy. (And it would certainly be enough to thwart either one of those poorhouse jellyfish!)

  Minimus, however, who felt he’d put up with far too much already, had reached his breaking point. He was inconvincible—unmovable. And, over this issue of the traitor, his clash with Snowball was felt more profoundly than on any previous occasion. Snowball, who advocated further investigation by the dogs, saw no immediate danger to Animal Farm—and, thusly, no reason to stir up unneeded anxiety. (Who needed unneeded anxiety?) Minimus, conversely, who could feel nothing but the hot breath of a traitor in his midst, wanted to submit every last farm animal to interrogation—until the conspirator had been exposed and brought to justice. Justice being the jagged fangs of the shepherds. In short, Minimus wanted the traitor torn to pieces, and promptly—while Snowball was more concerned with other projects.

  “Animal Fair must go on,” Snowball said—

  “Don’t stop working, and don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.”

  And that’s exactly what happened—the animals didn’t
stop working, they didn’t worry, and whatever the outcome might be (surely a good one), they entrusted the matter of their personal safety to the canines and swine.

  Minimus, who was unable to go forward with such mightiness as he so desperately desired, was nevertheless put in charge of the ongoing operation—investigative and defensive. The Prize Pig took to wearing a military style helmet—and dubbed himself the Universal Protector.

  VI

  KEROSENE TECHNOLOGY HAD BEEN A COLOSSAL boon for the beavers—their science was thriving, and the loss of life from the spring-traps had been substantially diminished. Furthermore, it was felt that the kerosene anti-traps were doing their part, however limited, to undo the enemy—the human farms of Pinchfield and Foxwood. The Pig Farm had been making inroads with its lawsuits, as well, and it was not inconceivable that the evil regimes might someday topple.

  On the other paw, the continuing problem of who controlled the stream had placed a stranglehold (a leash!) on Woodlands economy and culture. Rather than destroy a new dam, the Pig Farm had tendered a substantial sum to the beavers to allow the free flow of water. The acceptance of this remuneration, clearly, had been a compromise of the Ancient Beaver Code, and gravely injurious to the identity of the beavers—yet the income was indispensable to the beavers if they wished to achieve their long-term goal. The return to the Ancient Beaver Code.

  To this end, prairie dog and meerkat advisors were brought in to oversee the enlargement of the bunkers, and the active components of the kerosene bombs (kerosene and gunpowder) were stockpiled. The beavers, whose extensive families attended to the dealings of these materials, did not benefit from the trade. This was made abundantly clear on the Woodlands, megaphone-format news broadcast, Beaveada—“Beavers do not benefit from the kerosene trade.” The beavers simply lived in better conditions than the other Woodlands animals, and ate better food, and had resources to throw around. This, fortunately, as it was always a comfort to think that if one found oneself starving to death, there was at least a chance that some plump shining beaver, rigorous in the support of Woodlands followers of the Ancient Beaver way, might come along and drop a sack of meal somewhere nearby, into which, there was also the possibility, one might burrow one’s snout, if one was quick, before such sack was entirely emptied.…