Snowball's Chance by John Reed Read Free Book Online Page A

neighbors (though the beavers saw hardly any difference between pork farmers and farmer pork), as well as their new association with a brilliant goat named Thomas, the Pig Farm had engineered revolutionary military technology. Namely, they had devised a method to disable traps—spring-traps and others—by the use of kerosene bombs. Animal Farm had dispatched to the Woodlands special advisors, who would educate and advise the Woodlands animals on the mastery of this lifesaving technology. In exchange for this expertise, the beavers had conducted a covert war against Foxwood and Pinchfield. Instructed by the goats in tactical operations, the beavers learned not only the art of destroying the farmers’ traps, but the art of chewing holes in roofs, grain sheds and chicken coops—and the art of mixing onion seed in the grass seed—and a dozen dozen other such arts, which the beavers were all too happy to have their Woodlands adherents carry out.

IV
    FILMONT ARRIVED HELPLESS. HE WAS MOSTLY Labrador, and part golden—all retriever. And having none of that fierceness that the shepherds of Animal Farm had, he had been beaten nearly to death by the farmer Frederick. The guard dogs had found him at the perimeter, bleeding from the mouth, and though they were initially shamed that any dog could be so passive, they could not but eventually be charmed by the shaggy tramp. He said he had never bitten anyone and he never would—he had never even been in a dogfight. And he would not even resist Frederick the farmer. He had just lain there under the man’s swinging boot.
    Filmont had been conveyed to the big barn on a scrapped door hitched to a steer. As most of the animals were then returning for the evening, Filmont had died before all of them—his body gone limp as his sandy colored fur.
    The last words that passed through his muzzle were words of love for his collie, Sandra-Marjorie, who was expecting a litter of puppies—his puppies.
    Sandra-Marjorie was Mr. Pilkington’s collie—Mr. Pilkington of Foxwood. And for this reason had Filmont been beaten by his own owner, Mr. Frederick, who, besides having a fondness for beating animals, was none too pleased to be informed by Mr. Pilkington that hewould soon be receiving a litter of puppies—as his was the mongrel that fathered the mess. Frederick and Pilkington had always hated each other, and this romance of their dogs had exacerbated the situation. Nobody wanted a damn golden Labrador collie.
    “Send a message to my Sandra-Marjorie,” said Filmont, “that I will be waiting for her on the moon.”
    The scene was of such sentiment that many of the animals began to weep. For those unfamiliar with the lunar allusion, Norma the cat provided the salient belief of dog culture.
    “Dogs think that when they die they go to the moon. That’s why they always howl at the moon,” she quietly explained.
    Filmont exhaled his last, and the barn was penetrated by melancholy—that despair of life faced by death.
    But then, Thomas the goat arrived.
    “Clear the way! Clear the way!” cried Snowball—and the animals staggered aside to let the goat pass. There were puzzled snorts, clacks and bleats as Thomas banged on the chest of the Labrador—and blew into his bleeding mouth. And then, suddenly, amid shocked whispers and cries, blood sputtered from Filmont’s maw—and the dog heaved, and breathed again.
    “Convey this dog to my laboratory!”
    Months before, at the command of Thomas the goat, the old harness-room had been transformed into a laboratory, where Thomas performed miracles of modern science. And it was here that Thomas performed his greatest miracle to date. One of the rats saw him do it, and reported back to the other animals in the middle of the night.
    Thomas and Snowball had donned white uniforms and masks, whereupon, with the shiningest knife the rat had ever seen, Thomas the goat had cut open the dog’s belly—
    “Inside the dog, there were these different colored