chapter 6

The animals are asked to work on Sunday afternoons as well, on a voluntary basis, though any animal that did not work on Sunday had their rations halved. By autumn it is clear that the harvest is a poorer one than the previous year. This will make the coming winter all the more difficult.Progress on the windmill is laborious and slow. The stones with which it is to be built have to be hauled to the top of the quarry and thrown from there to the bottom, so that the stones can be broken into the appropriate sizes. It takes until the end of the summer to accumulate enough stone to begin building the windmill, work which depends almost entirely on the tremendous efforts of Boxer, who works himself harder than ever before.
As the work on the harvest and the windmill proceeds, the animals find themselves running out of supplies. Items such as paraffin, seeds, manure and machinery could not be produced on the farm. This problem is resolved when Napoleon announces one day that Animal Farm will henceforth enter into trading arrangements with some of the surrounding farms. Hay and wheat from the farm will be sold, and the hens are told that they will have to give up some of their eggs, a sacrifice that they should be proud to make. Some of the animals are doubtful about this move, seeming to remember an agreement in the early days after the rebellion never to have anything to do with humans. Again, Squealer puts any doubts to rest in the following days, informing them that such a resolution was never written down. One thing in the book that stood out to me was how some of the animals did not stand up for them selfs. One animal said, "we must take a stand." When the animal said that it touched me. The night before I stood up and gave a speech and I stood up for myself.