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

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 goatsknew 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