Candy fills George and Lennie in on the dynamics of the ranch, warning them that the boss often takes his anger out on the black stable hand, Crooks, while the boss’s son Curley, a short and pathetic man, is always desperate for a fight in which he can prove his strength. The boss of the ranch comes to greet the men and agrees to allow them to stay on, though he’s disappointed that they’re late for their shift and skeptical of two men who travel together. Candy, an elderly swamper missing a hand, shows them to the bunk house where they’ll sleep alongside the other laborers.
The next day, the men arrive at the ranch. They drift off to sleep as George tells Lennie about how their future will be, describing the lush, secluded farm with its vegetable garden, animal pen, and best of all, a hutch full of soft rabbits for Lennie to pet.
He tells Lennie that if Lennie should ever get into any trouble at their new ranch, he should return to this very spot and hide in the brush until George comes for him. George feels burdened by Lennie, but knows he must keep the man with him if they’re both to survive. This habit has resulted in both George and Lennie (who have traveled everywhere together since their youth) being chased out of Weed, the town where their last job was, after Lennie grabbed the soft hem of a woman’s skirt in order to feel the fabric. Lennie is a hulking but simple-minded man who has short-term memory problems and a fascination with stroking soft objects. As they prepare dinner and form a plan for their arrival at the ranch, the dynamic between the men becomes clear: George is a sharp, wiry man with dreams of saving enough money to buy land for a farm and become the master of his own destiny. As they close in on a job just outside the town of Soledad, they stop for the night at a pool off the Salinas River to enjoy one last night of freedom. George Milton and Lennie Small, two itinerant workers from Auburn, California, make their way across the state’s harsh landscape on their way from one ranch job to another.
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