Lennie Small

“An’ live off the fatta the lan’,” Lennie shouted.

“They was so little,” he said, apologetically. “I’d pet ’em, and pretty soon they bit my fingers and I pinched their heads a little and then they was dead—because they was so little.”

With us it ain’t like that. We got a future. We got somebody to talk to that gives a damn about us.

“Say—what you sellin’?” “Huh?” “I said what stake you got in this guy? You takin’ his pay away from him?”

Well, I never seen one guy take so much trouble for another guy. I just like to know what your interest is.

I used to have a hell of a lot of fun with 'im. Used to play jokes on 'im 'cause he was too dumb to take care of 'imself. But he was too dumb even to know he had a joke played on him.

Well, he seen this girl in a red dress. Dumb bastard like he is, he wants to touch ever'thing he likes. Just wants to feel it. So he reaches out to feel this red dress an' the girl lets out a squawk, and that gets Lennie all mixed up, and he holds on 'cause that's the only thing he can think to do.

They fell into a silence. They looked at one another, amazed. This thing they had never really believed in was coming true.

"He ain't no cuckoo," said George. "He's dumb as hell, but he ain't crazy. An' I ain't so bright neither, or I wouldn't be buckin' barley for my fifty and found. If I was bright, if I was even a little bit smart, I’d have my own little place, an’ I’d be bringin’ in my own crops, ’stead of doin’ all the work and not getting what comes up outa the ground."

“Jus’ tell Lennie what to do an’ he’ll do it if it don’t take no figuring. He can’t think of nothing to do himself, but he sure can take orders.”