Slowly, like a terrier who doesn’t want to bring a ball to its master, Lennie approached, drew back, approached again.

The water is warm too, for it has slipped twinkling over the yellow sands in the sunlight before reaching the narrow pool.

A few miles south of Soledad, the Salinas River drops in close to the hillside bank and runs deep and green.

You’d drink out of a gutter if you was thirsty.

Hide in the brush till I come for you.

“I forgot,” Lennie said softly. “I tried not to forget. Honest to God I did, George.”

“Poor bastard,” he said softly, and then went on whistling again.

I wasn’t doin’ nothing bad with it, George. Jus’ strokin’ it.

There is a path through the willows and among the sycamores, a path beaten hard by boys coming down from the ranches to swim in the deep pool, and beaten hard by tramps who come wearily down from the highway in the evening to jungle–up near water.

She had full, rouged lips and wide–spaced eyes, heavily made up. Her fingernails were red. Her hair hung in little rolled clusters, like sausages.