Loneliness and Companionship

’Long as you won’t get out and leave me alone, you might as well set down.

A guy can talk to you an’ be sure you won’t go blabbin’. Couple of weeks an’ them pups’ll be all right. George knows what he’s about. Jus’ talks, an’ you don’t understand nothing.

There wasn’t another colored family for miles around. And now there ain’t a colored man on this ranch an’ there’s jus’ one family in Soledad.

S’pose George don’t come back no more. S’pose he took a powder and just ain’t coming back. What’ll you do then?

"I ain’t a southern negro," he said. "I was born right here in California. My old man had a chicken ranch, ’bout ten acres. The white kids come to play at our place, an’ sometimes I went to play with them, and some of them was pretty nice. ..."

And scattered about the floor were a number of personal possessions; for, being alone, Crooks could leave his things about, and being a stable buck and a cripple, he was more permanent than the other men, and he had accumulated more possessions than he could carry on his back.

"Please don’t," he begged. "Oh! Please don’t do that. George’ll be mad."

Only Lennie was in the barn, and Lennie sat in the hay beside a packing case under a manger in the end of the barn that had not been filled with hay. Lennie sat in the hay and looked at a little dead puppy that lay in front of him.

"You God damn tramp," he said viciously. "You done it, di’n’t you? I s’pose you’re glad. Ever’body knowed you’d mess things up. ..."

Couldn’ we maybe bring him in an’ they’ll lock him up? He’s nuts, Slim. He never done this to be mean.