Nice fella too.
Got a crooked back where a horse kicked him.
The boss gives him hell when he’s mad.
But the stable buck don’t give a damn about that.
He reads a lot.
Got books in his room.”
“What kind of a guy is the boss?” George asked.
“Well, he’s a pretty nice fella.
Gets pretty mad sometimes, but he’s pretty nice.
Tell ya what — know what he done Christmas?
Brang a gallon of whisky right in here and says,
‘Drink hearty, boys.
Christmas comes but once a year.’”
“The hell he did!
Whole gallon?”
“Yes sir.
Jesus, we had fun.
They let the nigger come in that night.
Little skinner name of Smitty took after the nigger.
Done pretty good, too.
The guys wouldn’t let him use his feet, so the nigger got him.
If he coulda used his feet, Smitty says he woulda killed the nigger.
The guys said on account of the nigger’s got a crooked back, Smitty can’t use his feet.” He paused in relish of the memory. “After that the guys went into Soledad and raised hell.
I didn’t go in there.
I ain’t got the poop no more.”
Lennie was just finishing making his bed.
The wooden latch raised again and the door opened.
A little stocky man stood in the open doorway.
He wore blue jean trousers, a flannel shirt, a black, unbuttoned vest and a black coat.
His thumbs were stuck in his belt, on each side of a square steel buckle.
On his head was a soiled brown Stetson hat, and he wore high-heeled boots and spurs to prove he was not a laboring man.
The old swamper looked quickly at him, and then shuffled to the door rubbing his whiskers with his knuckles as he went.
“Them guys just come,” he said, and shuffled past the boss and out the door.
The boss stepped into the room with the short, quick steps of a fat-legged man.
“I wrote Murray and Ready I wanted two men this morning.
You got your work slips?”
George reached into his pocket and produced the slips and handed them to the boss.
“It wasn’t Murray and Ready’s fault.
Says right here on the slip that you was to be here for work this morning.”
George looked down at his feet.
“Bus driver give us a bum steer,” he said. “We hadda walk ten miles.
Says we was here when we wasn’t.
We couldn’t get no rides in the morning.”
The boss squinted his eyes.
“Well, I had to send out the grain teams short two buckers.
Won’t do any good to go out now till after dinner.”
He pulled his time book out of his pocket and opened it where a pencil was stuck between the leaves.
George scowled meaningfully at Lennie, and Lennie nodded to show that he understood.
The boss licked his pencil.
“What’s your name?”