“Christ awmighty, I hate to have you mad at me,” Slim said.
George broke in,
“Lennie was jus’ scairt,” he explained. “He didn’t know what to do.
I told you nobody ought never to fight him.
No, I guess it was Candy I told.”
Candy nodded solemnly.
“That’s jus’ what you done,” he said. “Right this morning when Curley first lit intil your fren’, you says,
‘He better not fool with Lennie if he knows what’s good for ‘um.’
That’s jus’ what you says to me.”
George turned to Lennie.
“It ain’t your fault,” he said. “You don’t need to be scairt no more.
You done jus’ what I tol’ you to.
Maybe you better go in the wash room an’ clean up your face.
You look like hell.”
Lennie smiled with his bruised mouth.
“I didn’t want no trouble,” he said.
He walked toward the door, but just before he came to it, he turned back.
“George?”
“What you want?”
“I can still tend the rabbits, George?”
“Sure.
You ain’t done nothing wrong.”
“I di’n’t mean no harm, George.”
“Well, get the hell out and wash your face.”
Crooks, the Negro stable buck, had his bunk in the harness room; a little shed that leaned off the wall of the barn.
On one side of the little room there was a square four-paned window, and on the other, a narrow plank door leading into the barn.
Crooks’ bunk was a long box filled with straw, on which his blankets were flung.
On the wall by the window there were pegs on which hung broken harness in process of being mended; strips of new leather; and under the window itself a little bench for leather-working tools, curved knives and needles and balls of linen thread, and a small hand riveter.
On pegs were also pieces of harness, a split collar with the horsehair stuffing sticking out, a broken hame, and a trace chain with its leather covering split.
Crooks had his apple box over his bunk, and in it a range of medicine bottles, both for himself and for the horses.
There were cans of saddle soap and a drippy can of tar with its paint brush sticking over the edge.
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.
Crooks possessed several pairs of shoes, a pair of rubber boots, a big alarm clock and a single-barreled shotgun.
And he had books, too; a tattered dictionary and a mauled copy of the California civil code for 1905. There were battered magazines and a few dirty books on a special shelf over his bunk.
A pair of large gold-rimmed spectacles hung from a nail on the wall above his bed.
This room was swept and fairly neat, for Crooks was a proud, aloof man. He kept his distance and demanded that other people keep theirs.
His body was bent over to the left by his crooked spine, and his eyes lay deep in his head, and because of their depth seemed to glitter with intensity.
His lean face was lined with deep black wrinkles, and he had thin, pain-tightened lips which were lighter than his face.
It was Saturday night.
Through the open door that led into the barn came the sound of moving horses, of feet stirring, of teeth champing on hay, of the rattle of halter chains.
In the stable buck’s room a small electric globe threw a meager yellow light.
Crooks sat on his bunk.
His shirt was out of his jeans in back. In one hand he held a bottle of liniment, and with the other he rubbed his spine.
Now and then he poured a few drops of the liniment into his pink-palmed hand and reached up under his shirt to rub again.
He flexed his muscles against his back and shivered.
Noiselessly Lennie appeared in the open doorway and stood there looking in, his big shoulders nearly filling the opening.
For a moment Crooks did not see him, but on raising his eyes he stiffened and a scowl came on his face.
His hand came out from under his shirt.
Lennie smiled helplessly in an attempt to make friends.
Crooks said sharply,