Lennie sat alone in the barn next to his dead puppy. He thought to himself, “Why’d you have to die? Maybe George won’t let me tend the rabbits. They kept tellin’ me not to play with you too much.” Out loud, “Why’d you have to die? Now I might not get to tend the rabbits.” Lennie flings the puppy across the room in anger. He keeps talking to himself for a while, and then goes to retrieve the puppy. He is sitting fondling the pup’s ear, when in walks Curley’s Wife, Sally, wondering why Lennie was in there all alone. Lennie quickly tries to hide his puppy in the hay, nervous, because Sally might have seen it, and because he wasn’t supposed to talk to her. Sally, meanwhile, is coming in, and sitting down near Lennie. She is really lonely and she wants someone to talk to.
“I ain’t s’pposed to talk with you.”
“Aww, I ain’t done nothing wrong, Why not?”
“George said so, and I won’t get to tend the rabbits.”
Sally and Lennie talk, both of them easing up with the other. Sally tells Lennie how she could have been in the film industry, and yet how she stayed here because her guardian didn’t want her to and stole her letters. Pretty soon, however, Sally sees the dog. She is shocked and scared, but calms down quickly and comforts Lennie. Lennie informs her of how he likes to feel soft things. She tells him how her hair is very soft and invites him to feel it. Lennie reaches over and feels her hair, which is indeed very soft.
“Hey, let go! You’re gonna mess it up!”
Lennie panics and holds on, causing her to scream. He begs her to let go, afraid that she’s going to get him in trouble. “Shhhh, be quiet, you’re gonna get me in trouble!”
During this, Sally is now very scared for her life. She is getting tossed around like a limp rag doll. Lennie is worried that Sally’s screaming is going to get him in trouble. Lennie puts his hand over her mouth and nose to stop her from screaming, and yet still she is struggling. Suddenly, she lies still. Lennie is happy that she finally stopped struggling, and doesn’t see that something is wrong. He bends over to check her, and suddenly sees it. He flips out that he actually killed her. He panics and can’t decide what to do. Then he remembers that George had told him that if he got in any trouble, go hide in the brush the direction that they came from.
Lennie, still shocked and overwhelmed by the new turn of things, decides that it is bad enough already, and takes the dead puppy along with him to hide it so that the others don’t see it. Lennie makes off, just him and the dead puppy; back from whence he came, to await his gloomy fate in the dark bushes in the hollow that they had visited previously.