Tending the Rabbits

Lennie knew there must be some rabbits round here somewhere so he had crept out of his bed at night and gone down to the farm to find some. The moon was up and his path was brightly lit by the moonlight so he knew he wouldn't get too lost.

He remembered George telling him about their house and he smiled "And George is gonna let me tend the rabbits" he said to himself, smiling happily on his way to one of the barns. He opened the door and called "Rabbits? Is there any rabbits here? George says I can tend the rabbits!" as he stumbled into the poorly lit building. He found that the barn only had chickens in it so he left, leaving the door wide open for the chickens to escape through.

He then wandered into the hay barn and started pulling the hay out of the bales it was in, saying, "Rabbits? Where are the rabbits? George's gonna let me tend the rabbits!" as he threw the hay everywhere. He found a mouse amongst the hay and sat on a bale, stroking the mouse softly. He squeezed it and its body lay still. "Maybe George's gonna let me tend the mouses and the rabbits!" he whispered, stroking the mouse's soft fur as his mind carried him to the house he was going to have with George.

He stood up, putting the mouse into his pocket, and went to the field to see if there were any rabbits there. He saw a rabbit hole and started digging to see if he could find the rabbits. He continued digging all night, occasionally stopping for a few minutes to stroke his mouse or mutter "George's gonna let me ten the rabbits!" before going back to digging.

The next morning when Curley got up he found that all of his chickens had been let out, his nice, neat, bales of hay had been ripped apart and there was a giant hole in the middle of his field where Lennie had been digging all night.

Curley went to find George, assuming it was partially his fault in some way. "Where's Lennie?" he demanded "He's let all me chickens out, destroyed me hay and destroyed me field! I want 'im dead!"

"I'll find him," George replied and disappeared to look for Lennie.

In the meantime, Lennie had given up looking for rabbits in what was actually a fox's den and had decided to head to the bush where George had told him to wait if anything went wrong. He had found some rabbits there and had made a temporary shelter out of sticks he had found and was tending the rabbits. "George is letting me tend the rabbits! I got my rabbits!" he kept saying as he picked one of them up and stroked it.

George saw him and immediately asked him "What do you think you're doing?"

"Tending the rabbits like you said, George!" Lennie replied and George just rolled his eyes and sighed. Lennie really was crazy after all!